Poets and the Great War

The Almeida production of The Dark Earth and The Light Sky is a rarity.  Nick Dear's play traces the last seven years of the poet Edward Thomas. We see his troubled marriage, compulsive walking and friendship with Robert Frost, who turns him to poetry. We are shown Eleanor Farjeon's adoration of him and the two rich years of productivity before his death in World War I from a shell blast at Arras in 1917.  By all rights it shouldn't be particularly dramatic, especially in the way it's written.  It combines monologues that directly address the audience with vignettes of the poet's life which seems almost entirely comprised of depression and long walks in the country.  But the quality of the writing, acting, and directorial image take real characters - now long dead - and introduce them to the audience anew, making the production fresh and utterly absorbing.

The story is undoubtedly tragic.  Bob Crowley's design evokes both the barren wasteland of the trenches of WWI and the rich soil of England's countryside.  It easily transitions to so many different locations.  In one scene, Helen Thomas actually digs potatoes out of it.  In another, a bomb explodes casting dirt in every direction.  Peter Mumford's lights are simply beautiful.  The rich ambers and purples create beautiful days and sharp spots delineate the reflective monologues, separating them from the narrative in a way that makes you feel like you're sitting alone in a room with the figures portrayed. The country sky is brought to life in all it's varieties with little pins of light creating stars and clouds actually seeming to move across the backdrop.  John Leonard sound design evokes equally and perfectly birdsong and the sounds of war.

The casting here is perfect.  The characters are utterly and painfully believable.  They capture the little dramas of an unhappy marriage and the loss of a friend so dear they seem to have been fated to know you.  Richard Eyre's directorial image fosters this approach to the story and supports the drama of the relationships of a set of average people who happened to be famous as well.  The portrayals are really beautiful.

Ayckbourn's Amateur Hour

Alan Ayckbourn's A Chorus of Disapproval is, I think. inherently funny.  Ayckbourn is a funny man and he wrote a play about an amateur operatic society, which is inherently funny.  But comedy demands to be well played or else the jokes die.  Trevor Nunn's erratically cast and oddly awkward production at the Harold Pinter Theater lacks the timing, sense of company, and ability to project that would constitute a well played production.

Nunn's production takes a somewhat condescending tone toward the endeavors of amateur theater, which is perhaps the choice guiltiest of robbing the play of its comedy.  The play demands to be linked to The Beggar's Opera (the show within the show) and it seems completely disconected not only as a result of lighting design choices that create completely different environments for the overlapping moments but also as a result of the fact that the lyrics are often inaudible.  Guy, the protagonist, is played as an inaudible nonentity, which immediately drains the energy of the script and he's actually one of the best actors.  Dafydd (yes, the character is welsh) is distinctly overplayed and comes across as a little bipolar.  The cast seems totally random (at least Twelfth Night had a sense of cohesion even if it did seem like a bunch of old guys getting together to put on a show) so the relationships seem somewhat forced.  The set also looks somewhat fake; this might work for the scenes in which the cast inhabit The Beggar's Opera but it creates a stagey feel for the scenes that are supposed to take place in the real world.  The walls of pubs don't swing.  There is one somewhat wonderful moment when Dafydd is trying to get through a tech rehearsal with a  lighting designer who is afraid of heights and a plot that's been patched in the most non-linear manner possible, but on the whole the play lacks a sense of cohesiveness and believability.  

Men Playing Women Playing Men

Some are born great; some achieve greatness; and some have greatness thrust upon them.  You'd think it would come from a history play.  It's from Twelfth Night.  Similarly, some men are born to play women; some men achieve the ability to play women; and some men have women's roles thrust upon them.  It comes across as really sad when it's the third one.

Reprising the quadricentennial production ten years later, Mark Rylance and the boys are back in an all male production of Twelfth Night.  Ten years later, a lot of the men are too old to be playing women.  Mark Rylance is a great actor and Olivia can be a very funny character, but Mark Rylance playing Olivia just seems pathetic.  Quite frankly, he's too old.  His mannerisms would be comical on a younger Orsino but come across as desperate when Rylance plays them.  It's impossible to believe that Liam Brennan, who plays a fantastic Orsino, would be attracted to her, especially in her almost kabuki style makeup and incredibly severe wig.  The production suffers from the hair and makeup design; Viola and Sebastian are made to look more alike through makeup and wigs, but they end up looking like ghosts wearing hair pieces made of yarn.  It also suffers a little as a result of casting.  The actors playing Viola and Sebastian should be switched.  The actor playing Sebastian, Samuel Barnett, looks much more feminine and is honestly a better actor.  Johnny Flynn, Viola, looks uncomfortable on stage (he takes some strange beats and conspicuously watches his feet during the dancing) and disconcertingly mannish.  Then again, some men are born to play women.  Or achieve that ability later in life.  Either way, Paul Chahidi, who turns Maria into a plumply roguish figure forever eyeing Sir Toby with lascivious enthusiasm, does yield a very funny performance.  Stephen Fry is almost too good as Malvolio; it's hard to believe that Olivia would spurn his advances.

The costume and set design are positively wonderful.  Even though Mark Rylance's costume reads a little like the old version of Elizabeth I as portrayed in many movies, the outfits are fantastic.  Jenny Tiramani's set – a decorated oak screen, with some of the audience seated in on-stage galleries – suits Twelfth Night wonderfully (it's being performed in rep with Richard III), and recreates the collegiate atmosphere the play must have had when seen at the Inns of Court in 1602.  

It comes together into an alright production.  Perhaps I'm ultimately questioning the directorial image of Tim Carroll.  He chooses to play up the more sombre aspects of Twelfth Night, the longing for an unrequited love and class warfare, as opposed to the funnier aspects, namely mistaken identities and class warfare.  

Experimental, Cinematic, Animated Theater

On the edge of a major metropolis lies the Bayou: a sprawling tenement block of which people say "If you're born in the Bayou, you die in the Bayou."  I drag my parents to some weird productions.

After catching a plane five hours ahead of schedule to beat a weather front so severe the BBC felt it newsworthy, the Eames family touched down in London.  First up: 1927's The Animals and Children Took to the Streets.  It somehow ended up billed as a children's show.  It's not.  It's a really wacked out combination of projected animations, musical theater, and meta story telling.  It's kind of like Adventure Time;  it may be billed for children, but it is not for children.  

The show is somehow performed by three women and a host of animated characters including various rival gangs of children.  Children really are a menace in this show.  The plot has a gang of child-pirates go on  the rampage, take over a middle-class park and even kidnap the mayor's cat before being whisked off in black ice-cream vans and effectively sedated by gumdrops infused with a drugstore's worth of sedatives.  At the beginning Agnes Eaves and her daughter arrive in the hopes of reforming the children through arts and crafts (specifically pasta collage), only to leave when the going gets tough.    It mixes together in something that feels like part silent movie, part social commentary, part Cabaret.  

It is seamlessly synchronized and well worth it.  It's just not really for the kids.  I don't know who got that idea...

A Genius in the Strings Section and in the Ring

This blog has been really negative of late.  I assure you, I don't dislike everything.  For one, Clifford Odets's Golden Boy is an amazing theatrical experience.  

The plot itself is vaguely contrived: the play centers on Joe Bonaparte who faces the choice between becoming a musician and the lure of big money and the distinct possibility of injuring his hands as a boxer. For context, Joe's Italian immigrant father shells out $1200 for a violin for is son's 21st birthday. The play takes place in the late 1930s.  But it never feels that way, which I think is a testament to the dramaturgical abilities of Odets.  The play, which clocks in at about three hours, never feels that way.  It moves and it avoids becoming preachy.  The characters do not engage in protracted conversations about the state of man or about beliefs, which could easily happen in a show whose characters include a philosophizing candy store owner, the kind of father who would shell out $1200 for a violin for his son's 21st birthday, a union organizer older brother, and a Newark native woman whose father drank and beat her mother into suicide.  Magically, the show does not preach.  I actually bought the script I thought it was so good.

Thematically, the play is about finding your passion or what complete's you.  For Joe's manager, that's Lorna.  For Joe's union organizing older brother, it's workplace justice.  For Lorna and Joe, it's up in the air.  Lorna loves Tom Moody, Joe's manager, because they have a peaceful, quiet relationship; but she also loves Joe and tries really hard to convince herself of the contrary.  Joe's internal conflict - music, which makes him feel human and empowered, versus boxing, which is a faster if more violent route to empowerment - is the central plot of the play.  Do you spend your life trying to shine in Capitalist America where you're judged by the dollars in your bank account, or do you fulfill a more satisfying, more humane though humbler destiny?  “Truthful success,” in the words of Joe's father, remains as elusive a goal today as it did when “Golden Boy” first opened on Broadway at the same theater 75 years ago.  

In the new production, Odet's language feels fresh and not at all dated and the powerhouse cast make sure the verbal punches sting as much as the physical ones.  The play is fantastically acted.  Seth Numrich's energy never falters, but it evolves in a fascinating way as the story progresses.  He goes from being a bouncing, boyish fireball to a hardened boxing machine with very little left over for living life.  The actors are no doubt aided by the atmospheric set design which quickly evokes many different locations and the understatedly perfect costumes.  The stark lighting almost makes you feel like, even when you're blocks away from a boxing arena, the actors are still in the ring fighting it out with each other.

Theater on Both Sides - A Night at the Opera

I should begin this by saying that I am perhaps the least qualified person to write this post.  I do not do opera.  I'd like to say I appreciate it, but I probably don't.  I enjoy the music, for whatever that's worth.  I once went to an un-staged performance of Anthony and Cleopatra at Carnegie Hall which is perhaps the best opera experience I've ever had.  Actually going to an opera house and sitting down for three hours isn't really my jam.  That said, I keep this blog half for myself and half because I actually have to blog for school on occasion.

It is pretty supremely cool that we had box seats as a class for Don Giovanni at the Met.  This awe factor wears off after you realize that the box seats are actually pretty damn uncomfortable, but they're still some of the best seats in the house.  Not only can you see the majority of the stage but also the orchestra, and the pit is a lot of fun to watch.  I've also heard that box seats are supposed to be some of the best seats acoustically, but that didn't come from the most reliable of sources.  I especially focused on the orchestra during the overture, as opposed to staring for what felt like many minutes at a block of dimly lit Spanish balconies and a sleeping Leporello.  And Leporello was my favorite part of the night. Almost no one else seemed to act.   I mean everyone had fantastic voices.  This is, after all, The Metropolitan Opera house. But no one seemed all that into their characters.  I give major props to Don Ottavio and Leporello.  Those two dealt with the inconsistencies of the other characters impressively.
I sound negative.  It was good.  I have seen some really bad opera.  But that was in the Ukraine and I was probably stupid to expect better.  The vocal talent was impressive, the music was wonderful, and the sets were impressive.  They really did build a few blocks of a Spanish town (I really want to say Seville, but that's only because I'm reading the original Don Juan text, El Burlador de Sevilla, for my AP Spanish Lit Class).  In the grand scheme of things, my issues with Don Giovanni are really nit-picky issues.  But I didn't really enjoy the whole experience.
Ultimately, my issues stem from the story, not from the performance.  It's The Met.  Everyone is at the top of their game there.  But I have some real reservations about the plot.  I mean Don Giovanni is an asshole - he sleeps around and he admittedly did kill a guy in a duel - but he doesn't deserve to be dragged to hell for it.  Sleeping with 1800 women is pretty damn impressive and it's maybe not the most traditionally moral thing to do, but it's not "get-dragged-to-hell-with-fiery-vengeance" material.  At the very beginning of the play the titular don does kill someone - Donna Anna's father, Commendatore - but he does so in a duel that he didn't even instigate.  It would be one thing if Giovanni instigated the duel, but he didn't.  I'm not saying that the Commendatore is at fault, but he did challenge a much younger man to a duel.  What was he expecting?  

Theater on Both Sides - Cast of Titans

'Tis the season of Mamet. Ben Brantley took care of Anarchist at the John Golden theater, but as for Glengarry Glen Ross, despite having begun previews on Nov. 11, the reviews are not yet out.  This is because it doesn't open until the 8th of December.  Officially this is because of Sandy, unofficially this is because Al Pacino supposedly doesn't know his lines.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure Pacino was the right choice for his role.  In this production, he plays Levine.  He is ageing and failing; he can no longer sell and is grasping at straws.  Al Pacino is ageing, but he reads - to me at least - as a bit too confident for the role.  He really was perfect in the movie as Roma (played excellently in this production by Bobby Cannavale) and Jack Lemmon really was the quintessential Levine.  The other roles of the play are cast perfectly (John C. McGinley is perfect as Moss), but I have some serious reservations about Pacino.  I feel terrible about saying this, but it's the case.  It's just enough to draw me out of the world of the play slightly.
The world of the play is really ingeniously crafted.  The entire first act is set in a Chinese Restaurant, which is brought to life brilliantly with little touches like a child's high-seat or the subtly shifting window (the pattern of a window is cast onto the set in the cool tones of night from a different angle for each scene).  It really is a believable Midwestern Chinese restaurant.  When the action shifts to the office of the real estate company, you really feel like there's something in every filing cabinet.  For me, it called to mind the set of Gatz at The Public which was actually stocked with the theater's tax returns from many years back to make it look like a real office.

The production is certainly worth it.  It features some titans of acting.  But I'm not entirely certain that it is worth the hype of the marquis name.  Al Pacino is doubtless a great actor, but I'm not entirely sure he was right for the part.  The show does not suffer with regard to quality because he is in it, it suffers some with regard to believability.  Al Pacino's Levine doesn't read to me like someone who would take the drastic step of stealing the leads that are so crucial to the action of the play.

Theater on Both Sides - A Repeat Experience

It's amazing what one actor can do for a show.
My second English class took another trip into the city today, this time for Peter and the Starcatcher.  Some readers will know that I have already seen this show (my previous blog post is linked to;  I'm always surprised by how much of a pretentious ass I sound like when I re-read posts...) and they'll know that I loved it.  Or they just refreshed their memories.  Either way, Peter and the Starcatcher was awesome the first time around.  Not so the second time.  I mean it was good.  It was very good.  It was still quite funny.  But some of the humor is a little blunt.  The puns are somewhat obvious.  I hadn't realized that because Christian Borle played them so subtly.  He did not ham it up.  The new Black Stache is a much campier actor; so the show is still funny, but not in the same way.  It felt smarter the last time I saw it.
The staging is still remarkable.  Lighting and Sound America did an interesting piece on the show in their July 2012 issue which informed me on a number of interesting factors (I would link to it, but I can't find it).  The proscenium arch is decorated with what is essentially gold painted trash, which is an interesting touch.  Everything seems a little bit thrown together, like a bunch of people got together in a mostly empty space and decided to put on a play, and the proscenium adds to that.  It looks like part of the gilded interior of the theater, but it's made of hundreds of everyday objects.  Which is really cool.  I'm not sure what that means from a critical perspective, but it's cool.

Perhaps some of my nonplussed reaction to my second trip to the Brooks Atkinson theater stems from my new-found dislike of Peter Pan.  The reason this show was on the schedule for my class was that we read the original version of the book (not the play) recently.  And you know what?  Peter is an asshole.  This play references the original material in interesting ways, but I can't escape from understanding those references.  In the final monologue, they quote, round-about-ly, the last line of the book "so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless".  I understand that reference and it makes me angry.  Peter is a dick to everyone.  He forgets people and kills people and doesn't care.  This is held up as the ideal of the one child who never grew up.  Now, I think you need to grow up a little to be humane.

In any event, the production was very different.  Was it fun?  Yes.  Would I still recommend it?  Probably not...