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| Lincoln Center, Friday night June 20, 2017. Photo Credit Me. |
June ended for me with Oslo by J.T. Rogers at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln
Center. The play was briskly intellectual,
cleverly interesting, occasionally quite funny (people are), its characters were passionate in different ways — and
yet the play was not. Oslo was about the unlikely yet true
secret meetings leading up to the Oslo Accords and the Arab-Israeli Peace
Process back in the 1990s. The
production, directed by Bartlett Sher,
was excellent, with great performances by all, particularly those who played
more than one role. But something seemed
to be missing for me, perhaps because I know that all this passion,
manipulation, energy and sincere effort led merely, after all that, to a temporary
success.
Not to mention I’d been overwhelmed by Indecent less than a week before….
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| Jennifer Ehle and Jefferson Mays in OSLO |
⇵
On the day before Independence Day I saw 1984 at the Hudson
Theatre. Alas it was all for show. Lots of shock value, with lighting effects
that may be detrimental to people subject to migraines or epilepsy. Reed
Birney was excellent. The play may
be of possible interest to anyone who did not read the book in school — now
that’s a dreadful thought leading to feelings of hopelessness. Simply put, the
play was not good.
Read the book.
Then after
Independence Day, more Shakespeare with Hamlet at the Anspacher Theater at
the Public Theater in its downtown headquarters. Director Sam
Gold’s production was innovative and exhilarating, playing in four hours
that felt like two. Oscar Isaac is a splendid Hamlet, clever and soft, the boy next
door with a secret. He is an actor with
a technical mastery of the language that makes it all sound utterly
spontaneous. The very small cast wove in
and out of multiple characters.
Standouts were Gayle Rankin
as a quirky, golden-voiced Ophelia, Ritchie
Coster as Claudius, Anatol Yusef
as Laertes, and Peter Friedman as
Polonius. Unfortunately, this limited
run closes Sunday. (Yes, that’s this Sunday, 3 September.)
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| Isaac as Hamlet with Rankin as Ophelia. Photo by Sara Krulwich |
A couple weeks after loving Sam
Gold’s production of Hamlet, I
saw his production of A Doll’s House Part 2 at the John Golden Theatre. At best, it was annoying. The
play runs a four-act structure in 90 minutes, with mostly two-person scenes
beyond which playwright Lucas Hnath
must grow. For no good reason at all, Jayne Houdyshell’s character suddenly
started swearing right and left. I felt
it was probably so that Chris Cooper,
the sole male in the cast, wouldn’t be the only character using foul
language. And much as I typically like Laurie Metcalf, her Nora made me think
of Roseanne, which is not pleasant
for me. Condola Rashad was oddly intriguing as Nora and Torvald’s grown
daughter. Director Sam Gold may have
received accolades for this one, but I cannot agree this time.
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| Jayne Houdyshell and Laurie Metcalf. (Photo by Brigitte Lacombe) |
In closing, it was a lively half year of theatre for me. When I look over my notes scribbled after
these performances, one theme repeated.
“Smartphones.” This bane of civilized
discourse creates annoying addicts too self-centered to turn off their "phones" when
requested, too insecure to get through intermission without them. It should be noted that this rude behavior is
not limited to one generation. What a
world. But that’s for another musing.
~ Molly Matera, signing off to enjoy Labor Day Weekend with friends
and family. Be safe and have fun.
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