Life and Times Episode 1 / Théâtre des Abbesses

Life and Times Episode 1

Théâtre des Abbesses

1-5 March 2011, 7.30pm

13-24 euros

Sung in English with English and French subtitles

***

Created and directed by Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska, of experimental, New York-based company The Nature Theater of Oklahoma, this verbatim piece sets a telephone conversation to music composed by Robert M. Johanson.
Billed as "a marathon musical worthy of the word epic", Life and Times – Episode 1 derives from the first conversation Liska had with the subject of this study Kristin Worrall, wherein she makes the first attempt to tell her life story; spanning from her birth until her eighth year.  The NTO propose to stage the remaining hours of dialogue over the next 10 years, creating a total 24 hours of theatre.  An epic project indeed.  Yet the subject matter is stubbornly "average", recognisably what we have come to regard as "normal", an almost event-less narrative of a suburban American childhood; and it has a vocabulary to match.  Every single word of the conversation is translated onto the stage, resulting in a piece of musical theatre that could be subtitled 'The Unexpected Poetry of Er and Um'.

With a running time of over three and a half hours, this production is far too long.  Neither the subject matter nor the presentation style is capable of maintaining the audience's interest and by the end of the performance around two thirds have left.  The project of creating a poetry out of the prosaic, of discovering the profound in the quotidian, would have been undiminished by slicing off an hour and a half.

The ensemble performance delivered by Anne Gridley, Julie Lamendola and Alison Weisgall is truly impressive; polished to perfection, intelligent in its conception and consistently high energy.  Other performers, who take on comparatively minor roles during the play's second half, are less impressive and the stylistic disruption caused by the introduction of a jumbled male chorus undermines the production's effective minimalism.  Musicians Daniel Gower, Kristin Worrall and, in particular, Robert M. Johanson who composed all the music, provide much of the production's driving force from the tiny orchestra pit front of stage, collaborating with the physical performers to create an original piece of singing theatre as opposed to another example of cosy musical theatre.

Unfortunately, the theory of Life and Times Episode 1 is somewhat more interesting than its theatrical manifestation.  One leaves the theatre thinking it very clever but hardly anticipating the next instalment, let alone the further twenty-one hours of dressed-up, intellectualised banality to come.  A good opportunity to see The Nature Theater Of Oklahoma at work but from what is on show here in Abbesses, the hype seems to somewhat resemble the play; theoretically sound but rather unsubstantial and unsatisfying in reality.

The Barber of Seville / Théâtre du Châtelet

Le Barbier de Séville

Théâtre du Châtelet

22nd, 24th, 26th, 28th January 8pm and 30th at 3pm.

10-141 euros

In Italian with French subtitles

*** 
Co-produced by the Teatro Real (Madrid) and the Teatro Nacinal Sao Carlos (Lisbon), Emilio Sagi's highly anticipated 2005 production of Rossini's The Barber of Seville arrives at the Théâtre du Châtelet for just five sell-out performances this January.  Conducted by Jean-Christophe Spinosi, this conservative production is rather narrow in its references and features a somewhat lacklustre cast, yet manages to carve out a pleasing dramatic and musical unity, however simplistic this may be.
The almost cartoonish simplicity of Llorenç Corbella's design serves the plot of this comic masterpiece well and produces an aesthetically exciting production, culminating in a spectacular, fluorescent finale to complete the shift from the black and white austerity of the opening scene to the triumphant realisation of Rosina and Almaviva's love at the opera's close.  This ensemble celebration of the classic comedic triumph of youth over age is composed of the very best aspects of this production, successfully combining bold modernist design and technology and classic Spanish Sevillana, as choreographed by Nuria Castejon.  Sagi, as artistic director of the Teatro Real, once again amply displays his skill for Spanish-inspired productions, following his admiral interpretation of Carmen in 2010 and a highly acclaimed production of Zarzuela recently staged at Milan's La Scala with Placido Domingo.

However, Sagi could certainly be accused of substituting style for substance, both musically and theatrically.  Many of dramatist Pierre de Beaumarchais' thematic interests, such as opera buffa's all-important exploration of the class tensions of the early 19th-century, are played down to vanishing point.  No hint is offered of the marital tensions to be revealed in Mozart's sequel, The Marriage of Figaro, and any darker shades of subtlety are wholly subsumed by the extravagant multicoloured festivities.

A cast of varying quality works well together to maintain a fast-pace of action and a fine balance of comedy and pathos.  In the title role, Bruno Taddia capitalises on a strong stage presence to craft endearing moments of gentle humour, but his energetic physicality fails to compensate for a disappointingly weak vocal performance.  Rising Rossini tenor Bogdan Mihai presents a delicate, handsome Count Almaviva in fine contrast to Tiziano Bracci's blustering, aggressive Bartolo; and if Anna Stephany's acting  is of a rather bland variety, the varied interpretation and vocal agilityof the soprano make her a strong female lead.

A light-hearted production that avoids the clichéd and the camp but misses much of the seriousness of Rossini's great comedy in the process.

Julius Caesar / Théâtre Gérard Philipe

Julius Caesar

Théâtre Gérard Philipe

15-28 November 2010, 7.30pm Mon-Fri; 6pm Sat; 4pm Sun; no performance Tues.
6-20 euros
In English with French subtitles

***

Produced in partnership with the Centre Dramatique National/Orléans-Loiret-Centre, the American Repertory Theatre stage Shakespeare's great study of tyranny, revolution, and civil war, against a slick dreamscape of 1960s America.  A live jazz band, iconic 60s stage furniture and a set of epic, roman proportions combine to make this ambitious project a highly original, if not consistently convincing, reevaluation of the relationship between the political image and the political word.

French director Arthur Nauzyciel produced this play specifically for French audiences, the vast majority of whom, at least in part, rely on the French subtitles displayed above the stage.  It is therefore understandable that the pace at times seems slow and particular lines rather laboured, enunciated to an awkward degree for those familiar with Shakespeare's work.  The actors are successful in allowing for the greatest possible degree of first-hand understanding for non-native speakers, and thus convey well the cadence of the play's original language, whilst synchronising the words spoken on the stage with those appearing above it.  However, key relationships between characters suffer as lines are often delivered straight out to the audience, the actors staring into the middle distance rather than at each other.  Most notably the early dialogues between Cassius and Brutus ( Mark L. Montgomery and James Waterson), fail to create a sense of intimacy between the two conspirators.

The production draws its energy from the play's most iconic scenes; Caesar's assassination at the Capitol (Act 3, scene 1) and Mark Antony's oration beginning "Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears".  As Caesar (Thomas Derrah) lies murdered before them, Nauzyciel has his players literally enact Brutus' instructions to "Stoop, Romans, stoop/And let us bathe our hands in Caesar's blood/Up to the elbows", creating a most disturbing tableau of sharply suited men dripping blood on to the Senate floor.  However, the strength of the production's references to 1960s America spring not from this implicit allusion to the Kennedy assassination, but rather from the staging of Antony's funeral speech, that great icon of rhetoric.  Stood beneath a huge overhead microphone, Daniel Pettrow masterfully plays with Shakespeare's slippery verse, flinging rhetorical questions out to the full auditorium before him and the empty one seen behind him; and is answered with the sound of the people's swelling rage, piped around the theatre.  Waterson prowls around the periphery of the stage, watching on as his rival's consummate skill as a politician and rhetorician turns from positive spin to implicit damnation as Pettrow systematically inverts the meaning of the very language of politics.  In the first act of the play, Brutus says of self-knowledge and of image "the eye sees not itself,/But by reflection, by some other things"; and it is Antony's rhetoric which ultimately dictates how Rome sees Brutus and through this how Rome sees itself, "You all did love him once, not without cause:/What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?"  That the audience looks on to a mirror image of their own empty seats during this scene, serves as a reminder of one's own susceptibility to the power of the spoken word, that in the world of high politics each countryman is a mere pawn to stylised manipulation.

The main problem with the production is Nauzyciel's preoccupation with Lucius, Brutus' trusted servant boy, who is allocated 24 short lines in Shakespeare's play but here is played by Jared Craig as a transcendental, death and dumb spectator of Roman political folly, artificially planted into several climactic scenes.  Nauzyciel uses the character of Lucius as an embodiment of innocence and the political naivety of Brutus; when the latter lays down to die, his servant mirrors his actions in an effective inversion of filmic representation of the parting of the soul and the body in death.  But his presence, dressed in an infantile superman t-shirt and gold sparkly cape, on the battlefields is ridiculous and undermines the gravitas of the conspirators' death scenes.  The character of Lucius is indeed intended to reveal the humanity of Brutus, for when the boy falls asleep over his instrument Shakespeare has Brutus say "It is no matter:/Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber"; it is unnecessary to use his character as an artificial avatar of such subtleties.

Overall, a very enjoyable, if flawed, production, with an outstanding performance from Daniel Pettrow.