There was a time in the history of American musical theatre when not only were music and story integrated so that the songs moved the plot ahead--the classic instance being Rodgers and Hammerstein's initial collaboration, Oklahoma--but some went further. While musicals had a significant past in operetta, mostly in the first twenty years of the 20th century, some in the 30s and 40s began to range into what had until then been operatic realms.
Porgy and Bess remains the most significant example. To this day, argument persists as to whether it is really an opera or a musical. Answer: it's both, because Gershwin's genius drew on folk music and jazz as well as other musical and cultural sources to produce an inimitable masterpiece. Kurt Weill also looked in this direction. His Street Scene has usually been performed by opera companies and The Threepenny Opera, for which his librettist was Bertholt Brecht, thrives in a place all its own.
Last night, enjoying the middle of three performances at City Center in New York of a revival of Weill's Lady in the Dark showed how composers, writers, and directors were exploring new ways of expanding the musical stage. When Moss Hart met with Weill to discuss his idea for a musical play that dealt with a woman executive's effort to deal with depression through psychoanalysis, neither was interested "in doing a how for the sake of doing a show..and the tight little formula of the musical comedy stage held no interest for either of us."
As the director and conductor Ted Sperling points out in his note in the program, Lady in the Dark was structured to fit its subject: "At a time when musicals were experimenting with linking songs and scenes more tightly, Lady in the Dark does the opposite--it segregates the music to the fantasy world." There's a lot going on here--and at the finale, the music does expand out of the fantasy world into what looks to be the core of the story.
It's a marvelous show. The credit Hart and Weill deserve is shared with the great lyricist Ira Gershwin, whose participation in the 1941 show was his first in any theatrical project following the untimely death in 1938 of his greatest collaborator, his brother George. Gertrude Lawrence was the original lead. Today we may have difficulty grasping how her incredible charm seduced audiences who paid little attention to his very constrained vocal range and technique. She went on to great success in The King and I, which she headlined until shortly before her death.
This show progresses through three dream sequences, all with spectacular production, choreography, and music. Victoria Clark, playing Liza Elliot, the focal character, performs admirably and has a delightful voice. Everyone else is excellent, including the veteran Amy Irving in the somewhat thankless role of the analyst.
Two famous songs come near the end: "Tschaikowsky," a perfect show-off piece for the talents of Danny Kaye, and "The Saga of Jenny," where Weill's sprightly music and Gershwin's clever lyrics take off, Another earlier song, "One Life to Live," also should be familiar.
It's a wonderful show, whether or not you are enthralled with psychoanalysis. It presents some good plot complications and the MasterVoices company brought it off with panache. Some Encores productions have moved to Broadway for limited runs, including Finian's Rainbow, which I saw a few years ago. This production at City Center was in the spirit of the Encores ones, but was wholly its own thing. Even the credits showed some style: gowns for the female dancers courtesy of Radio City Music Hall, tuxedos for male dancers by Brooks Brothers.
Saturday, April 27, 2019
Thursday, April 18, 2019
Burn This
I've liked Lanford Wilson's plays although it's been some time since I saw one until catching Burn This in New York recently. The earlier dramas Talley's Folly and The Fifth of July were set in the Midwest, Missouri, where I believe Wilson came from. To me, he demonstrated an ability to get beneath the surfaces that usually keep any two people who think they may be in love as well as all of us from understanding each other.
Although I hadn't had the chance to read much about this play--which had premiered on Broadway 32 years ago with John Malkovich--the presence of Keri Russell in one of the two leading roles made it attractive to both of us. She had been the key character in the cable series, The Americans, for several years. In that she was outstanding in conveying the many issues her character, a Soviet spy implanted in the U.S. with a husband provided by the KGB, with whom she has had two children.
This play puts her in another complex role. Anna is a dancer now turned choreographer. Others in the play attest to her talent but she is insecure in her new work, especially since her prime colleague, also a dancer, has just drowned in what clearly had been an avoidable accident. On top of this, she is trying to decide whether to pursue a relationship with a successful writer who seems enamoured with her.
A major complication bursts onto the scene when the dead man's brother, Jimmy, who wants to be called Pale, bursts into her Soho living space, which she shares with a congenial gay man. He is from the Midwest and is very assertive, if not dominating. She is affronted by his attitudes and behavior, yet it is clear that he has lit a spark in her that had not been there before.
Adam Driver plays him, and he's good, whether or not he proves to be as exciting a performer as Malkovich. The play does give both him and Russell the chance to expose their feelings as well as their challenges and attitudes. I found it both entertaining as well as providing a lot to think about. Russell's character, Anna, also complicated, because while she is fully engaged in the dance world and cherishes her friends, she is clearly open to something more. One gradually realizes that the more predictable route to happiness wed to the writer might not give that to her.
Although I hadn't had the chance to read much about this play--which had premiered on Broadway 32 years ago with John Malkovich--the presence of Keri Russell in one of the two leading roles made it attractive to both of us. She had been the key character in the cable series, The Americans, for several years. In that she was outstanding in conveying the many issues her character, a Soviet spy implanted in the U.S. with a husband provided by the KGB, with whom she has had two children.
This play puts her in another complex role. Anna is a dancer now turned choreographer. Others in the play attest to her talent but she is insecure in her new work, especially since her prime colleague, also a dancer, has just drowned in what clearly had been an avoidable accident. On top of this, she is trying to decide whether to pursue a relationship with a successful writer who seems enamoured with her.
A major complication bursts onto the scene when the dead man's brother, Jimmy, who wants to be called Pale, bursts into her Soho living space, which she shares with a congenial gay man. He is from the Midwest and is very assertive, if not dominating. She is affronted by his attitudes and behavior, yet it is clear that he has lit a spark in her that had not been there before.
Adam Driver plays him, and he's good, whether or not he proves to be as exciting a performer as Malkovich. The play does give both him and Russell the chance to expose their feelings as well as their challenges and attitudes. I found it both entertaining as well as providing a lot to think about. Russell's character, Anna, also complicated, because while she is fully engaged in the dance world and cherishes her friends, she is clearly open to something more. One gradually realizes that the more predictable route to happiness wed to the writer might not give that to her.
Monday, April 1, 2019
Contrasts in Opera
This weekend provided two very enjoyable operatic experiences. The Met's much-criticized "machine" production of Wagner's Ring is being revived after a few years: Saturday afternoon we went to an HD presentation of the live performance of Die Walkure in the movies. This, the second opera in the four-opera series, is the strongest of the tetralogy.
While it continues to story of the Ring of the Nibelung, it introduces the two most important female characters in the operas: Brunnhilde, the Valkyrie of the title, and Sieglinde, sister and wife of the hero Siegmund, and most significant as the mother of Siegfried, star of the last two operas and the hero whom Wotan, the increasingly beset king of the gods, hopes will do no less than save the world.
Two fine singers filled these roles. Christine Goerke, an American soprano, rose to the demands of Brunnhilde's mightiest appearance (she, as with Witan, appears in three of the four operas--not the same ones) and Eva-Marie Westbroek rendered a sparkling performance as Sieglinde, who, with Wotan, a resolute Greer Grimsley, holds the stage for the longest stretches.
The opera presents in stark form the moral and ethical trap in which Wotan finds himself ever since he stooped to trickery to take possession of the ring forged by Alberich who stole the Rhinegold from the Rhinemaidens. One might almost conclude that there was no good way to resolve this story since if Wotan had returned the ring to the Rhine--we are constantly reminded that the world will not be at peace until that occurs--what would have prevented Alberich or a similar-focused villain, from stealing it again and starting the whole cycle over.
Now Wotan has sought to set the stage for a great hero, who will be Siegfried, to save the gods and the world, but he is undone by his wife, Fricka, jealous of his romantic dalliances (one of which resulted in the twins Siegmund and Sieglinde, the Walsungs), who insists that Siegmund lose the battle with Hunding, the snarling and snivelling basso who is married to Sieglinde, taken from the burning house he and his comrades had inflamed.
The message of the Ring often seems to be that no one's really all good or bad--well, not exactly: no one: Alberich the dwarf, his son Hagen, and brother Mime are unremittingly evil. Wotan is forced by his moral code to cast out his favorite child Brunnhilde (also the result of a dalliance with an unidentified woman not his wife) when she follows the message of his heart rather than his direct order and tries to save Siegmund.
Although the third act starts with the famous Ride of the Valkyries and proceeds to the magnificent Wotan's Farewell and Fire Music, the first two acts in this Met revival played wonderfully both dramatically and musically. Siegmund and Sieglinde brought the first act to exciting levels with their singing and acting, and Brunnhilde's appearance in Act Two enlivens the opera immediately. Even Jamie Barton, in the unsympathetic role of Fricka, was marvelous--she is younger than she looks as she won the Met's National Auditions only a few years ago. As always, the Met Orchestra, brought by the now non-person James Levine to its high level, performed Wagner's challenging score magnificently.
Sunday afternoon I saw music and drama students at Catholic University present Handel's early-17th century opera, Julius Caesar in Egypt, in a fine production at the Hartke Theater. It is amazing to realize that not only were countertenors often principal singers in the opera seria produced most notably by Handel (the roles were written for castrati) but none less than the might Julius Caesar is played by a countertenor.
We seem to be in an age when the revival of baroque has brought countertenors to the fore after a couple of centuries of being omitted from opera. Last year it was delightful to hear two countertenors singing Handel in a Broadway production of Farinelli and the King starring the great Mark Rylance. The performance, part of a three-day run at CU, was entirely student-performed, stage-managed, and designed: it was superbly done. Baroque opera, even by Handel, is a definitely different species and one which takes some getting used to. The harpsichord accompanying the recitatives also shows how some half a century or so later, Mozart would refine this standard of baroque into a more amazing technique in the three DaPonte operas.
While it continues to story of the Ring of the Nibelung, it introduces the two most important female characters in the operas: Brunnhilde, the Valkyrie of the title, and Sieglinde, sister and wife of the hero Siegmund, and most significant as the mother of Siegfried, star of the last two operas and the hero whom Wotan, the increasingly beset king of the gods, hopes will do no less than save the world.
Two fine singers filled these roles. Christine Goerke, an American soprano, rose to the demands of Brunnhilde's mightiest appearance (she, as with Witan, appears in three of the four operas--not the same ones) and Eva-Marie Westbroek rendered a sparkling performance as Sieglinde, who, with Wotan, a resolute Greer Grimsley, holds the stage for the longest stretches.
The opera presents in stark form the moral and ethical trap in which Wotan finds himself ever since he stooped to trickery to take possession of the ring forged by Alberich who stole the Rhinegold from the Rhinemaidens. One might almost conclude that there was no good way to resolve this story since if Wotan had returned the ring to the Rhine--we are constantly reminded that the world will not be at peace until that occurs--what would have prevented Alberich or a similar-focused villain, from stealing it again and starting the whole cycle over.
Now Wotan has sought to set the stage for a great hero, who will be Siegfried, to save the gods and the world, but he is undone by his wife, Fricka, jealous of his romantic dalliances (one of which resulted in the twins Siegmund and Sieglinde, the Walsungs), who insists that Siegmund lose the battle with Hunding, the snarling and snivelling basso who is married to Sieglinde, taken from the burning house he and his comrades had inflamed.
The message of the Ring often seems to be that no one's really all good or bad--well, not exactly: no one: Alberich the dwarf, his son Hagen, and brother Mime are unremittingly evil. Wotan is forced by his moral code to cast out his favorite child Brunnhilde (also the result of a dalliance with an unidentified woman not his wife) when she follows the message of his heart rather than his direct order and tries to save Siegmund.
Although the third act starts with the famous Ride of the Valkyries and proceeds to the magnificent Wotan's Farewell and Fire Music, the first two acts in this Met revival played wonderfully both dramatically and musically. Siegmund and Sieglinde brought the first act to exciting levels with their singing and acting, and Brunnhilde's appearance in Act Two enlivens the opera immediately. Even Jamie Barton, in the unsympathetic role of Fricka, was marvelous--she is younger than she looks as she won the Met's National Auditions only a few years ago. As always, the Met Orchestra, brought by the now non-person James Levine to its high level, performed Wagner's challenging score magnificently.
Sunday afternoon I saw music and drama students at Catholic University present Handel's early-17th century opera, Julius Caesar in Egypt, in a fine production at the Hartke Theater. It is amazing to realize that not only were countertenors often principal singers in the opera seria produced most notably by Handel (the roles were written for castrati) but none less than the might Julius Caesar is played by a countertenor.
We seem to be in an age when the revival of baroque has brought countertenors to the fore after a couple of centuries of being omitted from opera. Last year it was delightful to hear two countertenors singing Handel in a Broadway production of Farinelli and the King starring the great Mark Rylance. The performance, part of a three-day run at CU, was entirely student-performed, stage-managed, and designed: it was superbly done. Baroque opera, even by Handel, is a definitely different species and one which takes some getting used to. The harpsichord accompanying the recitatives also shows how some half a century or so later, Mozart would refine this standard of baroque into a more amazing technique in the three DaPonte operas.
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
A Really Good Churchill bio
Tackling Andrew Roberts's massive new biography of Winston Churchill--Churchill: Walking With Destiny--is a major undertaking: it runs a good 1000 pages plus notes. Although I've not read many of the existing huge pile of previous biographical enterprises devoted to Churchill, I found this one very rewarding.
Usually, I find that when I tend to agree with the theme of the biography, it strikes me as a good job. Roberts's book is definitely well-written, which always excuses many shortcomings, of which there are only a few in this volume. My view, as it happens, of Churchill is that he was absolutely the right person for the job in 1940, and that he accomplished what he was there to do: in essence, preserve the free world from the Axis at a time when every other significant political figure in Britain had been an appeaser and when no one else anywhere was willing to take on what surely looked to be a fight against the odds.
Churchill realized that he would only prove successful eventually if the United States joined Britain in the war. His principal task was to maintain Britain while it was under attack without American help for more than two years. Toward the end of that time, he managed to work with Franklin Roosevelt to secure Lend-Lease, without which Britain would have been both broke and defenseless while under steady German attack.
Churchill did have an incredibly long career--running from his presence at the Battle of Omdurman in the Sudan when Kitchener led the British forces in their last cavalry charge to avenge the death of "Chinese" Gordon and being imprisoned by the Boers in South Africa during the turn-of-the-century Boer War to being the British equivalent of Secretary of the Navy in World War I and previously Home Secretary and then Chancellor of the Exchequer in the '20s.
He did acquire the skills from managing munitions in World War I and he did learn from his mistakes: he was the principal proponent of the disastrous attack on the Turks at Gallipoli and had been prominent in the savage treatment of labor at Tonypandy, among other major errors. But he learned a great deal from his experiences, both good and bad: in World War II, he relied on the excellent strategic abilities of the Army Chief of Staff, Alan Brooke, later Viscount Alanbrooke, and wisely delegated all labor issues during the war to Ernest Bevin, formerly head of Britain's largest union, the TGWU, and later Foreign Secretary in the postwar Labour government.
So the five years during which Churchill was in charge were critical and he managed to come out of it with deserved praise for persevering when few others might have or could have. The years before the war, when he was in "the Wilderness" since all those in the government were appeasers, also give him credit.
It also is illuminating to see how his political outlook was generally unchanging over those many years: he was a Tory Democrat, which meant he really did stand in the middle in that he favored measures to improve the lot of the workers and the poor. He never really accepted the reactionary attitude of the Tories, even though he had switched to them when he could no longer abide the declining Liberals.
He also included the major Labour figures--Attlee, Bevin, Morrison, and Dalton, who were all prominent in Attlee's government that had won the 1945 election right after the war ended--in his wartime Coalition government, and was likely better served by them than by many of his Tory ministers and even his eventual and long-delayed successor, Anthony Eden, who managed to self-destruct in the mid-50s after a mere year as Prime Minister.
So Churchill remains a worthy historic figure, despite his imperialism, which he never would have denied, and racism, which he would have but which was totally characteristic of his times. He also was almost alone among British political figures in the 30s and 40s in his support of the establishment of Israel, in addition to Balfour whose 1917 declaration was generally disregarded by everyone else but Churchill who followed Balfour into office.
Usually, I find that when I tend to agree with the theme of the biography, it strikes me as a good job. Roberts's book is definitely well-written, which always excuses many shortcomings, of which there are only a few in this volume. My view, as it happens, of Churchill is that he was absolutely the right person for the job in 1940, and that he accomplished what he was there to do: in essence, preserve the free world from the Axis at a time when every other significant political figure in Britain had been an appeaser and when no one else anywhere was willing to take on what surely looked to be a fight against the odds.
Churchill realized that he would only prove successful eventually if the United States joined Britain in the war. His principal task was to maintain Britain while it was under attack without American help for more than two years. Toward the end of that time, he managed to work with Franklin Roosevelt to secure Lend-Lease, without which Britain would have been both broke and defenseless while under steady German attack.
Churchill did have an incredibly long career--running from his presence at the Battle of Omdurman in the Sudan when Kitchener led the British forces in their last cavalry charge to avenge the death of "Chinese" Gordon and being imprisoned by the Boers in South Africa during the turn-of-the-century Boer War to being the British equivalent of Secretary of the Navy in World War I and previously Home Secretary and then Chancellor of the Exchequer in the '20s.
He did acquire the skills from managing munitions in World War I and he did learn from his mistakes: he was the principal proponent of the disastrous attack on the Turks at Gallipoli and had been prominent in the savage treatment of labor at Tonypandy, among other major errors. But he learned a great deal from his experiences, both good and bad: in World War II, he relied on the excellent strategic abilities of the Army Chief of Staff, Alan Brooke, later Viscount Alanbrooke, and wisely delegated all labor issues during the war to Ernest Bevin, formerly head of Britain's largest union, the TGWU, and later Foreign Secretary in the postwar Labour government.
So the five years during which Churchill was in charge were critical and he managed to come out of it with deserved praise for persevering when few others might have or could have. The years before the war, when he was in "the Wilderness" since all those in the government were appeasers, also give him credit.
It also is illuminating to see how his political outlook was generally unchanging over those many years: he was a Tory Democrat, which meant he really did stand in the middle in that he favored measures to improve the lot of the workers and the poor. He never really accepted the reactionary attitude of the Tories, even though he had switched to them when he could no longer abide the declining Liberals.
He also included the major Labour figures--Attlee, Bevin, Morrison, and Dalton, who were all prominent in Attlee's government that had won the 1945 election right after the war ended--in his wartime Coalition government, and was likely better served by them than by many of his Tory ministers and even his eventual and long-delayed successor, Anthony Eden, who managed to self-destruct in the mid-50s after a mere year as Prime Minister.
So Churchill remains a worthy historic figure, despite his imperialism, which he never would have denied, and racism, which he would have but which was totally characteristic of his times. He also was almost alone among British political figures in the 30s and 40s in his support of the establishment of Israel, in addition to Balfour whose 1917 declaration was generally disregarded by everyone else but Churchill who followed Balfour into office.
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Finian's Rainbow Redux
A few years ago we saw a semistaged revival of the 1947 musical Finian's Raiunbow at Encores at City Center in New York. It was a delightful rendition of a wonderful musical. So when my daughter alerted me that it would be done on a one-night only at Olney Theatre, we made the rush-hour trip out to Olney Friday evening and the show was worth the journey.
This was pretty much a concert version with the orchestra -- a large one -- at the back of the stage and the cast occupying the front two rows of seats set up in front of the musicians. They would come up front when they were performing and there was a good deal of dancing along with the singing and the recitatives, to use the operatic term. Of course, one of the principals fills what is a totally dancing role--until the very end.
The performers were perfectly fine, with not much available in the minimal program as to background but the lead soprano had a nice full voice for what is the major singing role, the leading man was strong, and my favorite, the leprechaun, who was somewhat larger than one expects, had a nice voice.
In my view, he has the two cleverest E.Y. Harburg lyrics: "When I'm Not Near the Girl I Love (I Love the Girl I'm Near)" and "Something Sort of Grandish" and performed them well. The original in that role was the great Broadway vet David Wayne and seeing a picture of him in the role, I for the first time realized he brought an additional advantage to the role: being slight of build.
The Harburg-Burton Lane songs, of course, are fantastic: "How Are Things in Glocca Mora", "Old Devil Moon", "The Great Come-and-Get-It Day", "If This Isn't Love", "Look to the Rainbow" (reminds you of Harburg's "Over the Rainbow"), and "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich" as well as "The Begat" which was better sung by the "Gospelers" than I ever remember.
One theater historian said that Finian's Rainbow was "a socialist analysis in the form of an American musical." Part of the fun the show engenders is the shrewdness with which Harburg created the lyrics. They have a political and even philosophical spark but avoid hitting you over the head with ideology.
The soprano's Irish accent came and went, which was also not a problem. It's delightful to listen to the recording of the original show and hear the lead, Ella Logan, employ a charming Irish accent, made even more enjoyable once you realize that she wasn't Irish.
This was pretty much a concert version with the orchestra -- a large one -- at the back of the stage and the cast occupying the front two rows of seats set up in front of the musicians. They would come up front when they were performing and there was a good deal of dancing along with the singing and the recitatives, to use the operatic term. Of course, one of the principals fills what is a totally dancing role--until the very end.
The performers were perfectly fine, with not much available in the minimal program as to background but the lead soprano had a nice full voice for what is the major singing role, the leading man was strong, and my favorite, the leprechaun, who was somewhat larger than one expects, had a nice voice.
In my view, he has the two cleverest E.Y. Harburg lyrics: "When I'm Not Near the Girl I Love (I Love the Girl I'm Near)" and "Something Sort of Grandish" and performed them well. The original in that role was the great Broadway vet David Wayne and seeing a picture of him in the role, I for the first time realized he brought an additional advantage to the role: being slight of build.
The Harburg-Burton Lane songs, of course, are fantastic: "How Are Things in Glocca Mora", "Old Devil Moon", "The Great Come-and-Get-It Day", "If This Isn't Love", "Look to the Rainbow" (reminds you of Harburg's "Over the Rainbow"), and "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich" as well as "The Begat" which was better sung by the "Gospelers" than I ever remember.
One theater historian said that Finian's Rainbow was "a socialist analysis in the form of an American musical." Part of the fun the show engenders is the shrewdness with which Harburg created the lyrics. They have a political and even philosophical spark but avoid hitting you over the head with ideology.
The soprano's Irish accent came and went, which was also not a problem. It's delightful to listen to the recording of the original show and hear the lead, Ella Logan, employ a charming Irish accent, made even more enjoyable once you realize that she wasn't Irish.
Tuesday, February 26, 2019
A gruesome Richard III
You do not need to accept the veracity of Shakespeare's depiction of the English monarch Richard III to savor the play. It is one of Shakespeare's early works, when he was focusing on history and when he was most cognizant of his need not to offend the last Tudor, Elizabeth I. After all, Richmond, who wins the day at the Battle of Bosworth Field and ends the play by dispatching Richard, became the first Tudor king, Henry VII.
Indeed, the great work that seeks to clear Richard's name, Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time, points to none other than Henry VII as the real villain who was responsible for the murder of the two princes in the Tower of London, Edward V and Richard, Duke of York. Another major figure who helped establish Richard's vile reputation was Laurence Olivier, whose portrayal of Richard as a hunchbacked, snarling monster in the 1950s-era movie he produced contributed to confirming the evil image of the leading role.
Nevertheless, Olivier and many other wonderful actors have performed wonders in conveying the essence of a Shakespearean villain who gives Iago and Macbeth a run for their wickedness. Jose Ferrer led a marvelous cast on Broadway way back when and a few years ago, Stacy Keach shone in the part at the Shakespeare Theatre here in Washington.
The current production there, however, which we saw last Saturday night, goes off in the wrong direction. Matthew Rauch plays Richard and his performance is fine. But the director, David Muse, engaged by departing managing director Michael Kahn in his last season, has chosen to focus mostly on presenting gory death scenes to emphasize the lengthy chain of murders Richard directs. The scenes seem to draw on both hospital-like execution settings and the atmosphere of a totalitarian state.
There's more blood that you see in even Jacobean tragedies such as Middleton and Rowley's The Changeling. That's not necessarily terrible but here it does not contribute to the impact of the play, and in fact, likely overshadows some of the more engaging sections that Shakespeare wrote which have been edited out to extend these death scenes. The play's length does support selective cuts, but I would take issue with the ones made here.
Indeed, the great work that seeks to clear Richard's name, Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time, points to none other than Henry VII as the real villain who was responsible for the murder of the two princes in the Tower of London, Edward V and Richard, Duke of York. Another major figure who helped establish Richard's vile reputation was Laurence Olivier, whose portrayal of Richard as a hunchbacked, snarling monster in the 1950s-era movie he produced contributed to confirming the evil image of the leading role.
Nevertheless, Olivier and many other wonderful actors have performed wonders in conveying the essence of a Shakespearean villain who gives Iago and Macbeth a run for their wickedness. Jose Ferrer led a marvelous cast on Broadway way back when and a few years ago, Stacy Keach shone in the part at the Shakespeare Theatre here in Washington.
The current production there, however, which we saw last Saturday night, goes off in the wrong direction. Matthew Rauch plays Richard and his performance is fine. But the director, David Muse, engaged by departing managing director Michael Kahn in his last season, has chosen to focus mostly on presenting gory death scenes to emphasize the lengthy chain of murders Richard directs. The scenes seem to draw on both hospital-like execution settings and the atmosphere of a totalitarian state.
There's more blood that you see in even Jacobean tragedies such as Middleton and Rowley's The Changeling. That's not necessarily terrible but here it does not contribute to the impact of the play, and in fact, likely overshadows some of the more engaging sections that Shakespeare wrote which have been edited out to extend these death scenes. The play's length does support selective cuts, but I would take issue with the ones made here.
Saturday, February 16, 2019
Left Coasting
Returned to a favorite place to spend a few nice days, San Diego, and courtesy of the better half, who was presenting at a program on negotiation for lawyers, the time is being spent at the Hotel del Coronado, a charming place that needs no instruction in how to charge but which overcomes all shortcomings when you gaze out at the breakers on the ocean in one direction and the sailboats in the sun on the bay in the other.
I've been coming out here since I was a teenager and I even remember when you could only get to Coronado on the ferry. Biggest surprise was driving over what is now the free bridge that rises way up on the bay. I've been at this hostelry a few times previously, always for conferences or the like. It's one of those places where you're not surprised when you run into someone you haven't seen for years who's attending a different conference.
The weather now limits beach enjoyment to walking on the beach, which, with the La Jolla Shores, might be one of the choicest spots to engage in beach jaunts. As usually occurs, timing was off for cultural opportunities: Rigoletto just finished at the San Diego Opera and a new musical based on the life of Princess Diana (titled creatively, Diana) opens the day after we depart. However, last week I caught a rehearsal at the National Symphony in Kennedy Center which began with the glorious Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, and that makes up for quite a few missed shows.
There's also good dining to be had in San Diego, and even in Coronado outside the Del. That means there are nice spots that offer a somewhat better price than the Del's stratospheric scale. Clayton's Coffee Shop is a satisfying place to start the day with one of the most comprehensive breakfast menus around. And the night before we left, there was a delightful group dinner at Buck's Fishing and Camping following a reading at Politics & Prose by Eileen's old friend from Boston days, Elinor Lipman, who had read from her new novel, Good Riddance.
There's also the Road Runner Sports headquarters and clearance stores up near Miramar which offer not only the most cutting-edge running shoes but salespeople who know how to make sure the shoe fits. It even makes me feel when I'm there that in some way, shape, or form I'm actually still running races instead of walking. Since I need all the encouragement I can get in this direction, it's also great to find that there still are a good number of laid-back folks out here on the Left Coast.
I've been coming out here since I was a teenager and I even remember when you could only get to Coronado on the ferry. Biggest surprise was driving over what is now the free bridge that rises way up on the bay. I've been at this hostelry a few times previously, always for conferences or the like. It's one of those places where you're not surprised when you run into someone you haven't seen for years who's attending a different conference.
The weather now limits beach enjoyment to walking on the beach, which, with the La Jolla Shores, might be one of the choicest spots to engage in beach jaunts. As usually occurs, timing was off for cultural opportunities: Rigoletto just finished at the San Diego Opera and a new musical based on the life of Princess Diana (titled creatively, Diana) opens the day after we depart. However, last week I caught a rehearsal at the National Symphony in Kennedy Center which began with the glorious Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, and that makes up for quite a few missed shows.
There's also good dining to be had in San Diego, and even in Coronado outside the Del. That means there are nice spots that offer a somewhat better price than the Del's stratospheric scale. Clayton's Coffee Shop is a satisfying place to start the day with one of the most comprehensive breakfast menus around. And the night before we left, there was a delightful group dinner at Buck's Fishing and Camping following a reading at Politics & Prose by Eileen's old friend from Boston days, Elinor Lipman, who had read from her new novel, Good Riddance.
There's also the Road Runner Sports headquarters and clearance stores up near Miramar which offer not only the most cutting-edge running shoes but salespeople who know how to make sure the shoe fits. It even makes me feel when I'm there that in some way, shape, or form I'm actually still running races instead of walking. Since I need all the encouragement I can get in this direction, it's also great to find that there still are a good number of laid-back folks out here on the Left Coast.
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