Beauty and the Beast

Something magical can happen when seeing a big-name, big-budget show for the first time. That magic is compounded if you're lucky enough to see a show with impressive costumes, sets, lighting, and special effects in its permanent home. So unless it's the first run of the national tour or it somehow has a phenomenal budget, something gets lost in translation for many touring shows. That said...

Disney's Beauty and the Beast, 
Music by Alan Menken, Lyrics by Howard Ashman & Tim Rice

Orpheum Theatre, Minneapolis, MN

I think I saw Beauty and the Beast in the movie theater twelve times when it came out in 1991. That's not even an exaggeration; my friend Beth and I went every Sunday night for months, and there was at least one week when we sat through both the 7:00 and 9:00 showings. It is safe to say that I love Disney's Beauty and the Beast. I have seen the stage production before and fell in love with the clever costuming, over-the-top production numbers, and faithfulness with which the animated film was translated to the stage. I had no doubt that I would thoroughly enjoy what I was going to see at the Orpheum tonight. In fact, I laughed, I cried, and I came home happy.

My only qualm with this touring production has to do with its special effects. I know that they're probably not going to be everything I want them to be in my head and that mounting a travelling production has its own special set of challenges. I even know that I was probably so captivated by the stage adaptation the first time I saw this show that I wasn't as critical as I might otherwise have been. At the same time, merely going briefly black before revealing a magical transformation does not make me believe in theatre magic. It makes me glance around to see if everyone else is as nonplussed by the attempt. The audience members should not giggle during the Beast's transformation into the prince because it is so ridiculous (even though I don't really like that scene in the movie either--the light shooting from his fingers is weird). These things take away from what is an otherwise delightful evening of theatre.

When I saw The Wizard of Oz at the Orpheum a couple of years ago, I was startled at the number of little girls in blue gingham dresses or sparkly red shoes. Tonight there were more little princesses than I could count, and some of the princesses' moms were startlingly fancy as well. All the joy and nostalgia Beauty and the Beast has to offer is there in this production, but that's in large part owing to Alan Menken's music and the original animators. The production is fun and entertaining, perfect for a child's first theatrical experience.

Disney's Beauty and the Beast is playing at the Orpheum Theatre until October 21, 2012. Click here for ticket information.

Next scheduled show: Our Town at Andover High School. Can that be? My show is up next? Good heavens, I hope not.

Tales from Hollywood

Continuing the Guthrie's celebration of British playwright Christopher Hampton, this evening I saw the second of his three plays being performed this October (had I been more on top of things on my return to Minnesota, it should have been the first).

Tales from Hollywood, Christopher Hampton
Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis

According to assistant director Jon Ferguson, this is Hampton's favorite of his plays, and I did much prefer it to Appomattox. Tales from Hollywood follows Ödön von Horváth, a German-speaking Hungarian author who died in 1938 when a tree branch fell on his head on the Champs-Élysées. The play explores a possible life he might have had if he had lived, primarily using him as a vehicle for introducing the audience to a circle of exile or emigree German writers during World War II: Bertolt  Brecht, Thomas Mann, and his brother Heinrich Mann chief among them. In a cleverly cinematic production, the audience learns of the Hollywood experiences of exiled writers in the 1940s and 1950s.

As this play followed von Horváth's possible career if he had emigrated to Hollywood during WWII, director Ethan McSweeny chose to heighten the filmic feeling by having apparently-period movie cameras filming the scenes of the play as large-scale projections were displayed behind the actors. The deception of the props department was impressive enough that, during the talkback following the performance, one audience member wondered how the actors managed to sync their lines with the projections so well. The staging of the play, including the overarching elements of film and the ensemble's coordination with the many scene changes, were clearly the highlight in this play that was, in most respects, fine.

You know, fine...not amazing, not wonderful, not great, not really good, but fine.

"How was the play?"
"It was fine."

Don't get me wrong, there were several super entertaining moments: the character of Bertolt Brecht was funny and his dialogue was both insightful and appropriate for his character. I found myself wishing more people in the audience were familiar with Brecht's theories so that I wouldn't have been the only one laughing sometimes. Mostly, though, it was fine. Funny, sure. Educational, definitely. And there were several fantastic performances from the actors, most notably Lee Sellars as Ödön, Keir Dullea as Heinrich Mann, and Allison Daugherty as Nelly Mann.

The talkback after the performance was the most informative part. A number of the actors made their Guthrie débuts in this production, so their insights about the differences between working at the Guthrie and on Broadway were fascinating (they were entirely complimentary of the Guthrie, its facilities, its way of running productions, and its staff). One actress complimented playwright Christopher Hampton on his terribly careful research of the time period and the characters and talked about how helpful it was to talk to him during rehearsals about various bits of his research that were left out of the play but were important for the characters.

And I think that's my problem with both of the Christopher Hampton plays I've seen recently. There is so much - perhaps too much - historical information given in the play, and there is obviously more left out, that the audience is hard-pressed just to keep up with the information overload. Casual theatre patrons enjoy the opportunity to get outside of themselves, and both Appomattox and Tales from Hollywood require much of the audience in the way of conscious accumulation of facts. As a more-than-casual theatregoer, I want to be free to enjoy the play while still analyzing the script, set, lighting, sound, costuming, and directorial choices. Christopher Hampton's plays simply do not allow me to do this on one viewing. Honestly I would need to go back at least one more time to feel like I could make a full analysis, and probably more than once.

This simply isn't feasible or desirable for the run-of-the-mill theatregoer, so the play cannot meet its objectives of fulfilling the audience artistically. Treasures of the Twin Cities, another theatre blog I follow (though I didn't read the entry until tonight (until right before writing this sentence, actually - on purpose)), felt the same way (read that link here). This lack of enthusiasm is evident in the audience size for these performances. My season tickets are typically for the final preview performance, the night before the official opening. If I miss my scheduled performance, I usually try to reschedule within two weeks, meaning that I usually end up at a performance with mostly subscribers in an almost full house. Tonight, not only was I not in the theatre with mostly subscribers, I was in a mostly empty theatre. I've never seen this before at the Guthrie.

During the talkback, the actors discussed how Minneapolis is a really great audience for this play because it is an educated crowd that doesn't have the jaded "I-know-everything-about-the-film-industry" attitude of LA or the "LA-is-clearly-beneath-me" attitude of NYC. I found myself thinking that there were several jokes that would play much better in London than they would anywhere in the US. Minneapolis may be a great American audience for this play, but with so many moments the audience didn't fully appreciate and with so many empty seats, it doesn't hit the mark.

Tales from Hollywood is playing at the Guthrie until October 27, 2012. Click here for ticket info.

Next scheduled show: (And now for something completely different) Beauty and the Beast at the Orpheum, Oct. 17.

Our Town, Part One

As some of you (assuming people besides me are reading this) know, I'm directing Thornton Wilder's Our Town this fall. One of the things I enjoy as director is working with a graphic designer on the artwork for the show. Generally she hits the mark on what I want, but sometimes the first draft isn't quite there.

If you know Our Town, you'll probably understand why I giggled most of the afternoon Friday about this poster concept.

My tech director suggested that this will be perfect when I rewrite Our Town for the preschool touring version. She might be on to something there.

I'm sure there will be further updates (and pleas for attendance) for this show in the coming weeks.

Appomattox

The Guthrie marks its 50th season this year and, to celebrate, is beginning the season with works by British playwright Christopher Hampton; all three Guthrie stages will host works by Hampton during the month of October. I've never seen any of Hampton's plays, so that's a bit of an unknown, but I have seen several movies for which he's written the screenplay: Atonement, The Quiet American, Carrington, and Dangerous Liasons are just a few of his titles.

Appomattox, Christopher Hampton
Guthrie Theater, Minneapolis, MN
(Preview Performance)

Synopsis, courtesy of The Guthrie Theater:
"April 1865. Ulysses S. Grant, general of the armies of the United States, meets Robert E. Lee, general of the confederate forces, at Appomattox Court House to sign the treaty that will end the bloodiest war in U.S. history. The days preceding the signing are depicted through the eyes of President Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary, of Julia Grant and Mary Custis Lee and of others who were on the front lines of history. Will this be the healing act needed to bring a divided country back? February 1965.St. James Baptist Church deacon Jimmie Lee Jackson is shot by an Alabama state trooper during a peaceful protest for civil rights. The incident provides the spark for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s protest march from Selma to Montgomery and for Lyndon Johnson to galvanize his political influence to push the Voting Rights Act through Congress. Separated by 100 years and 600 miles, the play's events are linked by issues at the core of the American soul: freedom, rights, race and a stubborn belief in and hope for a brighter future."

Have you ever been to EPCOT? In the American pavillion of the World Showcase you'll find "The American Adventure", an "awe-inspiring 30-minute theatrical show uses 35 lifelike Audio-Animatronic figures and filmed sequences in dramatic recreations of extraordinary people and events in American history." When I was younger, I loved this show. The last time I went, I found it an almost unbearably schlocky half hour of overdone propaganda. Mainly the animatronics were a little too much for me. Major historical figures rising out of a "stage" at the front of the theatre and then jerkily interacting before the next vignette took over seemed a little ridiculous, and I had a hard time summoning the magic I'd found in it earlier.

This is sort of how I felt about Act I of Appomattox. The platforms sliding on and off with figures like Abraham Lincoln frozen on them, looking through a scrim at eerily-lit figures of John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald... it was just too much.

To be fair, I have never been a fan of the history play as a genre. I don't like Shakespeare's, and I don't really like anyone else's. Sitting through the musical 1776 was a long evening. Appomattox has a similar vibe, certainly through Act I.

Act II was better, largely because I was less familiar with the events being depicted. The dialogue, particularly that written for LBJ and J Edgar Hoover (or LBJ about J Edgar Hoover), was funny and unexpected -- I knew President Johnson had a colorful way with language, but the demonstrations of it were astounding.

The thing was, even with Act II, I felt like I was seeing the "B-sides" of history. The act, like Act I, began with a prelude where we saw a man who was about to assassinate a president and he got to have his say (go ahead and say it: Sondheim already wrote Assassins. I agree.). But Kennedy was already dead when the second act began and, although his assassination was clearly a pivotal moment, it was barely mentioned again. Perhaps this was foreshadowing the later assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., another important character in the act? Nope. We never got to that. What we saw were several intervening moments that I didn't know about--but without the big historical payoffs.

During the intermission I made friends with the others in my row. This wouldn't be unusual except that I spent ten minutes in the lobby talking to my tech director who was working as an usher tonight. I came back in to my seat when the bells summoned us, and then we waited, house lights up, another ten+ minutes for the second act to start. I do like to go to preview performances, partially so I can recommend a show in a timely manner, but also because I like to see mistakes by professionals. Not only do their mistakes make me feel better about mine, but I like to note how the actors handle the unexpected so I can bring the stories back to my students. A delay during intermission, however, doesn't afford me the opportunity to observe. I could hear lots of unexplained noises coming from behind the scrim on stage and could see people with walkie talkies circling at the back of the house, but there wasn't anything else to observe, really. In chatting with the others in my row during this surprisingly long break, one woman speculated whether this was on purpose. I assured her that it wasn't. Her answer made me laugh out loud: "Oh. I thought that since there were a hundred years between Act I and Act II, they maybe wanted us to really feel that distance. Get a little older, ourselves." I'm sure that wasn't it, but maybe the Guthrie can put that into the promotional materials for the show.

With a running time of nearly three hours (before any lengthened intermissions), make sure you come properly caffeinated and with your thinking caps on. It's a history lesson, not a passive spectator event.

Next scheduled show: Tales from Hollywood, Christopher Hampton, at the Guthrie 16 October.

Sources:
"Appomattox." The Guthrie Theater. Web. 4 Oct 2012.

"The American Adventure." Walt Disney World. Web. 4 Oct 2012.

The first: Nabucco

Theatrophilia: the (obsessive) love of theatre.

I need a new project. Though I'm waiting for the results, I've finished my MA in Modern and Contemporary Literature. My job, while time-consuming, falls firmly into the can-do column these days. Writing is fun. Seeing theatre is my most common leisure activity. What to do with all of these factors?

Write a blog about theatre.

This is clear, I know, but I've really never considered it before. Everyone I've told has nonchalantly shrugged a shoulder and said "yeah, of course." I hate when I miss the patently obvious answers.

Goal: I'll write an entry for every show I see. Generally I try to see things at the beginning of a run so, if I really like it, I can recommend it to people in a timely manner. I try to see a combination of local and touring shows; even if you don't live in the Twin Cities, I may have an opinion about a show that's coming your way.

And I always have opinions.

That said, I go into every show fully prepared to like it, so I usually walk away with something good to say. Even when I hate a show with all of my being, there's always something I can use with students in my theatre classes.


Nabucco, Giuseppe Verdi (Minnesota Opera)
Ordway Center for Performing Arts, St. Paul, MN

I'll be honest, I get cranky every time I go to the opera at the Ordway. 1)The Ordway's ticket prices are always too high. 2)The high prices are multiplied when it's a Minnesota Opera production. That said, I went to see Nabucco without a complaint because a friend was performing in the chorus. I still went through the rush line for tickets because, for the MNOpera, the prices are 50% off. I was pretty excited that I got a ticket in the second row behind the orchestra pit, on the aisle. (I'll always opt for sitting uncomfortably close, if it's an option. I sometimes miss some of the large-scale spectacle, but I can see the detail I would otherwise miss. And I can see any mistakes.)

Act III, Nabucco (photo courtesy of MN Opera)

When the curtain rose for the opening act, I almost gasped audibly and remembered why the Opera's ticket prices are so high. I'd seen the Facebook pictures of the set, but they really didn't do justice to the reality, and I could not have prepared for the sheer number of people on stage and the impressive level of costuming and wigs.

For this co-production with the Washington National Opera and the Opera Company of Philadelphia, the most captivating and overwhelming element was the set. The set was designed and drops were painted in the style that would have been used at La Scala (where Nabucco premiered in 1842). According to Director and Set Designer Thaddeus Strassberger, "to capture the essence of Verdi’s world of the 1840s for this production, the scenery that I designed for this production needed to be painted in a very specific style. One of the scenic artists I chose studied for many years under the same person whom I had the honor of working with at La Scala, so already there was an aesthetic connection to our training and development. This ‘master teacher’ of course had studied with the chief scenic painter of the theater in the 1960s who had studied under his predecessor, and so on, etc. all the way back of course to Verdi’s time. This artisanal chain of knowledge allows for a stylistic continuity to be passed down from generation to generation." Additionally, prominently at stage right were a set of mock theatre boxes filled with Austrian nobility and soldiers. This feature draws attention to the political realities in Italy at the time: "[m]uch has been made about the composer's role in the Risorgimento, or the movement to reunite Italy in the 19th century. Throughout history, the concept of 'Italy' had been more geographical than political as the last time the peninsula had been a unified country was during the Imperial Roman era. Since then, the region had been splintered by Dark Age barbarians, by Machiavellian princes of the Renaissance, and most recently, by the Austrian Hapsburgs to the north, and the Spanish Bourbons to the south, with Papal Rome in the midlands." Visually and historically all of this was very interesting from an audience standpoint.

Probably the most interesting political statement of the day, however, came from the nice little British man (I know, I'm still a sucker for the accent) outside handing out this flier:

I was surprised by this flier, and it was because of more than the guy's accent. Probably what surprised/irritated me most was that most people who took and read it mostly had no idea to what it referred. To the other people at the opera with me on Sunday: regardless of your stance on Israel/Palestine or any other world issues, please know what's going on in the larger world. Honestly, the confusion on your faces is embarrassing. I love that you're getting out to the opera and I applaud you for the attempt at culture. Maybe next get outside your tiny world in the Twin Cities.

All of that said, it was a fascinating production of Nabucco. This will never be one of my favorite operas, but there were some fine performances, particularly by Brenda Harris as Abigaille--she is simply marvelous. There were some things that I didn't love, but some of those things are Verdi's fault. Aesthetically and visually, I enjoyed it.

Unfortunately for you, Sunday 30 September was the final performance of this opera. Again, I'll try to see most productions early in the run.

Up next: Appomattox by Christopher Hampton at the Guthrie Theater, 4 October, 2012.

Sources:
Sander, David. "Background Notes." Nabucco: Minnesota Opera Program September 2012: 8-10.

Solomon, Michael. "An Interview with Director Thaddeus Strassberger." Minnesota Opera. Minnesota Opera, 2012. Web. 3 Oct 2012.