Much in this production is elegantly and effectively done. There’s costume designer Erin Murphy’s navy blue power suits and pearls for Donna, Liliah’s come hither silk kimono and Brock’s studied slacker sloppiness. Robin Vest’s scenic design features a wall full of photographic portraits and lightboxes that alternatively create Lilah’s apartment, a New York nocturnal cityscape and a seat on the redeye ready for takeoff. Atmospheric music and original compositions are provided by Robert Kaplowitz and Benjamin Krech’s lighting alternates between cool polar blues for encroaching frigidity and warmer romantic tones that soften the hard edges and crows feet.
Archive for the ‘reviews’ Category
Another of Fate’s Reviews
Tuesday, June 5th, 2007Fate’s Reviews
Monday, June 4th, 2007The production values are also first-class, thanks to the work of Robin Vest (scenic design), Lucas Benjamin Krech (lighting), Robert Kaplowitz (sound design/original compositions), Erin Elizabeth Murphy (costumes), and luckydave (projection design). In one of the most arresting special effects I’ve ever seen on stage, the actors’ scrolling lines of dialogue are visible through the picture frames in Lilah’s apartment at key points in the play. There’s also a neat lighting/sound effect whenever Susan is beset by a phalanx of photographers.Fate’s Imagination has its writing flaws, but the author couldn’t ask for a better presentation.
Reviewing the Patriarchy
Tuesday, February 27th, 2007It is bad form to whine about a review and that is certainly not what I am trying to do about this one in the Times. But the value system underlying the review troubles me. I have no problem receiving a bad review. Many plays I have worked on have been critically received with substantially less than enthusiasm. What I do take issue with is the propagandizing of reactionary patriarchal politics in the guise of a legitimate theatre review.
Let’s examine some core tenets of the Worldview underlying this review:
- Women who enjoy sex are sluts.
- “Fuck” is unprintable.
- Theatre oriented towards a younger audience is less legitimate than theatre oriented towards a middle age audience.
- The passion of youth is worthy of mockery.
Now let’s look more closely.
1) Women who enjoy sex are sluts
Last I checked we were no longer in 1953. In fact I thought that of the many lessons we learned from the women’s rights movement was that women are in fact people. Not only are women people, they are people with the same rights and due the same respect as men.
Why do we know this attitude is propagated only against the female characters int he play? Well, as an example of ‘wry dialog’ a gay male fashion designer talks about exchanging sex for fabric. This is funny. This is healthy male sexuality. But a woman who enjoys sex is a slut. How dare a woman take over the male privilege of sexual enjoyment? /sarcasm
2) “Fuck” is unprintable
Seriously. This is absurd. Every listing has the title Artfuckers except the Times.
3) Theatre oriented towards a younger audience is less legitimate than theatre oriented towards a middle age audience.
Now this one really bothers me. Was the reviewer expecting Dinner with Friends? A quick internet search reveals that NONE of the reviews of that play for its many productions criticized it for ‘consciously writing for’ a middle-class, middle-aged white audience. In fact if such criteria were subject for legitimate criticism, then the lion’s share of plays produced would have that criticism.
True the play does not pander to the values of mainstay theatre production. It does not make itself easy for middle-aged middle-class white value structures. Is this reason to criticize it?
Dinner with Friends and its ilk hold little to no interest for me as an audience member. The value systems propagated in the plays have no bearing upon my life or experiences. Yet, this does not make them illegitimate works for their intended audience. In fact, they are right for their intended audience precisely because I have no way of relating to the characters or situations therein.
I have worked on many plays whose value structures do not reflect my own. Not that they are opposed, but that they simply follow a parallel if not tangential tack. I find these works to be interesting because I must learn to appreciate another value system. I ask questions like, “What is the play trying to achieve?” and “Does it reach those goals?” These feel to me more reasonable questions than “Does this reinforce my personal value structure, because if not then it is worthless?”
4) The passion of youth is worthy of mockery.
This last point comes in from an oblique angle. The given circumstances that set in motion the events of the play are a drug overdose by one of the characters. This is precipitated by a scathingly negative review of the characters work in Artforum. For a young man in his early twenties, obsessed with his art, passionate about the work, this could and probably would to many seem to be the final statement about his as both person and artist.
The play of course outlines the events leading up to this rather drastic action and shows the review to be a proximate rather than ultimate cause. The Times reviewer makes his charge in a pseudo-selfdeprecatory fashion asking “Who tries to kill himself over one bad review these days, when blog- and e-mail-fueled word of mouth has sapped the power of old-media critics?” While this is a bit of an overstatement, just as the character Owen’s actions are a bit of an overreaction, the generally full houses at the perfomances seem to prove it somewhat correct.
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Backstage has another review for those interested.
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I have probably now doomed myself to a life of poor reviews for writing this. Or at least never receiving mention in reviews. I suppose time will tell.
So underground
Monday, February 19th, 2007Guerrilla News Network says go see Operation Ajax.
“Good staging, good set, good everything.”
Friday, February 16th, 2007Thank you Mr. Teachout.
Appropo of what?
Sunday, February 11th, 2007The reviews for The Last Word are starting to arrive. General consensus thus far seems to be superb acting that outstrips the body of the text. There are still several reviews yet to come in so we shall see how things fill out as time goes on. The design of realistic works tends to get little to no notice, and this is no exception.
On the plus side, Lippard keeps things moving at just the right clip for the play to make its points without wearing out its welcome. (The intermissionless show runs about 80 minutes). Set designer Michael V. Moore has provided an appropriately sparse and dingy office for the Henry-Len discourse. Equally appropriate are Lucas Benjaminh Krech’s lighting and Kirche Leigh Zeile’s costumes. Hail also to sound designer Gabe Wood for those wonderfully realistic computer noises.
These kind of works are truly where design and direction are best when invisible. To make anything that stands out too much would be intrusive and detrimental to the show. This play goes farther and perhaps begs the question as to the primacy of the text. The show is not strong because of the language. This is not unique to this play, but is none the less the case. The play is about the acting. The characters as embodied by these two actors are made possible through the direction, design and text, but in the final analysis these elements are fuel for something else and in no way the core of the thing itself.
For a bit of a tangent, the listing in the IOBDB has my name wrong, so now I have different listings in the archive under two different spellings of my name. It might be easier to not use my full name, but I like my middle name. I think there is a good sound and rhythm to the whole thing. Plus, I feel it is a little too biting without the use of the middle name. It also gives me something to complain about.
The lighting has only been described as appropriate. It’s good to know I did my job. Perhaps sometime I should do inappropriate lighting just to get notice. MacBeth in pink and lavender tones. Heh. Working at the NYU Dance department in graduate school we would light, between the two of us, over one hundred dances a year. When you do that much work you inevitably fall into cliche just to make it through. In addition, you begin to learn how the other person is going to light a dance. So we played a little game. We would challenge the other lighting designer to not use whatever we knew their reaction would be. “No blue backlight” or “No grey sky.” Sometimes we guessed wrong. Sometimes we caused the other to have a total train wreck. Many times though, we would end up with some very striking and unusual solutions to various problems.
It can be difficult to experiment in the professional theatre. On the one hand the work must be artistically interesting, so there is a degree to which one must push existing boundaries. At the same time, you are providing a service and a product to a client and thus the work can not be too esoteric. The design must be artistically satisfying as a designer, but first it needs to be what the client(producer/director) wants. The Last Word wanted to be a realistic space. The director was very clear that with the play we never wanted anything about the physical environment or clothing to feel “designed”. It had to flow naturally from the clear given circumstances of the text. For this particular piece that is the right and ‘appropriate’ course of action to take. It may be conventional in that regard, but it sure appears to be popular with the audiences.
Some works are more experimental by their very nature. This is true of both Ajax and Artfuckers. This weekend I am in tech for Operation Ajax and that work is far more abstract in nature than The Last Word. Navigating through these different and changing styles is truly exciting. While I might get bored only recreating the look of a fluorescent lit room, so too would purely abstract works begin to take their toll. The differing styles of dramatic storytelling, of acting and text and design all make for a fun and engaging body of work.
Cloud formations
Saturday, December 23rd, 2006A friend of mine, who is running the light board for Becoming Adele this week, just called to tell me he likes the clouds. When he first saw the show he did not realize that the six light cues were actually long complicated multipart sequences of transforming and evolving color and cloud formations and of course the light on the actor herself. Most of the work I did may be too subtle to be noticed on a first viewing of the piece, but I think that is fine. Consciously noticed or not, I think the level of detail still enhances the experience. It just means I will most likely not get mentioned in the reviews.
So far the reviews are a mixed bag. Here is what I have seen:
NY Times
TheatreMania
Curtain Up
Talkin’ Broadway
Backstage
I think we still have yet to hear from Variety, NYTheatre.com, TimeOut NY, and Villiage Voice. But that is just a guess.
No pictures yet. I am still waiting to get them from the photographer.
I thank you the listener, cause if it was up to me if you was girls I’d be kissin’ ya
Monday, November 27th, 2006Thanks Tom
This was the production presented by QED Productions at the Hudson Theatre Guild and lit by Lucas Krech of Light Que 23. Overall I found it a pretty good production. The new translation of Anouilh’s work was by Zander Teller, and as far as I could tell it flowed nicely. The set consisted of nothing but a bench center stage, and a back wall with one long, thin window. Minimalist, to be sure. Lucas’ lighting reflected that same sense of minimalism. It appears he used very few instruments in the plot, as I found myself more than once glancing to check out how many instruments he actually used and whether that was a result of low inventory or artistic choice (maybe a combination of both). The stage was well lit but not brightly lit, as if there was always a cloudy timeless mist I had to peer through. I thought it was an interesting mix of mood and visibility. His opening sequence cast these long triple shadows on the wall for each character, as if it were the shadows that spoke of the largeness of the themes and the characters. I very much got the feel of the lighting being artistic without being “artsy” or calling undue attention to itself. I grew more and more over the course of the show to like the sense of ambiguity which the light seemed to evoke in me.
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