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Off-Broadway Play Review—Tennessee Williams’ “Orpheus Descending”

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Tuesday, 25 July 2023 20:30; Written by Kevin Filipski

Orpheus Descending

Written by Tennessee Williams; directed by Erica Schmidt

Performances through August 6, 2023

Theatre for a New Audience, 262 Ashland Avenue, Brooklyn, NY

tfana.org

Pico Alexander and Maggie Siff in Orpheus Descending (photo: Hollis King)

On Broadway in 1989, director Peter Hall bemusedly helmed Tennessee Williams’ messy 1957 play Orpheus Descending, a crude melodrama crammed with specious symbolism and idle imagery. Despite Williams’ endless tinkering with it, Orpheus never reaches the poetic heights of The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof; instead, its overwrought dialogue and contrived relationships make it seem like a bizarre parody of a Williams play.

Now, Orpheus Descending returns, directed by Erica Schmidt, who wholeheartedly embraces its excessiveness, for better or (often) worse. Young drifter Valentine Xavier (i.e., “Savior”) arrives in a small Southern town that could be the setting for a bad Jason Aldean song. Guitar in hand, Valentine descends into this hell to, it turns out, rescue Lady Torrance, the unhappily married proprietor of the local dry-goods store, whose mortally ill elderly husband—an unrepentant redneck—spends most of his time upstairs, attended to by a nurse.

Handsome and charming, Valentine finds himself the target of other local women, including rich good-time girl Carol Cutrere, who loves to go “juking” at night, as well as other chattering gossipers who frequent the store. As they spend time together working in the store, Valentine and Lady start a steamy but dangerous affair that will end with two dead bodies and the community’s stalwart backwardness reinforced.

Schmidt dives headfirst into these characters’ desperation and inability to pull themselves free of their unfortunate fates, which is the only way to stage Orpheus and make it watchable—if not particularly illuminating. It’s unfortunate that Amy Rubin’s constricted set of the Torrances’ store leaves so much stage acreage available, and Schmidt utilizes it awkwardly, with some scenes played in front or at the sides of the store, including florid monologues and periodic appearances of the heavily—and fuzzily—symbolic “conjure-man.” The sound and lighting effects are adroitly handled by, respectively, Justin Ellington and David Weiner, and Ellington’s own acoustic guitar music is used sparingly but effectively.

Many speeches, where Williams lets his metaphors fly—like the footless bird that must always remain airborne a particular favorite to which he keeps returning—come off as sketches for the more luminous language the playwright would perfect in his masterpieces. Schmidt’s cast is sometimes able to untangle itself from such extravagances to find a bit of sorely needed humanity, although there are too many characters milling around that have little to do with the story, merely providing more samples of the overheated atmosphere.

Pico Alexander, as Valentine, is attractively animalistic and makes a more magnetic (and musical) martyr than Kevin Anderson did opposite Redgrave. A born scene-stealer, Julia McDermott makes Carol sadly but compellingly pathetic, spitting out her awful torrents of Williams’ pregnant metaphorical dialogue to flail around amid the misogynistic environment she’s been brought up in with commanding flair.

In the 1989 Broadway staging, Vanessa Redgrave played Lady Torrance: she was a spectacular car crash, giving a thrilling exercise in technique that never felt true or authentic. Conversely, Maggie Siff—who’s magnificent as Wendy Rhoades in the Showtime series Billions—mostly underplays Lady, cutting straight to the heart of this grievously wounded but proud woman. Siff even gives a piercingly emotional reading of Lady’s final overripe speech about remembering a barren fig tree while a child.

But Siff plays Lady with an accent that’s less Southern Italian than Eastern European, which is headscratching. (Weirdly, Redgrave had also played Lady with an offbeat accent—sing-song Italian, which at least was theoretically closer to the target.) But why not just play Lady with a regional southern accent? After all, she’s lived her entire life in the South, not Sicily.

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center Closes Out Summer Evening Concert Series

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Saturday, 22 July 2023 20:41; Written by Jack Angstreich

Photo by Da Ping Luo.

At Lincoln Center, on the evening of Tuesday, July 18th, I had the pleasure of attending a fine concert—the final one in its Summer Evenings series—presented by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

The event began promisingly with an accomplished account of Joseph Haydn’s wonderful Trio in E-flat major of 1797, here played by the admirable recitalist and virtuoso, Juho Pohjonen, on piano, with violinist Stella Chen and cellist Sihao He. The initial movement , marked Poco allegretto, is a model of elegance; its main body is charming but it possesses a more serious, minor-key interlude. The slow movement is brief and lyrical but with some dramatic intensity, while the finale, which centers upon a Ländler melody, is animated and sparkling.

The musicians were then joined by violinist Danbi Um and violist Beth Guterman Chu for an excellent rendition of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s marvelous Concerto No. 12 in A major for Piano and String Quartet, K. 414, from 1782. Program annotator Jack Slavin provides some useful background on the work:

Between 1782 and 1783, Mozart wrote three piano concertos that were published as a set, though it is unclear whether he intended for them to be one. His style was evolving considerably throughout this transitional time; the early Viennese concertos are often seen as a bridge between the Salzburg concertos and those of his mature period starting in the mid-1780s. With Mozart’s own blessing, these three pieces can be performed a quattro, or with string quartet accompaniment instead of full orchestra.

Already with the opening Allegro it seemed that one was encountering something even more remarkable than the Haydn Trio; in it, surprising depths can be found beneath a delightful surface. The introspective Andante—the main theme is a quotation from the Andante from the overture to the opera La calamita de’ cuori by Johann Christian Bach, the composer’s former teacher—has much of the beauty of the celebrated slow movements of the more famous of Mozart’s piano concertos and the piece closes with an exuberant Allegretto finale.

The concert concluded impressively with a compelling reading of Gabriel Fauré’s memorable Piano Quartet No. 1 in C minor, Op. 15, completed in 1879 and performed here by Pohjonen, Um, Guterman Chu, and He. The first movement, marked Allegro molto moderato, is passionate, turbulent, and full-blown in its Romanticism, although with some song-like passages, while the ensuing Scherzo is not unexpectedly playful and more eccentric—its ingenious Trio is especially striking. The Adagio that follows is solemn but not unrelievedly so and the Allegro molto finale is complex and absorbing, pervaded by a powerful emotionalism and ends affirmatively.

The artists deservedly received enthusiastic applause, ending a superb series.

Romeo and Juliet at the Met Opera House

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Saturday, 22 July 2023 20:13; Written by Jack Angstreich

Isabella Boylston and Daniel Camargo in Romeo and Juliet. Photo: Rosalie O’Connor.

At the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center on the evening of Wednesday, July 19th, I had the exceptional pleasure to attend a superb performance of American Ballet Theater’s excellent production of Romeo and Juliet.

The marvelous choreography is by Sir Kenneth MacMillan—who, after George Balanchine and Frederick Ashton, was one of the finest twentieth-century choreographers. It is set to the glorious score—one of the greatest in the repertory, here expertly conducted by David LaMarche—by Sergei Prokofiev. The attractive scenery and costumes were designed by Nicholas Georgiadis and the effective lighting is by Thomas Skelton.

The title roles were fabulously danced by principals Daniel Camargo—who is relatively new to this company— and Isabella Boylston. At least equally impressive, in a scene-stealing part, was Jonathan Klein as Mercutio. The secondary cast was also remarkable: Patrick Frenette, here replacing Sung Woo Han, was delightful as Mercutio and Tybalt was played by Roman Zhurbin; the wonderful Three Harlots were danced by Isadora Loyola, Scout Forsythe, and Betsy McBride. The main non-dancing roles included Eric Tamm as Paris, Luciana Paris and Alexei Agoudine as Lady and Lord Capulet, Carlos Lopez as Escalus, Prince of Verona and as Friar Laurence, Courtney Lavine as Rosaline, Nancy Raffa—here replacing Susan Jones—as the Nurse, and Chloe Misseldine and Clinton Luckett as Lady and Lord Montague. The extraordinary corps de ballet was characteristically brilliant.

Performances of this production close Ballet Theater’s indelible—if all too brief—summer season.

July '23 Digital Week II

Details: Parent Category: Film and the Arts; Category: Reviews; Published on Wednesday, 19 July 2023 19:31; Written by Kevin Filipski

In-Theater Releases of the Week

Oppenheimer

(Universal)

Christopher Nolan has weighed in with his take on Robert J. Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project—which led to the creation of the atomic bomb and the literal and figurative fallout that has plagued the world in the decades since—and it’s typically Nolanesque: very long, very loud, very overblown and very shallow. At three hours, the film is loaded with visual and aural pyrotechnics right from the start: I wouldn’t be surprised if the noise Nolan generates is louder than what the actual atomic explosions sounded like. He also, for no discernible reason, shoots partly in black and white.

Then there’s Ludwig Göransson’s ludicrously bombastic score, which is smeared over virtually every scene—I hope the composer got paid by the minute—including several moments where some ostensibly important dialogue can’t even be heard. Cillian Murphy gives a properly intense performance but he’s overshadowed by his director’s self-importance.

Aside from Robert Downey and Matt Damon, who manage to make their mark despite butting heads with Nolan’s singlemindedness, the rest of the starry cast is pretty forgettable: Gary Oldman is a cartoonish Harry Truman, likewise Tom Conti as Albert Einstein; while poor Florence Pugh, usually a formidable actress, is reduced to a nothing role comprising several gratuitous nude scenes.

Black Ice

(Roadside Attractions/Grindstone)

The ongoing adversity of Black hockey players in Canada—the seemingly placid, liberal, welcoming country north of the racist U.S.—is emotionally but fairly recounted in this eye-opening documentary.

Not only does Hubert Davis’ film include informative and engrossing interviews with players, both male and female (including NHL stars like P.K. Subban), about the racism they encountered playing in junior leagues or against professionals, but it’s also an enlightening chronicle about the history of Black hockey in the Great White North, demonstrating that Canada’s national sport has never been the exclusive province of white players.

Final Cut

(Kino Lorber)

It’s amazing that French director Michel Hazanavicius won the best director Oscar for his cute but slight 2011 silent comedy The Artist: he’s a competent filmmaker whose latest, a shot-for-shot remake of a Korean zombie movie parody doubling as a cheeky tribute to guerrilla filmmaking, is another hamfisted, nearly insufferable movie without an original idea in its head.

Along with everything being telegraphed and obvious, Hazanavicius seemingly can’t help himself from going off the rails. Even Hazanavicius’ real-life wife, the thoroughly charming Bérénice Bejo, is unable to transcend her husband’s laziness.

The Miracle Club

(Sony Classics)

A sensitive cast led by Laura Linney, Maggie Smith, Agnes O’Casey and Kathy Bates gives stature to a too familiar story of a group of women in Ireland in 1967 who go on a pilgrimage to Lourdes.

Pretty much nothing that happens is unsurprising or revelatory in Thaddeus O'Sullivan’s drama, but the aforementioned quartet—along with excellent support from the likes of Stephen Rea, Niall Buggy and Mark O’Halloran—give it more gravitas, both serious and comic, than it really deserves.

Two Tickets to Greece

(Greenwich Entertainment)

It’s hard to dislike a movie that allows middle-aged actresses to sink their teeth into substantive roles, but writer-director Marc Fitoussi’s visually sumptuous travelogue pitting former teenage besties who get together again after decades to find they are as incompatible as ever is rarely insightful.

Both Laure Calamy and Olivia Côte do what they can, but Calamy’s character is so annoying from the get-go that she’s impossible to root for. Côte remains classy throughout, and none other than Kristen Scott Thomas arrives in the third act to give a master class inhow to overact without being obnoxious, but the laughs and tears are rarely earned.

4K/UHD Release of the Week

After Hours

(Criterion Collection)

Martin Scorsese’s surreal 1985 black comedy takes place during an endless night in Soho, as hapless Paul Hackett (Griffin Dunne) meets an array of “characters” as he tries to return to normality. It’s a riotous but often unsettling ride, showing off Scorsese’s visual luster with the help of cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, costume designer Rita Ryack, production designer Jeffrey Townsend and editor Thelma Schoonmaker.

Though not as substantial as his previous film, the criminally underrated The King of Comedy, but it’s a blast to watch, especially the pre-gentrified neighborhoods of lower Manhattan. The UHD transfer is impeccable; extras include a new conversation between Scorsese and friend Fran Leibowitz, new featurette about the film’s look and style, vintage making-of, deleted scenes, and commentary by Scorsese, Schoonmaker, Ballhaus, Dunne and producer Amy Robinson.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

Anne-Sophie Mutter—Vivace

(SWR Classic)

Sigrid Faltin’s portrait of superstar German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter waxes poetic and lyrical about her eventful life and career, from her early days as a prodigy through the tragedies of losing both her husbands to her relationships with other celebrities like tennis icon Roger Federer. Mutter is funny, heartfelt and personable, unlike her ice-queen exterior and onstage persona.

Hi-def video and audio are first-rate; lone extra is an extended conversation among Mutter, her son Richard Wunderlich and Federer.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret

(Lionsgate)

Judy Blume’s classic 1970 novel has been turned into a humorous, touching film by writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig, who retains the empathetic POV of Blume’s eponymous teenage heroine, played beautifully by newcomer Abby Ryder Fortson. Wonderful support is provided by the always magnetic Rachel McAdams as Margaret’s mother and a nicely understated performance by the usually overbearing Kathy Bates as her beloved grandmother.

Kudos also to the design team, whose early ’70s NYC and NJ suburb settings ring unerringly true. The film looks fine in hi-def; extras comprise making-of interviews and two deleted scenes.

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