Orpheus Descending

Tennessee Williams’s play Orpheus Descending (recently at the Theatre for a New Audience) was the first of his works to be produced. While it is not one of his masterpieces, it is still rich, sad, funny, fascinating, and compellingly overwrought.

As described on TFANA’s website, the play “tells the story of the passion of two outcasts—Lady Torrance, a storekeeper’s wife and daughter of a murdered Sicilian bootlegger, and Val, a wandering guitar player—and their attempt to escape from a Southern Hell.”

Lady (the excellent Maggie Siff) and Val (Pico Alexander) must negotiate dealings with a wide variety of townspeople: Maggie’s husband, deathly ill but still quite powerful and mean; Carol Cutere, a needy young woman with little chance of ever getting her needs met; Vee Talbott (the wonderful Ana Reeder), who turns her religious visions into paintings; and her husband, the sheriff, who operates in a much more concrete–and dangerous–manner. There are also the town gossips, Maggie’s husband’s nurse, and others. 

Lady and Val exist in a different world than the rest of the town, and they inevitably get involved, despite the dangers of doing so. They talk and actually listen to each other, they understand each other, and they are deeply drawn to each other physically. Most importantly, they find hope in each other.

Erica Schmidt’s direction of the TFANA production left much to be desired in terms of clarify and use of space. The cast was uneven. Maggie Siff had the presence and skill necessary to ground the play in the underpinning of reality that it needs. Pico Alexander lacked the animal magnetism required by his role, which threw off the balance of the play. But all in all, the TFANA production was vibrant and alive.

Wendy Caster

The Emperor

More like a magazine story brought to life than an actual play, The Emperor still has much going for it, the main things being the performances of the protean and ever-fascinating Kathryn Hunter and the music of Ethiopian musician Temesgen Zeleke. Based on interviews with actual servants of the Ethiopian dictator Haile Selassie, The Emperor weaves a vivid tapestry around a Selassie-shaped void. While he is not in the show per se, Selassie's effect, affect, and whims are everywhere and everything, as they were during his four-decade reign.

Photo: Simon Annand 

Adapted by Colin Teevan from Ryszard Kapuściński's book, The Emperor depicts how people are misshapen when they are forced to fit into small spaces with no freedom. The epitome of these characters may well be the servant whose job was to wipe the urine off of visiting dignitaries' shoes after the emperor's dog had peed on them. Many of the servants admired Selaissie and were proud of their jobs.

Is it strange that Kathryn Hunter plays all of these male African characters? Yes. No. Kind of. For me, her brilliance is its own excuse for anything she may choose to perform, although I completely understand why other people might disagree.

Photo: Simon Annand 

Is it strange that The Emperor is presented as a piece of theatre? Yes. No. Kind of. It has a limited point of view. It has no plot, story line, or arc. It almost completely lacks interactions. While it is arguably all about conflict, it has no conflict itself. In terms of any political or historical aims it may have, it somewhat succeeds, although other forms of delivery would have been more hard-hitting.

And is it strange that these stories of a country that was horribly oppressed, in which millions died of starvation, have ended up being about how brilliant one white actress is? Absolutely. Strange and horrible, really. But, for what little it's worth, it did motivate me to learn more.

Wendy Caster
(press ticket, row J)
Show-Score: 80

The Valley of Astonishment

In Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne's charming new piece, The Valley of Astonishment, the titular valley is that uncharted, elusive area where brain metamorphoses into mind and the unexpected can occur: perfect memory, hearing colors, only being able to move one's body parts while looking at them. A theatricalization of, and riff on, the findings of such scientists as Oliver Sacks (well-know for The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and other books about neurological anomalies), The Valley of Astonishment is in some ways like the coolest Ted Talk ever, with skits.

Jared McNeill, Kathryn HunterPhoto: Pascal Victor/ArtComArt

The main-ish character is Samy Costas, an unassuming journalist who doesn't understand how astonishing her mind is until her editor sends her to, well, have her head examined. Samy remembers everything. Everything. Her brain is a compulsive producer of mnemonics, constantly churning out pictures and associations and locating them in a mental map of her neighborhood that she can "visit" whenever she wants to access her memory. But when she becomes a nightclub performer, astonishing people with her mental talents, she comes up against an unexpected question--can her brain become full? And then what?