Commentary on Theater Performances Seen in 2002

Free Shakespeare in the Park is an unnerving experience. There are lots of people basking in the sun and eating copious amounts of food. I'm not sure that a lot of them understand what is going on as far as whatever play is showing is concerned. Be that as it may, perhaps they get something out of sunshine and edibles and Shakespeare all at once. This production of The Winter's Tale was quite likable. Cheerful and merry, despite the brutal beginning half. There was much singing and dancing. They made Bohemia into early California, which didn't work out as terribly as it could have. The whole play is rather fantastical as far as setting goes, it is very difficult for me to understand the Bohemia or Sicilia in this play as having anything to do with the Czech Republic or Italy, not with characters having Greek names and going to the oracle of Delphi.

The way the production juxtaposed Hermione and Polixines together while Leontes had his jealous rages made it seem as if Hermione might have been less than blameless.

I much like the first half of the play better than the second. Leontes has some beautiful lines. Allen McKelvey was very strong as Leontes, his rages and penitences were both done with a certain beauty. I felt that Jacqueline Hillsman seemed hesitant as Perdita, and perhaps this is why I did not like the merry second half of the play as well. Ms. Hillsman just did not seem very prepossessing. Otherwise, the acting seemed just fine, rather charming but nothing exceptional.

Troilus and Cressida is such a play of deflation and ambiguity. Greek and Trojan alike are hypocritical, fools all in one way or another. Chad Jones of the Oakland Tribune writes that "You practically need a scorecard to figure out who's who among the 16 actors playing 22 roles." I thought it was pretty clear, personally. The costumes were done thoughtfully, the actors were good, and it isn't as if Shakespeare doesn't have his characters referring to each other, and even themselves, by name. Is it possible to get Agamemnon and Thersites confused? Or Ajax and Paris?

John Hinkel Park was full for the Shotgun Players performance of Troilus and Cressida. The audience was surprisingly well-behaved for a pay-what-you-can play. The costumes were simple, but done with care, they weren't beautiful and they were modern, but it is community theatre, after all. Consistent, at all events.

Pandarus (Reid Davis), Thersites, and Helen (Rica Anderson) were all played in exaggerated style. Particularly when Helen and Pandarus were in the same scene, one felt that the two were fighting to be the center of our coveted attention. Clive Worsley did well as Thersites, even if he was a little too much. I hardly believe it was his first foray into Shakespeare. He played Agamemnon rather well also. Another fellow who had his first role in Shakespeare was Robert Martinez, who did a fine job as Ulysses, perfectly a diplomatic orator, as crafty as anything. John Thomas was a noble Aeneas. His voice is clear and lovely, his bearing regal.

As for our lovers, Tyler Fazakerley as Troilus reminded me of no one so much as Amaya Alonso Hallifax who was the lead in last season's Iphigenia in Aulis, so young and not quite comfortable, which is fitting. Frieda Naphsica de Lackner as Cressida was properly ambiguous. Not quite outright horrible, just weak. Is she in control or not? Naphsica de Lackner does well in the scene when she is brought to the Greek camp and is kissed by various Greeks (Act IV, scene 5), first frightened and overcome, then her tongue sharpens.

Pacific Repertory continues with a second year of Shakespeare history plays during its 20th anniversary season. Last season I had been fantastically impressed by their staging of the recently attributed Edward III, the apocryphal Thomas of Woodstock, and Richard II. Within the first minute of their production of 1 Henry IV, I was very frightened that I would not enjoy it at all. They started it off with dramatic music that evoked film, with Richard II at the center of the stage being deposed and Henry IV being crowned. This in and of itself was not a departure from last season. However, during this wordless visual prologue, there were soldiers in camouflage and toy machine guns which were annoyingly loud, and that's when my heart sank a bit. The rest of the both the Henry IV plays were done with costuming from the current age and from what is ostensibly Shakespeare's age, this being the usual Renaissance Faire sort of garb. The costuming would switch from scene to scene back and forth and does not converge until the rejection of Falstaff in 2 Henry IV.

So there was pool playing, golf, cellular phones, a video camera, a television set, a computer, and all sorts of other props from our current world. This switching back and forth only heightened the disparate nature of the switching back and forth from the court to the tavern to the battlefield, from tragedy to comedy. It was a very obvious and absurd device, and I don't think it enhanced anyone's understanding of the plays. If anything, it made it hard for the audience to tell who was who. In particular, I did not like Act III, scene i of 1 Henry IV done as a golf scene, complete with foam golf balls being shot off into the audience. Lady Percy and Lady Mortimer are cut down to just being in the background, until the end of the scene when they try a bit of golf themselves and there starts the intermission, in the middle of Act III. Despite all this, I much enjoyed this production simply because the plays and the acting were so good. The best actor of all was the one who played Falstaff, which rather surprised me. John Rousseau was a charming Falstaff, he didn't over do it, he was charming without being cloying and just vulgar enough. The rejection of Falstaff was the most beautiful scene of the two plays, and Rousseau was stunningly good in his speech and manner.

Kevin Black did very well as Hotspur, particularly when flying into a rage after speaking with Henry IV and facing Prince Hal at Shrewsbury. The latter had a fantastic fight scene that was rather well choreographed. I would say that this character was perhaps a bit too nobly rendered, too nice for a man who loved to fight and was full of belligerence. This is a fault of direction.

John Farmanesh-Bocca was an adequate Prince Hal, he was perhaps best when pretending to be his father with Falstaff in Act II, scene 4 of 1 Henry IV. Cool as a cucumber. I'd seen Farmanesh-Bocca as Yasha in The Cherry Orchard last season, in which he played the snobby butler to a tee.

James Kiberd was a bit over the top as Henry IV, his performance might be better suited to King Lear than King Henry. Apparently he has fans though, for a pair of ladies behind me seemed to clap for him whenever possible, even before he started speaking.

The stage was a revolving one, and was very cleverly done, even with a television set in one wall which was more often than not hidden by other devices. I was appalled by how the induction of 2 Henry IV was done with the television, Rumor's part was done on many channels, as it were, and by many different actors, all wearing ridiculous wigs, and the part was more or less incomprehensible.

The director was not satisfied with the last lines that John of Lancaster speaks at the end of 2 Henry IV, nor with the Epilogue, so it was ended with Henry V in the center front of the stage packing a suitcase with his doublet, he being in a modern suit. He is sitting on the bed, and on the right side of the stage is Henry IV, to the left is Falstaff. Henry V turns toward his father, obviously indicating his choice.

Central Works created a play about Margaretha Zelle through an intensive collaborative workshop. It was staged in a tiny room at the lovely Berkeley City Club, whose architect was Julia Morgan. The building recalls a medieval castle of some sort and has a well-appointed interior.

The play covers the 14 interrogations of Mata Hari by Captain Pierre Bouchardon in 1917. They use only four players for 12 parts, 10 of these are taken by John Patrick Moore and Jeff Wincek, both of whom did a fine job staying in their various characters. They used accents fairly well, only the Russian accent was detectably imperfect. Louis Parnell and Jan Zaifler, develop a fine sort of tension as interrogator and interrogated. Both confused a few lines, Ms. Zaifler more than Mr. Parnell, but their expressions were good. Their ability to tear up at the right moments was impressive.

The themes of orientalism and scapegoating the other figured heavily into the play, making it rather topical. An undertone of the philosophy of language, the nature of truth, and so on. My main complaint is the play could have been edited down somewhat.

Last Saturday evening we saw the Shotgun Players put on Medea at the crumbling UC Theatre. Shotgun Players was supposed to open Medea at their new theatre in the vaguely scary GAIA building at 2116 Allston Way, but the space was not ready in time.

Born in 484 BCE, Euripides was the first Athenian playwright to use the chorus as a commentator and to use contemporary language in his plays. He wrote about 92 plays, around 18 of which have survived. Medea was first performed 431 BCE along with the tragedies Philoctetes and Dictys, which only exist in fragments, and the satyr play Theristae, of which we know almost nothing. Euripides won third prize in at the feast of Dionysus in the first year of the 87th Olympiad (431 BCE) with these plays, after Sophocles, and Euphorion, a son of Aeschylus. Not a single fragment of Euphorion's work exists today, and only 7 plays of Sophocles remain.

I first read Medea when I was fourteen, and I actually liked it quite a lot. Revenge appealed to me. I also liked Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, also read in that literature class. I particularly liked Portia, Brutus' wife, because of her stoic qualities. She is sort of the opposite of Medea.

The Shotgun Players' production of Medea wasn't great, nor was is terrible. The lead, Beth Donuhue, was quite strong, and the contrast between her and the other players was not to the production's advantage. In particular, Suzanne Voss, as the Nurse, was unconvincing.

Robinson Jeffers' 1947 translation was used, and it is said to be quite liberal. It didn't bother me terribly, though at times it rang rather false.

The play was scored and the music was played live on a pedal reed organ along with singing from the chorus. At times this worked just fine, but when it did not, it was awful, and I felt like I was stuck in some kind of kitschy musical. The chorus had some trouble staying in tune, which only heightened the audience's discomfort and caused laughter at inappropriate moments.

The costuming was reminiscent of Mucha. I particularly enjoyed the headdresses used on the chorus. The stage looked childish though, the skene representing Medea's house was fantastically ugly. A bulbous greenish thing with purple swirls.

Nonetheless, Medea is an incredible play. Despite copious layers of clothing it gave me the chills. Greek tragedy is simply difficult to do well on the modern stage, so it seems.

Last night we went to see Pericles, Prince of Tyre at the lovely La Val's Subterranean Theatre on the north side of Berkeley. Last weekend I recognized the lead on the production's poster as the store manager at Shakespeare & Co., so my curiosity was piqued.

The theatre isn't actually lovely at all, the restaurant was renovated recently, but the theatre remains its dingy self. Nonetheless, it was a pleasant experience, though none of the actors were spectacular. They did a nice job with very little, and since there were only 8 actors for more than 25 parts, they used masks and puppets to fairly good effect.

Pericles isn't one of my favorite Shakespeare plays, but I've not had the opportunity to see it before, I don't think it is a particularly popular play. I was surprised to learn that it was written late in his career, since it reminded me a bit of Comedy of Errors, with the hugely convoluted plot and all. It was very amusing to realize that the Charles and Mary Lamb synopsis of this play completely glossed over the incest and prostitution that figure in rather centrally. Thinking of the Lambs just made me want to laugh, they are so adorable and yet so insane.

I went to see Peer Gynt put on by the A.C.T. Master of Fine Arts Program at Zeum with the Bane and the Norwegian-American accordion-loving friend. We ran into an old acquaintance and his significant other. I've got a propensity for meeting people I already know without proper planning. Maybe it is just my own predictability.

The acting wasn't bad, the set was very clever and minimal, the costumes were also fine. There were some issues with use of accents. The actors spoke very slowly to get them "right", which made them stilted.

The play itself seems like it must be very incredible, though they edited a lot, since the original is about 6 hours long. Judicious editing I hope, and I'm a bit glad I haven't read the play yet.

I was very disturbed by the sixth scene in the fourth act of the play, at least how it was presented in this production. There were dancing harem girls and accents, and talk of Peer Gynt as a prophet. The character of Anitra, the daughter of a Bedouin chief, was quite distressing for me. I had an immediate visceral reaction to the obvious Orientalist themes at play, and it just cut me to the quick. Excuse me if I sound insane, but aren't Bedouins predominately Muslim? Would Muhammad not be considered the last and final prophet in this case?

So Anitra, she was seductive, manipulative, scantily clad, she sang and danced, was child-like, and she was materialistic. It was a bit too insensitive of a portrayal for these enlightened times. Why did they need to put her in a cabaret belly dance costume? Why reinforce existing stereotypes that are particularly not appropriate right now? Of course, Peer Gynt was written over a hundred years ago, and her characterization reflects ideas about the "Orient" at that time. I just find it weird that these portrayals seem to be used without thought, uncritically, as if they were true.

Was that frothing? I'm perfectly calm.

Anyway, the production had its moments of brilliance. The scene of Peer and his dying mother was particularly lovely. All in all, I'm quite glad I saw it, especially since the scene with trolls was very pestiferous and mirthful. There was also a most fortuitous appearance of pesk horns in the insane asylum scene by King Apis, the man with a mummy on his back.

* I believe this means "Is there shyness in your glances? When I beg, can you deny?" as spoken by Peer to Ingrid. However, I do not claim to know Norwegian.

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