Theater Review: Daly Does Callas

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Monday, 11 July 2011 10:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

Master Class
Written by Terrence McNally
Directed by Stephen Wadsworth
Starring Tyne Daly, Sierra Boggess, Clinton Brandhagen, Jeremy Cohen, Alexander Silber, Garrett Sorenson

I was prepared to be disappointed by Tyne Daly’s Maria Callas in Master Class because in 1995 Terrence McNally’s play premiered on Broadway with Zoe Caldwell, followed by Patti Lupone, two legendary actresses giving unforgettable performances.

But as indelible as Caldwell and Lupone were, Daly’s best stage appearance yet proves there’s room for other interpretations of the irascible, callous Callas. Her Mama Rose in Gypsy and the mother in Rabbit Hole didn’t prepare us for the wit, smarts and humor she brings to a true acting diva’s most diva-ish role.

Although the play is pretty flimsy, its clever construction and reliance on a powerhouse actress make for a diverting couple of hours. Callas, hosting a master class, puts three young singers through their paces and speaks to the nervous piano accompanist and a non-plussed union stagehand.

But most of the play is taken up by Callas’ monologues, either talking directly to the audience or losing herself in reminiscences about her spotty track record, onstage and backstage, with the opera directors and other men in her life.

These monologues train a spotlight on the diva, and Daly runs with them, superbly aping Callas’ movement, aspect, accent and bearing, showcasing an irrepressible diva who’s past her peak. Along with director Wadsworth, an old pro at staging opera, Daly transforms McNally’s choppy flashbacks of Callas at La Scala or being berated by Aristotle Onassis into true showstoppers.

Although Daly dominates from the get-go, the other performers also shine. Sierra Boggess (the only one to survive the debacle that was The Little Mermaid) shows off a crystalline voice as Callas’ final  singing "victim."

Clinton Brandhagen makes the tenor student a worthy adversary, Jeremy Cohen is sympathetic as the pianist and Alexandra Silber reins in the temptation to overplay the comic aspects of Callas’ first student. Rounding out the cast is Garrett Sorenson, who dryly caricatures a disinterested Teamster.

But Master Class is definitely Maria Callas’ story, and Daly memorably presents her as larger-than-life, warts (or calluses) and all.

Master Class
Friedman Theater
252 West 47th Street
New York, NY
mtc-nyc.com
Opened July 7; closes September 4, 2011

Kevin's July '11 Digital Week II

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Sunday, 10 July 2011 10:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week

Das Boot: Extended Director’s Cut
(Sony)
German director Wolfgang Petersen’s exploration of a World War II U-boat crew achieved “classic” status after its 1982 release, but was also shown as a six-hour TV mini-series in Europe. Petersen re-edited footage from both cuts to come up with his 3-½ hour “director’s cut” that’s his preferred version.

Both intimate and epically-scaled, it’s a perfect balance of claustrophobia and expansive battle sequences to satisfy fans of action movies and more modest dramas. The original 2-½ hour feature is also included, and both versions look spectacular on Blu-ray. Extras include a Petersen commentary and several featurettes on the making of the film, its historical background and Petersen’s final cut.

Camille 2000 (Cult Epics)
The Image
(Synapse)
These adult films by Radley Metzger are nicely-photographed trifles that have their felicities (especially The Image’s lovely Paris locations), but are hampered by poor dubbing, less-than-adequate acting and a paucity of erotic moments. (A few explicit instances of fellatio in The Image don’t help.)

Metzger is one of the more celebrated directors from porn’s golden age, but the movies haven’t aged well and drag on to no apparent effect. Both movies have been restored, giving them a sheen they haven’t had since their making in 1969 and 1975. Extras are on-set featurettes and restoration clips.

Dialogues des Carmelites
(BelAir Classiques)
Les Troyens
(Unitel Classica)
Two classic French operas from the 19th and 20th century are seen in unfortunate 2010 stagings. Francois Poulenc’s 1957 masterpiece Dialogues loses much of its tragic power thanks to Dmitri Tcherniakov’s misguided Munich production, while Hector Berlioz’s mythic epic Les Troyens (composed in the mid 1850s) has been turned into a silly Star Wars-like space opera by Spanish director Carlus Padrissa.

Happily, the music of both operas comes through loudly and clearly thanks to superb DTS-HD audio, and there are excellent transfers; no extras on Dialogues, but Troyens includes a making-of featurette.

Hobo with a Shotgun
(Magnet)
Blood and guts literally spurt everywhere in this gleefully inane send-up of sleazy B-movies that follows the title bum as he cleans up the streets of a town surprisingly inundated with violent thugs. Rutger Hauer’s craggy, leathery face is the perfect visual of this over-the-top explosion of mayhem that features inventive ways of offing people, even one stolen from Caligula, of all things.

Molly Dunsworth makes a perky sidekick to Hauer’s dour hero, although good acting isn’t the point. The movie is given a satisfying hi-def transfer; extras include commentaries, making-of featurettes, deleted scenes, alternate ending and interviews.

Of Gods and Men
(Sony)
Xavier Beauvois’ forceful drama is based on the true story of French monks in a remote Algerian village who were kidnapped and killed by terrorists in 1996. This meditative character study shows men living austerely while helping the poor and sick and giving hope to the destitute. When terrorist threats become real, the men must choose to abandon their calling as God’s helpers or return to safety in France.

Smartly refraining from soundtrack music or cross-cutting to heighten suspense or anxiety, Beauvois trusts his material and his audience; the result, while depressing, is spiritually exhilarating. The extraordinary imagery looks glorious on Blu-ray, especially the dazzlingly understated final shots. Extras include a featurette on the real monks and a discussion by two experts.

People on Sunday
(Criterion)
A rare Criterion foray into silent film unearths this 1930 German cross between fiction and documentary, a gem about city slickers who plan a weekend outing in pre-Nazi era Berlin. The behind-the-camera crew, filled with future masters like directors Robert Siodmak and Edgar G. Ulmer, writer Billy Wilder and assistant cinematographer Fred Zinnemann, shows the strength of Germany’s film industry before Hitler.

Criterion’s superlatively restored Blu-ray transfer has nary a scratch or mark; extras include two musical scores, a 2000 documentary about the film, Weekend am Wannsee, and a 35-minute short by the film’s cinematographer Eugen Schufftan, Ins Blaue hinein.

13 Assassins
(Magnet)
Takashi Miike’s remake of Eiichi Kudo’s elegant 1963 black and white film has the requisite amounts of blood (beginning with the opening scene’s hara-kiri), but two-plus hours of unrelieved, vividly colorful bloodletting and samurai battles palls on the viewer; by its end, we’re left with pretty (and pretty violent) imagery, and little else.

The stylish scenes of killing are presented with appropriate clarity on Blu-ray. Extras include a Miike interview and 18 minutes of deleted scenes.

Wake Wood
(Dark Sky)
This short, unsubtle chiller takes its cue from The Wicker Man and Audrey Rose as a grieving couple brings its daughter back thanks to the pagan ritual practiced in the small village they move to after her death.

Although the thrills are borrowed from earlier and better sources, the accomplished cast and director David Keating’s unerring eye (this is one of the best-looking Blu-ray transfers I’ve yet seen) smooth over what’s redundant or routine, including the risible final stare at the camera. Deleted scenes are the lone extra.

DVDs of the Week

Lulu
(Arthaus Musik)
Parsifal
(Unitel Classica)
These classic productions of two great operas are finally released on DVD. The 2003 Zurich staging of Alban Berg’s horrifying Lulu might be the incomplete version, but soprano Laura Aikin makes a riveting anti-heroine, even handling the not so gratuitous nudity with aplomb.

Wolfgang Wagner’s 1999 staging of his grandfather’s final opera, Parsifal, at the Wagner shrine in Bayreuth is dramatically deficient but visually stunning; terrific singers like Paol Elming, Linda Watson and Falk Struckmann are accompanied by glorious musicmaking by the orchestra and conductor Giuseppe Sinopoli.

One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich
(Icarus Films)
Chris Marker’s lovely eulogy for his good friend, Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, who died in 1986 of cancer, is one of three remarkable Russian-themed documentaries on this disc.

Also included are Three Songs About Motherland, Marina Goldovskaya’s intimate chronicle of modern Russia still dealing with its tortured past, and In the Dark, director Sergey Dvortsevoy’s moving film about a blind old man, living with his cat in a tiny Moscow apartment, who weaves baskets to hand out to complete strangers on the street.

Yesspeak (MVD)
This documentary about one of the most accomplished progressive rock bands was made during the 2003 reunion tour that brought together singer Jon Anderson, guitarist Steve Howe, bassist Chris Squire, keyboardist Rick Wakeman and drummer Alan White for the band’s 35th anniversary. Roger Daltrey narrates an interesting three-hour history with a short detour for each of the five members. (Trevor Rabin, who masterminded the band’s biggest hit years, Tony Kaye and Bill Bruford are out of luck.)

Although the concert’s musical numbers are only excerpted, a bonus is the entire concert in Dolby 5.1 audio, so fans can hear full versions of “I’ve Seen All Good People,” “The South Side of the Sky” and “Roundabout.”

CD of the Week

Strauss: Don Juan/Metamorphosen/Songs
(Avie)
As this new disc demonstrates, Richard Strauss (who died in 1949 at age 85) was composing works in his old age as substantial as those he wrote as the new enfant terrible in late 19th century Vienna.

Paired are his boisterous early tone poem, 1889’s Don Juan and Metamorphosen, his reflective post-war meditation from 1945, both played by the solid Strasbourg Philharmonic (only the string section on the latter) under conductor Jan Latham-Koenig.

In between, nine typically luscious songs from early in his career are sung with richness by soprano Joan Rogers accompanied by Latham-Koenig on piano.

Theater Review: Bed Tricks in Central Park

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Saturday, 02 July 2011 10:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

All’s Well That Ends Well
Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Daniel Sullivan
Starring Kristen Connolly, John Cullum, Carson Elrod, Michael Hayden, Andre Holland, Dakin Matthews, Annie Parisse, Lorenzo Pisoni, Reg Rogers

Measure for Measure
Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by David Esbjornson
Starring John Cullum, Carson Elrod, Danai Gurira, Michael Hayden, Andre Holland, Dakin Matthews, Annie Parisse, Lorenzo Pisoni, Reg Rogers

The "bed trick," in which Shakespeare asked his audiences to suspend their disbelief even more than usual, is the obvious connection between the two plays in Central Park this summer.

But whereas All’s Well That Ends Well is among the Bard’s bumpiest rides, Measure for Measure may be his most cynically brilliant dissection of relationships. Both comedies end in forced marriages, but whereas the end couplings of All’s Well are nominally happy, those paraded onstage at the end of Measure are tenuous at best.

Typically for Central Park, these stagings are a grab-bag of good and less able actors fighting it out for Delacorte Theater supremacy, with each director contributing ready-made visual intrusions to give audiences what they pay for.

Daniel Sullivan’s All’s Well has a stateliness that works in the scenes between the heroine Helena and her protector, the Countess of Rousillion, along with the ailing King of France, but less well with her beloved Bertram (who loathes her) and his cowardly sycophant Parolles (who gets his).

David Esbjornson’s Measure, by contrast, begins with black-clad and horned extras wearing devil’s masks who are haunting Vincentio, Duke of Vienna, and apparently prompt him to leave his city, which is becoming morally corrupt.

The broad comedy subplot of All’s Well, which brings Parolles to his knees, is overdone by Sullivan, who allows Reg Rogers to mug shamelessly -- as does Esbjornson, who lets Rogers play Measure’s Lucio as Parolles’ campy double. That Rogers gets big laughs in both roles is disheartening.

Sullivan’s mostly sensible directing of All’s Well is helped by Tom Kitt’s subtle chamber music, Jane Greenwood’s appropriate costumes and Peter Kaczorowski’s elegant lighting.

Too bad Measure never balances the inherent difficulties in one of Shakespeare’s most problematic plays. Esbjornson goes for dramatic shortcuts by repeatedly bringing his horned demons back, while John Gromada’s kitschy horror-movie score and Elizabeth Hope Clancy’s nondescript costumes are no match for Kaczorowski’s stark lighting.

Like last summer, performers are in both productions, except for Danai Gurira, who plays Measure’s heroine Isabella with little gracefulness or charm, and who (like Katharine Waterston in a Measure directed by Arin Arbus) speaks in a dully one-note manner. Carson Ellrod shows Reg Rogers that it’s possible to overdo comic parts correctly, as his Interpreter in All’s Well and Pompey in Measure happily reveal. (The night I attended, Ellrod humorously engaged in mock-hero worship of audience member Bill Irwin.)

Vet John Cullum makes a regal King in All’s Well and a dignified Escalus in Measure. The accomplished Annie Parisse decently enacts All’s Well’s Helena and Measure’s Mariana.

Michael Hayden and Lorenzo Pisoni impress as the King’s sons in All’s Well and Hayden brings a welcome gravity to Measure’s villainous hypocrite Alberto. Pisoni fails to make that play’s Duke (in and out of disguise as a friar) believably complex.

And too bad Andre Holland does little with pivotal parts, All’s Well’s Bertram and Measure’s Claudio. Reliable Dakin Matthews makes the most of his supporting roles.

While neither production takes the full measure of Shakespeare, for many in the audience a beautiful summer night under the stars at the Delacorte is usually enough.

Shakespeare in the Park
Delacorte Theatre, Central Park
New York, NY
shakespeareinthepark.org

All’s Well That Ends Well
Opened June 25; closes July 27, 2011

Measure for Measure
Opened June 30; closes July 30, 2011