Thoughts and Critiques

A blog about theater and the arts

Theater, New York

“Paul Mescal rides ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ to Brooklyn”

by Lisa on posted in ,

So announces the New York Times headline. Meanwhile, Vulture reports that the “Irish sad-boy hunk of Normal People and Gladiator II … is bringing the production to Brooklyn.”

It is true that Rebecca Frecknall’s production of A Streetcar Named Desire is transferring from London (where I saw it two years ago at the Almeida Theatre) and will open at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in February. And it is true that Mescal will reprise his award-winning performance as Stanley.

What bothers me about the breathless Paul Mescal coverage, though, is that he forms just a third of a remarkable ensemble of award-winning actors that includes Patsy Ferran as Blanche and Anjana Vasan as Stella. 

And good as Mescal is, this revelatory production foregrounds the relationship between Stella and Blanche, suggesting that the heart of the play lies not in the gladiatorial combat between Stanley and Blanche—exciting as that is!—but in the relationship between the two sisters.

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Norma is ready for her closeup in this Sunset Boulevard

by Lisa on posted in

In Jamie Lloyd’s dazzling new adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, it’s not just Norma Desmond who’s ready for her closeup. Onstage cameras stalk Norma, projecting her image onto the vertiginously slanted, gargantuan screen at the back of the stage. But they also follow the doomed screenwriter Joe, his love interest Betty, Norma’s faithful factotum Max—all the principals are given the full screen treatment in this production.

Former lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls Nicole Scherzinger makes a spectacular Broadway debut as the fading icon of the screen. The gorgeous Scherzinger may seem young for the role, but I found it quite a brilliant stroke to feature this fading celebrity who’s “only” 45 to portray the forgotten Norma Desmond. Scherzinger, after all, has been largely relegated to judging television talent shows since the Pussycat Dolls broke up in 2010.

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An Ibsen for Our Time

by Lisa on posted in

It should come as no surprise that Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People is having a moment, with new adaptations currently playing in both New York and London. Written over a hundred years ago, the play explores an issue of profound relevance, the potentially fatal consequences when townspeople willfully reject a scientific discovery that threatens their economic interests and entrenched beliefs.

Unlike the disappointingly generic Uncle Vanya also playing now in New York, this production of An Enemy of the People is clearly set in the past, in 19th century Norway, and, just as clearly, gives room for us to imagine its contemporary resonance. 

A few of the things I loved about this new production at Circle in the Square:

  • Jeremy Strong, leaving behind his persona as anxious, power-driven Kendall Roy to become something closer to Anthony Fauci—a naïve doctor unable to imagine the political forces that will rise up against him.
  • Michael Imperioli, no longer the impulsive Christopher Moltisanti of The Sopranos, but the savvy and menacing mayor of the town who engineers the doctor’s downfall.
  • Amy Herzog’s brisk and thoughtful new adaptation.
  • The atmospheric Norwegian folk music played by actors and extras during scene changes, as well as the wonderfully specific Norwegian set, complete with rosemaling and nearly a dozen oil lamps casting a cozy light.
  • And not least, the bar that magically descends to the stage during the brief interval, along with an invitation to audience members to come join the cast for a shot of aquavit. 

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Uncle Vanya at Lincoln Center: Is Steve Carell up to the Task?

by Lisa on posted in

In a word, no.

The new Broadway production of Uncle Vanya is still in previews and has a few weeks to work things out. But Carell’s lackluster Vanya is just one of several fundamental problems it may not be able to resolve.

With desultory furniture scattered across the thrust stage of the Vivian Beaumont, the play never really feels as though it inhabits the space. A moody backdrop of birch trees is lovely but also a bit puzzling. Where are we? Not in Chekhov’s Russia. The language and costuming are contemporary American but no more specific than that. (Astrov’s use of the word “freaks” in place of the usual “cranks” calls to mind hippies of the 1960s, but nothing else supports that idea.)

This lack of specificity drains the play of its emotional roots. The story may be one of universal disappointment, but it’s the specificity of this particular disappointment that draws us in, whether it takes place in Russia before the revolution or, as in Andrew Scott’s recent Vanya, in modern Ireland.

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Jamie Lloyd and Jessica Chastain tackle A Doll’s House

by Lisa on posted in

Jamie Lloyd’s new production of A Doll’s House (now in previews at the Hudson Theater in New York) is almost punishing in its austerity. In keeping with his minimalist approach, Lloyd places his actors, all dressed in black, on a stage equipped with chairs, but otherwise bare of scenery, props or backdrop. 

There’s also a revolve, which early arriving audience members will notice at 7:45 when Nora (Jessica Chastain) appears slouched in a chair that slowly rotates for a good 20 minutes before the show proper begins. The other characters will be on and off stage, in and out of chairs, throughout the show, but Nora remains rooted to hers until the very end. 

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For this Willy Loman, the American Dream is More Remote than Ever

by Lisa on posted in

Death of a Salesman has been owned by White actors–and by White audiences.

André de Shields

The Loman house in this astonishing new production of Death of a Salesman consists of an explosion of isolated windows, doors, and furniture suspended by wires. I’m reminded of Arthur Miller’s original title for the play, The Inside of His Head, as these precarious furnishings, which descend and rise throughout the play, reflect the fractures within Willy’s mind as well as the tenuous state of the Loman family.

Sharon D Clarke and Wendell Pierce. Photo: Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

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Leopoldstadt is Stoppard’s reckoning with his family history

by Lisa on posted in

Tom Stoppard’s holocaust play begins in 1899 on a stage teeming with life. The extended Merz family, assimilated Viennese Jews, some of them Christian converts or married to Christians, are celebrating the holidays. While the adults discuss Klimt, Mahler, Herzl and the Jewish question, children run in and out and one puts a Star of David on top of the Christmas tree. Grandma Emilia regrets that no one remembers some of the people in the photos she’s leafing through. “It’s like a second death to lose your name in a family album,” she observes, introducing Stoppard’s main concern in this play: remembering family.

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Jamie Lloyd’s Cyrano de Bergerac

by Lisa on posted in

I found Jamie Lloyd’s production of Cyrano de Bergerac at Brooklyn Academy of Music both exhilarating and exhausting. It clocked in at nearly three hours and I suspect the text at a normal conversational speed might have run closer to four. Jamie Lloyd is especially known for his bare-bones productions of Pinter (one of which I saw in London several years ago), and this production was similarly bare bones—not as obvious a choice for staging Rostand as it is for Pinter.

James McAvoy as Cyrano. Photo: Marc Brenner

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