Theater Review: Shaw's "Candida" as Chamber Music

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Saturday, 28 May 2011 05:00

Written by Lucy Komisar

A Minister’s Wife
Based on the 1898 version of Candida by George Bernard Shaw
Adapted by Austin Pendleton
Conceived & directed by Michael Halberstam
Lyrics by Jan Levy Tranen
Music by Joshua Schmidt
Starring Kate Fry, Marc Kudisch, Bobby Steggert, Liz Baltes, Drew Gehling

Michael Halberstam’s chamber music version of Shaw’s Candida is a charming and exhilarating production about male-female relations in earlier days of the battle for women’s sexual freedom.

The story is adapted by Austin Pendleton from Shaw’s 1898 version of the play, which he revised in 1930, the post-flapper era when so much in society had changed. At the turn of the century, women were even more psychologically and materially dependent on their husbands.

Halberstam and Pendleton show us a woman who takes charge of her own emotional life. Candida Morrell (Kate Fry) is a smart woman married to what might appear to be a progressive man.

Rev. James Morrell (Marc Kudisch) is a Christian Socialist minister who preaches to a broad audience. When his secretary tells him the Hoxton Freedom Group wants him to address them, he declares, "Just like Anarchists not to know they can’t have a parson on Sunday morning."

He is desperate to see Candida, who has been out of town: "My Candida’s coming home today!" he sings. And when she arrives, she vocalizes, "Oh the enchantment, the joys of home, the joys of wife and motherhood."

A perfect marriage, right? But Morrell is still a man who thinks his importance trumps the desires and yearnings of those around him. He is oblivious, for example, that his secretary Miss Proserpine Garnett (Liz Baltes) has a crush on him and is jealous of his wife.

The privileged Candida seems just a bit bored. Perhaps that is why she doesn’t immediately squash the verbal advances of the infatuated young poet Eugene Marchbanks (Bobby Steggert), who Morrell had found sleeping on an embankment and who, in his early 20s, is 15 years her junior.

Steggert seems a bit younger than I’m used to seeing as the Marchbanks in Shaw’s play, too young to be considered seriously as a rival to Morrell. There’s never a moment when you take such a liaison seriously.

Candida says all the right feminist things. As the Reverend expresses concern about the personal developments, she recalls it was her father who "taught me to think for myself." And, "Don’t put your trust in my goodness."

Marchbanks also gets into the debate. And when Morell orders her to choose between him and the poet, she declares, "I am up for auction it seems. What do you bid, James?"

Since this is Shaw, there are of course other moral challenges. Candida’s father made money from sweatshops. But the plot, in fact, is a little silly.

What makes this production pulsate is the modern music by Joshua Schmidt (the brilliant composer of the music for The Adding Machine, based on the 1923 Edgar Rice play), the recitative by Jan Levy Tranen, and the voices of the ensemble, especially the excellent soprano Fry, the always fine baritone Kudisch, and the very strong Baltes.

In all, quite an elegant Lincoln Center event.

A Minister’s Wife
Lincoln Center
Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater
150 W. 65th Street
New York City
212-239-6200
Opened May 8, 2011; closes June 12, 2011.

For more by Lucy Komisar, visit thekomisarscoop.com.

Theater Review: Two Couples, One Baby in "Cradle and All"

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Thursday, 26 May 2011 10:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

Cradle and All
Written by Daniel Goldfarb
Directed by Sam Buntrock
Starring Maria Dizzia, Greg Keller

Daniel Goldfarb’s The Retributionists might have reduced Nazi-era horrors to mere soap opera, but his paper-thin new comedy Cradle and All engagingly shows how having (or not having) a child affects two couples in the same Brooklyn Heights apartment building.

The first half, Infantry, introduces Claire, a 39-year-old (or is it 41?) former movie actress (Maria Dizzia) whose fertility clock is winding down. She tells reluctant boyfriend Luke (Greg Keller) that she wants a baby, triggering confessional soul-searching on her part (he’s pretty much reduced to a listener).

The second half, The Extinction Method, set in the apartment down the hall, has zombified parents Annie and Nate trying one last-ditch attempt to get their 11-month-old daughter to fall asleep without placating her, however long she cries. Needless to say, she carries on for hours, driving them to reexamine their very relationship.

Throughout Cradle and All, Goldfarb shows a knack for how adults deal with momentous events missing from The Retributionists: his clever dialogue catches all the attendant recriminations, insults and occasional reconciliations, even if much of what happens remains superficial.

Although The Extinction Method seems more successful because there are more laughs, I actually liked the more somber Infantry, and not merely because too many of Method’s jokes are repeated (how many times can we hear the baby’s screaming and the couple’s increasingly harried attempts to deal with it?). Infantry actually tries to bring a character to life, as  Claire gives a lengthy speech, punctuated by Luke’s interjections, that explains her motives for wanting a baby at this time in her life.

Maria Dizzia, giving a splendid and moving reading, actually makes us feel for Claire, personalizing her predicament in ways that Goldfarb only hints at in his writing. Dizzia is as convincingly frumpy as overtired mother Annie in Method as she is ravishingly desperate in Infantry.

Conversely, Greg Keller, who doesn’t make much of an impression in Infantry because Goldfarb isn’t as interested in Luke, works harder and more effectively as Nate in The Extinction Method.

Goldfarb’s ear for how these people talk is hampered by too much pop culture name-checking, as references to Mad Men, Keanu Reeves, Blue Man Group, Tyra Banks, James Lipton and The Daily Show abound.

The playwright does hit on trenchant lines, as how young girls engaging in oral sex in grade school are "part of the Clinton legacy," and the final dialogue between Annie and Nate while they prepare to have sex for the first time since her pregnancy has an appropriately acidic edge to its humor.

Sam Buntrock’s by-the-numbers direction of Infantry gives way to the livelier Method, likely due to the second half’s lighter touch. Both of Neil Patel’s apartment sets are so dead-on in their details that one wants to move right in -- but only if these couples and their baby problems are jettisoned.

Cradle and All
Manhattan Theatre Club
131 West 55th Street
New York, NY
www.ManhattanTheatreClub.com
Opens May 25, 2011; closes June 19, 2011

For more by Kevin Filipski, go to The Flip Side blog at http://flipsidereviews.blogspot.com

Kevin's May '11 Digital Week III

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Sunday, 22 May 2011 15:00

Written by Kevin Filipski

Blu-rays of the Week
Black Death
(Magnet)
Christopher Smith’s exploration of the plague that killed millions in medieval Europe certainly looks stylish, and its story of a town that’s somehow remained untouched by the black death is intriguing. Although more concerned with building an atmosphere filled with dread and parallels to modern religious zealotry, Black Death remains watchable thanks to the acting of Sean Bean, Eddie Redmayne and that fabulous Dutch actress Carice von Houten. This splendid recreation of a medieval world not far removed from our own looks terrific on Blu-ray; extras include behind-the-scenes footage and a making-of featurette.

Cougars Inc.
(Lionsgate)
It's unsurprising that this R-rated comedy is little more than a cruder American Pie knockoff. There are a few laughs scattered throughout this second-rate raunch-fest about a teenager who starts an escort service so he and his friends can satisfy an assortment of older women; but aside from Denise Richards’ hilariously unhinged portrayal of a horny MILF, the movie ends up distressingly tame when it should let itself go. Oh well. The good-looking cast looks even better on Blu-ray; extras include a commentary, deleted scene and Cougars 101 featurette.

Daydream Nation
(Anchor Bay)
Writer-director Mike Goldbach’s study of alienated but oh-so sarcastic teens is another routine post-Juno comedy where there’s never a moment where you believe that any of these people, from the high school kids to their parents to their teachers, are believable. But Goldbach was smart enough to cast in the lead Kat Dennings, who takes over the screen so completely and charismatically that you pretty much forget about the rest of the movie just to bask in her dazzling onscreen presence. Although the movie isn't visually compelling in any way, it certainly looks good on Blu-ray; the lone extra is a behind-the-scenes featurette.

Diabolique
(Criterion)
Don’t confuse Henri-Georges Clouzot’s razor-sharp, tense thriller from 1955 with the tepid remake, made 40 years later with Sharon Stone and Isabelle Adjani. Henri-Georges Clouzot's classic turns the screws so tightly telling its startlingly original tale of adultery, murder and double-crossing that ends with one of the most extraordinary twists in movie history. With excellent portrayals by Paul Meurisse as a hateful husband, Vera Clouzot (the director’s wife) as his sickly wife and Simone Signoret as his mistress, Diabolique casts an indelible spell. Criterion's Blu-ray includes a first-rate restored transfer; extras include a commentary and video introduction.

Mao’s Last Dancer
(Fox)
Bruce Beresford's supremely disappointing drama trivializes the extraordinary true story of the first Chinese ballet dancer to defect to the United States. The sequences showing  the young boy before leaving China are sweepingly epic; when he gets to the U.S., Beresford can’t overcome cliched melodramatics, and the director is further hampered by a hammy Bruce Greenwood as the head of the Houston Ballet, and wooden portrayals by Chi Cao in the title role and Amanda Schull as his first American wife. This visually impressive film is worth watching on Blu-ray, but beware: it’s a two-hour soap opera. The lone extra is a making-of featurette.

The Scent of Green Papaya
(Lorber)
Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung's 1995 debut feature introduced an expressive visual stylist: though it takes place in 1951 Saigon, the exquisite beauties of this scrupulously detailed world were created on a soundstage in Paris. While there’s a whiff of mere decorativeness at times, and keeping the characters at arm’s length does the film no favors, those flaws are not fatal: and when the film has been restored as well as this one has for its Blu-ray debut, then The Scent of Green Papaya in hi-def is a no-brainer. The lone extra is a behind-the-scenes featurette.

Something Wild
(Criterion)
Jonathan Demme’s comedy-turned-thriller flopped 25 years ago because audiences couldn’t deal with its shift from frivolity to shock. But Demme (helped by E. Max Frye's clever script) prepares the groundwork slowly but surely, and with knockout performances by Jeff Daniels, Melanie Griffith and Ray Liotta, Something Wild lives up to its title as a dizzying journey into the strangeness bubbling under the world of normalcy, doing it more subtly and intriguingly than Blue Velvet. Criterion’s Blu-ray transfer is superb, as always, but the lone extras are new Demme and Frye interviews—where’s the featurette on the bizarrely sublime music, for example?

The Twilight Zone: Complete Season 4
(Image)
All 18 episodes from the 1963 season of The Twilight Zone—in which Rod Serling’s brilliant sci-fi/horror series was stretched from 30 to 60 minutes—are included on this five-disc set. And if quality sometimes suffers by padding each episode to an hour, there are still enough highlights (In His Image, Miniature, Printer's Devil, The Bard) to make this set worth re-watching. Stars include Robert Duvall, Burgess Meredith, James Whitmore, Martin Balsam, and a young Burt Reynolds. Anyone who’s watched the series on TV will be happily surprised by the pristine condition of the episodes thanks to the hi-def upgrade; extras include audio commentaries, video interviews, radio broadcasts, isolated music tracks, promos, bloopers and even a TV ad for Genesee beer with Serling.

DVD of the Week
The Beautiful Person
(IFC)
Christoph Honore’s modern take on the classic French novel The Princess of Cleves by Mademoiselle de Chartes (whose short story The Princess of Montpensier became Bertrand Tavernier’s superlative new film) has sophistication and ennui in spades. This introspective drama takes the measure of a group of men wooing the same woman, with ultimately tragic results. Honore’s stylishly unkempt actors are led by Louis Garrel as a womanizing Italian teacher and Lea Seydoux as the object of every male's affection. La Belle Personne, the original French title, sounds more evocative than the blunt English translation.

CD of the Week
Philip Glass: Complete String Quartets
(Orange Mountain Music)
It’s not easy to play the compositions of Philip Glass—which, for better or worse, share a similar rhythmic texture—and make them sound like entirely distinct pieces, but the dynamic quartet Brooklyn Rider has done just that in this recording of Glass’s music for string quartet. The works vary in structure from the relatively short movements in the Suite from Bent and Quartets 2, 3 and 5 to the longer movements of Quartets 1 and 4. The members of Brooklyn Rider give such enthusiastic, committed performances that even a Glass skeptic might hear these works anew. Well, almost.