Theater Review: "The Whipping Man"

Details

Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Monday, 04 April 2011 05:00

Written by Lucy Komisar

Written by Matthew Lopez
Directed by Doug Hughes
Set by Jean Lee Beatty
Starring Jay Wilkison, André Braugher, André Holland

This is an unlikely melodramatic potboiler about American slavery and a Jewish family in Richmond, Virginia, that turned its slaves into believers. It’s an unlikely premise in spite of historical documentation, but you no sooner get to the point of accepting one unlikely premise, than playwright Matthew Lopez throws you another. The play is full of action and mystery, secrets and surprises, but is somehow unsatisfying.

The essential story is that the slave-holding DeLeon family was Jewish and they converted their slaves to the religion. We must take it on faith that this happened.

It’s 1865 and General Lee has surrendered at Appomattox. Caleb (Jay Wilkison) is a Confederate soldier who drags himself back to the family mansion -- now blackened and ruined by fire -- with a bullet in his leg. His horse has died on arrival. First mystery: why didn’t he get medical care when he was wounded?

The loyal black servant Simon (André Braugher) is soon joined by the bitter John (André Holland). The power relations change. Simon, who is quite generous under the circumstances, says to Caleb, "All these things you’re telling me to do you need to be asking."

Simon saves Caleb’s life by cutting off his gangrenous leg. It’s a rather gruesome moment. John (André Holland) helps hold the patient down. And slowly, the play’s ironies are revealed.

John is methodically looting deserted houses, carrying back chairs and china, a couple of eggs, whiskey (useful for the leg amputation). Lopez depicts him as quite an unusual slave: he ran an underground book distribution that father DeLeon stopped. Now he just wants to go to New York. (An early black intellectual?)

Simon is waiting for the return of his wife and daughter, who departed in the midst of the conflict while he was in hiding. Dressed in the servant’s uniform striped shirt and vest, he wants to stay and continue to work for the family. He doesn’t see much economic alternative.

As a black Jew, Simon presides over Sabbath blessings, lighting candles and saying a prayer over the meal. Now it’s April, and Simon wants to make a Passover dinner, which of course celebrates the Israelites‛ flight to freedom from Egyptian slavery. As he can’t read, he says the words from memory.

John gripes about the celebration of freeing Jewish slaves in the context of the blacks’ experience. But Simon transposes Father Abraham to Abraham Lincoln, who has just been shot. He is described as "the American Moses" who "led us from bondage but was not able to enter the promised land."

So John agrees, "Let’s celebrate the freeing of the slaves," and as befits an underground book distributor -- but really, straining credulity -- "Maybe I’ll write a book like Frederick Douglass."

When John inquires, "Were we Jews or slaves, children of Israel or heathen?" Simon replies, "We were treated better than other slaves." And Caleb says his father had slaves whipped only when necessary. Whew!

It turns out John is bitter because, although the boys were raised almost as brothers, when DeLeon took him to "the whipping man" (antebellum outsourcing) for some infraction, Caleb took the whip and got in some licks of his own.

But Caleb, like his father and other Southern whites, had conflicted relations with blacks, and that involves a secret which makes him concerned about Simon’s family.

The real problem with the play is that it is hokey, a made-for-TV movie, piling one dramatic action on top of another in a way that presents only a caricature of the social and psychological conflicts and relations of the time.

The very strong André Braugher as Simon is painfully moving, but Wilkison doesn’t have much presence as Caleb. Holland, wry and comical in his cynicism, displays the right level of anger and emotion as John.

The staging by Doug Hughes is excellent. The set by Jean Lee Beatty is beautifully naturalistic and eerie.
 
The Whipping Man
Manhattan Theatre Club
Stage 1 at City Center
131 W 55th Street
New York City
212-581-1212
Opened Feb 1, 2011; closes Apr 10, 2011

For more by Lucy Komisar, visit thekomisarscoop.com.

Theater Review - "Succeeding" in Spades

Details

Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Monday, 04 April 2011 05:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
Book by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert
Lyrics and music by Frank Loesser
Directed and choreographed by Rob Ashford
Starring Daniel Radcliffe, John Larroquette, Tammy Blanchard, Christopher J. Hanke, Mary Faber, Ellen Harvey, Rose Hemingway, Michael Park

Celebrating the golden anniversary of its premiere, Frank Loesser’s classic musical How to Succeed in Business Without Trying returns for its second Broadway revival, following the fitfully entertaining 1995 production starring Matthew Broderick and then little-known actress Megan Mullally. Currently, Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe, sings and dances in Rob Ashford’s glittery staging, which satisfies like good old-fashioned Broadway musicals should.

Radcliffe is window washer J. Pierrepont Finch, whose how-to business book (narrated by none other than Anderson Cooper, who takes over from Walter Cronkite in previous productions) lets him climb the corporate ladder in no time, becoming a junior executive under the wing of World Wide Wickets president J.B. Biggley (a snarkily funny John Larroquette), and catching the eye—and heart—of secretary Rosemary (a smashing Broadway debut by Rose Hemingway).

Finch’s remarkable rise mirrors the show’s jaundiced, acidic look at the corporate world, even if some of the book’s jokes are now dated groaners. That Ashford has kept the story and songs as is makes for some uncomfortable moments, since the women are either secretaries or dutiful homemakers whose husbands are out there succeeding or failing in business, trying or not.

How to Succeed—so obviously of its time in its winking wit and Loesser’s tuneful songs—may be more Mad Men-inspired work from Ashford (who helmed the similarly early ’60s-themed Promises Promises last season), but I’ve never seen that show, so I can’t comment. In any case, Derek McLane’s gargantuan set of interlocking cubes looks like honeycombs in an imposing beehive, certainly befitting this insular world of backstabbers within a largely thriving community. Catherine Zuber’s bold period costumes and Howell Binkley’s masterly lighting design give the production added visual zest.

Ashford’s distinctive flair for physically demanding choreography is watchable even when the dance steps don’t always mesh with the songs, like his staging the tongue-in-cheek “Coffee Break” with one employee getting the last cup o’joe as the rest fight their way to swipe it away. The rah-rah “Grand Old Ivy” weirdly brings on dancers in old-time football uniforms to recreate a game with Finch and Biggley. Even the infectious “Brotherhood of Men,” while far too assiduous in its overworked moves, nevertheless is a boisterous and blissful finale.

Happily, Ashford’s choreographic busyness neither distracts nor detracts from the material, and the inspired performers follow suit. Christopher J. Hanke’s inept villain Bud Frump, the boss’ nephew, is a terrific comic foil, while Tammy Blanchard’s Hedy LaRue is a voluptuously irresistible dame. Jane Faber’s secretary Smitty, Ellen Harvey’s executive assistant Miss Jones and Michael Park’s manager Bert Bratt richly enliven stock parts comedically and musically.

John Larroquette is a sensational Biggley who’s both charismatic and hilarious, and the same goes for Rose Hemingway, whose Rosemary—meltingly lovely and resolute—does the pre-feminist anthem “Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm” perfectly, i.e., without irony or campiness.

Not a natural singer or dancer, the 19-year-old Radcliffe hoofs and warbles effectively just the same; that he’s an accomplished stage actor—as anyone who saw Equus on Broadway knows—makes him a perfect Finch. Happily, Radcliffe’s success helps How to… succeed once again.

How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
Performances began February 26, 2011
Al Hirschfeld Theatre
302 West 45th Street, New York NY
howtosucceedbroadway.com

Kevin's March '11 Digital Week III

Details

Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Tuesday, 29 March 2011 05:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week
All Good Things
(Magnolia)
Based on the troubling true story of a notorious unsolved murder, Andrew Jarecki’s moody drama is more character study than character assassination -- although the ambiguity in the characterizations and plotline might frustrate for viewers who are never sure where real evidence ends and conjecture begins.

Still, Jarecki’s solid direction, the formidable performances of Ryan Gosling, Kirsten Dunst and Frank Langella, and a pervasive atmosphere of high-toned dread make the film worth a look, especially on Blu-ray, whose crisp, clean image underlines the storys tragic trajectory. Extras include a Jarecki interview, making-of featurette, deleted scenes and a glimpse at the killing that the movie’s based on.

Fair Game
(Summit)
For the story of CIA spy Valerie Plame and diplomat husband Joseph Wilson’s outing by the Bush administration in a fit of pique over the "yellowcake in Niger" scandal, director Doug Liman uses his Bourne Identity tropes: shaky hand-held camera and quick cross-cutting to keep us off-balance. The movie works as both cautionary tale and global conspiracy thriller with bad guys that are mostly unseen.

Intelligent performances by Naomi Watts and Sean Penn as Plame and Wilson are complemented by real footage: Liman smartly ends the film by cutting from Watts in front of a congressional committee to Plame’s actual testimony. Fair Game might not be an eye-opener at this late date, but remains a necessary reminder of government’s duplicity. The lone extra is a commentary by Plame and Wilson, adequate but much too little for such an historically important film.

Topsy Turvy and The Mikado
(Criterion)
I’m not a Gilbert & Sullivan fan, so the these films are not my cup of tea. At least Mike Leigh has made G&S’s music, while indisputably present, secondary in his excellent 1999 biopic Topsy Turvy, concentrating instead on the backstage and offstage relationship of the collaborators, families and colleagues. In the lead roles, Jim Broadbent (Gilbert) and Allen Corduner (Sullivan) are peerless. Leigh’s exacting writing and direction is his best, and the sumptuous production design and cinematography is given a fabulous sheen by Criterion’s Blu-ray transfer.

Extras include interviews, deleted scenes, Leigh’s informative commentary and his delicious 1992 short, A Sense of History, starring and written by Broadbent. The Mikado, a 1939 film of G&S’s operetta (also shown in Leigh’s film), looks terrific thanks to the hi-def transfer, and includes a deleted scene and contextual interviews: but there’s still that annoying G&S musical patter!

DVDs of the Week
Antony and Cleopatra and Soylent Green
(Warners)
In 1972, Charlton Heston directed himself in his own adaptation of Shakespeare’s glorious tragedy Antony and Cleopatra, but despite splendid visual asides, neither he nor his Cleo (Hildegard Neil) extracted much tragic passion from the material. Richard Fleischer directed the flashy but grim 1973 sci-fi cult flick Soylent Green, in which Heston plays a jaded detective who discovers an awful secret about the title food substance.

Heston plays the protagonists in both of these films in his typical heroic style, a slightly more upscale Clint Eastwood. Antony’s lone extra is an interview with Heston’s assistant-director son; the Soylent Green Blu-ray (which retains the film’s grainy early-70s look) includes a commentary by Fleischer and actress Leigh Taylor Young and two vintage featurettes.

Around a Small Mountain
(Cinema Guild)
Jacques Rivette’s monumentally frivolous divertissement follows the denizens of a traveling circus and a mysterious Italian (an embarrassed-looking Sergio Castellitto), his presence both diversion and difficulty, notably for the circus founder’s daughter Kate (a sleepwalking Jane Birkin). The behind-the-scenes circus machinations are surprisingly dull, as Rivette continually crosscuts among unfunny acts doing their thing -- the clowns are particularly hammy and unoriginal -- and their offstage lives.

Prettily photographed by Irina Lubtchansky, 36 Vues du Pic Saint-Loup (to at least give the film the benefit of its French title) evaporates in a haze as soon as it ends -- with a shot of the moon being enveloped in a haze. Extras include an audio commentary and a Birkin interview.

Silent Naruse
(Criterion Eclipse)
One of the greatest (if most obscure) of the Japanese masters, Mikio Naruse was the equal of Kurosawa and Ozu and superior to the overrated Mizoguchi. Criterion has already released his best-known film, the insightful study When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, and this bare-bones Eclipse collection of his five extant silent features from the early 1930s (he made some two dozen, but the others are lost) should cheer any Naruse fan.

From the delightful short Flunky Work Hard to the masterly drama Street without End, the Silent Naruse set plugs a giant gap in the education of anyone even slightly interested in one of the true -- and truly unheralded -- Masters of Cinema. The prints, while slightly ragged, are in more than adequate shape, and will most likely be the best we see of these rich films, complete with optional musical scores.

CDs of the Week
Mahler: Resurrection Symphony
(EMI Classics)
Gustav Mahler’s massive five-movement choral symphony is a difficult balancing act for any conductor, but Simon Rattle, in this inspired performance with the Berlin Philharmonic, very nearly pulls it off.

While temporarily losing himself during the transition from the orchestral to the vocal/choral movements -- splendidly handled by soprano Kate Royal; the conductor’s wife, mezzo Magdalena Kozena; and the choir, the Rundfunkchor Berlin -- Mahler’s huge structure is held in place. The result is that this 2010 concert recording remains the most recommendable of recent Mahler 2 releases.

Vilde Frang: Violin Sonatas
(EMI Classics)
Young Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang certainly doesn’t skimp on her debut recital disc: with accomplished pianist Michail Lifits, she plays two of the second half of the 19th century’s most romantic works: Edvard Grieg’s first and Richard Strauss’s E-flat sonatas. Both composed by men in their early 20s (as Frang is), they positively shimmer with the bloom of youth, and the violinist cuts an imposing figure playing their exhilarating, lyrical music.

The other work, Bela Bartok’s Sonata for Solo Violin, can leave the player exposed, but Frang dispatches it with care and easefulness, remarkable considering that its commissioner, the legendary Yehudi Menuhin, first thought it was unplayable.