Ptorchwood Ptales & Ptimely Pthoughts

Let's just say I wasn't exactly swept away by this one.

If you've read anythings about the topic you'll know its a fascinating piece of American history, just packed with action and suspense, daring rescues, heartbreaking stories, right?

Uh no. This play was so boring, so tedious, so poorly constructed that I left shortly after the start of the second act.  Some hearty friends informed me that the second half did not do anything to redeem the production.

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I'm still catching up from over a month ago.


Goodman Theater - 2 One-act Plays performed by Brian Dennehy

Brian Dennehy is one of my favorite stage actors.  Robert Falls is one of my least favorite stage directors. Put them together and the results are decidedly mixed.

Last season's Desire Under the Elms at the Goodman Theater was one of the worst pieces of theater I've seen in a long time. Under acted by Dennehy, over produced by Falls, it was a an experience I will never forget. And not in a good way. The house moving up and down (because how would we otherwise know whether the characters were inside it or not) as well as the Bob Dylan song played right in the middle of the play made me want to go screaming into the night. A real WTF experience.

So when I saw that the two were teaming up again, I was less than enthusiastic., particularly with them doing another O'Neill play.. Dennehy plays the lead role in Hughie by Eugene O'Neill and Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett.  Falls directed Hughie and Jennifer Rarver directed Krapp's Last Tape.

I wouldn't have thought that these two plays would work well back to back, but amazingly they do. Credit is due to Dennehy who conceived of pairing them and first performed the two together at Stratford (Ontario). Both plays have similar themes as they  look at aging men dealing with loss.

Erie Smith is a lonely, down on his luck gambler lamenting the loss of his friend Hughie, the night clerk at Smith's residential hotel. Smith portrays himself as a big-shot, blustering about his skills at gambling but the more he talks, the more you see how small he and his life really are.  This is the type of character that I always associate with Dennehy - the big, loud, self absorbed man who time has left behind.

In Krapp's Last Tape a man who has made tapes about his life every year on his birthday, listens to them alone in his tiny apartment. This isn't a role I would normally picture Dennehy in, but he played Krapp beautifully.

The two plays work so well together not only because they deal with similar themes (aging and loss) but because they are contrasts of men at two different stages of life. You can almost imagine Erie evolving into Krapp over a twenty year period. Erie is big and loud and physical, Krapp is small, silent, and shuffling.  Erie believes that the best is ahead of him, Krapp knows its long past. 

Watching Dennehy play such different characters in one performance, made me appreciate his skill as an actor .   Erie is a big physical man, so its pretty easy to envision Dennehy playing this role. But when Dennehy came out for the second half it actually took me a minute or so to realize it was him. He had totally transformed his appearance; He was older, smaller, frailer, completely contained by the physical space and his limited ability to navigate that space. 

And to add to the pleasure of a magnificent performance, Robert Falls' directing did not get in the way. Like acting, good directing IMHO should be subtle and nuanced, not hitting the audience over the head with 'look at how clever I am' moments.  I'm sure the fact that Dennehy had already integrated the two plays into a single performance helped prevent Falls from his usual heavy-handedness in the first half.  The residential hotel looked a little too plush for my taste, but it didn't get in the way. Jennifer Carver cleverly let the second half focus on the story using only minimal props to define Krapp's world. A table, a tape player, some tapes. Nothing more was needed to understand how  Krapp's life had been distilled down to a few memories recorded on tape.

Chicago Shakespeare Theater - Noel Coward's Private Lives

The Shakespeare season consists of three plays, only two of which are Shakespeare.  The third play is often a restoration comedy (Comedy of Manners) which is not an unusual addition.to Shakespeare festivals.  Between Chicago Shakespeare, The Stratford, (Ontario), Shakespeare Festival, American Players Theater in Spring Green Wisconsin, and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon, I've seen a fair number of these including School for Scandal (Sheridan), Wycherley's Country Wife,  Farquhar's The Beaux' Stratagem, and practically everything by Moliere.  These plays usually deal with the themes of marriage and love and are often bitingly satirical. Comedies they may be, and you may be laughing during them, but the message iof these plays is much darker and sadder. Marriage and extra-marital relationships are shown as manipulative, empty and often devoid of any love or affection. Good times.

Though Private Lives is a 20th century work it fits well into the Comedy of Manners tradition. A divorced couple meet again at a hotel where they are both celebrating their new marriages. It isn't long before they find themselves together again only to recreate the  problems that destroyed their marriage the first time.  The play, presented in a theater in the round format was beautifully acted, with wonderful set design and costuming. But oddly enough, Coward hasn't aged as well as some of the 17th century plays. In particular, the casual physical violence portrayed as amusing in the play was impossible for me to accept as light.-hearted fun. I did enjoy the play, but there were several moments that made me cringe with discomfort.  I may be wrong, but I have a feeling that this was not the reaction Mr. Coward was hoping for.

I saw this several weeks ago, but am just now getting around to posting on it.

I was sure I was going to dislike, if not hate this production.   I am a huge Marx Brothers fan and didn't think a stage version of the play that became a musical (now becoming a play again) could be successfully done without turning it into a parody of itself.

I was wrong!  This was a brilliant production.  And considering that the last few musical productions I've seen at the Goodman were pretty lackluster, the energy and enthusiasm the entire cast displayed was amazing.

The standout performance had to be Joey Slotnick playing Groucho Marx playing Captain Jeffrey T Spaulding.  He had Groucho's looks, movements and speech down perfectly and managed to inject some additional humor into some of the old tired jokes. 

His main foil, Ora Jones playing Margaret Dumont playing Mrs. Rittenhouse didn't look anything like Dumont but her speech and mannerisms were so well done that she really became the part. The comic timing between her and Slotnick was flawless.

Jonathan Brody as Chico Marx playing Emanuel Ravelli was excellent though his part was smaller.  He had the earnest intensity (not to mention the accent) of the character nailed.

The most difficult role fell to Molly Brennan playing Harpo Marx playing The Professor.  This nonspeaking role is essentially mime/clowning - a tough gig to pull off under the best of circumstances.  She did a remarkable job with the material not shying away from the physicality that is always present in the Marx Brothers.

The songs and the dancing were well done and the energy level didn't flag at all during the performance.  What really impressed me was how well the whole ensemble worked as a whole.  Anyone who watches improve or comedy sketch work (SNL anyone?) knows that great scenes are easily ruined by poor timing.   I only noticed one exchange that seemed a tiny bit off - and in a almost 3 hour production, that's saying something.

I only have one serious problem with the play.  I saw it three weeks ago and I still can't get the song 'Hooray for Captain Spaulding' out of my head!!

Posted with comments at the MarxBrothers Community: http://community.livejournal.com/marxbrothers/29086.html