I will admit, I’ve had a lot of trouble deconstructing my thoughts on this piece. I struggle to be the one to speak against the popular opinion, notably those in awe of the use of technology in this supposedly progressive piece.  But does that really make something new and unique? Does it make something with an obtuse plot, poor sound quality, and what in essence is remote control cars a major step forward for opera?

I’ve been battling these questions in my mind ever since I saw Tod Machover’s work, and I keep going back to what my companion’s response to the opera was. Upon leaving the theater he said “The visual effects were really cool, but I have no idea what happened on stage. Was that supposed to affect me in some way?” I also have thought of what I’ve told my peers and coworkers about the show. “I liked watching it, but I wouldn’t recommend you see it.”

Now, what has made me think that? Well, the music for one. Being an opera and classical music enthusiast, I thought it was beautiful. The modern composition was flawless and was so well written for singing I was floored. Tod Machover ingeniously put together a score that was not muddled, or too avant guarde, and the singers performed it with an ease and grace that I haven’t heard in modern music ever.

The plot is where Robert Pinsky and Randy Weiner jumped the shark. I read the synopsis before walking into the theater, so I knew what was coming and the background of each scene, but without that prior knowledge, I would have no idea what was happening. The characters were just shells, there was no back story other than a 30 second image montage for each character at the very beginning of the piece called the “download” and it did not give any insight to their thoughts or feelings on themselves or the world. This piece was supposed to be about death, evolution, technology and the path to immortality but none of that came through. The only striking human moment was when ” the miseries” – a large hoard of ragged people flopped around the empty stage for one scene.

The singing was wonderful with James Maddalena, Emily Albrink and Sara Heaton standing out the most. I question the use of counter-tenor Douglas Dodson as “The United Way”. Why not have a woman instead? The jaunting look and sound of his voice paired with his physical presence was distracting and there didn’t seem to be a reason for him being a man. The Orchestra, headed bu Gil Rose, worked perfectly with the music and the singers and I truly applaud the musicianship of the whole piece. The use of lighting and multi-media and robotic set pieces,created by Peter Torpey, Ben Bloomberg and Matt Checkowski was powerful to see. I did expect the robots themselves to have electronic voices, but was disappointed to find that their singing was just from the human singers backstage in a sound booth with a microphone.

The directing suffered from a bad script and a lackluster story, but I don’t know what one can do with a piece that has so little bulk to it. It all comes back to the writing itself. It’s so lack-luster compared to the story they were trying to tell that even the entire opera isn’t worthwhile. I hate that I feel so strongly about it, because of all the good that’s involved. But no amount of high flying technology or musicality can overcome a badly written, though imaginative story.

The Operabots. Photo by: Jonathan Williams.

The set appeared to me as it could be the inside of any army tent seemingly in the middle east. Overturned chairs and tables of a mess hall with a coke machine in the corner and blood on the floor. The lights coming through the thin walls of the tent and more videos of peoples heads projected on the  roof. It was an interesting design and I was intrigued to see how it played out in the play’s new adaptation.

Historically, a Greek tragedy has a very unique form. Mostly, an audience member comes into a show with a prior knowledge of background story and with an idea how the show will end. There is no action that takes place on the stage for the audience to see, just the characters telling us what they’ve just done out of our periphery and remarking on how it will affect their lives. The most special aspect of these plays comes from the use of a chorus- a body of players who remark on what the main characters have done and how an audience should respond to it. This production’s use of  chorus is what made this piece different than any other Greek tragedy I’ve ever seen. Instead of live action, the chorus were different videos of regular people who spoke about their own experiences with the war today and how it affects them and their view of the world. It was a great use of multi-media, but half-way through the show they changed. They first started talking about themselves in real life, but when the action of the play got more and more agitated they began talking about Ajax as a real figure they looked up to and how his trials and errors affected them. It was very strange to see them go back and forth between real life and the play and confused me and my companion as to what they were talking about and how they mattered at all. Unfortunately, I feel like the production missed a great and powerful opportunity to utilize the multi-media aspect of the chorus to further enhance the production, and instead worked against the theme of the production.  It isn’t the first time I’ve noticed that the incorporation of multi-media elements sometimes falls flat in A.R.T. productions.

Fortunately, there were some great acting moments to counteract the confusing chorus. Linda Powell as Tecmessa did a wonderful job as Ajax’s companion. It seemed to take her a little while to warm up, but made up for it through being actively present in every instant she was on stage. I believed all the turmoil she was going through and prayed with her for a better ending. Ron Cephas Jones as Odysseus was superb and honest, though his voice was hard to hear at times. Nathan Darrow as Teucer was genius and won me over for the best actor on the stage, while Remo Airaldi as the Chorus Leader annoyed me with all his statements and seemed like a low life that had too much to say. The show’s title character played by Brent Harris was a little unnerving, not because of the things his character did, but as my companion put it “he just yelled at us the whole time.” I must say, I agree with that statement and wish he had given a more nuanced performance, as a title player.  I also need to give a shout out to Kaaron Briscoe as Athena who reminded me of Condaleezza Rice in the trenches of an unjust war. Kudos to you!

All in all, the show was just “alright” for me. I expected there to be more comparison to the times and wars we’re living in today, but apart from the set (complete with gutted animals) and costumes (army fatigues)  all by David Zinn, nothing stood out as reminiscent to anything in the middle east today. This might be because the translation by Charles Connaghan was very close to the original while Sarah Benson’s directing idea only related to today. They didn’t correlate with each other and ended up making a confusing mash up of Greek Tragedy meets the war on terrorism.

Mesafint Goldfeld and Brent Harris. Photo by: Michael Lutch.

At the commencement of the production, the audience is exposed to a playful delivery of exposition through a film.  The use of this convention is both an appealing and attention grabbing way to get through the nitty gritty of the plotline.  Then begins the haunting melancholy of Daniel Jenkins’s Max.  This juxtaposition of joy and despair prevails throughout the production.

One of the strengths of the piece is in its lightning fast transitions.  The action seamlessly flows through each characters struggle to find meaning in their lives in the turbulent period following World War I.   Effortlessly, the audience is transported from Max’s borderline catatonia of the 1950’s to the Belle Epoch, where life was good and no one was unhappy, to the bloody, inert trenches.  Throughout, nothing is really what it appears to be.

Upon learning of Stephen Schwartz’s role as producer, the existentialist tone of the piece is not surprising.  All four primary characters seek to define their existence, to determine what their purpose is for living.  We watch as they muddle through the bitter intoxication of grief, and try to piece together what is left of their lives.  Max does this most literally, becoming engrossed in his creation of a book of collages.  When asked why he does collages, Max responds “why do we do anything?” He then philosophically reveals that, to him, creating collages is a way to gain control that has thusly eluded him, to manipulate the people and events of his life and have some effect over his destiny.

One aspect that the plotline lacks is the lack of development of characters’ relationships.  This, however, is true to the philosophy of the piece.  Each character is merely a pawn, being manipulated by some unknown entity.  When a relationship works, we do not know why- it just fits.

Jim Bauer’s music is positively breathtaking, drawing inspiration from elements as diverse as an oompa band, classic country and rock music’s concept album era. Most notable are the pulsing, primal palpitations of the percussion.  It is the one consistent element, a driving force for a story that spans many decades and several wars. Simply put, it is one of the most hauntingly beautiful musicals I have ever heard.

If you are looking for shallow, more traditional holiday fare, then look elsewhere.  However, if you are looking for a theatrical experience that you will be thinking about for days to come, then see A.R.T.’s “The Blue Flower”.  Through this awe-inspiring, thought provoking production, audience members cannot help but leave contemplating their own existence, as well as the complexities of the human condition.  After all, “the greatest mystery of all is reality.”

Stunning and disturbing visuals.

The American Repertory Theater’s spring festival, America: Boom, Bust and Baseball, presented it’s second offering at the Loeb Drama Center this week.  Falling under the label “Bust”, Clifford Odet’s Paradise Lost is a pithy tale of loss in the wake of the Great Depression which has some startling, and at times disturbing similarities to our current economic climate.

I’m used to the A.R.T. offering cutting edge, rapturous opuses, going just a little bit farther than other playhouses in Boston to give the audience something more, but this production of Paradise Lost, directed by Daniel Fish,  gave 3.5 long hours of dull dialog and confusing, shaky staging.  It was hard to really focus on any one character or story because it felt like the author just dumped a bucket of story lines on the floor and left the director to try to piece it together lyrically in a way that makes sense, and that keeps the audience engaged.

Fifteen minutes into an extremely dense and nonsensical opening act, both of the people sitting to my right were fast asleep.  They left after the first of two intermissions, along with about six other people around me.  I can’t really say that I blamed them- I could barely keep my eyes open myself.  I’m glad that I stuck it out though, because while the first act did drag considerably, the actors did help to liven up the story in the second and third acts, just barely keeping my attention.

There just wasn’t anything going on in the piece that I cared about.  The characters were underdeveloped and there were far too many to keep track of, though they all seemed to live in the same house even though that fact was unclear and didn’t ever get around to being explained.  As the story unraveled and we collected more tidbits about the characters and how they are related, I was less engaged and more annoyed that I had invested my mind into characters that I didn’t care about, respect, or understand.  On the heels of the spectacularly character driven Gatz, Paradise Lost was especially disappointing.

Despite my obvious criticism of the play choice, and the lack of what I consider to be a firm directorial standpoint, the actors and actresses worked their hardest to give their character’s life, some succeeding better than others.  I enjoyed the sharp tongue and good timing of Michael Rudko in his portrayal of Mr. Pike the furnace man, and T. Ryder Smith was very good as both the demonic Mr. May and younger son Julie (though it was sort of difficult for me to buy that he was the younger brother, he looks like he’s about twice the age of Hale Appleman who played his older brother, Ben).  Ryder had the great instincts of a veteran performer which made him extremely interesting to watch, even after the character’s personal tragedies limited his range of motion in the third act.  Sally Wingert also had some very nice moments as Clara, family matriarch.  In fact, she best embodied the physical and emotional characteristics of the time period.

Another thing that I found both puzzling and ultimately distracting, was the choice to include modern clothing and technology into the show.  While I understand that the audience was meant to see the parallel between the late 1930’s and today, I think we could have figured it out on our own without the Casio keyboard, the POD storage unit,  and the Enron t-shirt.

I wanted a lot more from Paradise Lost than I got.  The show did live up to its claim that it was a “bust”, though unfortunately I do not think it was in the way it was intended to.

Interesting projections made us see the cast in a different light- literally.

If you’re looking for one-of-a-kind theatrical experiences, the American Repertory Theatre is always happy to oblige.  I have had the pleasure of dozens of evenings at A.R.T.’s Loeb Drama Center, but never have I attended a production as epic as Elevator Repair Service’s Gatz.  This gargantuan six-hour piece is more than a word-for-word reading of one of America’s most beloved novels; it is a reexamination of what modern theatre can be for an audience.  Throughout the evening, the entire text of “The Great Gatsby” is read from cover to cover and no alternate or supplementary text is added. The company takes its time in allowing the story to develop organically. In four distinct acts, the audience is swept with a wave of nostalgia for the days when theatre was a whole day commitment and intermissions are long enough to have dinner and regroup.  From start to finish, Gatz is the longest theatrical performance I have ever seen, and Elevator Repair Service must be commended for their engaging, glamorous, treatment of Salinger’s greatest work.

Elevator Repair Service is a theater ensemble that builds original shows around a broad range of subject matter including literary, dramatic, and cinematic forms.  In Gatz, Scott Shepherd takes on the enormous responsibility of lead player.  Framed in the context of a cheap and grimy office, Shepherd picks up a copy of “The Great Gatsby” and starts to read it aloud to pass the time.  At first the distinction is clear- Shepherd is reading the book as anyone might, in simple monotone; he is a colorless drone in a dreary office.  But somehow, seamlessly, Shepherd becomes Nick, the novel’s protagonist.  Shepherd’s coworkers step up to assume the other characters in the story, first in pantomime, but then in earnest and to much delight of the audience.  The duality of office worker and novel character is like a fun mystery game.  Gary Wilmes is the first to join Shepherd in his indulgence as Tom.  He is charismatic and lecherous, bonding his “office persona” swiftly into his character treatment.  Wilmes re-imagines the character of Tom for Gatz.  Less the bumbling oafish man who cannot control his temper, and more an American “Joe” trying to do right in his life- it was actually a refreshing look at the character, and mirrored Jim Fletcher’s unique take on Gatsby- a less confident, more unfortunate reading of the novel’s namesake.  In fact, all the characters take on more realistic interpretations of the novel’s big and impassioned characters.  Jordan (Susie Sokol) is more vulnerable, less self-assured than I imagined her to be, Daisy (Victoria Vazquez) is a little less ruthless.  I appreciate how Elevator Repair Service breathed “human” life into the characters.  (I also noticed the actors playing Gatsby and Henry Gatz, his father, have the same last name- I am not sure if this is coincidence or if they are in fact father and son, but it is really fantastic to imagine that they are- it ads even more layers to their on-stage relationship!)

My only criticism of this production is that the rich universe created in the first half of the reading doesn’t quite manifest itself as well in the second half. I believe the audience is meant to understand that as Shepherd embodies the character of Nick more and more completely, the vestiges of the office fade away leaving him completely immersed in Gatsby’s world.  Unfortunately, this didn’t work for me as well as I might have hoped.  I kept waiting for small reminders that this space was still an office, that the book was still an escape from the reality of a stolid existence, but they never came. If fact, towards the end of the play the audience was being addressed directly as if we had been there all the time despite the fact that the fourth wall remained fairly in-tact for the earlier part of the show.  I would have loved to see the office metaphor being taken further into the second part of the play because there is something so satisfying about the combination of the novelist’s voice and the actor’s treatment existing right up against one another.  I missed it towards the end.

The ensemble is spectacular.  The huge amount of preparation for Gatz is nothing short of a miracle.  Shepherd has committed the entire book to memory, and the rest of the ensemble have taken their characters to heart in a deep way not often reached in modern theatre.  The six hours flew by, I could not believe it.  The only thing more intimidating than being an actor in a show of that length has to be being an audience member!  But it just isn’t an issue with this production.  If the length of the piece is a fear keeping you from attending, I implore you to forget about it and buy tickets.  You will be amazed at how quickly the time goes.  I suggest you take advantage of one of the A.R.T.’s dining options, or run across the street to The Upper Crust for a slice, because the break goes by quickly and the excellent A.R.T. staff is diligent about keeping the show running on time.

Shepherd reads. Photo: Mark Barton

William Shakespeare would have rolled over in his grave if he had heard last night’s performance of Best Of Both Worlds at the A.R.T.- but only to get his ear closer to the magnificent sound! In the true spirit of the long dead king of writers, Randy Weiner, Diedre Murray and Diane Paulus have re-imagined The Winter’s Tale for a modern era- touching the audience like never before.  Mellow jazz, smooth R & B, passionate gospel and playful hip-hop combine and intertwine to imbue a centuries old story with new spirit.

Gone is the familiar, painful to follow text and predictable action.  The cast fills the stage with color and sound and vitality to rival the flashiest of Broadway shows.  Just as King Chamberlin’s Men would have, the company of players of Best of Both Worlds, arrive on a bare set- in a purple Cadillac no less- and instantly transform it into their playing space. Cleavant Derricks, as our narrator, sets the scene for the audience, and his tongue is planted firmly in his cheek as he introduces two R&B “Kings”, Ezekiel (Gregg Baker) and Maurice (Darius de Haas) whose pride and stubbornness lead to extremely dramatic circumstances for Ezekiel’s beloved wife Serena (Jeannette Bayardelle), his children Mamillius (Sebastien Lucien) and Rain (Brianna Horne), and the entire kingdom of lives they touch along the way.  It is Shakespeare undone and redone again (you should see the exit pursued by a bear!)

The axiom and essence of The Winters Tale live on in this neoteric, musical treatment.  Baker as Ezekiel is mesmerizing.  It is almost impossible to take your eyes off of him when he’s singing.  With a voice that floats to the very top row of seats, his emotions are palpable- from rage to anguish. De Hass is the perfect counterpoint as Maurice, his voice so warm and supple that there was not one person breathing in the entire auditorium when he hit his high notes.  All this vocal power was matched by Bayardelle’s Serena and Mary Bond Davis’ portrayal of Violetta, Queen Mother of Ezekiel.  Bayardelle garnered the loudest applause of the night after her heart-rending plea for mercy at the end of act one.  She was as beautiful and ethereal as any queen I could conjure.  Davis as Violetta had the vocal power to rival the entire ensemble, and as the company’s matriarch she filled her roll with a grace and dignity that has been unmatched by any single female I have seen perform this season.  A strong ensemble of players round out the rest of the extraordinary cast.  Nikkieli DeMone’s powerful celebration of love in the second act was a crowd pleaser, and Horne and Lawrence Stallings (as Tariq) deliver a sensational ballad- but the real show stopper came from Lucien, whose solo tribute to his mother is so beautiful that it brought the audience to tears.  He was sophisticated and mature enough to hold his own in a cast of exceptional talent.

I was so moved to be a part of this night of theatre.  Looking around the packed house, their was an even more pronounced rainbow of faces in the crowd- and that is an exciting feeling for someone who sees an average of three shows a week, often with the same, stuffy, blue-haired set.  I felt privileged to get to share this event with a crowd that isn’t necessarily your typical A.R.T. patron.  The feeling in the air was arresting- a current of excitement that revived and rejuvenated the entire audience.  The night flew by- and there was no need for the company to illicit a standing ovation at the curtain, the audience was already standing, clapping, shouting, and in some cases, singing along.  It just felt good.  The A.R.T. has made its name by offering us unconventional theatrical productions, and Best of Both Worlds is more than just a feather in the A.R.T cap, it’s a crowning jewel. Bravo, Bravo!

Jeannette Bayardelle and Sebastian Lucien. Photo: Marcus Stern.

A marriage proposal. Photo: Marcus Stern.