Hi everybody. I know it has been a while since I have posted anything here, much less a theater review, but I really wanted to share what I experienced at last night's performance of David Zen Mansley's adaptation of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" at Theatre for the New City.
I have been going to the Halloween party at Theatre for the New City for many years, and it has always given me a sort of post-apocalyptic feeling. The walls are black, the seats are low-cost, the tech is rudimentary, and everyone is dressed as if they are wearing whatever they could find and put together creatively. The performances are gloriously inspired and talented, but with that low-budget, can-do eccentricity and anti-professional sheen that says "this is not a glossy Broadway production that Aunt Edna and her husband bought tickets to because it was based on that favorite movie and stars that movie star who was in that movie she liked."
My theory of the post-apocalypse aesthetic is that the survivors will be wearing, decorating, and entertaining with whatever they can find, despite heir imperfections and appropriateness. However, this does put the subject of the presentation into a new, unfamiliar context that perhaps can bring out some tort of deeper meaning or new revelation from the source material. Last night's performance was no exception to that, and it worked marvelously!
There is a balance in any production between the text, the set, the props, the cast, and showmanship. (and musical numbers, if applicable). I have seen this story played out with Alistair Sim, Albert Finney, Henry Winkler, Patrick Stewart, Michael Caine with the Muppets, Mr. Magoo, and an an animated TV special (some of these several times), but never was that balance so finely attuned that every element of the story came through as clearly as it did in this version.
The set was minimal, but with a strong unified aesthetic. The one room served (depending on where on the stage the action played and which characters were present) as Scrooge's office, his bedroom,. the home of Bob Cratchit, and Joe's Beetling shop. There was a bed at stage right, a fireplace at stage left, a table downstage left, and a door in a corner upstage right. The back wall was a light tan color, fading into dark sepia at the edges.
It was against this back wall that Scrooge's visions appeared. They were projected video, but with the sepia tone, the old-timey look of the set and the low-tech production, I could not help but feel that I was watching an old silent film being projected. It felt not like the film was old, but that it was 1914 and I was watching a creative new use of the new medium of film to add a supernatural element to the production with this new special effect! The fact that the spirits and visions spoke did not take me out of that, I could have (if I cared) justified it by assuming it was an actor behind the screen or a Victrola being played simultaneously (I believe Thomas Edison invented a device that could do that).
All of the dreams and visions that Scrooge experienced were either shown on this screen or described in dialogue between Scrooge and the Spirits. It was through this that for the first time I learned about Scrooge's lonely childhood and how he was affected by the loss of his sister.
Another element of the production that played surprisingly well into the message of the story was the Cratchits' Christmas dinner. I don't know if it was due to budget, practicality, or a deliberate choice, but though the table was set with a full compliment of dishes, silverware, and drinking vessels, not a scrap of food could be seen. Bob Cratchit pantomimed serving the goose and the pudding, then taking the first bite of each. After each of those bites he praised the excellence and perfection of each dish to his wife, who blushed with effusive modesty. Whether or not it was a deliberate choice to have the plates bare and the cups empty, whether it was meant to be symbolic or deliberate, seeing the love and joy that the family could share without a scrap of food brought home the meaning of the season better than a hundred "Grinch that Stole Christmas" Broadway musicals.
It was also through the minimalism of the set, masterful editing of Dickens' text, and the spirited performance of the actors that never before did the good will of Scrooge's nephew and the mean-spirited opportunism of the vultures in the beetling shop come across so clearly and their import in the story be felt so well.
Mansley has produced this play annually for several years, and plans to continue doing so. I heartily encourage a visit to this play as part of a unique New York City experience of the season, and also to get a fresh perspective on the story and its meaning.
The original text:
Versions I have seen:
Versions I have not seen:
Inspired by the original...
Showing posts with label theater. Show all posts
Showing posts with label theater. Show all posts
Sunday, December 24, 2017
Thursday, April 29, 2010
A Midsummer Night's Avatar depression
Tonight I had the pleasure of enjoying the Trevor School’s version of Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and now I know what “Avatar” depression is.
I had heard that folks were getting suicidally depressed after seeing “Avatar,” and I couldn’t understand why. When I saw the movie, it inspired me to do things, like fight in a grappling tournament (see my review from Feb 8, 2010). Then I saw this.
The play was set in a mostly bare, open, piece of floor in front of the seats with multi-leveled platforms. It opened with gentle mystical sounds being made by the fairies. A freaky figure, who we would later learn is Puck, entered, moving in a not-quite-human way and observing the audience. A character dressed in shirt and tie then entered, put on a sleeping cap, and lay down. The fairies pulled a strip of paper out of his hear revealing the title of the play.
From there, the play began. The fairies were portrayed by 5 lovely young ladies in motley leather vests, torn stockings, and face paint, contributing as a sort of punk-pagan presence to the proceedings. They served as a sort of Greek chorus, and furniture, and background, and framing device for the entire play.
The performances of the actors ranged from the enthusiastic to the excellent, utilizing the natural talents of the performers well. Notable were Helena’s ballet, Bottom’s gift for physical comedy, and Lysander’s flexibility.
The cast brought an excellent sense of unity to the world of the play. They had a remarkable synergy that enthralled the audience, making us eager to embrace the world in which they lived.
A particularly nice touch was to have Titania enter and relate to Bottom as he went through the suicide scene in the player’s play at the end of the show. It gave a sense of development, and a degree of depth to both characters, and made the play a bit more affecting than a mere comedy.
The last bit of action had the sleeper at the top of the play waking up and finding the banner with the title of the play. This represented the fact that the entire story was a dream, and gave the piece a symmetrical close.
Oddly, while much of the action was very funny, I didn’t find myself laughing out loud as I do at certain TV shows, or as much as the rest of the audience. But at the end, when the lovers had been united in wedlock and the players and done their play, when the lights went down and music came up before Puck’s epilogue, I found a great sadness coming over me. The music was a familiar melody that felt, in context, like a beautiful sunset at the end of a very good day. It was the perfect ending, but it was an ending, and we will never have that day back again.
The effectiveness of the play even came through a sub-optimal viewing set-up. The seats were on a set of particularly deep bleachers of gradual elevation. This meant that the back rows were very far from the action without being high up, and thus their view was were blocked by people’s heads. For a piece with such a strong environment, it would have been nice to be more physically embracing of the audience. Perhaps they could have figured out a way to do it in the round, or to have allowed the audience to sit on the floor within the performance area.
Midsummer Night’s Dream is probably Shakespeare play that is most adaptable to various media. Its location on the borders of a fairyland allows the production a lot of leeway to use its media. It got me to thinking of ways to do it with various movement vocabularies I have been familiarizing myself with lately.
But the fact that I will never be able to recapture the precise magic of this particular production if very sad.
I had heard that folks were getting suicidally depressed after seeing “Avatar,” and I couldn’t understand why. When I saw the movie, it inspired me to do things, like fight in a grappling tournament (see my review from Feb 8, 2010). Then I saw this.
The play was set in a mostly bare, open, piece of floor in front of the seats with multi-leveled platforms. It opened with gentle mystical sounds being made by the fairies. A freaky figure, who we would later learn is Puck, entered, moving in a not-quite-human way and observing the audience. A character dressed in shirt and tie then entered, put on a sleeping cap, and lay down. The fairies pulled a strip of paper out of his hear revealing the title of the play.
From there, the play began. The fairies were portrayed by 5 lovely young ladies in motley leather vests, torn stockings, and face paint, contributing as a sort of punk-pagan presence to the proceedings. They served as a sort of Greek chorus, and furniture, and background, and framing device for the entire play.
The performances of the actors ranged from the enthusiastic to the excellent, utilizing the natural talents of the performers well. Notable were Helena’s ballet, Bottom’s gift for physical comedy, and Lysander’s flexibility.
The cast brought an excellent sense of unity to the world of the play. They had a remarkable synergy that enthralled the audience, making us eager to embrace the world in which they lived.
A particularly nice touch was to have Titania enter and relate to Bottom as he went through the suicide scene in the player’s play at the end of the show. It gave a sense of development, and a degree of depth to both characters, and made the play a bit more affecting than a mere comedy.
The last bit of action had the sleeper at the top of the play waking up and finding the banner with the title of the play. This represented the fact that the entire story was a dream, and gave the piece a symmetrical close.
Oddly, while much of the action was very funny, I didn’t find myself laughing out loud as I do at certain TV shows, or as much as the rest of the audience. But at the end, when the lovers had been united in wedlock and the players and done their play, when the lights went down and music came up before Puck’s epilogue, I found a great sadness coming over me. The music was a familiar melody that felt, in context, like a beautiful sunset at the end of a very good day. It was the perfect ending, but it was an ending, and we will never have that day back again.
The effectiveness of the play even came through a sub-optimal viewing set-up. The seats were on a set of particularly deep bleachers of gradual elevation. This meant that the back rows were very far from the action without being high up, and thus their view was were blocked by people’s heads. For a piece with such a strong environment, it would have been nice to be more physically embracing of the audience. Perhaps they could have figured out a way to do it in the round, or to have allowed the audience to sit on the floor within the performance area.
Midsummer Night’s Dream is probably Shakespeare play that is most adaptable to various media. Its location on the borders of a fairyland allows the production a lot of leeway to use its media. It got me to thinking of ways to do it with various movement vocabularies I have been familiarizing myself with lately.
But the fact that I will never be able to recapture the precise magic of this particular production if very sad.
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