"It's Only a Play" Is Not

It’s Only a Play is funny. Extremely funny.  And it ought to be.  Some of the funniest actors in the American firmament get together and do comedy routines one after another, get a lot of laughs, and call it a play. But no. The actors are polished professionals with heart, and if the audience had a lick of sense the comedy might not be as painfully long as it is, but the starstruck audience applauds when the curtain opens, when the wonderful but unknown Micah Stock enters and they’ve no idea who he is.  They applaud some more when Nathan Lane enters, and when Megan Mullally enters, when Isabel Keating enters (stepping in for Stockard Channing), when Rupert Grint enters, when F. Murray Abraham enters, and when Matthew Broderick enters.  The annoying audience stops the action every time they do that, and when you blow the timing in comedy, you blow the whole routine.  I swear, if they just stopped treating the theatre like a comedy club or a cabaret, It’s Only a Play might come in at two hours instead of two and a half.

But for all my grousing about it not being a play, were it not for the multi-star contracts doubtless in place, It’s Only A Play would probably run forever.  The audience loves it. The cast is superb and Jack O’Brien’s direction sharp and brisk and right on the mark.

As the wunderkind British director of the play that thankfully does not appear within the play, Rupert Grint enters dressed as a Carnaby Street peacock with a crested carrot top.  The character sometimes crawls under a large black net — shades of Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak — in order to disappear, and at one point in the second act, that worked so well that I forgot he was there, thinking he’d left the stage.  Not a good sign.  But Mr. Grint — as well as Isabel Keating, understudy to Ms. Channing — is not at the level of Ms. Mullally or Messrs. Abraham, Broderick, Lane, and even young Mr. Stock.

Matthew Broderick did himself charmingly, Megan Mullally was pitch perfectly annoying and lovable and sweet and dizzy.  F. Murray Abraham played opposite to his usual villainy and was very funny as a foppish, foolish, envious theatre critic.  Nathan Lane takes a character with a tired premise and rises to the heights of great comedic acting.

Essentially the playwright wrote a formulaic comedy with stock characters: a typical playwright from another time, a typical TV actor who left the theatre ten years before, a typical drug-addled movie star exiled from Hollywood and trying to make a comeback on Broadway, an obnoxious, foul-mouthed, British wunderkind director, a star-struck actor looking for his big break collecting coats at a Broadway opening party.  All in all, it’s rather like, hey my dad has a barn, let’s put on a show in black tie and tails.

But it’s funny.

After the first quarter hour, I started to suffer from snide name-dropping overload and wondered how often Terence McNally will have to rewrite to keep the names topical.  This was all nastily funny, but made me think more of a weekly comedy show on television than a star-studded play on Broadway.

When it’s said that a play must have a beginning, a middle and an end, that doesn’t mean it begins at 8 o’clock, ends at 10:30 and has a break for booze and bathroom visits somewhere in the middle.  No, it’s the story that needs to begin and progress to a conflict thence to a point of crisis around the middle then fall apart or resolve itself by the end of the story.  It is certainly the case that with some plays it’s hard to immediately recognize the ending, partly because we’re unaccustomed to hearing it ourselves after years of watching films that go black, credits rolling, music swelling and sometimes even the words “The End.”  Onstage it’s not necessarily as blatant as these slaps in the face, especially Irish plays that may end in irresolute resolutions.  But within a moment of that uncertainty, it’s an ending. 10:30 p.m. is not an end.

At any rate, the dog was genius, the actors perfect and hilarious, the direction brisk, the play slowed down primarily by the annoying audience …although the last scene does go on a bit longer than it ought.

The scenic design did not rate applause at the opening, but was perfectly serviceable.  Again, the actors and direction are terrific, but Mr. McNally, funny as all his lines are, was a tad disappointing, because It’s Only a Play is not.

~ Molly Matera, signing off to re-read Aristotle’s Poetics.

NTLive Medea: Phase I

The National Theatre Live rebroadcast (the original live broadcast was at 2 pm NY time, and I caught the re-broadcast of the recorded live broadcast at 7 pm NY time) of MEDEA was a bit disappointing.  Was it because it was modern?  Was the problem the new adaptation by Ben Power that, at about 90 minutes running time, felt longer?  Was it the enforced “director’s notes” by Carrie Cracknell (good director of the very good production of A Doll’s House at BAM earlier this year) that were foisted on the audience in lieu of movie trailers?

Note:  I never read theatre programs’ director’s notes before the production because they invariably set up the production to fail to meet what the director thought s/he was doing.  Don't tell me what you meant.  Speak the speech I pray you.

Was it people talking about the play itself and the history of Greek theatre (all men, no women, onstage or off) and Euripides and women killing babies and the British legal concept of The Medea Complex?  Or was it when the wondrous Helen McCrory said she’d talked to two shrinks who’d worked with women who’d killed their children — generally within14 days of the father leaving….

Upshot:  I do not want to know the actors’/director’s/playwright’s/dramaturge’s homework, any more than I want to read the rough drafts and back-stories of stories or novels.

Present the play to me, right here, right now, and tell me no tales of how hard you worked to be able to present it. (For one thing, the whole production is likely to come off as way too cerebral.)

Just Do It.

~ Molly Matera, signing off for now – there may be more particulars another day….

Philip Seymour Hoffman's Last Great Film Role

A Most Wanted Man is an old-fashioned spy story with all too current stakes.  Based on the John le Carré novel of the same title, the characters are weary but dogged — if we like them.  The others….slither.

In his last film, Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a German spy named Gunter Bachmann who acknowledges that he commits acts against the German constitution while trying to keep tabs on and track down potential terrorists.  He is the quintessential John le Carré spy, ever out in the cold, sad, lonely, probably an alcoholic, and dedicated to protecting the world, his contacts, and his own belief in what is just, which is not the same as legal. 

Philip Seymour Hoffman as Gunter  Bachmann.  Photo Credit: Roadside Attractions

The time is now, the city is Hamburg, and it is shocking.  I haven’t been to Germany since before 9/11, but I cannot recall litter except in the vicinity of U.S. army bases, or graffiti anywhere. In today’s Hamburg, both are everywhere.  The light is harsh — the sun doesn’t shine, it glowers in a garish show of illumination without warmth.

Gunther trusts no one in the German political arena and certainly not the American (represented with chilling arrogance here by Robin Wright, her façade clean, modern, even chic). Gunter will use entrapment, extortion, blackmail, cajoling and hugging to get what he wants from the informants he has cultivated into his network.  This is all for the greater good, and he at no time wishes to use violence in his network.  That’s for the Americans.  He will use threats of deportation, he will kidnap and intimidate. He coerces young Jamal (Mehdi Dehbi) to sneak and spy on his own family and mosque, and just how far Gunter expects his network to go is shocking.

Robin Wright as the  American, Hoffman as the German. Photo Credit:  Roadside Attractions.

The tension level is consistently high as we follow the slightest facial expression of each of the driven, intense members of Gunter’s clandestine team:

• Irna (Nina Hoss)
• Maximilian (Daniel Brühl)
• Rasheed (Kostja Ullman)
• Niki  (Vicky Krieps)

Performances are low key, realistic, frightening.  Claire Simpson’s editing carries us along, shocks us, stops us, tosses us forward into the sliced and slivered scenes.  The shots are stark, the lighting cold, the river lifeless.  This is a new cold war and it drains the color out of everything in Benoît Delhomme’s cinematography.

We become part of Gunter’s team, so it is “we” who are following two men — a wealthy philanthropist who may be funneling money to terrorists and a Chechen Muslim who has entered Germany illegally, seeking asylum.  Abdullah, the philanthropist, appears to be suspected just because he’s Islamic.  He is sophisticated, kind, and beautifully played by Homayouin Hershadi.  The other subject of surveillance, Issa Karpov, appears like a homeless person on the brink of a psychotic break.  He is suspected of being a terrorist, particularly since he confessed to committing terrorist acts when tortured by the Russians.  But, as Irna states, who wouldn’t, when under torture by the Russians.  We are all breakable.  Issa (born Ivan) reveals himself extremely slowly in Grigoriy Dobrygin’s searing portrayal.

The Chechen finds refuge with another Muslim family seeking asylum in Germany, a Turkish mother and son.  Another network.  These people reach out to their lawyer, Annabel Richter played by Rachel McAdams, to try to get asylum and make contact with a banker who has something belonging to Karpov.  The lawyer is left wing and idealistic, or she’s just doing the opposite of what her family wants her to do.  She rides her bicycle all over Hamburg but can go to high or low society.  The character and her actions are totally predictable and Ms. McAdams does nothing to make it more.

Rachel McAdams and Grigoriy Dobrygin.  Photo Credit:  Roadside Attractions.

Rainer Bock is chilly as the angry German agent Dieter Mohr, working for an agency that is not clandestine.  To fend off this short sightedness, Gunter even talks to the Americans in hopes of gaining an ally for his longer-term and much smarter intentions.

Willem Dafoe is a well-heeled banker, angry, beautifully dressed even without comparison to the slovenly Gunter.  The banker’s wife sits at home, seen from outside as if on display before floor-to-ceiling windows, dressed for an evening out in a tight sheath and high heels, or perhaps for a photo shoot. She is not going anywhere.  This is a house not a home, an artist’s lifeless rendering of high fashion and just as stiff. Everything’s a pose, roles for the playing in the proper setting. 

Modes of transportation helped delineate character:  Issa came to Hamburg by mass public transportation, Annabel rides a bicycle, Gunter drives an inconspicuous old sedan, and the banker has a beautiful sleek machine that screams “Look At Me!”  One wonders if he’ll change cars at the end of the story.

Willem Dafoe and Philip Seymour Hoffman.  Photo Credit: Roadside Attractions.

Delhomme’s cinematography combines with Sebastian T. Krawinkel’s production design which engenders claustrophobia in both tightly enclosed spaces and open ones with long, empty views.  The images contrast the work done and lives lived in the shadows — Gunter retreats to the underground world of rathskellers — with the not-clandestine German government and the glamorous American meeting in high rise offices and restaurants with plate glass windows and strategic views.  There’s nothing pretty to look at no matter how high. 

Director Anton Corbijn skillfully manipulates us as Gunter manipulates his network and his team.  It’s exhausting.  Corbijn takes his time, lays out the story, lets us come to know his people. We care about them.  This is no typical American thriller.  Occasionally some driving is rather fast, but nothing else.  Except the abrupt ending.  Andrew Bovell’s screenplay (based on le Carre’s novel) is brusque, brisk, and as chilly as the cinematography, lending layers to each individual we meet. 

The actors do finely detailed, subdued work in this subdued world.  Grigoriy Dobrygin’s Issa allows us in as carefully as an abused animal, shaming our assumptions about him.  Robin Wright’s American is that brittle sophisticate, cold as ice, an adept listener with unfathomable eyes.  I recently read an article about le Carré and his ever-growing dislike of America.  Believe it. It’s right there on the screen.

As for Mr. Hoffman.  His performance is so naturalistic, he is so subsumed into the person of Gunter with Gunter’s entire life always alive in him, he becomes Gunter.  Consequently Gunter becomes our representative in the story, his view becomes ours.  We are in Gunter’s head, we become him.  Betrayal of Gunter is betrayal of us.  That is the power of Philip Seymour Hoffman. He is already missed.

The power of le Carré and Corbijn and Bovell is the niggling feeling that the next time you’re in a pub or on a train or getting into a taxi, you will look around you and wonder who’s watching.  Or you should. 

~ Molly Matera, signing off to read le Carré’s novel, which I assume will leave me as depressed as this thrilling film did.