Reader, I walked out... Ayad Akhtar's newest offering, "Junk" at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center, does not feel new at all. The play, directed by Doug Hughes and starring the terrific musical actor Steven Pasquale, means to transport us back to the 80's junk bond madness. Instead of transporting us, however, it mires us in a swamp of stagnant writing and direction. I spent much of the first act bored with the action and observing the badly tailored suits the actors. These "masters of the universe" would have been wearing beautifully fitted bespoke attire. That I had so much time to obsess on the suits is.. . well... you get where I'm going. Last thought: Steven Pasquale dropped out of the Encore's production of "Brigadoon" at City Center with Kelli O'Hara. Mistake.
At the other end of the spectrum, Manual Cinema's "Mementos Mori" at BAM Fisher is delightful. The small stage is awash in screens, lighting equipment and projectors, the kind used in schools in the 60's and 70's before the advent of computers and white boards. The stage has the feel of a low-budget movie set gone wild. Actors interact with the shadow puppets, cinematic techniques, sound and even live music played on stage by a trio of very talented and versatile musicians. At the start this shadow puppet mystery feels creaky and old fashioned but the company draws us into the fast paced story of love, loneliness and death. More please.
Then there is "Office Hour" by Julie Cho and directed by Neel Keller at The Public Theatre. Sue Jean Kim as Gina is superb as an adjunct professor of creative writing at a minor university who tries to connect to a student, played serviceably by Ki Hong Lee. However the framing of the play is tedious and unnecessary, beginning with two other adjunct teachers warning Gina to be careful of a withdrawn student in her class whose writing is violent and often shocking. Cho ought to have contained the play to the office hour of the title. "Office Hour" only truly comes alive when Cho plays out the possible scenarios that could happen during that hour between a professor and a possibly violent student alone in a room in an empty building. I'll leave those to your imagination. Cho weakens this with the final scene of the play, an encounter with one of the other adjuncts, a poor and necessary framing device.
"Illyria," also at The Public, written and directed by Richard Nelson (he, of the well acted but excruciatingly dull Apple and Gabriel plays) is divine. Nelson creates imaginary scenes between Joe Papp and a coterie of actors, directors and others as Papp tries to create what would become The Public Theater. The time is1958. We are behind the scenes as Papp and his motley crew which includes a young Colleen Dewhurst, composer David Amram and stage manager Bernie Gersten as they do battle with the city to keep Shakespeare free in Central Park, face down the House of Un-American Activities Committee and attempt to remain friends with each other. The play intentionally models itself on the mumble core movies of the 90's which is not necessarily the smartest move. I get the intent to create intimacy with quiet naturalistic dialogue but several of the older audience members at the performance I attended left mid-play because they couldn't hear (despite the flock of mikes hanging on threads over the actors head)s. But I liked it, I really did, especially the performance of the John Magaro as an extremely cranky and domineering Papp.
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
Monday, October 9, 2017
September is Dust
September flew by with nary a post from your truly.
Although I loved Simon Stephens' "Heisenberg" last year at MTC, his earlier play "On The Shores of the Wide World" now playing at The Atlantic Theatre Company is not in the same league. That two character play was structurally tight and marvelously acted by Mary-Louise Parker and Denis Arndt. The problem with the Atlantic production may be that Neil Pepe, who has a history of directing Mamet, Guare and other specifically American playwrights, isn't able to capture the rhythms of this British playwright. But he also has a sprawling multi-character landscape to cover. This lack of capture extends to the unevenness of the Manchester accents by the American cast, who are otherwise faultless. The one stand-out performance comes from Tedra Milla's Sarah, the hyperactive girlfriend of Alex, the young man at the center of the play. Milla was excellent as #47 in Sarah DeLappe's "The Wolves" last year and she will appear in it again in the Lincoln Center revival of that play later this fall. My other quibble with the play is the title which takes its name from a sonnet by Keats and really has nothing to do with anything except that I expect the playwright liked the sonnet and found a way to force it into the play. The play would have been more aptly titled "Manchester."
"Mary Jane" at NYTW is a powerful play about a single woman coping with raising a severely disabled child. Written by Amy Herzog whose previous play "4,000 Miles" at Lincoln Center was a bit wobbly, and directed by Anne Kauffman, the play is a complicated puzzle of connecting pieces. Carrie Coon is heart-breaking as Mary Jane but each of the supporting cast delivers multiple jewel-like performances. The play will tear you apart but also give you hope in humanity.
The Elevator Repair Service production of "Measure for Measure" at the Public is as unusual as what one expects from them. They take classic works and twist them around, stand them on their heads and just generally have fun with them. It would be hard to measure up to their seven hour reading of The Great Gatsby, "Gatz," and this doesn't, but I forgive them. They make Shakespeare contemporary even if their line readings are sometimes hard to understand. The essence of the play remains and it's a rollicking good time. A shout out to Scott Shepherd who was the narrator (reader?) in "Gatz" and here plays The Duke.
Further downtown at The Flea's new theatre is "Inanimate." Courtney Ulrich directs a dextrous young cast, who all come out of The Flea's acting program. Nick Robideau's adventurous and somewhat experimental play is about a young woman who loves inanimate objects. Apparently this is a thing. Lacy Allen makes Erica's proclivity for inanimate objects believable and the supporting cast plays multiple roles from the Dunkin' Donuts neon sign that she is in love with and an Oxo can opener to the actual human beings in her life who love her.
The revivals of "Cafe Muller" and "The Rite of Spring" presented by the Tanztheatre Wuppertal Pina Bausch at the BAM Opera House is missing Pina (who died two years ago) and the humor the company that she amassed over the years brought to her work. While I am happy that her work continues to live on, the young dancers in these revivals, many of whom probably never worked with her, are lacking the quirkiness and humor necessary to take the works to the next level.
I'd also like to mention Bill T. Jones excellent "Letter to My Nephew" at BAM Harvey, a dance piece that delivers on a visceral level. Jones is an angry gay, black man as well as a citizen of the world. "Letter to My Nephew" addresses racism, homophobia, gentrification, natural disasters and the recent killings in Las Vegas through dance, song and multi-media projections. The dancing is exquisite. The message is powerful. A brave piece.
I was disappointed in Maira Kalman and John Heginbotham's multi-media "The Principles of Uncertainty" based on her blog of the same name for The New Yorker at BAM Fisher. Too much Dance Heginbotham, too little Maira Kalman.
But it was Matthew Aucoin's opera "Crossing" at the BAM Opera House that almost made me want to weep at it's awfulness. Directed by Diane Paulus, "Crossing" is based on Walt Whitman's diaries from his time nursing soldiers during the Civil War. The theme of the opera comes from Whitman's poem "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry": "What is it, then, between us?" Whitman's sexuality is widely speculated about and Aucoin takes the opportunity to create a love story between middle-aged Whitman and one of the wounded young soldiers. Instead of leading us to a greater understanding of Whitman and his sexuallity, he comes across as a creepy pedophile. The music I can't comment on, not having enough understanding of opera.
Although I loved Simon Stephens' "Heisenberg" last year at MTC, his earlier play "On The Shores of the Wide World" now playing at The Atlantic Theatre Company is not in the same league. That two character play was structurally tight and marvelously acted by Mary-Louise Parker and Denis Arndt. The problem with the Atlantic production may be that Neil Pepe, who has a history of directing Mamet, Guare and other specifically American playwrights, isn't able to capture the rhythms of this British playwright. But he also has a sprawling multi-character landscape to cover. This lack of capture extends to the unevenness of the Manchester accents by the American cast, who are otherwise faultless. The one stand-out performance comes from Tedra Milla's Sarah, the hyperactive girlfriend of Alex, the young man at the center of the play. Milla was excellent as #47 in Sarah DeLappe's "The Wolves" last year and she will appear in it again in the Lincoln Center revival of that play later this fall. My other quibble with the play is the title which takes its name from a sonnet by Keats and really has nothing to do with anything except that I expect the playwright liked the sonnet and found a way to force it into the play. The play would have been more aptly titled "Manchester."
"Mary Jane" at NYTW is a powerful play about a single woman coping with raising a severely disabled child. Written by Amy Herzog whose previous play "4,000 Miles" at Lincoln Center was a bit wobbly, and directed by Anne Kauffman, the play is a complicated puzzle of connecting pieces. Carrie Coon is heart-breaking as Mary Jane but each of the supporting cast delivers multiple jewel-like performances. The play will tear you apart but also give you hope in humanity.
The Elevator Repair Service production of "Measure for Measure" at the Public is as unusual as what one expects from them. They take classic works and twist them around, stand them on their heads and just generally have fun with them. It would be hard to measure up to their seven hour reading of The Great Gatsby, "Gatz," and this doesn't, but I forgive them. They make Shakespeare contemporary even if their line readings are sometimes hard to understand. The essence of the play remains and it's a rollicking good time. A shout out to Scott Shepherd who was the narrator (reader?) in "Gatz" and here plays The Duke.
Further downtown at The Flea's new theatre is "Inanimate." Courtney Ulrich directs a dextrous young cast, who all come out of The Flea's acting program. Nick Robideau's adventurous and somewhat experimental play is about a young woman who loves inanimate objects. Apparently this is a thing. Lacy Allen makes Erica's proclivity for inanimate objects believable and the supporting cast plays multiple roles from the Dunkin' Donuts neon sign that she is in love with and an Oxo can opener to the actual human beings in her life who love her.
The revivals of "Cafe Muller" and "The Rite of Spring" presented by the Tanztheatre Wuppertal Pina Bausch at the BAM Opera House is missing Pina (who died two years ago) and the humor the company that she amassed over the years brought to her work. While I am happy that her work continues to live on, the young dancers in these revivals, many of whom probably never worked with her, are lacking the quirkiness and humor necessary to take the works to the next level.
I'd also like to mention Bill T. Jones excellent "Letter to My Nephew" at BAM Harvey, a dance piece that delivers on a visceral level. Jones is an angry gay, black man as well as a citizen of the world. "Letter to My Nephew" addresses racism, homophobia, gentrification, natural disasters and the recent killings in Las Vegas through dance, song and multi-media projections. The dancing is exquisite. The message is powerful. A brave piece.
I was disappointed in Maira Kalman and John Heginbotham's multi-media "The Principles of Uncertainty" based on her blog of the same name for The New Yorker at BAM Fisher. Too much Dance Heginbotham, too little Maira Kalman.
But it was Matthew Aucoin's opera "Crossing" at the BAM Opera House that almost made me want to weep at it's awfulness. Directed by Diane Paulus, "Crossing" is based on Walt Whitman's diaries from his time nursing soldiers during the Civil War. The theme of the opera comes from Whitman's poem "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry": "What is it, then, between us?" Whitman's sexuality is widely speculated about and Aucoin takes the opportunity to create a love story between middle-aged Whitman and one of the wounded young soldiers. Instead of leading us to a greater understanding of Whitman and his sexuallity, he comes across as a creepy pedophile. The music I can't comment on, not having enough understanding of opera.
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