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2007 – 2008 SEASON
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August:
Osage County - December 2007
Those family genes, they sure can cause trouble, and during one Oklahoma summer, the Weston family broils with invective and ends in disintegration. Gather a large family together and the chances are good that you have got yourself a drama, sometimes entertaining, comical, and sometimes brutal. Occasionally it is all three as with August: Osage County at Broadway's Imperial Theatre. Of course, getting in all that volatility takes time, and this production of familial ferocity, weaknesses and taboos takes up almost three and one-half hours over three acts. To watch is both painful and wickedly hilarious.
A premier ensemble from Chicago's acclaimed
Steppenwolf Theatre Company presents this saga-supreme of family fury. Tracy
Letts (Bug, Killer Joe) has written
carefully carved 13 damaged characters
passing down their mutilated genes, yet as tragic as the characters and their
actions are, Letts unveils their humanity and truth.
The Weston clan comes together for the funeral of the patriarch, Beverly, played by the playwright's father, Dennis Letts, who is making his Broadway debut just as his son is making his Broadway writing debut. Beverly is alcoholic, a poet, and dying, and is psychologically estranged from his family, including his wife, Violet, who has mouth cancer and an addiction to pain killers.
Beverly appears in a lengthy opening scene seated at a table interviewing Johanna, a self-contained Native American young woman (Kimberly Guerrero), for the position of housekeeper. In an extended monologue, he rambles on about his work and his life, and ends by hiring the young woman and then walking out of the house. Everyone assumes he is dead and his family is left behind to cope, or not.
Todd Rosenthal's elaborate set shows three levels of a large, rambling, stifling house without air-conditioning in the hot Oklahoma summer. One of Violet's oddities is keeping light out of the house by taping all the windows with heavy paper. In the top level of the house, Johanna sits placidly in her attic bedroom, coming down to do her work and then returning upstairs, away from the ruthlessness downstairs.
The pill-popping mama, Violet, is played by Deanna Dunagan, taut and ferocious as an alley cat. From her first moments wobbling down the stairs, she presses the most hurtful buttons of everyone around her. Seated at the end of the dinner table, she passes around lacerating insults like unappetizing side dishes. She is most abusive toward her three daughters. The eldest is Barbara, played by Amy Morton, who exhibits her mother's fury mingled with her own guilt. Her marriage is faltering because husband Bill (Jeff Perry) cannot bear Barbara's damaging behavior and has fallen in love with a student. Their daughter, Jean, (Madeleine Martin), is a sultry, nubile, pot-smoking teen.
Middle daughter is Ivy, played by Sally Murphy, who has stayed near the family and has taken on the burden of her mother's care. Her revenge comes when an illicit relationship is revealed.
Karen Weston (Mariann Mayberry) is the youngest and lives in Florida, far removed from her family. She brings her fiancé, Steve Heidenbrecht (Brian Kerwin) to this emotional madhouse where his sleaziness fits in far too easily.
Violet's sister, Mattie Fae, a brazen
loudmouth portrayed by Rondi Reed, is outstanding,. She arrives with her tolerant husband,
Charlie, played by Francis Guinan, the only decent character. A hilarious scene has him trying to say grace
at the same dinner table that Violet rules with such virulence; for obvious
reasons, finding something to give thanks for is a problem. Their son, Little Charles (Ian Barford), a
20-something loser, has been incessantly berated by his mother. Little Charles later reveals his own survival
plan.
Sheriff Deon Gilbeau is a
supporting character with a significant link to Barbara and the mystery of
Beverly's disappearance.
The third act unveils the
play's surprises, and the devastating ending.
Director Anna G. Shapiro keeps a sharp hold on a stunning story of
memorably illuminated characters. The play begins leisurely but the point of
view is never lost, nor is viewers' interest.
Like Rosenthal's set, the costumes by Ana Kuzmanic are detailed for each
character. Ann G.Wrightson and Richard
Woodbury provide ambiance from day to night with lighting and sound designs,
and David Singer's original blues adds musical authenticity.
Tracy Letts' gritty spook house invariably brings to mind
Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams and Edward Albee but August: Osage County stands on its own as a distinctive soap opera
of genetic horror and humor.
Elizabeth
Ahlfors
December
12, 2007
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The
Seafarer - December 2007
Eat, drink and be merry, someone said, but he was not The Seafarer. Conor McPherson's dramatic black comedy at the Booth Theatre chooses one out of the three, and food with merriment are not included. Five of this year's most definitive theatre characters spend a dark, surprisingly funny Christmas Eve in a drab house in Baldoyle, north of Dublin, playing poker, bickering and boozing –plenty of boozing leading to more bickering, more boozing. Out of the endless talk, however, emerges empathy about the characters who battle their demons to as they face their humanity and life's travails.
An evening with The Seafarer would linger in the mind like a hangover were it were not for Irish dramatist/director McPherson's bursts of humor and his razor sharp colorful dialogue delivered by a magnetic and unbeatable male ensemble -- David Morse, Conleth Hill, Jim Norton, Sean Mahon, and Ciaran Hinds. Hinds plays a devil of a guy named Mr. Lockhart, a mysterious gent who first seems too urbane to mingle with the other four drunken losers. Why is he even here? All for good reason and all is revealed, but not here.
Excepting Mr. Lockhart, the characters are all chums from the same deteriorating village, men who never quite made anything of themselves and defend their existence with bluster and booze. Richard Harkin, both legally blind and blind-drunk, engrosses the audience with his unending blarney; this character is played by Jim Norton, who won the Olivier Award for this same role in London. Richard is in constant dizzying movement, verbosely and physically, and while he certainly is a sloppy drunk, Norton remains believable as, incredibly, he never loses site of the nearest whiskey bottle, nor does he ever spill any from his glass. His blindness happened a year ago when he fell into a dumpster, and called back his younger brother, James, "Sharky", to care for him, at the same time fiercely resenting Sharky's caretaking.
Sharky, and he is a card shark, is the play's main character, a suffering hunk of a man, a recovering alcoholic drifting near the edge of agony. He has no secure job, his wife has left him, he has no love, no hope, and he is solely responsible for his demanding brother Richard's needs, which are endlessly cajoling, irascible and malicious. David Morse, with restraint and subtlety, evinces sympathy for his character's lost situation as he tries to stay dry, to survive. He is the constrained center of this flailing bunch of inebriates.
To celebrate Christmas Eve, Richard calls in some friends for holiday drinking and poker. Conleth Hill plays Ivan Curry, who is already in the house, having passed out the night before. A good-natured drunk, he tends to stumbles around looking for his eyeglasses. He does not intend to sober up anytime soon, or leave the filthy house, avoiding his family who waits at home.
Sean Mahon portrays a sleazy Nicky Giblin who arrives bringing a stranger he met in a pub. Nicky is now involved with Sharky's ex-wife, and although Sharky does not welcome Nicky, the boozy Richard is a convivial host. The stranger, Mr. Lockhart, is eager for the poker game and now McPherson takes the play down a darker path. When the right moment arrives, Mr. Lockhart's true demonic intent emerges and it is not to win at poker at all, but to win a soul. He faces Sharkey alone to demand retribution for a debt past due. Sharkey remembers nothing about the debt nor why the poker game may cost him his immortality. At this point when the play's supernatural core is revealed, Mr. Lockhart describes a horrifying detailed description of hell.
Rae Smith designed a setting of a decrepit house -- bottles and glasses strewn about, furniture far beyond better days. In the corner is a scrawny Christmas tree and on the wall hangs a religious picture lighted by a votive candle that flickers ominously as Mr. Lockhart states his case. Smith's costumes suit the characters who dwell in or visit the house. The shadowy lighting by Neil Austin and sound design by Mathew Smethurst-Evans enliven the home fires of these dysfunctional brothers.
Despite a sluggish start, Conan McPherson (The Weir and Shining City) is a rich storyteller and provides another moody Irish mystical tale in The Seafarer. There is space for every member of this tight clan of actors to shine with his own raison d'etre. It was a hit show in London in 2006 and will premiere at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin in April. While it is in New York, it is one of the season's highlights.
Elizabeth
Ahlfors
December
2, 2007
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The Farnsworth Invention
- December, 2007
Few can deny that the invention of what was once called the
"boob tube" is responsible both in improving and dumbing down
society. There is a story in this
invention, and Aaron Sorkin, one of the genre's most successful writers, wrote
it down and brought it to Broadway's Music Box Theater; The
Farnsworth Invention is an entertaining story of television's birth and its
two midwives.
The Farnsworth Invention, a dive into physics, math and technology, turns out to be
surprisingly engaging, thanks to Sorkin's swift-moving dialogue, as well as
director Des McAnuff, who swipes a clean crisscrossing of two men battling for
credit for this new invention. He keeps
their dual stories quick-paced, seen through each others' eyes and then debated,
a technique which is effective although somewhat superficial. One of the men is the genius behind the
inventor, Philo
T. Farnsworth (Jimmi
Simpson), a "ridiculous hayseed savant,"
according to his competitor, David Sarnoff. Farnsworth was a Midwestern Mormon who while
still in high school was so naturally gifted in science that he was convinced
that his adolescent plan to transmit moving pictures across space would work. Simpson is credible as Farnsworth, moving and
standing awkwardly, wearing the ill-fitting clothes of a man who does not
involve himself with such trivia as tailored suits and swank accessories.
Sarnoff escaped from the Russian schtetl,
arrived in New York, and worked his way smoothly up to head RCA and NBC, with
underlings who toiled to create television around the time Farnsworth was
experimenting in his farm home. Sarnoff
is played with tense, high-minded self-assurance by Hank
Azaria. As he points
out, "The ends do justify the means.
That's what means are for." Sarnoff is confident and his
stance is commanding. His suits fit
beautifully. In this story, when he
faces Farnsworth over the patent for television, you weigh the options – RCA
versus Farnsworth? According to Sorkin,
it is RCA. Factually, Farnsworth won the
patent case. Here dies a drunk, and
Sarnoff with RCA lives on synonymously with the medium of television.
Right and wrong regarding facts is one
controversial issue with The Farnsworth Invention, but drama, nevertheless, exists. Sorkin's dialogue is crisp and breezy. The controlled, charming Machiavellian Azaria
versus plain-talking Simpson, rule the stage in front of a large cast of
intermingled supporting characters who stride across the stage. They are the only two actors without
duplicate roles. The expansion of cast
members in a play focused on one issue is somewhat distracting, but McAnuff
keeps the point in sight.
The plot, however, is not one of bad versus
good. While there is a power struggle
with big money lawyers versus small-town genius, Sarnoff is corporate minded,
but with values. His television ideals
were not to be instituted by commercialism but by quality. The journey to the patent trophy is stimulating,
with the history of the
medium a fascinating side post.
The duplex staging is sleekly designed
by Klara Zieglerova, and
David C. Woolard created believable 1930's era costumes.
Sorkin started in
theatre with A Few Good Men in 1989 and then moved west to Hollywood and
television. In the past few years, Aaron
Sorkin enjoyed a long run with the very popular, The West Wing, and the less acclaimed, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, which did, at least, last a season,
an accomplishment these days. Hollywood
provided him with historical grist for this return to Broadway. While the facts in The Farnsworth Invention are debatable, the end product is a
fascinating look back some 70 years through different eyes, as this huge part
of our lives, television, was taking the baby steps that would eventually lead
to the first small steps on the moon.
check for facts: www.thefarnsworthinvention.com
Elizabeth
Ahlfors
December 1, 2007
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A Bronx Tale - November 2007
"You could ask anybody from my neighborhood and they'll tell you, this is just another Bronx tale."
At the end, that's what it is. For Chazz Palminteri, however, it is more, because this is his Bronx tale, his childhood and his influences. When anyone looks back at his own life,
everything is unique and special, but most of us have all seen this Bronx tale before. The characters are stereotypes – the trusting boy torn between the hard-working, salt-of-the-earth father who urges integrity and love, versus the charismatic neighborhood capo, Sonny, who speaks with authority and invokes fear. What do you finally choose -- integrity or intimidation?
It is 1960, and nine-year-old Calogero Palminteri, watches the world pass from his stoop on the corner of 187th Street and Belmont Avenue. He listens to the local doo-wop groups practicing their 50's harmonies on the corner with "white" dance steps. Upstairs his mother is making sauce. Down the block is the local hangout, Chez Joey and up the block is
the hardware store and some betting joints. Calogero worships the Yankees and Mickey Mantle is his idol. If you grew up in the boroughs, you know the story.
Until the world changes. Directly in front of him, Calogero sees a murder take place. Two cars are vying for a space and one driver gets out and smashes the other with a baseball bat. Suddenly, the imposing Sonny, from whom everyone backs off, appears with a gun and shoots the assailant. He looks around, sees Calogero on the stoop, and disappears.
No one has to tell the boy what to do when he is taken by his father to identify the shooter in a police lineup. When Calogero comes face-to-face with Sonny, he does not identify him as the killer. From this point on, Sonny takes the boy under his wing, bringing him into Chez Joey, introducing him around as "my boy", and calling him "C".
Directed by Jerry Zaks, Chazz Palminteri brings his conversational one-man show to the Walter Kerr Theatre. He connects naturally with the audience. He had produced The Bronx Tale in 1989 off-Broadway, and in a 1993 film, he appeared as Sonny. It is a compelling, heartfelt snapshot of a certain time, a certain place, a certain social milieu with its special jabs of humor and disdain.
Palminteri is casually dressed and effectively portrays an array of colorful people with subtle body language and graceful hand gestures, neighborhood characters like Eddie Mush, Frankie Coffee Cake, and JoJo the Whale. Number-one, looming over everyone, is Sonny, who knows everything that is going on in his district and can change lives in a flash. He is a handy guy to have on your side, and Chazz knows it and admires him.
Calogero became "Chazz" to everyone but his parents. He always kept a strong bond with his father, Lorenzo, an honest bus driver who disdained Sonny. Between the two older men, Chazz was influenced by a duo of father figures. Lorenzo wanted the boy to be neat, clean and educated; Sonny was the dean of "the University of Belmont Avenue." The conflict between the two forces never lags during the 90-minute play.
James Noone designed a simple set with a center tenement and stoop, a street sign signifying a corner, and the neon invitation to Chez Joey. Chazz Palminteri needs nothing
more to set the scene and share his memories.
Elizabeth
Ahlfors
October
27, 2007
Extended to
February 24, 2008
Pygmalion - October 2007
It is hard to keep the memory of the "loverly" My Fair Lady score from insinuating itself throughout the Roundabout Theatre Company's production of Pygmalion.. Written in 1912 by George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion, at the American Airlines Theatre, with its lightning fast dialogue is an expressive, entertaining portraiture of British classes and sexism in Edwardian times.
Most surprising in this production may be the casting of the leads. Film and TV actress Clare Danes, with very few false turns, makes a comfortable entrée onto the Broadway stage as Eliza Doolittle, the "squashed cabbage leaf" who becomes a lady. Jefferson Mays (I Am My Own Wife and Journey's End) takes on yet another characterization for his theatrical resume. He turns Henry Higgins, familiar as the Leslie Howard/Rex Harrison debonair, arrogant upper-class phoneticist, into a self-involved, spoiled, genius brat, the bane of his down-to-earth mother. His command of the Shavian dialogue is strong and precise. Both Dane and Mays are thoroughly believable in challenging roles.
As the story goes, Higgins, "a confirmed bachelor with a mother fixation," overhears the "deliciously low" street accent of a Cockney flower vendor at Convent Garden. He comments to a colleague, Colonel Pickering (Boyd Gaines), that he can improve her speech and deportment in six months, making her ladylike enough to get a job as a shop girl. Claire Danes' Eliza is suspicious, but has sufficient self-confidence to bring her to Higgins' Wimpole Street doorstep and take him up on his bluster. With the hope of getting herself to a higher position, she is spunky enough to give it a try.
As the snappy guttersnipe, Eliza Doolittle, Danes stirs vulnerability into her Cockney street smarts, making her a strong antagonist for Higgins. Higgins is completely impatient at those less competent than he is and does not fail to show it. He has the irascible conduct and body movements of a bad boy. He is outrageously disdainful of Eliza, but wants to use her to prove a phonetics lesson, never considering how she will fare once his lessons are over. Dane's whiny voice at the start of the play would be a challenge to anyone. Danes is not the most expressive crier on stage, but later, when she has to debut as a "lady," her determination has enough stiffness to indicate that this is an unnatural demeanor for her and she makes it a sequence of wit and eloquence. When we see her after the ball, a crest-fallen Danes convinces us that Eliza succeeded in the task, but she also learned that her own confidence has real worth. Successfully cleaned-up allows Eliza's natural essence to shine through, and the play ends with poignancy, if not romance.
David Grindley directed the production with vision and strong supporting cast choices. Boyd Gaines holds his own as a more open-minded Colonel Pickering, supporting Higgins' outrageousness but with definite pangs of discomfiture. Helen Carey plays Higgins' mother with the poise expected of her class but obviously exasperated by her son's behavior. Her tea guests, the Eynsford-Hills, mother and daughter (Sandra Shipley and Kerry Bishe), hiding the fact that they have actually lost their money, retain the necessary façade of proper etiquette. The son, Freddy (Kieran Campion), is engagingly dim and lovestruck.
Jay O. Sanders grabs the stage playing Eliza's father, Alfred Doolittle, once satisfied by his lower-class freedom yet is convincing in his leap to middle-class respectability. Brenda Wehle is adept as Higgins' housekeeper, Mrs. Pearce.
Jonathan Fensom designed appropriate sets and costumes with wonderfully cramped eccentricity. Claire Danes went from shabby dress and hat to suitable tea suit and delectable ball gown, a smooth blooming to suit her independence at the end. She proves, "The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she's treated."
Still remembering Lerner and Loewe's music -- "You did it! You did it! You said that you would do it/ And indeed you did." The Roundabout Theatre Company's Pygmalion succeeds as a articulately sparkling battle of the classes.
Elizabeth
Ahlfors
October
20, 2007
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The Ritz - October, 2007
"Come with me and we'll attend
Their jubilee and see them spend
Their last two bits,
Puttin' on the Ritz"
The Irving Berlin tune is not part of the Roundabout Theatre's farce, The Ritz. The Ritz, by Terrance McNally, takes place in the 1970's, and it is hard to get past the realization that looming ahead are the '80's, and the epidemic of AIDS that swept through the much of the theatre community. The Ritz at Studio 54 is a bright elaborate escapade that once had its day.
The dying patriarch of an Italian family puts a hit on his daughter's husband, Gaetano Proclo. Proclo flees his Cleveland home and goes into hiding in a New York City gay bathhouse called The Ritz. Who would suspect he is hiding there? So begins the door-slamming hilarity of miscommunication, mismatching and mixed identities.
Kevin Chamberlin plays Proclo, disguised with a mustache and an oversized black wig on his bald head. He is a lovable, terrified gentle giant in a bizarre environment; it does not take long for him to realize that he is not in Cleveland anymore. A "chubby chaser," Claude, played with intense determination by Patrick Kerr, pursues him. The flamboyant – and flaming – Chris, wrapped in a kimono, befriends him. Hunky, towel-clad young men scamper around Scott Pask's set of sky-high three glam levels of red doors, dashing from room to room, the steam room there, an orgy here, the Crisco there.
Furthermore, the hit man, Carmine Vespucci (Lenny Venito), found out where Proclo is hiding and sent a detective out to find him. Terrence Riordan plays Michael Brick, the beanpole detective with a soprano voice.
In Act II, Carmine himself shows up looking for the detective and Proclo, provoking even more searches, near escapes, and diving under beds. In addition, Proclo's wife and Carmine's sister (Ashlie Atkinson) appears, hysterically torn between her father's last wish and her husband. A final frenzy implodes when her mink coat is stolen.
Joe Mantello directs the action like an orchestra conductor, mostly con brio, but occasionally troppo pesante, with some of the slapstick sequences merely sluggish. Despite numerous comic moments and some that feel forced, the large cast turns in sparkling performances, like Brooks Ashmanskas, who finds the heart of the swishy Chris and fleshes out the stereotype.
Notable is Rosie Perez as untalented but confident Googie Gomez, shimmering in William Ivey Long's shiny spandex pants suit and a generous selection of tight-fitting dresses. McNally wrote a part that earned Rita Moreno a supporting Tony Award in 1975 and now gives Perez a chance to do her stuff in the same role. Googie has two nightclub sequences, and her first one is hilariously horrible. A hint of disaster comes when the neon light spelling, "The Ritz" loses part of its "R", and reads, "The Pitz." It is the pits, but Googie gives show biz her all with spice and vigor and as much shtick as she can manage, singing off-tune, slipping her wigs, losing her platform shoes, and performing Christopher Gattelli's hackneyed dance steps with two cleaning boys/dancers, Tiger and Duff (Lucas Near-Verbrugghe and David Turner). Her song selection mangles Broadway with "originals", like Manana (Annie), Peoples (Funny Girl), and the Sabbath Prayer from Fiddler on the Roof.
Perez plays the comic role to the hilt. Unfortunately, like Charo on speed, she has a fiery Spanish accent. Words whiz by, often indecipherably, and you really do not want to miss one word of Googie's garble.
Is The Ritz super duper? Not really. Once it was a plea for fun and tolerance during a particular decade, The Ritz now channels an ironic remembrance of what came next.
.
Elizabeth
Ahlfors
October
12, 2007
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Mautitius - October, 2007
Who would suspect that a play about a stamp collection could be as intriguing as a contemporary film noir? How often do you find yourself hooked by the question, "Who has the album now?", watching as a tiny papers in a red book, possibly very valuable, are clutched by one sister, set on a table, grabbed by another sister, a philatelist, a con man, dropped on the floor and threatened with a match. Manhattan Theatre Club's Mauritius by Theresa Rebeck, at the Biltmore Theatre may have imperfections, but in the end it does prove that stamp collecting can provide good theatre as long as it contains some key elements. One is a sterling ensemble cast, telling the story with conviction and persuasion. Another is director Doug Hughes, who controls the strings of tension like a puppet maestro.
The stamp collection belongs to either of two sisters. The younger, Jackie, played by Alison Pill, inherited the album from her late mother who wanted to thank her daughter for care during her illness. As the play begins, Jackie brings the album for evaluation by a philatelist, Philip. She may be young but she suspects there may be some value here and she deserves some reward for her life, which has been difficult.
Philip, played by Dylan Baker, cannot be less interested. He does not even bother to look up from his book as she pleads her case, but another stamp lover, the charismatic Dennis (Bobby Cannavale), has been listening and agrees to look at the collection. He is not an expert, but he is interested in stamps and even more interested in the art of the con. He spots two rare stamps from Mauritius that could be worth millions. He contacts a crude, avaricious collector named Sterling, played by F. Murray Abraham, to discuss the stamps. Sterling is skeptical but willing to be convinced. If Sterling agrees that the stamps are authentic, he will pay for them in cash.
Dennis follows Jackie home, and finds that her estranged older half-sister, Mary (Katie Finneran), is back, insisting that she owns the album since it had belonged to her grandfather, and not Jackie's mother. Dennis tries to ingratiate himself to both women, but Jackie finally gets possession of the album. By this time Jackie has toughened her stance, having googled the stamps and learned they might make her rich. She agrees to meet Dennis and Sterling at Philip's store.
Now come the twists and turns leading to ownership of the stamps. The bargaining between Sterling and Jackie is gripping. Questions arise, but enjoying the action of the show means swallowing some skepticism. There are jumps from A to Z. How does Jackie always gain possession of the album when both sisters are determined to own it? Why would Jackie bring the valuable stamp collection to a deserted store late at night to meet some unsavory character she does not know? Why doesn't Sterling, who is not portrayed with much in the way of ethics, kill her and grab the stamps, instead of giving her a suitcase of money? Why did Philip, who runs a business of evaluating stamps, not make the slightest effort to glance at the collection? There is a hint of more than friendship between Dennis and Jackie, but when did that happen?
As for Mary, what caused the family estrangement? Why is she obviously better off financially than Jackie and why is she so totally self-involved? Behind the desperation driving these characters, there are not enough answers.
The actors, however, portray their
characters convincingly. Bobby Cannavale
is ingratiating in his Broadway debut as a charming con man, ready to move to
whichever side looks more lucrative.
Allison Pill portrays a raw mix of bitterness, fragility and steeliness,
wanting nothing much more than enough to lay back on a beach with a
Marguerita. She breaks your heart
telling her sister, "I just wanted something, for once, just something.” Finneran is an equally convincing Mary, with
contained selfish determinism; one is almost ready to see a smidgen of humanity
in her. F. Murray Abraham is menacing yet
crafty, weaving his deal with Allison with oily determination. Dylan Baker seems almost flat at the
beginning but gains personal shadows as the story evolves. The spurts of humor that arise from these
actors keep the momentum.
The staging is perfect: John Lee Beatty's set moves effortlessly from
one dusty, dreary space to another, and Paul Gallo lights up the mood
exquisitely.
Theresa Rebeck, in her first Broadway play, may have skimped on
character depth but she knows the drama of greed and revenge, and how to
manipulate with sharp tension.
Elizabeth Ahlfors
October
7, 2007
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Dividing The Estate - October
2007
Directed by Michael Wilson at
Primary Stages, 59E59, Horton Foote's Dividing
the Estate sets greed against
family loyalty during a period of financial difficuties. The setting is the gulf coast of Texas in
1987, where a family dispute over their home and land, unfolds over the
course of several days. All the members
of the Gordon family have needs and expectations; each is demanding and each
possesses layered qualities with definitive edges. The talented Mr. Foote, however, paints even
the most self-involved as defensible to some extent.
The value of the estate is reduced to the house and the land surrounding it. With taxes looming, and oil rigs and fast food locations encroaching, the Gordon family wealth is an ebb tide. The matriarch is 85-year-old, Stella, convincingly played with a fierce growl by Elizabeth Ashley, who is nowhere near that age, despite her gray wig and feeble movements. She insists she will never divide the estate, as her children urge. Stella argues that her father kept the land and house together during worse times than this, and she will do no less.
Still imperious, Stella is waited upon by her eldest daughter, Lucille, played with sweet-tempered patience by Penny Fuller. Lucille's son, called Son, (Devon Abner) takes care of the estate management, earnestly trying to hold everything together. Also living in the house is Brother, Lewis (Gerald McRaney), who has a drinking problem and is drawn toward young girls. Brother resents Son's authority over the finances, and constantly demands advances on his inheritance, most recently to pay up for dallying with a high school girl.
The youngest daughter, Mary Jo, lives in Houston with two ditzy, self-involved grown daughters and
a husband (James DeMarse),
who has placed his family in financial jeopardy. Mary Jo is exquisitely played with
irritating nasal spunk by Hallie Foote, the playwright’s daughter. She and her
family are visiting for dinner but, most important, Mary Jo is coming to demand
her part of the estate -- now.
By the end of the play, after some
hope and several twists, no one is satisfied.
There are no assets of their estate to share, only debits to deal with. The desperate Mary Jo, facing the
hopelessness of deliverance from bankruptcy, snaps, “I know what I’m praying
for, every night down on my knees. That
we strike oil.” We all know the chances
of that, and have to appreciate the despair of this selfish woman.
Horton Fiske, Pulitzer Prize winning playwright for The Young Man from Atlanta and Academy Award winner for the screenplay for Tender Mercies, has written a family history that flows as leisurely as a summer afternoon with characters as crisp as fresh lemonade. He points out that like people, the past, however one might remember it, always dies, letting the present step forward with its changes and challenges. The past/present gap is benignly symbolized here by Son's fiancée, Pauline, played by Maggie Lacey, an open-minded, generous schoolteacher in effective contrast to most of the family, and surprisingly, by Brother's very young fiancée.
Three servants play out their own past versus present. Arthur French stands out in this stellar cast, portraying one of the most engaging members of the household, Douglas, an elderly African-American retainer with trembling hands. He remembers his once important place in the family and insists on having his own way, even when it means taking a nap in the living room and serving the family dinner when he cannot hold a plate steady.
He is as determined to do the chores he has always done just as he demands a certain hymn be played when the time comes to be lowered into the ground next to his mother's grave. Stella, respecting the historic role Douglas played in the family all through her life, placates him.
The humor throughout the play rises naturally from the honesty of the characterizations and respect of the past. If the story moves a bit too leisurely at times, the sharp characters are smartly acted out in yet another clear Horton Fiske view of Americana, past and present.
Elizabeth
Ahlfors
October
6, 2007
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Opus - August 2007
What happens when a talented group dedicated to the ephemeral art of music begins to break apart? Can it ever be repaired? Can one element of the whole dynamic be exchanged for another? What if that dynamic is a world-renowned string quartet, and one vital member disappears? What happens to the other three members when the new addition is astonishingly gifted?
Such a problem is one of life's precipitous changes, self-contained, amorphic, challenging, and tackled is by Michael Hollinger in Opus, as the first offering in Primary Season's new season at 59E59. With staging by Jim Kronzer and Justin Townsend's evocative lighting, Opus is a spare production of short scenes with four chairs and five actors. Director Terrence J. Nolen keeps a purposeful pace with flashbacks and interviews, building moment to moment to an intense climax that destroys one of the characters and most likely the dynamic essence of the quartet.
The Lazara String Quartet is composed of four musicians who have been a together for years, who have worked hard to reach a level of respect in the music world. Elliot, the lead violinist is played by David Beach, is pretentious, arrogant and theatrical, in a relationship with the brilliant but irresponsible and chemically dependent Dorian (Michael Laurence). Richard Topal plays Alan, the second violinist, a womanizing loner, whose family has left him. Cellist Carl, is played by Douglas Reese, a down-to-earth family man who has been battling cancer and the group's temperament with laid-back wit.
Suddenly Dorian, their star violinist, takes off. Since the group has an upcoming White House concert, the remaining three cannot spend time looking for him. They fire him and begin auditioning for a replacement. Elliot, as self-proclaimed leader of the group, precipitously decides, not only to add the newcomer, but to change the quartet's White House selection, substituting a new piece, Beethoven's String Quartet No. 14 Opus 131, which is vastly more challenging. They audition a brilliant, wide-eyed, intensely ambitious young woman, Grace (Mahira Kakkar), who is determined to make the right decisions for her secure future in music, flip flopping between the string quartet and an offer by a symphony orchestra. She agrees to join the smaller group, which means wriggling her way into their established pattern as if she were a second wife stepping into a broken marriage.
Like a marriage, the individual pieces putting together a musical presentation are emotional, with its realism based on the fact that the playwright, Hollinger, is a classically trained violist as well as a gifted storywriter. With four personalities in a rehearsal room, the result is dramatic -- clashes, blending, endless reworking, communicating, all focused on their goal of tackling the difficult opus, considered experimental and radical. They achieve their goal and then Dorian returns. In the final scene, there are five personalities in a final explosion of melodramatic destruction.
Their stories and relationship emerge through flashbacks via different characters, each defined as personalities, each portraying as distinct an element as the instruments they play. Music coaches like Kate Berthold, have made them look as close to professional musicians as possible. Watching the four actors, while they are not physically playing their instruments, they are emotionally "playing" their instruments, feeling the music, knowing what their part is and how it varies from the others.
Jorge Cousineau provides the sounds from taped music.
What nags, however, with anyone dedicated to playing an instrument, is the deliberate destruction of one of the instruments. A dramatic move, yes, but not a believable action by a musician.
Opus premiered in Philadelphia at the Arden Theatre Company and won two 2006 Barrymore Awards for Outstanding New Play and Outstanding Direction of a Play.
Elizabeth
Ahlfors
August
4, 2007
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Surface to Air - July
2007
"Play the voices again," urges the mother at the start of this new play by David Epstein. It comforts her to hear the voices.
Surface to Air is a snapshot of one family and how each member has coped with the death of a beloved son.
The play is set after 9/11 but before the invasion of Iraq. Directed by James Naughton at Symphony Space's Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, Surface to Air displays an unavoidable resemblance to the Iraq war today and the probability of the same scenario for future families. While there are occasional lapses in the 80-minute production, the tension is palpable, especially in the last half of the story. The strongest problem is the occasional focus on overdone dialogue while its power lies in the intertwining emotions.
The cast is led by the amazing Lois Smith and outstanding Larry Bryggman as the parents, Princess and Hank. Their son, Rob was killed in 1971 in a bomber crash in North Vietnam. Recently Rob's remains were recovered and now the family is gathering to await the military escort bringing home the ashes. The parents live in a working class house in Long Island that has not changed in 30 years. The ghostly figure of Rob (Mark J. Sullivan) occasionally appears at the side to comment on the details of his death. The parents are inside, waiting for their other son and daughter to arrive. Princess has never recovered from her son's death. She is ailing physically and mentally. She does not care about the politics or the controversy of the Vietnam War; she continues living in the past on the emotional plane of suffering. Hank, now frail himself, is a veteran of World War II, an old-time bigot who clings to the belief that the Vietnam War was necessary to fight a threat, defend our nation and spread democracy.
Their surviving son, Eddie, a recovering alcoholic played by James Colby
with barely restrained bitterness, arrives with his latest wife, Magdalena (Marisa Echeverria). She is Hispanic, outspoken and ambitious, ready to support her
new family in this compelling moment of their lives, but looking forward to
pursuing her own goal with Eddie, opening a bagel shop with Latin food. Her intersperses occasionally tug against the
tension of the play's focus, but it works to illuminate Hank's bigoted views,
as does the presence of daughter, Terry's husband, Andrew (Bruce Altman), whom
she defines as a "Jewish documentarian."
When Terry (Cady Huffman), flies
in from California, the household is enlivened with her hyper-Hollywood
executive vivacity. She has escaped the
family tragedy by running West, and how returns home for just a brief stop for
the recovery of her brother's ashes.
Husband Andrew comments that he regrets never going to Vietnam because
he might then have made something significant of his life. This spurs Eddie's furious explosion at the
ridiculousness of that war, and the unnecessary death of his brother. "There was no glory there, it
was disgrace."
Outraged at his son's comments,
Hank points out that Eddie was a hero himself, at which point, Eddie admits
that he threw away his medals.
Back to the voices -- which feature Hank and his sons singing Alexander's Ragtime Band in happier days. Terry admits always feeling like an outsider because she was never asked to sing. With all the emotional baggage being spilled, Princess is upset but focusing on the lost Rob. Her acceptance of his ashes from the escort is a moment of heartbreaking despair. She takes the ashes with her upstairs and later returns for a harrowing ending. All Hank can do for her is play the voices from a peaceful past.
David Epstein has the sensitivity and the talent for conveying the emotions of this suffering family. Some may criticize him as Arthur Miller-lite, but others will credit him for Arthur Miller-promise. Both have validity. Does life go on or does life stop? Survivors deal with loss as best they can, which may be as senseless and tragic as the ground coming up to meet the falling pilot, and just as unavoidable.
Elizabeth
Ahlfors
July
22, 2007
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Old Acquaintance - June, 2007
Family dynamics are a gold
mine for the theatre. Tennessee
Williams, Eugene O'Neill, and Arthur Miller knew that well, as did Kaufman and
Hart.
Besides families, close friendships also do
pretty well providing grist for drama and amusement, especially if they are two
pals who grow up together in a small town and claw their way to the top, so to
speak, by the time they reach middle age.
Maybe the two close friends, Kit Markham and Millie Drake, in Old Acquaintance, currently revived at
the American Airlines, did not claw, but they fit the scenario of long-time
chums whose history together clothes them with affection and loyalty as well
bitter envy and competition. They have
their baggage, in this case, professionally and romantically. In the 1930's, these elements often resulted
in drawing room comedies like The Man Who
Came to Dinner and The Philadelphia
Story
Written in 1940, John van Druten's Old Acquaintance is redolent of that pre-WWII era. The Roundabout Theatre Company obviously spared no expense in the elaborate settings and costumes but this revival never takes off. It stars two actors, Margaret Colin and Harriet Harris, who usually promise on-target interpretations, but here their performances are several rings away from the bull's eye despite momentary sparks of conflict and performance.
Colin plays intelligent and sophisticated
Katherine (Kit) Markham, a novelist who has become a literary sweetheart with
critical raves and little financial rewards.
Kit has never married and savors her independence even with its
loneliness; she entertains the idea of
marrying her younger lover, played by Corey Stoll. Her lifelong best pal, Mildred Watson Drake,
is also a novelist, but one who grinds out potboiler beach-reads and rakes in
the royalties. Millie is a Barbara
Cartland confection, a reluctant divorcee and the mother of an exuberant
19-year-old, Deidre (Diane Davis).
Deidre, to Millie's horror, idolizes Kit while dismissing her
mother. No one is really happy until the
end, when a sudden, unexpected and unexplainable pairing solves everyone's
problems, if not to their satisfaction.
If no one is really happy, no one is quite
sympathetic either. Colin looks and acts
the part of the bright urbanite, but she holds back the wit and bite to attract
enough interest in her character. As
Millie, Harris seems to have studied the Spring Byington catalogue of fluffy
dames, working for the slapstick rather than the caustic although she has moments
of blatant nastiness that are the delicious high points of the play. Diane Davis portrays the young daughter with
adolescent self-absorption but not much else.
As Kit's young beau, Rudd Kendall, Corey Stoll does not render much
charm or substance. Kit and Rudd do not
display the pizzazz of a popular Manhattan couple. The most sympathetic characters are the
brief appearances of Millie's ex-husband, Preston, played by Stephen Bogardus,
and the wise-cracking maids, Gordana Rashovich and Cynthia Darlow.
Michael Wilson paces the story leisurely with three acts and does not spur the actors to show more spirit. The sets by Alexander Dodge say the most about the characterizations: Kit living in a book-laden, paneled, artsy flat on Washington Square and Millie subletting a Park Avenue duplex glittering like a gold trimmed Versailles wannabe. David Woolard's costumes are dead-on, Kit tailored, Millie in a fashion parade of furs, capes and gowns. Swirly skirts and puffed sleeves illustrate Deidre's girlishness.
Old
Acquaintance was first and last performed on Broadway in 1940, though is
better remembered as the 1943 film adaptation with Bette Davis and Miriam
Hopkins, and as a 1981 remake, Rich and
Famous, starring Candice Bergen and Jacqueline Bisset. While amusing, this current effort falls
short of the witty conversational genre and the blame must go to the leading
stars who merely flicker rather than shine.
Elizabeth Ahlfors
June
30, 2007
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2006 – 2007 SEASON
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The Year of Magical Thinking - April
10, 2007
It's always worth more than
the price of a ticket to see Vanessa Redgrave on stage. When she is appearing in a one-woman play, it
nudges up to a must-see. However, The Year of
Magical Thinking at Broadway's Booth
Theatre loses most of its magical
grip with author Joan Didion's stage version of her best-selling memoir. While Redgrave can read a telephone book
compellingly, this book is better suited for paper than theatre.
It is
a story filtered through the mind and emotions of one of the most talented
writers today, an intelligent, literate, analytical woman searching for the
truth. A gripping, informative memoir on paper,
however, does not always translate smoothly onto the stage. One reason may be that The Year of Magical Thinking is a journey through
a woman's mind and memories. It
has all the elements of heart and drama:
love, death, sudden loss of a husband and child, but the search is cerebral, searches
within a limited sphere from her own point of view, with little variation,
broken up by her compulsion for control through research. Toward the end, even with its brilliant
moments, it unfortunately leads to tedium
Over an hour and a half, Redgrave tells us we
will all experience what she, as Didion, has gone through. She sits on a wooden chair and talks about
her marriage, her family, about coming to terms with her loss, why she feels as
she does, why she remembers what she does.
The sudden death of Didion's husband, writer John Gregory Dunne,
in December 2003, led Didion into her "magical year," driven to remain in control by gathering as
much information as she could. She had
to deal with absence, and its aftermath, including what Didion calls a
"vortex." This is an
unexpected suctioning into a whirlpool of memories, emotions and pain. Didion could not let go of the fact of the
finality of her husband's death. She
explains the "If" thinking -- if you do this, the person will
return. Didion, for example, kept his
shoes, illogically determining that if she did this, he would come back.
While
she tried to make sense of the event, her life was further complicated by the
long illness of her only daughter, Quintana Roo. Shortly after the publication of The Year of Magical Thinking, Quintana
also died. Her death was not included in
the book, but the author includes it in the play. If we've already experienced grief through the loss
of a loved one, we can identify with many of Didion's observations and
emotions, and know that no one has the right to judge how each reacts to this
intensely private situation. Didion is a
contained, thoughtful person; some of the hospital workers saw her as "a
cool customer." Inside, she was
far from "cool."
The play's staging is as Spartan as the
memoirs, with curtains designed by Bob Crowley, dropping periodically behind
Redgrave's chair to indicate new scenes.
Director David Hare retains the restraint of being inside the mind,
keeping Redgrave in her chair until the monologue reaches its end.
"Life changes in the instant,"
Didion wrote in her book. "(The
event) seems like a while ago but it won't when it happens to you… and it will
happen to you," Life as you know it can change on a dime.
Over the years, people find ways to cope, or
they don't. With Vanessa Redgrave's detached recital of Joan Didion's precise,
analytic book, one hears a clear, informative view of one author's
journey. More head than heart, you will
understand Didion's persona, but you probably will not be brushing away tears.
Elizabeth Ahlfors
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Talk Radio - March 2007
Liev
Schreiber is Talk Radio, magnetic in
his malipulative maliciousness, riveting to watch as he dissolves and
re-emerges through moods of anger, humor, restlessness, frustration and
emotional crisis. He is believable in
every utterance, every rant, every twitch.
With dialogue like — "This
country is rotten to the core, this country is in deep trouble. . .and somebody
better do something about it" —
he gets the opportunity to render a tour-de-force in Eric Bogosian's cynical Talk Radio.
Bogosian's
theatrical explosion of ego concentrates on one man, one night, one talk radio
show, but reflects on an entire genre of shock entertainment that continues
today. The show was first performed 20 years ago at the Public Theater, when the author portrayed Cleveland talk-show host Barry Champlain. Bogosian's target
was those self-important talk show hosts, and has now been spruced up by Robert
Falls' lean, mean direction and mainly by Schreiber's star turn.
Barry Champlain is just on the cusp of going
national. He distains everyone,
including his listeners and himself, yet sees himself as omnipotent. Despite his drug abuse, breakdown, and
inevitable self-destructiveness, his radio audience cannot get enough, reveling
as he alternately spews insults, toxic wit, and schmoozes humiliation on the
telephone call-ins. He fills the
in-between moments with vitriolic outbursts, physically twitching, his leg
jumping. He chain-smokes, guzzles coffee
and Jack Daniels, does some coke and swills Pepto Bismol. Off the air, he explodes at the staff. His intensity simmers and bursts, but
Schreiber never loses his grip. Then at
the end, after a barrage of spewing, he breaks apart.
"I
come
in every night, make my case,
make my point, say
what I believe in!
I tell you what you
are.
I have to. I have
no choice.
You frighten
me…"
Realizing
that his ire, his fears, the turmoil all around him, it's all mere
entertainment. He can't speak. For an endless moment, only Schreiber's face
reflects the pain he feels at his inability to articulate. He regains his
speech, but the night is over.
Secondary
characters fill out the evening. Bathed in sudden harsh light, they face and enlighten the audience about Barry
Champlain. It sounds like a good plan,
but serves more as a interruption to the main ring, Champlain himself. They break the momentum of Barry Champlain. He is simply more interesting. Unexplainably, Champlain had managed to attract a
beautiful assistant/girlfriend, Linda, played by Stephanie March. He treats her like dirt, and understandably,
she gets sick of it, but March does not
compellingly capture Linda.
His
longtime friend, Stu, is the airwaves' velvet rope guard, played by Michael
Laurence; his station boss, Dan (Peter Hermann), who
helped form this talkative monster, explains,."I keep him on the track. ... I let him go as fast as he
can."
The set of a Cleveland radio station was designed
efficiently by Mark Wendland, Barry
Champlain's desk with two microphones, backed by a glass-enclosed booth where
we see the technical staff alternately bored and alerted with the live
broadcast.
Several actors provide voices for a parade of
call-ins. The interest level in these
callers runs hot and cold, all pathetic pleadings for attention and egos
demanding equal time. The most memorable
call-in is Kent, played by Sebastian Stan, a moronic kid high on drugs. Champlain invites Kent to the station, but
then does not want to let him in. Their
eventual interaction shows off two characters on parallel babble lines. It's old stuff, but after 20 years, the line, "Your fear, your own lives
have become entertainment" remains
true in an era of celebrity glittering with high wattage on radio and
television, blogs, and media that won't quit.
Liev Schreiber has the role that spotlights
the kind of actor who can grasp the audience by the neck and hold on past the
last dying gasp.
Elizabeth Ahlfors
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Prelude to a Kiss - March
2007
A phonograph player sits centerstage, John Mahoney
stands behind it, listening to Billie Holiday's haunting version of Duke
Ellington/Irving Gordon's tune with the undeniably romantic lyrics:
"Oh! how my love song gently cries for the tenderness within your eyes
My love is a prelude that never dies
A prelude to a kiss."
So begins Craig Lucas' play, Prelude
to a Kiss, currently revived at the
American Airlines Theatre by the Roundabout Theatre Company. An intimate tale, this love story provokes gentle laughter and gentle tears, unveiling a
fantasy sweetness and charm before you sense the stinging poignancy within a
supernatural sheathe.
Originally produced off-Broadway in 1990,
and later on Broadway, the play was in contention for a Pulitzer Prize. Back then its force was believed to be driven
by the AIDS epidemic. Today, with the
epidemic on the back burner, at least in the United States, the driving force
is said to be the dangerous political situation in the world. Whichever way the play affects you, much
credit goes to this production directed by Daniel Sullivan
and its remarkable cast led by Alan Tudyk, Annie Parisse, and John Mahoney and
the love story between them.
Peter (Tudyk) and Rita (Parisse) meet at a cocktail party, a slightly insecure
guy and a goofy girl with nihilistic, socialistic ideas. If opposites attract, their attraction is
instant. They fall in love and Rita
brings Peter home to meet her parents, played with doting and spirited
enthusiasm by James Rebhorn and Robin Bartlett.
A wedding is planned. By this
time, plenty of clues have been planted, indicating physical chemistry, Rita's
quirkiness, pessimism and fears, and Peter's acceptance of everything she
is. All this makes us suspend belief in
the upcoming events. Finally, we
recognize the subtext of human fears.
But first, back to the wedding. Rita is beyond nervous, verging of hysteria,
but the ceremony goes off, albeit shakily.
On one side appears an old man, Julius Becker (John Mahoney),
mysterious, seemingly innocuous, and about to set the whole situation on its
head. While he is not an invited guest,
he asks to kiss the bride for luck. Why
not, it's tradition? As they kiss,
however, they exchange souls.
Immediately, the willowy, freethinking Rita takes on new
characteristics, the old man's brusque masculine movements, conservative ideas
and go-for-broke bravado. Mahoney is
equally on target, deftly exchanging his body language for her delicacy and
speech mannerisms. Both project their
new personalities with believability.
It is not until after their confusing
honeymoon is over that Peter acknowledges that Rita is not herself. Who is she?
He finds out when he goes to the saloon where Rita used to tend bar and
there he meets Becker. Suddenly it is
obvious to him that Rita lives within the body of that stranger.
Authenticating this situation depends on
subtle updating by Craig Lucas, adroit handing by Sullivan, and credible
performances by Parisse, Tudyk and Mahoney.
In this production, Mahoney shines as the emotional core, an old man
coping with lung cancer but projecting an inner sensuality he never
recognized. Mahoney's engaging charm
keeps the play of love and loss aloft, steering clear of melodrama. As the couple in crisis, Parisse and Tudyk are persuasive, Tudyk the
steadying force of the three characters.
Whatever propels the play's purpose, one
point is obvious; life is a mystery, embrace it, get what you can out of
it.
John Mahoney's mysterious old man states,
"Never wish for anything you're not prepared to receive."
He also concludes with tender potency,
"We might as well have a good time while we're here, don't you
think?"
Elizabeth Ahlfors
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Journey's End - February 2007
As wrenching as the visual
bloodbath in films like, Saving Sergeant
Ryan, live theatre can also slam war into the senses with a personal
immediacy. Journey’s End mixes
the trite of war with the terror, always
building the stress of
waiting, frustration, and monotony. You know something is going to happen. The Germans are 70 yards away and closing in,
but with meticulous pacing, director David Grindley keeps the tense momentum for over two hours until all hell
explodes. It continues exploding after
the play ends and the curtain descends, and just past the point when you feel –
"Enough!". It is an impact.
R.C.
Sherriff was a British insurance agent and a veteran of World War I when he wrote Journey’s End. It was first produced in 1929. It is largely conversation, no action, a
repetitive, terse, colloquial account about waiting:
"When anything happens, it happens
quickly. Then we just start waiting again,” says one soldier.
All the time, bombs and gunshots crack the
monotony. The story takes place over
four days in a trench in France, close to the front lines, where a group of soldiers gather and part, have
meals, talk, always aware that an attack, and possibly their death, is
imminent.
Jefferson Mays, given top
billing, has a lesser role, but is wryly compelling as the cook, mixing and serving
unpalatable meals, always with the last word.
Boyd Gaines authoritatively portrays Osborne, a down-to-earth veteran,
nicknamed "Uncle" by the younger men.
He is second-in-command to Captain Stanhope, convincingly played by Hugh Dancy in a
role first performed in a reading by Lawrence Olivier. Stanhope once had all the promise of a leader
but would be totally burned out after three years of war if he were not
self-medicating with alcohol. Stark
Sands is the nervous Raleigh, 18 years old, ready and eager to be in Stanhope
's troop, since Stanhope was his idol in school. As Trotter, John Ahlin portrays a portly easy
going chap, and Justin Blanchard plays
Hibbert, who is pretending pain from neuralgia to get sent home on medical
disability. In a lesser role, Kieran
Campion plays a terror-filled captured German soldier.
This is an ensemble of first-rate portrayals of victims of war's desolation and hardship. The soldiers are all terror-stricken yet they have a duty to perform and responsibilities to each other. Watching them keep, and occasionally lose, that stif