Cooper’s London

THEATER

 

 

 

 

The Importance of Being Wilde:
Judas Kiss

I saw the original production of The Judas Kiss in 1998, was fascinated by the performances of Liam Neeson as Oscar Wilde and Tom Hollander as Bosie (Lord Alfred Douglas), and couldn’t quite understand why the play was not more highly regarded. With this current revival in London (originally at the innovative Hampstead Theatre and now in the West End for a limited time), the David Hare play seems, at last, to be reaping the appreciation it deserves both as a well-made text and as a strong evening of theatre. It’s completely convincing in its presentation of Wilde, Robbie Robb, and the ineffable Lord Alfred (Bosie) Douglas.

The great success of the production must be attributed to the directing by Neil Armfeld who gets from his performers completely committed performances all of which deserve notice. But there is no doubt that for most people the triumph of the evening is the performance of Rupert Everett as the older Oscar Wilde. In Act One he is about to be arrested but cannot leave the love of his life, Bosie, to escape to the Continent, though everyone is urging him to do so and even leaving him enough time for an escape. In Act Two, he is living with Bosie after his years in jail and receives, definitively from his lover, what everyone has been predicting, that Judas kiss. That he recognizes its probability himself and yet keeps hoping it will not be so is one of the strengths of this nuanced performance.

Displaying sardonic wit at every turn (with quips mostly made up by Hare but completely in character with what we know about Wilde’s repartee), yet heartbreaking in his pathos and degradation, Everett makes us understand the character as well as the argument of the play. His passivity, his searing intelligence, his self-destructive hubris, and his fatigue are all very strongly conveyed; but mostly we come to know of his commitment to an unconditional love of Bosie, even as he recognizes the young man’s mendacity, hypocrisy, self-delusion, and betrayal. Everett ‘s is simply one of the best performances in the West End at the moment, and for that alone you should try to see this production. Cal MacAninch is moving as the faithful Robbie; and the young Robert Fox, a petulant yet oddly appealing Bosie (convincing himself constantly of his own sincerity that everyone can see through), is impressive and a worthy stage partner for the other two. The play is haunting, sad, touching, and as England finally passes its laws in favour of gay marriage, remarkably topical and thought-provoking.

At the Duke of York’s Theatre
104 St Martin’s Lane, London WC2
until 6 April 2013.

Cooper’s London

GOOD WILL SHAKESPEARE:
THE BEAT GOES ON…
An Orphan in Stratford

The one play not to miss at Stratford this season is The Orphan of Zhao in a new adaptation by James Fenton. The play is probably the Hamlet of China and is quite an extraordinary story. Greg Doran (Stratford’s new artistic director) has given it a wonderfully conceived treatment, clearly influenced by Brecht’s Theatre of Alienation concepts at their most successful.

Beginning with a balladeer who sets the scene (a lovely and ultimately affection-inducing turn from Jeremy Avis) and who returns regularly, magical aspects of the tale are dealt with in various ways including puppetry influenced by Eastern traditions that is highly dramatic. Characters address the audience, engage them, arrive announcing their biographies – never do you not realize you are in a theatre being entertained and yet never do you not suspend disbelief and accept the actors for the characters they are supposed to be. Feeling also a bit like one of Shakespeare’s really strong, plot-driven istory plays, the story is said to be based on real incidents in the history of China deriving from the 5th Century before the Christian era.

The play exists in several versions, but as part of a season in the Swan Theatre that sets Shakespeare in the context of his times, the version adapted here is the popular one from the 17th century. Given that there is a ballad/fairy tale element to the characters, they are remarkably complex and recognizable not only as archetypes but as human beings as well. And the acting, as always in a Greg Doran production, is at the highest level. Everyone does his or her part exquisitely well, but I was particularly struck by the Princess of Lucy Briggs-Own, by Jake Fairbrother as the Orphan of Zhao and by Chris Lew Kum Hoi as the ghost of the son of the doctor, Cheng Ying, who is played with immense sympathy and pain by Graham Turner. But the star of the show ulitmately, aside from the Orphan himself in Part Two, is the superb Joe Dixon who plays the villain and pivot of the plot, Tu’an Gu.

The play is a commentary on autocratic government versus enlightened authority, full of paradigms about Totalitarianism that make it politically relevant to all eras, and drawing parallels to the history of China and Europe in the 20th century and even right now. But ultimately it works because you care about the characters from the very first moments of the play. And because its is brilliantly lit, costumed and designed, you also retain a strong visual memory of each character from their first entrance. The Orphan of Zhao is definitely worth the trip.

In repertory at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, until 28 March 2013.

Wiving it Merrily in Stratford    

The new production of The Merry Wives of Windsor introduce a new director to Stratford, Phillip Breen–and on the evidence of this production, we should begin anticipating his next as soon as the curtain falls. Breen has imagined the play in the Windsor of today, yet somehow also evoked the period of its composition– perhaps because of the wonderful set that evokes the old town, new suburbs and a scary Herne’s Oak. Not a line reading goes awry; and the cast is strong and hilarious because they are playing the characters not as comic caricatures but as real people.

Desmond Barrit is a curmudgeonly con-man of immense charm as Falstaff; and the merry wives themselves are brilliantly differentiated: Sylvestra le Touzel is a solid, stolid and somewhat smug Meg Page; Alexandra Gilbreath is a fun-loving and slightly louche yet respectable Alice Ford; and Anita Dobson as Mistress Quickly steals the scene every time she appears , and is a wonderful Queen of the Fairies in the last scene in the bargain. One empathises with Frank Ford’s insane jealousy (both the pain and the insanity) as well as George Page’s blocky, bourgeois belief in his wife and in his right to dictate the marriage of his daughter, Anne. All the townsfolk and hangers on are delineated with great care and precision, down to the children being taught by Sir Hugh Evans, the Welsh parson (based, it is thought, on Shakespeare’s own teacher). Shallow, Slender, Simple, Fenton and even the host of the Garter Inn are memorable cameos and make real sense of the story. Laughs abound and are never arbitrary.

Playing in repertory at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon until 23 January 2013.

Meantime, in London: Delectable and Kissable Kate

Here it is again – another Kiss Me, Kate, this time at the Old Vic. Trevor Nunn, who has directed about 30 Shakespeare plays in his time as well as several blockbuster musicals, does it again, and it is a splendid production! I have seen it done more revealingly; I have seen it done more spectacularly; I have heard it sung more evenly. But this is a very substantial evening in the theatre and enormous fun in the bargain. And if you’re in the mood for entering  a time warp into 1948 and seeing how they did it on Broadway in those days; and if you feel like seeing Kiss Me, Kate, this version will not disappoint.

Transferring from the Chichester Theatre Festival of last summer where it was a big hit, Kate adapts well to the ambience of the Old Vic in London. Hannah Waddington, who is simply magnificent, plays the spoiled, grumpy but ultimately loveable Lili Vannessi who plays Kate in The Taming of the Shrew. Alex Bourne is Fred/Petruchio – he has the looks and presence to have been in the original production. These leads have, as they used to say, chemistry. The choreography by Stephen Mears is energetic, exhilarating and inventive; and the number “Too Darn Hot” is dazzling in his hands. David Burt and Clive Rowe pretty much stopped the show when they brushed up their Shakespeare. Instead of a pantomime this year, the Old Vic now has a Christmas show of sophistication, glamour and wit for grown-ups.

Playing at the Old Vic Theatre, London, until 2 March 2013.

 What Will Would?

The famous all-male Twelfth Night first performed at the Globe Theatre ten years ago has been revived, directed by Tim Carroll, and then transferred to the West End’s Apollo Theatre. A well-conceived permanent set does double duty for it, as well as for a very good Richard III, with which it plays in repertory, with Mark Rylance in the title role.

Get there early and watch the men making up and getting ready in a pretend dressing room area onstage before the play starts; a lovely conceit because, when you see them reappear in their parts (some dressed as the women they play), the mixture of recognition and surprise is a singular experience. Mark Rylance is a standout as Olivia, performed as if played by a male actor in Kabuki who suddenly discovers uncontrollable sexual desire when he/she first sees “Cesario” – performed in a finely judged characterization of Viola and Viola-in-drag by Johnny Flynn. Malvolio is warmly played by Stephen Fry – the perfect, gentlemanly Puritan who is overthrown by sexual desire and ambition when gulled by people he has offended.

One of the most striking performers is Paul Chahidi as a plump, middle-aged, extremely intelligent and wry Maria. The production is pitch-perfect and the line readings are vibrant with primary meanings and subtexts.  Having men play women’s roles, though not exactly as in Shakespeare’s theatre (they were teenage boys then, not fully mature men) still illuminates many things about how the original audiences perceived the productions and about the sexual ambiguities of the tale. However, the real success here is simply that the text is brilliantly served, impeccably acted and at times allows the darkness of the self-delusion, frustration and anger in the characters to come through clearly. If you can get to only one thing in London this season, I would say this should be it.

Playing at the Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London until 10 February 2013 in repertory with Richard III.

Cooper’s London

 

 

New Conquistadors, New Lingua Franca: Spanish!
Funny, Poignant, and Creative

The Unfinished Exploits of
Pedro de Valdiva (London);
André and Dorine (New York)

As with the Spanish novel, I believe the great breakthroughs and innovations in Spanish theatre are coming mainly from Latin America these days. The last show in this year’s festival of Latin American plays in London on 15 and 16 September this year was from Chile and was called The Unfinished Exploits of Pedro de Valdivia. Three actor musicians/mimes/puppeteers in their thirties (Tryo Teatro Banda) told the story of the Conquistadors, how and why they arrived in Chile, the exploited masses, the battles, the creation of cities in 75 minutes of uninterrupted physical theatre that was witty, ironic, hilarious, moving – and a great history lesson. The music was terrific too.

The play was based on the letters that Chile’s first royal governor, Pedro de Valdivia, wrote to King Charles V of Spain and the men did it all, playing about 12 instruments between them (including bandoneon, 17^th-century open horn, violin, drums, trumpet, clarinet), singing, dancing, acting many characters, miming and using imaginative puppetry. When they had to stage an epic battle they poured sand on a table, formed it into the mountains, poured sugar on top to remind one of the snow and give a sense of the height, poured out blue crystals to represent the Pacific and the rivers to be crossed, used flags to represent moving armies and rebellious natives, and convinced the audience to partake imaginatively in the building and destruction of various cities. I found the language and movement were so creative (even not understanding much Spanish and having to rely on the surtitles) that I never lost concentration and did notice that the children in the audience were completely captivated.

The audience was varied in age but about one-half Spanish-speaking. Pedro de Valdiva won the Critic’s Award for Best Play of 2010 at home and was shown at Chile’s National theatre. Tryo Teatro Banda also did a brilliant play about Jemmy Button, according to people I met in the bar before and after the show; and there was much praise for the other offerings of this 10-day festival of award-winning theatre from Brazil, Argentina and Mexico. This was the fifth festival of its kind in London and another is promised for next year, so watch out for it. Meantime, you can catch the Tryo Teatro Banda in Chile!

Tryo Teatro Banda: Chile. Web site
Pedro de Valdivia, La Gesta Inconclusa
(The Unfinished Exploits of Pedro de Valdivia)
Written by Francisco Sánchez and Company. Directed by Sebastián Vila.
Performed by Francisco Sánchez, Pablo Obreque & César Espinoza

 

 

Apollo’s Girl

André  and Dorine (New York)
Kulunka Theatre Company

The Kulunka Theatre Company from the Basque region of Spain touched down all too briefly in New York recently at the YMCA’s Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater. What a triumph! With only expressive soft masks made of fabric and expressive body language, Kulunka tells the story of André and Dorine, their son, and a host of supporting characters―all played by three actors using gesture, movement and fierce theatrical intelligence.

The script follows the life of André and Dorine from the present (their late middle age) back to their youth in the swinging sixties and forward to the heartbreaking progression of Dorine’s Alzheimer’s, Andre’s coping strategies, and the trajectory of their son and his own family. It’s a love story in which the performances are straight from, and to, the soul. When they are funny, it’s like a sudden beacon from the unshaded light bulb that André keeps changing; when they are caught up in the inevitable turns of the tale, the beacon goes dark. But never for long.  André‘s skill as a proudly-published writer, and Dorine’s as a cellist are brilliantly integrated into the story which, because of Kulunka’s minute observations of the human condition and their ability to transform them into a powerful theatrical experience, is a journey we willingly take with them. They will steal your heart, and keep it.

While anyone can understand the atavistic appeal of masks and mime, Kulunka’s outstanding brilliance and lapidary art are truly universal–equal parts of love and genius.  The actors (Jose Dault, Garbiñe Insausti, Edu Carcamo) and their inspired director (Iñaki Rikarte) have been on the road  with this and other plays in their repertoire for years; make sure to keep track of them for the future (www.kulunkateatro.com). They are sure to be back, and were presented as part of an ongoing program by Spain Culture in New York-Consulate General of Spain (spainculture.us/city/newyork/)―an excellent source of cultural attractions throughout the United States and throughout the year.

Cogito: John Branch

 

 


Einstein: Beached at BAM

In the 70s and 80s, Einstein on the Beach left people feeling they were on a hypnotic drug, but by the end of its current reincarnation, it left me wanting to do drugs.

Einstein on the Beach might be called an instance of total theater (if you separate that term from the particular use to which Richard Foreman has applied it) or of Wagnerian gesamtkunstwerk. It employs text, music, and theater arts, giving equal weight to all of them: minimalist music by Philip Glass, direction and design by Robert Wilson, and minimalist choreography by Lucinda Childs. (All of them worked on the present staging, which is apparently a pretty close recreation of the original; it began a world tour in March that will run into next spring.) The playbill is cagey on the origin of its words, crediting Glass with “music/lyrics” on the first page while later attributing the text to Lucinda Childs, Samuel M. Johnson, and Christopher Knowles and assigning copyright for the libretto to Robert Wilson. Wherever they came from, it does have words in the form of speeches and stories; there’s also a fair amount of the vocalise style that Glass often uses. First performed in 1976, Einstein on the Beach returns now and then to bedazzle or bedevil us, most recently at BAM in September.

The opera evokes elements of Albert Einstein’s life and work. A figure resembling him plays violin and sticks his tongue out. Glass-walled elevators relate to Einstein’s thought experiment regarding a beam of light passing through a moving elevator; one elevator appears to us to be horizontal, including its occupant, and the other appears to be vertical, which relates to Einstein’s dethroning of privileged points in space. (Only in a gravity field or in relation to a given point can one say anything is up, down, or horizontal.) Clocks and watches remind us that there is no absolute measure of time either. Much of the stage movement is slowed down—maybe another suggestion that time and motion are relative.As if it might otherwise be forgotten, which I doubt, the production also reminds us of Einstein’s connection with nuclear weapons. Valiantly upholding the “beach” end of the deal, a single conch shell now and then stands, or rather sits forlornly, on the stage.

But something about this piece of total theater strikes me as totalitarian. It cares little if at all what you think while you watch and listen. The volume level in many sections is high and unvarying. The set sometimes moves around more than the stage performers do. The strange symmetry and stark (often black-and-white) contrasts of the visual elements attract the eye in some fundamental way, as the musical rhythms and repetitions do the ear. Yet it’s easy to ignore because it’s not really about anything. Einstein on the Beach defies reflection, as if trying to one-up Susan Sontag’s “Against Interpretation” essay: interpret this!

It’s easy to see in it certain modernist fascinations: with machines and the mechanical (many of the performers’ movements appear mechanical), with mechanical production or reproduction (all of the sounds, including the human voices, are delivered to us through electro-mechanical means). It achieves a kind of flatness in not representing anything other than itself, and its surfaces and volumes remind us of the discovery of geometry by modernist painters. The whole thing, in fact, resembles some kind of machine of mysterious purpose.

There’s much I haven’t mentioned: the very odd courtroom scene, with its speech about men but not women being equal before the law; the cheap-looking little spaceship that moves on a wire; the lovers-on-a-train scene (which might be vaudevillian fun if it lasted two minutes, but it’s more like 20); the dances (which use some numerical cleverness but aren’t as hypnotic as they used to look, according to my companion); the “space machine” whose back wall reminded me of LED calculator displays; and more. Amid the tedium of its four-hours-plus, there are wonders to some of the stage images.

Einstein on the Beach seems to me an experiment to test the possibility of abstraction in opera. Other representational arts had begun an abstract turn years earlier, so in a way it was high time, even past time, for opera to try. I’d have to be much wiser, and/or bolder, to presume to judge what the experiment showed. But Einstein on the Beach, which once seemed so various, so beautiful, so new, today appears dull, indulgent, and annoying.

Einstein’s twin paradox comes to mind: this opera left and came back to us nearly unaged, but we’re older now. And nowadays there’s never a drug dealer around when you want one.

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Cooper’s London

 

 

To the Opera: Older is Better…

To the English National Opera to see their production of the opera Caligula by composer Detlev Glanert. People have been praising the direction by Benedict Andrews and the conducting of the gifted Ryan Wigglesworth; as well as the commitment and dramatic intelligence of the cast. Wow, I thought. Also, I know and am fascinated by the Camus play (which was done in London not that long ago with the compellingly and memorably brilliant Caligula of Michael Sheen); and as for this score, on first hearing I liked a lot of the sonorities of the orchestration. I also think that the second half does lift the work. If you accept all the givens of this idiom and this approach to contemporary opera writing, then you have to admire the whole. A fascinating old Emperor in modern clothes!

However, I find that despite whipping myself about it, I just cannot accept it. My spirit balks. My mind goes numb. For me the vocal lines seem to be doing nothing much, so why not just have the play with incidental music? What I find myself wanting to know is when this kind of academically correct music writing (that used to get aspiring composing students an A+ at Princeton or Yale in the 1970s) is actually going to be perceived as a dead end with no actual dramatic heft, not much room for any individuality of voice (everything sounds like a rip-off of late Berg without the lyricism), and minimal ability to communicate with the general audience? Or to carry the emotional weight of a story? 

I modestly submit, on the other hand, that there is an infallible antidote: early opera.  And If you’re interested in early opera (how could you not be?) or curious about how it all got started, come and join me at the Cadogan Hall in London from 9 – 11 October and enjoy total immersion for three days. We’ve got lectures; we’ve got live demonstrations by the Royal Northern College of Music’s top students; and Master Classes by soprano Lynne Dawson (who sang at Princess Diana’s funeral) and Professor Stefan Janski, who heads the college in Manchester. 

You will meet the performers and the professors! You will learn not only how to stage an opera by Monteverdi or Cavalli, but how Lully cunningly took opera to France and developed the French style! You will find out everything you ever wanted to know about early opera’s ambassadors to history―the Castrati! And you will  discover how this fabulous art form took flight just over four hundred years ago and why its pleasures remain so seductive today.

Until the advent of the cinema, Opera was the the most popular art form in Western culture and a central artistic and social experience–the common denominator that united Aristocrat and Everyman. For a unique and intimate experience shared with insiders: join us

Fearless (Re)Discovery

A DOLL’S HOUSE

People who have been going to the Gate Theatre in London regularly know about Carrie Cracknell the director. But attending her production of A Doll’s House at the Young Vic has made me put her in the category of directors whose work I want to follow.

There were many exciting things about this interpretation — not least the very intelligent and dramatic adaptation by Simon Stephens, who was doing Ibsen’s play for the fourth time. This time he has certainly cracked it, and the set and costumes by Ian MacNeill and Gabrielle Dalton completely enhance his concept. This is a reading that makes you think about how revolutionary the play must have been to its first audiences. Cracknel places it in its original period (it was first produced in 1879), but the set itself is a kind of overgrown late-Victorian early-modernist doll’s house inhabited by the characters, a house that turns when people move from room to room so that the action is always near the audience. The performances of Hattie Morahan as Nora, Dominic Rowan as Torvald and Susannah Wise as Kristine, in particular, are astonishing in their detail and how well they convey the various emotions—or lack of same. And the sense of the family and its situation is very comprehensively and intensely conveyed.

But the real discovery is clearly Carrie Cracknell, who has made of this play something fresh, astonishing and strong. The night I went the audience actually gasped at times, it was so involved and somehow so surprised, and even laughed in many places, reminding one of the elements of black comedy in Ibsen that often get overlooked. The sense of ensemble, of everyone on that stage not only inhabiting his or her role but working with and off the others, is very potent. With its swirling and twirling set, it was a brilliantly choreographed production. Nobody tripped and it was only afterwards that I wondered at the sheer audacity of the technique. It was utterly absorbing. I can hardly wait to see what Carrie Cracknell takes on next and how she handles it; and I will keep you informed in good time.

A Doll’s House played at the Young Vic in London until 4 August,
but I would not be surprised if there is a subsequent transfer
to a suitable West End  theatre.                                   —MC

Apollo’s Girl

 

 

Latinbeat and a Little More

We’ve got two calls to action here: before I get down with Latin Beat  I must warn you that you have less than 24 hours to see Mike Leigh’s Topsy-Turvy. Part of the Film Society’s series of NYFF’s past-perfect picks, it’s being shown only once—tonight at 6pm. Whatever your plans, you will just have to change them. Trust me. Even if you have to beg at the box office or whine piteously on the standby line.

Mike Leigh has a huge palette, but Topsy-Turvy was one of his biggest surprises, and surely one of the best. Like a favorite uncle’s 19th-century chromolithograph come to life, Leigh’s gorgeous take on the Victorian era, its infatuation with all things Japanese during the 1885 exposition, the fabulous Gilbert and Sullivan, their evergreen Mikado, the backstage tumult that made it sing, and the intimate pains of Gilbert’s marriage should not, and cannot, be missed. And if you can’t get in, flood the Film Society’s office with pleas for an encore showing.

And now, back to Latinbeat. http://www.filmlinc.com/films/series/latinbeat-2012

Like its namesake, Chinese Takeaway (Argentina) will fill you up, but leave you wanting more. There is a sly, deliciously loopy humor to the film, anchored by just the right emotional heft and some serious issues. A really ingenious story, told through Sebastián Borensztein’s artful writing and direction and the performances of Ricardo Darin and Ignacio Huang, is matched by technical values that make the entire meal a pleasure. The jokes are actually funny, and the cast has as much fun as the audience. There are surprises, too (also ingenious). In fact, the director claims it’s based on a “true incident”. Maybe. But, on the other hand (no spoilers here), you will have to stay through the credits to find out what that incident was. DO NOT LEAVE THE THEATER! It’s definitely worth the wait. There are few comedies of this skill and wit around. Make sure you find time to enjoy it.

Then, there’s Unfinished Spaces (Cuba). It’s an architectural, political and moral tragedy that had me poised to open my window, like a refugee from Network, to scream “I’m sick and tired and I’m not going to take it any more!” Of course I will tell you why. Please bear with me (second call to arms and digression alert):

When you have seen a lot of architecture, it’s hard not to be aware that it’s not just about the building itself, or the materials it’s made of, but where, and how, it fits into its cityscape. In New York, the cityscape was on a human scale for more than a century, with the occasional iconic skyscraper popping up for appreciative ogling. It made for a uniquely varied and compelling skyline. But no more. Now it’s become all about that scourge of the urban landscape: air rights. So that anyone with enough money and lack of care can snatch them, grab the capital, and put up something both overwhelming and overscale wherever it can be shoehorned in. Designed, of course, by a starchitect who needs to keep his name in the limelight and his staff on salary.

A perfect example: Frank Gehry’s 8 Spruce Street, plunged into a streetscape of once-and-former three-story houses—an ever-diminishing reminder that New York was once both vibrant and humane. Where J & R now stands there was a theater that staged the American premiere of Don Giovanni;  in living memory, there was an aged bookseller nearby whose dusty volumes were on offer near the corner of Park Row and Anne Street. More: the row of modest brownstones opposite Carnegie Hall have been replaced by the current candidate for “New York’s tallest building,” One 57, with 90 stories, by Christian de Portzamparc. The list grows longer every day.

But it’s not just about size: it’s about context, and celebrity. The Hearst Building was designed by Joseph Urban in 1928. It’s understated but sturdy, and was always meant to support a tower. A matching tower, for which Urban’s original design remained unbuilt because the Depression intervened—until 2006, when Norman Foster’s Hearst Tower opened its doors to receive the Hearst Corporation’s working stiffs back to their new glass-and-steel quarters. Foster has specialized in work that calls attention to itself not only for its size, but for its inappropriateness. (Anybody remember when Prince Charles went on a tear about the architect’s proposed addition to London’s National Gallery—the “monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much-loved and elegant friend”?) So each new hulking contestant is another nail in the coffin of peaceful coexistence of periods and styles; its success depends on how much noise it can make, how much attention it can steal, and for how long.

Which brings me back, believe it or not, to Unfinished Spaces. In 1961, Fidel Castro decided to build a multi-disciplinary national arts school on what had been Batista’s pride and joy: an exquisite golf course for Cuba’s pre-Revolutionary elite. Three architects were commissioned, each one to design different buildings for different disciplines; their designs were unique, free and venturesome for the era. They incorporated historical building materials and iconic themes, and modern technology, driven by Utopian ideas. The ballet school in particular, by Italian architect Vittorio Garatti, was as graceful as the performers it was meant to house. But nothing, in art or architecture, ever goes exactly as planned.

The new buildings attracted a certain amount of spite and resistance; someone whispered in Castro’s ear that they were “not good architecture,” and work was stopped in its tracks. The ballet school was closest to being finished, so it became a repository for a number of interim enterprises. But without maintenance, the buildings decayed and turned into unloved wrecks. Until the pendulum began its return journey, drawing the attention of author John Loomis book,  filmmakers Alyssa Nahmias and Ben Murray and, finally, the regard of the World Monument Fund and a pending designation as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Enter Carlos Acosta, a Cuban ballet hero who has achieved superstar status abroad, who will be returning to Cuba to direct the Cuban National Ballet, to be housed in Garatti’s former Ballet School building, to be “converted” (according to the New York Times) by Norman Foster. Acosta and Foster are “working together to transform the buildings for future use”. Unlike Joseph Urban, long dead, whose plans for the original Hearst Tower were simply tossed on the junk heap, Vittorio Garatti’s plans are very much extant, as is Garatti (now living in Italy) himself. How exciting it would be to have the architect’s vision completed (with updated systems), rather than completely obscured by another architect who revels in the practice.

Shooting for almost a decade, the filmmakers have managed to turn a dauntingly complex story into a sizzling narrative and balancing act. It’s sure to haunt you as the final chapters, still being written, are played out. Although the film is scheduled for PBS broadcast in the fall, Latinbeat has done us the favor of making it available on the big screen; for this subject, with its stunning visuals, it’s the way to go. And the filmmakers will be there in person for both screenings (August 11 and 13).

Cogito: John Branch

 

 

At the Olympics: Then and Now

The modern Olympic Games are many things: a form of public entertainment reminiscent of the Roman circuses, an exercise in marketing, a display of TV craft and technology, a form of contest between nations, supposedly an invitation to tourism, and often an attempt at urban regeneration. (They’re sometimes financial boondoggles as well.). What they’re not is a good likeness of the ancient games on which they’re supposedly modeled.

Take the torch relay, for instance, and the carrying of a so-called sacred flame into the arena. That wasn’t even part of the modern games when Baron Pierre de Coubertin launched them in 1896. It was actually invented by Germany for the 1936 Berlin meet, often called the Nazi Olympics, and the ceremony was documented by Leni Riefenstahl for her film Olympia. (Understanding of the original Greek games owes much to German classicists; it’s ironic that the modern ones owe something to a different breed of Germans, to put it nicely.) The ancients had no need to carry anything sacred, flame or otherwise, to Olympia; the site itself was sacred. Pelops, an ancient mythical hero who won his bride in a chariot race, was venerated there. Far more important than that, though, the site and the games themselves were dedicated to the cult of Zeus—the athletic festival was in fact also a religious one—and his temple dominated the site.

The Greeks had more than one major sporting contest of this kind. In the first rank were the Sacred and Crown Games—held every four years at Olympia (the oldest and most honored of these gatherings) and at Delphi—along with biennial games at Nemea and Isthmia. Other, more local games arose as well, for instance at Athens, as time passed and Hellenic culture spread around the eastern Mediterranean. But Olympia maintained its primacy, even after the Romans took over Greece; Nero, following a long line of aristocrats, tyrants, and kings, deigned to compete there in a chariot race. (He was awarded the prize, despite falling off and failing to complete the course.)

Women, perhaps not surprisingly, had no role in these contests and little if any place among the spectators. (They weren’t participants in the first modern games either.) Married women were expressly forbidden to enter; one who actually did attend Olympia in disguise would have been put to death, but she was the daughter and sister of Olympic champions.

The modern games have become such a big business that name designers often sign up to fashion the uniforms for major national teams. For the 2012 London Olympics, Ralph Lauren outfitted the American team, Stella McCartney the British, and Giorgio Armani the Italian. (Surely I’m not the only one who finds this hard to detect.) In the ancient Olympics, what did they wear? Except for the charioteers, who donned a robe, the athletes wore nothing.

The London 2012 leviathan features 36 categories of sporting events, though some could be condensed (see list at events); such is the lineup over time that it’s hard to remember what’s in and what’s out. The ancient Olympic games began with a single foot race and, once they reached their full form, remained stable for centuries at five categories: chariot racing and other equestrian contests, the pentathlon, simple foot races, wrestling and related events, and a concluding race in battle armor.

There’s no end of other differences between what the Greeks did and what we do. (Readers wanting to learn more can consult Nigel Spivey’s The Ancient Olympics.) In Greece, athletics were an integral part of training for warfare, achieving physical beauty, even attaining the moral good. Philosophers knew and discussed all these conceptsand were often found at gymnasiums themselves. (When’s the last time you met one at your gym?)

Our winners may appear on a Wheaties box, but theirs became the subject of poems and statues. And the comfort we take for granted today is a far cry from the conditions for spectators at Olympia; they were so unpleasant that a disobedient slave might be threatened with the punishment of being sent there to watch. But the most telling difference was that, during the Olympic Games, a truce among all the city-states of the region was usually observed. The peace was grossly violated at least once, though, when a territorial war broke out at the site during the festival.

There are similarities,however. Our modern habit of paying lip service to pure and peaceful competition among athletes is undermined by the obvious fact that everyone tallies medal counts for their countries. In this the Greeks felt much the same; rival city-states not only competed through their athletes, but also in the monuments they built at the site to their winners.

There’s one thing about our modern games that I admire, and it echoes one aspect of Olympia. Then, as now, athletes competed for a prize with no material value: the prestige of being named victor. That honor often brought the Greek athletes substantial benefits elsewhere, as it does for competitors today, so the point may be moot, but somehow it warms my heart. In this at least, Baron de Coubertin got something nicely right when he re-invented the games of old for the present day.

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Cooper’s London

 

 

Julius Africanus is Big!

Once upon a time there was a famous Wayne and Schuster (remember them?) comic sketch spoofing Julius Caesar, where everyone was dressed in togas but the whole story was handled as if the assassination had happened on Dragnet. Since then, Julius Caesar has been set in many places and eras–and as far back as Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre the parallel to various contemporary tyrannical states has been drawn.

Greg Doran’s new production of Julius Caesar for the Royal Shakespeare Company builds on that tradition. Though the language is all Shakespeare’s Elizabethan England, the talk is about Ancient Rome. But when you enter the theatre you find yourself in an arena in an African country; people are celebrating a festival. At the entry to the arena, its back to the audience, stands the colossal statue of the dictator. The mood is contagious; the audience is caught up and, as the play starts (“Knew you not Pompey?…”), the aptness of setting the play in a contemporary and troubled African state with all its jockeying for power is understood by the spectators both on, and off, the stage.

Jeffery Kissoon is perfect as Caesar; Cyril Nri a crafty Cassius; and Adjoa Andoh touching and troubling as Portia;. All the characters make sense. But if you are collecting performances to remember (despite being clearly part of an ensemble that works together seamlessly), Ray Fearon is the Mark Antony you have been waiting for. His attractiveness, his power; his ability to switch from playboy and Caesarean acolyte, to calculating rhetorician, to steely and almost heartless triumvir, and finally to a philosophical warrior already irritated by and wary of the young Octavius, the range and energy that Fearon brings to his portrayal are breathtaking. But Paterson Joseph is equally compelling as a brilliant Brutus who is, indeed, the only one to join the assassination plot for selfless motives.

This production is strikingly theatrical and understands that power politics is theatre. And the funeral scene is a truly compelling climax and switching point in the play, as it should be. Fearon’s appearance to speak over the corpse of Caesar, in the way he shifts moods and plays his audience, is unforgettable.

Most of the individual moments that we all remember and treasure in this play were gripping in tone, and the rhythm of the evening is solidly worked out. Nevertheless, I thought the cast was still settling into the concept and there were a few awkward moments. Nor was I entirely convinced by the decision to keep up the African accents to the degree that they did – they could, I thought, have faded them a bit more into the background, though at times their lilt made for readings of familiar lines that certainly caught the attention.

The play was on at the main house in Stratford, but it is transferring to London for a run in August and September, and I suspect that by then it will have settled down completely. I found the performances so compelling and the concept so seriously intelligent that I’m tempted to see it again in London if I can, though it will not be quite the same on a proscenium stage as it was on RSC’s thrust stage at Stratford.

But I am also excited by the prospect because Greg Doran has explained in recent interviews that he was inspired to attempt the African setting after seeing an edition of Shakespeare’s complete works from Robben Island in which Nelson Mandela had written his name beside a passage from Julius Caesar. He was fascinated by this marginalia “asserting that [the play] spoke in a particular way to his continent.”

This made Doran ponder why Julius Caesar was the most heavily annotated play in that Robben Island Shakespeare. “Then, when I was talking to John Kani, the South African actor, he said to me: ‘Julius Caesar is Shakespeare’s African play.’ I think it was he that told me that Julius Nyerere, who was the first President of Tanzania, had translated the play into Swahili and also that it’s the play that is the most often performed in Africa. Then you look at African history over the past 50 years and see that there have been many candidates for casting Julius Caesar.”

This Julius Caesar is definitely one not to miss! It will play at the Noel Coward Theatre in London from 8 August until 15 September, and then tour throughout the UK. http://www.rsc.org.uk/buy-tickets/julius-caesar/ And it augurs well that Gregory Doran will be the next Artistic Director of the RSC.

P.S. The play was filmed for British Television and, with luck, may screen in the US later this year. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00twm0b

Apollo’s Girl

 

 

Hand Stories:
Lincoln Center Festival

There’s a reason why puppets have survived for so many millennia; like mimes, they distill and display our primal emotions, put us in touch with our childhood wonder, and spin out their tales in an intense shorthand that living actors cannot always match. Their smaller-than-life protagonists shine brightest in playing out the grandest stories.

Hand Stories has some big topics for us: the cruelty of China’s Cultural Revolution; the cruelty of struggling to live in an America besotted by money and pop culture; and especially the great value of tradition and close family ties that transcends eras and national borders.

It’s fair to say that Yeung Faϊ is truly a magician. In his hands, his cohort of exquisitely built and costumed silent little people become eloquent. They play out historical Chinese myths, fighting, flirting, laughing, maneuvering their tiny swords and fans like lightning, giving us a glimpse of characters who have survived for centuries while ”speaking” to the here-and-now.

When Yeung switches to our own era, his brilliance extends not only to the antics of his puppets, but to the ways in which he finds visual metaphors for complex events. The Revolution is played by a marvelous dragon with silver scales; as an artist/villain of the Revolution, his father is made to wear a dunce cap and a confessional signboard; when Yeung performs on the streets of New York, he, too, wears a sign: “Fifth Generation Puppet Master.” But in a city where tradition is unimportant, his only audience is a puppet angel who gives advice with a New York accent, while demanding money for the favor.

His imagination is both playful and heart-breaking. Some of the puppets carry tiny puppets of their own which, by sleight of Yeung’s hands, live an independent life. For one scene, he uses the back of a puppet stage as a cramped prison cell where he must curl up with a copy of Chairman Mao’s little red book; he uses the back of another stage to represent his subsequent “freedom” in America—an equally cramped room, covered with newspapers—all he can afford. It’s not surprising he has chosen to live offstage in Hong Kong and France

Like most of the Festival’s events, it’s ars longa and vita brevis; Yeung’s consummate artistry (and that of his stage colleague, Yoann Pencolế, and the production crew) is really fleeting: You have only two days to share his keen imagination and the alchemy of his hands (July 24—25, at the Clark Studio Theater). Make haste! Tickets