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Off-Broadway Review—Rachel Weisz in David Hare’s “Plenty”
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Friday, 28 October 2016 12:29
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Plenty
Written by David Hare; directed by David Leveaux
Performances through December 1, 2016
 |
| Rachel Weisz and Byron Jennings in Plenty (photo: Joan Marcus) |
One of our most literate and provocative playwrights, David Hare has never shied from merging the personal with the political. Perhaps none of his plays makes that as explicit as Plenty, the 1978 drama that introduced what might be his most complicated protagonist—I hesitate to say heroine—Susan Traherne, a young British woman who, returning home following World War II (as part of the French Resistance, she seemingly found her calling to make a difference in the world), finds that the post-war years leave her unmoored and disaffected.
The original production of Plenty (which came to New York in 1982) starred Kate Nelligan, by all accounts a splendid Susan. I saw Fred Schepisi’s handsomely mounted 1985 film adaptation with a steely but polished Meryl Streep in the lead, then completely forgot that I saw Cate Blanchett’s Susan in a 1999 London West End staging. A new New York production by David Leveaux lays bare what’s wrong with the play—Susan herself.
Hare’s drama opens in 1962, introducing Susan, her best friend Alice Parks and Susan’s husband Raymond Brock, who is lying naked and unconscious on the floor: an unexplained occurrence that announces the play’s foggy atmosphere of disconnect. We then jump back to a field in France in 1943—as Susan meets a fellow Brit, Lazar, who’s also aiding the Resistance—then proceed chronologically through scenes that show Susan making fateful decisions affecting her post-war life.
For the final scene, Hare returns to halcyon France in 1944: a luminous Susan sits in an open field and says her famous final line, “There will be days and days and days like this,” which we know—thanks to Hare’s blatant dramatizing—is a delusion. He does write dazzlingly distinctive dialogue for Susan, Brock, Alice, Lazar, and the unfortunately named Leonard Darwin, ambassador who breaks with British protocol over the Suez Canal fiasco. Hare’s insights into politics informing everyday lives are second to none.
But Plenty never makes the case that Susan is worth following through the years. A neurotic idealist in a world of hard realities, she makes foolish decisions—like marrying diplomat Brock, the opposite kind of life she wants, notwithstanding he helped her out—that seem made more for dramatic irony than plausible characterization. Another is her decision to have a baby with no strings attached: she gets an acquaintance, working-class Mick, to be the father, but after 18 months of shooting blanks, she unceremoniously dumps him as no longer being worthy of being her would-be baby daddy, and he explodes with righteous anger over her manipulation. Well, duh.
David Leveaux’s terse staging can’t thaw the chilliness in Hare’s script and Susan’s character, and Mike Britton’s sleek set, comprising three movable walls and a rotating stage, ably moves through the play’s dozen scenes without clearly defining them. Similarly, the performers are a mixed bag: Byron Jennings is a one-note Darwin, ditto Ken Barnett’s Lazar, while Emily Bergl’s Alice is sweetly endearing and Corey Stoll is a persuasive Brock.
Rachel Weisz makes the most of her commanding onstage presence to give Susan’s fuzzy psychology a semblance of reality, which keeps her plight interesting if only intermittently involving. Plenty ends up being as much a mirage as the future its elusive protagonist envisions.
Plenty
The Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, New York, NY
publictheatre.org
The "Four Seasons" in Fall
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- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Thursday, 27 October 2016 14:07
- Written by Jack Angstreich
Thomas Crawford, conductor of American Cassical Orchestra. Photo by William Neumann Photography.
The enjoyable second concert this season by the American Classical Orchestra under the direction of Thomas Crawford—given on the evening of Tuesday, October 25th, at the marvelous Alice Tully Hall—was devoted to Baroque concerti for string ensembles.
The program opened with the excellent, rarely performed Concerto Grosso in D minor, Op. 5, No. 12, by Francesco Geminiani, a recomposition of a work by the great Arcangelo Corelli, a theme and variations of the famous melody "La follia".
This was followed by the wonderful "Autumn" concerto of Antonio Vivaldi's magnificent The Four Seasons, the four parts of which Crawford, in his engaging remarks preceding the concert, said he had only performed once before and described as "the most famous Baroque piece of all" and as more "ingenious" and variegated than other concertos by the composer.
The musicians then presented the appealing, "virtually unknown" Concerto a Quattro, Op. 7, by the obscure and enigmatic Giovanni Albicastro, which Crawford averred was not a great piece but "a little bonbon against the Vivaldi and [Georg Friedrich] Händel" in the program, adding that not every work "can be a masterpiece" but assuring that this was nonetheless beautiful, calling attention to the oboe solo. He said that the score has been out of print for fifty years and that he had to copy it from the Bobst Library.
The first half of the program concluded with the lovely "Winter" concerto from The Four Seasons while the even better second half opened with Handel's superb Concerto Grosso, Opus 3, No. 2, which Crawford noted is one of his "all-time favorites". He asserted that the composer was "able to take up the spirit of another country" and that the work "sounds more English than German", only sounding particularly German in "one lousy fugue". He also said that "the real reason" he programmed this piece was the adagio oboe solo. He noted with respect to the minuet that it's "charming and beautifully written" and that Händel "wrote some of the finest minuets of the era".
On the delightful "Spring" concerto that ensued, Crawford amusingly reported that "the most annoying thing in all Baroque music" is "the dog barking in the viola" in the middle movement. On the glorious "Summer" concerto that concluded the evening, he claimed that it "begins in the weakest way of all them" but is the "strongest" of all the concertos in the set "from a compositional point of view", adding that "if Vivaldi is good at anything, it's at repeating things, sometimes too much" and that the final movement of the work is "absolutely thrilling". It was a splendid ending to a worthwhile program.
October '16 Digital Week IV
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Wednesday, 26 October 2016 03:12
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Blu-rays of the Week
Alice Through the Looking Glass
(Disney)
This belated sequel to the 2010 Tim Burton-directed smash can’t hold a candle to the original, mainly because director James Bobin substitutes his arbitrary garish bombast for Burton’s extravagant controlled whimsy.
The gang’s all here—Mia Wasikowska, Anne Hathaway, Sasha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter and a delightfully dizzy Johnny Depp—yet the overall effect is that of so much visual oppressiveness smothering the further fantastical adventures of Lewis Carroll’s heroine. The Blu-ray visuals are eye-popping; extras include featurettes, audio commentary, deleted scenes and a Pink music video.
The Executioner
(Criterion)
In Luis Garcia Berlanga’s sardonic 1963 classic, an undertaker falls for and marries the daughter of an executioner; he soon takes over his retired father-in-law’s job, which he doesn’t really want to do. Made during the height of Franco’s fascist regime in Spain, Berlanga’s blackly comic drama remains a potent brew of critical satire that holds up as well as Carlos Saura’s masterpieces like 1966’s The Hunt and 1970’s The Garden of Earthly Delights.
The B&W images look lovely on Blu; extras include a Pedro Almodovar appreciation, new program about Berlanga, and a 2009 Spanish TV program featuring archival Berlanga footage.
The Hills Have Eyes
Dark Water
(Arrow)
Despite its crudeness, Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes (1977) is the scariest movie he ever made: its straightforwardness, coupled with a realistically creepy vibe, combine to tighten the screws more tautly until the horrific finale.
Hideo Nakata’s Dark Water (2002), a finely-wrought thriller about a mother trying to protect her young daughter from malevolent spirits, is far better than the 2005 American remake starring Jennifer Connelly. Both films have nicely-detailed and grainy transfers; extras include interviews and featurettes, and Hills has three audio commentaries.
Santana IV—Live at the House of Blues, Las Vegas
(Eagle Rock)
Iggy Pop teamed up with Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme for his latest album Post Pop Depression, putting more muscle into his music than anything in years, as this Royal Albert Hall show from London in June shows: highlights are sizzling versions of “Lust for Life” and “China Girl.”
Carlos Santana reformed the seminal lineup of his namesake band for an album and tour last year, and this Las Vegas concert brought some of his famed alumni back into the fold: singer-keyboardist Gregg Rolie and guitarist Neal Schon add oomph to new tunes and Santana classics like “Black Magic Woman” and “Evil Ways.” Both sets, which include two CDs with all the live songs, also have first-rate hi-def video and audio. Santana IV extras are band interviews.
Lights Out
(Warner Bros)
The sinister spirit haunting their mother forces a young boy and his stepsister to try and stop a likely fatal outcome in David F. Sandberg’s tidy 80-minute horror flick that has a few good, and a few cheap, thrills—even more if you’re particularly susceptible to reacting to every little scare tactic in today’s schlocky horror flicks.
Teresa Palmer (stepsister), Gabriel Bateman (youngster) and Maria Bello (mother) give persuasive performances that help sell this to more skeptical viewers, like me. The movie looks splendidly dark on Blu; extras are several deleted scenes, which include an idiotic ending smartly excised from the finished product.
Gas-s-s-s
(Olive Films)
These 1970 “youth” films, despite many missed chances, have scattered moments of insight into the then-generation gap. The bumpy Fauss has Robert Redford as a charming but rascally race car driver who thinks nothing of using his friend Fauss (Robert J. Pollard)—especially when gorgeous Lauren Hutton falls for the latter.
Gas-s-s-s is a cardboard Roger Corman flick whose sci-fi premise (everyone over 25 has died in a gas leak) can’t hide a basic lack of coherence or comprehension, and which wastes then-promising performers like Cindy Williams and Talia Shire. The hi-def transfers are solid.
Peter Gabriel—Growing Up Live
(Eagle Rock)
Originally released in 2003, Growing Up Live is a valuable document of Peter Gabriel’s remarkable Up tour, his first in 10 years: now on Blu-ray, the brilliance of Gabriel’s artistry—both visual and musical—can be seen and heard anew, with highlights of this May 2003 Milan performance “Sky Blue” and “Mercy Street.”
In addition to the hi-def video and audio upgrade, also included on this multi-disc set are a DVD of Still Growing Up Live, a more intimate 2004 concert; backstage documentary Still Growing Up Unwrapped; studio footage of Gabriel and his band; and two performances on Jools Holland’s show.
(Olive Signature)
John Ford’s 1952 drama is one of his most old-fashioned, with John Wayne as an American boxer who returns to his Irish homeland and falls in love with spunky lass Maureen O’Hara: amusing and romantic but sappy and silly, it’s pretty shocking that Ford won his fourth Best Director Oscar for this. (Winton C. Hoch’s stunning color photography, however, definitely deserved its Oscar.)
Olive’s Signature series not only includes a sparkling hi-def transfer that shows off the film’s gorgeous Irish locations, but also includes an audio commentary and featurettes about Ford, O’Hara and the Republic Pictures company.
Short Cuts
(Criterion)
Robert Altman’s sprawling 1993 drama about the interactions among dozens of Los Angelenos before an earthquake pretends to be a Raymond Carver adaptation, but Altman’s jaded cynicism is light years removed from Carver’s jaded humanity. There are things that work, namely the acting of Julianne Moore and Jennifer Jason Leigh, but it is ultimately an Altman failure that rarely comes to grips with what it explores.
Still, Criterion’s two-disc set, featuring a spectacular new hi-def transfer—but drops the book of Carver short stories that were part of the original DVD release—has voluminous extras: deleted scenes; Tim Robbins and Altman conversation; Carver audio interview; To Write and Keep Kind, a 1992 PBS Carver documentary; and Luck, Trust & Ketchup: Robert Altman in Carver Country, a full-length making-of documentary.
George Gershwin—An American in Paris/Concerto in F
(Harmonia Mundi)
The Harmonie Ensemble/New York offers lively performances of several Gershwin favorites: the sprightly Of Thee I Sing Overture and 3 Preludes, fizzy An American in Paris and percolating Concerto in F, a towering piano and orchestra work heard far less often than Rhapsody in Blue.
Pianist Lincoln Mayorga plays the challenging solo part in the concerto with exceptional ease; leading the ensemble is Steven Richman, who puts himself and his crack band in the front rank of current Gershwin interpreters.
Broadway Review—Mary-Louise Parker in “Heisenberg”
- Details
- Parent Category: Film and the Arts
- Category: Reviews
- Published on Friday, 21 October 2016 22:29
- Written by Kevin Filipski
Heisenberg
Written by Simon Stephens; directed by Mark Brokaw
Performances through December 11, 2016
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| Denis Arendt and Mary-Louise Parker in Heisenberg (photo: Joan Marcus) |
Let us now praise Mary-Louise Parker. Possibly the only actress who can make annoying seem endearing, Parker also has an estimable track record of rescuing inferior plays, such as Dead Man's Cell Phone, the disastrous Sarah Ruhl comic drama from several seasons back that Parker saved with her miraculous ability to be immensely charming and kookily funny, however ridiculous the material.
Heisenberg is another case in point. This mendacious two-hander follows the unlikely romance between a goofy 42-year-old American woman and a stolid 75-year-old British man (it would have been more interesting the other way around), who meet cutely at a London train station, reconnect even more cutesily at his butcher shop, and begin a physical and emotional coupling that has to be seen to be disbelieved.
Playwright Simon Stephens spends much of his play’s 80-minute running time flailing around, hoping that anything that he crams into his play—no matter how illogical or risible—will provoke a response from the audience. But the strain shows in his very title, the eponymous German physicist who coined the Uncertainty Principle.
But Heisenberg doesn’t so much demonstrate the Uncertainty Principle as it does the Anything-Goes Principle as Georgie Burns (obnoxious and irritating from the start) lies and wheedles her way into Alex Priest’s good graces by, basically, badgering him: She’s the prototypical Trumpian bully.
Stephens’ dialogue has its occasional bite or amusement, but then there are those long stretches when it doesn’t. After they first have sex, here’s what they say to each other:
GEORGIE: Move over. Thank you. Are you okay?
ALEX: I am yes.
GEORGIE: Ha. Me too. Me three. Me four. Me five. Me six. Me a million. I like sex. Don't you?
ALEX: I do. You know. I really do. I do. I do.
GEORGIE: I like your bed.
ALEX: Thank you.
Later, after they leave London for New Jersey to track down her supposedly estranged son, here’s a snippet of their conversation:
GEORGIE: It’s stopped raining.
ALEX: Yes. I like this spot. The Hackensack. What a completely brilliant name for a river. I like words that have their own little rhyme in. And I like that bridge. That is a remarkable bridge.
GEORGIE: The Pulaski Skyway.
ALEX: The Pulaski Skyway.
A little of this goes a very long way, and Heisenberg outstays its welcome very quickly. Director Mark Brokaw doesn’t do much more than have his performers occasionally move the odd chair or table that make up the bulk of the set design (as per Stephens’ specific stage directions). Brokaw has also put bleachers on the stage behind the performing space so that there are essentially two audiences watching this uninvolving romance unfold. It’s sometimes more entertaining checking out how others are reacting to what’s going on.
Poor Denis Arendt has little to do—he mainly reacts to whatever new lunacy Parker’s spouting—and does it solidly if unimaginatively. Parker is a theatrical treasure, making every silly retort or full-throated obscenity that comes out of her mouth so ingratiating that she makes us believe that this possibly insane woman could charm an average old man into bed. Well, almost.
Heisenberg
Samuel Friedman Theatre, 261 West 47th Street, New York, NY
manhattantheatreclub.com
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