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.

2 Becketts in 2 Weeks

“Nothing to be done.” 

That’s the first line of Waiting for Godot, which Patrick Stewart accompanies with a shrug.  This combination becomes not just a running theme but a running gag.

Waiting for Godot is the other half of the two productions playing in repertory at the Cort Theatre, both starring those two Sirs, Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen.  (The other half, Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land, was reviewed here on November 10.)

Sir Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen as Vladimir and Estragon.  Photo Credit Joan Marcus

This new production of Waiting for Godot, with its “new” pronunciation (stress on first syllable GOD followed by a clipped long “o”) sounds right, looks right, feels right.  In fact, everything about this production directed by Sean Mathias is so right that I’m calling it the be all and end all of Godots.

The ruined set of rubble and broken boards, crumbling walls and one lone, bare tree is already more set than Samuel Beckett wrote.  Nevertheless, its decrepitude is as magnificent as the decadence of the old Palladium, assuring us that life was once lived here but now not so much.  Stephen Brimson Lewis’ design for this set and the utterly natural costumes are perfection.

In contrast to their roles in No Man’s Land, Patrick Stewart here is the exuberant one, and Ian McKellen the morose and unusually quiet one.

Patrick Stewart entered the stage as Vladimir, a.k.a. DiDi, seemingly delighted to be alive.  When Sir Ian climbed onto the stage from nowhere to appear as Estragon (GoGo), people in the audience annoyed me beyond measure by applauding just because the actors showed up.  It’s their job to show up.  Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart and Shuler Hensley and Billy Crudup all did a good deal more than just their jobs.  They found a way to live in that dreadfully confusing, perversely funny world created by Samuel Beckett and made us love — or hate — them for a while.  Laughter assuages the pain of that reality.

Back to McKellen’s entrance — he climbs onto the stage from a ditch where he was beaten the night before.  Not for the first time.  DiDi’s insistent cheerfulness is apparently more than GoGo can bear past dusk and he goes off alone after their long wait.  Over and over.  And back they come, to wait for Godot.

Shuler Hensley as Ponzo and Billy Crudup as Lucky.  Photo Credit Joan Marcus.

One must wonder why anyone continues to force survival in this lifeless world.  Yet Act 2 shows a few buds on that bare tree.  So is Act I the winter and Act 2 the beginning of spring?  Early spring, cold, but budding.  GoGo & DiDi survive each day by each other’s company.  DiDi talks GoGo out of suicide by hanging in order to keep his company.  After all, if one helps the other to achieve such a final goal, the survivor will lack help to join him.  Hell, apparently, is not other people as Sartre told us in No Exit.  It’s loneliness.  Two people, three, four together can survive anything so long as they are not left alone.  They can and will come back every evening in hope and belief that the expected Godot will arrive.  While their hope is dashed at every dusk, they’ll do it again so long as there is more than one waiting.

To break up GoGo & DiDi’s day, Ponzo — interpreted as a good ol’ boy by Shuler Hensley with a southern snarl and frightening clown-like make-up by Tom Watson — does hog calls and leaves all the heavy work to a slavelike creature named Lucky.  Lucky, while not a pig despite Ponzo’s repeated calls, is barely identifiably human, as played with fragility by Billy Crudup.   His focus and concentration on whatever world Lucky lives in is remarkable to see.  These guys were having a fine time.

Once or twice a boy comes to see Estragon and Vladimir, professing not to recognize them at all and denying he was there the day before.  He tells them that their wait for Godot is over, because Godot is not coming that evening. Surely tomorrow. 

Estragon, Ponzo, and the boy appear to recall naught of the day before, while Vladimir is cursed with remembering it over and over.  Lucky — well, who can tell what Lucky remembers besides a long string of fabulousness.  Vladimir reveals to his fellows what has previously occurred, but it’s meaningless to them.  Is it Vladimir’s memory that gives him faith?

The Sirs' Curtain Call.  Photo Credit Matt Hennessey

I think we enjoy being mystified by the “meaning” of Waiting for Godot, which is revived quite regularly.  I think we long for interpretations that tease us and then allow us to stop thinking about it, interpretations that allow us to trust the director and actors to tell us, obliquely, what they think it’s about. I am happy to entrust the “Meaning” to this company.  Some forms of art should creep up on you while you’re not looking. 

Out thinking Beckett is not my line.  I can imagine Sam Beckett chuckling, nodding, perhaps saying, “Well that passed the time.”

 * * * * * * * * * *

Speaking of Samuel Beckett, we saw another one last week at the 59E59 Theaters – All That Fall.  This is one of Beckett’s radio plays, transported to the stage as a play within a play — sort of.  There’s no muss, no fuss, no extraneous set.  Just a room with old-fashioned microphones hanging from the ceiling, and half a dozen chairs lined up on either side of the stage, facing each other.  One set piece will be a car later.  This spare set design was by Cherry Truluck, with clear lighting by Phil Hewitt and apt sound by Paul Groothuis. 

The actors walk in and take their seats while some sound effects come into play.  These are the radio actors.  This concept was interesting to watch as actors played actors playing characters.  Odd, without a doubt, but interesting.  It was clear when an actor was the actor playing a character.  Sometimes the actors laughed silently when not “onstage” (but seated on the side).   The heart of this play is a riveting, sad and hilarious performance by Eileen Atkins as Mrs. Rooney, who is walking to the train station.  We see she drags a leg (and hear the radio sound effect), and watch as she meets neighbors on her journey to the station to meet her blind husband played by Michael Gambon.  Each of the neighbors with whom she chats, laughs, or disputes along the way has his own cross to bear, and each is vocalized by an actor playing an actor….you get the picture. 

Michael Gambon & Eileen Atkins in All That Fall.  Photo Credit Sara Krulwich

As No Man’s Land is Beckettian Pinter, so All That Fall is rather Pinteresque Beckett, with laughs at the human condition surprised by a devastating burst of sorrow.  Director Trevor Nunn kept it clean and simple, and every actor was on the mark.  Standouts were Trevor Cooper as Mr. Slocum, Catherine Cusack as Miss Fitt, and Ruairi Conaghan as Christy. 

Two PInters + Two Becketts = theatre that forces you to think, then forces you to admit it was pointless.  Nothing to be done…..

~ Molly Matera, signing off to re-read some Beckett….