My Life in a Nutshell

The use of actual human figures, even in the form of puppets, is new in Hanne Tierney's work. This short production features very cool life-sized burlap marionettes, deftly quickened from the side of the stage by Ms. Tierney and two other string-pulling operators. While the human characters get puppet representation, they are granted only letters for names, one of many abstract and abstract-tending ideas threading through this story (the concept of the "love triangle" gets new meaning here). Unfortunately the story unfolds ponderously and fails to grip. It feels as though two opposing forces are pulling the piece into a confused state: partially abstract, partially human, it is not fully anything. The characters and ideas represented by abstractions seem to have more interesting personalities than the people played by puppets. They make us want to observe them more closely, to understand what they mean or at least sense something of what drives them. The vision that drives Ms. Tierney and her co-conspirators has numerous fascinating conceptual facets, but has here resulted in something only intermittently interesting, and ultimately unsatisfying.

Hamlet

photo: Alastair Muir

Jude Law throws his whole body into his riveting, magnetic performance as Hamlet: the force of his physicality is dramatically intense, and matched to the ferocity with which he navigates the text. Despite this and the reliably top-notch production values by way of Donmar Warehouse (special nod to the gorgeous lighting design), the production is a long, dull slog. When this many fine supporting actors fail to register I tend to think the responsibility belongs at the director's door, but I can't say for sure why Peter Eyre plays the ghost of Hamlet's father like Eeyore on a blustery day, or why Geraldine James barely sounds any notes of maternal concern as Hamlet's mother, or why Gugu Mbatha-Raw fails to generate any sympathy whatsoever for Ophelia. Hamlet as played by a big-name movie star of ability could have made for a sensational event to turn new audiences on to classic theatre, but this is one of the least lucid productions of the play I've ever seen. If you don't already know the play you're likely to be at a loss about most of the essential relationships, and you won't get any help from the direction about what information is going to pay off later in the plot.

Homer's Odyssey

Handcart Ensemble should be congratulated for much about this production, and not least for seriously telling the story of the Odyssey – in most of its rough essentials anyway – in under three hours. The acting is very good and the production inventive and engaging, but playwright-poet Simon Armitage's text is the biggest star, simultaneously elevated and gutbucket, Homeric and homespun. Shadow puppets, glorious costumes, haunting songs, a chilling trip to Hades, and an old-fashioned, barrel-chested, egotistical hero just like they used to make 'em (David D'Agostini is Ulysses) – this show's got just about everything. The galumphing puppets are a trip, too. Closes Oct. 18.

Photo: Jonathan Slaff

Oleanna

photo: Craig Schwartz

Has time taken the sting out of David Mamet's two-hander between a male university professor and a female student who accuses him of sexual harassment? Not in the least. In fact I found this production, directed with psychological credibility by Doug Hughes and starring Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles, to be more visceral and provocative than the original years ago (directed by the playwright) in which William H. Macy and Rebecca Pidgeon seemed to be playing ideas rather than characters. Despite its advertising, the play is not really a "he said she said" Rashomon which divides the audience's sympathies between the two characters - it's too stacked against the female for that. But when you believe the characters, as you do here, it riles the audience and provokes a variety of interpretations. I haven't felt a Broadway audience as charged as this one since Albee's The Goat, which coincidentally played at the same theatre and also starred Bill Pullman.

The Royal Family

The revival of George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber's 1927 comedy, The Royal Family, demonstrates the many difficulties of performing a farce. Speaking quickly and throwing one's body around is not enough. Pacing is needed, as is a core of humanity and a sense of when to let the jokes breathe a bit. At the preview I saw (well over a week into previews), the pacing, humanity, and breathing space were all sorely lacking. Jan Maxwell gives her all to Julie Cavendish, the center of the madcap acting family (loosely based on the Barrymores), but she is so frenetic that her Julie never registers as a real human being. The rest of the cast is uneven, with the lovely Rosemary Harris turning in the best performance as the matriarch of the family. I imagine that, with more time, the actors will overcome their unsureness with props, and I certainly hope that someone fixes the hairdos/wigs, which seemed to distract the actors as much as they distracted the audience. (Having said all that, I suggest that this review be taken with a large grain of salt. I could not get the superb 1970s revival out of my head, and it would be hard even for an excellent production to live up to those memories.)

Oleanna

Photo: Craig Schwartz

The particulars of the Mamet's sexual harassment plot might seem a little less realistic now than they did in 1992, before public policy on such cases had matured somewhat. But in my opinion, Oleanna was never meant to be entirely time-topical, despite its then straight-from-the-headlines theme. Its stychomythic, stream-of-consciousness dialogue, which at times reduces Bill Pullman's John to chirps and groans, gives it a slightly hallucinogenic feel, and the mysterious "group" – the uncertainty about what's really going on behind Carol's (Julia Stiles) complaints – reminds me more of a Margaret Atwood dystopia than a legal drama. And that's leaving aside the deep questions raised by the play about the purpose and value of academia. The sharp performances in this production bring out the Kafkaesque universality of the story. Whether in a democracy or a dictatorship, we're often at the mercy of forces we don't understand and over which we have no control. I imagined Oleanna might seem dated in 2009. Several hundred audience members last night proved otherwise. Some of them may have been drawn by the Hollywood star power of the cast, but they left with much to think about. The show is in previews; it opens Oct. 11.