First I read the books. Somewhat reluctantly, I admit. I was worried "Wolf Hall" and it's sequal "Bring Up The Bodies" would read like pop history but to my relief they were enthralling and historically accurate. At least I think they are. In the current (the) Paris Review there is a long and engaging interview with the author of both books, Hilary Mantel in which she claims that they are indeed. The books are narrated in the first person by Thomas Cromwell. Mantel draws us in to the story the fictional story she has created within this context and the books are hard to put down.
This past week I attended both parts of The Royal Shakespeare Company's "Wolf Hall" at the Winter Garden Theatre. Ben Miles, last seen in New York in 2009 in "The Norman Conquests" but best know on this side of the pond as the handsome, not very bright womanizer in the British sitcom "Coupling," is Cromwell.
Ben Miles is remarkable. Since the books are a kind of interior monologue, as Cromwell (or as Anne calls him "Crumwheel") he commands the stage for the entirety of the plays. Historically we know that Cromwell was a common man, the son of a blacksmith, who lifted himself up through his intelligence and shrewd business dealings to become Henry VIII's confident and chief advisor. Although Miles is not an especially large man, on stage he creates the aura of being a massive presence, both physically and intellectually. His Cromwell has the magnetism, present in the books, that draws both friends and enemies to him and the thick skin necessary to survive at court. And everyone is a little in love with him, including Henry.
The performances are all pretty perfect. Nathaniel Parker is mercurial and imposing as Henry and Lydia Leonard the most devious Anne one would want to imagine. I also especially liked Leah Brotherhead's layered and complicated Jane Seymour. But the standout in Part I is John Ramm as the self-flagulating religious scholar, and eventually Lord Chancellor, Thomas More. More loses favor with Henry at the end of Part I when he refuses to accept Anne Boleyn as Henry's queen and as a result is headless in Part II. Our loss.
But it really Ben Miles' play, as it should be.
Monday, March 30, 2015
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
"The Tallest Tree in the Forest"
I wish I could say that I loved "The Tallest Tree in the Forest" but I can't. I wanted to. A play about the great black actor and activist Paul Robeson, directed by Moises Kaufman, should be right up my alley. Unfortunately I do not respond well to one-man/woman shows no matter how talented the actor, in this case Daniel Beaty.
Beaty makes for a splendid Robeson. He can sing. He has a voice to match Robeson's own and the songs were pure bliss to listen to, accompanied as he is by a small group of excellent musicians on-stage throughout the two hour performance. He can act, as he proves to us as he vocally cycles through multiple characters who touched on Robeson's life. I wish he hadn't. I wish he had stuck to being Robeson and had a few other actors to play these roles. I suppose one reason for this may be that Daniel Beaty is a good deal shorter than Robeson was and, as such, this would have presented some problems in casting. But there were too many characters for him to play and it was confusing, many of them sounding too much alike.
The play is also too linear for my taste. We get the full progression of Robeson's life from boy to husband to successful actor, singer and activist and on to his old age, alone and defeated. But even with the seemingly detailed progression of his life important chunks are left out. His work with O'Neill on "All God's Chillun Got Wings" is in but not the more important "The Emperor Jones," for example.
What does work though is when he addresses Robeson's political beliefs: his journey to The Soviet Union through war-time Berlin, his appearance before the House Un-American Activities and the ambiguity of his relationship with the Soviet Union once his Jewish friends there begin to be persecuted. The moral dilemna for him is whether he can criticize the country where he, a black man, feels equal even as others are made to feel they are not. Now this is the play about Robeson I wanted to see.
Beaty makes for a splendid Robeson. He can sing. He has a voice to match Robeson's own and the songs were pure bliss to listen to, accompanied as he is by a small group of excellent musicians on-stage throughout the two hour performance. He can act, as he proves to us as he vocally cycles through multiple characters who touched on Robeson's life. I wish he hadn't. I wish he had stuck to being Robeson and had a few other actors to play these roles. I suppose one reason for this may be that Daniel Beaty is a good deal shorter than Robeson was and, as such, this would have presented some problems in casting. But there were too many characters for him to play and it was confusing, many of them sounding too much alike.
The play is also too linear for my taste. We get the full progression of Robeson's life from boy to husband to successful actor, singer and activist and on to his old age, alone and defeated. But even with the seemingly detailed progression of his life important chunks are left out. His work with O'Neill on "All God's Chillun Got Wings" is in but not the more important "The Emperor Jones," for example.
What does work though is when he addresses Robeson's political beliefs: his journey to The Soviet Union through war-time Berlin, his appearance before the House Un-American Activities and the ambiguity of his relationship with the Soviet Union once his Jewish friends there begin to be persecuted. The moral dilemna for him is whether he can criticize the country where he, a black man, feels equal even as others are made to feel they are not. Now this is the play about Robeson I wanted to see.
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Muldoon's Picnic
About a week ago, on March 9th, I went to Muldoon's Picnic at the Irish Arts Center, my first event to which I was invited as a blogger! Thank you, Louise. The Picnic is the creation of Paul Muldoon, the acclaimed Irish poet who has taught at Princeton for almost three decades. He has begun staging this event several times a year at The Irish Arts Center. The upside is all the wonderful talent involved. The downside is that there is no food, kind of bad form for an event billed as a picnic!
The line-up this past Monday included the following: Paul Muldoon doing a spoken word homage to his wife's shopping habits, Muldoon's teenage son Asher and Sammy Grob performing songs from their nascent musical "Poesical the Moesical", the black poet and poetry editor of the Harvard Review Major Jackson, the band Wayside Shrines, Irish comic writer Kevin Barry, Michael Cerveris (currently appearing in the Broadway musical "Fun Home") and Loose Cattle.
The joint was packed and a rollicking time was had by all. Muldoon is a deft hand at juggling acts, including splitting the reading of Kevin Barry's comic murder mystery in 17 short chapters "Ox Mountain Death Song" into two parts, read before and after the intermission. This, for me, was the highlight of the evening. Barry is a marvelous reader and brought his odd and unusual characters to life in an audacious manner. I suggest that, in addition to seeking out his books in print("Ox Mountain Death Song" was published in the New Yorker), it would be worthwhile to hunt out podcasts because to hear him read is half the fun.
Major Jackson teaches poetry at the University of Vermont and Bennington but his poetry skips between Vermont where he teaches, Harlem where he grew up and Florida where his wife lives. His poems focus on race and sex and the human condition; his readings fluid and imbued with humor.
The songs performed from "Poesical the Moesical" were far more sophisticated than one would expect from teenagers. Asher and Sammy had a great patter going that brought to my mind the Rat Pack. They have an act that is a throwback to that time but simultaneously smart and timely.
Both bands were great fun. Ceveris and Loose Cattle have a great Cajun feel but the Princeton-based Wayside Shrines with whom Muldoon also performs are pure Hell's Kitchen Irish.
Muldoon didn't put a lot of emphasis on his own poetry, choosing to yield the spotlight to the rest of the performers more often than not but his spoken word paean to a man imprisoned in Asia for trying to satisfy his wife's designer shopping itch was hilarious.
The Irish Arts Center is west of 10th Avenue on 51st Street. The next one is scheduled for April 13th and will feature Mary Karr. Buy your tickets early. It is worth the hike.http://www.irishartscenter.org/literature/muldoons_picnic_4_13_15.html
The line-up this past Monday included the following: Paul Muldoon doing a spoken word homage to his wife's shopping habits, Muldoon's teenage son Asher and Sammy Grob performing songs from their nascent musical "Poesical the Moesical", the black poet and poetry editor of the Harvard Review Major Jackson, the band Wayside Shrines, Irish comic writer Kevin Barry, Michael Cerveris (currently appearing in the Broadway musical "Fun Home") and Loose Cattle.
The joint was packed and a rollicking time was had by all. Muldoon is a deft hand at juggling acts, including splitting the reading of Kevin Barry's comic murder mystery in 17 short chapters "Ox Mountain Death Song" into two parts, read before and after the intermission. This, for me, was the highlight of the evening. Barry is a marvelous reader and brought his odd and unusual characters to life in an audacious manner. I suggest that, in addition to seeking out his books in print("Ox Mountain Death Song" was published in the New Yorker), it would be worthwhile to hunt out podcasts because to hear him read is half the fun.
Major Jackson teaches poetry at the University of Vermont and Bennington but his poetry skips between Vermont where he teaches, Harlem where he grew up and Florida where his wife lives. His poems focus on race and sex and the human condition; his readings fluid and imbued with humor.
The songs performed from "Poesical the Moesical" were far more sophisticated than one would expect from teenagers. Asher and Sammy had a great patter going that brought to my mind the Rat Pack. They have an act that is a throwback to that time but simultaneously smart and timely.
Both bands were great fun. Ceveris and Loose Cattle have a great Cajun feel but the Princeton-based Wayside Shrines with whom Muldoon also performs are pure Hell's Kitchen Irish.
Muldoon didn't put a lot of emphasis on his own poetry, choosing to yield the spotlight to the rest of the performers more often than not but his spoken word paean to a man imprisoned in Asia for trying to satisfy his wife's designer shopping itch was hilarious.
The Irish Arts Center is west of 10th Avenue on 51st Street. The next one is scheduled for April 13th and will feature Mary Karr. Buy your tickets early. It is worth the hike.http://www.irishartscenter.org/literature/muldoons_picnic_4_13_15.html
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