Theatre

A-

Hoo-rah!

• Love the reconstructed Globe stage and how they still treat the audience like groundlings (they even keep the lights on!)
• Such a playful production, and it worked. Hamlet can be a real downer (which is fine– it’s clearly in the text), but this was actually a lot of fun.
• The play within a play was indescribably hilarious and masterful.
• Loved the use of sound and music– from the opening and closing songs to the ambient noises punctuating key moments of the play. They used a violin bow on a cymbal!
• Loved the pace (no pun intended). The play was nearly 3 hours but felt like half that.
• All 8 of the actors were fantastic and filled the 20-odd roles extremely well. I particularly enjoyed seeing the same actor play Claudius, Hamlet’s father, and the King in the play within a play.
• The actor playing Hamlet reminded me a little of a young Ralph Fiennes in his cadences and expressions, and that’s never a bad thing.

Blech…

• I was distracted fairly often by the costume changes and whatnot happening backstage. It wouldn’t have been hard to close off the audience’s views to this and I don’t know why they didn’t.
• By making it a ‘fun’ production, some of the dramatic weight was lost. I’m typically close to tears at the end of Hamlet and didn’t feel it this time.
• Likewise for the speed– the pace kept it entertaining, but there weren’t a whole lot of pregnant pauses to allow for an exploration of the weight of a moment.

Wacky side note: My wife Liz and I had some crazy telepathic synchronicity during this production and afterwards found ourselves with basically the same proposal. Today, audiences are smart and they’re pretty darn familiar with the story of Hamlet. Why not spice it up a bit and remove some of the ‘givens’? What if Claudius didn’t kill Hamlet’s father? What if Hamlet is truly insane and is the only person who sees his father’s ghost? What if Hamlet killed Ophelia? What if when Claudius is praying, he’s praying for Hamlet’s mental health– maybe  he truly cares for the boy? What if Hamlet is responsible for his own father’s death? What’s interesting to us is not making any of this overt, but like the ending to such films as Inception and Looper, why not provide enough evidence to allow audience members to make a case either way? Don’t have Claudius confessing to the murder. Don’t have the guards see Hamlet’s father. Allow for the reaction Claudius has to the play within a play to be a debatable one. Maybe add a couple small scenes and remove a few that are too on-the-nose?

We think this would be fun. What say you?

B

Hoo-rah!

• Wonderful use of the space– a large studio with a flat floor. It felt spacious and free when it served the story, and empty and cold when necessary.
• A fully multimedia experience. Sound, sight, cameras– awesome. Reminded me of ‘…some trace of her’ in some very good ways.
• Good restraint of the ‘infinity effect’ the cameras create when filming their own projection. Glad it was saved for the end, and it worked well.
• Great humor/comic timing. Loved the guy– especially in suave casanova mode.
• Mustaches! Somehow worked very well for allowing the female actors to play multiple genders.

Blech…

• The whole production came off as a little cold. There were a lot of ‘emotional’ moments that would have worked better if more time was spent making us care about the characters.
• Didn’t feel any stakes. Wasn’t rooting for anything. It was an interesting exploration of the whole art versus love thing, but not a particularly interesting story. It kind of just washed over me.

A-

‘Whhaaaaa…? But that’s not a theatre performance!’ I hear you grumble. But here’s my definition of theatre: a live experience involving suspension of disbelief. Here’s my definition of good theatre: theatre that moves me. This was good theatre. That being said, because it does not define itself as theatre, I will choose to forgo my usual ‘Hoo-ra’/'Blech…’ format of bullet-point review. Instead, think of this more as a recap. A thorough-recap. My goal here is for you to understand–to empathize with–how wonderful this experience was. Here we go.
Continue reading…

Normally I wouldn’t bother reviewing something that you have no possibility of seeing (it was a one-night-only thing), but this evening got me thinking about things like how short our generation’s attention span is, and how strange it is that I’ve realized I’m more likely to commute from Brooklyn to Manhattan to see an unknown hour-long production than a three-hour one. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good three-hour play (see my Death of a Salesman review), but there’s nothing worse if twenty minutes in you realize it’s destined to be a complete waste of your time. Anyway:

B+

Hoo-rah!

• There were 4 plays and I thoroughly enjoyed 3 of them.
• Common themes well-explored: dreams, war, what life must be like in a first-world country, death.
• Loved hearing the Spanish mixed with English. I don’t speak Spanish, but I was usually able to figure out what was being said and the mixing was a pure audible treat.
• The second play, ‘A White Night’s Dream’ was my favorite. In just a few lines, the two characters became real, relatable people. I loved how genuinely enthralled the male character was at hearing the progression of the female character’s dream. And his harping obsession with Al Pacino. And the female’s shortening of Peter Brook to just ‘Brook’, the visionary director.  Wonderful job making me continuously ask the question ‘and then what?’
• The final play (a monumental one-woman monologue) had excellent use of language that painted gorgeous visual images. Also great uses of sound.

Blech…

• None of the endings really worked. Well, I liked the third play (which was a little too unrelentingly serious for me) retroactively lightening the whole ordeal by claiming ‘aliens’ as the explanation for the missing daughter that tore a family apart… but it seems I’m one of the few who did. The first play just petered out, the second play had kind of a strange death sequence that didn’t resonate for me, and the fourth play should have ended about a minute before it did– on the excellent line ‘I’m going home to make pudding for breakfast!’
• Interestingly enough, all the plays could have used some editing down. I think a lot of writers decide they’re going to write a ten-minute play, then come up with a five-minute idea, then stretch it out to ten minutes.
• The first play didn’t work for me at all. I didn’t care about the characters, I didn’t feel stakes, I wasn’t rooting for anything to happen. Just awkward shit and sex jokes.

B+

Hoo-rah!

• I love me some Pinter. The actors used the pauses well and there were a lot of fun moments that you can only find in a Pinter play.
• The actors and the writing tackle some heavy subject matter (random acts of kindness for the homeless & mentally disturbed) with enough levity to keep the show entertaining without ever trivializing the issue.
• Although it was only the second play Pinter ever had produced, it felt like it could have been a sequel to my favorite Pinter play ‘No Man’s Land.’ In that play, a homeless man spends the show working up the courage to ask if they can live with someone. In this play, that’s the jumping off point. ‘No Man’s Land’ had more juicy menace, but this was funnier.
• On the funny note, there were some hilarious standalone bits. One involves Mick’s entrance where he keeps repeating the same questions to poor, already-troubled Davies, one involves a matchbox in the dark, and one involves a bag being passed around. Brilliant.
• Jonathan Pryce was magnetic. His laughing was well-considered and provided magnificent pacing to his diatribes, his anger was terrifying and saddening, his physicality was flawless. And when it came time to make us truly pity him, truly wish we could help him, he delivered. The last few moments we see him are truly heartbreaking.
• I was really hoping the play would go to where it did in the last 10 minutes, and I’m glad it did. It helped ground the entire show.

Blech…

• In the moment, I enjoyed the ending. In retrospect, it leaves a yucky taste in my mouth. Without completely giving it away, it hints that a lot of what happened in the play could have been imagined. Maybe one or two of the characters never existed? It’s a fascinating idea (if done right), but as far as I could tell, the seeds for such a contention were never planted in the show. Needlessly spooky.
• The actor playing Mick… either he needed more of a history to justify his behavior, or he needed to act more human and take time building more to his extremes. None of his outbursts felt particularly earned–just like shock value.
• As much as I love Pinter’s dialogue, a lot of it in this play felt excessive and like it needed the work of a good editor. At the same length as ‘Death of a Salesman’ (2 hours and 45 minutes), this show had maybe one third of the emotional discoveries. I think the show could get the same story across and ultimately pack more punch if it lost about an hour.
• Because I love ‘No Man’s Land’ so much, I couldn’t help but keep comparing the two shows, and be secretly thinking how ‘No Man’s Land’ conveyed a lot of elements concisely and powerfully that were still being fussed with in the writing of this play (e.g. quiet threats are better than vocal ones, monologues should be earned and are most interesting when you’re deeply invested in the reaction of the listener(s), the nature of memory loss is more interesting if there are dots to connect). But hey, ‘No Man’s Land’ came much later in his career, so that shows improvement.

Tales from the Stagedoor…

• Actually, a talkback session with the actors and a Pinter scholar.
• Jonathon Pryce played Mick in this show back in 1980. He says “when the writing is really good, it’s like working with an orchestra behind you.” Also, his dad was sent to an asylum, so this was a very personal production.
• “What is the nature of the Buddha statue?” Enlightenment. A precious object. Smashed to bits. Metaphors abound.
• One person said that it felt like too often they were just ‘playing for laughs.’ The response from the actors was a well-reasoned explanation of being true to the material and never playing for laughs, but keeping in mind that laughs are certainly intended by Pinter. They argued that tragedy feels that much darker when its contrasted with the levity of humor. I agree.
• When asked ‘why does Aston invite Davies to live with him at all’, the actor said that his character’s life was a very boring one and more activity could help. In addition to being a random act of kindness, this was kind of like having a dog or a cat. It’s just nice to have life around.
• The whole session was very enlightening, both looking at the craft of acting, and doing justice to a solid piece of writing. Listen to the whole talkback here.