"Desire Under the Elms," at the Goodman Theater on 2/24/09 in Chicago, IL

This is, by far, the most successful production of "Desire Under the Elms," I've ever seen. A number of years ago I saw the Court Theatre's production with a mixed cast that created an additional layer of meaning to the text that I liked very much. For me, though, there is always a nagging issue with the productions I've seen: I never believe the attraction of the new wife and the son. Without buying into that passion, it is impossible to connect emotionally to the tragedy in the play.

There is much to like about this production: the barrenness of the landscape as conveyed by the boulders on stage, the house that is taken apart and put back together in various ways, the strong acting across the board, etc. Bob Falls has taken care of the problem of conveying the sexual excitement of the couple by invoking the audience's sexual excitement. The son is shown undressing slowly and he lingers naked while getting in his bath. Similarly, the new wife lingers as she undresses for bed. On one level, we get to watch them peek at each other naked. At the same time, we get to see that nudity and it moves us. Thus, we can easily buy into their passion. This is accomplished largely by the way Falls uses their nudity. Of course, it's also only possible because they really are fine actors.

I won't go into it but I will say that this is a production with a concept. Sometimes concepts serve as a distraction. In this case, the concept is in accord with the play's themes and makes them clearer. In a way, this play ends as it begins, with men pulling big pieces of rock in a quarry. the opening image conveys something about the place we'll be seeing during the play. At the end, it's a description of the character's life and leaves us with a powerful, and moving, closing image.

"Our Town" at Lookingglass Theatre on on 2/22/09 in Chicago, IL

Ehh...

"Five Days in March" by chelfitsch on 2/21/09 in Chicago

chelfitsch is a Japanese theater company that uses the vernacular everyday language and pairs it with movement that is created from unconscious gestures used in conversation. I loved this show but can't say that I got it. Any piece of art that is immediately accessible is something of a disappointment to me and so the somewhat inaccessibility of this piece didn't bother me. It's the kind of thing I'd like to see again to try to make more sense of. While a few people did walk out during intermission, this might be a very exciting piece for those of us who value experimentation and are comfortable with ambiguity.

The play tells three related stories that are conveyed through a series of fragments. Thus, three tales are being spun at once but the audience doesn't get a sense of completion until the end of the play. The language is very much the vernacular of young people -- perhaps teenagers or folks in their early 20's. The play's inhabitants all have part time jobs and live with the ironic sensibility of youth (for example, they purposely go to see bad movies). The first story is about a young man who meets a girl at the movies whom he likes. She, like him, is odd and knows it. They clearly like each other but don't know quite how to talk to each other. In talking about the music in the movie they've just seen, he thinks out loud about his opinion, not being attached at all to these opinions. He's talking as though he has some authority but really has none. The girl, however, takes his opinions as signs of his disinterest and goes home feeling that she's blown it. Having suggested that they meet at a concert the next night, she thinks he has rejected her and thus doens't show up but he does. A friend who has accompanied that young man meets a different girl at the concert. They hit it off and rent a sex hotel room for five days, as referenced by the title of the play, because that's what they can afford. They fuck dozens of time, sometimes with condoms and other times without, and go their separate ways at the end. She's not happy to separate forever but is afraid to say so. At the same time, two boys are participating in a protest rally and march against America's invasion of Iraq. One boy is happy to be in the periphery (he's not a hard core protester, he says). In all three stories a potentially successful friendship is eclipsed by a lapse in communication.

The action of the play is conveyed almost completely through storytelling. Whether the characters are speaking directly to the audience, to each other, or an imaginary audience of friends is uncertain. Perhaps it's all three. Every now and then, one of the actors seems to embody a partucular character but which character is embodied by which actor changes over time. Two different actors take turns playing the boy who is held up in the sex hotels for five days, for example. While the actors might be speakig directly to the audience, the feel of the storytelling is not like a docudrama. Not like a "Laramie Project" with a journalistic feel. It's rather like overhearing a conversation. In fact, it even feels differently than a narrator who tells parts of a story directly to the audience.

While the plays uses the vernacular of youth speak, the blocking is close to movement (or dance). These gestures, collected and reworked by the director, are raised to the level of movement (which I'm using as a dance term to emphasize the choreography of an individual). Thus, in a way, the actors are dancing while speaking. It would be inaccurate to say that they are dancing but they are certainly choreographed. The intersection of this choreography with dialogue makes for the sense of tis piece but also its peculiarity. Gesture, of course, always accompanies dialogue. But in this piece the movement accompanies the dialogue but often not at the places where tey would typically intersect. It's sort of like starting the sound in a film 10 minutes after the images start to roll. There's a relationship between what is seen and what is heard but they don't feel quite synced up. As a result, one pays more attention to both the language and the movement because one tries to sync them in one's head. It's a similar kind of work is that required to bring the fragments of the storytelling together into one coherent narrative.

"Art" at Steppenwolf Theatre on Feb. 15th in Chicago, IL

This production of Yasmina Reza's play is incredibly well acted. It's not the kind of acting where people cry, scream, or argue (though they do those things) but the kind of acting that brings out strengths of a script that are otherwise easy to miss. And this is a tightly structured script that continuously circles in on itself, revealing progressively more each time it makes a turn.

In the play, Serge has bought an incredibly expensive painting that his best friend, Marc, is inexplicably pissed about. This argument escalates to include Ivan, the third in a close friendship, and the three decide to call it quits. In the first three scenes of the play, we witness three discussions about the painting, a white canvas with white diagonal lines, that show how differently each of the men see the painting, or rather the value each man puts on art. One is excited by the novelty of style, the other sees it as pretension, and the third as something whose ownership might cause happiness. Each man invests his own feelings to construct a meaning of the painting. One sees the excitement of modernity, components of the ridiculous contemporary art world, and an opportunity for comfort and happiness.

As the play progresses, the analysis of our relationship to art is extended to our human relationships. In the way that art can be a white canvas that absorbs and reflects our histories, so can ay interaction in which we engage. On one level, how we see others is determined by our own psychological make-up. On another level, what we think about ourselves is determined by how we believe others see us. As the scenes play themselves out, Reza's script goes deeper and deeper and we learn increasingly more about each man and his relationship to the others and the world.

What starts off as a someone intellectual unfolding shifts into a very human one. At that point, the audience made a collective gasp. It's never a complete shift, though. The intellectual continues throughout.

For me, the script is the star of the show. I was astounded from the very start. However, I've seen the play before and, while I liked it, I was never terribly impressed. The acting, which isn't exactly understated nor showy, makes that possible without drawing attention to itself. It was the most interesting script I've seen at Steppenwolf in many years. While not as fun as "August, Osage County," in my book it's a more interesting script because it has a philosophical underpinning that is lacking in "August."

"The Hairy Ape" by the Hypocrites on Feb. 11 in Chicago, IL

Typical of Sean Graney's work, the new production of Eugene O'Neill's "The Hairy Ape" is impressive in the way that his art design always reflects the themes of the work so precisely. Having seen a number of shows in the Owen (the black box) at the Goodman, I was delighted to see a different use of the space. Graney recognized the potential of the space and put it to good use. Most other productions just use a lot of resources to make an impressive set. Graney, with more resources than is typically available to the Hypocrites, does not forgo meaning for spectacle. While the set looks wonderful, it's the spectacular use of the structural space that impresses.

The theater is rearranged so that the seats are where the stage typically is and the inside entrance of the theater is used for the set. Graney puts the physical structure of the entrance to good use. The ground floor becomes the bowels of the ship, the balcony the men's sleeping quarters, and the very top tier the ship's deck, where the passengers are both physically and metaphorically above the men who make the ship go, the subject of the play. Not only are the structural elements of the space made to serve the needs of the play but it also supports the themes, as reflected in the woman on deck being high up. At the end of the play Graney accuses the audience of being hairy apes. That reversal of roles is, of course, also reflected in the staging.

The play's plot involves a man who shovels coal into the boat's furnaces, allowing the boat movement. At the opening of the play he's happy with his position, believing that he allows everything that happens on the boat to happen through his work. His comrades present various ways of viewing their situation -- from Marxist social theory to personal comparisons made through memory. Yank, the protagonist of the play, laugh at their views of the world. He seems to suggest that he's the one in control and there's no need for complaining. When a young woman who imagines that she cares about the poor comes down to the broiler room and encounters Yank, she's repulsed and asks to be taken away. having been seen as an ape, Yank now sees himself similarly and he wants revenge.

The farther down the path to vengeance Yank gets the less articulate he becomes, more like an ape. Although he had seen himself as being above the rest of the world before, we see that he knows little about the world of Manhattan. His naivete leads to his inability to insult the denizens of 5th Ave. and to gain admittance into the radical group that would allow him his revenge. He ends up in a prison, a cage created by the merchants of industry, and eventually a zoo. At this point, Graney reworks the original script in a way implicates the audience, among other things that I won't mention.

Graney's production seems very matter-of-fact to me. It's a nicely unified production with information that is out out there rather than interpreted. I'm left with a number of questions, which are clearly raised in the play but a point of view, at least in thinking about it 18 hours later, are yet unanswered. For example, does Yank become an ape because he doesn't have tools to help him deal with the conditions of his life? He has neither a social theory than can help contain him not cherished memories to accomplish the same. Has he always been an ape and only now recognizing it, something that the production suggests is true of the audience? Or does the act of being seen generative? Perhaps Graney's point is to leave these questions unanswered, perhaps he answered them and I missed it, or perhaps he's not concerned with them at all. Whatever the answer, there is a lot to keep you occupied and an exciting and surprising production.

"Disfarmer" by Dan Hurlin at St. Ann's Warehouse on Feb. 1st in Brooklyn, NY

"Disfarmer" is a puppet theater piece by Dan Hurlin. It is the story of a real life portrait photographer from Arkansas, Mike Myer, who claimed to have been born from a tornado. The tornado, he said, took him from his home in Missouri and dropped him off in front of the Myer house in Arkansas. Myer, he said, means farmer and since he is not a farmer, he changed his name to Disfarmer. His protography was apparently of some merit and there have been exhibitions of it of late. He was also, if you haven't already figured it out, quite an eccentric. This piece illustrates some of the pieces of his peculiar life.

I love puppet theater. For me, the fact that it never tries to be "realistic," in the way that plays might, and still manages to make you forget from time to time that you're watchng a production is astounding. When three or five puppeteers are manipulating the puppet and yet they all manage to be ignored, I think it's a minor miracle.

"Disfarmer" embraces that component of puppet theater. He lines up all of the components of the set and the instruments needed for sound effects across the front of the stage. The puppeteers place them on various carts that they roll around on stage, constantly moving things on and off the carts to constantly re-set the stage. The simplest of these movements can be quite lovely. When the piece opens, there are standing pictures of trees, houses, and buildings across three of the carts. While a live band of four musicians plays along the back of the stage, the puppeteers come on the stage and remove each photograph one at a time to expose a minitature tree, house, or building behind them. Then, drawings on plastic panels are brought out and laid out in front of or behind the carts to show the arrival and progress of a tornado. The entire scene is serendipitous and delightful. The puppets of Mike Disfarmer are wonderfully expressive and are dexterously manipulated by the puppeteers.

The best part of the production were the technical pieces: the puppets, the sets, the manipulation of the puppets, and the music. The least successful part was the story itself. While Mike Disfarmer's life is conveyed as an eccentric life of some seclusion, it doesn't all add up to much in the performance. I found my mind wandering many times because the story wasn't terribly engaging. The puppeteering, however, is riveting. It is reason enough to attend this performance. It's mezmerizing.

"The Investigation" by Urwintore at Chicago Shakepeare Theater on January 29 in Chicago, IL

The set up for the production of "The Investigation," by the Rwandan theater company Urwintore, couldn't have been much more compelling. This company, comprised of Hutus and Tutsis, is performing Peter Weiss's play about the trials of Nazis after WWII. The horrible crimes perpetrated against victims in the concentration camps are described by Rwandan actors who might have fallen on either side of the genocide that took place in 1994. One doesn't have to see the play to understand its point: altough we say "Never again" about the holocaust, we clearly don't mean it. After all, nearly a million Tutsis were killed in Rwanda in '94.

For me, the specifics of the production are incredibly moving. Men and women who were on different sides of that fight were performing together. Imbedded in that action is the recognition of Hutu actors of the crimes they committed and perhaps a kind of forgiveness granted by the Tutsi actors. And, like I said above, having the representatives of another genocide read the lines of a play about the holocaust is itself a metaphysical accusation. As the actors speak their lines, they describe what may have happened to their family members or what their family members may have perpetrated on the families' of their fellow actors. It also obliterates time by connecting the two genocides.

The interesting drama of the production, however, was largely embedded in the production's metaphysical meanings. I found the actual thing lacking performative strength. The actors' delivery of lines rarely moved me and there was no dramatic arc. It felt like a reading of a play rather than a performance of a play. So, while the ideas infused in the creation of the production were fascinating, sitting through it was not.

"The Emperor Jones" by the Wooster Group at the Goodman Theatre on January 10 in Chicago

This is a perplexing one. I liked this show very much but more for its performative elements than what I took away from it, which is to say that I loved sitting through it but not sure what the actual text in the play added up to.

"The Emperor Jones," by Eugene O'Neill, is about a black American man who escapes prison and flees to an island where, having convinced the natives that he's supernatural, he exploits them and amasses a fortune. It opened to rave reviews in 1920 and Paul Robeson starred in the 1924 revival. Eventually, it lost favor -- I don't know if that's because audiences began to think of it as racist or because it didn't hold up well.

The Wooster Group's production is truncated. There are only three characters: Jones, a tradesman, and someone who repositions the set and props and occasionally dances with them. From this production, I don't have a good sense of what the play in its entirety might be. It left me with an impression of the play rather than a knowledge of the script. My sense of it is that it's a play about an oppressed man who, when given the chance, oppresses others, suggesting that anyone who has access to power is capable of corrupting it. In this case, a black man in Jim Crow America goes to the Caribbean and oppresses other blacks. Like so many other Western imperialists, he uses the natives' belief in the supernatural to make them afraid and bend to his will. As his day of reckoning comes, however, his past returns in the shape of a "haunt" and destroys him. It's a true enough thing but is presented so succinctly here that I never had a chance to watch the argument develop.

All of this, of course, takes a back seat to the performative aspects of this production. The lead is played by a white woman in blackface. The tradesman, Smithers, is in kabuki costume. Everything about this productio is deconstructed. The set is bare and its machinations are laid bare for the audience: you see the sound guy you and see the guy arranging the props. He even participates in the action of the play, as if to point out that what happens backstage is indeed a part of a play. The lead's acting and movement are impressive. So is Smithers'. Both have amazing control of their voice and accents. They're incredibly expressive despite the extreme stylization of their accents. Jones' especially leaves an impression because she's imitating our mainstream culture's image what what Black vernacular sounds like (this is the way O'neill wrote his dialogue).

The blackface creates what seems like a never ending series of references that all turn in on one another. Rather than having a black actor play that role, is the Wooster Group suggesting that underneath all such oppression perpetrated by African Americans is a white person (African American slaves who owned other slaves, for example)? Or is this white woman in blackface pointing to O'Neill's authorship of the play and standing in for him- a white man criticizing oppression perpetrated by Arican Americans? The lead characer might be black but behind his crimes is the authorship of white O'Neill. Or does the blackface, like the kabuki, merely point out the layers of masks that we wear, as people and as performers? Or, is it there just to make us uncomfortable?

Even going into this performance knowing that the lead would be in blackface, one is caught offguard by it. One is incredibly uncomfortable at first but that discomfort begins to subsize after a while. In the end, what I think the blackface does is to accuse any white audience member of the continuing existence of the difference between the white "subject" and the colored "other." At the time that this play was a critical and commercial success, I suspect that it was largely seen by whites (though it did provide work for a lot of black actors and continues to do so) who got to look at the problem from a far and have opinions that made no difference in bringing about positive change for the people the natives of this island might represent. Implicit in this is a criticism that those black actors might as well have been white actors in blackface meant to entertain a primarily white audience. As one sits through this production as part of a laregley white audience, one has to wonder how blacks would experience this. Would you be comfortable if your black friends were sitting next to you in the audience? Or, maybe more to the point, is this something you think blacks could ever be comfortable sitting through? And if they would not, why are you sitting there?

?Macbeth" at Chicago Shakespeare Theater on January 9, 2009

One of my favorite scenes in CST's new production of "Macbeth" is one in which Macduff's cousin comes to tell him that his family has been murdered. In the scene, the stage is bare. Macduff and Malcolm (the murdered's king's son who has fled to England) are strategizing when the news comes. The cousin who delivers the news is heavy hearted and sad as is Malcolm in hearing it. Macduff, as you might imagine, is devastated. I've seen this scene done a number of times and mostly seen it played unconvincingly as shock followed by sadness. in those instances, it feels like a scene intended only to deliver a bit of news that the audience needs to know. In this production, I saw moments of sadness that were very convincing. As the same time, even in this one scene, it went in and out of being convincing.

For me, all of "Macbeth" was like this. There were moments when what was happening on stage was unusually well done and authentic and times when actors seemed merely to be speaking their lines in ways that they think they're to be spoken. Karen Aldridge, who continues to wow me as an actor, gave a fantastic performance as Lady Macbeth. In her fist scene, in which Macbeth returns from victory, she is turned on by his new acquisition of power and gives him quite a loving. The connection between power and sexual excitement is established and Lady Macbeth's later taunting of Macbeth for not being a "man" when he shies away from murder for the sake of power makes more sense than I've seen it in most other productions. Or at least brings a different dimension to it. The "out, out, damn spot" scene is sad and scary. In the hands of Aldridge this scene feels fresh, like something I hadn't seen in quite that way before.

Macbeth is far less convincing. The actor, Ben Carlson, has a fine pedigree (having performaed a lot at the famous Shaw festival) and is, I assume, a very good actor. His performance here, however, wasn't careful enough. So much of this play is overwrought with emottion and here played at such a high pitch that there seems to be no nuance in the delivery of lines. Carlson is a steamroller. Macbeth's feelings about what he's doing shifts around constantly, from fear to anger to paranoia to happiness to fear to anger to paranoia, and this is not carefully tracked in Carlson's performence. Macbeth, of course, has the famous soliloguy about sound and fury signifying nothing and Carlson delivers it in a flat staccato that almost gets thre but never does. Smartly, he slows it down but doesn't bring meaning to the lines as convincingly. Compared to the almost equally famous Lady Macbeth's "out, out, damn spot" lines, his delivery was much less convincing.

When the play opened, the stage was a stark grey. I thought that might mean a production in which bells and whistles would give way to a careful treatment of the text. Thirty seconds into the play, though, I realized that wasn't going to be true. The art design is largely grey and black and takes its cue from S&M and seedy club culture. At times, this works very well. As the play opens, though, the voices of the three withches are electronically layered and echoed so that I couldn't understand what they were saying. Later in the show, though, when lady Macbeth is losing her mind she thinks she sees the bodies of Lady Macduff and her children hanging bloody. Light momentarily illuminate the bodies hanging upside down high at the back of the stage for a quick moment and it sends shivers up your spine. The contrast between the start grey and white of the set and this small spot of reds and pinks is effective. There are times when the stage effects of the production detract from the script and times when they enhance it.

All of this is to say that what happens is often exciting but also inconsistent. The direction never brings the elements of the production into a cohesive whole. There is a lot I liked a lot about this production and much that left me flat. The ideas in it work very well at times and there are times when the production has such integrity that I wish more care had been taken. having said all that, I liked it more than most straight productions of "Macbeth" I've ever seen.