King Lear

As you probably already know, in the old days theatre critics wrote their reviews right after seeing the performances. In fact, as the shows ended, the critics ran up the aisles to maximize their writing time before deadline.

If it were still the old days, and if I had written my review of King Lear right after seeing it, I would have given it an excellent review. I was caught up in the glow of a Saturday night performance in good seats watching a play I love starring many actors I deeply admire.

But time has passed, and the glow is gone. I have had time to realize that, yeah, the sound and fury did signify nothing. Glenda Jackson was great fun, but, really, Lear shouldn't be great fun. I respected and enjoyed her performance, but she didn't touch me. I thought that Ruth Wilson was quite good, while Elizabeth Marvel was not at her best (far from her best, really). The third sister, Aisling O'Sullivan, shrieked her way through the show; she was terrible, but I appreciated her commitment. (And, yeah, the three sisters all had different accents; consistency was not a characteristic of this production.) Jayne Houdyshell and John Douglas Thompson were excellent, as Jayne Houdyshell and John Douglas Thompson always are.

But what play was everybody in? Some seemed to be in Shakespeare's actual Lear; some seemed to be in a star-turn Lear; some seemed to be in a satire of Lear; and still others seemed to be in a college version directed by a young person with more imagination than skill.

This is not the first time I've seen such a distinguished cast end up in such a jambalaya of a classic. In fact, the criticism "they all seemed like they were in different shows" has become common in recent years, particularly when the cast is star-studded.

Way back when, in the days of affordable Broadway, before directors decided that their ideas are more important than the playwrights', classics weren't events. Instead, they were solid productions, true to the writing, with cast members all in the same time period and speaking the same language. Many of these productions lacked big stars, but they were excellent. I miss them.

Wendy Caster
(3rd row center; $159)
Show-Score: 70

The Pain of My Belligerence

My sister once said that, while the worst men are incredibly sleazy, the worst women are incredibly stupid. In the world premiere of The Pain of My Belligerence at Playwrights Horizons, writer Halley Feiffer spends 80 interminable, tedious, painful minutes demonstrating this point.

Feiffer, Linklater
Photo: Joan Marcus

The plot is simple: Cat, a needy woman, falls for an obnoxious, self-involved, asshole of a man named Guy who bites her, doesn't let her talk, and, oh, yeah, is married. They stay together for years. Time is marked--and faux significance is ham-handedly shoved into the show--by various elections, of course including that of Donald Trump. In her note in the program, Feiffer writes,

This play aims to explore the corrosive effects of the patriarchy on women and men alike—to examine the culture that has created the phenomenon of toxic masculinity and its insidious effects, and to start imagining ways we can break free...

Blah, blah, blah. Even the patriarchy deserves fairer representation than this boring, unpleasant play and the morons it depicts. Also, millions of humans have grown up in patriarchies but many still think for themselves, challenge themselves to grow, and take responsibility for their own behavior.

[spoiler]

In the third scene of The Pain of My Belligerence, Cat meets Guy's wife Yuki. She is a complicated, original character, and this scene is almost kinda sorta not terrible.

[end of spoiler]

Playwright Feiffer plays Cat; her acting is moderately better than her writing, but she lacks the sort of texture and subtlety that could make Cat bearable and/or sympathetic. Guy is played by Hamish Linklater, who is almost handsome enough to justify Cat's complete and voluntary subjugation to him. Yuki is beautifully played by Vanessa Kai, who brings way more class to the show than it deserves.

I have rarely hated a play as actively and deeply as I hated this one. The minutes nanometered along, and my desire to leave the theatre grew almost unbearable by the ninth hour of its ostensible 80 minutes. When it finally ended, I commented to my friend, "Of all the plays I've ever seen, this show would make the top 10 of shows I hated the most." She replied, "Top 5."

Wendy Caster
(third row on the aisle; press ticket)
Show-Score: 0

Hadestown

It's a sad song

It's a sad tale, it's a tragedy

It's a sad song

But we sing it anyway

'Cause here's the thing: 

To know how it ends 

And still begin to sing it again

As if it might turn out this time

I learned that from a friend of mine

See, Orpheus was a poor boy

But he had a gift to give: 

He could make you see how the world could be

In spite of the way that it is

Helen Maybanks

One of the many miracles of Hadestown, Anaïs Mitchell and Rachel Chavkin's strange, stunning folk opera at the Kerr, is the richly bittersweet way it manages to simultaneously lament and celebrate the endless repetitions that make up human lives. In so many ways, most all of them beautiful in execution, this haunting show teases out the endless redundancies and rituals that lead us from birth to death, pointing out along that way that cycles can be a drag, but also the source of joy and celebration. Life might seem futile in its repetitions, Hadestown implies, but so long as there's the potential for beauty, love and ritual, it isn't a waste.

Bathsheba's Psalms Or, a Woman of Unusual Beauty Taking a Bath

Tanyamaria. Background - Elizabeth Kenny, Marisela Grajeda Gonzalez, C. Bain.
Photo credit: Jody Christopherson

A fresh take on the Old Testament’s tale of King David and Bathsheba, April Ranger’s play, in its world premiere at The Tank, uses vulgarity and contemporary touchstones to create an occasionally provocative discussion on sex and power politics.

The play updates the traditional story of how King David, who already had several wives, spies Bathesheba bathing as he walks along his palace roof and decides he must bed her. The married beauty reluctantly engages in a tryst, and David purposely sends her soldier husband to the frontlines where he perishes. In the biblical version, David eventually shows remorse for his deeds, and accepts his punishment. The story represents God’s forgiveness and the possibility for redemption.

In Ranger’s version, no redemption is possible. David embraces his lascivious ways until the end of his life and no character ever moves forward. Bathesheba is never more than a pawn trapped in a culture where power, privilege and masculinity rule. Despite giving her story centerstage as actors quote from the imaginary “Bathsheba’s Psalms” and “The Book of Beauty,” Ranger’s take only reinforces the reality of life’s unfairness for women, offering little new perspective. Still, she allows us to see the familiar trope in all its ugliness. When messengers come to bring Bathsheba to King David, one states: “Come to the palace so the king can hold your breasts and ass and smell you and fuck you.” The strong language jostles the audience, plunging them into Bathesheba’s hardship: a moral dilemma with no real choice, but acquiescence. The harshness would work better if the play employed less cursing though. The show uses salty language so consistently that it eventually becomes ineffectual.

Bathesheba faces her situation with grace and humor—elaborately running away although she knows there is no escape. Despite her lack of options, she still must endure the judgment of society. When Bathesheba visits a pharmacy to obtain the morning-after pill after the king impregnates her, the clerk mocks her, saying, “We’re a Christian nation now. No more murdered babies on our hands.”

The hypocrisy exposed by the situation is unfortunately not unfamiliar and while Ranger updates the story with pop-culture nods to movies such as "Top Gun" and video games, she never moves the topic beyond simply acknowledging that time and modernity have not remedied the inequity of power.

Bathesheba, played by Tanyamari, embraces a graceful outlook on what life offers her—something the actress, who seemingly glows from within, conveys. Instead, Bathesheba finds beauty in the sunrise. Production designer Itohan Edoloyi casts lovely lighting across the sparse stage during these moments, allowing the audience to see the potential of the brand new day even as Bathesheba’s reality closes around her. The future mother of King Solomon has an overt sexuality that mingles with her dignity. She is sexy and she knows it, but that trait doesn’t define her as a woman, even if it’s how society labels her.

Christina Roussos’ direction introduces whimsy into the story, with missives dropping from the ceiling and a child’s playroom box of costumes on stage. Actors use the accessories to suggest characters, grabbing the crown to play David and a vest to become Uriah, Bathesheba’s husband. Rousso uses just four actors, a Greek chorus of sorts, that play all of the secondary characters, mixing and matching personas and genders. Some do better than others. While Marisela Grajeda Gonzalez flubbed too many words, C Bain consistently recites lines with fluidity and emotion.

“Bathesheba” ends April 21. The Tank is at 312 W. 36^th St.

(Press ticket, third row).

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

The White Devil

John Webster wrote The White Devil in the early 1600s, and 400 years later it remains relevant and great fun. Red Bull director Louisa Proske underlines the play's timeliness with a modern-dress production, complete with cell phones and Skype. The plot is as confusing as an episode of Game of Thrones and not dissimilar in mood: unnoble noblemen jockey for power, married person A wants to sleep with married person B, person C is a murderer but charming, the powerful use the powerless, everyone has secrets, hypocrisy reigns, blood is spilled. The largely well-acted production moves along swiftly, and I suspect that Webster would be most pleased.

Wendy Caster
(2nd row, audience right, press ticket)
Show-Score: 85