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."
Wednesday, April 6, 2016
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
Laurie Anderson Crashes Muldoon's Picnic
To see Laurie Anderson perform in such an intimate setting is a joy. I have only ever seen her before from way up or back in big venues such as the BAM Opera House (Moby Dick) or the Rose Theatre at Lincoln Center. She appeared smaller than I had thought but her music and words were so much more powerful in that small space. Accompanying herself on electric violin she began with a humorous story about a correspondence she had as a 12 year old with then Senator Jack Kennedy but moved on to recounting a stay with an Amish family in Pennsylvania with a chilling ending about how we teach children to trade affection for favors.
Also appearing were the poet Timothy Donnelly, musician Mark Mulcahy frontman of the bands Miracle Legion and Polaris and Cait O'Riordan founding member and bass player for the London-Irish band The Pogues. And, of course, Paul Muldoon and his house band Rogue Oliphant.
Muldoon was curiously absent for most of the evening, although he did begin with one of his spoken word poems, this time with some awkward rhymes(which he acknowledged).
Tim Donnelly began with the poem Malamute published in The New Yorker and ended with his ode to Diet Mountain Dew also recently in The New Yorker, both humorous and clever and delivered as spoken word. But I was more struck by his sweet ode to love called The New Intelligence from his book The Cloud Corporation:
"I love that when I call you on the long drab days practicality
keeps one of us away from the other that I am calling
a person so beautiful to me that she has seen my awkwardness
on the actual sidewalk but she still answers anyway."
A bearlike, bearded Mark Mulcahy performed two soft and dreamy songs about his mother, Esther, on his mind because it was her birthday. "It's for the Best" were his mother's words after the death of his father. Cait O'Riordan sang a rousing version of "Kitty Ricketts" accompanied by Mulcahy and Rogue Oliphant who also had the opportunity to play a couple of their own songs.
Laurie Anderson returned with a dark, cautionary piece where she changed her voice electronically to become Donald Trump. She then joined in with the rest of the musicians for a final number, a duet that Muldoon had written for O'Riordan and Mulcahy.
Although there were shouts of "Encore! Encore!" from the audience, it was a wrap.
I encourage you to attend the next Muldoon's Picnic on Monday, April 11th, 7:30 when Book Prize-winning Author Anne Enright, A.M. Homes and Pulitizer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa will be performing. But book early! This Monday's Picnic was sold out!
http://irishartscenter.org/literature/muldoons_picnic_4_11_16.html
Also appearing were the poet Timothy Donnelly, musician Mark Mulcahy frontman of the bands Miracle Legion and Polaris and Cait O'Riordan founding member and bass player for the London-Irish band The Pogues. And, of course, Paul Muldoon and his house band Rogue Oliphant.
Muldoon was curiously absent for most of the evening, although he did begin with one of his spoken word poems, this time with some awkward rhymes(which he acknowledged).
Tim Donnelly began with the poem Malamute published in The New Yorker and ended with his ode to Diet Mountain Dew also recently in The New Yorker, both humorous and clever and delivered as spoken word. But I was more struck by his sweet ode to love called The New Intelligence from his book The Cloud Corporation:
"I love that when I call you on the long drab days practicality
keeps one of us away from the other that I am calling
a person so beautiful to me that she has seen my awkwardness
on the actual sidewalk but she still answers anyway."
A bearlike, bearded Mark Mulcahy performed two soft and dreamy songs about his mother, Esther, on his mind because it was her birthday. "It's for the Best" were his mother's words after the death of his father. Cait O'Riordan sang a rousing version of "Kitty Ricketts" accompanied by Mulcahy and Rogue Oliphant who also had the opportunity to play a couple of their own songs.
Laurie Anderson returned with a dark, cautionary piece where she changed her voice electronically to become Donald Trump. She then joined in with the rest of the musicians for a final number, a duet that Muldoon had written for O'Riordan and Mulcahy.
Although there were shouts of "Encore! Encore!" from the audience, it was a wrap.
I encourage you to attend the next Muldoon's Picnic on Monday, April 11th, 7:30 when Book Prize-winning Author Anne Enright, A.M. Homes and Pulitizer Prize-winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa will be performing. But book early! This Monday's Picnic was sold out!
http://irishartscenter.org/literature/muldoons_picnic_4_11_16.html
Monday, March 14, 2016
I'll Never Love Again
A visit to the Bushwick Starr is a bit like falling down the rabbit hole, beginning with the journey there on the L train. The small theatre is located in a tenement-like apartment building reached by a dingy set of stairs, down a hallway, passing a sign that reads "Out of respect for our neighbors please keep volume to the minimum while hanging out in the hallway " and through a door into a darkly lit room. We are here to see Clare Barron's latest work, culled from her diary. When last I saw one of her plays it was the brilliant "You Got Older," in my opinion, along with Ann Washburn's "10 Out of 12," one of the two best plays of 2015, both reviewed on this blog. Now Barron dares to go deeper.
I'm sure that many of us kept diaries when we 16. Perhaps we destroyed these diaries later in life out of embarrassment. Thank God Clare Barron did not. "I'll Never Love Again," her diary from that year, recounts her sexual awaking as told by a literal chorus of actors, all Clare, through monologues and group performances of tunes like "The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond." We feel the angst of a 16 year old girl through these many lenses. It is raw; it is painful; it is joyous.
And what an oddly assorted array of actors we have here. There is an extraordinarily tall man with a shaved head and red beard, a middle aged Asian woman, a pop-eyed young woman with Mamie Eisenhower bangs and a voluptuous African-American. These are only a few of those who make up the cast, each startlingly different from each other. While I hesitate to single out individual performances, I have to note those of Nanah Mensah, Kate Benson, Mia Katigbak and Clare Barron herself who engages in the most excruciating and real deflowering I have seen on stage or screen.
Cut to 2012, Clare at 26 played by Nanah Mensah is an office worker. We are introduced to the 14 year old Oona (a fine Oona Montandon) who has come to meet her mom's partner who is taking her to an event celbrating the Mayan Apolcalypse, a phenomenon with which Clare's younger self had been obsessed. Clare unsuccessfully tries to advise and encourage Oona on how to cope with high school and adolescence (because we know so well how Clare fared with that). And then on to a monologue by the middle-aged actress Mia Katigbak as the 26-year-old Clare describing a time in which "things fell apart" in her life and, it would seem, in the world at large. But in the end she says, "Each year I understood more songs." And so goes the world of Clare Barron.
The inspired direction is by Michael Leibenluft; Stephanie Johnstone is the show's composer and music director, and the Alice in Wonderland-like set is by Carolyn Mraz.
I'm sure that many of us kept diaries when we 16. Perhaps we destroyed these diaries later in life out of embarrassment. Thank God Clare Barron did not. "I'll Never Love Again," her diary from that year, recounts her sexual awaking as told by a literal chorus of actors, all Clare, through monologues and group performances of tunes like "The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond." We feel the angst of a 16 year old girl through these many lenses. It is raw; it is painful; it is joyous.
And what an oddly assorted array of actors we have here. There is an extraordinarily tall man with a shaved head and red beard, a middle aged Asian woman, a pop-eyed young woman with Mamie Eisenhower bangs and a voluptuous African-American. These are only a few of those who make up the cast, each startlingly different from each other. While I hesitate to single out individual performances, I have to note those of Nanah Mensah, Kate Benson, Mia Katigbak and Clare Barron herself who engages in the most excruciating and real deflowering I have seen on stage or screen.
Cut to 2012, Clare at 26 played by Nanah Mensah is an office worker. We are introduced to the 14 year old Oona (a fine Oona Montandon) who has come to meet her mom's partner who is taking her to an event celbrating the Mayan Apolcalypse, a phenomenon with which Clare's younger self had been obsessed. Clare unsuccessfully tries to advise and encourage Oona on how to cope with high school and adolescence (because we know so well how Clare fared with that). And then on to a monologue by the middle-aged actress Mia Katigbak as the 26-year-old Clare describing a time in which "things fell apart" in her life and, it would seem, in the world at large. But in the end she says, "Each year I understood more songs." And so goes the world of Clare Barron.
The inspired direction is by Michael Leibenluft; Stephanie Johnstone is the show's composer and music director, and the Alice in Wonderland-like set is by Carolyn Mraz.
Thursday, March 10, 2016
Between New York and Death Valley
I'm still trying to tie my feelings about the the recent Civilians production of "Rimbaud in New York," written and directed by Steve Cosson, at the BAM Fisher in with their most excellent, brave and exciting production of "Paris Commune" of a few years ago. " Paris Commune" was a brilliantly conceived and beautiful experimental theatrical experience whereas "Rimbaud," aside from Rimbaud's poems, is a hodgepodge of thoughts, poems and songs about Rimbaud by actors representing the 60's East Village artists his work had a profound effect on, Eileen Myles, Patty Smith, John Ashbery and Richard Hell to name a few. Some of the the original songs are good as are the translations of Rimbaud by John Ashbery but I am so tired of plays ending with garbage being thrown around the stage (in this case yellow balloons) because the director/writer can't seem to think of any other way to wrap up. There are solid performances, especially from Rebecca Hart and Adam Cochran, and Joseph Keckler has a most unusual and beautiful voice. I did quite like the set design by Andromache Chalfant with it's back wall of interconnecting cubes but the the play was runny liked an uncooked egg.
I don't usually write about film but I was just so moved by Guillaume Nicioux's "Valley of Love" at Rendez-Vous with French Cinema last week that I have to say a few words about it. "Valley of Love" reunites Isabelle Huppert with Gerard Depardieu who last appeared together in Pialat's "LouLou" in 1980. Huppert and Depardieu are actors who had a child together over 30 years before but have since gone on to other marriages, children, lives. It was the wish of the their son who has committed suicide for them to spend a week together in Death Valley where he will appear to them on the the final day. They both feel, especially Huppert, that they have failed their son so they make good on his wishes. Huppert is desperate to see her son again, improbable though it may be. The connection between Huppert and Depardieu is palpable and the way that the film addresses their feelings of failure and lost opportunities to connect with their child are profound. Plus the landscapes are stunning!
I don't usually write about film but I was just so moved by Guillaume Nicioux's "Valley of Love" at Rendez-Vous with French Cinema last week that I have to say a few words about it. "Valley of Love" reunites Isabelle Huppert with Gerard Depardieu who last appeared together in Pialat's "LouLou" in 1980. Huppert and Depardieu are actors who had a child together over 30 years before but have since gone on to other marriages, children, lives. It was the wish of the their son who has committed suicide for them to spend a week together in Death Valley where he will appear to them on the the final day. They both feel, especially Huppert, that they have failed their son so they make good on his wishes. Huppert is desperate to see her son again, improbable though it may be. The connection between Huppert and Depardieu is palpable and the way that the film addresses their feelings of failure and lost opportunities to connect with their child are profound. Plus the landscapes are stunning!
Thursday, February 25, 2016
If I were a rich man .... no ... wait ... I AM rich!
I saw two very different productions this past week, both exactly 2 hours and 25 minutes long, Shakespeare's "Pericles" directed by Trevor Nunn at TFANA and "Fiddler on the Roof" under the direction of Bartlett Sher on Broadway. Each were impressive productions in their own way.
"Pericles, Prince of Tyre" is a play about redemption, rebirth and hope. It is full of improbabilities, impossibilities if you will. It is a tragedy and a comedy both. The young prince Pericles successfully answers a riddle to win Antioch's daughter's hand in marriage but discovers their incestuous relationship and the king condemns him to death. He sails off and first lands in Tarsus which is suffering from famine, gives them his ship's cargo of corn and wins thanks from their governor Creon and his wife Dionyza. But he is being pursued by Antioch's assassins and sails on until he is shipwrecked and washes up at Pentapolis. He wins and weds the Princess Thaisa before he finds out that King Antioch is dead and he can return to Tyre. Their daughter Marina is born on the voyage but Thaisa seemingly dies in childbirth and is put into the sea in coffin. The coffin washes up at Ephesus where Thaisa is revived by the physician Cerimon. The heartbroken Pericles meanwhile leaves Marina in the care of Cleon and Dionyza. Sixteen years later, Dionyza who resents that Marina outshines her daughter in all things, orders her killed but before this can happen she is captured by pirates and sold to a brothel in Mytilene where she is refuses to give up her virginity and ends up being very bad for business, converting customers to pious chastity. Confused yet? Around this time Pericles, now an old man, returns to Tarsus for Marina. When he discovers she is dead, he is inconsolable. He dons sackcloth and refuses to cut his hair or bathe but his ship sails on and he eventually lands in Mytilene where, you guessed it, he is reunited with his daughter and eventually his wife. And can finally shave and have a bath.
I generally think that TFANA does well by Shakespeare but this production is uneven. The director, Trevor Nunn, has directed many of the Royal Shakespeare Company great productions since the 70's but working with an American cast has proved a stumbling block for him. Christian Camargo fails to impress as Pericles. He lacks a kingly manor and his costume doesn't help much. He looks like he was dressed in one's great-aunt's old curtains. Some of the performances have weight, especially Philip Casnoff as Helicanus, Pericles friend and regent in Tyre, but others seem odd, especially the Thaisa of Gia Crovatin who looks and sounds more like a Real Housewife of Atlanta than a Queen. Lilly Englert fares better as Marina although she also has a Barbie-esque look about her.
Still, the play moves along at good clip and there is much that is entertaining. So go if you will.
"Fiddler on the Roof" boasts Danny Burstein as Tevya and Jessica Hecht as his wife Golde. This is beautifully done tour de force of musical theatre. It's not on a par with the recent revival of "South Pacific" at Lincoln Center which also was directed by Bartlett Sher and starred Danny Bernstein (and Kelli O'Hara, currently in "The King and I" at Lincoln Center and also directed by Bartlett Sher) but it's irrestitable. You, like me, will probably know every word to every song. The singing! The dancing! That's entertainment!
"Pericles, Prince of Tyre" is a play about redemption, rebirth and hope. It is full of improbabilities, impossibilities if you will. It is a tragedy and a comedy both. The young prince Pericles successfully answers a riddle to win Antioch's daughter's hand in marriage but discovers their incestuous relationship and the king condemns him to death. He sails off and first lands in Tarsus which is suffering from famine, gives them his ship's cargo of corn and wins thanks from their governor Creon and his wife Dionyza. But he is being pursued by Antioch's assassins and sails on until he is shipwrecked and washes up at Pentapolis. He wins and weds the Princess Thaisa before he finds out that King Antioch is dead and he can return to Tyre. Their daughter Marina is born on the voyage but Thaisa seemingly dies in childbirth and is put into the sea in coffin. The coffin washes up at Ephesus where Thaisa is revived by the physician Cerimon. The heartbroken Pericles meanwhile leaves Marina in the care of Cleon and Dionyza. Sixteen years later, Dionyza who resents that Marina outshines her daughter in all things, orders her killed but before this can happen she is captured by pirates and sold to a brothel in Mytilene where she is refuses to give up her virginity and ends up being very bad for business, converting customers to pious chastity. Confused yet? Around this time Pericles, now an old man, returns to Tarsus for Marina. When he discovers she is dead, he is inconsolable. He dons sackcloth and refuses to cut his hair or bathe but his ship sails on and he eventually lands in Mytilene where, you guessed it, he is reunited with his daughter and eventually his wife. And can finally shave and have a bath.
I generally think that TFANA does well by Shakespeare but this production is uneven. The director, Trevor Nunn, has directed many of the Royal Shakespeare Company great productions since the 70's but working with an American cast has proved a stumbling block for him. Christian Camargo fails to impress as Pericles. He lacks a kingly manor and his costume doesn't help much. He looks like he was dressed in one's great-aunt's old curtains. Some of the performances have weight, especially Philip Casnoff as Helicanus, Pericles friend and regent in Tyre, but others seem odd, especially the Thaisa of Gia Crovatin who looks and sounds more like a Real Housewife of Atlanta than a Queen. Lilly Englert fares better as Marina although she also has a Barbie-esque look about her.
Still, the play moves along at good clip and there is much that is entertaining. So go if you will.
"Fiddler on the Roof" boasts Danny Burstein as Tevya and Jessica Hecht as his wife Golde. This is beautifully done tour de force of musical theatre. It's not on a par with the recent revival of "South Pacific" at Lincoln Center which also was directed by Bartlett Sher and starred Danny Bernstein (and Kelli O'Hara, currently in "The King and I" at Lincoln Center and also directed by Bartlett Sher) but it's irrestitable. You, like me, will probably know every word to every song. The singing! The dancing! That's entertainment!
Thursday, February 18, 2016
Red Speedo (I can't improve on that)
Lucas Hnath's new play"Red Speedo" at NYTW was much, much better than I expected. If you read my blog you will remember that his much over-hyped play "The Christians" left me curiously unaffected. I think that Hnath is still trying to find his way as a playwright which makes it seem strange to me that he is already a recipient of numerous prestigious awards including a Guggenheim last year. Oh, well, what do I know? If you read my blog then perhaps you think I know at least a little but I am having to push back against the hoards of people who rely on Ben Brantley of The New York Times to inform their theatre-going.
There is an actual pool on stage, or, rather running the length of the stage and separating the audience from the actors. A fourth wall perhaps? I thought it a clever and original devise. The play opens with an Olympic calibre swimmer diving in and swimming two lengths without coming up for air. He exits the pool and we see how muscular and defined his body is, a swimming machine. And this is, for the most part, is how we see him for the entire 90 minutes of the play as his lawyer brother, coach and sports therapist ex-girlfriend manipulate him. Or is he actually manipulating them? The set is brilliant and the acting pretty damn good. Alex Breaux as Ray, the swimmer, is a particular stand-out. Peter Jay Fernandez brings a steely resolve to Coach and Lucas Caleb Rooney, as Ray's lawyer bother Peter, has his best Philip Seymour Hoffman on and, while not in that league, certainly claims the part. The only weak performance is Zoe Winters as Lydia, who I have seen and liked before in "An Octoroon" at Soho Rep and "4,000 Miles" at Lincoln Center. In fairness, it is not her fault that Lydia is not a fully realized character. The real problem with play is in the ending. The play is a puzzle of interlocking pieces and Hnath is unable to give us the last piece, the one last twist necessary to make everything click together, so instead "Red Speedo" departs from it's stylistic slickness and becomes a bloody brawl. I expect that's a spoiler.
While the playwrights Bruce Norris ("Clybourne Park") is attempting Albee, Sarah Ruhl has been known to steal from Richard Foreman("Dead Man's Cell Phone") and Stephen Karam ("The Humans") thinks he is onto something Pinter-esque, Hnath's work is a mash up of David Mamet, Carol Churchhill and Sam Shephard. I think Hnath fares better here that Norris and Karam in their recent productions so that's saying something.
Where do we look for originality these days? Well, fortunately, I think that Annie Baker("The Flick") is on to something as are Anne Washburn("10 Out of 12") and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins ("An Octoroon"). Anne Washburn's "Antlia Pneumatica" opens at Playwrights Horizons on March 11th. Something to look forward to
There is an actual pool on stage, or, rather running the length of the stage and separating the audience from the actors. A fourth wall perhaps? I thought it a clever and original devise. The play opens with an Olympic calibre swimmer diving in and swimming two lengths without coming up for air. He exits the pool and we see how muscular and defined his body is, a swimming machine. And this is, for the most part, is how we see him for the entire 90 minutes of the play as his lawyer brother, coach and sports therapist ex-girlfriend manipulate him. Or is he actually manipulating them? The set is brilliant and the acting pretty damn good. Alex Breaux as Ray, the swimmer, is a particular stand-out. Peter Jay Fernandez brings a steely resolve to Coach and Lucas Caleb Rooney, as Ray's lawyer bother Peter, has his best Philip Seymour Hoffman on and, while not in that league, certainly claims the part. The only weak performance is Zoe Winters as Lydia, who I have seen and liked before in "An Octoroon" at Soho Rep and "4,000 Miles" at Lincoln Center. In fairness, it is not her fault that Lydia is not a fully realized character. The real problem with play is in the ending. The play is a puzzle of interlocking pieces and Hnath is unable to give us the last piece, the one last twist necessary to make everything click together, so instead "Red Speedo" departs from it's stylistic slickness and becomes a bloody brawl. I expect that's a spoiler.
While the playwrights Bruce Norris ("Clybourne Park") is attempting Albee, Sarah Ruhl has been known to steal from Richard Foreman("Dead Man's Cell Phone") and Stephen Karam ("The Humans") thinks he is onto something Pinter-esque, Hnath's work is a mash up of David Mamet, Carol Churchhill and Sam Shephard. I think Hnath fares better here that Norris and Karam in their recent productions so that's saying something.
Where do we look for originality these days? Well, fortunately, I think that Annie Baker("The Flick") is on to something as are Anne Washburn("10 Out of 12") and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins ("An Octoroon"). Anne Washburn's "Antlia Pneumatica" opens at Playwrights Horizons on March 11th. Something to look forward to
Saturday, February 13, 2016
Blackbird not so much on the wire
I had been so looking forward to the current revival of "Blackbird" by the Scottish playwright David Harrower on Broadway. I was too late for the train in 2007 to see Jeff Daniels as Ray and Alison Pill as Una so I was eager to see this recent recent revival with Jeff Daniels and Michelle Williams about the sexual relationship that happened between them 15 years earlier when he was 40 and she 12. Although upsetting and unsettling, we have become somewhat inured to the subject after decades of shows like Law and Order SVU, true stories of girls like Elizabeth Smart kidnapped as adolescents and held captive for years, and Middle Eastern and Indian men "marrying" girls of this age and younger and subjecting them to a life of rape and servitude.
There was no chemistry between Daniels and Williams. In the context of the play, it would have been important for us to understand the attraction that drew them together 15 years before and which continued to pull her to him 15 years later. Williams performance was all jitters and sharp angels. She entered at a pitch and remained that way for the entire 90 minutes of the play. The part calls for a more nuanced performance. She has spent 15 years yearning for him. What she has not come to terms with for 15 years is not that he violated her 12 year old self but that he deserted her. She has not come just to confront him; she wants him back and if she is to get him back she has to seduce him. As Shakespeare said in "Hamlet": "Suit the action to the word, the word to the action." But it's not there in her performance. It's really important for us to understand what they meant to each other and what might still connect them. Ray is obviously defeated from a life being punished for his actions, first in prison and then in being beaten down by life after prison as an offender, but I expect the playwright intended that we would get a glimmer of the man he had been 15 years before. Unfortunately Daniels does not have the opening for this to happen. During the curtain call he looked unhappy and uncomfortable, perhaps do to frustration. I doubt very much it was because he was having a hard time shaking his character.
The play itself is clunky. I wondered if it had been reworked since it's staging in 2007. And Joe Mantello's direction was workmanlike unlike his deft direction of the disapppointing "The Humans". And I am tired of seeing plays that end with the set being trashed as in the recent "The Glory of the World" at BAM and Ivo Van Hove's "The Misanthrope" at NYTW.
There was no chemistry between Daniels and Williams. In the context of the play, it would have been important for us to understand the attraction that drew them together 15 years before and which continued to pull her to him 15 years later. Williams performance was all jitters and sharp angels. She entered at a pitch and remained that way for the entire 90 minutes of the play. The part calls for a more nuanced performance. She has spent 15 years yearning for him. What she has not come to terms with for 15 years is not that he violated her 12 year old self but that he deserted her. She has not come just to confront him; she wants him back and if she is to get him back she has to seduce him. As Shakespeare said in "Hamlet": "Suit the action to the word, the word to the action." But it's not there in her performance. It's really important for us to understand what they meant to each other and what might still connect them. Ray is obviously defeated from a life being punished for his actions, first in prison and then in being beaten down by life after prison as an offender, but I expect the playwright intended that we would get a glimmer of the man he had been 15 years before. Unfortunately Daniels does not have the opening for this to happen. During the curtain call he looked unhappy and uncomfortable, perhaps do to frustration. I doubt very much it was because he was having a hard time shaking his character.
The play itself is clunky. I wondered if it had been reworked since it's staging in 2007. And Joe Mantello's direction was workmanlike unlike his deft direction of the disapppointing "The Humans". And I am tired of seeing plays that end with the set being trashed as in the recent "The Glory of the World" at BAM and Ivo Van Hove's "The Misanthrope" at NYTW.
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