Stoppard's Arcadia on Broadway

Picture of the ending waltz (NOT from the current Broadway production)

It all ends in one swirling waltz, with both past and present people circling each other in a ring of time and thought. Indeed, Stoppard's Arcadia, currently running at the Barrymore Theater, gives the sense that time dances with itself as well. The two intertwined narratives, one in the 1830s and one in the present day, step around each other in the space of an old British country house, never touching except perhaps if the present day inhabitants feel a ghost-like chill as they research the earlier characters.

Aptly played by most of the cast, except perhaps a really galling and annoying portrayal of Bernarad Nightengale by Billy Cudrup that toned itself down in the second half, the lines were spoken well. (The NY Times disagrees here.) Stoppard loads his lines down with so many -isms that are then undercut by so many comedic lines that just getting them out naturally and so that the audience can follow deserves applause. The characters themselves are warm and human, if not particularly fleshed out. In their limited roles, the mouthing of Stoppard's suddenly heart-wrenching epigrams, full of yearning and paradox, can seem a little startling.

Many of Stoppard's plays have been history lessons as well, bringing us into the intellectual thoughts and mores of an era. Nothing revolutionary happens here, and a quick explanation of plot or purpose is hard to come by for Arcadia. Set in Sidley Park, an English country house, the research of two modern scholars and the house's current residents are juxtaposed with the lives of those who lived there 180 years earlier. In the present, writer Hannah Jarvis is researching a hermit who once lived on the grounds of the estate and Bernard Nightingale, a literature professor, is investigating a possible connection to the life of Lord Byron. As their investigations unfold, helped by Valentine Coverly, a post-graduate student in mathematical biology, the truth about the 1800s era residents Thomasina Coverly, the daughter of the house, and her tutor Septimus Hodge, is gradually revealed.

What the actors do very well is make the search for knowledge and truth a passionate, heartfelt affair. The possible futility of it lends pathos to the character's individual searches. Time and Sidley Park brings them together for a brief moment. Altogether, a little wilder than the average Bristish country house story.

Brian Bedford's The Importance of Being Earnest at the Roundabout

Another day, another drenching of wet snow to struggle through, adding the misery of a full body contact subway commute with people whose horrible taste in music pounds through their earbuds. Anyhow, as I intended to write, last night I went to see one of my favorite plays of all time, the one I write my university thesis on, have seen on stage four times, and viewed every movie version of, The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde directed by Brian Bedford.

It de-ceded expectations. Perhaps because I was bringing so much to it, I lost a naive enjoyment of it. Surely a joke is bound to lose some of its funniness when I already know the punch line. Yet I also think I have some distinct opinions about how to deliver the mannered and difficult lines (with preferably less camp) and really about how to do the whole play.

Two perfect things: the set and Brian Bedford (also the director) in his role as Lady Bracknell. He was perfect, and every line of his was a joy to hear. The campy Algernon, and over-modulated voices of the Gwendolyn and Cecily, and character roles the servants took on, and the histronics of Miss Prism--somehow none of them hit the right note of artificiality. They were all too excitable about it, not nearly languid enough. Dr. Chausable and Jack were actually rather good. They ham up the obvious theatrically of the piece rather than treating it with the upmost seriousness.

While it didn't live up to my expectations, Wilde's brilliance is unsquashable and it is a serviceable rendition. True to Wilde, "The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily." The New York Times reports this morning that the critically acclaimed show's run is being extended.

Apropos my discussion yesterday against the glorification of Nature in Schiller, this quote of Wilde's seemed deliciously suited:

"I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone." - Lady Bracknell, Act 1

The Screwtape Letters' “soft, gentle path to Hell”

I saw an adaption of The Screwtape Letters at the Westside Theater the other night, in one of last performances before it hit the road (check out the site to see if its coming near you). The Screwtape Letters is a satirical novel by C. S. Lewis first published in February 1942 and the play, set in a stylish office in hell, follows the clever scheming of Satan's chief psychiatrist, Screwtape, as he hungrily entices a human 'patient' toward damnation (human souls being hell's primary source of food). Evil, the banality of evil, and specifically the insidious ways it works into individual's lives is told here through a demon's point of view. It is damn funny, because psychologically is is dead on and startlingly true even today, even from a non-Christian perspective.


As I learned in discussion after the performance, Lewis wrote this story about a senior demon, Screwtape, teaching his nephew, a junior tempter named Wormwood, how to secure the damnation of a British man after hearing a translation of one of Hitler's speeches on the BBC radio. Hitler's silver tongue, as he exhorted the English to believe that he only wanted to work together to lead a great cultural world upheaval, struck him as being the purest evil. 


Lewis dedicated the work to his friend and fellow Inkling J.R.R. Tolkien, who had warned that delving too deeply into the craft of evil would have consequences. Lewis later wrote:


"Though I had never written anything more easily, I never wrote with less enjoyment . . . though it was easy to twist one’s mind into the diabolical attitude, it was not fun, or not for long. The work into which I had to project myself while I spoke through Screwtape was all dust, grit, thirst, and itch. Every trace of beauty, freshness, and geniality had to be excluded.”


However the play is much more lively and interesting than that, and I imagine a much better theatrical experience that reading the meditative letters might give one to expect.

Theater Notes for New Yorkers: Looking Forward and Back

My head is in two places right now. One hemisphere is still in New York City living my bustling, art-centric life. The other is slowly getting used to the sound of the waves. But before I left, I picked up the mail one last time, and some residual impulse made me take fliers for two upcoming plays that look amazing.

The first is Present Laughter starring Victor Garber, which follows on the heels of the delightful Noel Coward revival the Roundabout Theater put on earlier, Blithe Spirit. Coward is light and his humor translates to contemporary thought instantly. The second is A View From the Bridge, an Arthur Miller play starring Liev Schreiber and Scarlett Johannson at the Cort Theater. I would be very interested to see how Johannson fares on stage.

As you might have noticed, I love the classics. They're classics for a reason, right? I've seen some great classic plays this past Fall in New York. I reviewed the production of Hamlet with Jude Law, and found it adequate, even good, if stringently traditional. I also saw Jude Law's ex-girlfriend Sienna Miller as Miss Julie in Henrik Ibsen's classic After Miss Julie. That is a great production that reset Ibsen's story of class struggle in post-WWII England. The only weakness was, disappointingly, Miller's acting which seemed to lack range on stage. Her character was high-pitched throughout, without any moments of quiet vulnerability that would make a breakdown more plausible. The set and the rest of the cast was excellent, even if her acting kept the ending from coalescing into a true high point.

I was very lucky to see A Streetcar Named Desire the week before I left. Put on BAM by the Sidney Theater Company, this traditional rendition of Tennesee Williams most famous play rose beyond what you might remember of the Marlon Brando film (though you might remember it to be quite good). I will confess, I admired Cate Blachet, who plays Blanche, unduly before the performance. She lived up to my expectations here, even if her Blanche was more muscular and vivid than I generally give the character credit for. I had wanted to give this excellent production its own review, but by now it's short New York run is over and it is not so fresh in my mind.

But let me just say that Liv Ullman, the director of this production, introduces this stellar production by describing Tennessee William’s state as he wrote his most famous play:

While writing, he thought he was dying, but kept on writing and the song he listened to through those weeks was The Ink Spot’s ‘If I Didn’t Care.’

The show opens with the tune and it wafts back periodically, at once reminding us of romance, New Orleans, and the Blues. Cate Blanchett, known better for her film roles such as Elizabeth, might be expected to show more strength than one is used to, but I was equally delighted to see how she handled the brittle side of her nature. Blanchett’s voice ought to be commended highly here—she maintained a beautiful Southern accent without overplaying it, all the while conveying the hysteria and desperation of her character. She is the star of the play, but Joel Edgerton as Stanley and Robin McLeavy as Stella are the supports that make her performance possible. They do so with a naturalness that is charming. Edergton contends with the overwhelming memory of Marlon Brando very well—by not competing with him. His cry of “Stella” is broken rather than resounding to the roof. Aside from the one moment, I did not compare the two.

On the homefront, the boyfriend sweet talked the woman at the internet company, and a technician came out to the apartment this morning. We should be up and running soon.

Watteau at the Met

"Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination." -Voltaire

Love in the Italian Theater (L'Amour au théâtre italien)

Watteau, Music, and Theater, on view at the Met through November 29, explores, in self-explanatory fashion, the place of music and theater in the work of the Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684–1721). If you've seen some of his work, you know theater is his main subject matter. He paints lush and detailed scenes populated by characters who might be part of the drama or watching it. Costumes are elaborate, and artifice abounds. This small exhibition of paintings and drawings is supplemented by musical instruments and other objects relating to opera-ballet and theater early in the 18th century.

Mezzetin

Mezzetin, left, is one of his simpler compositions, and one of my favorite paintings in this exhibition. Mezzetin, whose name means "half-measure," was one of the stock characters of Italian commedia dell'arte. He could be a deceived or a deceiving husband or servant. Here he appears wistful and lonely.

In a sense, it's hard to account for the appeal of Watteau, who does charming fantasy scenes unpolluted by anything serious. 'Charming' seems too simple and small a word to explain his appeal. While they are charming, they can also be melancholy and ambiguous. Like in Mezzetin, a clown figure often appears isolated and melancholy. The scenes do not follow any known narrative, and we are unsure what the people feel.

Watteau was sickly, self-taught and died at 36 years of age, yet he managed to rise to prominence and further the development of Rococo art in France. Little is know about him, except that he was restless and utterly entranced by theater. Perhaps part of the appeal of Watteau's paintings is the mystery around the artist as well as the ones he painted.

The Foursome (La Partie quarrée), ca. 1714

A SparkNotes Hamlet, with a (hopefully) more colorful review

I was not the only person in the darkened theater to breathe an inward sigh of relief when Jude Law took the stage. His daughter had been born the night before, so there had been some uncertainty as to whether the star of Hamlet would indeed be playing Hamlet. He was, and the show went on at the Broadhurst Theater, which is hosting a limited run of this successful London production, to general applause and more than a few chuckles. Chuckles and Hamlet might not seem to go together, and please do not be led to think that director Michael Grandage is exploring the humorous side of Shakespeare's tragedy.

Continued here on Blogcritics.

Autumn in New York: Plays and Galleries, Oh My

Despite lamenting the shortening days, autumn in New York is lovely...and busy! 'Tis the season, and now there are a hundred and one things cultural offerings on the agenda. This leads to some tough choices. I have to skip a few gallery opening tonight...but I will be seeing the Woodshed Collective's The Confidence Man.

The Woodshed Collective, this genius, only in New York kind of organization, is putting on a free play. All you have to do is reserve a ticket in advance. Last summer they did a really nice job with Twelve Ophelias, a backcountry spin off of Hamlet, at McCarren Pool Park. The group focuses on site-specific installations of original new work. The Confidence Man is being performed on the Decommissioned U.S.C.G. Lilac at Pier 40 on the Hudson. As a spin off of Herman Melville's story about a 19th c. con man on a riverboat, this is more than appropriate.

Here's the kicker: the audience chooses how the performance will go. It's like a choose-your-own-adventure book. To wit:

"The audience will choose what to see and which character’s story to follow just as one selects which newspaper stories to read, which YouTube videos to screen, or which online links to click. By allowing audience members to immerse themselves in the experience, the production seeks to blur the line between performer and patron..."

They warn you not to wear heels--you'll be running all over the old ship. It's all very exciting, and a fun way to kick off a new fall season. Up tomorrow: Johnny Madsen at Denise Bibro, Carla Klein and Rita Lundqvist at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, Juergen Teller at Lehman Maupin, Chris Ofili at David Zwirner, a group show at White Columns and the Kitchen and general wandering about Chelsea to see what's happening. 'Tis the season.

Waiting for Godot at the Roundabout, Just "To Give the Impression that We Exist"

In the interminable dialogue of Waiting for Godot, it's hard to pin down the exact moment you realize what a bleak farce it is, how brutal humanity, or what little value life has. But it seeps out of every crack of the dialogue and every fissure of the character's faces. The play goes on and occasionally you laugh, but, if you're like me, you grimace more often.

My poor boyfriend thought he was going to a light comedy last night, and he turned to me in the middle of the first act to whisper, "This is horrible." "Yes," I enthusiastically agreed. Horribly, brilliantly good in this adaptation by the Roundabout Theater.


The Roundabout puts on a lively version of it, relatively speaking, and Nathan Lane, Bill Irwin, John Goodman, and John Glover create a sense of crackling immediacy as these good-times clowns float over the darker undertones with Vaudevillian abandon. I agree with the NY Times's Ben Brantley who feels he has never known the play to pass so quickly. They allow the play itself to be the star here, with the rhythm of unending cycle, with its half-hearted jokes, with its struggle to use up its time.

Goodman with his floundering bulk was fantastic. Glover's Lucky is horrifically wonderful, especially in his entrance and the revelation of his neck. Irwin and Lane were at ease and competent. Yet "Didi? Diiiidi?" coming from Nathan Lane's mouth is the most cloying part of the performance, where Lane seems to be playing himself rather than Estragon. It's that strident voice of his that doesn't belong in this play.


It's an astonishing play really. I'm shocked at how great it is: how sparse, how suggestive, how open-ended and complete. So despite my better judgment (and probably my sanity), I'm off to wallow in the bleakness of the script. You know, 'to give the impression I exist' and all that. Between this play and Lear, I might need a little cheering up soon.

Oh, and like Lear, I've managed to review this play just before it's run ends. Sorry--I plan to work on that.

k

Shakespeare in the Park's Twelth Night

I braved the rain this past Friday to stand in line for tickets to see the first play of the Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park season, Twelfth Night. The experience both of getting tickets and seeing the play is unique. As I suggest in the video, the play is easily worth the process--I waited for tickets for only 3 hours!



I lucked out with clear skies and a faithful, delightful performance that had the audience laughing every other minute. The acting and the music was excellent, as I hope you can see in the video. Unfortunately, the Ravels in Motion crew is not used to shooting at night (and I was more interested in the play, to be honest) but hopefully you get enough of an idea to get in line at 8 AM in the upcoming weeks and see it for yourself.

Did I mention tickets were free? Anne Hathaway can sing? It's on the lake at Central Park?

Noel Coward: Blithe Charm

Noel Coward, performer, singer, librettist and playwright, got by primarily on charm from his birth in 1899 until his death in 1973 with what Time Magazine called, "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise." Sensibilities have changed, but there's still a certain old-school, British charm to this theatircal jack-of-all-trades. Indeed, that's what he banked on, often writing plays designed to feature himself.




Mad dogs and Englishman, one of his many ditties, is light and above all entertaining. If you need more evidence of Coward's genius for entertaining and you happen to be in Manhattan, go see the revival of Blithe Spirit at the Shubert Theater. This comedy features a stellar cast including Angela Lansbury, and made me laugh more than I ever have at a Broadway play. As good as the production was, the merit lay in the play itself.

Like a little Chekhov with your coffee?

Then keep reading...


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In a Chekhov-heavy season comes another excellent production, The Cherry Orchard playing at BAM's Harvey Theater. Chekhov's final play tells the story of a noble family who has spent their fortune with a purely Russian frivolity and because of it is forced to sell their ancestral home and its huge, beautiful, and useless cherry orchard. True to character, these scions can't manage either to stop spending or to sell the orchard, so it is inevitably auctioned off to pay their debt. Tom Stoppard's adaptation and Sam Mendes' direction would be a winning combination for any play, but a light hand is all that is required to guide this masterwork.

The actors certainly deliver light-handed, realistic versions of their characters. Chekhov's femme fatales are mockeries of the name; femme flawed would be better. These roles certainly aren't easy, requiring self-aggrandizing loud voices and silliness that ring patently false over the play's wasteland of ideals. Sinead Cusack, as Ranevskaya, is true to her part, but hardly carries the lead role as Kristen Scott Thomas did in The Seagull. Rebecca Hall, recently seen in the movie Vicky Christina Barcelona, handles her character excellently. The male cast is strong in general, with Ethan Hawke in another solid performance as an intellectual, and the venerable Richard Easton as the butler Firs.

The production is solid and the remaining question is the same one The Cherry Orchard faced at its first production. Chekhov wrote a comedy, but its first director produced it as a tragedy. Stoppard's rewriting leans toward comedy, but the question remains open. The ridiculous characters, the general insouciance, and the underlying conviction the Chekhov wants you to disapprove of the spendthrift aristocrats all beg you to take their downfall as lightly as they do.

For example, the family's departure from their home is oddly anti-climatic. This is redeemed by the final scene, which depicts the family's faithful old servant Firs, who has awoken to find he has been left behind, dying with only a twinge of sound to mark his passage. His death is a masterful finale for a play that hovers between tragedy and comedy, and, handled in this manner, it diffuses attention from the family just when your sympathies are most with them.

Chekhov's disapproval likewise breaks through in an earlier moment, when an anonymous passerby interrupts the family (and the lightness of the play) to beg for directions and money. His grim presence is the breaking through of a Russian reality, the peasant reality, into their lives. The emotional declarations of the family, for all their more impassioned delivery, don't have the same heft as his simple, serious words. By comedy, Chekhov indeed meant that The Cherry Orchard was a satire, and one whose unhappy characters illustrate unhappy views. His characters are so lifelike and unhappy we sympathize with them.

Despite his intent, Chekhov's artistry outstrips his personal convictions, and in this case, the production itself. What struck me foremost was the play over the production. Chekhov crafted a thoroughly modern, neat, and emotionally satisfying drama that is both timely and timeless. This production at BAM, though by no means unimpressive, was like watching the Oscars and seeing a beautiful girl whose beautiful dress wore her.

Following in the footsteps of The Seagull, and now running concurrently with Uncle Vanya, BAM's production of The Cherry Orchard enlivens any Chekhovite's evening through March 8.

Originally published in Blogcritics Magazine March 2, 2009.

33 Variations: A Race with Beethoven Against Time

Director and playwright Moises Kaufman, of The Laramie Project fame, came on stage at the beginning of 33 Variations, his latest show now in previews on Broadway, last Thursday to explain that he had added some last minute changes. Surprisingly so, since, although the play is new to New York, it has come third-hand via Washington D.C. and Los Angeles. The third time around for Kaufman, his direction and scenery haven't changed, and despite his warning, and a few line flubs, it was a polished and elegant production of an engaging play.

There seems to be little to fool with, as this well-constructed play tells a fascinating set of stories. Musicologist and ALS patient Katherine Brandt (Jane Fonda) determinedly studies Beethoven's Diabelli Variations to figure out why he would write so many variations on a mediocre waltz. Meanwhile, her daughter Clara (Samantha Mathis) tries to get close to her emotionally distant mother, who has less than a year to live, while Clara is also falling in love with a young nurse in the light romantic comedy subplot of this tightly-woven play.

We also watch Beethoven himself (Zach Grenier) work under an obsessive impulse to finish the variations while going deaf and becoming ill. Katherine, Clara, and Beethoven are all in a race against time, and as Katherine comes to feel, Beethoven's 33 variations are a way of exploring all the possibilities and complexities existing in one moment in time.

Death is always the end, but in this case it does not denude the play of drama. The crux of the story becomes the conflict between mother and daughter, and Katherine's need to finish her work. The interludes where Beethoven rages or Clara's boyfriend tries to romance her are the delight of the play, lightening the sense of pathos that is always present yet which, I suspect, never fully plays out. On one hand we are saved from melodrama, and Kaufman's language is delightfully restrained and natural. However, despite the competent acting of the players, some of the characters (the music publisher and the German librarian for example) stray into caricature, and Katherine would be more emotionally compelling if she broke down once.

The production of this piece is the well-honed result of its many stagings. The set was wonderfully handled to accommodate the switch between eras, and its versatile sparseness was modern, light, and effective, with sliding panes of music notes surrounded by shelves alternately accommodating 21st century Bonn and 18th century Vienna. A pianist accompanies the play with parts of the variations. Just as characters talk through time, the music and the characters interact as well. In addition to the drama of the piece, I enjoyed learning about Beethoven's life and works, but also how to listen to him.

33 Variations boasts something for everyone. With its meditation on death, its historical and musical aspects, its touches of light romance, and the gorgeous intermingling of people and ideas across time, the play begs a full house. Combined with the fame of Moises Kaufman and Jane Fonda, it will be interesting to see if that is enough to reel in an audience during these hard economic times.

33 Variations continues at the Eugene O'Neil theater through May 24.

Originally published in Blogcritics Magazine on February 21.

Burlesque Ethos

The stage was small and the lights were red, but the Victorian velvet couches were filled with people of the most average variety. After all, it was a theater, not a strip club. Between the young waitress sitting on the couch beside me to take drink order and giving her number in case we wanted reservations for later, I asked my companion, "What are the rules about nudity?" He merely looked confused at the mention of rules in such a sexy, friendly, and elegant space. Burlesque shows posses an ambiguity that shimmies a tightrope between class and camp, between striptease and vaudeville, between theater and sex.

The heart of Burlesque is sex. You can't take it out of a Burlesque performance, but it can't cross theatrical limits (legally at least). Obscenity and vulgarity are avoided, as the point is to spoof and (to a limited extent) titillate, not to offend. Think of Bettie Page's song and dance number. She has a mischievous smile as she shakes her hips and shoulders slowly and stretches her legs. It is clearly a show of the female form rather than dancing expertise. Her exaggerated slow movements are a spoof of a dance, and turning her back to the audience to shake her butt is the punch line. Burlesque airs out sex, and has from its beginning been a place to relax but not destroy society's moral standards.



Naked or Nude?
Strip clubs are legally bound that the strippers wear a certain amount of clothes, from panties and pasties, to nothing here in New York state as long as no alcohol is served. On the other hand, an unclothed person can walk across a stage in the course of a play without being arrested; that person is nude, not naked. The nude difference is when lack of clothing is aesthetic and theatrical, which Burlesque is. But anyone who has seen a Burlesque show realizes that what is being flaunted on stage is naked, pure and simple.

Burlesque performers typically wear elaborate, themed layers that are removed. This element is a recent addition to what was and is humorous theatrical entertainment. The striptease originated at the Moulin Rouge in 1890s Paris, and subsequently became a part of some Burlesque across Europe. It was only in America that Burlesque became associated with a variety show in which a strip tease is the chief attraction. Today neo-Burlesque retains the music hall atmosphere and features vaudeville acts, and the focus is still on the dancing girls. Shows often have contortionists, singers, or magicians to entertain the audience, although the latter might very well have a sexy slant.

Silly, elaborate and suggestive, a burlesque show makes for fun night on the town. But are they naked or nude? Is it camp or classy? Assuming those performers shimmy the line, it's the delicate balance that is the whole charm of Burlesque.

Pal Joey Bewitches, Yet Again

Soap operas would have me hooked, if they had all the showbiz oomph
of this musical revival of Pal Joey, a 1940 Broadway show (and a 1957 movie with Fred Astaire, Rita Hayworth, and Stockard Channing ). The glitzy, fun essentials are there. That's about it, but that's all you would need for a great night out, dreaming of old Manhattan and the days when show business was showbiz! and hoofers got by on wits and charm.


The plot is similar to one of those cheerful Italian operas, all melodramatic revelations are lustily or tragically belted out. Set in Chicago in the late 1930s, Pal Joey is the story of Joey Evans (Christian Hoff of Jersey Boys fame), a plotting song and dance man with dreams of owning his own nightclub. Joey breaks the heart of the wholesome Linda English, to seduce a rich, married older woman, Vera Simpson (Stockard Channing). It works, and Joey begins building up his own nightclub. One of the performers, Gladys Bumps (Martha Plimpton) has a grudge against Joey that she pays back in a twist even Joey can't worm his way out of. The showbiz, song and dance routine of the entertainment industry turned inside out is fun to watch even now when it has changed, from the backstage flirtations to frou-frou burlesque costumes.

(Blurry Iphone photos of Pal Joey)

The production delivers just what it should from such a musical: pure entertainment. Honestly, I was jealous of the performers, it looks like so much fun to perform. I thought one of the numbers, "Zip", was awkwardly introduced, so that the audience didn't get the full joke of the song (in which a stripper recalls the intellectual musings in her head while she unzips.) Channing's delivery of the infamous "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" can't compete with Ella Fitzgerald, bu then who can? This tried-and-true crowd pleaser doesn't bring anything new to stage, indeed it seems dated rather than shocking (as the conniving predator Joey was originally considered). No matter; some swinging old fashioned nostalgia ought to go down well over the holidays.

Rita Hayworth's "Zip" gratis, so you understand what its all about.

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Directed by Todd Haimes in association with Marc Platt. Musical score by Rogers and Hart. With: Stockard Channing (Vera Simpson), Christian Hoff (Joey Evans) , Martha Plimpton (Gladys Bumps) and Jenny Fellner (Linda English). At the Roundabout Theater's Studio 54 on 254 W. 54^th St. through February 15, 2009.

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The Language of Trees, teetering between the homefront and the warzone

To see, or not to see this new play? That is the question, and this reviewer is unsure. The Roundabout theater's production of a young playwright's off-Broadway debut has magical moments, but does it fulfill its potential in this short and intimate production?

The Language of Trees follows Loretta and her young son Eben at home while the husband Denton goes to Iraq as a translator and is captured. The focus on the mother and son shows us a prosaic world of dishes and cleaning and one pesky neighbor, who befriends and bothers them. As they deal with life after loss at home, Denton finds more than he bargained for as a translator when he is captured and held hostage.

These topical and all-too real issues are imbued with a degree of magic that is charming to watch. Here, Denton converses with Bill Clinton in his cell, providing some of the most enjoyable and also pathos-ridden moments of the play. Denton rambles about his love for his family until he realizes that Clinton is imaginary. The clever Clinton scene was matched by Eben speaking to his father through a tree and by an ending in which Loretta takes on Denton's words, walk over to him in his cell and kisses him goodbye--and this scene held more emotional realism than all the dull cleaning scenes combined.

The Roundabout Theater keeps a small basement black box theater for the encouragement of young playwrights, such as The Language of Tree's Steven Levenson. A pleasure to see a new playwright, but Levenson certainly seemed naive as he focused on Loretta and Eben at home while Denton fights in Iraq. The New York Times noted the play was the first to focus on the home front rather than war zone.

As that article also noted, the plight of the father in Iraq makes the life of the mother and son seem relatively trivial. As they talk about school or pizza, the characters fail to display the depth of talking around things nor do they have breakdowns where one is transported into their agony. This could be due to Ms. Gold's thin performance as well as the script. The structure of the play itself was flawed. It contained extraneous scenes, and dwelling on dishes seemed to retard meaningful relationships rather than illuminate them. The father, on the other hand, shown kneeling with a black hood over his head, can hardly fail to resonate with an American audience today.

The play tackles serious issues, and ones deeply felt by millions of Americans. I was one of the few theatergoers not crying at the end. However, it was more moving in that it reminds one of reality than because it explores human drama and loss in a specific context. It reminds you of anybody you know in the military, it reminds you of the news...but in the characters Loretta and Eben you only find suggestions of what such people could be like.

Skip this play, but watch for playwright Steven Levenson in the future. There was a candor and ambition in his work that could develop quite magically.

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By Steven Levenson; directed by Alex Timbers. With: Maggie Burke (Kay Danley), Natalie Gold (Loretta Trumble-Pinkerstone), Michael Hayden (Denton Pinkerstone), Gio Perez (Eben Trumble-Pinkerstone) and Michael Warner (Bill Clinton). At the Roundabout’s Black Box Theater, at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theater, 111 West 46th Street, Manhattan through December 14.

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Attempted review of a most excellent Chekhov's The Seagull

A new production of Chekhov's play The Seagull has-

{So why is it called The Seagull?}
{Excuse me! Who are you?! And what are you doing in my theater review?}
{Just trying to help you get to the point. I hate those wordy, loud-mouthed reviewers.}
{I hadn't even started yet!}
{And already prevaricating and going on about yourself...}
{Hrrumph. Apparently there are seagulls on the lakes in Russia,-}
{Ooooh, who knew?}
{-where the play is set , and Nina is compared to a seagull by Constantin and Tragorin, and the play ends with a stuffed seagull being placed on stage. Now may I begin?}
{You may. Start with the characters; Chekhov's people always remind me of my neighbors.}

Irina Arkadina, a famous but aging actress, brings her lover, the successful writer Trigorin, to the country estate where her retired brother and her son live. Her son, Constantin, wants to be writer, and has a tempestuous relationship with his difficult, attention-seeking mother. Constantin loves the naive Nina, who wants to be a famous actress. The rest of the characters circle around the story of these four in this family comic-tragedy. Let's just say things begin to unwind in a downward spiral when Nina runs off to Moscow and becomes Trigorin's lover rather than an actress, and this light family comedy takes on tragic tones that have to be avoided in drawing room conversation.

{Little social-climbling slut!}
{Not really, more naive than anything. Now if you'll please keep quiet!}

The Seagull is the first of Chekhov's 4 major plays prior to his death from tuberculosis in 1904. When it was first staged in 1896, the audience booed so loudly that the actress playing Nina lost her voice from fear. It had the typical Chekhovian cast of fully-developed, ordinary characters who keep most of the action offstage, and interact trivially while talking around more serious matters. For instance, a certain writer blows his brains out offstage and we hear no formal discussion, just a whisper to get Irina away. Subtext of this type was an innovation, and helped bring theatrical convention away from melodrama and into the realms of realism.

The version being played at the Walter Kerr theater in New York city, through December 21st, was written by Christopher Hampton, who says "Chekhov used to be thought of as a lyrical, melancholy kind of writer, and he isn't. He's a very muscular, energetic, clear, lucid writer" in this interview with NPR. The strength of the dialogue really comes out in the exchanges, often heated, between Irina (Kristin Scott Thomas of Four Weddings and a Funeral and The English Patient fame) and Constantin (Mackenzie Crook, who is in the BBC version of The Office). Their relationship mirrors that of Hamlet and his mother, as Constantin hates his mother's lover and vies for her respect and attention. This production actually took 9 of the original cast from the British Royal Court's production, although Kristin Scott Thomas was a new and welcome addition.

{Yes, yes, that is all very well, but how was it? what did you think of the performance?}
{Oh, you mean this performance? the Ian Rickson production that I just saw?}
{Oh, go on then. That one, yes of course!}

I really enjoyed it.

{That's it??? You got to say more than that.}

This highly-enjoyable production held my attention from the moment it subtly started, with a character walking out before the lights went down and the audience hushing itself. The different love-longings and sadness and disappointments of the characters was interspersed with laughter throughout, and kept this tragedy in content light in context. It was perfectly staged, with great sound and lighting. The actors were on the top of their game. Kristin Scott Thomas might have been over that top, but then the character Irina is meant to be over the top to some degree and it worked within the play. I really felt drawn into a different world, and was genuinely troubled by the appearance of Nina in the last act.

I think it was an excellent production of an excellent play. A perfect play, really, as it felt like a perfectly harmonious whole and the end was satisfying even while tragic. The characters were true to life throughout, and distinctive as people you live next to and see every day. I thought it was moving in the way life often is, with significance understood rather than outspoken. The New York Times also praised the production, in case you're interested. It was beautiful to watch, especially as things went from light to dark in the end.

{Well, I'll go see it then.}
{Please do, and go away...bothersome old thing!}
{What was that last bit?}
{Nothing!}