Tag Archives: Acting

Whether in a Big House or Small, The Waverly Gallery Devastates

I have had the rare pleasure to experience a contemporary American play in two very different venues and productions in a ten-month period: Kenneth Lonergan’s The Waverly Gallery. I had seen the Broadway production back in September that garnered Elaine May a well-deserved Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. More recently, I had the opportunity to catch Shakespeare & Company’s production in its smaller Elayne P. Bernstein with a three-quarter thrust stage. The point here is not to compare the two productions because ultimately that is an empty intellectual exercise and, well, plain silly. I mention the former in regard to the latter because it demonstrates the endurability and power of Lonergan’s work that it resonates with its elegiac fury regardless of the trappings of its given production.

With its narrator Daniel (an always nuanced David Gow) recounting a familial past, The Waverly Gallery would seem to belong to the tradition sparked by Tennessee Williams with The Glass Menagerie. And while that is certainly part of its DNA, Lonergan’s play also finds itself as part of an even more storied theatrical tradition – that of Greek tragedy. The plague here does not come in the form of a disease brought down on the City of Thebes but rather as Alzheimer’s as it cruelly afflicts Daniel’s grandmother Gladys (Annette Miller mining the full vivaciousness of this grande dame). In the large Broadway house, the tragedy is Gladys’s with Daniel serving as chorus. In the smaller house in Lenox, the tragedy is that of the entire family.

That sort of tragedy can be difficult for actors to play as they are not necessarily playing an action but reacting to an unseen force that overwhelms them. The family of Gladys, Daniel, Ellen (Gladys’s daughter/Daniel’s mother), and Howard (Ellen’s second husband) is an extremely accomplished one professionally and intellectually; indeed, you could easily find them in one of Woody Allen’s frequent romps through Manhattan’s Upper West Side. And yet, they are unequal to the task at hand. Who could be? They are by no means negligent. They address each new further turn into the darkness with competence and capability using humor as a defense mechanism to shield them from what they know must be. We can certainly empathize with them as they try to hold off fate for just one more day and then just one day more. When the owner of the building where Gladys keeps her little art gallery wants to renovate the space for a café, they are simply incapable of telling her at first. On Broadway, we as the audience were kept distant from their turmoil (aided by a production design that emphasized a rather cool palette) until the devastating coda. In the significantly smaller space, we are on the ride with them, which paradoxically places greater emphasis on the comedic moments andthe building dread.

This production is directed by the legendary Tina Packer, who founded the company. She has assembled an exemplary ensemble that feels like a family, jagged edges and all. She has given the actors the room to find every nook and cranny in their roles and to build fully-realized three-dimensional individuals. She finds the poetry in the often-overlapping dialogue. I did, however, think her guiding thesis for the play to be on the tentative side. She occasionally steps into her toe into the metatheatrical when, at one moment, she has Daniel step over the constructed “proscenium” to address the audience directly. Those moments, alas, are few and far between as she gives into a realism, which – given the limitations of the space and the demands of the play in terms of set changes – did not serve the production as fully as it might have. Whether Greek tragic or American dramatic tradition, often all we need is the rich language of a play and a powerful cast to realize the world of that language. She had both here coming into that rehearsal room.

The cast is uniformly excellent. The one not weakness exactly but weirdness of the Broadway production was the casting of Michael Cera as Don Bowman, the last artist Gladys showcases in her gallery. He is a more a product of the world of Lonergan’s film Manchester by the Sea, a man from the working-class environs of Boston who struggled to become a painter. Previously, I did not understand why either Don or Cera were involved in the proceedings. Here, thanks to David Bertoldi fully integrating himself into the production and fully realizing the pain haunting the character on the margins, I understand Don’s place as a reminder that this tragedy is not the tragedy of those who are visible in most of our storytelling but the tragedy of the human condition regardless of circumstance. Michael F. Toomey is a force of nature whenever on stage, but he allows the audience to see that his bluster and tactless joking are just means of buffering himself from the fateful journey his mother-in-law is taking (and the very different Hell of his own elderly parents). Elizabeth Aspenlieder bares open the brittleness, fragility, and desperation of Ellen. Her evolving grief charts with the vicious course of the disease. Aspenlieder wisely avoids making Ellen a saint or martyr, conveying that her ultimate act of giving will also devastate her.

David Gow as Daniel builds a complex character who has sought to insulate himself from complicated emotions and yet must by play’s end confront the hardest ones of them own. When Gladys has her final break with reality, Gow effortlessly puts Daniel on a rollercoaster ride where the final destination is despair. His humor will not prevent it. Deflection will not prevent it. Cheery reasonableness not will prevent it. His helplessness enrages him, and that rage scares him to the bottom of his core. By his final monologue, you can see him slowly build the architecture to face the harsh realities of the world, and one can well imagine Gow bringing equal power to Tom’s “blow out your candles” monologue in The Glass Menagerie. At the beating tragic heart of the production is Annette Miller’s Gladys. She makes clear the achievements of Gladys’s earlier life, and so the tragedy of what she is losing has that much greater weight. I wish that in that second act she founds a beat or two where Gladys has some momentary lucidity – the false hope of such moments would only have compounded the tragedy – but this is a quibble. By the end, when she is lost in her own mind – confused, frightened, without anchor, without understanding – one would have be dead three days not to be overwhelmed emotionally by Miller’s performance. At that moment, she is not Gladys character on stage but a woman in all of our lives whom we are losing.

Without question, Shakespeare & Company’s The Waverly Galleryis a production that should be seen. But I want to emphasize that you should see it even if – or especially if – you have seen the recent Broadway revival. It is a different vision and a successful one. And so your experience will be different but equally meaningful.

Revolutionary Art or Vandalism?

In the winter of 2010, graffiti artists used an outside wall of The Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago as a blank canvas upon which to create. This Is Modern Art by Idris Goodwin and Kevin Coval, which has taken a journey from Steppenwolf in Chicago (where it was commissioned) to the Kennedy Center, now has its New York premiere at New York Theatre Workshop’s Next Door. Blessed Unrest is producing.

The play investigates two intersecting concerns. The first asks whether the graffiti on the Modern Wing’s wall is an act of revolutionary art or vandalism. The second dramatizes the process by which a work of graffiti art is created. That is a lot weight to place on the slender shoulders of a play with an 85-minute running time. I am happy to report that play and production are more than up to the Herculean task.

The primary issue of the play is whether or not the graffiti on the Modern Wing (or, indeed, any building or structure we may see in an urban space) is art. The play boldly articulates that it is. Art critics such as Tony Bennett, deploying the lens of Michel Foucault, have argued in recent years that cultural spaces such as museums reinforce a stratified class hierarchy favoring the dominant. Though a museum claims to be open to all, how it presents its space often makes it an unwelcoming place to those outside of the neo-liberal hegemony. Culture is a barrier, not a leveler. What Goodwin and Coval convey with a crystal clear clarity is how this particular act of graffiti was about reclaiming a space, about sharing a work of art with the people, all the people. It is truly revolutionary.

If the above sounds a bit too abstract, the second part of This Is Modern Art‘s mission provides the production with a strong propulsive narrative. The play digs deep into the history and practice of graffiti art. The characters know the history of their craft and are inspired by a broad spectrum of artists from Sane and Smith to Basquiat to Caravaggio. Works about artists almost exclusively focus on the inspiration and the perspiration, so the act of creation always comes across as a snap. Not so here. Goodwin and Coval take time well spent to dramatize the collaborative process of developing a tag or piece, gathering the necessary materials, planning the logistics of how and when they are going to bomb, and executing all of the above. It is a harrowing process. One of the great elements of the film Love and Mercy is on the very long and difficult process it took Brian Wilson and The Wrecking Crew to build the Pet Sounds album. The play  taps into the struggle of artistic creation and ably translates that to the medium of graffiti art.

As the three artists, Shakur Tolliver (Seven), Andrew Gonzalez (J.C.), and Landon G. Woodson (Dose) are a tight and nuanced ensemble. Each of their scenes – whether they are breaking the fourth wall or engaged in a moment of naturalism – crackles with the energy of creation, passion, rawness, anger, respect for their craft and one another, and the love of beauty. The story tends to put the spotlight on Seven, we are always aware of how essential J.C. and Dose are to the collaboration. I particularly like J.C.’s mystical engagement with his Muse. They have an absolute commitment to the material. Nancy MacArthur plays Selena, Seven’s girlfriend and lookout for the group. I was unsure of why the role was there at first as she just seemed to be a Girl Friday along quite literally for the ride, but as the play progressed, it became clear the reason for her presence as Seven’s fears began to surface more and more. The most surprising moment of the play belongs to her near the end of the evening, and it is stunning.

This Is Modern Art fully engages in how space in this country is racialized. The art that Seven, J.C., and Dose create is available to all, even the homeless, while the art in The Modern Wing is available to those who can afford it. Seven feels excluded from the society of the art world by his race, economic status, and educational achievement; his exclusion is a tragedy because as play and performance demonstrate over and over again, he is both has a compelling artistic vision and a strong work ethic. As we are increasingly confronted by exclusionary spaces from public parks to Yale common rooms to Starbucks, the play offers an urgent contribution to the conversation.

The Next Door space is a small one, and there is not much room to maneuver. So there needs to be a special mention made of the collaboration between director Jessica Burr and scenic artist KEO XMEN. They recreate the original graffiti in a way that is striking, theatrically exciting, and surprisingly cost effective.

More information about the play can be found by following this link: https://www.nytw.org/show/this-is-modern-art/

Cocktails and Conversation

A Life Behind Bars is a revelatory solo performance by its author, Dan Ruth. Starting in the 1990’s, Ruth takes his audience on a journey through a life, like that of so many artists in New York City, that is a hyphenate: performer-bartender. His narrative also witnesses his evolution from alcoholic to recovering alcoholic, which is a fascinating position to be in as a bartender. But then again, as F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “It’s a great advantage not to drink among hard drinking people.”

I have known Ruth for years as a director (he directed my one-act “Howard Hopped The A-Train”), but not so much as a performer. When I first read the description of the piece, I thought it would be done more in the style of a confessional with an emphasis placed upon  stark and bare prose. What Ruth delivers though is more in keeping with Anna Deavere Smith’s work; Ruth portrays individuals he has encountered across the years. His vignettes, sharply written and meticulously inhabited, form a series of interconnected short stories that lead to the inexorable conclusion.

The writing is remarkably grounded. Ruth chooses encounters that occurred at major historical events (election nights, 9/11) that help place those encounters in time. He establishes a clear internal geography of his spaces (apartment, bars) and external (how hip/not hip a particularly location is at any given time). With that  foundation secure, Ruth is then free to weave his tales that often detail the frustrations and disappointments of a person of talent trying to break through whether professionally or personally. But this is no woe-is-me story. This is catharsis. The writer/actor infuses all of his considerable gifts in constructing this staged memoir. Don’t be sorry for me, he seems to say, but instead see what it is I can do and celebrate with me in that. From moments of simple declaration to a fast and furious raw poetry that moves with the syncopation of a stream-of-conscousness witnessing to wry observations of the pervasiveness of privilege, the writing is at once deeply personal while striking tones of the achingly familiar.

The strength of the writing would not be apparent if it were not coupled with Ruth’s strengths as a performer. He creates several memorable figures including an arrogant patron with a man bun and a Linda Rickman-like theater-goer who adores Andrew Lloyd Webber. His strongest work, though, is when he plays himself with a humble honesty. That Ruth makes it looks so effortless means he no doubt spent a considerable time perfecting each moment. In her direction Tanya Moberly clearly establishes that A Life Behind Bars is more than a collection of bits, that it has a coherent whole propelling performer and audience to a dark penultimate moment before at last arriving at its more hopeful coda. I did want Ruth to explore this last portion of the story more, but given the physical exertion already required, that may be a bridge too far.

Ruth performs A Life Behind Bars in New York City (at the Laurie Beechman Theatre) and, more recently, in Los Angeles at varying intervals. He has a battery of new dates coming up in the Spring 2018. For more, fall him on his Facebook events page: https://www.facebook.com/events/762483717250293/

A Theatre of Contemplation

Usually the kind of theatre that captures my attention has a more political dimension, it has an earnest desire to convince its audience of something. The narrative propels one forward to a needed and decisive conclusion. Claire van Kampen’s Farinelli and The King is a not work of power, but of peace. It is not a construction of plot but of meditation. As 2017 gives way to 2018, this is exactly the kind of theatre we need.

Based on the historical record, Farinelli and the King tells of the famous castrato, who is brought from Covent Garden to the palace of the King of Spain. Only Farinelli’s voice can soothe King Philippe V’s troubled mind (he probably suffered from a bipolar disorder). By the play’s end, Farinelli, who has fallen in love with Queen Isabella, departs, and the King falls back into his old behavior. That’s it. That’s the plot. But that does not describe the show.

The title tells us much, and it is a play on Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The King and I. For van Kampen’s the “King”is now the “I’. Philippe, much as we do, suffers from the crush of politics and the inevitable course of policy: war. Farinelli, as an embodiment of art (specifically music), offers escape, a positive alternative to a world moving toward chaos (the Seven Years’ War and the American and French Revolutions are in the not too distant future).

The governing idea here is that the magic of the theatre (not film magic transferred to the stage but honest-to-God theatrical magic) can offer sanctuary and solace. So we find ourselves at the intersection of the theatre, opera, music, and candlelight – especially candlelight. Originally performed at the Globe’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse which can only be lit with means available in the seventeenth century, the strength of the piece relies on it being lit by candle and  utilizing technology only available in the Restoration. Indeed, I have a hard time imagining future productions of the work; the chances are high they will not understand this important aspect the alchemy. John Dove’s direction is as necessary to the proceedings as the script. [I am saddened that I did not get to see it the original run in London, but I did see Aidan Gillen do a reading of James Joyce’s “The Dead” in the Wanamaker, so I can only imagine the magic of Farinelli in that space.]

The role of Farinelli is shared by two performers. First, Sam Crane (who pops up in The Crown to dish the dirt on Jackie Kennedy) acts Farinelli when he is not performing, while (in my performance) Iestyn Davies becomes his voice when performing. During such moments, both Crane and Davies are on stage. I liked the split. It was simple, and it conveyed (much as Deaf West’s Spring Awakening did with the the teenagers) the division within Farinelli himself: his internal passion and longing and external hesitation and sense of self-doubt.

Anchoring it all is, of course, Mark Rylance as Philippe V. Rylance is one of my theatrical heroes, and having now seen him in Jerusalem, Twelfth Night, Richard III, Nice Fish as well as his recent television and film work, he continues his trajectory of brilliance. Though the performing the King, Rylance is in the interesting position of actually serving as the audience’s surrogate. As he becomes bewitched by the music (mostly Handel), he gives permission for the house to do the same. His (mostly) quiet performance is infectious. He builds the bridge to the music, which can only be felt and not explained. Melody Grove, whose Isabella is the prime mover and shaker in the play, rounds out the three leads and holds her own in matching wit against wit.

The script does not concern itself much beyond that. van Kampen, who is married to Rylance, skimps on the details of Farinelli’s harrowing childhood and his complex relationship with his brother. It hardly matters. One goes to Farinelli and the Kingto have the weight of the twenty-first century taken off the shoulders for a couple of hours and to find solace in beauty.

More information about the show can be found here: http://www.farinelliandthekingbroadway.com

Millennium Approaches for Millennials

As a member of a Generation X and a university professor, I often wonder and worry about the world being left behind for succeeding generations. “Not much of anything” would appear to be the answer if Alex Riad’s new play The Floor is Lava serves as a guide. A sense of existential despair pervades every nook and cranny of this work and speaks to a larger crisis of the generation.

A uniformly superlative cast ably directed by Jessica O’Hara Baker propels the narrative forward. Tom (a wily wicked Ian Poake) was the high school misfit who in a few short years has found himself the beneficiary of a Gatsby-esque rise to the height of wealth thanks to an innovative social media tool he created. He hosts a holiday party/business launch party and has invited his high school friends: Sean (Vin Kridakorn), Matt (John DiMino), and Kat (Molly Collier). Long-festering bitter discontent fueled by drugs and a particularly expensive single malt will manifest itself over the evening. There is always a danger when writing about the travails of those with wealth and privilege: are their problems “first world” problems, and are we asked to feel sorry because it rained during their week in Aruba? Riad avoids that trap. Yes, his characters have access to wealth, but the world they inhabit seems to offer little conciliation regardless of economic class. Even the one character who offers some hope occupies an ambivalent space in that regard.

The play nonetheless feels like it is in need of another rewrite. The mechanics of getting Character A off stage so Characters B and C can have a  two-hander scene feel forced.  The motivation for Sean to be there in the first place is never fully explored (but, let’s face it, the motivations for Peter and Jerry to be on that park bench in Albee’s “Zoo Story” are strained). And the coda feels too neat and runs against the mood and tone of the rest of the piece. But these are for the most part craft issues which can be easily resolved in a rewrite.

There is abundant good in the play, and that comes from the artistic side of its creation. In articulating a clear authorial voice, expressing complex thematic concerns, and undertaking an emotional deep-dive, Riad demonstrates that he has a command of his medium that much older writers would envy. With The Floor is Lava, he marries the concerns of both Matthew Weiner (Mad Men) and John Steinbeck while building a piece uniquely his own.

Tom’s improbable success has not granted him any wisdom or the tools with which to engage the world. He is still that sad-sack kid back in school. That he has crashed into the the domain of the one percent has not made the rest of the super-wealthy all that glad to have him in their company. They hope for his fall, and when it arrives, they rejoice in it. Sean is that extraordinarily bright kid who does well in all his classes and extracurriculars. He is never going to be in the one-percent, but he will be in the next level down that expertly executes the one-percent’s decrees. Tom revels in the world of social media, while Sean despises it (I wish Riad could have personalized this for the character a bit more). Tom and Sean and were once best friends, but have since had a falling out. Their arguments are visceral and raw. The final clash and ultimate emotional collapse delivers a wallop thanks to the honest and unadorned performances of both Poake and Kridakorn. Additionally, Kridakorn never shies away from the dark and ugly parts of his character as he unsuccessfully struggles with depression.

DiMino as Matt has a fascinating journey of his own. In his first scene, he comes across as the stereotypical North California stoner. In his second scene, though, he reveals hidden depths. The play is set in San Jose. Matt, the slacker of the group, has never attained the stereotypical success of his friends. In a confrontation with Sean, he tears into his friend for this idea of achievement. Steinbeck’s Monterey, made famous in Cannery Row, is only 70 miles from San Jose. Matt offers a full-throated defense of the kind of life Steinbeck celebrated: of simple living; of doing something that you love; of freedom from money, ambition, and acquisition. But that Steinbeckian Monterey seems an impossible distance away from Riad’s San Jose. And Matt must at the end confess that he will never been taken seriously by anyone else; you can read the terrible pain of that in DiMino’s face.

I would say this moment represents the playwright at his most-self-assured, but there is another moment that exceeds even this one. Kat gets to confront Sean as well. She laments the place of women in Silicon Valley, indeed all of corporate America, and how she is stuck cleaning up the mess created by Sean and how it left man-child Tom defeated. It is a powerful condemnation of how the nation at large has a double-standard with regard to women, not just in business but in politics and all other institutions. Collier, who plays Kat, is in rare form here. I have followed her work for years, and she just keeps getting better and better with each year; and she started at a high water mark to begin with. Here she does the impossible. She speaks for the struggle of all women, and yet she elides that larger macro argument with a deep personal investment that reaches to very core of her character. Universal and specific at the same time — an extremely difficult feat to pull off, and Collier pulls it off with panache. She becomes the hero the piece, and I kind of wishes the play ended with her scene.

Riad has a lot going for himself here. I would advise that he trust his instincts, let the characters breathe and worry less about logistics. What we have here is a very good play on its way to becoming a great play. And when it is done: wow.

The Floor is Lava, produced by The Farm Theatre, is currently playing at Planet Connections: http://planetconnections.org/2017-full-productions/the-floor-is-lava-presented-by-the-farm-theater/

Link

http://www.npr.org/2017/05/20/529146027/whos-afraid-of-a-diverse-cast

Link

http://www.playbill.com/article/2017-tony-award-nominations-the-great-comet-and-hello-dolly-lead-the-pack

A Muted Response to a Classic

Following up on his contemporary morality play Red Speedo, playwright Lucas Hnath comes to Broadway with A Doll’s House, Part 2 currently playing at the Golden Theatre. As the title suggests, this play is a follow-up to Henrik Ibsen’s 1879 masterpiece, which concluded with a door slam heard around the world. The production, however, is such a mixed bag that – depending on the focus – the individual audience member can either have a satisfactory evening at the theatre or a terrible one.

First to the good: Laurie Metcalf and Jayne Houdyshell. Metcalf roars through the production as Nora, investing the 15 years between the shutting of that door and her return with pathos, urgency, nuance, and good humor. Her scenes with Houdyshell (recently of The Humans) crackle with wit and an undercurrent of tension and loss. A play constructed around these two would have been quite satisfying indeed.

Next to the troublesome: Condola Rashad as Emmy (Nora and Torvald’s daughter) offers a winning presence, but she cannot resolve the contradictions written into her role. Often it seems that Hnath has written her a line for the purpose of being funny, even if it is out-of-stop with an aspect of her character expressed in a previous line.

And finally to the not so good: Chris Cooper. Cooper is an actor I have long-admired on film from Lone Star to his award-winning performance in Adaptation to Capote, but here he seemed completely at sea. I understand he has experience on stage, but he came across as unsure in the medium. His instrument, compared to his co-stars, was weak. Alas, in the preview I saw, he even called for line. He struggled to create a character with a clear narrative arc, and he failed to be a strong scene partner for Metcalf.

The fault though lies with the script. Metcalf and Houdyshell simply steamrolled over the play’s weaknesses, while Cooper could not resolve them with his process. Like Red Speedo, this work dramatizes Hnath’s concern with ethical behavior accompanied by staccato Mamet-esque dialogue. However, the play simply did not know what it wanted to be, or even when it wanted it to be. First, period costumes mixed with extremely knowing and irony-laden contemporary speech. Tom Stoppard made this work with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead as his piece was an absurdist work of theatre engaging with Shakespeare’s while Shakespeare’s was in process. The lack of naturalism in both works played well with each other. Ibsen’s however is so period specific and so naturalistic that Hnath’s play has not more weight than one of those shallow Hollywood No-Fear-Shakespeare-esque retellings of a classic text. And while there is some attempt to explore the ramifications of Nora’s original decision to leave hearth and home, the stakes are extraordinarily low. Finally, Hnath’s play robs the original Nora of her power and agency. She returns. She walks back through the door. She seeks Torvald’s help on a matter that is too convoluted for here and never quite convinces in its urgency. I believe that Hnath wanted to build upon the proto-feminist impulses inherent in the Ibsen, but the results rob Nora of her remarkable pioneering feminist achievements.

Sam Gold, who seems to be everywhere now, keeps the proceedings brisk and provides a an appropriate sense of claustrophobia with his staging and set.

For fans of Metcalf, A Doll’s House, Part 2 will provide a fun evening at the theatre. For fans of Ibsen, it will not.

Quick Thought about Fences

Much has already been written about Denzel Washington’s film adaptation of Fences, which has recently been released on blu-ray and streaming services. Washington took a little heat for his direction, but basically I think he did a fine job in his freshman effort behind the camera. He demonstrated a solid understanding of what a director does: strong craft, not much artistry, and little fuss. He got out of the way so that the play could be seen and heard.

Viola Davis rightly earned numerous plaudits in the role of Rose Maxson. She deserved an Oscar, but for Best Actress not Best Supporting Actress (a discussion for another time). Washington was necessarily volcanic as Troy, though I still cannot get the indelible impression James Earl Jones made in the Broadway premiere. Unsung in much of the criticism is Stephen McKinley Henderson. An excellent stage actor (he recently starred in Stephen Adly Guirgis’s Between Riverside and Crazy), he added much to the role of Bono. Fences offers a number of three-hander scenes between Troy, Rose, and Bono, and Henderson more than held up his own end. He deserves great praise as well.