I was interested to see this production for a number of reasons. First, East West Players is an Asian American theater company with a national reputation. Furthermore, they were doing a hip hop and anime version of "Pippin," the 70's rock (sort of) musical that the "L.A. Times" said had "street cred." Even the "Chicago Tribune" wrote about it.
Watching an Asian American theater company take on "Pippin" with both hip hop and anime sensibilities is pretty cool. Both are forms of art that were popular before they began to be considered legitimate by the arts establishment and both are very much identified by their urban and ethic roots but have had wide influence beyond those communitites. Many theater companies are adopting plays to give them hip hop sensibilities. It's especially trendy to do hip hop Shakespeare. That East West Players decided to weave both hip hop and anime into this production makes it much more interesting than the hip hop Shakespeare that's popping up everywhere. In this production, they go together very well, combining to give the production a stylistically sexy edge that's fun to watch.
"Pippin" is the story of a gifted child whose aspirations to do great things lead to a series of existential disappointments when he realizes that nothing makes him feel like life has meaning. At one point the narrator of the show, a sort of Satan/Dionysis figure, offers him a fiery and spectacular death as the penultimate event that will grant his life meaning. Although tempted, Pippin realizes that meaning comes through what feels like the ordinary things in life, such as loving someone and parenting. perhaps that's true but it doesn't ring true in this production. Instead, it feels a bit cheesy. I'm not sure if it's the fault of the script or the production.
The musical direction was excellent. While the original cast recording sounds hollow and tinny, this music sounds current. What makes this "Pippin" a hip hop musical is that there's a dj on stage who mixes a hip hop backbeat to many of the songs. When he does, the dancers' choreography is hip hop choreography. It is also an incredibly sexy show. The dancers are all hot as hell and we get to see lots of them.
The actor who plays the narrator is the highlight of the show. He has a sexy, Satanic, fu manchu look and he's a very good hip hop dancer. He's really the life of the show. The rest is less successful. The dancers are all excellent but they don't have the technique or precision of great hip hop dancers. While I'd be impressed watching any of them dancing in a club, they don't have the energy or technique of street dancers. It ends up looking like hip hop for older white people. The hip hop music is also very pedestrian. This, of course, is the case with pretty much all musicals. The music and choreography are always a watered down version of what more cutting edge musicians and choreographers are doing.
My guess is that theaters that are turning everything into hip hop productions imagine they'll draw teens and African Americans to their houses. Granted, I saw a weekend matinee, not the time slot that tons to draw young people. The audience was largely older white folks with a smattering of Asian Americans. I saw one African American couple who seemed to be in their late 30's. I don't think these shows draw teens or African Americans because they don't have the freshness or technique of street hip hop dancers or good hip hop dj's. Instead, they seem like hip hop for older people who think it's cool but who are a few generations behind current trends. My guess is that a black teen would think the dancing and music are pretty pedestrian. Street cred? Maybe if you live in Beverly Hills.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Thursday, June 12, 2008
"How Theater Failed America" by Mike Daisey in Denver, CO.
I'm at the Theatre Communications Group conference, where yesterday everyone was talking about this show. They were either excited to see it, resentful of it, or resentful of it but still interested in seeing it. Some thought the show might make them angry but I thought it sounded insular, and thus, wasn't terribly interested in seeing it. With all thet alk, though, I couldn't resist.
"How Theater Failed America" is a monologue, with Mike Daisey sitting at a desk on a bare stage, with very minimal lighting, talking into the full but dark auditorium. It's an incredibly funny critique of the current state of American theaters but a critique that comes out of an intense love of theater and its possibilites for transforming lives. He opens the piece by speaking directly to the audience and saying: I wonder why you've come. The implication is that he has nothing positive to say to this theater-going crowd about theater and so it's surprising that they'd show up to hear it. He list a few hysterical reasons why he's surprised folks would come to see the show and then gives a few hysterical reaons why they might have. Perhaps we want to hear him place blame, he says. Perhaps we want to hear him talk about how the young people have short attention spans, with iPods always in their ears; how funders have screwed things up; how critics, especially thet "NY Times" and Charles Isherwood, have ruined things for theater. It's a sly parody of the reasons arts administrators give for the state of the arts. The audience is good natured, though, and they laugh at themselves throughout this. Then Daisey changes his cadence and begins to speak very slowly and says "It's not the NEA, or corporate funders, or short attention spans, it's not evern Charles Isherwood that's ruined theater, it's you [long pause] and it's me." What had been 5 or 10 minutes of good fun turns very serious and just as the tenstion becomes too much to bear, he turns the page of his notes and cuts then tension.
This moment is indicative of the piece. It uses humor to challenge the audience, at times it's accusations are serious and direct, and it uses the conventions of the monologue (and to a lesser extent theater more broadly) to structure the piece but also to make the tone work. He wants to challenge the audience but he doesn't want to alienate them.
He walks the audience though a series of stories that are in turn funny and poignant. They speak to the power of theater and the ways it can provide hope for its participants and the ways in which theater companies, the artists and administrators, have sold out the theater. I'll tell one story quickly. He tells about a production of Genet's "The Balcony" in which he played the cardinal. The direction said he wanted to create a "super fucked up" production and does so. He put the actors in boots that are a foot-and-a-half off the ground, has them wear outrageous wigs and thick kabuki make-up, and has a dwarf and mud wrestling. What it didn't have, Daisey tells us, was sound dramaturgy.
When the director tells Daisey, who is a pretty fat guy, that after his speech four minutes into the play he should open his cardinal's robe and beat off, Daisey is torn. One side tells him that actors do what directors tell them to do but the other side knows this has gone too far. When he tells the director that his masturbating on stage is needless and doesn't contribute to the ideas in the play, the director replies that that is why it is "super fucked up." Daisey, being an actor, follows his director's instructions and comes up with the most fucked up way of masturbating he could imagine. After a late seating one night when a young girl enters the small theater right at the moment of his perverse masturbation scene, he wonders if he should do it. He hestitates for a while and then he does. As he readies himself in that moment to begin masturbating, he tells himself that he's an actor and he's doing what actors do. But then he can't sleep for nights. He loses sleep, not because he masturbated in front of a child, but because, as an actor, he couldn't think of what else to do.
Daisey presents a number of such stories, each bringing a different point to light. That one makes plain the danger that artists, despite their reservations, sometimes give over too much control to their collaborators. Another story illustrates the point that in our mad rush to build new buildings for our theaters, generating enough revenue to fill these large houses takes us away from our original impulses for creating theater and fiorces us to put on safe productions that do not feed our artists passion. We become a business, a corporation, and not a place where artists work together as a community. Corporations, he reminds us, can't love the theater, only individuals can love the theater. An artistic director friend told him that the name of the play shouldn't be "How Theater Failed America" but "How Theater Became America."
This is the performance's punchline and it's representative. It not only makes clear this dangerous trend in theaters, God knows we've seen plenty of that in Chicago, but it also tells us something about America. By carefully sketching out how many of us have poured cold water over the soul of theater, robbing ourselves of our creative individual impulses, he points out the similar process that has taken place in America and that so many of us particiate in.
"How Theater Failed America" is a monologue, with Mike Daisey sitting at a desk on a bare stage, with very minimal lighting, talking into the full but dark auditorium. It's an incredibly funny critique of the current state of American theaters but a critique that comes out of an intense love of theater and its possibilites for transforming lives. He opens the piece by speaking directly to the audience and saying: I wonder why you've come. The implication is that he has nothing positive to say to this theater-going crowd about theater and so it's surprising that they'd show up to hear it. He list a few hysterical reasons why he's surprised folks would come to see the show and then gives a few hysterical reaons why they might have. Perhaps we want to hear him place blame, he says. Perhaps we want to hear him talk about how the young people have short attention spans, with iPods always in their ears; how funders have screwed things up; how critics, especially thet "NY Times" and Charles Isherwood, have ruined things for theater. It's a sly parody of the reasons arts administrators give for the state of the arts. The audience is good natured, though, and they laugh at themselves throughout this. Then Daisey changes his cadence and begins to speak very slowly and says "It's not the NEA, or corporate funders, or short attention spans, it's not evern Charles Isherwood that's ruined theater, it's you [long pause] and it's me." What had been 5 or 10 minutes of good fun turns very serious and just as the tenstion becomes too much to bear, he turns the page of his notes and cuts then tension.
This moment is indicative of the piece. It uses humor to challenge the audience, at times it's accusations are serious and direct, and it uses the conventions of the monologue (and to a lesser extent theater more broadly) to structure the piece but also to make the tone work. He wants to challenge the audience but he doesn't want to alienate them.
He walks the audience though a series of stories that are in turn funny and poignant. They speak to the power of theater and the ways it can provide hope for its participants and the ways in which theater companies, the artists and administrators, have sold out the theater. I'll tell one story quickly. He tells about a production of Genet's "The Balcony" in which he played the cardinal. The direction said he wanted to create a "super fucked up" production and does so. He put the actors in boots that are a foot-and-a-half off the ground, has them wear outrageous wigs and thick kabuki make-up, and has a dwarf and mud wrestling. What it didn't have, Daisey tells us, was sound dramaturgy.
When the director tells Daisey, who is a pretty fat guy, that after his speech four minutes into the play he should open his cardinal's robe and beat off, Daisey is torn. One side tells him that actors do what directors tell them to do but the other side knows this has gone too far. When he tells the director that his masturbating on stage is needless and doesn't contribute to the ideas in the play, the director replies that that is why it is "super fucked up." Daisey, being an actor, follows his director's instructions and comes up with the most fucked up way of masturbating he could imagine. After a late seating one night when a young girl enters the small theater right at the moment of his perverse masturbation scene, he wonders if he should do it. He hestitates for a while and then he does. As he readies himself in that moment to begin masturbating, he tells himself that he's an actor and he's doing what actors do. But then he can't sleep for nights. He loses sleep, not because he masturbated in front of a child, but because, as an actor, he couldn't think of what else to do.
Daisey presents a number of such stories, each bringing a different point to light. That one makes plain the danger that artists, despite their reservations, sometimes give over too much control to their collaborators. Another story illustrates the point that in our mad rush to build new buildings for our theaters, generating enough revenue to fill these large houses takes us away from our original impulses for creating theater and fiorces us to put on safe productions that do not feed our artists passion. We become a business, a corporation, and not a place where artists work together as a community. Corporations, he reminds us, can't love the theater, only individuals can love the theater. An artistic director friend told him that the name of the play shouldn't be "How Theater Failed America" but "How Theater Became America."
This is the performance's punchline and it's representative. It not only makes clear this dangerous trend in theaters, God knows we've seen plenty of that in Chicago, but it also tells us something about America. By carefully sketching out how many of us have poured cold water over the soul of theater, robbing ourselves of our creative individual impulses, he points out the similar process that has taken place in America and that so many of us particiate in.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
"Operation: Orfeo" by Hotel Pro Forma at the Istanbul Theatre Festival on May 30 in Istanbul, Turkey
Every year, the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts host a month-long theater festival that showcases the work of Turkish performing arts companies as well as that of other companies from around the globe. I went to see a Danish theater company performing an opera adapted from the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. In the past few years, I've seen Mary Zimmerman tell this story in "Metamorphosis" and Sarah Ruhl in "Eurydice." In both versions, the emotional center of the work is really with Eurydice. In Zimmerman's piece, the tearful moment is not when Orpheus looks back thus losing his love forever but as he's disappearing and we witness her confusion. She can't remember exactly who he is and is confused by his sadness. The chasm between his experience and hers, due to her lack of memory, is the tragedy. Sarah Ruhl's plays are never perfect but are marked by such deep humanity and amazing dialogue that I find them remarkable. Her version explores the relationship among love, loss, and memory. Eurydice's father is in Hades when she arrives. Having manged to resist losing his memory when he crosses into Hades, he acts as her guide upon her arrival and helps her to reconstruct her memories. Without those memories, her love for Orpheus couldn't exist.
I honestly have no idea what languages this opera was in. I know two of the songs were in English but I couldn't understand those and the supertitles were in Turkish. Thus, I had the music (sans the libretto) and the staging to engage me. Even so, I enjoyed it about as much as I did the others. The company was made of of 14 singers, 12 of them in the chorus and the two title characters. I can't comment at all on the story since I understood none of it. And I can't really dissect the music's technique since I know so little about operatic music. I will say however, that I see a fair amount of opera, both old and contemporary, and this was way up there for me. My two favorite late 20th century operas are John Adams' "Nixon in China" and Phillip Glass' "Satyagraha." In fact, it's the Phillip Glass opera that got me interested in new music. Unlike even my favorites of Glass and Adams, the music in this opera, which clocked in at fewer than 90 minutes, was beautiful to me the entire time. It was haunting, sparse, and shockingly varied at times.
The program booklet refers to the show as a visual opera done in three acts. Visually, it was as astounding as anything I've ever seen. Like the music, it was incredibly restrained while also being wildly exuberant within that restraint. The set is a series of about 15 large white steps that are enclosed by a white border, visible in the picture I've attached. The first 10 or 15 minutes of the performance is done in the dark, with the chorus of 12 singers sitting pretty much in a vertical line in stage right, Eurydice lying on one of the stairs on stage left, and Orpheus standing a few steps below her. All 14 performers wear dark gowns with black crowns and wee see only their silhouettes. We listen intently to the music. Then the lights come up slightly and the chorus members begin to move their arms just slightly and in unison. While the movement is minimal, and maybe because it is, it is very beautiful. Afterwards, the staging picks up its pace but largely in terms of lighting. There are moments when Eurydice slowly rolls from one stair to the next but there is very little movement besides that. The blocking acts as tableaux and we experience each scene primarily as still moments, even if there is movement within them. And usually we experience each scene in comparison to a preceeding one. In addition to the movement, the lighting is a star of the show. At one point, the chorus members stand in a diagonal line covering the set from top to bottom. Eurydice is laying on a step and Orpheus stand a few steps below her but looms above her. With just white light and shadow, the stage is black to the left of the chorus members and completely white to the right. As a still image, it's beautiful. There are many, many ways in which the light plays with the white steps and the variety seems like a small miracle. This is something that I'm unable to describe really, so I'm hoping that the image will give you a sense. Near the end of the piece, two intensely green laser lights begin to shoot out of the set. The length of the light glows longer and a layer of green light acting as a wave lay out between the two lasers. That entire system of lights grows longer and longer, eventually extending over the audience, until it covers the entire audience.
Opera lovers, of which I'm not one, say that opera is the greatest art form because it combines music, theater, dance, and visual art (thought the set). I find that this is rarely the case. As theater, it tends to be disappointing. The stories are usually silly and the acting ineffective. The dance is usually boring and often silly. And the sets are usually very impressive but rarely interesting. This production does seem to forgo acting but it sure was high on the other three. While there was no dancing as we often think of it, there certainly was choreographed movement. The set was like something Dan Flavin would have done if he had continued to work. And the music was exceptional.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
"Opening Night by Les SlovaKs at fabric Potsdam in Berlin on May 24
In the end, my gamble paid off. Turning down the concierge's suggestion that I go to the Berlin opera house to see the ballet "Sleeping Beauty," I took the train 45 minutes to the neighboring (and picturesque) town of Potsdam instead. There, I saw lots of Germans in the 20's and 30's with a few in their 40's watching a company from belgium called Les SlovaKs. Born in Slovakia but having emigrated to Belgium, the dancers, all well-trained and wonderful movers, found each other over time and created this company. I had never heard of them but was thrilled to see them. They had a combination of beautiful dancers' bodies, wonderful technique, surprising choreography, and charm enough to go around and still have some left over.
The company of five male dancers has created this piece with the help of a violinist who composed the music for the piece. The choreography was created by the collective of five male dancers. Perhaps the moments that most succinctly represents the piece is a violin solo where the violinist plays a series of quirky and short notes followed by a single note that he holds for a while. In that moment, the quirky is transformed into something beautiful. It's not that the quirky short notes are not beautiful and the long note is, but that the longer note, in its beauty, provides a context to experiencing the succession of shorter notes.
The company of five male dancers has created this piece with the help of a violinist who composed the music for the piece. The choreography was created by the collective of five male dancers. Perhaps the moments that most succinctly represents the piece is a violin solo where the violinist plays a series of quirky and short notes followed by a single note that he holds for a while. In that moment, the quirky is transformed into something beautiful. It's not that the quirky short notes are not beautiful and the long note is, but that the longer note, in its beauty, provides a context to experiencing the succession of shorter notes.
The piece looks like something the cowboy from "Midnight Cowboy" might choreograph, which is to say something choreograhed by amateurs making up something that they think looks like dance but with a certain energy and charm. Taking that kind of playfullness for its language, the piece plays those movements out to something that shows the beauty and skill involved in such movements and in playing them out to a certain end. The piece's movement, in fact, is comprised of quirky choreography (meant to look amateurish), folks dancing moves (ostensibly from Slovakia), and technique that comes from modern dance. The amateurish and folk movement are eventually because we see in them skill and beauty that are not evident at first.
The dancers and the violinist also appear to have a certain relationship that makes the piece even more charming. We get to watch them play together and it's a joy. At one point, one of the dancers begins to introduce one of his comrades. He tells us his name and explains that he's got a goodlooking Slavic face, which the dancer adorns with a mustache because he's young and wants to appear to be older. It's a kind of silliness that would be annoying if it weren't coupled with talent but that is endearing and funny because it is and because we like them. (When one enters the space, the six performers are all standing about 10 feet from the front row and just smile as we file in.) There are also moments of violence in the piece, as when one of the dancers begins to beat up on one that earlier had wanted his attention. The beating also turns into beautiful movement but is repeated and so we experience both pain and beauty at the same time. In one of these moments, one dance pounds the other's stomach as if hurting him and the dancer lands against the wall to the back of the stage. He lands on his back, feet up in the air and against the wall, and he begins to roll slowly, his body extended, towards the audience. In doing so, he transforms the movement of being beaten into something unexpected, in which we get to sympathize and then witness with awe.
The feeling of the entire piece might be describe as off balance but controlled. That's exemplified by a certain moment in which a dancer has has left arm extended straight. He brings his right arm over to the left but never extends it quite straight. He almost gets to that position that is common in dance but he never quite finshes it. He doesn't get to the point of balance. As a result, he seems in danger of losing his balance but he never does. And in not delivering for our expectation of balance and centeredness but also never losing his footing, he transforms our expectation and creates something new.
"Fram" at the national Theatre in London on May 24
Londoners have the benefit of the National Theatre, with many stagees in the same complex and seemingly unending access to wonderful playwrights, directors, actors, and state-provided big budgets. While big budgets in the United States often seem to go with an over reliance on expensive scenery and sloppy directing, I'd seen a few things at the National Theatre in the past and all were excellent. This included a production of Tennessee Williams' "The Rose Tatto" that was incredibly well-acted and directed with impressive intergrity. This was a few years after seeing a silly production at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago in which all of its eggs were put in a visual basket, taking the motif of the rose tattoo too far and attention to the direction not far enough.
"Fram" is about a real life explorer who once held the record for having travelled the farthest north and eventually turned in his adventuring ways for humanitarian, paying particular attention to raising money to battle a famine in Russia in the early 1920's. Written by Tony Harrison, a highly-respected British poet and playwright, the poem opens in the cemetary at Westminster Abby with an embittered dead poet/translator bitching about his bad reviews from T.S. Elliot, who happens to be lain fairly close to him in the cemetary. He decided to write a play about the explorer and he conjurs up a famous actress, the Fram (the explorer's boat), and a production. In the production, the poet and the actress interact with the explorer throughout the production.
The play deals with the issue of how one goes about doing good in a turbulent world. As the play-within-a-play opens, the explorer and his companion are stuck in the ice near the north pole. Tired of dealing with each others' scents and bad habits, they decide to divide their blanket and sleep separately. They realize that sleeping together under the same blanket they produce more heat and thus sleep more comfortably. Thus, depsite the farting and other disgusting habits, they snuggle together to survive.
The difficulties of life get more dire as the play goes on, including the famine in Russia, torture in the Middle East, and violence in parts of Africa. There is an argument in the play about the role art can play in producing empathy and thus a solution. The Americans, who claim to be playing the biggest part in alleviating starvation in Russia, fight with the actress and the explorer about how to raise support. When they suggest that poetry and theater are ineffective in representing the pain of the hungry, the acress gives a very compelling performance to the contrary. At the end of the performance, however, she walks away, more concerned with proving her skill than actually making a difference. The explorer's method is a slide show that show the bodies of children who have starved to death and the Americans have made films that one of the characters points out are fabricated.
Unfortunately, in the end the argument isn't expolored in a very compelling way, I don't think. The strength of the piece comes with the visuals (with the Fram coming up out of the bottom of the stage) and when the argument is made personal, as it was with the characters on the Fram. There's also a nice moment when a Middle Eastern poet arrives on the scene, his eyes and mouth sewn shut. The poet and actress believe he's purposely sewn them shut and see it as an intentional opposition to the mask of Tragedy, with it's eyes and mouth constantly open (but perhaps ineffective). As the Middle Eastern poet tries to speak and sing, however, we hear nothing but garbled sounds. The truth, of course, is that his eyes and mouth have been forced shut and he's lost his voice. He's not capable of representing himself. The explorer warns throughout the play that the entire world will eventually freeze over. Right before the end of the play, after seeing a series of more contemporary atrocities, we are reminded of the explorers' sharing a blanket. And then we see an image of London freezing over, perhaps a reminder that when the world does freeze over, as it certainly will in some way or another, than it's the individual's relationship to another that keeps us warm.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
"Our Town" by the Hypocrites on May 10th in Chicago
Apparently "Our Town" is the most performed show in the United States. I'd assumed that was because it calls for no set or costumes and because high school drama departments perform it so often. Having last seen and loving it in high school, I had no interest in every seeing it again -- the way those of us who have since discovered "The Sound and the Fury" and " Mrs. Dalloway" can't be bothered with "A Separate Peace." When the Hypocrites announced they were going to produce"Our Town" I was excited and scared. Excited to see what they would do with a play that I thought was such a dud and afraid that the play would out wrestle them with its over the top emotionality. What happened instead is that this production made clear what the Hypocrites do: bring the feeling of discovery to timeworn texts that audiences must have felt when they were still new. It's a rediscovery of texts that endless unimaginative productions have robbed of their vitality and originality. It's an incredible production with exuberance and restraint at the same time.
As you probably know, "Our Town" is a play in three acts. The first act gives a sense of what general life in the town is like, the second act is about love and marriage (including that of the protagonists), and the third acts deals with the death of some of the townspeople. Mostly, though, the play seems to be about the way that we live our lives blind to beauty and the things people "up there" live in little boxes, suggesting that we live in darkness and solitude, in a state akin to death. The third act, when Emily goes back to relive the day of her 13th birthday, makes that very clear. Her mother has gone to the trouble of getting her a gift she knows Emily will love but spends the whole morning cooking and never speaking directly to her daughter. There are other examples of this throughout the play, though. For example, the choir conductor who is likely gay but lives in a loveless marriage for the sake of societal convention. The loneliness of such a life has led him to alcoholism and despair.
Two things give this production its strength: the depth of the director's insight into the text and the production's restraint. Rather than playing the emotions large, the performances are controlled, almost quiet. In the scene where Emily goes back to her 13th birthday she doesn't scream and sob. Once she realizes that her time spent with her family won't be emotionally satisfying, she seems to want to get the hell out. She conveys this with a certain quality in her voice and an energy in her body but it's very controlled. The director, David Cromer, has cut about half the stage manager's lines, suggesting that audiences today are in a different place than they were in 1930's and didn't need to be told as much.
The action of the play alone is wonderful. This is a play, though, that calls for no sets or costumes. And the device of having a stage manager who speaks directly to the audience must have been quite a shocker when the play was first produced in 1938. What I found most interesting, though, is the way time works in the play. The third act is in some ways the future. In it, we see the past (Emily's return to her 13th birthday) and the future (the death of many of the townspeople). While times passes between each act and so the third act is rally just what happens after the second act, it feels as if the second act is the present. In Act III, when Emily decides to go back, the stage manager tells her that it won't be the same because she knows the future. We see the impact of the future on the past.
Perhaps one of the greatest strengths of the production is Cromer's stage manager. he not only sets up the scenes but by the second act he sort of comes out of the play. Rather than remaining detached, he seems emotionally involved with what's happening. Not so much in what he's seeing on stage but rather with what he's showing the audience. In Cromer's production, the action takes place in every square inch of the theater, which is to say very much among the audience. The play is a cautionary tale he is telling the audience and he tells it with an undercurrent of emotion. You see his frustration at our blindness and his warning to us. That might very well be the most jarring thing in the production. The play sets itself up as a play, constantly reminding us of its artifice. In this production, it goes one step further. It points out that this is indeed a play but one that exists to warn us about how little of life we experience and how much we throw away. The play exists not to entertain but to warn.
As you probably know, "Our Town" is a play in three acts. The first act gives a sense of what general life in the town is like, the second act is about love and marriage (including that of the protagonists), and the third acts deals with the death of some of the townspeople. Mostly, though, the play seems to be about the way that we live our lives blind to beauty and the things people "up there" live in little boxes, suggesting that we live in darkness and solitude, in a state akin to death. The third act, when Emily goes back to relive the day of her 13th birthday, makes that very clear. Her mother has gone to the trouble of getting her a gift she knows Emily will love but spends the whole morning cooking and never speaking directly to her daughter. There are other examples of this throughout the play, though. For example, the choir conductor who is likely gay but lives in a loveless marriage for the sake of societal convention. The loneliness of such a life has led him to alcoholism and despair.
Two things give this production its strength: the depth of the director's insight into the text and the production's restraint. Rather than playing the emotions large, the performances are controlled, almost quiet. In the scene where Emily goes back to her 13th birthday she doesn't scream and sob. Once she realizes that her time spent with her family won't be emotionally satisfying, she seems to want to get the hell out. She conveys this with a certain quality in her voice and an energy in her body but it's very controlled. The director, David Cromer, has cut about half the stage manager's lines, suggesting that audiences today are in a different place than they were in 1930's and didn't need to be told as much.
The action of the play alone is wonderful. This is a play, though, that calls for no sets or costumes. And the device of having a stage manager who speaks directly to the audience must have been quite a shocker when the play was first produced in 1938. What I found most interesting, though, is the way time works in the play. The third act is in some ways the future. In it, we see the past (Emily's return to her 13th birthday) and the future (the death of many of the townspeople). While times passes between each act and so the third act is rally just what happens after the second act, it feels as if the second act is the present. In Act III, when Emily decides to go back, the stage manager tells her that it won't be the same because she knows the future. We see the impact of the future on the past.
Perhaps one of the greatest strengths of the production is Cromer's stage manager. he not only sets up the scenes but by the second act he sort of comes out of the play. Rather than remaining detached, he seems emotionally involved with what's happening. Not so much in what he's seeing on stage but rather with what he's showing the audience. In Cromer's production, the action takes place in every square inch of the theater, which is to say very much among the audience. The play is a cautionary tale he is telling the audience and he tells it with an undercurrent of emotion. You see his frustration at our blindness and his warning to us. That might very well be the most jarring thing in the production. The play sets itself up as a play, constantly reminding us of its artifice. In this production, it goes one step further. It points out that this is indeed a play but one that exists to warn us about how little of life we experience and how much we throw away. The play exists not to entertain but to warn.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Northwest New Works Festival at On the Boards on May 9th in Seattle
Annually, On the Boards presents a series of new works from the Northwest region. I was really happy to be in town during the festival as it was an opportunity to see some of the region's most vibrant artists. I was curious to see what their interests were and who was influencing them. I guessed half the work would be atrocious and half surprising and wonderful.
On the Boards is like a regional and much smaller version of BAM. The staff brings incredible international artists to Seattle (this year, including Elevator Repair Service and Societas Raffaello Sanzio) and showcase the work of local/regional artists. It's the kind of resource anyone who likes contemporary art hopes to have in his/her city and that artists are grateful for. Seattle is lucky to have it.
At the Northwest New Works Festival I saw four performances. The first was by a woman from Portland. It was very Laurie Andersonesque in that she had a control box (doubling as a make up case) from which she controlled the sound and lighthing cues, including a device that recorded her voice and repeated it in order to layer sound. The piece was about Ondine, a woman who came mysteriously from the water, had a difficult life (which was somewhat romanticized in the piece -- the way heroines of fairy tales are romanticized), and was thrown back into the water by her sister. The performer played different roles through songs, with each songs describing an episode in Ondine's tragic life. The best parts were the her visual work, which came largely through costume. The story itself, while dark and dramatic, never quite provoked an emotional response. As with dark fairy takes, it seemed that fear and pity should at least have been present.
The second performance was by two young women who seemed to have been trained as dancers. It was a playful piece, bordering on wacky, about the tasks involved in getting to the earth's core. My favorite parts included dance/movement. Every now and then the two performers would move in unison, which was always surprising and lovely, perhaps precisely because it came against a backdrop of wackiness. At one point they performed in the style of poetry slam artists, mimicking their eponymous cadence and voicework. You know, that way of speaking poetry that makes it all sound like the same poem written by a Beat poet.
I enjoyed both performances and was very interested to see the way technology, spectacle, and storytelling came together in both pieces. The second two were less successful for me. The third piece was a dance performance about birds that, according to the notes, was inspired by an Edward Hopper painting. While we saw just an excerpt I can't imagine Hopper ever painting a bird. I could be wrong. In either case, the choreography was a bit rudimentary and the dancers lacked energy. The music was a combination of music, bird sounds, and city living sounds that was more interesting. The fourth piece was an alternative country trio of banjo, ukulele, and guitar players singing about small town Western Washington life. Parts of it were fun, especially the parts about Dairy Queen and Tasty Freeze (which I'm sure I'm spelling wrong), but overall it didn't go anywhere. It lacked the musical inventiveness of the first piece and its attempt of storytelling was underdeveloped.
While I didn't love everything, there was something to admire in each piece. More than anything, though, I thought it was fantastic that these artists got a chance to perform their pieces in front of an audience, something crucial as they continue to develop their ideas and aesthetics.
On the Boards is like a regional and much smaller version of BAM. The staff brings incredible international artists to Seattle (this year, including Elevator Repair Service and Societas Raffaello Sanzio) and showcase the work of local/regional artists. It's the kind of resource anyone who likes contemporary art hopes to have in his/her city and that artists are grateful for. Seattle is lucky to have it.
At the Northwest New Works Festival I saw four performances. The first was by a woman from Portland. It was very Laurie Andersonesque in that she had a control box (doubling as a make up case) from which she controlled the sound and lighthing cues, including a device that recorded her voice and repeated it in order to layer sound. The piece was about Ondine, a woman who came mysteriously from the water, had a difficult life (which was somewhat romanticized in the piece -- the way heroines of fairy tales are romanticized), and was thrown back into the water by her sister. The performer played different roles through songs, with each songs describing an episode in Ondine's tragic life. The best parts were the her visual work, which came largely through costume. The story itself, while dark and dramatic, never quite provoked an emotional response. As with dark fairy takes, it seemed that fear and pity should at least have been present.
The second performance was by two young women who seemed to have been trained as dancers. It was a playful piece, bordering on wacky, about the tasks involved in getting to the earth's core. My favorite parts included dance/movement. Every now and then the two performers would move in unison, which was always surprising and lovely, perhaps precisely because it came against a backdrop of wackiness. At one point they performed in the style of poetry slam artists, mimicking their eponymous cadence and voicework. You know, that way of speaking poetry that makes it all sound like the same poem written by a Beat poet.
I enjoyed both performances and was very interested to see the way technology, spectacle, and storytelling came together in both pieces. The second two were less successful for me. The third piece was a dance performance about birds that, according to the notes, was inspired by an Edward Hopper painting. While we saw just an excerpt I can't imagine Hopper ever painting a bird. I could be wrong. In either case, the choreography was a bit rudimentary and the dancers lacked energy. The music was a combination of music, bird sounds, and city living sounds that was more interesting. The fourth piece was an alternative country trio of banjo, ukulele, and guitar players singing about small town Western Washington life. Parts of it were fun, especially the parts about Dairy Queen and Tasty Freeze (which I'm sure I'm spelling wrong), but overall it didn't go anywhere. It lacked the musical inventiveness of the first piece and its attempt of storytelling was underdeveloped.
While I didn't love everything, there was something to admire in each piece. More than anything, though, I thought it was fantastic that these artists got a chance to perform their pieces in front of an audience, something crucial as they continue to develop their ideas and aesthetics.
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