The Book Of Lambert

Reviewed for Theatermania.

Love/Stories (or, But You Will Get Used To It)

Photo/Joan Marcus

How do you stop your post-modern comedy from spinning out of control? Get post-post-modern on it. In his latest work, thirty-something Itamar Moses evolves, David Foster Wallace-like, from a cute couple of modern love stories, into a series of self-referential plays that send up his own act while at the same time validating and enhancing it. It's exceptionally handled by the five-Bats ensemble of the Flea, actors who are young enough to grasp the circuitous and broken logic of Moses's characters, and also by Michelle Tattenbaum, who, having directed Moses before, knows well enough to let the words carry the brunt of the work. Moses's stand-in, Reader (John Russo) asks, in the climax of the fifth and final play, "...how on earth could some lame scene where two people just talk to each other get more than thimble-deep into anything that remotely resembles anything that even comes within a country mile of an approximation of the barest outline of the feelings that gave rise to the need to write this..." If this were ever really a question, it has been answered by Love/Stories. (Or, But You Will Regret Not Seeing This If You Don't Go Now.)

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Shipwrecked! An Entertainment

photo: James Leynse

As a Victorian gentleman (charmingly played by Michael Countryman) narrates the story of his incredible shipwrecked adventures, two supporting players (Donnetta Lavinia Grays and Jeremy Bobb) rush about at whirlwind speed to play every one else in the epic story. They might step up and make whooshing sounds into an on stage microphone when the sound of a strong wind needs to be conjured, or they might hoist a bedsheet in the air to illustrate the sail of a ship. The conceit, which has the feeling of childrens' theatre, is not without purpose - the story-theatre approach speaks to the resourcefulness of human imagination, a unifying theme in the show's final half hour. Despite this and despite the efforts of the able cast, the play evaporates into thin air - there's barely any tension in the story until it's nearly over, and there isn't enough variety in the presentation to otherwise hold our interest.

33 Variations

Photo: Joan Marcus

Toward the end of his life, ill and losing his hearing, Beethoven wrote 33 variations on a seemingly innocuous waltz by music publisher Anton Diabelli, and scholar Dr. Katherine Brandt (Jane Fonda) wants to know why. A woman who finds the past much more rewarding than the present, Dr. Brandt specializes in keeping those who love her at arm’s length. Beethoven too was a difficult person, and their stories are just two of the variations on display in Moisés Kaufman’s 33 Variations.

Like Tom Stoppard’s wonderful Arcadia, 33 Variations takes place simultaneously in the past and the present. In contrast to Arcadia, however, the characters and their desires just aren’t that compelling. In all fairness, however, I saw an early preview, and it is possible that the play will be focused and trimmed—and certainly the performances will grown and deepen. How involving 33 Variations will turn out to be, time will tell.

Uncle Vanya

photo: Joan Marcus

It's no secret that good productions of Chekhov are hard to come by in New York, while bad ones are a dime a dozen. The last decade has seen everything from Derek Jacobi crashing and burning in a Roundabout-helmed Uncle Vanya to last winter's terminally overpraised, melodramatic incarnation of The Seagull. Austin Pendleton's new production of the former play, which recently opened at Classic Stage Company in the East Village, falls somewhere between the two poles; the production itself is attractive and fluid, but suffers from crucial casting errors in several key roles. Both Denis O'Hare and Maggie Gyllenhaal, as Vanya and Yelena Andreevna respectively, are far too contemporary for such a traditional staging; he runs around dispatching his trademark hysterics, while she brings her hipster inflections to her bored character's languid dialogue. Peter Sarsgaard, the weakest link of the aforementioned Seagull, fares slightly better here as the frustrated Dr. Astrov, but I believed neither his passion for Yelena nor his neutrality towards the plain Sonya (Mamie Gummer, in the first winning performance I've seen her deliver). In the end, it's a shame that Pendleton (a former CSC Vanya himself, in the late eighties) has to waste a generally winning mise-en-scene on such a disparate and defective group of actors.

Conversations on Russian Literature Plus Three More Plays

Conversations on Russian Literature is the second and more substantial half of an evening of plays by David Johnston, courtesy of the Blue Coyote Theater Group. Sitting on park benches -- not even taking a walk in the woods -- an American negotiator (Jonna McElrath) and an old Russian general (Frank Anderson) toss hot potatoes back and forth: their intellectual pursuits (hence the title), their personal histories, their own place in history, their practical and inner motivations for meeting. Skilfully, with music-perfect pacing, and with huge help from two superb performances and Gary Shrader's subtle, unobtrusive direction, the playwright reveals who these players really are and what brings them to this strange crossroads. By itself, this one-act is worth more than the price of admission.

Read the full review.