On the Birth of the Bard

Last year I wrote a reasonably well-prepared post about William Shakespeare and his plays in celebration of his birthday on this very blog. Alas, this year, well, I’ve been a bit lax in gathering data and thoughts and such, so I may be a bit doddery (Lear creeps in already) in these scribblings.  I will now stop procrastinating, for as Will said, “In delay there lies no plenty.”  Or Good’n’Plenty.  Off we go.

The thing about Shakespeare is that we go to hear the words.  We see the same plays over and over again because the same play can take a different path when someone new directs it or acts in it or designs it or thinks about it and puts it all together to communicate their interpretation to us, the willing audience.  And if we disagree, we get to argue about it.  Who could ask for anything more.

We will see their spiffy production values and costumes and themes and such, but still we go to hear.  Hear the same sentence sound remarkably different because a different actor is saying it to yet another actor.  Let’s take King Lear, for example; it’s a year for Lears.  There’s your Lear, and there’s your Lear talking to your Regan.  Or your Goneril.  Or your Cordelia.  And your Lear has different feelings about each of these daughters depending on the actor playing Lear, the actor playing Goneril, the actor playing Regan, the actor playing Cordelia.  So many dynamics to play with, so many possibilities.  And each time we hear this Lear we haven’t seen before speak the same lines another Lear did to his daughters, the words are new and fresh.

Everyone wants to do Lear — the play has very fine male roles, of course, but also two excellent female roles and one possibly impossible female role — so there’ll be plenty more to come and to compare.  All of this applies to many of the plays, of course.  Lear is an easy example this year. 

Diana Rigg as Regan

Last month I saw Theatre For a New Audience’s (“TFANA”) production of King Lear in which Michael Pennington undertook the role of Lear under the direction of Arin Arbus.  His Lear was a pretty angry fellow in full control of his faculties when he makes all the foolish assumptions and foolhardy decisions of his first scene.  Later he goes a bit dotty and becomes softer and more understanding.  He notices things then — things like there were subjects (people) to be cared for, to be protected, in his kingdom, and he hadn’t done his job well.  It was a very socially-aware Lear.  I’m told, although I didn’t see it myself, that Frank Langella’s Lear performed the month before at BAM, started off that same first scene practically doddering and then became clearer in his madness.  Utterly different men, utterly different choices, utterly different relationships.  In the TFANA Lear, my favorites were the Regan (a marvelously sharp and cynical Bianca Amato) and her husband Cornwall (a delightfully perverse Saxon Palmer).  I decided to re-view a Lear still in my memory from the 1980s for its fabulous Edmund and Edgar pairing of Robert Lindsay and David Threlfall.  The Lear was Olivier.  The Fool, oh the Fool, was John Hurt!  Next week I’ll be seeing a live broadcast from London of a production directed by Sam Mendes in which Simon Russell Beale takes on Lear.

But I digress. 

In the past year I saw some splendid productions of Shakespeare plays, including —

• London’s Donmar Warehouse’s production of Julius Caesar¹ set in a women’s prison transferred handily to St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn.  Directed by the fabulous Phyllida Lloyd, Dame Harriet Walter as Brutus and Frances Barber as Julius Caesar led an all-female cast to the heights and depths and yes it worked.  This was the perfect example of familiar lines carrying all new meaning based on the interpretations of different direction, actors, genders, and styles.

Harriet Walter as Brutus

• TFANA’s inaugural production in its new home in another part of Brooklyn was of A Midsummer Night’s Dream² directed by Julie Taymor.  It was as magical and delectable and high-flying as you might expect from Ms. Taymor.

Tina Benko as Titania

• In addition to more snow than we’re accustomed to, winter brought us two plays in repertory³ from Shakespeare’s Globe, not in its usual visiting venue in lower Manhattan.  Rather, these two gorgeous (costumes, set, music, everything), all-male Globe productions traveled to Broadway. 

-         Twelfe Night starred Mark Rylance as Olivia in what might be the most extraordinary performance I’ve seen him give yet, and he’s always remarkable.  Stephen Fry’s Malvolio was also delicious.

-         Richard III starred Mr. Rylance again in the title role, but the play showed itself as it is — so much about Richard that the other characters and the story are short-changed.  Not by the actors, however.  For just one example, Samuel Barnett (a fine Viola in the Twelfe Night) was a fabulous and powerful Queen Elizabeth in Richard III.

At a movie-house I saw the Donmar Warehouse’s production of Coriolanus⁴ broadcast live from Covent Garden, London, to Kew Gardens, Queens.  The live broadcast was almost as exciting as being there live to see Tom Hiddleston’s performance as a youthful and disdainful Coriolanus.  It was an interesting production of a problematical play.  And, to follow up, I also watched the Ralph Fiennes film version.  Two views of Coriolanus in one year is quite unusual.

The long-awaited Joss Whedon black-and-white modern day Much Ado About Nothing⁵ opened on a rainy night last summer.  It was fun, and there were some delightful performances, but the mores and manners of Much Ado do not lend themselves well to modern settings, in my opinion.  Viewing that film did, however, inspire me to re-view Kenneth Branagh’s 1993 film of the same play, which was a polar opposite to the Whedon film.  It’s all a matter of interpretation, not to mention mood.

How far afield can one go in interpreting Shakespeare’s words?  From The Tempest played on an Elizabethan stage in which the sea and sand and cave are all artfully explained in poetry because they cannot be physically brought into the old Globe, all the way to a science fiction film that introduced Robby the Robot as a sort of Ariel and Dr. Morbius as Prospero, with Anne Francis — in remarkably skimpy outfits for 1956; there is clearly nothing new under the sun — as Miranda on the planet Altair IV instead of a desert island.  Shakespeare:  Passport to the Universe.

Among my theatre goings this year, I saw an interesting new play that echoed themes of A Doll’s House, which I also saw this year in an excellent production directed by Carrie Cracknell with Hattie Morahan as Nora. But I won’t be seeing either of those plays again.  It’s Shakespeare that bears repeating, that we go to year after year, wondering how will that director show it, that actor interpret it, what will it look like to an audience that can never get enough of Shakespeare.  How will it sound this time?

Right now, for mood music, I’ve got a DVD of “Theatre of Blood” playing in the background — the story of a Shakespearean actor who decides that first he must kill all the critics, all by methods found in the Bard’s plays.  Vincent Price, Diana Rigg — full of Shakespearean quotes and plots and a cavalcade of British actors of stage and screen.  Such fun.

By the way, Michael Graves, an old friend from my acting days, moved down to New Mexico, and he is right now rehearsing his first Lear for a reading at the Aux Dog Theatre.  Anyone anywhere near Albuquerque, please go see him on Thursday for me and continue this Lear year (http://www.auxdog.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=60&products_id=502 ).

Happy Birthday, Will.  Many exciting returns of the day.  And thank you for your never-ending gifts.

¹ http://www.mollyismusing.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-donmar-st-anns-warehouses-all.html

² http://www.mollyismusing.blogspot.com/2013/12/a-dream-opening-for-tfanas-new-home.html

³ http://www.mollyismusing.blogspot.com/2014/01/in-repertory-twelfe-night-and-winter-of.html

⁴ http://www.mollyismusing.blogspot.com/2014/02/coriolanus-at-donmar-or-live-theatre.html

⁵ http://www.mollyismusing.blogspot.com/search/label/Joss%20Whedon

~ Molly Matera, sending you off to another site where lots of people are wishing Shakespeare a happy 450^th Birthday:  http://birthday2014.bloggingshakespeare.com/

Broken Hearts Bleed Black

Theatre for a New Audience’s scintillating production of John Ford’s 1620-something tragedy, The Broken Heart, is at the Duke on 42^nd Street through March 4th.  It was my first encounter with the Duke Theatre and I was impressed.  It’s a black box, configured as a thrust with many opportunities for entrances and exits to and within the space, and affording a controlled lighting scheme.  Seating wraps around three sides with comfy chairs at center.  The Broken Heart is a three-hour play but I barely noticed — those are good chairs, not to mention a riveting production. 

Shakespeare wrote bawdily in Elizabethan England.  John Ford followed a decade or so later in the 1620s, writing in the Caroline era (that is, during the reign of Charles I).  Shakespeare’s bawdy being frowned upon, Mr. Ford wrote abstemiously of the same lusts, lies, and naughtiness, but not as well. Not many plays by John Ford are extant and The Broken Heart is considered one of his best.  And it is a good tale, with love and chastity, lust, ravishment, and revenge.  People in John Ford plays were upright, uptight, and sure of their moral strength, even though The Broken Heart takes place in ancient Sparta.  They do not lack the stuff of bawdy.  They’re passionate, they just are extraordinarily repressed, so when their passions explode, they implode at the same time, and there’s bound to be blood.

The actors at Theatre for a New Audience have the chops to rise above a less than lyrical script and make it sing in some places, stumble a bit in others. What stands out is the fine, fine acting.  This cast is highly skilled and handles choreography, song, and some difficult language with aplomb.

Particularly:

As the first Broken Heart, Annika Boras does an astounding job as Penthea, betrothed to Orgilus but married off to a wealthy older man by her twin brother, Ithocles.  Ms. Boras has a stillness in her well-bred misery for the first half of the play; then, as Penthea starves herself, she gets almost giddy. Finally she runs mad in a scene that is truly powerful with an artist of Ms. Boras’ magnitude.  She is compelling every moment she’s onstage.

As the second Broken Heart, Jacob Fishel pulls us along in his love, hate, and vengeance as Orgilus.  His betrothed is married to a suspicious and cruel man, Bassanes.  Orgilus intends to leave Sparta to protect Penthea and himself from Bassanes’ irrational jealousy.  Alas, he does not truly do this, but rather disguises himself in plain sight.  (I didn’t say all the plot points worked; it’s an absurd convention used in drama as well as comedy, that the closest people in a person’s life don’t recognize him when he dresses differently and tosses on an Irish lilt in ancient Sparta).  Mr. Fishel, however, is engaging, witty, passionate, and articulate in this role.  Orgilus is the deviously driving force in the play, and he’s driven by anger.  He finally has the power to heal or kill, and chooses the easier way.

The third Broken Heart is the nasty Ithocles himself, when he discovers love unrequited, and suddenly pities his tormented sister.  Very nice work by Saxon Palmer in this role, allowing us to hate him, then pity him, to the point of forgetting that this is a drama, not a romance (that is, all will not be well).

The prize for most surprising Broken Heart goes to the Princess of Sparta, Calantha, played by Bianca Amato.  I warmed to Ms. Amato as the play progressed – a chilly and correct princess in black, she developed surprising passions, all the way to her final whirling in white in a truly creepy scene.  Hers is the Broken Heart of the title, since hers is the death directly caused by her broken heart.  Ms. Amato has a powerful voice, noble bearing, then a smile that makes her character come alive. 

John Keating did fine work as Armostes, counselor of the court; then he headed off to a different place somewhere between Marty Feldman and Harpo Marx to become comic relief as the wild-haired Phulas, servant to mean Bassanes.  Amyclas, King of Sparta was well played by Philip Goodwin, to the point that we worry for Sparta when he dies.  Truly, the whole company was first rate.

The setting of the play by Antje Ellermann is singular in a series of whites and grays.  Its two levels, steps, ladders, hidden rooms and alcoves are all a delight to play on.  The lonely banquet scenes start with color then the fruit grows moldy.  Without being intrusive, the settings were clever and effective as was the lighting design by Marcus Doshi.  There will be blood in a play of this type – a revenger’s play.  But even in this, director Selina Cartmell had to surprise us.  This was a black-and-white production and remained so.  Red appears black in black-and-white photography, and so the flowing blood was black in Sparta.  This production is Ms. Cartmell’s American debut, and she is most welcome.

Costume design by Susan Hilferty is marvelous, simple, practical, and sometimes quite beautiful.  Choreography by Annie-B Parson is probably not Spartan, but she creates smooth and graceful ritual, beautifully executed by all.  It is part of the drama of the final scenes, allowing for momentary freezes in a well-staged build.  Composer David Van Tieghem provided lovely melodies for the sweet voice of Margaret Loesser Robinson, who played two very different characters.  Another musician opened the evening on an instrument that made magical sounds when induced by Molly Yeh, who wanders like a melodic line through the action of the play.

John Ford could not have escaped seeing Shakespeare’s plays.  Some of his own plays were performed by The King’s Men. Unfortunately, well-structured as the play is (Ford did study law, after all), what Ford did not learn from the Bard was how to use verse.  Shakespeare’s verse instructs his actors how to play the scenes and the characters.  The verse shapes the performances and the play, an aid to the actors.  John Ford is a dramatist, but no poet.  His speeches do not build, but harangue. They are obstacles the actors must overcome.  There are too many one-note characters in this play who were enhanced by the actors performing them, digging deep for more notes to make a progression, perhaps even a harmony.  Mr. Ford could have used some drawing lessons to learn a thing or two about shading. 

Luckily, good actors can make a lesser play soar.  This was a fine production, imaginatively and strongly guided by Selina Cartmell, and acted almost to perfection by the company. Whatever the flaws of this 17^th century play, I highly recommend you get to the Duke on 42^nd Street to see it before March 4^th.

~ Molly Matera, signing off to read some early 17^th century verse, but not Mr. Ford’s.