The Westchester Guardian is gone, and once again I have had
the horse shot out from under me. True, it may not have been much of a
mount—more like Don Quixote’s spavined nag Rosinante—it was still recognizably
an equine, even if no contender for a crown, let alone a triple one. So now my
theater criticism will, until further notice, appear in my blog, Uncensored
John Simon. Herewith a brief overview of shows that I would normally have
reviewed at greater length.
Take, for starters, the revival of the William Finn/James
Lapine musical “Falsettos.” In its day, almost a quarter century ago, the show
that underwent several rethinkings still marked an early serious response to
the new plague, AIDS. As such, it was both novel and necessary. After some
earlier versions, it emerged full-blown in 1992, successful enough but already
a trifle late.
Today, the revival is only partly effective, aside from
feeling somewhat dated. The protagonist, Marvin, leaves his wife Trina for a
troubled love affair with Whizzer who eventually dies of AIDS, surrounded by
Marvin and a number of friends and kinfolk, perhaps a bit too beautifully. The
incarnator of Marvin, Christian Borle, a good actor who specializes in comic or
naughty characters, never quite rises to tragic heights. Others come off
better, notably Andrew Rennells, as a babyfaced Whizzer, and Stephanie J.
Block, as a neurotic Trina, as well as a few sidekicks, including the earnest boy
actor Anthony Rosenthal.
David Rockwell’s scenery, consisting mostly of a very large,
soft, striated, gray cube, with detachable parts of various shapes and uses, is
not without interest, and Lapine has again directed cogently. But the whole
thing smacks a mite too much of self-righteousness and complacently good
intentions on a topic that has already been treated more trenchantly elsewhere, even if not with music.
The Ben Hecht/Charles MacArthur comedy, “The Front Page,”
has been an oft-revived favorite, but even that is not endlessly renewable,
despite a savvy director, Jack O’Brien, and a mostly exemplary, all-star cast.
It takes place in a Chicago courthouse pressroom, where sundry hardboiled
journalists wisecrackingly await a routine dawn hanging, but where the most
unexpected and often droll developments eventuate.
It’s a funny thing about revivals that grandparent-time and
earlier works fare better than more recent ones, subject to the traditional
rebellion of children against their parents. Somehow generational revolt
affects brainchildren as well as children. “The Front Page,” full of
yesterday’s humor, emerges as old newsprint, almost too yellowed to be read.
The discomfiting truth is that a clutch of our foremost
actors, including John Goodman, Jefferson Mays, Holland Taylor, Sherie Rene
Scott and Robert Morse among others, come across as champion swimmers
thrashing about in a shallow pool.
I exclude John Slattery from the group, too Anderson Cooperishly gray and
uncharismatic, as a recalcitrant star reporter; and Nathan Lane, almost too
good as a ridiculously ruthless newspaper editor, what with some sublime Lane
mugging way beyond what is posited. If this is enough for you, as it may well
be, go ahead and catch it.
Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s epistolary novel, “Les Liaisons
dangereuses,” (1782) is a dazzling two-volume affair, in which, for their
decadent amusement, the ex-lovers Vicomte de Valmont and Marquise de Merteuil
revel in the seduction of the innocent and destruction of the virtuous. Apt
incurrers of the coming Revolution, they embody the elegant amorality of the
heedless contemporary French aristocracy. Christopher Hampton’s English
adaptation into a standard-length drama (1988) is not unskilled, but not nearly
as powerful as the leisurely but steadily increasing evil of the novel.
The American premiere of the play boasted the brilliant
British actors Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan, directed by Howard Davies; the
current revival, directed by Josie Rourke, collapses under, among other things,
the performances of Janet McTeer and Liev Schreiber. She, to be sure British,
is an overacting beanpole and relentless fidget; he is an American rough action
specialist, far too inelegant and unsubtle for a deft British version of a
dissolute but stylish French aristocrat. When at last he sheds his wig, he
looks downright catastrophic.
Some supporting performances are vastly superior, notably
those of the victims: by Birgitte Hjort Sorensen (a perfectly British Dane) as
the pious Mme de Tourvel, Elena Kampouris as the charmingly hoydenish Cecile
Volanges, and the somewhat less appealing Raffi Barsoumian as the avenger, Chevalier Danceny.
Unfortunately there is something apposite about the person
advertising the show on TV mispronouncing it as Liaisons Dangerouses (rhymes
with booze), as well as in the name of Laclos appearing in the program in
microscopic, barely legible print. There is too much drinking during, and
ballet between, scenes and not enough respect for Laclos in this production.
David Hare, at his frequent best, is a considerable
political and psychological playwright with some daring features. But “Plenty,”
which for some reason is his best known play, is not one of his best. It does,
however, provide a great female lead, admirably embodied in the past by
actresses such as Kate Nelligan and Meryl Streep, and now, no less eminently,
by Rachel Weisz.
It is the story of Susan Traherne, an enthusiastic English
girl, who in her idealistic youth acts as a courier for the French underground
in World War Two. But the brave new world she envisions provides only a
severely checkered career, during which all her noble aspirations are gradually
but relentlessly eroded. A major problem for us in America are all the very
British references, political, social and even linguistic.
More damaging in the current revival is the direction by the
hugely overrated David Leveaux, dispensing with the required specific
locations and meant-to -be
displayed dates for each scene, thus not enabling us to follow the downward
spiral of the action. Damaging too is some miscasting, especially of the
unappealing Corey Stoll as Susan’s ineffectual politician husband, and LeRoy
McClain as the stranger whom Susan picks up to father a child on her. No one
other than Byron Jennings, as a discouraged diplomat, distinguishes him or
herself in the supporting cast, but far the worst hurdles are the grossly
misconceived visuals.
Mike Belton, the set designer, and David Weiner, the
lighting designer, apparently intended to compensate for the absence of scenery
with some gratuitous light displays, suitable only for a state fair pavilion
advertising electronic products. They manage to undercut much of the remaining
credibility. While it is easy to admire Rachel Weisz, there are burdens here
that even Atlas couldn’t shoulder. If the titular “plenty” referred to the
number of conceivable objections, it would be all too apt.
One of Anton Chekhov’s masterpieces, “The Cherry Orchard,”
is given an abominable production in the present Roundabout Theatre revival.
For inexplicable reasons, the RT’s chief, Todd Haymes, reached to England to
fish out one of its most misguided directors, Simon Godwin, a specialist in
adapting shows that patently do not need it. He has here contrived, with the help of the adapter, Stephen Karam (author of
“The Humans”), the reverse alchemy of turning gold into lead. Even the
dependable set designer, Scott Pask, has been induced to make a mock of the
scenery, which includes such incomprehensible lapses as a table and chairs for
dwarves, into which some hapless actors actually squeeze themselves.
Unforgivably, the misdirected role of the aging and
declining actress and landowner Ranevskaya was imposed on one of our loveliest
and ageless actresses, Diane Lane. Constrained to absurdities like the rest of
a potentially able cast, she could not protect the stage from being turned into
a shambles. For once, even some New York reviewers known for their
namby-pambiness, proved rightly indignant.