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.

Interiors / Théâtre des Abbesses



Interiors

Théâtre des Abbesses
2-6 November 2010
8.30pm everyday + 3pm matinee Sat.
13-24 euros
In English with French subtitles

**

In Matthew Lenton's award-winning production of Maurice Maeterlinck's 1895 drama Intérieur the audience watches a family meal through huge panes of glass front of stage; the metaphoric fourth wall is physically constructed and effectively divides "us" and "them", the public and the not-so private.  The domestic situation is familiar, the voyeuristic perspective afforded by the beautiful, expressionistic set disturbing.  We cannot hear what the characters say but their conversation and their private thoughts are relayed to us by an anonymous, omnipotent narrator (Elspeth Brodie).

In Maeterlinck's original, the audience watches through a window as the family within is informed of the death of one of their daughters.  The horror of death is concentrated by the petri dish proportions of the spectators to the spectated as the audience helplessly watch a scene of cosy domestic happiness slide into the chaos of despair.  In Lenton's interpretation, no tidings of death are brought to the family and the production instead focuses on the banal minutiae of family life; petty jealousies, boredoms, secret sexual longings, and hidden resentments.  We watch the characters tell jokes, dance, flirt and argue; the group splinters and reforms.  Although the observations on family politics are not particularly original, nor profound, they are portrayed well in a sustained and impressive piece of ensemble mime (Lenton's Vanishing Point company was awarded the Best Ensemble Critics' Award for Theatre in Scotland in 2009).  Lenton makes reference to Maeterlinck's preoccupation with death in the closing lines of the play where he has his narrator, rather artlessly, list the wheres, whens and hows of each characters' death over the next couple of decades.  It is fairly clear what Lenton is getting at; instead of employing puppets to represent fate's complete control over man, as Maeterlinck did, Lenton instead uses a big-brother style voice over to lay bare the futility of each character's actions.  The final revelation of the characters' future demises completely undercuts their striving for self-determination; the interactions we have witnessed are made to seem fleeting and poignantly human.

However, considering the pedigree of all those involved in the staging of Interiors (a co-production with Napoli Teatro Festival Italia, Mercadante Teatro Stabile di Napoli and Traverse Theatre in association with Lyric Hammersmith and Tron Theatre) I failed to find the play compelling in its subject nor innovative in its execution.  The concept of a omniscient voice-over articulating the private thoughts of those assembled around the dinner table is not particularly original, the reference to contemporary Big Brother culture obvious and rather laboured.  It was quite funny; it was a bit like a skit on your average TV sketch show, except it went on for an hour and a half.  By the closing lines of the play, the dead girl's narration descends into such cringeworthy sentimentality that the play's real strength of portraying quotidian family life with accurate and entertaining realism is unfortunately undermined.  One is left with a frustrated sense that the rich potential offered by Maeterlinck's original has  not been successfully exploited, neither thematically nor stylistically; indeed, that the link between Interiors and Intérieur is actually rather tenuous, more a shared stage set than a coherent set of philosophical ideas and questions.