Last month I reviewed a production of Tennessee Williams' rarely-produced Vieux Carré at the Pearl Theatre. The production was adequate if a little uninspired, and did more to shed light on a terrific play that ought to be performed more frequently than it held succeeded in its own right. Still, the stage and lighting design were terrifically unusual, and a couple of actors kept the proceedings interesting. Mostly, the production seemed to be creating a tableau of Williams's work rather than turning the text into something new. Click here to read the whole review.
Showing posts with label Theatre. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Theatre. Show all posts
Vieux Carré
Last month I reviewed a production of Tennessee Williams' rarely-produced Vieux Carré at the Pearl Theatre. The production was adequate if a little uninspired, and did more to shed light on a terrific play that ought to be performed more frequently than it held succeeded in its own right. Still, the stage and lighting design were terrifically unusual, and a couple of actors kept the proceedings interesting. Mostly, the production seemed to be creating a tableau of Williams's work rather than turning the text into something new. Click here to read the whole review.
The Merchant of Venice
Recently I reviewed Propeller's production of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice at the Brooklyn Institute of Music. Re-cast in a prison at an indeterminate historical moment, the production hit all the right notes with the difficult play's uneasy comedy, fostering a terrific ensemble dynamic tinged with dance, singing, fight choreography and a touch of burlesque. Still, there was something lacking in Propeller's handling of the play's weighty dramatic plot – about the Jew Shylock demanding the return on his bond with Antonio, one pound of the Venetian's flesh. The production seemed literally trapped by the prison setting it had created. Read the whole review here.
Offices
I reviewed the new play Offices (written by Ethan Coen) for The L Magazine's theater section this week, a disappointing workplace comedy in three parts that sticks to tired Coenesque conventions without even attempting something more substantial. The result, though buoyed by clever set design and some outstanding performances, can't compete in the currently saturated office comedy genre. Read the whole review here. (Image courtesy Doug Hamilton)
Puppet Kafka
In my review of Drama of Works' production of the new work, Puppet Kafka, I discuss the inherent strengths and problems with the idea of adapting Franz Kafka's stories with a cast of puppets. Mixing narratives from The Penal Colony, The Trial, Metamorphosis and the author's life, Puppet Kafka has some inspired characters and scenes, but on the whole never manages to recover the momentum lost every time actors and puppets must move awkwardly through the play's precious (though beautiful) stage and set. Read the whole review here.
Trinity 5:29
For my latest theater review in The L Magazine I covered Trinity 5:29 by the Axis Company. The play is set in the days leading up to Robert Oppenheimer's invention and detonation of the very first atomic bomb, named TRINITY. Despite its visual appeal and style, the production seems lost between interests in historical verisimilitude and philosophical rumination. With only 45 minutes to find its way, Trinity 5:29 never really gets anywhere and is instead extremely frustrating. Read my whole review here.
Theatre Han's The Bus Stop
In my latest theater review I discuss the contemporary resonances of The Bus Stop, an absurdist parody by Nobel-winning author Gao Xingjian being produced in New York for the first time since its publication in 1983. In the Theatre Han production at the Sanford Meisner Theatre, Xingjian's criticism of Chinese communism, its contradictions and inadequacies hint at similar anxities today for an audience in a capitalist country possibly (finally) contemplating socialism. Read the whole review here. (Photo Ho Chang)
The Secret Agenda of Trees
Check out my review of the current production at The Wild Project, The Secret Agenda of Trees. Set in a rural meat-packing plant, the play offers a bleak, but thankfully not dire and hopeless rendering of abject American poverty. Though its performances are not completely even and its pacing suffers some in the second half, eloquent set, lighting and sound design, and a stellar lead performance make this well worthwhile. Read my whole review here.
Red-Haired Thomas
Check out my first theater review for The L Magazine, of Soho Think Tank's production of Robert Lyons's Red-Haired Thomas at the Ohio Theatre. Though charming and clever at times, its project of interrogating the competing American ideals of democracy and capitalism eventually devolves into fetishism of the former. Democracy isn't so much a topic for debate here (although that's basically exactly what democracy is) as the supposed golden ideal from which our national experiment originated. Read the whole review here. (Photo by Carl Skutsch)
Shakespeare's love trade
The English Department’s Winter semester production of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is visually spectacular and ideologically fascinating. Specifically, it brings two problematic themes from the original text to the fore: heteronormative sexual politics and the application of economics to human relationships. Meanwhile, the production’s treatment of anti-Semitism, though true to Shakespeare’s original and unapologetic for it, only testifies to the problematic politics of the play’s historical context.
The plot follows the trajectory of Bassanio as he borrows money from his friend and lover Antonio in order to go woo the rich and powerful Portia. Antonio, in turn, raises the money for his partner by taking out a loan from a Jewish financier, Shylock. When Antonio defaults on the loan, the terms of the contract stipulate that he must forfeit a pound of his flesh to Shylock. This sets the stage for a thrilling courtroom scene in which Portia saves the day in disguise, ensuring the happiness and fidelity of her recently-wed Bassanio, and the demise of Shylock.
Added to the fray are subplots that address the activities of the many secondary characters. These involve, amongst others, the conversion of Shylock’s daughter Jessica into a Christian fit for the love of Lorenzo, the attempted courtship of Portia by two self-absorbed suitors, and the movements of the main characters’ posses – because in those days, everybody who was anybody in Venice rolled with a crew.
One of the play’s two central threads relentlessly works to undo the romantic relationship between Bassanio and Antonio, and replace it with the heterosexual union of the former with Portia. Professor Myrna Wyatt-Selkirk’s production plays up the romantic investment between Antonio and Bassanio, and its dissolution. In doing so, Wyatt-Selkirk makes Antonio’s sacrifice painfully clear, and the final image of the play has him standing near the front of the stage as Bassanio and Portia run off to bed. This is not to say that Bassanio has no moral difficulty in displacing his affection from Antonio onto Portia. In fact, until midway through the last scene it is clear that Bassanio’s main romantic interest is still Antonio. Whether or not this replacement of homosexual love with heterosexual desire had any particular historical topicality in Shakespeare’s time, it provides a potent allegory for contemporary sexual politics.
The Merchant of Venice’s other main plot is the personal and financial breaking down of Shylock, which raises another issue in the play: the conflation of the personal and the financial. Shylock’s main offense, therefore, is that he makes this analogy literal when he proposes to clear Antonio’s debt in exchange for a pound of his flesh. By punishing Shylock, the other characters seek to deny the intermingling of the flesh with finance. However, the punishment visited on Shylock collapses these two categories all over again: not only does the court demand the confiscation of all his money, but also his conversion to Christianity and his expulsion from
With its huge set of characters and plots, The Merchant of Venice’s cast is inevitably uneven. That said, the four main characters are all portrayed with engaging zeal. Dan Wood Clegg, in the role of Shylock, rides the line between stubborn jerk and pitiful underdog magnificently. Mackenzie Tan, playing Bassanio, creates a sense of youthful exuberance and innocence that almost makes one forget his disloyalty to Antonio. In the role of powerful Portia, Katherine Folk-Sullivan lends the cleverly manipulative upper-class socialite redeeming humanity and depth. As the imperiled Antonio, Stephen Nagy elicits pity from start to finish, while his convincing chemistry with Tan’s Bassanio makes the end of their relationship palpably sad.
The secondary characters, meanwhile, are portrayed by actors who ride the gamut from inspiring to appalling. Two performances are particularly noteworthy. Portraying Shylock’s manservant Lancelot Gobbo, who leaves to work for Bassanio, Phil Li-Wei Chen creates a brilliant caricature that combines clown-like banter, schizophrenic soliloquizing, and animalistic and sometimes hyper-sexual movements that recall the mannerisms of Smeagol in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Meanwhile, Adam Goldhamer’s portrayal of Antonio’s posse-member Gratiano is well-suited and stylized to this production’s conflation of Renaissance and contemporary modes. His constant raucous energy saves several scenes from getting bogged down in the sad solemnity of some of the other actors.
Though its acting is uneven – but on balance good – and its politics are problematic, the play’s visual aesthetic is remarkable and completely unique. The luscious costumes, jarring make-up and hairstyles, striking lighting, and unusual set design make The Merchant of Venice a relentless feast for the eyes. Intriguing for its visual stimulation and its confrontational politics, this production is satisfying both for those whose brains are numbed by essays, and the others who want to whet their intellectual appetites in preparation for exams.
Note: This article was published on 5 April 2007 in the McGill Daily and can be found on that paper's website here.Writing a queer history from a basement in East Berlin
Queer politics face many challenges in contemporary Western society. With ongoing struggles to ensure legal and social equality, the right to self-representation, and freedom from institutionalized oppression, queer identity politics have become a hyper-visual subject in recent years. Within this field of debate, increasing attention has been given to the writing of a queer history as a crucial step towards establishing a communal identity. I Am My Own Wife, the moving must-see production currently at the Leanor and Alvin Segal Theatre, is a giant leap in the direction of forging a queer history.
I Am My Own Wife is a true story that stages the history of German transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorf as it was disentangled by playwright Doug Wright. In 1960 von Mahlsdorf opened the
However, the importance of von Mahlsdorf’s personal history for queer politics vastly outstrips the significance of her mansion-museum. Beyond her absorption in German history and her efforts to preserve it, her very existence is an artefact of queer history. This play’s broader project becomes that of documenting von Mahlsdorf’s survival through two ultra-repressive regimes, and how she single-handedly carved out space for a queer community in
As Wright remarks to his editor over the phone – his research process is included in the text of I Am My Own Wife – von Mahlsdorf “doesn’t run a museum, she is a museum.” She dedicated her life to preserving the queer history of
Portraying all of I Am My Own Wife’s three dozen roles, Brett Christopher gives an incredible performance. Using a broad range of accents, postures, speech patterns, and movements, Christopher moves seamlessly from one character to the next, causing no confusion in the captivated and receptive audience. The impressive lighting system helps differentiate between characters, creating varying moods and glows from one moment to the next. In fact, that Wright’s play should call for only one actor makes all kinds of sense. As a text concerned with solidifying a sense of queer identity, I Am My Own Wife demonstrates that categories of gender and sexuality are completely fluid, malleable, and ultimately based on convention and performance rather than hard fact.
The play is very aware of its significance to the writing of queer history. During its second half, I Am My Own Wife addresses the media attention von Mahlsdorf’s story has recently garnered in
Rather than ignore this problematic aspect of von Mahlsdorf’s life, I Am My Own Wife draws our attention to the importance of honesty in the recording of history. She was not a wholly benevolent queer messiah, but had to bend to the oppressive rules of her time in order to stay alive and free. Whether or not this required that she collaborate with a repressive state police force will never be clear, and this uncertainty in her personal history is a testament to her humanity. Von Mahlsdorf’s answer to Wright’s questioning testifies to this need for honesty rather than embellishment; using her antique furniture collections as an analogy for her life story, von Mahlsdorf explains: “Nicks, cuts, scrapes…these things, they are proof of their history, and so, you must leave it.”
Noel's angels
In Fallen Angels, the current production at the Leanor and Alvin Segal theatre, three strong women control and manipulate three weak men. Though this power structure is present in the text, written in 1925 by gay British playwright Noël Coward, the casting decisions highlight the subversive powers of the female characters. Director Diana Leblanc’s production does justice to the script’s commanding women, but it does not explore the homosexual undertones available in Coward’s text.
Divided into three acts, the play follows a week-end in the lives of best friends Julia (Goldie Semple) and Jane (Brigitte Robinson). Their husbands Fred (Noel Burton) and Willy (Tim Hine), also best friends, are out of
The second act is the strongest, book-ended between a first act that is mostly set-up and a disappointing and hung-over climax. In the second act we only see the three women, whose exchanges are energetic and snappy. As Julia and Jane become more and more drunk throughout the second act, their schemes and accusations become proportionately more preposterous. This is when Fallen Angels is at its best. We imagine that this is how Coward, the heir to a tradition of excess and exuberance in British theatre that began with Oscar Wilde, would have wanted to see his play performed. These moments of hilarity, however, are too heavily relied upon to provide the bulk of the play’s energy.
The looming return of the husbands and supposedly climactic appearance of Maurice fail to maintain the standard set in the second act. This may be due to deliberately uneven casting choices. The weaker actors are upstaged by the actresses, just as the naïve husbands are manipulated by their wives. The ending, as a result, is disappointing because we are never convinced that the husbands could have outsmarted their wives. Leblanc’s production, furthermore, fails to acknowledge more complex homosocial bonds between Fred and Willy, or Julia and Jane. A more daring staging could draw attention to activities other than golf that the men might partake in during a week-end out of town, and away from their disenchanting marriages. Similarly, more could be made of the relationship between Julia and Jane. The pair has been best friends since before either married, yet in this production their only shared experiences seem to be lacklustre marriages and distant romances with Maurice.
Uneven acting and too-conventional direction aside, Fallen Angels is fun and beautiful. The consistent scene-stealing of the maid Saunders is delightful and refreshing. Between the dramatic antics of Julia and Jane, and the stuffy ignorance of Fred and Willy, Coulter’s Saunders is quietly and cleverly subversive. Despite her working-class position she is more intelligent, cultured, and worldly than the upper-class employers she answers to. The ease with which she gets her way and points out the foolishness of her economic superiors is hilarious and endearing.
Other highpoints of the play are its luscious set and costumes. The entire play takes place in Julia and Fred’s
Though in many ways a conservative production, Fallen Angels is beautiful, and at its most entertaining when Julia, Jane, and Saunders have free run of the stage. While the more implicit subplots of the relationships between Fred and Willy, or Julia and Jane, are not fleshed out, the latter two in particular are given life by spirited performances from Semple, Robinson, and Coulter. Despite the neglected subtexts, Coward’s plays are primarily about beautiful people having a marvellously entertaining time. Leblanc’s production, in this respect, is successful for about two thirds of its runtime.
Note: This article was published on 2 November 2006 in the McGill Daily and can be found on that paper's website here.Poorly sewn seeds reap law suits
What differentiates this true story’s protagonist from any other? As we are told early on, “he didn’t cave.” In Seeds, a documentary play being performed at the Monument-National Theatre, a farmer from
The play is based upon a story that has been unfolding in the Canadian media and court system for roughly six years. As it has progressed, the case has produced a hero for grassroots activists the world over.
The action begins in
Indeed, the main focus of the play is not on the lawsuit itself, but rather on its aftermath and implications. As playwright and artistic director Annabel Soutar explained, “this play is really about the dirt behind the case.” Unfortunately, in such a high-stakes situation, dirt was pretty hard to dig up.
Thus, the Schmeiser v. Monsanto case became in Soutar’s words “an exercise in investigative journalism.” She went to
Most of the inspirational value though, comes from the actual story and not so much from its portrayal on stage. However, if the production seems more like a compilation of newscasts than anything else, it may be because the case received so little attention from the real media. Seeds therefore is primarily an effort to provoke thought and awareness, rather than to entertain.
Certainly Schmeiser’s story could have been spun into a riveting narrative “based on a true story.” Instead, the play consists entirely of primary documents spoken by six actors, each actor playing multiple roles. The first act therefore consists almost entirely of courtroom transcripts from the 1998 lawsuit, which Soutar explained she “had to edit down from 1300 pages to the 20 meatiest.” The second act is a post-modern collage of court documents, interviews, letters, telephone conversations, newspaper articles and editorials, and public speeches.
As Schmeiser has become one of the most vocal spokespersons of the anti-GMO movement, he has been traveling around the world speaking out on modern farming practices, corporate bullying and scare-tactics. Excerpts from speeches given in
Schmeiser’s appeal reached the Supreme Court of Canada, where the original decision was upheld, though it was decided that he did not owe Monsanto the vast sums of money he’d been ordered to pay originally. But for all this time in court nobody is any closer to knowing how the patented gene ended up in Shmeiser’s field. At the other end of the spectrum, we do not leave the theatre with any definite opinion as to whether or not a company should be allowed to patent a life form. One does leave with the clear and uncomfortable knowledge that we exist, as is articulated in a courtroom transcript, within “a system which seeks to commodify everything.”
And so the bitter question remains... "who owns life?"
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