Such a lot to blog on!
"Indecent," the new musical on Broadway written by Paula Vogel and directed by Rebecca Taichman is a masterful ensemble retelling of Sholem Asch's "God of Vengeance" from early in the 20th Century. The Bohemian play about two Jewish women who fall in love was shocking in it's time but did not prevent it from becoming a huge success in Europe and on the Lower East Side and Greenwich Village. However when it moved to Broadway the actors were locked up for indecency. It's hard to even imagine that happening today. The current ensemble can fear not.
Currently on the stage at the National Theatre in London, "Consent" is a smart play about the ramifications of rape in and out of a marriage. The play by Nina Raines, who wrote "Tribes" which had a run at the Barrow Street Theatre in 2012, addresses marriage, rape and the legal system in Britain. There are two couples and a friend who experience the vicissitudes of marriage to different ends. Three of the characters are lawyers hence the legal angle. The play is a dance of shifting perspectives and longings and unhappiness. Roger Michell has deftly directed the cast which includes Ben Chaplan and Anna Maxwell Martin as the unhappy couple at the center.
Meanwhile at Le Theatre du Rond Point in Paris, the Argentine actress of a certain age Marilu Marini is a tour de force in La Journee d'Une Reveuse (Et Autres Moments) a one-woman show that combines two of her countryman Copi's texts. Copi, the nom de plume of the outrageous and profane Argentine artist, writer and playwright Raul Damonte Botana, spent his whole career in Paris where he died of Aids in 1987. He was for years a cartoonist for Le Nouvel Observateur but he was also also a playwright whose work was most influenced by Beckett. The most unusual and satisfying thing about this production that explores his life is that he is portrayed by a 71 year-old woman who was his close friend and it works. In her portrayal we might forget for moment here and there that Copi was a man but Copi would most likely have been pleased with this.
The Irish playwright Enda Walsh's "Arlington" at St. Ann's Warehouse starts off brilliantly but stalls about a third of the way in. I'm hooked on Charlie Murphy, the British actress who embodies Isla, a young woman condemned to live her days alone in a room in a tower somewhere in the future and who's every movement is monitored by an unseen ( to her) man. Her movements are at once awkward and voluptuous. She gorgeous to behold. We know there will be a bad end but we can almost believe that she can seduce her way out. And so she does... but she is so crippled by her existence in that room that she cannot get far. Unfortunately we lose interest when she leaves the stage. Even though the dancer who embodies her in the second section is technically a marvel, she is not "her" and this section doesn't add anything to the play. Walsh should have left the play to Charlie Murphy.
Suzan-Lori Parks' "Venus" at the Signature Theatre was a bit of a disappointment for me. I keep waiting for her to top, or even match, the brilliant "Father Comes Home From The War (Parts 1,2 and 3)." This story of the Venus Hottentot, embodied here by the excellent Zainab Jah, who was brought to England from South Africa with the promise of great wealth but became a freak show attraction and later a scientific subject because of her enormous buttocks, fails to gel. The bodysuit, however, is perfection and the theatrical device of having the actress climb into it at the beginning of the play eases any possible embarrassment the audience might have in ogling her "naked" body. I did a little research afterward and discovered that Parks has taken great liberties with the story which seems to me to be another kind of exploitation. Judge for yourself.
Another disappointment, for me at least, is Kate Hamill's "Vanity Fair" at the Pearl Theatre. Don't be duped into thinking that this is a Bedlam production, the company that produced her brilliant "Sense and Sensibility, even though the style of the production is very like Bedlam and several of the performers overlap. I wait with baited breath for her "Pride and Prejudice" which Bedlam will produce next year. The performances with Hamill as Becky Sharp are excellent but Thackeray's tale is too dark for the light treatment given here by Eric Tucker. I would however like to single out the Joey Parsons who plays Becky's friend Amelia. Watch for her...
