Mama's Got the Stuff

The opening of “Mama” is intriguing.  A car, its driver’s door open, is parked haphazardly in front of a well-kept suburban home where a little girl is choosing a toy — one for an ever so slightly younger child — to bring with her to school.  A gunshot is heard, but the child, Victoria, does not recognize it as that.  She has no foreboding.  We have.

(c) 2012, Toma 78/DeMilo Production Co.

Something is amiss.  Over these scenes we hear a radio report of financial failures, fraud, and murder.  That’s when we meet the totally stressed out father of the child.  He bundles his two daughters into the car and drives off, too fast, onto icy roads around the mountain and into the woods.  Without telling you something quite startling that occurs, I’ll move on and just say that each step in this story is fraught with dread.  From a wild ride then walk through the winter woods, two little girls cling to each other in an empty cabin, without an inkling of what’s going on.

The children in this film have been remarkably well cast.  In the opening scenes, Morgan McGarry is intelligently precious as young Victoria, wrapping her arms around baby sister Lilly, played by Sierra and Maya Dawe with the simplicity of the small children they are.  When the scene advances to five years later, Miss McGarry grows into the lovely Megan Charpentier as Victoria.  The baby-faced Isabelle Nélisse is an apt choice for Lilly, with the same drooping apple cheeks as the Dawes.  When we meet the girls again after five years alone in the woods, I wonder if young Victoria had been somehow computerized, so similar are the two different girls playing the child.  Miss Nélisse’s Lilly is terrifying in her feral nature, and Miss Charpentier’s Victoria heartbreaking as she struggles back to civilization.

Uncle Lucas, Annabel, Lilly and Victoria in MAMA.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Jeffrey and then Lucas (the Daddy of the girls and then his brother Luke), does straightforward work, but the rollercoaster is ridden by Jessica Chastain as Lucas’ Goth rocker girlfriend Annabel, an unwilling maternal figure who warms to the role when they win custody of the children.  After the girls are discovered in the woods, they are treated by Dr. Dreyfuss (a solid performance by Daniel Kash), a doctor with as much imagination as academic knowledge.  The adults are very fine in this film, and Chastain continues to build her repertoire of characters, each one different from the last.  But it’s the children who are riveting.

Mama is good, but not great.  At times the underscoring was more obvious than ominous, though it never diminished the excellent work by director of photography Antonio Riestra.  Director Andrés Muschietti wrote the striking script with his sister Barbara Muschietti and Neil Cross.  There is no room for ambiguity in their story.  From the first ten minutes (not to mention the trailers and advertising) the ghost is corporeal.  Generally I find that less fun than the ambiguity of Robert Wise’s classic film The Haunting, but the influence of executive producer Guillermo del Toro was apparent in the stunning visualization of “Mama.”  More importantly, while Shirley Jackson’s heroine in The Haunting thought she sought death with a family of sorts, the anti-heroine of Mama sought family and life after death. 

The goal of a ghost story is to startle the audience, who should be overcome with shivers, shrieks, gasps, and screams. And some times that gasp could be in wonder at the utterly surprising scenes this film reveals.  Not your usual ghost story, Mama is sophisticated, visually polished, and worth your time if you like a good ghost story creatively visualized.  

~ Molly Matera, signing off.  Not likely to sleep well....

A Russian Classic Revamped: Anna Karenina

From the get-go and throughout, Anna Karenina was breathtaking. Bearing in mind that I read the novel only once several decades ago and am not a purist when it comes to Russian literature, I believe director Joe Wright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard’s conceit for telling this story reached the heart of the matter. Some political ramifications were doubtless lost (despite an early scene that looked as if it could have come from Dr. Zhivago), but it’s clearly the love story (and the fall-out therefrom) that counts in this version. Fittingly, the railroad plays a recurring role in the story of Anna Karenina, and it’s a marvelous vehicle — snow-covered, city to country, country to city, mixing people, gentry, serf, drones. It separates young lovers, then joins them, then separates again. Nothing’s more thrilling than a train ride through the movies.

The theatricality of the entire enterprise was a never-ending delight. I was hooked from my first sight of the stage, the bird’s eye view available from the upper levels of the theatre, characters looking down on the room they just left, and turning turning turning to walk out of the stage set into a field of whatever it is that Domhnall Gleeson’s Constantine Levin and his freed serfs scythe. Visually splendid are the actors as well, with the traffic-stopping Keira Knightley as Anna Karenina in stunning costumes by Jacqueline Durran. Costumes and settings and certainly Ms. Knightley’s jewelry did not adhere strictly to the time period any more than the ballroom dancing did, but who could care if beauty took a left turn for a joyride. The dancing in particular was fanciful and clever and quite possibly the way the lower classes might have imagined the upper classes to have moved in those overly ornate rooms, as if a luxurious birth afforded people grace and rhythm to do the complicated, flowing movements.

Jude Law as Karenin (c) 2012 Focus Features

Who hasn’t said, to themselves or aloud, that just a few years ago it would have been Jude Law as Vronsky, and wouldn’t that have been swell. Well, yes, but I’m happy to see him grow into the mature man he is, playing surprising roles for the joy of it. Jude Law does some of his very best work, subdued and thoughtful, as the properly repressed yet unalterably kind Alexei Karenin. Matthew Macfadyen put aside his often dour countenance to be a playful brother to Anna as the philandering Oblonsky. The wonderful Kelly Macdonald represented all women as betrayed wife Dolly. Her reaction to Anna’s behavior is yearning and admiring, in sharp contrast to the women of high society, exemplified by Shirley Henderson as an unknown woman at the opera, where everyone recognizes Anna. In contrast, Princess Myagkaya (an elegant Michelle Dockery) was empowered with the strength to be loyal.

Matthew Macfadyen as Oblonsky

Country fellow Levin loves the lovely Kitty (a sweet, sullen, then warm and tender Alicia Vikander), who is smitten with the dashing Vronsky (a seductive Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who dooms Anna Karenina as quickly as he falls for her. The lovely Ms. Knightley and delicious Mr. Taylor-Johnson are beautifully intertwined throughout the film.

Alicia Vikander as Kitty and Domhnall Gleeson as Levin

Emily Watson was morose as usual as Karenin’s friend, the Countess Ivanova. She represents her times well in its beginnings of forward-thinking actions by privileged classes, fighting for social equality for all except her own gender.

Mr. Wright’s direction is bold and exciting, aided by gorgeous cinematography by Seamus McGarvey, expert film editing by Melanie Oliver, an extraordinary production design by Sarah Greenwood that combined imagination and history, allowing the imagination to win. All of this was accompanied by a thrilling and moving score by Dario Marianelli.

As I left the theatre, I saw a poster for A Royal Affair and recognized Alicia Vikander who had just played the delightful Kitty. While that hadn’t been on my short list of films to see (isn’t winter swell, though, sending us indoors even in daylight to keep warm in the movie house?), but Ms. Vikander’s lustrous performance in Anna Karenina may yet move A Royal Affair up the list.

 If Anna Karenina is still playing on a big screen near you, go enjoy the visual splendor. If you’re a Russian literature purist, I can’t help you but to say it’s a fine film in and of itself. Read the book again later. Much later.

 ~ Molly Matera, signing off to read a good book….

Arterial Spray and Other Bodily Fluids

Quentin Tarantino loves his arterial spray.  Geysers of it, in fact.  For his fans looking for that sort of thing, Django Unchained did not disappoint.  Something did though. 

Christoph Walz as Dr. Schulz and Jamie Foxx as Django.

Django Unchained was sort of fun while it lasted.  Christoph Waltz as Dr. Schulz is brilliant, hilarious, and perversely lovable, as is his little traveling dentist’s wagon.  Jamie Fox does good work growing from a slave who barely raises his head to a free man on a mission.  And it was fun to pick out all the old TV/movie cowboys in the cast (Bruce Dern, Don Stroud, Lee Horsley, Michael Parks among others) and other “cameos” by Tom Wopat, Russ Tamblyn and his daughter Amber, not to mention Mr. Tarantino himself.  Yes, it’s a self-referential Hollywood western film, and pure Tarantino — a revenge masquerade on people who deserve the punishment. There was a lot of excellent work by the likes of Don Johnson as a southern slaveowner as well as Dennis Christopher as a sycophantic family lawyer.  Before I sound like the Academy Awards, I will take note of Leonardo DiCaprio’s slimy and marvelous work as Calvin Candie of the Candyland plantation, one of the most despicable characters ever seen on the screen.  Kerry Washington was beautiful and heartbreaking, Walton Goggins perfectly repulsive, and Laura Cayouette was creepily fragile as Candie’s widowed sister. This was all topped off with an unpleasant performance by Samuel L. Jackson, whom I did not even recognize until halfway through his first scene.

A hammer-wielding DiCaprio.

Unpleasant.  This film is unpleasant.

Many scenes in Django Unchained — perhaps I should say most — are deeply disturbing, and Mr. Tarantino may have been right to shove it down our throats.  Nevertheless, there’s really only so much blood and gore I can watch before it — dare I say — bores me.  While I sort of enjoyed the film as I watched and cringed and sometimes put my hands over my eyes, I really was not inspired to read or write or urge others to see this movie.  Loved the soundtrack, though.

Django Unchained is a little too long and a little too much, but while it is not likely to win him new fans, Mr. Tarantino’s work has plenty of fans who will probably love it.

#

In December, I saw the quietly delightful Red Bull Theater production of Volpone or The Fox during its limited run.  Ben Jonson’s moralistic comedy shows the deteriorating mores and hypocrisy of Venetian society circa 1607 and is remarkably funny until everyone comes to their just ends, which were rather harsh in the 17th century. The production at the Lucille Lortel Theatre starred a sparkling Stephen Spinella as Volpone accompanied by a sleazy Cameron Fomar as Mosca, his “Parasite.” These two were joined by the unerring Alvin Epstein as Corbaccio, with a saucy turn by Tovah Feldshuh as the English Lady.  Even Christina Pumariega in what could easily have been the thankless role of the Merchant’s wife was a delight.  The entire cast shone under the tiptop, brisk, funny direction of Artistic Director Jesse Berger. 

#

I liked Silver Linings Playbook.  I didn’t love it.  Largely because by the end I felt it was a crock.  Early on, even halfway through, the mental issues of the characters were, so far I could see, honestly portrayed.  There is humor, compassion, crazy people, misunderstandings, and a lot of laughs.  Then suddenly love conquers all.  Oh well.  It was fun while it lasted.

David O. Russell, directing his own screenplay based on a novel by Matthew Quick, has a splendid cast and they all have a rollicking good time, as does the audience.  Bradley Cooper is the damaged young man who is just getting out of a psychiatric institution where he was incarcerated after his violent attack on his wife’s lover.  Pat (Junior) seems like a nice guy, looking for a positive way to view life — and then he loses it, for no good reason.  We see and hear the cues, but they are not good reasons for a sane person to trash the attic room or wake people at 4 in the morning.  Of course he doesn’t want to take his meds, or see his shrink (a warm and fuzzy Anupam Kher), or abide by the restraining order his wife Nikki has out on him, which Officer Keogh (Dash Mihok) is prepared to enforce.  In fact, the whole neighborhood seems ready to enforce it. The reaction of Pat's former employer (an excellent scene for Patsy Meck as the high school principal) when he approaches her tells us just how scary this guy was.

Cooper, Weaver, and Tucker

Pat’s parents are played by the remarkable Robert DeNiro and Jacki Weaver.  This woman is amazing, such a wonderful mother, loving, protective, tolerant of her sons and her husband.  It’s as if she and DeNiro and been married for decades, they all fit together perfectly. To watch these two performances alone, this film is worth anyone’s time.

Back to Pat — all of Pat’s behavior is suspect, all of it is self-destructive, and he believes he and his wife have an amazing love and will get over this little bump in the road.  He is the only one in the film and in the theatre who believes that for a moment.  Pat visits an old friend (John Ortiz as Ronnie), married to Veronica (a good job by Julia Stiles) who is a friend of the estranged wife, Nikki.  Underdressed at dinner with Ronnie and Veronica he meets Veronica’s little sister Tiffany, young, recently widowed, and with problems of her own.  These two first connect over the medications they dislike.  Jennifer Lawrence gives a terrific performance as a tough girl who appears to be fighting for her life.  And then she’s fighting for Pat’s.  All of this through dance.  The visit from Danny, Pat’s friend from the mental institution as played by a delightful Chris Tucker, adds some pizzazz to that dance routine.

Cooper at Pat, Lawrence as Tiffany, and Tucker as Danny.

The film is fun, the characters engaging — even when we really want them to take their meds — and the insanity of “normal” people over sports events is delightfully portrayed.  Americans’ relationship with sports plays a part in this story, as does gambling, as do anger management issues…. The apple did not fall far from the tree, is all I need say.

So up until the last few scenes, I quite enjoyed being all positive with Pat and his parents and his friends.  I am well aware that film compresses time and events, but really.  Love does not conquer all, and I found the final scenes of “normalcy” to be quite annoying. 

Nevertheless, all the performances are quite good, with outstanding work by Mr. DeNiro and Ms. Weaver. 

~ Molly Matera, signing off until next time.

History and Art Make Movie Magic

Since his TV-movie Duel 40 years ago, we’ve known director Steven Spielberg as a master manipulator, but he left his bag of tricks at home for his new film, Lincoln.  Mr. Spielberg directs this film with restraint, his presence subtle; he lets the words and the pictures and the actors tell this sadly joyous story.  Tony Kushner’s script is warm, deep, and utterly brilliant.  Messrs. Spielberg and Kushner worked with Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, focusing the film on the last four months of Lincoln’s life, when the most important thing in the world to him was to abolish slavery permanently, through a constitutional amendment.  Passing the amendment before the end of the war was vital, since the Confederate states, once reunited with the Union, would never allow it to stand.  But this is not a documentary.  Lincoln does with history what good films and plays must:  It condenses people, time, events, and cuts to the chase.

Daniel Day-Lewis as President Lincoln.

Lincoln is a work of art.  Its scenes are filmed and lit with a painter’s palette of natural and somber hues, as if a gray gauze lay over the land and the people, inside and out.  Cinematography by Janusz Kaminski is beautifully composed and moving.  The enormously talented group of people who put Lincoln together left me awestruck — from the costuming by Joanna Johnston, to the production design by Rick Carter that complements the art direction and set direction and the whole.  John William’s music is discreet and fitting, film editing by Michael Kahn is masterful, casting by Avy Kaufman was piercingly on the mark.

Daniel Day-Lewis was Abraham Lincoln.  He was possessed — in a good way — as if Lincoln had heard this man searching for him, and said, “At last.  Someone who really gets me,” and proceeded to inhabit Mr. Day-Lewis and speak through him for the duration of the film.  I could listen to Daniel Day-Lewis channeling Lincoln via Kushner all day long.

Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln.  (C)2012 DreamWorks Pictures and 20th Century Fox

Sally Field gave us a Mary Todd Lincoln with whom we could empathize even when Mrs. Lincoln grated. Bruce McGill inhabited a stressed and tough Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. The elder statesman of our theatre and film worlds, Hal Holbrook, was a tough old bird, Preston Blair, whose behind-the-scenes machinations for a negotiated peace brought the story to crisis.  

David Straithairn as William Seward.  (c) 2012 DreamWorks and 20th Century Fox

David Strathairn was the wise and restrained Secretary of State, William Seward.  Seward handles the political manipulation that Lincoln doesn’t want to touch, the trading of positions for votes, employing three slightly scurvy wretches gorgeously played by the highly skilled and unexpected instruments of James Spader (in the most delightful impersonation I can recall seeing him take on), Tim Blake Nelson, and John Hawkes.  Fighting the fight on the legislature floor, his sad basset hound face heavily lined beneath a heavy wig, Tommy Lee Jones had a fine time playing irascible and intimidating Thaddeus Stevens.  Jared Harris’ Ulysses S. Grant was subdued and powerful.  Lee Pace is a furious opponent of the amendment as Democrat Fernando Wood of New York, and Michael Stuhlbarg gives a finely tuned performance as George Yeaman, a Kentucky representative torn between what he fears will be the long-term results of passing the amendment, and his certainty that its passage is morally right. 

Tommy Lee Jones as  Thaddeus Stevens.  (c) 2012 DreamWorks and 20th Century Fox.

There are no lackluster performances.  There are no lesser scenes.  This film is gripping from beginning to end.  The night I saw it, the audience applauded as the credits rolled.  Still not a documentary, Lincoln nevertheless is an excellent lesson in how politics works, in how compromise makes change possible.  Yet  the film does not let us forget the horrors of war — the hands-on and hand-to-hand kind.  We see President Lincoln torn between a possibility that he might negotiate a peace, potentially saving thousands of lives, or passing a monumental amendment that would save many thousands more — as well as the American soul.

Lincoln used Euclid’s axiom “Things equal to the same thing are equal” to prove, logically, that all people are equal to one another — this in a late night conversation with young men in his employ.  Not politicians.  Not statesmen.  Just people.  This is the man the film is about, and this the moment that evokes the man…..

The only audience to whom I would not recommend this film are young children.  It was not made to excite with guts and gore.  Its scenes of war evoke horror as they ought.  I cannot emphasize enough how brilliant and serious this film is.  Go see it on a big screen. Then see it again.

“It's time for me to go. But I would rather stay,” Lincoln says to his cabinet as he leaves for Ford's Theatre.  We’d rather he’d stayed as well.

~ Molly Matera, signing off, looking for the next showing of Lincoln.

A Phantasmagoria

Faust:  A Love Story, a wild and witty production by the Icelandic theatre companies Vesturport Theatre and Reykjavík City Theatre, has two flaws: 

1. The first act, despite quirky performances, falls a bit flat after the initial set up. 
2.  The smoke.

Gísli Örn Gardarsson looked at the Faust story and its appearance in literature through the ages and said, we need to rework this for now, and our particular way of doing theatre.  Which includes climbing and leaping and crawling and generally freaking people out.  So Nina Dögg Filippusdottir, Gísli Örn Gardarsson, Carl Grose, Björn Hlynur Haraldsson, and Vikingur Kristjansson created a new take on an old tale.  This phantasmagoria of Faust:  A Love Story was grown, wrought of fire and smoke, heat and lust.  This Faust is pedestrian in his desires, but the playing of it is fun.

For those of you who don’t know it, the story is generally one of a disappointed or sad human made a pawn in a contest between God and the Devil.  Think Job, think Crossroad Blues, or even the Aesop Fable of the Sun and the Wind.  What wins the lowly human, kindness or harshness, good or evil?  Promises, promises. The wind blows harshly but cannot dislodge the traveler’s cloak; the sun shines warmly to make the traveler willingly remove his cloak.  Darken your thoughts and see the sad and lonely man at a crossroads — real or virtual — so desperate he makes a deal with a demon for whatever it is he wants, in return for his soul after a period of time.  The Faust story varies, particularly in the ending, between Goethe and Marlowe and the old tales on which they based their works. 

In this acrobatic version, Faust is Johann the retired old actor, whose seemingly glamorous life has left him alone and poor in a nursing home on Christmas Eve.  He never played Faust, and at the bidding of his fellow residents, he begins the tale of Lucifer and God battling or betting over Faust’s soul.  The insensitive male nurse, Valentin (Runar Freyr Gislason), interrupts and sends them all off to bed.  Valentin’s sister, Greta (Unnur Osp Stefansdottir), is a much kinder nurse, and Johann would be happy to go off to bed with her, but he’s an old man and she treats him as such.

The interruption came too late, though, as if speaking the words has brought forth the Devil’s minions to torment and tease Johann.  One elderly resident dies while Johann speaks to him, and miserable Johann wraps Christmas lights around his neck to commit suicide.  Enter — or rather, rise from his wheelchair — Mephistopheles, Mephisto to his chums, wickedly played by Magnus Jonsson.  Let’s not forget the demons Lilith (Nina Dogg Filippusdottir) and Asmodeus (Bjorn Hlynur Haraldsson), who join the fun.

Magnus Jonsson as Mephisto

The sets by Axel Johannesson included a transparent fence that appeared to be the windowed wall of a common room in a nursing home, allowing for effective and suspenseful happenings in and out of the common room.  Then the net:  A full-blown circus net, sturdy enough to appear under a trapeze act, was strung from the balcony to the stage of the BAM Harvey Theatre.  Billowing into the orchestra was smoke.  We get it, hellfire would cause smoke, and it’s an interesting visual effect onstage.  Nevertheless, it made members of the audience (including myself) cough and the stink of it remained in the theatre even when it wasn’t floating about.  Lose the smoke.  Keep the music by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.  And the net.

The daring exploits of the company are a highlight of the evening’s entertainment.  Hell opens up in the trapdoors of the stage, devils climb the walls and leap from the balcony into the net.  It’s startling, it’s funny, and occasionally poignant.  The cast is more than competent and sometimes marvelous — Thorsteinn Gunnarsson as Johann is a sad old man, then a sprightly and menacing demon Asmodeus.  The transformation of Johann into Asmodeus was a marvelous display, with the suddenly young Johann well played by Mr. Haraldsson.  As a young man, Johann starts an affair with his nurse Greta, destroying her innocence in the process.  Count this as among the dark versions of the story.

Alas, it appears this production’s brief run at the BAM Harvey Theatre was the end of a two-year worldwide tour, but keep an eye out for the Vesturport Theatre and Reykjavík City Theatre companies. 

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

Friends, Romans, Dutch?

This is not really a review.  I am merely contemplating a production I saw the other week.  A production of three Shakespeare plays, one after another, intertwined.  A long Saturday at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.  But I’m not reviewing.  Merely musing, if you will. 

My anticipation had waned in the months between ordering tickets for Roman Tragedies and the date to attend.  In fact, I dreaded the advertised 5 ½ hour performance.  Mind you, having survived a 4 ¼ hour opera earlier this season, I felt I could do anything.

Now I know the truth: It is good to be mad, if it’s mad to book tickets for an adapted mash of Shakespeare’s Roman tragedies — Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, and Antony & Cleopatra — being presented with neither reserved seating nor intermissions.  In Dutch.  For those who wonder why I’d see a play in Dutch, it’s simple:  A good silent film still tells a story.  Shakespeare is Shakespeare, and glorious as the verse often is, he was a dramatist, a storyteller, and a good one.  More, consider this:  When the actors speak in a language I don’t understand, I don’t have to suffer anyone mangling the verse.  The story still works and the characters still live.  I can guarantee it works in Japanese, Swedish, Portuguese, French, and now Dutch.

In director Ivo van Hove’s interesting gambit with his company, Toneelgroep Amsterdam, news crawls of today’s reality (Israel, Gaza, Hurricane Sandy) combine with crawls of the Volscian War, which appeared below a huge screen showing some part of the onstage action.  Time recorded and broadcast somehow flies faster than time ignored.

The conceit was this.  The company of Dutch actors were in modern dress.  The stage was covered with seating areas you might see in a large lobby of a beige hotel whose guests enjoyed eavesdropping on one another’s conversations.  And the audience was allowed onstage for most of the play, during which time they could lounge in that lobby, wander at will, get a drink from the onstage bar, or access the internet from a work station.  They were encouraged to Tweet to #RomanTragedies during the performance, therefore no phones or cameras were hidden away.  [Note:  This is annoying.  Flashes from the stage should have meaning, not just be a nuisance factor.]  The audience could watch the actors live and watch the actors on the live feed while reading the English subtitles.  Set and lighting design by Jan Versweyveld supported van Hove’s parlor game, and the video design by Tal Yarden was quite good. 

And the crawl: Never forget the crawl.  Clearly van Hove assumed (rightly) that the audience knew nothing of 5^th Century BC Rome, or Volscians of any time, let alone that the new Roman Republic’s famed senate only represented the upper classes until the fifth century BC, and then the plebeian tribunes were barely tolerated by the less humble of the upper classes, all of which is rather important to understanding the action of the first play, Coriolanus — well, I don’t know where that sentence started, but suffice to say, the “news” crawl was welcome.

For our amusement, van Hove uses and abuses television and internet news styles.  By providing the barest necessary information in Tweet form along the bottom of the screens all over the stage and in the BAM café, the audience felt no pain at the production’s length and remained tightly focused on the action from the fifth century to 44 all the way to 30 BC.

It’s always odd to read a translation of Shakespeare back into English, but this adaptation is sharp: Large blades were applied to the texts of Coriolanus and Julius Caesar.  Rather unfortunately, by the time the shears got to Antony & Cleopatra, they’d been dulled a bit.

But I digress.  In any case, the news crawls explaining the wars and the politics and the power struggles were enlightening and often hilarious.  When somebody died, the name of the character with years of birth and death were displayed (e.g., Julius Caesar 100 BC - 44 BC), then augmented by startling spoilers, like “180 minutes to the death of Brutus;” or “240 minutes to the death of Cleopatra.” 

Each scene change included a countdown clock, telling the audience they had 4:36 to use the bathroom or down a half pint of a local harvest brew (mediocre).  Tweets that had made their way from the stage to the internet joined the crawl, some of which were quite amusing.

With all these shenanigans going on, perhaps we all laughed a bit more than we ought to have.  These are, after all, Roman tragedies.  The small but excellent cast left us in no doubt of that.  This is a remarkable repertory company production with most of the actors appearing in all three plays in roles of varying prominence. 

For instance, Chris Nietvelt played a television interviewer in Coriolanus (slyly interviewing the Volscian Tullus Aufidius after his defeat by Caius Martius a.k.a. Coriolanus, and later after his storming of Rome with Coriolanus after the latter’s exile — got it?); a fine nervous Casca in Julius Caesar; then she topped off the night with Cleopatra in Antony and.

The only actor I didn’t particularly care for was Roeland Fernhout, whose Cominius in Coriolanus and Thidias in Antony & Cleopatra were unobjectionable in themselves yet too similar in the same evening.  His Brutus in the middle was mostly dull, until he called for his slave Lucius, and answered… himself.  Sweetly.  Is Brutus mad?  Was there a political point to be made by Brutus speaking for or as Lucius?  Am I dense?

The production had, perhaps, three minor flaws: 

1. The audience onstage, moving freely about, was distracting and sometimes annoying (see earlier note re cameras flashing). 
2. Microphones in addition to the audience onstage.  I couldn’t tell where Tullus Aufidius was for most of his first scene with Caius Martius because he was surrounded by audience members and the voices of miked actors all come from the same place.  It was the same feeling I’d had years ago when the Delacorte staged Richard III with Mary Alice’s powerful Queen Margaret speaking from behind a crowd of men on her first entrance.  She could have been a ghost, since we could not hear where she was until the men parted and she came through.  Annoying in 1990, miking of actors without compensation in staging by directors is barely forgivable in 2012.
3. Finally, if the director and translator could shorten Coriolanus and Julius Caesar as much as they did, surely they could have cut 20-30 minutes out of the Antony & Cleopatra. 

A high point was when there was … nothing.  There was no noise beyond the audience shuffling about on the stage.  Television screens showed a pop band performing, but there was no sound.  Cleopatra cried out for music.  Marc Antony finally came out and said “let’s take it back to….” [I could swear he said it in English but cannot be sure.]  Then Cleopatra and Charmian essentially said to hell with the absence of music and started to dance wildly, to which the audience responded with uproarious approval.  Great way to get past a technical glitch. 

The end of Coriolanus, taken as a rebuke against anyone attempting to mess with the Republic of Rome, jumped ahead 400 or so years to blend seamlessly into Julius Caesar.  There are great speeches in this play, family relationships galore, and many ways to confuse an audience. Director van Hove and Adaptor/Translator Tom Kleijn avoided them cleanly. 

Julius Caesar rolled naturally into Antony & Cleopatra with the same actors continuing in the roles of Octavius, Lepidus, and Antony, joined by Chris Nietvelt as Cleopatra.  Here the actors who played larger roles in the first two plays play smaller (still vital) roles in the last play, finishing up with a bang.  A hoot and a holler.  An altogether marvelous evening in the theatre. 

~ Molly Matera, signing off to re-read the Roman tragedies before she goes back to BAM to see the Trojan Women…in English.

Argo, the Science Fiction Film That Wasn't

Argo is the third Ben Affleck-directed film I’ve seen, and I’m impressed.  I’m not a fan of Ben Affleck the actor.  He’s there and not there; my eye and ear pass him by.  But as a director and writer (don't forget Good Will Hunting) he’s getting my attention.  I’m interested in watching what he’s done, learning his point of view.  Affleck has found his place, behind the camera, and so many wonderful actors are in this film that I think Hollywood and its actors have figured it out.  From the screenplay he wrote and directed based on Dennis Lehane’s Gone Baby Gone to The Town to Argo, Affleck has become an actor’s director to watch.

Argo is loosely based on the very real, front-page news of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran.  While the Iranian revolutionaries took hostage everyone in the embassy, six Americans slipped out of the compound and found refuge in the residence of the Canadian ambassador, Ken Taylor (a reserved and realistic performance by the always thoughtful Victor Garber), where they lived (sometimes under the floorboards) for three months.  CIA operative Tony Mendez, a.k.a. Kevin Harkness (played with quiet intensity by the director Ben Affleck) came up with a hare-brained scheme to smuggle them out of the country as a Canadian film crew working on a Hollywood science fiction movie.  This highly unlikely scenario worked — that truth is so often stranger than fiction may be the best part of a good story.

The six hidden escapees became known in the halls of the U.S. government as the “Houseguests.”  Their story is an engrossing one in which the audience can give a damn about everybody. Argo is a riveting two hours.  This level of tension is extraordinary in light of the fact that we already know how it turned out. 

“Harkness” calls on friends in Hollywood to help him set up the background for his plan. Alan Arkin is seriously hilarious as Hollywood producer Lester Siegel, who’s still got at the least chutzpah.  John Goodman reminds us what a fine straight man he is as the great make-up artist John Chambers.  These two men use their usually more frivolous professions to fabricate a false reality to cover the CIA story.  The Hollywood scenes of this conspiracy tickle us as the old pros set the P.R. wheels in motion to make the science fiction film “Argo” appear to be a real Hollywood movie.  That the Press believed — and therefore published — that this film within the film was a real movie was essential to the escape plan.  These efforts include a fashion show of a “table reading” of the absurd script with actors in costume and alien make-up to promote the film that would never be made.  A highlight of this was the appearance of Adrienne Barbeau as an oversexed Hollywood has-been cast as a galactic witch.  Inside jokes, yes, but it’s still great stuff.

Goodman as Chambers, Arkin as Siegel, and Affleck as Mendez/Harkness  (c) 2012 Warner Brothers Pictures

In contrast, the scenes in Washington, DC, are frustrating and infuriating, showing us men who all look alike repeating tired old ideas, plans that were used thirty years before.  The “suits” were as we expected them to be:  short sighted bureaucrats that almost derail the mission.  Bryan Cranston is Affleck’s supportive boss Jack O’Donnell.  He growls, he reins himself in to play the politics, until he cannot stop himself from blasting the desk jockeys when they make the wrong call.  All the DC characters are played by experienced and recognizable actors, from a tired-looking Kyle Chandler, to Bob Gunton and Philip Baker Hall, Keith Szarabajka and Zeljko Ivanek, and more.  While each one has only snippets of scenes to play — Mr. Affleck may have expected the American public to remember who those politicos were, which is a naive error — the actors are good enough to be spot on without any background provided for the audience.

Bryan Cranston as Jack O'Donnell  (c) 2012 Warner Brothers Pictures.

In the nail-biting scenes set in Iran, the actors cast as the Houseguests appeared remarkably similar to the actual people, only partly due to the ministrations of an expert hair and make-up crew.  Even better, the acting was so intense and realistic they could have been those people.  With straightforward characterizations, they created living people in a crisis situation — warts and all.  Kudos to (clockwise from the bottom front): 

-         Christopher Denham as Mark Lijek

-         Kerry Bishé as Kathy Stafford 

-         Scoot McNairy as Joe Stafford

-         Tate Donovan as Bob Anders

-         Rory Cochrane as Lee Schatz

-         Clea DuVall as Cora Lijek

The Houseguests.  (c) 2012 Warner Brothers Pictures.

 As Ambassador Taylor’s courageous and gracious wife Pat, Page Leong allowed us to see her fear of discovery under a graceful diplomatic facade.  As the ambassador’s maid, Sahar, Sheila Vand showed quiet strength and compassion.

Editor William Goldenberg and director Affleck kept the screenplay by Chris Terrio (based on an article by Joshuah Bearman) terse and tight. Every objection of the “houseguests” themselves, each procrastination, every hold-up in Washington or the airport, induced an internal scream.  I’d long since finished my popcorn before the last 15 minutes and found myself twisting and crushing the bag that had held it. By the end I bit onto the crumpled paper bag as if to keep from crying out when…well I wouldn’t want to throw in a spoiler.

Reports on this secret mission (declassified in 1997) are doubtless thousands of pages long.  It takes skill to tell the story as briskly as Argo does in less than two hours.  For all that, it is a movie, not a documentary.  Those who point out shortcuts and inaccuracies are missing the point.  I recommend this film for its sharp story-telling, its fine acting (including by those who never speak a word) and editing. Though home screens these days are two or three times the size of those sets on which some of us watched “Nightline” reports about the hostage crisis in 1979 and 1980, the truly big screens remain the best place to see this one.  Go to the movies and have a good time. 

~ Molly Matera, signing off to plan my next escape ….