Personal Theatrical Musings on Performances

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

"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."

Thursday, February 12, 2009

"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.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

"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.