Thrilling Heights and Disappointments

I had the real pleasure to see David Tennant exercise his acting muscle as "Richard II" at BAM last week.  Those of you who know him only from his stint as the 7th(?) "Dr. Who"  and/or the widely acclaimed but somewhat disappointing British and American versions of "Broadchurch" on television, would have been amazed to see his transformation into probably the nuttiest king in the Shakespeare History plays. He devastates.  Is that a verb?  We watch as he morphs from a spoiled foppish king to one, who at his death, might have been a real power.   When, upon his return from battles in Ireland, he finds has been conquered by his cousin, the future Henry IV, he realizes for perhaps the first time that he is mortal: "For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings..."

Alex Hassell was excellent as well as the young king in "Henry V" although the play is all battle and not to everyone's taste. Henry V was the human king as opposed to Richard II's spoiled popinjay and Henry VI's brutish conqueror. In "Henry VI" parts 1 and 2 (which I did not see this time around having just seen Harriet Walter in Phyllida Lloyd's inventive all-female production at Saint Ann's Warehouse) Prince Hal matures from a feckless boy to the king he will become in "Henry V." He was the people's king and we finally get a taste of this in "Henry V" when he visits his dispirited men on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt in disguise.  He brings with him "a little touch of Harry in the night" and it is enough to lift them up to win one of the great military battles in English History.

Both productions from the RSC are well if not exactly imaginatively directed by Gregory Doran and the performances were all excellent except for a few scenes with a mumbling Jane Lapotaire as Queen Isobel in "Henry V" who unfortunately seems past her sell-by date. She fared slightly better as the Duchess of Gloucester in "Richard II."  Oliver Ford Davies was a curious but fine Chorus in "Henry V" shambling on an off the stage in professorial gear, a baggy sweater and glasses, which was not in keeping with the otherwise period aspect of the play.  And I did quite enjoy the Elizabethan music that framed both plays, especially the three Sopranos in "Richard II."

On a low note, Anne Washburn's "Antlia Pneumatica" (literally "Air Pump", don't ask) at Playwright's Horizons was a disappointment.  Washburn's "10 Out of 12" at Soho Rep was one of my top three favorite plays last year.  Unfortunately "Antlia Pneumatica,"  friends gathering at a country house to memorialize a dead friend as in "The Big Chill," seemed directionless.  I enjoyed the first half of the play because her characters are always so unique and wonderful and her dialogue is snappy but the play went nowhere really and the ending, or lack thereof, left the audience confused.  Perhaps that was her intention but for the purposes of this play it didn't cut it.   The performances were mostly excellent, especially Annie Parisse as Nina,  but Rob Campbell as Adrian, her one-time lover, wasn't able to deliver on the charisma that his character required. The character was also saddled with a bizarre Sam Shepard-like monologue that he couldn't quite finesse.

I'm afraid the "Revolt, She Said" by Alice Birch at the Soho Rep was a complete mess, a feministic harangue with, once again, a trashing of the stage.  Hellooooo???  Directors????  Find some other way to depict chaos please.  This is getting really old.

Ivo does Salem and Ed Harris is Buried

I think I'm going soft.  I'm starting to like Ivo Van Hove.  After his disastrous production of "The Misanthrope" at NYTW in 2007 I thought I couldn't be dragged to another play under his direction. But in 2012, as a member of BAM, I attended a dress rehearsal of  his modernistic interpretation of "The Roman Tragedies" of Shakespeare which I didn't hate. Last year I was willing to give his Antigone a try but was left baffled by his direction. Then, on the recommendation of several friends I saw his "A View From The Bridge" on Broadway.  I was almost blown away.  I say "almost" because I didn't like his cartoonish over-sexualization of the relationship between Eddie and his niece Katherine and I think he went over the top at the end with the symbolic gallons of red paint thrown about the stage.  But "The Crucible" is nearly perfect.  Except for the moment when he decides to have an evil wind blow trash all over the stage (where it remains for the rest of the play) the direction is tight.  Once again, he transports the production to more modern times. Many of the scenes take place in what looks like a classroom, the girls dressed like Catholic schoolgirls.  The sets, however, are minimal, as in his other productions.  I'm personally a fan of this approach to set design because it does not detract from the play and the acting.  The acting was exquisite.  If I were to single out any performances it would be those of Sophie Okonedo as Elizabeth Proctor,  Ben Whishaw as John Proctor, Ciaran Hinds as  Deputy Governor Danforth and Bill Camp as the Reverend John Hale.  Saoirse Ronan, who I think is an immensely like-able and talented young actress, is very good but she and the other girls are almost incidental to the play once events are set in motion.  O.K. Ivo, you have won me over.

On the heals of this I attended The New Group's revival of Sam Shepard's 1978 play "Buried Child" with Ed Harris as the patriarch Dodge.  Fortunately for us, Dodge is on stage for the entirety of the play but the play is a mess and some of the performances are major league fails.  Amy Madigan is wooden as Dodge's narcissistic wife Halie and Taissa Farmiga's shrill Shelly is genuinely embarrassing to watch. Neither actress knows how to connect on stage.  They deliver their lines to the air.  But Ed Harris can always draw me in and he is brilliant at Shepard's long rambling monologues, no wonder since he has been acting Shepard since in the beginning of his own career.

I saw again Julian Sands' "A Celebration of Harold Pinter" directed by John Malcovich at The Irish Rep which was well worth seeing for a second time although The Irish Rep is in a temporary space and the current venue did not do the piece any favors.  The play is a mix of Pinter's poems, essays and Sands' own recollections.  The first time I saw it was in a dark room where Sands was spotlit as he moved around the stage, shifting from one one poem or recollection to another.  In the current space which feels like a school auditorium the house lights were on throughout and there was no distance from Sands/Pinter.  I felt it diminished the performance.

I'm also delighted to say that I was fortunate enough to have tickets to the David Bowie Tribute at Carnegie Hall on March 31st.  The all star line-up included Ricky Lee Jones, Anne Wilson from Heart, Debbie Harry, Sean Lennon and Jacob Dylan, but the highlight of the night for me was Michael Stipe and Karen Elson's quietly eerie rendition of Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes."