Archives for October 2018

“I no longer seek to find beauty in the lives of the mean and the oppressed. Hate oppression; fear the oppressed.”

V.S. Naipaul, The Mimic Men

In today’s Wall Street Journal I review two closely related off-Broadway productions, Bedlam’s Uncle Romeo Vanya Juliet and the Hunter Theater Project’s Uncle Vanya. Here’s an excerpt.

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Bedlam’s “Uncle Romeo Vanya Juliet,” directed by Eric Tucker, billed as a “mash-up” of “Vanya” and “Romeo and Juliet” and performed by a five-person ensemble, is altogether startling. Ivo van Hove never did anything more radical to a classic—except that his I-know-better-than-the-author revivals are at all times smotheringly self-regarding, whereas Mr. Tucker’s “Uncle Romeo Vanya Juliet,” like even the most avant-garde of his shows, is both unpretentious and enormous fun.

What Mr. Tucker has done to the two plays out of which “Uncle Romeo Vanya Juliet” has been cobbled together is easier to enjoy than it is to describe. Bits and pieces of “Vanya” and “Romeo” alternate without warning throughout the evening, juxtaposed in a way that is more than a little bit surrealistic…

A strong actor who doubles here as a member of his own ensemble, Mr. Tucker always casts his productions with the same imaginative flair that he brings to their staging. That said, he’s brought off a coup by casting Zuzanna Szadkowski in the double role of Shakespeare’s Juliet and Chekhov’s Yelena. In a traditional “Romeo and Juliet,” Ms. Szadkowski would likely have been cast to play Juliet’s nurse. No doubt she’d do it well, too, but what she does here is flat-out astonishing: Her Juliet and Yelena, both of them sardonic and sexually knowing to a breathtaking degree, add up to the most thrilling performance by an actor previously unknown to me that I’ve seen on a New York stage since Nina Arianda made her professional debut…

No less striking in its purposefully undemonstrative way, though, is the New York premiere of Richard Nelson’s adaptation of “Uncle Vanya,” the auspicious inaugural production of Hunter College’s new Hunter Theater Project, in which professional productions are to be mounted under the aegis of the school’s drama department. This tightened-up version (it runs for 105 intermission-free minutes) is performed in modern dress and modern English (Mr. Nelson, who is also the director, translated the play in collaboration with Richard Pevear and Larissa Vokokhonsky). The goal is to make “Vanya” more intimate and conversational, with 12 area mikes used to subtly boost the volume…

The results are successful in every way, so much so that I can wholeheartedly recommend this production to Chekhov novices and connoisseurs alike. “Vanya” is, after all, the quintessentially Russian story of a group of people who suddenly realize that they’ve frittered away their lives. Such terrible tales are best told in an understated way, and Mr. Nelson’s actors hardly ever raise their voices, whether figuratively or literally. Instead, they let you listen in as they watch the sun set on their bleak little world….

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Read the whole thing here.

Felix Weingartner and the Paris Symphony Orchestra perform the overture from Weber’s Der Freischütz in 1933. The principal flutist in the orchestra is Marcel Moyse:

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

“Every now and then, when you’re onstage, you hear the best sound a player can hear. It’s a sound you can’t get in movies or in television. It is the sound of a wonderful, deep silence that means you’ve hit them where they live.”

Shelley Winters, “That Wonderful, Deep Silence,” Theatre Arts (June 1956, courtesy of Steven Isserlis)

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

BROADWAY:
• The Band’s Visit (musical, PG-13, most shows sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Dear Evan Hansen (musical, PG-13, all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)
• Hamilton (musical, PG-13, Broadway transfer of off-Broadway production, all shows sold out last week, reviewed here)
• My Fair Lady (musical, G, most shows sold out last week, reviewed here)

CLOSING SATURDAY OFF BROADWAY:
• Days to Come (drama, G, not suitable for children, reviewed here)

CLOSING SUNDAY IN MADISON, N.J.:
• Buried Child (drama, PG-13, absolutely not suitable for children, reviewed here)

“Abstract sentimentality ends in real brutality.”

Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Santayana

An audio-only recording of Flannery O’Connor lecturing on “Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction” circa 1960:

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

“Conviction without experience makes for harshness.”

Flannery O’Connor, letter to Betty Hester, August 28, 1955