Stage Voices

***** GEORGE FARQUHAR: ‘THE RECRUITING OFFICER’ (REVIEW PICK, UK)

 

(Charles Spencer’s article appeared in the Telegraph, 2/15.)

Josie Rourke’s campaign as the new artistic director of the Donmar Warehouse gets off to a tremendous start with George Farquhar’s wonderful English play about soldiers and townsfolk in early 18th century Shrewsbury.

Though usually described as a Restoration comedy The Recruiting Officer (1706) is worlds removed from the heartless hermetic plays of the period set in high society London.

There is a whiff of clean country air and a sense of new horizons about it, and though the comedy is often bawdy and robust, there is a generosity of spirit, and lack of viciousness about The Recruiting Officer that proves hugely attractive.

(Read more)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/9082192/The-Recruiting-Officer-Donmar-Warehouse-review.html

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WATKINS/ALLEN: ‘DEATH AND HARRY HOUDINI’ (REVIEW PICK, CHI)

 

(Chris Jones’s article appeared in the Chicago Tribune, 1/30. The video clip, starring Watkins, refers to a previous production of the show.)

Of all Harry Houdini's great feats of daring, none thrilled audiences as much as the Chinese Water Torture Cell, a transparent, fish tank-like device filled with gallons of water into which the favorite son of Appleton, Wisc., would be lowered, head first. The cover would be padlocked after the great escapologist held his breath and, with manacles around his feet, took what seemed to be a fatal dive.

Even several minutes into the trick, audiences would be able to steal a view of the submerged Houdini, still under water and beginning to turn blue.

The House Theatre's riveting "Death and Harry Houdini," which opened Sunday night at the Chopin Theatre, ends with a detailed re-creation of that very trick, performed by Dennis Watkins, a local actor and magician with an obsessive interest in Houdini and a man who has closely studied his greatest illusions and learned how to do them in homage to the master. But Houdini did that trick mostly in big, proscenium theaters. Watkins does it in sufficiently close proximity that the front rows can feel the splashes.

(Read more)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/theater/theaterloop/ct-ent-0131-death-houdini-review-20120130,0,6424198.column

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IMPROBABLE: ‘THE DEVIL AND MISTER PUNCH’ (REVIEW PICK, UK)

(Lyn Gardner’s article appeared in the Guardian, 2/10.)

Punch and Judy are 350 years old this year – their first recorded performance in England dates from 1662 – and Improbable celebrate in style with Julian Crouch's down-at-heel vaudeville show, which allows the irrepressible wife-beating, child-slaying, death-defying Punch full rein. Even the Devil ("You're looking a little stressed," Mr Punch tells him) is tricked by the delinquent puppet, who proves that when it comes to pulling the strings he's really the one in charge.

In Improbable's vision, Messrs Harvey and Hovey, two bowler-hatted, unsuccessful travelling showmen, are putting on a Punch and Judy show. But as the story develops, relationships are thrown into sharp relief. It turns out that – as many have long suspected – the Pit theatre situated in the bowels of the Barbican is hell itself, a place where the show endlessly goes on.

(Read more)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/feb/10/the-devil-and-mister-punch-review

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ANNIE BAKER: 'BODY AWARENESS' (REVIEW PICK, SF)

 

(Robert Hurwitt's article appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, 2/4.)

It's Body Awareness Week at little, liberal Shirley State College in tiny Shirley, Vt., and the fervent lesbian feminist professor who organized it isn't happy about the female nude photographs displayed in the student union for the occasion. Even worse, in Annie Baker's hilarious "Body Awareness" at the Aurora Theatre, the highly suspect male photographer is a guest in her house. And her partner is considering posing for him.

A lot more is about to go wrong for Amy Resnick's delightfully dogmatic academic Phyllis and Jeri Lynn Cohen's no less politically correct but perhaps perilously more open-minded partner, Joyce. But much more goes right in director Joy Carlin's fine-tuned production that opened Thursday as the anchor of the Aurora's annual Global Age Project new plays festival.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/03/DDR31N0OVK.DTL#ixzz1m1yB3tsG

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KATE FODOR: ‘RX’ (REVIEW PICK, NY)

 

(Charles Isherwood’s article appeared in the New York Times, 2/7.)

Do you ever stare at your cubicle walls and see the bars of a prison cell? Or spend way too much time pondering your lunch options: the Vietnamese sandwich place or the taco truck? Can’t remember how the dreary workdays would pass before the advent of Facebook?

There’s a pill for that feeling, a new wonder drug that will banish all thoughts of discontent, boredom and anomie that might assail you during the long trek from 9 to 5. Pop it once a day, and you’ll find yourself buzzing with excitement about that meeting to schedule more meetings.

(Read more)

http://theater.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/theater/reviews/marin-hinkle-in-rx-by-kate-fodor-at-59e59-theaters.html?hpw

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SIMON STEPHENS: ‘PUNK ROCK’ IN CHICAGO

(Chris Jones’s article appeared in the Chicago Tribune, 2/3.)

Capable ensembles of early-career actors aren't uncommon in Chicago's huge, non-Equity theater scene — increasingly the preferred theatrical destination for the well-trained and only just out of school.

These days, open-minded, risk-inclined directors have plenty of fresh choices from this demographic (assuming no one has to sing). But the young, mostly-unknown-in-town cast of Jonathan Berry's deeply affecting production of "Punk Rock" at the Griffin Theatre is, taken as a whole, remarkable enough for your mouth to keep dropping open in surprise at the depth and raw frankness of their work. It's like a trout farm of talent, swimming around in their school uniforms.

That jaw would not be falling without Berry's direction. He does here what I was hoping he would do with Griffin's disappointing recent production of the musical "Spring Awakening," only he couldn't or didn't. "Punk Rock" is a closely observed and dark, yet affectionate, play by British playwright Simon Stephens. Stephens is a former teacher himself; his compassionate and unsentimental work has proved so many times to be a fine match for Chicago theaters that he has handed Griffin Theatre the United States premiere of this play. It is about bright but tortured adolescents in a school near the northern England city of Manchester, where this play was first performed in 2009, and where, in full disclosure, I was a kid myself. They try to assert themselves, look cool, pursue each other sexually and come out on top in the crucial, life-or-death standardized exams that pockmark the British educational system.

(Read more)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/theater/theaterloop/ct-ent-0204-punk-rock-review-20120204,0,1657519.column

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MIDDLETON AND ROWLEY: ‘THE CHANGELING’ (REVIEW PICK, UK)

(Michael Billington’s article appeared in the Guardian, 2/3.)

I've never seen so many actors come out of the closet as during Joe Hill-Gibbins's production of Middleton and Rowley's 1622 classic. But that is less a reflection on the performers' sexual orientation than on the expressionist nature of Ultz's design, in which the Young Vic's breezeblock studio, the Maria, is crammed with boxes, wardrobes and cupboards from which the actors constantly emerge.

At first, I wasn't sure how well this strange, semi-surreal approach would work with a play set in Renaissance Spain and reeking of evil: even the background buzz of noise was irritating, suggesting someone had left the radio on nearby. But I was won over by a production that, like Declan Donnellan's 2006 version, suggests madness is the play's real theme. There is something visibly berserk about Beatrice-Joanna's love-hate obsession with De Flores, whom she hires to kill an unwanted prospective husband. It seems natural that the actors in the main story should reappear in the truncated sub-plot, in which a madhouse doctor's wife fends off her own suitors.

(Read more)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/feb/03/the-changeling-review

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OLIVER GOLDSMITH: ‘SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER’ (REVIEW PICK, UK)

 

(Michael Billington’s article appeared 1/31 in the Guardian.)

The great period comedies have either been neglected or indifferently revived of late. So it is a joy to see Oliver Goldsmith's 1773 classic back at the National after a 10-year gap. Although understandably many eyes will be turned to Coronation Street's Katherine Kelly, Jamie Lloyd's production is a collective success which leaves the theatre echoing with the sound of the audience's happiness.

It is its mixture of wit and warmth that keeps Goldsmith's comedy alive. The plot, in which two blades are tricked into mistaking a country house for an inn, is developed with great ingenuity. There is also much psychological truth in the idea that one of the young men, reared in the sexual seclusion of the well-to-do, is a tongue-tied wreck with girls of his own class, and relaxed only with his social inferiors. But, although this a comedy of confusion and mistaken identity of place, the good nature that endeared Goldsmith to his contemporaries shines through every polished line of the piece.

(Read more)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/feb/01/she-stoops-to-conquer-review

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*****SHAKESPEARE: ‘THE TAMING OF THE SHREW’ (REVIEW PICK, UK)

 

(Charles Spencer’s article appeared in the Telegraph, 1/27.)

SOMETIMES the unexpected happens, to glorious effect. I have long believed that The Taming of the Shrew is one of the most boring and deeply unlovable of Shakespeare's plays. The footling disguises of the wooers, the unfunny "comic" servants, and the sheer cruelty of the story, in which a spirited young woman has her will broken by a bullying, mercenary husband, seem to me to show Shakespeare in the worst possible light.

Yet Lucy Bailey's new production, set in the paternalistic Italy of the 1940s and with the whole stage turned into a gigantic bed on which the characters bicker, have pillow fights, and fall in love, proves startling, blissfully funny and unexpectedly moving.

(Read more)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/9043786/The-Taming-of-the-Shrew-RSC-review.html

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SHAKESPEARE/MENDES/SPACEY: ‘RICHARD III’ (REVIEW)

 

Like Shakespeare, Sam Mendes plays fast and loose with the elements of drama.  His 2010 production of As You Like It included a Depression-era tableau and torture scenes to point to the recession and our Mideast conflicts.  In 2010 also, he used modern Wiccan or reconstructionist ritual to delineate the magician, Prospero, in The Tempest (that knowledge echoes here in the role of the prophetess, Queen Margaret, marking Xs on the set, excellently played by Gemma Jones).  Mendes’s Richard III, running now through March 4 at BAM’s Harvey Theater (from the transatlantic company The Bridge Project) is a nod to global popular culture, from hand signals you’d find on Star Trek to an alternate version of the court of George V (Kevin Spacey, the star, with shades on hand, who is pictured at one point with whiskers, might even play the monarch--or lookalike Tsar Nicholas II--should the right scripts beam down.  Richard III is the product of the Hollywood mindset, the kind unknown before MTV.  It uses universalized characters inhabiting a nonspecific or evolving time and place, allowing Spacey, and the other actors, to play themselves, fantasized—they aren’t bound to character the way Olivier was in the ‘50s, portraying Richard with curls and a long nose (besides the obligatory hump); McKellen, as part of a fascist high command, in his ‘90s version, was gaunt, chilling, addicted to nicotine. 

The method, freed from context, allows Spacey to work hard without being fixed (in the last act he actually is hung upside down above the stage by his heels).  It also lets him become what Shakespeare probably always wanted—a big, hammy (Richard is actually “bigger” than Hamlet), crowd-pleasing villain.  Mendes knows this, playing most of Spacey’s scenes downstage center, altering symmetry by varying height (watch the use of crouching and kneeling in the production).  The play, which also employs video and supertitles, may seem more melodramatic than you remember, more bombastic than you recall, less dimensioned, and maybe more enjoyable--after all those English lectures, it really isn’t much of an intellectual exercise at all. You might even find yourself wondering if it will connect in some way to Mendes’s upcoming James Bond film Skyfall--for who is Richard III if not the ultimate Bond villain (down to enhanced medical technology)?

Spacey has called it, “A monstrous, epic, huge piece of work” and in an interview with Charlie Rose reminds us that the character of Richard III is in twenty-three out of twenty-six scenes. Using the depth of the Harvey Theater in formidable design, with seemingly endless lines of doors (the scenery is by Tom Piper) and sometime side lighting by Paul Pyant (the projections are by Jon Driscoll and the fashionable, eclectic costumes are by Catherine Zuber).  The muscular, strong, powerhouse acting, besides Spacey’s and Jones’s, includes work by Annabel Scholey, Hadyn Gwynne, Chuk Iwuji, Chandler Williams, among others.  Mendes keeps his Richard III paced, loud, and alive with drumming.  Shakespeare might be just fine with the fact that by basing Richard, in part, on the medieval character Vice, as he did, the play should be as Mendes has said, “about the timeless themes of desire for and abuse of power.  A parable.”  What we’ll want to reconsider, in time, is if Richard was ever meant to, or could, be more than a blockbuster or part of the Shakespeare franchise, even if, in this highly theatrical production, that is enough.   

© 2012 by Bob Shuman. All rights reserved.

Press: Emily Meagher, bbbway

Richard III

Part of the 2012 Winter/Spring Season

Jan 10—Mar 4, 2012 (click on Schedule tab above for details)

A limited number of premium orchestra seats for any Thursday, Friday and Saturday performance in February are available through charity ticket auction to benefit BAM arts education. Bid now

Bank of America presents
The Bridge Project
Richard III
Produced by BAM, The Old Vic & Neal Street

By William Shakespeare
Directed by Sam Mendes

“Mr. Spacey gives fierce and flashy physical life to every twist of a power-mad man’s corkscrew mind.” —The New York Times

Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey owns the stage as Shakespeare’s outrageous villain Richard III. At the climax of the Wars of the Roses, Richard watches his brother ascend the throne of England and confides in us—with all the profound bitterness of an outcast born with a hunchback and malformed leg—his intention to seize the crown. Navigating an imposing assemblage of some of Shakespeare’s greatest female characters, Richard—played brilliantly by the mercurial and mordantly funny Spacey—lusts for power, assuring his own bloody rise and fall.

Academy Award winner Sam Mendes directs the transatlantic cast in the final production of The Bridge Project, a three-year partnership uniting BAM, The Old Vic, and Neal Street.

BAM Harvey Theater
Run time: 3hrs 20 min with intermission
Season tickets start at $24 (Jan 10—29 only)
Full price tickets start at $30
Prices vary by performance dates and times
8 ticket limit per household

Co-commissioned by and produced in association with Athens and Epidaurus Festival, Centro Niemeyer Spain, Doha Film Institute, Hong Kong Arts Festival, The Istanbul Theatre Festival (IKSV) &The Istanbul Municipal Theatre, Kay and McLean Productions, Napoli Teatro Festival Italia, SHN-Carole Shorenstein-Hays & Robert Nederlander, and Singapore Repertory Theatre.

The complete acting company is as follows: Maureen Anderman, Stephen Lee Anderson, Jeremy Bobb, Nathan Darrow, Jack Ellis*, Haydn Gwynne*, Chuk Iwuji, Isaiah Johnson, Gemma Jones*, Andrew Long, Katherine Manners*, Howard W Overshown, Simon Lee Phillips*, Gary Powell*, Michael Rudko, Annabel Scholey*, Kevin Spacey, Gavin Stenhouse*, Hannah Stokely*, Chandler Williams

*Indicates British member of company

Jack Ellis, Haydn Gwynne, Gemma Jones, Katherine Manners, Simon Lee Phillips, Gary Powell, Annabel Scholey, Gavin Stenhouse, and Hannah Stokely are appearing with the permission of Actors' Equity Association. Maureen Anderman, Stephen Lee Anderson, Jeremy Bobb, Nathan Darrow, Chuk Iwuji, Isaiah Johnson, Andrew Long, Michael Rudko, Kevin Spacey, and Chandler Williams are appearing with the permission of UK Equity, in corporating Variety Artistes' Federation, pursuant to an exchange program between American Equity and UK Equity. The Producers gratefully acknowledge Actors' Equity Association for its assistance of this production.

Scenery by Tom Piper
Costumes by Catherine Zuber
Lighting by Paul Pyant

Projection by Jon Driscoll
Sound by Gareth Fry
Music by Mark Bennett

Musical Coordination and Direction by Curtis Moore
Fight Direction by Terry King
Artistic Associate Gaye Taylor Upchurch
Casting by Daniel Swee and Maggie Lunn

International Tour Producer Claire Béjanin

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