Woman Around Town’s Editor Charlene Giannetti and writers for the website talk with the women and men making news in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities around the world. Thanks to Ian Herman for his wonderful piano introduction.
I reviewed The Band’s Visit when it debuted at The Atlantic Theater last year. Much of the cast remains the same. Parts of this piece come from that review, parts allude to changes and fresh observations evoked by the new presentation.
“Once not long ago a group of musicians came to Israel from Egypt. You probably didn’t hear about it. It wasn’t very important.”
What appears at first glance to be a slight ripple in history sometimes affects those present in profoundly unexpected ways. This gem of a musical, whose fine book buoys grounded lyrics, embraces what we have in common rather than becoming yet another platform for political social/division. That it does so with limpid delicacy eschewing Hollywood outcomes makes the piece as refreshing as it is sympathetic.
John Cariani, Etai Benson, Katrina Lenk, Tony Shaloub and band members
The Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra has been invited to open an Arab Cultural Center in Pet Hatikva, Israel. Overseen with utmost decorum “We are here to represent our country!” by their conductor, Colonel Tewfiq Zakaria (Tony Shalhoub), the small troop appear somewhat dazed. Crisp, powder blue military uniforms stand out against sand and cracked cement as if landed from another planet. In fact, they are strangers in a strange land.
When trumpet player/ladies man Haled (Ari’el Stachel) mistakenly arranges passage to neighboring Bat Hatikva (B not P), the men find themselves in a one horse, Israeli, Negev Desert town without the horse. Locals pass by means of a stage floor turntable. They’re all “Waiting,” but is it for something special or just “Looking off out into the distance/even though you know the view is never gonna change…”
Kristen Sieh, John Cariani, Alok Tewari, Andrew Polk, George Abud
Café owner Dina (Katrina Lenk), affable Itzik (a sympathetic John Cariani), and hapless young Papi (Etai Benson- self conscious acting), sing “Welcome to Nowhere.” As the next bus doesn’t come through till tomorrow and the settlement has no hotel, Dina agrees to put up Tewfiq and Haled. Itzik takes home clarinetist Simon (Alok Tewari, whose quiet gentility warms the role) and violinist Camal (George Abud) – the former unwittingly affecting family dynamics. Others bunk in the café.
The play evolves over a single afternoon and evening with four integrated chapters. At Itzak’s we meet his wife Iris (new to the company Kristen Sieh, who makes her character’s frustration palpable) and father-in-law Avram (Andrew Polk – very fine, but the actor should remove his diamond ear stud). Note to prop master: the baby doll looks pointedly fake. Avram’s irresistible “Beat of Your Heart” brightens proceedings. At a roller rink, Papi panics around girls. Description of his state “Papi Hears the Ocean” is priceless.
Rachel Prather, Etai Benson, Ari’el Stachel
Curious about and drawn to her guest, the attractive Dina literally lets her hair down with Tewfiq and gets the guarded conductor to open up. He sings in a capella Arabic (with immense feeling), but is it about love, she wonders, or fishing? This man is compelling.
The fourth chapter, an embodiment of hopeful perseverance, is played out with the Telephone Guy (Adam Kantor – good, low key turn) who has stood outside a phone booth every night for a month waiting for a promised call from his girl. Then it’s time for the orchestra to move on. We last see them – performing – in Pet Hatikva. It’s extremely difficult not to get up and dance.
A wonderful experience.
Katrina Lenk and Tony Shaloub
David Yazbeck’s infectious music embraces Middle Eastern influences with estimable skill, maintaining an atmosphere of “other” one rarely finds in Broadway theater. Listen for the sole number with real jazz influence. Stachel actually plays trumpet, Tewari, clarinet, Abud, violin. Other on stage musicians include: Ossama Farouk, Sam Sadigursky, Harvey Valdes, Garo Yellin.
Several cast members speak fluent Arabic while others deliver dialogue in Hebrew. There isn’t a single weak link in acting or vocals. Casting (Tara Rubin) must’ve been like scaling a glass mountain.
Ari’el Stachel imbues Haled with sincere sweetness that would appeal to the girls with whom his character continually flirts, yet masculinity is ever present. His paternal attitude toward Papi is lovely. And he sings well.
Katrina Lenk and Tony Shalhoub are a match made in heaven. Lenk’s earthy, sensual, smart portrayal make Dina a real and formidable woman. She emanates earthiness and manifests animal grace. Rarely have the practical and passionate been so believable in tandem. The actress also has a superb voice.
Shalhoub’s performance is nuanced and poignant. Fastidiousness is as unmistakable as emotional armor. Revealing a painful past, Tewfiq maintains perspective, yet at one point, we hear his breath catch. A pivotal song communicates lost illusions. Though we don’t understand a word of the foreign language, one knows. The couple’s parting couldn’t be more moving or convincingly manifest.
Director David Cromer has both a soulful character touch and the kind of comprehensive vision that never makes a false move. A turntable is wonderfully employed. The exception, of which first time attendees may be less aware, concerns live musicians. Perhaps in an effort to fully utilize the possibilities of a multilevel set, integration of performing band members is more stagey/obvious than previously impeding on authenticity. “Musical breaks” unrelated to narrative – excepting a joyous encore, feel somewhat uncomfortable. Most importantly, in the play’s first incarnation, every note emerged from visible actor/musicians. On Broadway, additional band members play from elsewhere giving accompaniment a full, rather false sound which includes piano. This takes away from both intimacy and bona fides. More in this case does not enhance, it detracts.
As realized by Scott Pask, Set Design has naturally expanded into the space. The turntable continues inspired. Most of the new design is not overdone due to increased budget. The roller rink is possibly too decked out to be credible in the tiny, backward location, however.
Sarah Laux’s Costumes are just right down to Dina’s second rate jeans and clodhopper shoes – excepting an old lady with an oxygen tank who wanders through in the opening dressed as if from another play.
Language and Dialect Coach Mouna R’miki deserves a standing ovation.
Photos by Matthew Murphy Opening: The Band led by Tony Shaloub
The Band’s Visit Music & Lyrics by David Yazbek; Book by Itamar Moses Based on the screenplay by Eran Kolirin Music Director: Andrea Grody; Orchestrations: Jamishied Sharifi Directed by David Cromer Ethel Barrymore Theatre 243 West 47th Street
“Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.”
Chapter 2, Verse 15 of the Song of Solomon in the King James version of the Bible
Lillian Hellman’s 1939 play, ostensibly drawing characters from her own family, has been a theater staple since its first outing. In New York, the role of Regina which originated with Talullah Bankhead has been played by such as Anne Bancroft and Elizabeth Taylor while Margaret Leighton, Maureen Sullivan, and Frances Conroy have counted among those featured as Birdie. This Manhattan Theatre Club production allows its leading ladies to play Regina and Birdie in repertory. One can choose whom to see in which role.
Laura Linney, Darren Goldstein
Keeping with 1900s Southern tradition, brothers Oscar (Darren Goldstein) and Ben Hubbard (a well grounded Michael McKean) inherited their father’s cotton business to the chagrin of sister Regina (Laura Linney). The two men are pompously nouveau riche, while she has to make due with being supported in less than the style to which she aspires by manipulated husband Horace Giddens (completely credible Richard Thomas), currently in a sanatorium.
Also enmeshed is Oscar’s sweet, alcoholic wife Birdie (Cynthia Nixon), married for inheritance and ancestry, so cowed she refers to herself as a “ninny,” his lazy, doltish son Leo (Michael Benz) superfluously employed by the bank, and Regina’s overprotected daughter Alexandra (Francesca Carpanini), a daddy’s girl who the Hubbards plan to marry off to Leo.
Cynthia Nixon
A business opportunity to enlarge holdings and walk off with sizeable annuity emerges with the potential collaboration of northerner Mr. Marshall (David Alford – appealingly decorous). While Oscar and Ben have ready funds, Regina must secure her investment from the estranged husband she hasn’t even visited for five months. Feigning affection, this latter day Lucrezia Borgia immediately sends Alexandra to fetch the invalid. Horace, however, despite or perhaps because he’s learned his prognosis is fatal, is no longer the patsy she remembers. How will the Hubbard brothers keep this windfall in the family? How will Regina secure her own ambitious future? Each acts for him/her self.
Richard Thomas, Michael McKean, Darren Goldstein, Michael Benz
Laura Linney’s Regina makes southern gentility organic without losing the character’s edge. Imperiousness fits like a bespoke glove, avarice is palpable. So much emotion is internalized, however, one misses flashes – a moment of sheer hatred during blazing discourse with Horace, a moment of fear when at last Alexandra denies her.
Cynthia Nixon inhabits Birdie from the moment she enthusiastically flutters onstage. She’s vulnerable, wary, resigned, hopeful, hurt and desperate. Every warble in her voice and skittery move embodies Birdie. We can practically feel the tightness in her chest. All together splendid.
Francesca Carpanini, Richard Thomas
Director Daniel Sullivan excels at this kind of solid drama. His characters exist naturally and, for the most part, distinctively. Oscar is fidgety, Ben blustery and overconfident, Regina steely and graceful, Birdie like a trapped rabbit. Leo and Alexandra could use some individual attributes. Confrontations between Oscar and Birdie are superb as are moments of those between Regina and Horace. The stage is well and attractively used.
Unless I missed something, there’s an omission: Horace knocks over his medicine before heading for the stairs. We never see it observed, questioned, or cleaned up. There are paramount reasons for all three.
Scott Pask’s gracious turn of the century mansion is apt environs for this play. The ceiling is splendid. Jane Greenwood’s Costumes are flattering and character appropriate. Accents, it should be noted, sound authentic.
Also featuring Caroline Stefanie Clay as Addie and Charles Turner as Cal- the Giddins’ servants
Photos by Joan Marcus Opening: Laura Linney, Cynthia Nixon
Manhattan Theatre Club presents The Little Foxes by Lillian Hellman Directed by Daniel Sullivan The Samuel J. Friedman Theatre 261 West 47th Street
“Once not long ago a group of musicians came to Israel from Egypt. You probably didn’t hear about it. It wasn’t very important.”
What appears at first glance to be a slight ripple in history sometimes affects those present in profoundly unexpected ways. This gem of a musical, whose fine book buoys grounded lyrics, embraces what we have in common rather than becoming yet another platform for political social/division. That it does so with limpid delicacy eschewing Hollywood outcomes makes the piece as refreshing as it is sympathetic.
The Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra has been invited to open an Arab Cultural Center in Pet Hatikva, Israel. Overseen with utmost decorum “We are here to represent our country!” by their conductor, Colonel Tewfiq Zakaria (Tony Shaloub), the small troop appear somewhat dazed. Crisp, powder blue military uniforms stand out against sand and cracked cement as if landed from another planet. In fact, they are strangers in a strange land.
Tony Shaloub, Alok Tewari, Ari’el Stachel
When trumpet player/ladies man Haled (Ari’el Stachel) mistakenly arranges passage to neighboring Bat Hatikva (B not P), the men find themselves in a one horse desert town without the horse. Locals pass by means of a stage floor turntable. They’re all “Waiting”, but is it for something special or just “Looking off out into the distance/even though you know the view is never gonna change…”
Café owner Dina (Katrina Lenk), affable Itzik (John Cariani), and hapless young Papi (Daniel David Stewart) sing “Welcome to Nowhere.” As the next bus doesn’t come through till tomorrow and the settlement has no hotel, Dina agrees to put up Tewfiq and Haled. Itzik takes home clarinetist Simon (Alok Tewari) and violinist Camal (George Abud.) Others will bunk in the café.
John Cariani, Katrina Lenk, Daniel David Stewart
David Yazbeck’s infectious music embraces Middle Eastern influences with estimable skill, maintaining an atmosphere of “other” one rarely finds in musical theater. Orchestra members without speaking parts supplement hidden musicians creating inclusiveness. Stachel actually plays trumpet, Tewari, clarinet, Abud, violin. Several cast members speak fluent Arabic while others deliver dialogue in Hebrew. There isn’t a single weak link in acting or vocals. Casting (Tara Rubin) must’ve been like scaling a glass mountain.
The play evolves over a single afternoon and evening with four integrated chapters. In Avrum’s home (Andrew Polk as Iris’s father), we observe Itzak’s unemployment and a new baby strain his marriage to Iris (Kristin Sieh). Polk tells Avrum’s love story with palpable warmth. A pleasing “Beat of Your Heart” elicits memories: Love starts when the tune is sweet/And you lift your feet/to the beat of your heart…Simon unwittingly affects dynamics.
Kristen Sieh, John Cariani, Alok Tewari, Andrew Polk, George Abud
At a well staged roller rink, Papi panics around girls. Description of his state “Papi Hears the Ocean” is priceless. Haled instills the boy with confidence in a charming scene.
Curious about and drawn to her guest, the attractive Dina literally lets her hair down and engineers private time with Tewfiq. It seems she’s familiar with Egyptian film and the music of female vocalist Umm Kulthum. “Omar Sharif” is wistful and original: From the West from the South/Honey in my ears/Spice in my mouth…Dina gets the guarded conductor to begin to open up. He sings in a capella Arabic (with immense feeling), but is it about love, she wonders, or fishing? Still, this man is compelling. They understand one another on a deeper level. It’s “Something Different.”
Tony Shaloub, Katrina Lenk
The fourth chapter, an embodiment of hopeful perseverance, is played out with the Telephone Guy (Erik Liberman, good vocal) who has stood outside a phone booth every night for a month waiting for a promised call from his girl. Then it’s time for the orchestra to move on. We last see them – performing – in Pet Hatikva. It’s extremely difficult not to get up and dance. A completely satisfying experience.
Ari’el Stachel imbues Haled with gentleness that would appeal to the girls with whom his character continually flirts, yet masculinity is ever present. His paternal attitude toward Papi is lovely. And he sings. Daniel David Stewart is pitch perfect as awkward, earnest Papi.
Katrina Lenk and Tony Shaloub are a match made in heaven. Lenk’s earthy, sensual, smart portrayal make Dina a real and formidable woman. Rarely have the practical and passionate been so believable in tandem. And she has a superb voice.
Shaloub’s performance is layered and nuanced. Fastidiousness is unmistakable. Revealing his painful past, Tewfiq maintains perspective, yet at one point, we hear his breath catch. His song communicates lost illusions – I didn’t understand a word. The couple’s parting couldn’t be more convincingly manifest.
Director David Cromer has both a soulful character touch and the kind of comprehensive staging vision that never makes a false move. The turntable is wonderfully utilized. Live musicians are meticulously integrated.
Language and Dialect Coach Mouna R’miki deserves a standing ovation. Scott Pask’s flexible set evokes the desolate environment while maintaining a sense of community with flow.
Photos by Ahron R. Foster Opening: Ari’el Stachel, David Garo Yellin, George Abud, Tony Shalloub, Harvey Valdes, Sam Sadigursky, Alok Tewari
Atlantic Theater Company presents The Band’s Visit Music & Lyrics by David Yazbek; Book by Itamar Moses Based on the screenplay by Eran Kolirin Music Director: Andrea Grody; Orchestrations: Jamishied Sharifi Directed by David Cromer Linda Gross Theater 336 West 20 Street Through January 1, 2017
Nick Payne’s Constellations, (on Broadway in 2015), poetically explored The String Theory of Quantum Physics: In layman’s terms, what happens to everything else when a single aspect of a scenario changes and is it happening simultaneously on another plane? The play’s program specified “Place: The Multiverse” = the juncture? of multiple universes. Still fascinated with questions of free will, time, memory, and the way we function, the prolific playwright/intellectual here takes the human brain as its subject. One again drama is the medium.
Four excellent actors: Geveva Carr, Charlie Cox, Heather Lind, and Morgan Spector play a multitude of characters including psychologists, scientists, patients, a lawyer, a journalist…with turn-on-a-dime American and British accents. The piece, like its predecessor, is episodic, here broken into three larger chapters: ENCODING, STORING, and RETRIEVING, each begun with robotic voguing (by Peter Pucci) and a walk around the circular staging area accompanied by spacey electronic sounds/music. (David Van Tieghem) It’s a kind of a human rondo.
Morgan Spector, Geneva Carr
Identifiable stories play through in fragments. When Albert Einstein died, Princeton pathologist Thomas Harvey, conducting his autopsy (Morgan Spector), had a carpe diem moment and, turning to the icon’s executor, asked whether he might take the brain…which ends up in the trunk of his car before being dissected and studied…to little avail.
Martha (Geneva Carr, whose natural stage presence allows her to morph with focus), the adopted granddaughter of Einstein’s son and a clinical neuropsychologist, is approached by self-serving journalist, Michael (Charlie Cox) with questions of her paternity. Might she, in fact, be Einstein’s illicit daughter? (Not so far-fetched based on evidence.) All she has to do is take a DNA sample from Einstein’s brain to find out. That is, when Michael tracks it down.
Heather Lind, Geneva Carr
The intrepid headline hound convinces Doctor Harvey to accompany him cross country with a piece of the brain in order to see Einstein’s daughter –no love lost there – Evelyn (Carr), and request that sample. They drive. (How is one to airline check a brain fragment?)
Martha is, for the first time, exploring a gay relationship with Patricia (Heather Lind with a butch persona), also an adopted child, who would like her to help a lawyer friend (Spector) with professional testimony in a murder trial.
Anthony (a credibly on-the-verge Spector) is in and out of therapy (including with a compassionate but helpless Martha) and on Dagwood combinations of medication… rendering him impotent. About to embark on his honeymoon, he stops his meds, is fine for several days, then strangles his new bride to death, remembering nothing.
Heather Lind, Charlie Cox
Henry’s (a wonderfully innocent and touching Charlie Cox) amnesiac brain is poorly wired, though whether before or after an operation is unclear. His attention span is three to four thoughts, then everything starts fresh. The patient’s fiancé Margaret (Heather Lind) tries patiently (and palpably) to help, especially wanting him to regain his music, but gives up in despair. Doctors change over time…until Martha appears, triggering a moment of clarity/progress or, perhaps, just in the right place at the right time.
I’m sure I’ve left people and connections out. All four actors are top notch, but this is an impressionistic piece. Emotions are felt only in passing except perhaps those provoked by Henry who appears throughout. The mechanism we call brain retains its secrets.
Director Doug Hughes brings what humanity he can to the passing parade, keeps things moving and characters from becoming static.
Ben Stanton’s Lighting, Scott Pask’s minimal Set and Catherine Zuber’s grey-tone costumes collectively create an ephemeral canvas.
Photos by Joan Marcus Opening: Geneva Carr (back), Morgan Spector, Heather Lind, Charlie Cox
Manhattan Theatre Club presents Incognito by Nick Payne Directed by Doug Hughes City Center Stage 1 151 West 55th Street Through July 10, 2016
On the one hand, Waitress is yet another story of a blue collar, abused woman who finds the strength to walk out of a loveless marriage into an independent life. On the other, its setting – a southern Pie Shop/Diner and ancillary characters are so winning, the story almost seems fresh.
This is partially due to one of the most well written Books created for a musical in as long as I can remember. Author Jessie Wilson is smart, sensitive, insightful, and humorous. She reveals more about a character in a few lines than others attempt in paragraphs when not dependent on lyrics. (More about these later.) Brava. It’s also attributable to some splendid performances.
Keala Settle, Jessie Mueller, Kimiko Glenn
By all rights this should be Jessie Mueller’s second Tony Award. The artist acts as well as she sings (here with a perfect southern accent), thinks before our eyes, and offers the kind of universal, everywoman appeal we haven’t had in a Broadway leading lady for some time. How long has it been since you were moved during a musical?
For those of you unfamiliar with the film, Jenna (Jessie Mueller), is married to sullen, demeaning, beer guzzling Earl (Nick Codero) who demands every penny she earns. The actor literally makes one wince he’s so convincing. Beaten down/fearful and unable to imagine managing alone, she sticks. (We learn her father was like Earl.)
Jenna doubles as waitress and talented pie baker at a highway Diner/Pie Shop run by cliché/irascible Cal (a pitch perfect Eric Anderson). On the menu are, in part: Wake Up and Smell the Coffee Pie, Devil’s Food Oasis Pie, Ginger Snap Out of It Pie, and Humble Crumble Rhubarb Pie. Throughout the piece, the young woman muses on recipes with titles that are metaphors of what’s going on in her life.
Keala Settle, Kimiko Glenn
Jenna’s only emotional support come from her fellow servers, Sassy, smart-alek, grounded Becky (Keala Settle) and gawky, virginal, Dawn (Kimiko Glenn), whom the ladies are trying to ease into the dating pool. Settle has a fine R & B voice and acts up a storm in her modest role. Glenn’s voice walks the line of screechy, but the actress delivers comedy with flair.
Flinty diner regular, Joe (Dakin Matthews), whose meal stipulations are exacting, also turns out to be unexpectedly perceptive about and sympathetic to Jenna’s difficulties. Unsurprisingly, the veteran actor is charming.
The diner, as conceived by Set Designer Scott Pask is cheerful-Hollywood-musical appealing if you don’t take notice of the piano loaded up with pies and the ostensibly invisible, on-stage band. (Is this necessary?!) Kitchen scenes are called out by wheeled, gridwork, storage shelves making transitions fluid. An ever present backdrop of bleak roadway with telephone poles reminds us where we are.
One night, Earl plies Jenna with liquor and, much to her shock and distress, impregnates her. (Betrayed By My Eggs Pie) Confection in hand, she visits her gynecologist only to discover the woman’s retired. Instead she finds the newly installed, sweet but seemingly bumbling Dr. Pomatter (Drew Gehling). Jenna tells him she’d prefer not to be congratulated.
Drew Gehling, Jessie Mueller
The two are immediately attracted. Though the doc declares he’s given up sugar, she leaves her pie. Watching him hesitantly sniff, taste, then gorge on it with eyes glazing over is magical. The audience erupts. Her concoctions, he later tells Jenna, are “Biblically good.”
Drew Gehling, with whom I am unfamiliar, is enchanting. The Andrew Garfield lookalike is progressively drawn, besotted, and lustful with such gusto and authenticity, he take us unquestioningly along. Thespian skills include physical comedy, an engaging voice and the ability to shift to believable gravitas.
As Jenna’s belly grows, she and Pomatter give in to a needful, exhilarating affair observed by wry Nurse Norma (Charity Angel Dawson). Stage direction of the couple’s encounters is exuberant, credible and rather hot. Along the way, Earl discovers his wife is pregnant and makes her promise never to love the baby more than him. This, he obtusely assumes, cements their commitment. (White Knuckle Cream Pie.)
Nick Cordero, Jessie Mueller
The only plausible answer to Jenna’s situation appears with the announcement of a pie contest whose prize is $20,000. Hopeful of escape, she starts to sequester money around the house for the entrance fee. At leisure after losing his job “…so it looks like you’ll be payin’ the bills around here,” Earl finds the cash. He’s furious. Now what?!
A secondary storyline involves Dawn’s resistant involvement with Ogie (the masterfully cast Christopher Fitzgerald) whom she initially connects with online. Her suitor is a geeky looking (think Book of Mormon) tax auditor and amateur magician who only eats white foods on Wednesday. Ogie turns up at the diner and doggedly refuses to leave until promised at least a second date. He knows what he wants.
Christopher Fitzgerald, Kimiko Glenn, Aisha Jackson
“Never Ever Getting Rid of Me” is one of the best numbers in the show, not the least because of the fleet-footed, pixilated Mr. Fitzgerald who highjacks our hearts. Not since he played Og (from Og to Ogie), the leprechaun in Finian’s Rainbow, has the actor had an opportunity like this to excel. Spot-on timing, priceless expressions, and a spastic jig are but a few examples of virtuosity. The things Ogie and Dawn have in common couldn’t be more quirky and amusing. A later glimpse at Revolutionary interest is inspired.
Waitress may be the best, warmest, least fussy staging ever executed by Director Diane Paulus. While we’re familiar with her all-bets-are-off production numbers – these, in fact, seem more character specific – intimate scenes are executed with restraint and finesse.
Choreographer Lorin Latarro makes his dances organic and fun.
Jessie Mueller, Dakin Matthews
NOW, lets talk about music and lyrics, the least effective part of the show. But for one or two songs, Sara Bareilles’ music is close to tuneless, her lyrics so pedestrian as to pass with little effect, her orchestrations dense. How she managed to feature in this production is a wonder.
Costumes by Suttirat Anne Larlab show real knowledge of locale, economics, and personality. Jonathan Dreans’s Sound Design is poor. Bass and drums too often drown out lyrics. Balance is nonexistent.
Photos by Joan Marcus Opening: Jessie Mueller
Waitress Book by Jessie Nelson Music & Lyrics by Sara Barielles Based on the film written by Adrienne Shelly Directed by Diane Paulus Brooks Atkinson Theatre 256 West 47th Street
Already broadly celebrated in Paris and London, Florian Zeller’s 2012 “tragic Farce” (the playwright’s term) places us squarely in a mind suffering from advanced dementia. That’s an oxymoron. One cannot be squarely inside anything whose parameters are frighteningly mercurial. Intimates are unfamiliar, geography morphs beneath one’s feet, time shifts back and forth, oblivious and cruel. Yet we are there, wherever there is, almost as surely as Zeller’s protagonist, André, The Father (Frank Langella).
An elegant, upper middle class Frenchman who was probably never likeable, André fights the onset of this disease with a long unassailable ego and every ounce of his considerable strength and intelligence. It’s as if Prospero (The Tempest) took on the typhoon called forth by his errant brain. We watch as self-sacrificing daughter, Anne (Kathryn Erbe) futilely tries to get him at-home help who can withstand his anger, confusion, and indignant denial.
Frank Langella
The play is a succession of scenes divided by blackouts with painful, flashing, proscenium lights – brain synapses? At first, we’re in André’s tasteful, bourgeois apartment shortly after his latest caregiver has fled in tears. He tells Anne that, among other failings, the woman stole his watch – André’s compass and an ongoing concern throughout. When it’s found in a cupboard behind the microwave where he stashes valuables, her obstinate father declares the only reason it wasn’t purloined is that he hid it. Why is Anne so unsympathetic, he demands, why is she not like the younger daughter he prefers?!
Brian Avers, Frank Langella
Every time the lights go off and on, time and place alter unsequentially. In the first vignette, Anne, who is divorced from Antoine (Charles Borland), says she’s moving to London to be with her lover, Pierre (Brian Avers) and must find a solution to her father’s inability to care for himself. In the next, André is living with Anne and a resentful Pierre to whom she seems to be married; then Antoine appears as her spouse. Both men seem to be current, both are not at first recognized. One of them repeatedly slaps the 80 year-old which is viscerally shocking. André regresses to a whimpering child.
One moment Anne appears to be a completely different woman, a blonde (Kathleen McNenny). In the next, she is ‘herself.’ A newly hired aide, Laura (Hannah Cabell), looks just like André’s absent daughter, who, spoiler alert, turns out to be long dead. The actor who plays Antoine shows up as a doctor; the blonde as his nurse.
Kathryn Erbe, Frank Langella
André is convinced Anne wants his apartment and will put him in a home. In his shaken mind, faces become interchangeable. Unmoored, he remembers only the last scene from which he tries to regain his bearings. We ricochet in time like a character out of a Kurt Vonnegut novel. The only consecutive aspect of the piece is increased incapacity, every incremental change palpably experienced. Charm turns to cruelty, paranoia, panic.
Frank Langella, Hannah Cabell
Keep your eyes on Scott Pask’s excellent Set. Each time the lights come up, things have changed. Artwork, photographs, books, and furniture disappear and return. To say this compounds the disorienting narrative is to minimize its effect. Between Mr. Langella’s inhabitation of this larger than life personality, Donald Holder’s disturbing Lighting Design, Fitz Patton’s evocative Music and Sound, and the map-less script, you may want to pack Dramamine.
Florian Zeller and translator Christopher Hampton have crafted an immensely affecting, immersive play in which we find ourselves sharing, rather than observing the protagonist’s experience.
Frank Langella
Frank Langella is simply brilliant. Whatever affectation you may have attributed to the actor during the mid portion of his long career, has, these last years, been jettisoned for newfound authenticity. The portrayal is wrenching; mercurial adjustments in an effort to appear more grounded completely credible. Rather than indulging in an appeal for sympathy, Langella plays André with callous rancor, a man whose formidable pride and then actual self is violently stripped away by an unseen hand.
As Anne, Kathryn Erbe is believably strong, exhausted, frustrated and devoted.
Director Doug Hughes has done a masterful job. The result- powerful, nuanced, clarity of acting in an environment of utter obscurity.
Photos by Joan Marcus Opening: Frank Langella, Kathryn Erbe
*Dylan Thomas
Manhattan Theatre Club presents The Father by Florian Zeller Translated by Christopher Hampton Directed by Doug Hughes Samuel J. Friedman Theater 261 West 47th Street
When Ray (Jeff Daniels) yanks Una (Michelle Williams) into his office lunchroom, we immediately know something’s very wrong. Vibrating with rage and panic, keeping his distance as if caged with a lioness, he wants to know how Una found him (a photo in a trade magazine) and what she wants. Fifteen years ago, 40 year-old Ray pursued and had sex with then 12 year-old Una shattering both their lives. He turned himself in, served time, moved, changed his name, and is in a relationship. She saw psychiatrists, traveled, finally holds down a job, and, after numerous lovers meant to punish her parents for separating them, has had a boyfriend.
He wears a shirt and tie like any white collar employee. She has on a thin, short, girlish dress and very high heels. (Costumes Ann Roth) Una closes the door, Ray opens it. Una kicks it closed with her foot. Ray opens it. Una slams it. His chin juts out; tension holds neck and shoulders rigid. She acts as if she’s in control but is obviously unstable. His words are spasmodic, hers measured.
Una insists on talking about what’s happened since. She’s aggressive, accusatory. Ray’s answers are succinct, defensive. He intermittently throws her coat and bag at the girl, trying to make her leave. She recalls how their liaison began, describing him as a predator. He remembers her preteen self as precocious, seductive. We watch him viscerally suffer.
She demands they go over what occurred the fateful night they were exposed. The two stories prove revelatory. Was the breech simply a matter of crossed wires? There are things Una kept from the police. Ray still thinks of her every day. Pain is omnipresent, internal conflict palpable, eruption imminent.
I saw the 2007 Manhattan Theatre Club production of this play which featured the same Director – Joe Mantello, the same Set Designer – Scott Pask, and, most importantly, one of the same leads – Jeff Daniels. Though details have faded, I remember feeling like the wind had been knocked out of me. Alas, that doesn’t happen this time around.
Jeff Daniels, who has grown as an actor over time, brings new comprehension and maturity to the role. Ray’s wrenching journey is manifest from the gut. Protest is torn from him, feelings bleed. Shame doesn’t prevent what the character perceives as love. In testament to David Harrower’s insightful writing, judgment about the immoral, illegal coupling doesn’t prevent one’s sympathy for the man. Daniels appears whole and credible.
Michelle Williams, however, does not. An actress I have admired elsewhere, Williams here seems all surface twitches. Either she hasn’t made decisions about Una’s emotions or her expression of them is too internal. Until the character breaks down at the end of the play, the stage belongs to Daniels. Without equal push-pull, the piece cannot be successful.
Director Joe Mantello, whose talents I have always appreciated, seems to have achieved only half what he set out to do.
Scott Pask’s sterile, gray Set Design provides an aptly cold and impersonal atmosphere.
Photos by Brigitte Lacomb
Blackbirdby David Harrower
Jeff Daniels, Michelle Williams
Directed by Joe Mantello
Belasco Theater
111 West 44th Street
Through June 11, 2016
Tickets at Telecharge or the box office
