Macbeth

The production of Macbeth at the Classic Stage Company (CSC), directed and designed by John Doyle, is a streamlined affair. It runs 1:40 without an intermission; it has a cast of only nine people; it makes do with a bare wooden thrust stage with movable benches and a plain wooden throne; and the costumes are simple, in dark colors and topped by overlong blankets.

Corey Stoll
Photo: Joan Marcus

I'm not sure who the audience is supposed to be. The production is pretty straightforward, so it would seem to be appropriate for a wide range of audiences, including newbies. However, many of the performers play multiple roles, and it can be difficult to tell who they are, particularly since women sometimes play men, the costumes give little clue as to class or position, and characters who are family members are cast from different races. I don't mean to criticize these decisions per se. I enjoy multicultural casting, and I would gladly live in a world where Mary Beth Peil is king. But the decisions detract rather than add to the play's intelligibility.

Mary Beth Peil
Photo: Joan Marcus

The audience at the performance I attended was full of young people, in their teens and even younger. Some watched attentively; a few fell asleep; some seemed to be daydreaming; and most laughed at any moment that was funny in a familiar and recognizable way. They particularly enjoyed Nadia Bowers as Lady Macbeth (as did I), and I suspect that's because she has the gift of making Shakespearean English sound clear and even contemporary. Bowers also does the evil thing rather deliciously. Overall, however, the show does a disservice to young audiences by obfuscating rather than elucidating the goings-on.

Nadia Bowers
Photo: Joan Marcus

(A strange and distracting problem with this production is the cumbersome blankets that the cast members must schlepp around. They frequently threaten to trip up the performers--and sometimes actually do. At one point, Lady M rises in a pointed and sinuous manner from lying atop Macbeth. It's a fabulous piece of character work, except that the night I saw it, Bowers had to keep kicking away part of a blanket that had caught her foot.)

Of course, Macbeth ultimately relies on the quality of the actor essaying the lead role. Corey Stoll is uneven. Sometimes he is compelling, clear, and even fascinating. Other times, he seems curiously uninvolved. His version of the famous speech after Lady M's death is so off-hand as to be little more than a bunch of words.

Overall, this is not a must-see Macbeth. It's not bad, but it's also not distinct or distinguished. It just kinda is.

Wendy Caster
(third row, audience right, press ticket)

The Cradle Will Rock

Marc Blitzstein's 1937 "play in music," The Cradle Will Rock, uses theatre as a political soapbox. Its scathing depictions of the hypocrisies of capitalism, religion, and other societal icons remain painfully apt today, and there is no doubt that it is an important work. It is also dull.

Lara Pulver
Photo: Joan Marcus

John Doyle's direction uses cutesy devices to try to liven up the evening, but he can't fight the reality that 90 minutes of in-your-face lecturing set to nonmelodious music is a slog.

It doesn't help that Ann Hould-Ward's costumes, with all of the performers wearing blue and gray work clothes, add a layer of monotony to the proceedings and remove the physical cues that help to distinguish not only character from character but also class from class.

The cast--Ken Barnett, Eddie Cooper, Benjamin Eakeley, David Garrison, Ian Lowe, Kara Mikula, Lara Pulver, Sally Ann Triplett, Rema Webb, and Tony Yazbeck--is excellent. It is a treat to hear their beautiful unmiked voices.

But a lecture is a lecture, and the evening simply doesn't work for me. (However, the show received an enthusiastic standing ovation the night I saw it.)

Wendy Caster
(2nd row, audience right, press ticket)
Show-Score: 70

As You Like It

I saw John Doyle's production of As You Like It at the CSC at an early preview, and this isn't a review per se. It's just some thoughts.

• Yes, some of the performers do play instruments.
  
• It's 90 minutes long, sans intermission, with chunks cut out. Doyle always thinks he knows better than geniuses how to present their work. If you don't know the show, you might want to read a synopsis before you go.
  
• That being said, it is a pretty enjoyable production.
  
• The poster is completely wrong for the production's mood.
  
• I loved Doyle's scenic design, except for the parts that got in the performers' way and risked knocking them unconscious.
  
• Doyle has Ellen Burstein sit for a really, really long time on an uncomfortable trunk (her feet don't even reach the ground) before she actually says anything, much as he had George Takei in Pacific Overtures sit on a uncomfortable chair (you could see him swaying) for a really, really long time before he said anything. In both cases, it was quite distracting.
  
• Burstein has never worked for me in anything other than contemporary pieces. There is something about her voice that is thin, flat, and modern. Her "seven ages of man" speech is unimpressive. On the other hand, she  excels with one liners, dismissive hand gestures, and wry looks.
  
• A few of the performers are so busy showing how fast they can speak Shakespeare's language that they forget to be intelligible. It's particularly a problem when their backs are to us, which happens with some regularity. It's not a speed contest, folks. Enunciate!
  
• It's always a treat to see Bob Stillman do his thing at the piano.
  
• Hannah Cabell should be a star. She is always excellent and quite likable. It turns out that she has a lovely singing voice as well. Cabell makes an amazing and entertaining Rosalind.
  
• Yeah, do go see this.

Wendy Caster

(2nd row on the side, behind a couple who kept talking, the female of whom gave me the finger when I shushed her despite the fact she was likely annoying the performers as well as me. Tdf ticket.)

Pacific Overtures

I am not a fan of John Doyle's, as evidenced in my review of his production of Passion, so I didn't plan to see his production of Pacific Overtures at CSC. But three things changed my mind: (1) a friend saw the show and said that the singing was excellent; (2) the stage had been reconfigured from the CSC's usual awkward layout with its problematic sight lines; and (3) inexpensive tickets became available through the Theatre Development Fund. So I decided to go, just keeping my expectations low.

And I had a wonderful time.

(By the way, if you're not familiar with Pacific Overtures, you can find out more about it here and here.)

The Color Purple

The Color Purple has been well-reviewed all over the place, and I generally agree that it is a strong production of a moving show. But I have a serious ax to grind.

In Alice Walker's novel The Color Purple, the protagonist Celie, who has been breathtakingly mistreated from birth, comes to life when she becomes lovers with the vibrant Shug. Shug helps Celie reclaim herself--and introduces her to what her body can do. She teaches Celie about her "button" and its magic orgasmic powers.

So, silly me, when I saw that the song list included "Push da Button," I happily anticipated a lovely lesbian love/sex song.

And instead got a song teaching women how to please their men!!!!

In this version of The Color Purple, Celie and Shug's relationship is underplayed almost to invisibility. While the heterosexual couples bump and grind, Celie and Shug hug. While Harpo and Sophia's relationship is highlighted, Celie and Shug's is lowlighted. It's truly infuriating!

When John Doyle famously pared The Color Purple to what the New York Times calls "its essence," he missed its soul.

Wendy Caster
(P14; tdf ticket)

The Visit

Photo: Joan Marcus

To watch Chita Rivera in The Visit is to watch a great artist at the top of her game, fully in command of the stage and fully realized in the performance that she's giving. Theater lovers should be grateful that, after fifteen years and a handful of regional incarnations, this beguiling, frequently chilling, and not entirely successful musical has finally made it to Broadway.

For one thing, it may very well be the last original Kander and Ebb musical to make it to the main stem. The brilliant team began working on the musical adaptation of Friedrich Durrenmatt's 1956 play in the late nineties, and it was first produced (with Rivera and John McMartin) in Chicago in 2001. An Off-Broadway staging at The Public Theater in 2003 was announced, but never came to fruition. Ebb died suddenly in 2004, but Kander, Rivera, and librettist Terrence McNally continued to work tirelessly to bring this daring musical to a wider audience. A 2008 production at Signature Theater in Arlington, Virginia, led to further development and a one-night-only concert in New York, in 2011. The current production, now at the Lyceum, originated at Williamstown Theatre Festival last summer. It's been streamlined to a clean ninety minutes and directed with airtight precision by John Doyle.