The Final Four of a Half Year of Theatregoing

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….

  

Jennifer Ehle and Jefferson Mays in OSLO

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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.)

Isaac as Hamlet with Rankin as Ophelia.  Photo by Sara Krulwich

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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. 

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.

Theatre as Warning: Red Bull Theater’s Coriolanus at the Barrow Street Theatre

The Red Bull Theater’s production of William Shakespeare's Coriolanus at the Barrow Street Theatre is ensemble playing at its best, directed by Michael Sexton.  The small and tight-knit ensemble played early Romans and Volscians of all classes. 

About five centuries before Julius Caesar was stabbed in the Curia, the Roman patricians and warriors and plebeians had defeated their previous king, Tarquin the Proud, and established the Roman Republic.  This was not a republic in which all citizens were equal, but it was a start.  The play’s plebeians of the early republic become a character as a group with a common view.  When the play begins, the plebeians (lower class, working class, what you will) have “tribunes” to represent their interests in the patrician Senate.  Essentially the tribunes can be seen as go-betweens (like your local councilman, congressman, etc.), and can misinterpret or misrepresent (willfully or not) the plebeians to the patricians and vice versa. The plebeians want their fair share of grain (of which the patricians have more than they need).  The patricians don't want to give anything away.  This society is blatantly stratified. 

Caius Marcius is a fine soldier but a socially inept patrician.  Too soon after the Roman army has gotten rid of “Tarquin the Proud,” Caius Marcius behaves with much too much pride, setting himself up for a fall after rising as a military hero and gaining the surname Coriolanus after conquering the Volscian city of Corioli.  His politically ambitious friends and family want him to accept the Consulship of Rome (the highest elected political office of the Roman Republic).  I doubt it will surprise anyone that this does not turn out well 

The splendid cast elucidating the story and the people are:

Dion Johnstone is a powerful and articulate Coriolanus.  Strength and fury emanate from him except when he’s speaking to his mother, wife or son.  He is powerful, passionate, a bit dense, and very arrogant.

Virgilia, Coriolanus, and Volumnia in front, Cominius and Titus Lartius behind.  (Photo By Carol Rosegg)

Lisa Harrow was ruthless as Coriolanus’ mother Volumnia.  Her love for him displaced by her own ambition, Volumnia is not an easy character to like, but Harrow makes her three-dimensional.

Patrick Page was engaging but sleazy.  He is just a politician, but his heartbreak at Coriolanus’ rejection of him in the second half of the play is real.  His Menenius Agrippa was a Southern styled good-old boy.  While amusing, this choice seemed rather tired, even trite since everyone else in the play has city or homogeneous accents. Like the production, Mr. Page has political points to make.

Patrick Page as Menenius Agrippa (Photo by Carol Rosegg)

Matthew Amendt as Tullus Aufidius did not look like a tough warrior so he had to act it, and he did.  He spent a great deal of time off center, and I enjoyed watching him out of the corner of my eye as he responded — or didn’t — to Coriolanus.  His building fury is only broken by the death of the man he ordered killed, a man as like him as a brother.

 

The banished Coriolanus and Tullus Aufidius (Photo by Carol Rosegg)

Aaron Krohn played a strong Cominius, Coriolanus’ long-time friend and general. Krohn comes into his own as the sensible and sensitive friend to Coriolanus back in Rome.  Zachary Fine was Coriolanus’ fellow soldier and friend Titus Lartius. Both are also transformed to be part of the plebeians of Rome, slipping easily into other speech patterns and beliefs. Fine also plays a sodden member of the Volscian Aufidius’ staff and was charming and funny opening the production’s second half with great hilarity — this should be no surprise from the man who played Crab and Valentine in the Fiasco Theater Company production of Two Gentlemen of Verona at TFANA in 2015 [https://mollyismusing.blogspot.com/2015/05/2-shakespeares-and-upstart-crow.html]. 

 

Titus Lartius, Coriolanus, and Cominius (Photo by Carol Rosegg)

The plebeians are easily manipulated by the two tribunes who are supposed to represent the plebeians but who have agendas of their own.  These two are well played by Stephen Spinella (Sicinius Velutus) and Merritt Janson (Junius Brutus). Sicinius makes me very angry, but Spinella is so good and was honestly physically afraid of Johnstone’s Coriolanus that my anger with him faded, if just for the moment.

Rebecca S’Manga Frank played multiple roles, from Coriolanus’ wife Virgilia who she completely differentiated from angry Roman plebeians calling for Coriolanus’ banishment.

Olivia Reis played Coriolanus’ small son.  Her face was a child’s face until she reappeared as a courtesan in the Volscian camp or a Roman plebeian, when she became an entirely different physical person. 

Edward O’Blenis did excellent work as First Citizen in Rome, an angry man, powerful and skilled at goading his fellow plebeians to revolt.  In the Volscian city of Corioli, he is the lieutenant to Tullus Aufidius. 

Christina Pumariega played a broad range of roles, each better than the last, from the Roman patrician Valeria to an acrimonious plebeian to a bawdy wench in the town of Corioli.

Coriolanus is the story of a man who was not temperamentally suited for public office.  He was a fine solider and general. He knew himself inappropriate to be Consul but allowed those with more ambition than he had push him to accept the honor.  What he may not have seen, since understanding people was not his strong point, was that each friend and relative who urged him on wanted to live in the reflection of a Consul’s power.  That was for themselves, not for him, not for Rome.  Inevitably his unfitness surfaced, his unfiltered mouth insulted every person he did not consider his peer, that is, most of mankind and particularly the plebeian class whose votes (“voice”) he needs to be named Consul.  The incensed plebeians accuse him of treason and want him either executed (by being thrown from the Tarpeian Rock) or banished.  Being banished from the country whose wars he’d fought is a bitter pill.  He goes over to the other side, to fight by the side of his arch enemy Tullus Aufidius, goes to war against Rome and denies his friends and family. 

The final act of murder/execution was harrowing to see and highly effective, played center stage as it was.  And, not surprisingly, the fool who ordered the death of Coriolanus regrets it and is heartbroken but it is too late to mend. 

Does any of this sound familiar?

I am not a purist in Shakespeare: I’m all for cutting, editing, even moving scenes around if it clarifies and moves the story along.  Shakespeare’s storytelling is strong enough to withstand a great deal of messing about.  This streamlined script, though, seemed a tightly strung bow, aimed predictably to show the power that can lie with two manipulative politicians directing the uneducated masses as a weapon against an enemy, not necessarily of the people, but of those two politicians.

I’ve seen the play before, and found it dreadfully appropriate that I saw this production on election night.  

~ Molly Matera, signing off to re-read Jane Austen’s Sense & Sensibility, the novel, as opposed to the wonderful play version produced by Bedlam that I swooned over last week.

Shakespeare – 400 years on

I am behind my time to write about Shakespeare, about the plays, about “what Shakespeare means to me.”  I am way behind in my writing in general, so this blog for Will is, perforce, short but I hope sweet.

W is for the Wily Words he made up  

I is for his Imagination beyond compare

L is for the Laughter he showed us all around

L is for the Love he loved to describe

S is for his Shaky historical accuracy

H is for his Heroes and Heroines

A is for the Annual count of the Shakespeare plays, films, adaptations, and books I’ve enjoyed...or not....

K is for the Kaleidoscopic range of characters, places, and times he brought onstage

E is for the Energy he creates in me

S is for the Sentimental love Songs

P is for his Perspicacious Psychological insight long before Freud and Jung 

E is for the Emotions his characters juggle in the plays and poetry

A is for the Alliance of Airy Sprites and Articulate Dames….

R is for the Remarkable and Ridiculous…..words words words

E is for the End….

We all know Will’s words are in our daily talk, chats, tweets.  In the year leading up to this, the 400^th anniversary of Shakespeare’s (or Willm Shakp, William Shaksper, Wm Shakspe, William Shakspere or Willm Shakspere) death (and possibly birth), he moved from my unconscious to conscious in the following ways:

The Theatre for a New Audience (“TFANA”) production of Pericles, Prince of Tyre  — http://www.mollyismusing.blogspot.com/2016/03/pericles-island-hopper.html

Also at TFANA, the Fiasco Theatre Company’s delightful, brisk, sharp and smart production of Two Gentlemen of Verona —

http://www.mollyismusing.blogspot.com/search/label/Austin%20Pendleton

Daniel Sullivan’s production of Cymbeline at the Delacorte last summer —

http://www.mollyismusing.blogspot.com/2015/08/cymbeline-or-imogen-and-false-reports.html

Which followed the early summer production of The Tempest directed by Michael Greif —

http://www.mollyismusing.blogspot.com/2015_06_01_archive.html

Last spring, I saw a play not by Shakespeare but rather about him.  Sort of:  Something Rotten.  What a lot of fun that was on Broadway —

http://www.mollyismusing.blogspot.com/2015_05_01_archive.html

This spring I’ve just see the Royal Shakespeare Company’s “King and Country:  Shakespeare’s Great Cycle of Kings,” comprising Richard II, Henry IV Part I, Henry IV Part II, and Henry V, playing in repertory at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Kenneth Branagh’s eponymous theatre company broadcast live his production The Winter’s Tale from London to New York —

http://www.mollyismusing.blogspot.com/2016/01/branaghs-return-as-actor-and-director.html

And Hamlet at London’s National theatre, broadcast live to Queens, NY, with the ubiquitous Benedict Cumberbatch —

http://www.mollyismusing.blogspot.com/2015/11/a-little-shakespeare-less-pinter.html

No matter how many Shakespeare plays I’ve seen, I’ll see them again in time to come.  Some will disappoint, some will exhilarate.  The plays, the good ones (no, they’re not all good) can weather all manner of interpretations, edits, stagings and filmings. I rejoice in them.

My recent breakfast reading is The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 by James Shapiro, about the events in England the year preceding Shakespeare’s writing of King Lear.  Fascinating background reading that put me in mind of last summer’s production of The Tempest in Central Park as I read Shapiro’s description of Ben Jonson’s Masque…everything’s connected.  Also reading Bill Bryson’s Shakespeare: The World As Stage, just for fun.

As always, thanks, Will.  The world would have a paucity of wondrous, witty words without you.

~ Molly Matera signing off to write about the Great Cycle of Kings playing in repertory at BAM until April 30^th.  And after that, to watch The Hollow Crown with the same four plays on film.

Pericles: The Island Hopper

Pericles, Prince of Tyre, sort of by William Shakespeare, at Theatre for a New Audience (“TFANA”), Polonsky Shakespeare Center

I haven’t seen Pericles, Prince of Tyre in decades, and when I saw the Michael Greif production downtown at the Public in the nineties, I enjoyed it as a lark.  Perhaps because of the old-fashioned theatrical effects they used, like a rumbling sheet of metal for thunder…ah the good old days.

This time around it’s directed by Trevor Nunn, whose credentials are pretty darned good.  And yet…. perhaps too good.  Pericles must surely be Shakespeare’s oddest and even most doubtful play.  Certainly it’s doubtful that Shakespeare had a hand in the first “half.”  Occasionally the verse sounds like Shakespeare — the second half of the play, for instance, flows much better than the first.  The first, however, is rather like a jiggly early black-and-white film being rolled manually.  It moves in starts and stops, so the story jumps and starts as well.

Don’t get me wrong.  This production has quite a few good points.  I’m guessing that the play’s the thing that gets my goat.  It has old stories linked together only by Pericles, with no call to think the stories are from the same eon.  Most importantly, if I captained or owned a ship and I saw Pericles coming, I’d ban him from my boat.  The man is bad luck.

The focus of the stark set was a striking bronze disk at the back of the stage.  While it reminded us of the poorly used bright disk used to blind the audience in last year’s Antigone [http://www.mollyismusing.blogspot.com/search/label/Antigone] at BAM, this one was used to much better effect.  The bronze disk looked battered, then patterned, then glowed around the edges, then opened at center, sometimes into a doorway, large or small, sometimes to appear a porthole to view the play’s storms at sea.  All sorts of worlds and images live behind the bronze disc, including one that allows old Gower the storyteller to materialize, seemingly a ghost in another dimension, by stepping into our dimension and onto the stage. Raphael Nash Thompson’s practiced voice booms out telling the tale from days gone by, an old tale, of Prince Pericles.  Often he sings it — there’s a lot of singing in this production, and it is very fine.  Gower is amused and amusing although at times pushing the lesser language a bit too hard.

  

The next to enter the thrust stage is Pericles, Prince of Tyre, as depicted by Christian Camargo.  Full disclosure:  I am not a fan of Mr. Camargo.  I find him superficial, line-driven instead of character driven.  In short, I typically do not believe him to be the character he purports to be.  His performance as Pericles was not atypical.

The cast of Pericles at TFANA (Photo: Richard Termine)

Pericles is a foolish young prince, ready to follow in the footsteps of other foolish princes who vie for the hand of a king’s daughter in Antioch.  This is the story with a shocking riddle.  Since it’s perfectly clear what the answer to the riddle is, and only Pericles has solved it, one wonders if the other princes were too afraid to say it out loud.  Their skulls, perched on poles seen through that wonderful portal at the back of the stage, are a clear warning to any princes who want the king’s daughter.  The King of Antioch, in a rather operatic performance by Earl Baker Jr., isn’t willing to give up his daughter to marriage, since he is committing incest with her.  His daughter, nicely played by Sam Morales, is not as enamored of her father as he is of her, so earns a bit of sympathy.  But not from Pericles.  The scenes in Antioch set the tone of the play in which royals are clothed richly, but the style is dependent on the character.  The King of Antioch is in a billowing and shiny fabric in a rich jewel tone.  His daughter is in a translucent version. Costume designer Constance Hoffman does a fine job differentiating the island nations in dressing the characters. 

The last particular person we meet in Antioch is Thaliard, whom the peevish King orders to find and kill Pericles for guessing the riddle and becoming a threat to the king’s standing in the world.  Reputation, reputation.  Thaliard is marvelously played by Oberon K.A. Adjepong, who reappears in Tyre without achieving his goal.

The scenes in Tyre are perhaps the dullest with the most tangled language.  Here is where we cannot blame the actors or director but rather the sloppy transmission of the play through the ages.  Philip Casnoff as Helicanus is stuffy and pompous and rather monotonous, so I was never really sure if he was loyal to Pericles or not.  Pericles and Helicanus decide the safest thing for the former to do is to travel until Antiochus gets tired of chasing him or, preferably, dies.  This is not merely to protect Pericles’ life — Antiochus is not above making war against Tyre in order to punish Pericles, based upon an alleged slight.  To avoid involving his kingdom in his troubles, Pericles loads his ships and travels.

The beautifully designed theatre allows for many entrances so the actors in famine-devastated Tarsus crawl moaning onto the stage from the rear of the house.  Will Swenson is very effective here as Cleon, Governor of Tarsus, although he often relies too heavily on his beautiful voice.  As his wife Dionyza, Nina Hellman goes from grateful to villainous through the course of the play and excels at both (and then takes a turn as an unrecognizable Goddess Diana).  Pericles’ arrival with food for the starving nation makes him a beloved hero in Tarsus, but he continues his travels.

Pericles’ first shipwreck lands him alone on the beach at Pentapolis, where apparently the people are very nice and generous.  In a tedious scene, three fishermen talk about nothing on the beach until the bedraggled shipwreck victim comes upon them.  They help him to enter a jousting contest for the favor of the King of Pentapolis, Simonides, who is warmly and wittily played by John Rothman.  The various young men jousting are also vying for the affection of the king’s daughter, Thaisa, a lovely young woman who is as kind as her father, played by Gia Crovatin.  In his battered armor and torn clothes, Pericles (still utterly charmless as he is still played by Mr. Camargo) wins her heart, the king approves, and the couple is married.  It is in Pentapolis that Pericles learns of the death of his father, whom we did not meet when we were in Tyre, so he must take upon himself the yoke of leadership.  He and his now pregnant wife Thaisa head back to Tyre.  Which, alas, must be accomplished by boat.

 

Christian Camargo, Gia Crovatin.  (Photo:  Henry Grossman)

The second storm at sea is enacted onstage by actors swinging on ropes, and Thaisa screaming as her time comes near.  She is accompanied by her servant Lychorida, well played by Patrice Johnson Chevannes.  Thaisa’s child is born healthy, but the mother apparently dies in childbirth.  Thaisa’s body is placed with ritual, jewels, and gold into a coffin and sent overboard as the sailors try to save the ship.  Pericles names his daughter Marina and lands next back at Tarsus, where he leaves the upbringing of his now motherless daughter to his old friends Cleon and Dionyza.  They are delighted to take in the beautiful child, particularly since Dionyza has her own daughter and can bring them up together.  Pericles leaves his wife’s old nurse Lychorida with his daughter and goes off to Tyre.

Meanwhile, on another island nation, Ephesus, a coffin washes ashore and is brought to the local lord, Cerimon, who is a physician.  Earl Baker Jr. reappears in this much less showy role, and does very nice work as he inhabits this primitive physician.  Cerimon discovers that the body in the coffin is not dead after all.  Thaisa, believing her husband and daughter dead in a shipwreck, goes off with Cerimon to the temple of Diana where she will live her life as a votaress of that order.  

As in The Winter’s Tale, 16 years pass so that the baby will be a young woman for the second half of the play.  Marina, still in Ephesus with Dionyza and Cleon, has grown to be perfect and beautiful and virtuous.  Marina’s nurse Lychorida has died, leaving her alone with Cleon and Dionyza, whose daughter, while sweet, is a clod next to Marina, which is demonstrated onstage as the dear friends dance together – Sam Morales reappears in the silent role of Dionyza’s daughter, and is delightful.  All the boys fall for Marina, so Dionyza decides she must die.  She calls upon Leonine (well played by Zachary Infante), a servant who clearly is infatuated with Marina, to kill the girl.  He fails, and pirates come and take her away to Mytelene, where they sell her to a bawd, who is hilariously played by Patrice Johnson Chevannes. 

Earl Baker Jr., Christian Camargo, Lilly Englert, Gia Crovatin, and Raphael Nash thompson.  (Photo: Henry Grossman) 

Lilly Englert plays Marina.  I’ve seen her work before and enjoyed it, but this time I just could not fall for her virtuous Marina.  Physically she was all she should be, fearful, proud, disdainful.  But Ms. Englert could not convince me that this girl could convert the pander and the customers to just sit and listen to her talk or sing or dance.   Tough role, Marina.

Meanwhile back in Tarsus, Cleon berates his wife but can do nothing as they all believe Marina is dead.  When Pericles returns for his grown daughter, he is shown her gravestone.  Devastated, he vows to never change his clothes, cut his hair, or bathe and goes off in another ship, this time with his buddy Helicanus.  They arrive in Mytelene, and the converted Governor hopes that Marina can convince the man to speak, eat, live again.  Marina sings with a friend, gets no response, talks to him, touches him.  She gets a response to that, and it is rage.  They discover themselves to one another and all is well — this scene should be magical, and while Mr. Camargo is a bit more believable than usual, the scene falls flat and feels forced.  Pericles is transformed to a man who must take revenge on his old friend Cleon, but first must make a sacrifice to Diana, which means going to Ephesus, where, you guessed it, the father and daughter are reunited with Thaisa. 

At last, it’s almost over.

Director Nunn has cast a threesome of divergent actors as the threesomes that appear in the many locales of the play:  In Tyre, they are three unnamed lords, in Pentapolis three unnamed fishermen, and the three reappear in Ephesus and Mytelene individually.  These actors include one of my favorites at TFANA, John Keating, another who is not my favorite Zachary Infante, and a third with whom I am not yet familiar, Ian Lassiter.  Each one does his best work when not part of a threesome — Keating funny and touching as the pander in Mytelene, Infante very good as the reluctant murderer in Tarsus, and Lassiter grown to a three-dimensional human as the converted Governor Lysimachus in Mytelene. Keating is fine in all his roles, clearly the most experienced Shakespearean actor of the three.

Robert Jones’ scenic design is marvelous, in concert with Stephen Strawbridge’s lighting design.  Fights by J. Allen Suddeth were rather disappointing, but the choreography by Brian Brooks was pleasing, as were music and songs by Shaun Davey.  The evening begins with music, string instruments and percussion, all very well done by Pigpen Theatre Co., with John Blevins, Philip Varricchio, and Jessica Wang beautifully accompanying the action of the play from the mezzanine level of the theatre.

All in all, a pretty good production of a difficult and rather nonsensical play.  The designers, director, and performers all used the space of the Samuel H. Scripps Mainstage to its fullest extent and did their best with a “mouldy tale.”*  If you’ve seen Pericles, you needn’t see it again.  If you haven’t, this production at TFANA may be worth your time, if you’ve got 2 ¾ hours to spare. 

  

*Ben Jonson on Pericles, “Ode to Himself” (1631)

~ Molly Matera, signing off....not to re-read Pericles.

Branagh's Return as Actor and Director: This Time I Could See It All

Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company (Live) broadcast of William Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale”

The Kenneth Branagh Theatre Company’s inaugural season plays Shakespeare’s “The Winter’s Tale” in London’s Garrick Theatre, a little jeweled box of candy.  The heavy, dark red curtain rose on a wintry scene – a sparse set given warmth by the Victorian Christmas tree surrounded by wrapped gifts and eventually members of a happy court.  As always, no one addresses God in Shakespeare, but Apollo is the god they pray to, and who freely shows his displeasure when disrespected.  

As ever, kudos to Christopher Oram for his thoughtful scenic and costume designs, as well as Neil Austin‘s beautiful lighting design.  Christopher Shutt’s sound design seemed to stutter a bit in the opening moments when the actors appeared to be in overly full voice and far from subtle.  Within a few moments, however, the sound evened out and was thereafter so well done that one did not note it.

Happily, the Garrick Theatre has a proscenium stage.   Some readers may recall that the last time I reviewed something directed by Kenneth Branagh I was rather annoyed with him and his co-director/ choreographer Rob Ashford.  [If you’ve forgotten, see http://www.mollyismusing.blogspot.com/2014/06/sound-only-signifying-nothing-or.html].  The advantage of a proscenium stage production is that Messrs. Branagh and Ashford can actually stage the play so that everyone in the auditorium can see everybody on stage.  Nice.

With regard to Mr. Branagh the actor, I must say that this is the first time (of three or four) I’ve seen “The Winter’s Tale” and given a damn about Leontes.  Every time that horrible man is unforgiveable, which makes the final sappy scene unbearable.  Kenneth Branagh is such a good actor that he delved into the man and found his heart and showed it to us.  Well done.

Dame Judi Dench in The Winter's Tale.

Dame Judi Dench is a powerful Paulina, here immediately introduced as an intimate of the family playing with the King’s son Mamillius (in a scene not penned by Shakespeare).  While Paulina is usually the same generation as Leontes, here she’s clearly a friend of his granny’s.  This is not a complaint:  Judi Dench can do anything as far as I’m concerned.  It’s just not how I generally think of Paulina, since everyone in the play ages 16 years between Acts I and IV.  Except those who die, of course.

Michael Pennington does fine comedic work as Paulina’s beleaguered husband Antigonus, loyal to his king and to his princess to the very last. Miranda Raison is a serene, confident and loving Hermione, well matched to Branagh’s Leontes.

Miranda Raison as Hermione and Kenneth Branagh as Leontes

In the opening scenes we see a convivial gathering of Leontes’ court, to which his childhood friend Polixenes, King of Bohemia, has been visitor for almost 9 months.  Hadley Fraser’s wide-ranging portrayal of Bohemia in the opening to a man some years older in the latter part of the play was always on the mark.  We also meet Camillo, Leontes’ loyal subject who is too good to do his king’s bidding.  John Shrapnel portrays the conscience of both kings he serves excellently. 

John Colgrave Hirst was a very tall, very funny Clown, Tom Bateman a fine Florizel, the young prince in love with the shepherdess Perdita, who is charmingly played by Jessie Buckley.  There were no sour notes in this cast, and I wish I were in London to see the entire season played by this company.

Extra:  During the intermission (a.k.a. the Interval) Rob Brydon spoke “The Shakespeare Poem” by Bernard Levin to illustrate how often in our daily discourse we quote Shakespeare.  Delightful.

My one gripe was not with the production itself but rather the filming of the production.  The “cinema broadcast” was directed by Benjamin Caron, who has also worked with Mr. Branagh on the PBS series Wallander.  Clearly he likes to photograph Mr. Branagh, unfortunately to the detriment of the production, Ms. Dench, Mr. Shrapnel, and the audience.  We want to see Paulina when she is haranguing Leontes, not only Leontes’ reaction.  Reactions are important and Mr. Branagh does them very well, but widen the shot.  We want to see Camillo as we hear him plead with Leontes, not merely Leontes’ reaction.  Widen the shot.  Show us the excellent staging by Branagh and Ashford.  This is not television.

The “film” of the play aside, this was a fine production of a difficult play, and I look forward to more from this company.
 

~ Molly Matera signing off and belatedly wishing you all a Happy, Healthy New Year.

A Little Shakespeare, Less Pinter

HAMLET at London’s National Theatre, broadcast live around the world and captured in Queens, NY, was thrilling.

While no dramaturg was listed in the program or online, he or she had a large influence on this production, since a great deal of editing was done on the script, scenes re-arranged, as well as interesting combined characters.  From the point of view of a filmed performance, I found only one flaw:  one or two too many close-ups in what was clearly a beautifully staged production by director Lyndsey Turner.  I want to see the actors in relation to one another and whatever was happening on the part of the stage the cameras weren’t showing me. 

But that’s minor.  What I did see was scintillating theatre with fine acting in a coherent production of a great play.  The dress is modern, the time not set, the formality of the address, and dress, and Elsinore itself tells us that this world is removed from ours no matter the year.

Will he or won't he?  Cumberbatch as Hamlet. (Photo Johan Persson)

The first scene on the ramparts was skipped and instead we are met by Benedict Cumberbatch’s Hamlet in front of the curtain, listening to a small phonograph play Nat King Cole’s rendition of “Nature Boy.”  Hamlet weeps.  Soon after Horatio enters, they jump ahead and right to the dinner scene, which is magnificently staged.  A long table is sumptuously set parallel to the edge of the stage so we can see everybody, and here begins a conceit through the play:   Hamlet comes forward (walking across the top of the table) and the action continues behind him silently, in slow motion, as Hamlet speaks directly to the audience.  

In this scene we meet the major players, including a Laertes who was clearly a friend of Hamlet’s, and who, loving his own father well, felt the sting of Claudius’ insensitive exhortations to Hamlet to forget his dead father.  No words are exchanged between them, yet a relationship is clear, as is the relationship established in the next scene with Laertes’ sister.

Kobna Holdbrook-Smith’s Laertes is not so self-absorbed here as he is often played, and is part of the court.  Siân Brooke’s Ophelia is young and in love, and the relationship between her and her brother Laertes is solidified when they sit at the grand piano stage center and play a little ditty together. This follows through later, when the piano, amid the shambles that Elsinore becomes in the second half, is out of tune and harsh.

Cumberbatch’s Hamlet is striking: he is in pain, he is in mourning. His mother Gertrude is oblivious to his pain and forgetful of her first husband since she’s so enamored of the second.  And yet we see this Gertrude, as played by Anastasia Hille, is connected to the people around her, Ophelia in particular.

Ciarán Hinds is a very good if cold Claudius.  I saw no passion for Gertrude, just affection.  He is a purely political animal.  Gertrude‘s path through the play is succinct — no dallying while her first husband was alive, this woman sees the truth only when Hamlet shows her, and finally sees Claudius for who he is. 

Hinds as Claudius in Elsinore as designed by Es Devlin.  (Photo Johan Persson)

When the Players present the play within the play, a small curtained stage is set up for the introduction of the Player King and Player Queen, then Hamlet, manic and sweating, plays Lucianus (nephew to Gonzago in the play within a play) himself. Later in his mother’s room, the same small curtained stage is used to hide Polonius behind the arras, which I found rather witty.

Karl Johnson was effective both as the Ghost of King Hamlet and the Gravedigger.  Morag Siller played a character comprised of Voltimand and Osric well, yet we miss the hilarity of a different sort of Osric.

Jim Norton as Polonius was fine without standing out from many an old man, his lines deeply edited. 

Some of the cuts were too deep, I think, but the actors made the most of them. Particular points for the work of the powerful Anastasia Hille and poignant Siân Brooke.

Act one ends with Claudius exhorting England to “Do it, England” meaning “the present death of Hamlet.”  Then an autumn wind blows across the stage….

Light and wind made for some very nice effects joining the end of the first act and the beginning of the second.  At the opening of the second half, detritus, dead leaves and dirt have been piled all over the stage, creating new levels of deterioration. 

When we see Ophelia in the first act, she carries about and uses a camera.  In the second act, she drags a trunk banging down the stairs.  Gertrude opens it when Ophelia exits and finds the trunk filled with torn black-and-white photographs and Ophelia’s camera. Seeing this, Gertrude knows what Ophelia is about and runs off after her, to no avail, of course.  In the second half, the women are a bit less well coiffed and dressed, in synch with the trappings of power that droop dwindling on the stage. 

Anastasia Hille as Gretrude.  (Photo by Johan  Persson)

After Ophelia’s death, director Lindsey Turner created a lovely stage picture of Claudius rushing after the enraged Laertes, stopping at the top of the stairs to reach back for his wife.  But Gertrude turns her back and walks away from him, barefoot through the dirt.  This Gertrude had not thought for a moment that her first husband died an unnatural death, but finally sees her nation crumbling around her and knows that something is rotten in the state of Denmark. 

In the second half, Hamlet’s cry from Ophelia’s grave to Laertes, “I loved you ever,” is a reinforcement of the friendship that appeared at that dinner table in the first half.  The fight scene is fabulous, beautifully staged by fight director Bret Yount and fought by highly skilled Hamlet and Laertes.  It brought about swift death.   

All in all an effective rendering, but close-cropped to focus on Hamlet and the nuclear family at the expense of some of other characters.  Although a slimmed down version of the play, this was a memorable Hamlet, produced by Sonia Friedman Productions.

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On the other hand, when it comes to the Roundabout Theatre Company production of Harold Pinter’s Old Times, I agree completely with my friend Horvendile’s blog about it at http://www.matthewslikelystory.blogspot.com/2015/10/old-times-or-you-pinter-you-brought-er.html.  At the end of the thankfully brief performance, the first thing out of my mouth was “I don’t think that’s what Pinter meant.”  That’s all.  It was a fun evening, but it wasn’t … Pinter.

Pinter is not about shouting and emoting; it’s about repressing.  The play is under and between the lines.  Pinter knew that shouting reduces the efficacy and impact of anger, diluting its power.  Pinter must be underplayed.  Director Douglas Hodge should know that, whatever his credentials.  Surely the three wonderful British actors (Kelly Reilly, Clive Owen, and Eve Best) must know that. 

L-R Reilly, Best, and Owen. (Photo: Joan Marcus)

As for the rest, the immediate assault by light (Japhy Weiderman) and sound (Clive Goodwin) started us off poorly.  The set design by Christine Jones was quirky and odd and I did wonder if it signified being at the edge of the world….perhaps a bit distracting.  While costumes by Constance Hoffman were fitting, music was ill-chosen by Thom Yorke.

This is not to say I’m not glad I saw it. I’m glad.  But it wasn’t ….  Pinter.

~ Molly Matera, signing off, recommending National Theatre’s HAMLET (still playing at select theatres, see http://ntlive.nationaltheatre.org.uk/) and not so much the Roundabout Old Times.