I found myself having to write a review on a play for my English class. The last time I had to write a review for something I watched was in middle school. I looked for examples of what would be appropriate but also qualified to hand in as a high school student in senior AP English. Here are the reviews I found:
The Story: Family patriarch Max lives in perpetual struggle for supremacy with his two grown sons, Lenny and Joey and his brother Sam in a run-down part of London in the 1960’s. Their fragile but dysfunctional apple cart is upset by the arrival of Max’s eldest son, Teddy, and his wife Ruth, home after living in America for six years.
The Story: Family patriarch Max lives in perpetual struggle for supremacy with his two grown sons, Lenny and Joey and his brother Sam in a run-down part of London in the 1960’s. Their fragile but dysfunctional apple cart is upset by the arrival of Max’s eldest son, Teddy, and his wife Ruth, home after living in America for six years.
“Pinteresque” is a phrase used to describe typical features of Harold Pinter’s plays; dramatic pauses, black comedy, an absurd story, repeated phrases that seem to mean more than they appear. A Pinter play is as much about what is not said as is spoken.
A Pinter play is not light fare; Max and his sons are not The Waltons, this is not your feel-good kind of story. Unless your own life looks better by comparison, you are not apt to exit this play feeling very good about the human condition. Even The Grapes of Wrath – depressing as it is – leaves you with the life-affirming knowledge that the characters will soldier on, in pursuit of something better. With The Homecoming, you just hope you never run across people like these characters and that they never procreate.
This story is for those who like examining people’s unspoken motivations. It is a marvelous play to study; to delve into, pick apart its meanings, dissect characters, to examine themes. It is not a play one enjoys watching.
Not that the direction is not crisp or the acting sharp. Jennifer Tarver has a knack with the darkly humorous, there is no doubt about that. Aaron Krohn makes Lenny into a sociopath – menacing one moment, charming the next; Cara Ricketts is an enigmatic, shrewd Ruth; Stephen Ouimette’s Sam is a gentleman out of place among predators, both haunted by and reveling in secrets. As portrayed by Mike Shara, Teddy is strangely apart but still very much one of Max’s son’s, and Ian Lake turns Joey into an animalistic man-boy. As their father Max, Brian Dennehy is at his best when quietly bullying, switching gears from intimidating to nostalgic as fast as Lenny changes from charming to snaky.
But as good as the direction and performers are, it is not a play one can enjoy watching. The characters are cruel or at best aloof. The comedy is of the uncomfortable kind, the laughs generated by pitiless insults and emotional abuse, rather than any genuine mirth. It is a joyless story, the characters remorseless, the action callous.
Watch The Homecoming forearmed with knowledge of the play for best results; Robert Cushman provides a fine analysis of the play’s themes in his review. The Homecoming continues until October 30 in repertory at the Avon Theatre.
reviewsbyrobyn.blogspot.com
Sunday, 14 August, 2011 reviews.robyn.blogspot.com
Members of the Misanthrope cast. Photo by Cylla Von Tiedmann |
By Moliere; translation by Richard Wilbur
Directed by David Grindley
Featuring Ben Carlson, Sara Topham, Martha Farell, Juan Chioran, Kelli Fox
The
Story: Alceste is fed up with the two-faced nature of everyone at
court, and is resolved to leave mankind behind to live like a hermit
where he is free to speak the unvarnished truth. Unfortunately for him,
he happens to be in love with one of the falsest creatures on earth,
the charming coquette Célimène. When Alceste’s brutal honesty lands him in trouble with the law, and Célimène’s
behaviour gets her censured in public, these two opposites may have a
chance to attract – but can either of them bend enough to accept the
others’ faults?
Director
David Grindley was last at Stratford to direct the punk-rock-n-roll
Midsummer Night’s Dream of 2009. In that production he gave the play a
fresh, almost wild look; in directing Moliere’s The Misanthrope in 2011
however, he stepped back and set it in the Rococco period, roughly 100
years after the Baroque play was penned. This means that this very
talky play has little action, but a lot of style.
The set, designed by John Lee Beatty, is a veritable chocolate box of gilding, drapery and light. And the costumes! Robin Fraser Payne’s
designs must have take the wardrobe department a year’s worth of work
to stitch, and in particular the dress worn by Sara Topham is a frothy
confection of pink ruffles, bows and flounces, that could have been
lifted straight from The Swing,
a 1767 painting by Jean-Honore Fragonard. (Not that the other women’s
dresses and men’s multi-layered suits are anything to sneeze at
either.)
The
acting is anything but frothy, even thought the tone remains light. As
Alceste, the Misanthrope of the title, Ben Carlson is as masterful
with Moliere as he is with Shakespeare, turning translator Richard
Wilbur’s rhyming couplets – which could sound like Dr. Seuss in many
actors’ mouths – into everyday conversation. He takes Alceste from rage
to heartbreak without ever missing a beat, and one does feel the truth
and conviction of the character at every turn.
Sara Topham as Celemine, Ben Carlson as Alceste. Photo: Cylla Von Tiedmann |
Alceste’s
love interest, Célimène, is played with both fire and wide-eyed – but
false - sweetness by Sara Topham. She shows Célimène to be immature
with her petulant rages, but with a slowly dawning realization that she
may have gone too far with her behaviour. She also gives as good as
she gets, taking on both her rival Arsinoé and her lover Alceste and
often getting the better of them. Ms. Topham and Mr. Carlson share one
fantastically stormy scene which is riveting in its passion, humour and
sweetness.
Kelli Fox as Arsinoe. Photo: Cylla Von Tiedmann |
Alas,
Alceste’s ‘radical honesty’ and Célimène’s gossipy slander is no more
popular in 1666 as it is in 2011. When the two lovers finally part, the
audience witnesses two hearts breaking.
The other actors are equally strong in their performances; Kelli Fox makes Arsinoé a pleasure to dislike, as does Steve Ross and Trent Pardy
in their roles as the simpering courtiers Clitandre and Acaste – Mr.
Pardy’s Acaste is particularly glittering and mean. Not to be outdone, Peter Hutt takes Oronte’s foppishness down a notch and replaces it with a shade of chilly malevolence. Robert King, Brian Tree and Brigit Wilson are wasted in their small roles, although Mr. Tree makes the most of the inarticulate Dubois .
Martha Farrell as Eliante. Photo: Cylla Von Tiedmann |
As
for the true lovers in the play, as Philinte Juan Chioran is at his
best when imitating a raging Alceste and exchanging knowing looks with
Eliante; played by Martha Farrell, Eliante becomes not just the steady
voice of reason, but also a lively woman entirely capable of throwing
palpable sparks at Alceste (it is not her fault that it is Philinte who
catches fire for her).
All in all, this is a classily acted and designed production of a classic play that is a pleasure to hear and see. It continues at the Festival Theatre until October 29 in repertory.
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