Three Sisters

The first lines Chekhov writes in Three Sisters, currently being staged by The Williamstown Theater Festival, Olga Prozorov, the eldest sister, tells us that it is one year ago to the day that their father died, but now everything is fine. It is Irina’s, the youngest sister, birthday and today there is to be a celebration. Then there was snow and despair, but today there are flowers and happiness. Soon Olga and Irina will be leaving their provincial home and moving to Moscow, where they will enjoy the sophisticated life and meet the men of their dreams.

But it is not to be. For the next two and half hours we are presented with a montage of misery and despair piled high and deep as snow in a Siberian February, as each of the Prozorov sisters and their coterie discovers that with age comes disappointment. Marriages fail, family and friends disappoint, wealth departs, and life is a continuous exercise in existential nothingness.

Cheery huh. Well, that’s not the point. What has always fascinated me about Chekhov’s plays is the time when he was writing them. Russia was collapsing under the weight of a serf based land system akin to slavery, with an indolent upper class that could barely communicate with their own servants. The servants spoke Russian, the nobles spoke French.

While industrialization was changing the face of America and Western Europe, Russia was still mired in an aguarian based system where labor -- or any sort of work -- was considered low. Of all the plays in the Chekhovian cannon, Three Sisters is probably the one that modern audience must most appreciate in the context and times in which it was written. While the central story line of The Cherry Orchard concerns the loss of property and the downward spiral of the upper class, Three Sisters is about the personal feelings and longings associated with such dramatic societal change. These are specific people in a time and place, and to understand them it is important to understand the times in which they are living.

Is their plight universal? Perhaps, but not so self consciously.

So we have Olga, Masha, and Irina. Three Sisters who live in provincial capital and dream of escape – Olga and Irina to Moscow, Masha into the arms of the Army Commandant and away from her failed marriage. We have Andrei, their brother, who once had a promising career as a scientist, but winds up mortgaging the family estate to support his gambling habit and trapped in loveless marriage to a shrieking virago. We have Ivan, an elderly friend and border who once loved the sister’s mother, but has now escaped into the bottle to forget his loneliness. And we have Vershinin, the Army Commandant, whose second wife has gone mad and longs for the very married but very vivacious Masha.

While each of Chekhov’s characters has their dreams, they are all stuck; stuck in time and place, with their feelings and desires descending into endless longing.

This is a bold production full of choices. Jessica Hecht play Olga with the giddy nervousness of a women who has spent far too many years bottling up her feelings and seems about to go mad. Jonathon Fried gives an over-the-top performance as Kulygin, Masha’s husband, a high school teacher content with his life, who can only watch as his beloved wife drifts farther and farther away. Rebecca De Witt, as Masha, is full of rage that quickly turns to passion in the arms of her forbidden lover. Natasha, Andrei’s wife, as performed by Cassie Beck, is every bit the evil monster she is meant to be.

One wonders why Director Michael Grief chose to place the Act One dining table in the back of the set, where key lines must be screamed to be heard; or why the Act Two finale set consists of a long ramp where characters must turn their back to the audience to see who is entering. It all seems a bit of jumbled mess, much like the characters on stage.

As the curtain descends, Irina repeats “Why must we suffer, if only we knew…if only we knew.” If you want a Russian history lesson and don’t mind watching lots of suffering in the process, Three Sisters is just the ticket.

--- July 26, 2008

The Understudy

Here’s the setup – a big action movie star has taken a role on Broadway opposite an even bigger action movie star. A nobody shows up to rehearse the understudy role for a big action movie star. It turns out that the stage manager and the nobody were once engaged. The action star doesn’t really want to work with the nobody, but eventually sees that he brings a talent to the role that is sorely lacking. The bigger action star (cleverly referred to as “Bruce”) winds up stealing a role from the smaller action star adding more dramatic tension. Throw in some references to Franz Kafka, and you have a pleasant 90 minutes in the theater courtesy of up-and-coming playwright Theresa Rebeck.

None of it is really outloud funny, and the actors do the best with the material they have to work with. Reg Rogers plays the title character and has the moments in the play. When he is rehearsing the Kafka scenes, he brings the stage alive. The action star is played by Bradley Cooper, is all tan muscle and sunstreaked hair. He never really rises above the stereotypical “movie star.” Kristen Johnston, of 3rd Rock fame, rounds out the small cast as The Stage Manager, where she screams a lot.

Ms. Rebeck likes to work in the world of motives – I greatly enjoyed the MTC production of her play Mauritius last season, where her characters see and seize opportunity. They were in control of their world, and the drama came from the clash of these individual motives. In The Understudy, her characters are not in control of their destinies and “stuff” just happens to them. A cell phone rings, and it could be doom or bliss. An assistant might or might not turn the lights on. They all have reasons and motives for being there, but they effect each other to a minimal degree. All in all, it makes for not particularly interesting – or funny – theater.

Williamstown Theater Festival - Early July, 2008

This is my sixth season at The Williamstown Theater Festival and the axiom that I like to use -- I've never seen a bad show there (except for an unfortunate production of Anything Goes in 2006) still rings true. It really is summer camp for the fabulously talented, albeit under new Artistic Director Nicholas Martin, change is in the air on campus.


Beyond Therapy
First up was Beyond Therapy. A light period piece from the 80s, the show revolves around two hapless souls and their very, very bad therapists. It helped establish author Christopher Durang as one of a new breed of outspoken, dare-to-say it playwrights; a flip-side of Andrew Lloyd Weber's ascent into shlockdom. While Sister Mary Ignatius..., another Durang farce from the 80s, stands the test of time better, the Williamstown production was flawless in its timing, delivery and casting. Kate Burton and Darrell Hammond play the therapists and are given the best lines of the show. She's as spacey as he is creepy, and it was great to see Ms. Burton test her range. Matt McGrath, whose career I have been following for a number of years, plays the aggrieved gay lover of one of the patients, with the understated style that is his hallmark. Perhaps the finest performance of the hour went to Bryce Pinkham as the waiter who comes out of nowhere in the final scenes to steal the show proving there are no small parts. All-in-all, an absolute gem.
She Loves Me

She Loves Me Comes from a time (1961) when you could walk down Broadway and 10 or 15 musicals would be playing simultaneously. You didn't have to mortgage your house to go to the theater, and Broadway music was the popular music of the day. Therefore, it didn't have to be perfect, but just good enough. That's what I thought of She Loves Me -- light, unmemorable score, silly book, rather long, but an enjoyable evening in the theater.
The story revolves around a parfumerie in Budapest in 1934 and the crossed love between the manager of the store and a new employee. Brooks Ashmanskas and Kate Baldwin play the lovers...Brooks seems to have been the replacement for every male lead on Broadway. While he played his part with enthusiasm and certainly had the vocal range for it, I couldn't understand why she would fall for this schlep. In his stand alone moment, "She Loves Me," he seemed to be groping for things to do, and while certainly commanding on the stage, he lacked the confidence to really break out of the moment. He was safe throughout. As for Ms. Baldwin, I melted at her version of "Ice Cream." She is someone to watch.
Dick Latessa is always great to see on stage and relative newcomer Jeremy Beck, as a delivery boy who longs to be a sales clerk, stops the show with his version of "Try Me." His dancing is fluid and every move is sharp and intense. As Mr. Ashmanskas plays it safe, Mr. Beck goes for the gold.
It was the performances around Mr Ashmanskas that made She Loves Me a treat. Just don't look for too much in this second rate musical from the 60s.
The Atheist


As a boy, Augustine Early burned down the trailer he and his mother lived in so that they could go to the head of the line for Section 8 housing. It worked. So starts the winding tale of this boy from meager means who "made good" in a career of journalism. Through the course of two hours Campbell Scott, in a one man tour-de-farce, breaks the biggest story of his life, and takes the audience inside the workings of today's media ecosystem, where stories are designed to have long, long shelf lives. There is love, suicide, corruption, lots of drinking, but what the show is really about is what celebrity is, how it is exploited, and how the exploited can become the exploiter.
Mr. Scott, whose work I am not familiar with, is a fine actor handed the role of a lifetime. With the understated, controlled movements of a fine craftsman, he weaves the tale so you are breathlessly waiting for the next twist and turn. While I've never been a fan of the one-person genre (see the overrated Vannessa Redgrave in The Year of Magical Thinking), The Atheist breaks the mold and leaves you with a lot of questions.
Broke-Ology
Mom died 10 years ago. Her two sons took different paths -- Ennis stayed in the 'hood, got married, and has spent years working at a bar-b-que place to provide for his wife and now, new born son. Malcom went off to the University of Connecticut, and just graduated with a degree in environmental science and microeconomics. He has returned for a summer internship at the EPA ("What do they do?" asks Dad and Ennis) to find the dad he left behind is sick and getting sicker. Ennis is his primary caretaker, and is ready to hand the reigns to Malcom, who has been accepted to grad school back East. Should Malcom stay or go? That is the surface dilemma facing the characters in Nathan Louis Jackson's haunting new play receiving its world premier at The Festival.
But more than that it is about getting stuck. Through a series of flashbacks...and we are never sure whether they are the delusions of Dad's sickness or dreams...we see how mom and dad came to live in the shabby section of Kansas City, and their dreams of moving on that never quite came together. We see dad's dreams to make his wife happy, and how is wife puts on a good show, but never really got over a life of lost dreams. We see Ennis's frustration at his lot, how much he loves his wife and child and how he is coming to accept that a life of hard work at a menial job is the hand fate dealt him. And we see Malcom, taking it all in, struggling with his decision.
Broke-ology is what theater is supposed to be. It is moving and changes you. It raises universal issues, all in the confines of a small story about small, insignificant people who loom large. And it is done with wit. Some of the best moments of the play are the funniest. When Ennis says the "n" word (which he describes as "the crack cocaine of language") at the insistence of wife he has the repeat "I love Black people" five times. This makes for some very funny, poignant moments. Mr. Lane is not afraid to make fun of blacks to an audience of whites for his themes are universal. When a box of old memorabilia is discovered, dad winces at the black figurines that dangled from their long-forgotton Xmas tree -- reminded him of Ku Klux Klan Christmas he reminisces.
Fine performance abound with honesty and intensity. As Wendell Pierce (William King; dad) retreats further and further from reality, we see that he may not have been stuck at all, but gotton everything he ever wanted from life. April Yvette Thompson (Sonia King; mom) is all air, light and spirit, as if she had a place, but was never really there. Gaius Charles as Malcom King, the boy with the big decision, plays it straight. Four years in CT have definitely changed him, and he seems as though he can't fit in anywhere -- his new life or back in the neighborhood.
But the play belongs to Francois Battiste as Ennis King -- the most interesting character -- who sports the role with a spirit that refuses to be tamed by conditions. Mr. Lane has handed him the best lines of the play, and as he tries to convince Malcom to stay, we see the anguish in him as he questions his own motives. If Ennis could get out, why couldn't he? But did he really want to get out? Ennis is living the life his parents led, which was a pretty damn good one if you believe the flashbacks. The one thing that was missing was money and opportunity. Ennis won't have a lot of opportunity, and in his frantic, angry, pleading conversations with his brother, the depth of his frustration shines through.
Broke-ology is not a perfect play. Malcom's role seems a bit sterotyped. A long monolouge by mom about her dreams and aspirations seems to come out of nowhere. A surprise ending is not really a surprise and a few transitions need to be smoothed out. But under the superb direction of In The Heights director Thomas Kail, and a marvelous set designed by Donyale Werle, these slights are easily overlooked.
Broke-ology packs a whallop and one can only hope that the 29-year old voice of Mr. Lane is one we are going to hear a lot more from in the future.
A Few Words About the Cabaret
As I said earlier, change is in the air at Williamstown. First off, the whole first part of the season seems to have been developed -- or come directly from -- The Huntington Stage Company in Boston, Mr. Martin's old stomping ground. That's fine, but I hope that as the season progresses we see a bit more work that originated elsewhere. This isn't Tanglewood, the summer home of The Boston Pops, and for the festival to become the summer home of a Boston-based theatrical group would violate, at least to me, the spirit of what it is trying to accomplish.
Secondly, The Late Night Cabaret has been moved from The Nikos stage to Orchards Hotel. Albeit I went on opening night of the first of three weekends, but a lot has been lost in the move. The show did not start until 11:35, giving the cast members in the never-ending She Loves Me a chance to get to the hotel, I guess. That's fine, but advertise it as such. The waiters running around asking for food and drink orders did not help, and it was painful to watch the performers get on and off the small, overcrowded stage. I guess they were looking for more of a "cabaret" feel, but if live theater is a dieing art (and I am not going to debate that here), when was the last time you trotted over to The Algonquin to catch Judy Wilson?
In my previous experiences with The Cabaret, it was a great mix of apprentices strutting their stuff, and more established performers in a venue you would never see them in (I will never forget Beth Fowler's Send in the Clowns; or Kathleen Turner singing an off-tune lullaby for that matter). This format seems to be scrapped in favor of giving only the apprentices and fellows their turn. I guess that's fine, but this year's crop was singularly unimpressive. With the exception of Rosie Hunter and an up-and-coming songwriter's hillarious version of Letters from Ted Haggert, those on stage picked material that was wrong for their range, seemed to have cornered the market in hair gel, and struggled with a lack of rehearsal. I won't be going again, and that is shame. The Cabaret was one of my most favorite parts of the festival.