Review of Uncle Vanya at the Lantern Theatre

In his 1994 The Western Canon, Yale professor Harold Bloom catalogued the great literary works of Western Civilization since Dante. He capped his near-1,000 year progression with Tony Kushner’s two-part Angels in America, deeming it the last work fit for inclusion.

 

The original productions of Angels garnered multiple Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize. Its current off-Broadway revival at New York’s Signature Theatre Company has critics re-confirming its exalted place in literature.

 

I’ve seen multiple productions of both parts, and until recently, I felt inclined to agree with critical estimation. But then I watched the Lantern Theatre’s production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. While I can still appreciate the epic scope of Kushner’s six-hour Angels, his play nonetheless deals—per its subtitle of a “Gay Fantasia on National Themes”—with problems related to the “Democratic Age” in which Bloom catalogues it. Chekhov’s Vanya, by contrast, confronts the very problem of existence.

 

Fixed locale, timeless problems:

 

Chekhov’s play opens on the Serebryakov estate, most likely in present day Ukraine. However, with few textual exceptions—that call for a samovar and a guitar—Meghan Jones moderately detailed manor could exist in any Western nation.

 

And the problems Chekhov’s characters face feel equally timeless. The arrival of Professor Serebryakov (David Howey) and his young wife Yelena (Sarah Sanford) throws the normal routine of the estate’s denizens into chaos. They work the land and manage the estate’s affairs; he lists about complaining about petty academic struggles and geriatric health complaints.

 

His wife embodies the problems of beautiful women anywhere. Men dote on her, unless she ignores them (in which case they snap), and less attractive females unload the equally unfortunate perils of having their inferior genetic endowments overlooked. Watching Sarah Sanford’s eager eyes attend to everything but the reality of her life, I couldn’t help thinking of Hedda Gabler or Helen of Troy.

 

As the possibility of a more refined and leisurely life intrudes, all other concerns fly out the window. The local Doctor (Charlie DelMarcelle) trades his conservationist lifestyle for long nights of drinking, their neighbor Telegin (David Blatt) ruminates on his past misfortunes, and Serebryakov’s daughter Sonya (Melissa Lynch) pauses long enough from her work to realize that she’s aging, and no man might ever love her.

 

One line that carries them all: 

 

In any production of Vanya, the entire dramatic weight of the play rests on a single line, uttered by the overlooked titular character: “I could have been the next Schopenhauer…the next Dostoyevsky.” I’ve seen other translations which preface that line with “If I had lived a normal life.” Whether or not we agree with Vanya’s outburst depends on how well the actor has set up the line, and how much we view—at any age—the potential application of that sentiment to our own lives.

 

At the Lantern, Peter DeLaurier’s masterful performance balanced Vanya’s buffoonery with both solemnity and a desperate exhaustion at having failed in his own life because he satisfied the expectations of others. DeLaurier shows us Vanya’s intellectual strength (in solidly challenging Serebryakov) while indulging his moral weaknesses and self-pity. And the line, coming as a culmination of such a rich portrayal, evoked both scoffing laughter and my own chilled spine.

 

An existential crisis, averted: 

 

Director Kathryn MacMillan imparts tremendous care into the production, letting the play unfold along the lines of each character’s narrative. No member of the ensemble contributes anything less than a stellar performance. Her and the cast’s depiction of life at the estate transcends its locale, showing even the servants as trusted members of family, equally ready to offer support or rebuke, but unlike Vanya, all equally committed to a desire to solve their problems with a return to routine, even if only the lost status quo.

 

And by giving the production this sense, the Lantern’s production reveals something extraordinary, that Chekhov only achieves with conviction in Vanya. To many, the normal association of “existentialism” implies one of two meanings: the nihilism of Waiting for Godot or the reckless hedonism of Dorian Gray.

 

But Chekhov provided a third option, telling us in Vanya that we can find meaning and alleviate present-day suffering by working toward a better earthly future for those to come. He states this same idea more explicitly in his Three Sisters, but dulls its impact by repeatedly insisting upon it.  

 

At the Lantern, MacMillan and her cast let us feel it as the vital key to their own lives. It doesn’t matter if you accept that in your own life, or pity or hate the characters in Vanya for soldiering on by those lights in theirs.

 

What matters is that this staging possesses a rare quality, where its characters could not just reach across the fourth wall to sit down with us in our own lives, but that we could get up from our chairs and take their places on the stage. And that’s something only a great production of a great play can make you realize.

Don Draper's Carousel Monologue

Recently, I've become a Mad Men junkie. I'll admit, I only started watching the show because someone reminded me of former Philadelphia actress Maggie Siff. Now a minor player in the AMC drama, she had brought me some of the best moments I had seen on Philadelphia stages, from her performance as Thomasina in the Wilma's (new-home) opener--Tom Stoppard's Arcadia--to her appearance in Samuel Beckett's Endgame alongisde New York actor Pearce Bunting (which is still the best show I've ever seen during the Philadelphia Fringe Festival).

And in a Winter theatre season that relies heavily on monologues (the Arden's Asher Lev, Flashpoint's Jump/Cut, and the Lantern's Sizwe Banzi is Dead), the best monologue I've watched in the month of January appeared in the Season One finale of Mad Men.

Here, the series protagonist Don Draper delivered an advertising pitch for the Kodak Carousel. Selling a product, he found value in life.

For those interested, I've attached the full text of his monologue:

Don Draper: Well, technology is a glittering lure. But, uh, there is the rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash, if they have a sentimental bond with the product.

My first job, I was in-house at a fur company, with this old-pro copywriter, a Greek named Teddy. Teddy told me the most important idea in advertising is new. Creates an itch. You simply put your product in there as a kind of calamine lotion.

But he also talked about a deeper bond with the product. Nostalgia. It’s delicate, but potent. Sweetheart. (lights switch off) (changes slide)

Teddy told me that in Greek, “nostalgia” literally means “the pain from an old wound”. (changes slide)

It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. (changes slide)

This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine. (changes slide)

It goes backwards, forwards, (changes slide) takes us to a place where we ache to go again. (changes slide)

It’s not called the wheel. It’s called the carousel. (changes slide)

It lets us travel the way a child travels. (changes slide)

Round and around, and back home again. (changes slide)

To a place where we know we are loved. (changes slide) (changes slide) (changes slide)

Sizwe Banzi vs. The Rant

First published at the Broad Street Review:

Last week I saw both the Lantern’s and Interact Theatre’s respective productions of Sizwe Bansi is Dead and The Rant. While both were expertly directed and featured formidable performances of plots driven by moral-issues, one of them felt dated and of little consequence, while the other found continuing and universal relevance.

I saw the Lantern’s production of Athol Fugard’s play first, which portrayed the young worker Sizwe Bansi (Lawrence Stallings) imprisoned inside the machinations of South Africa’s apartheid system. The stamps in his government-issued passbook restrict him to work in Port Elizabeth, where he’s supposed to live with his wife and four children. But there’s no work there, so he has journeyed to New Brighton, where he can’t work because the local bureaucrats won’t give him a permit. While he’s out drinking with Buntu (Forrest McClendon), they stumble upon a recently murdered corpse, and the situation presents the innocent Sizwe with a rogue dilemma: either steal the dead man’s passbook and find work, or continue to live as a fugitive from the state.

Andrew Case’s The Rant appears less straightforward. Denise Reeves, an African-American woman (Kimberly S. Fairbanks), claims to have seen the white police sergeant Clark murder her autistic teenage son on her front porch, with the assistance of the black cop Simmons (Aldo Billingslea). The New York Police department buries the investigation, so Reeves turns to Lila Mahnaz (Elena Araoz), who heads a civilian review board that handles complaints and oversees internal police investigations. Mahnaz believes Reeve’s version and launches a personal crusade against Simmons, sensationalizing the case with the assistance of Alexander Stern (David Ingram), a cynical crime reporter. In a post-modern era, where truth is considered “another type of bias,” the question of “Who’s watching the watchmen?” takes on considerable moral significance.

To continue reading, click here.

Review of Lantern Theatre's Sizwe Banzi is Dead

First published in Edge Philadelphia:

In the balcony scene of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the young heroine comes up with a simple solution to the crisis keeping them apart, and pleads with Romeo to "deny thy father and refuse thy name!" Were Romeo not a Montague, the feud that divides their families would not separate the young lovers. After all, she tells him, "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

Athol Fugard’s 1972 anti-apartheid play Sizwe Banzi Is Dead - now in a stirring production at the Lantern Theatre Company - begs to differ. That is, when it finally gets around to the moral dilemma that drives the second half of the play.

Unfortunately, the audience must first sit and listen to a 45 minute monologue delivered by Styles (Forrest McClendon), the black owner of a photography studio in a Nixon-era South Africa that’s deeply entrenched in the oppressive apartheid system. When he first appears, strutting onto the stage, he begins reading from the South African Herald newspaper, commenting on current events to remark on something old, something new. The former: more troubles plaguing Zimbabwe, which Styles dismisses with a shrug; the latter: tensions in America. "Let them elect a black man President," he remarks, adding, "then we’ll take notice. Same year hell freezes over."

A woman let out a hasty retort, and McClendon masterfully handled it, clearly addressing the audience while telling us stories about the six years he worked at a Ford automotive plant. Finally wanting to regain his self-respect as a man, Styles decides he needs to become his own boss, and opens the photography studio. Battling roaches (all pantomimed in an almost clowning fashion), he then tells the stories of many of the customers he’s served. "I offer a storeroom for dreams" he tells us, and is about to launch into another recollection when a knock at the door interrupts his speech.

The man who’s arrived? Rober Zwelinzima (Lawrence Stallings), formerly known as Sizwe Banzi. Dressed in Millie Hiibel’s fresh linen suit, salmon colored shirt, and derby hat wrapped in plastic, he wants to send a picture to his wife in Port Elizabeth, informing her that "Sizwe Banzi is dead." And with a cute trick of Janet Embree’s and David O’Connor’s lighting, finally, the production embraces Meghan Jones’ shantytown set of corrugated tin roofs and fences and become a play.

McClendon disappears to return as Buntu, a friend who harbors the fugitive Banzi. Banzi’s passbook (the apartheid equivalent of a National I.D. card) declares him ineligible to work anywhere but Port Elizabeth, where a drought has eliminated most jobs. He can’t feed his family, and skipped town illegally, looking for work in New Brighton, where he meets Buntu.

Though helped along by Peter DeLaurier’s sharp direction, a pair of excellent performances, and the stellar lighting, the play plods through long segments of seemingly meaningless exposition, requiring the audience to think about what’s happen "Do you have a letter from a white man who is willing to give you a job?" Buntu asks. "No? then go back to Port Elizabeth." After Buntu explains the Kafkaesque system of laws that imprisons black men in cordoned districts of the country, the pair stumble upon the recently murdered corpse of Zwelinzima. And Banzi must make a decision: steal Zwelinzima’s passbook and adopt an identity that will afford him work, or continue to live as a fugitive.

Though helped along by Peter DeLaurier’s sharp direction, a pair of excellent performances, and the stellar lighting, the play plods through long segments of seemingly meaningless exposition, requiring the audience to think about what’s happening while it’s happening. Banzi asks "does that (pass)book tell you that I am a man" before later arguing "I cannot lose my name."

But it’s Buntu who lays out the problem clearly. That name cannot feed your family, find you a job, or keep you from being arrested, he tells Banzi. So lose it. And yet, Banzi persists, as his identity as a human being seems to hold some key to his life.

The Lantern’s excellent production capitalizes on the well-played moral dilemma and analysis of all its implications, but ultimately, the first half weighs down the strength of this performance. I can imagine the implications that Styles character bears on the show: under apartheid, he sells unattainable dreams, photographing the illiterate Banzi holding a newspaper in front of a painting of the "city of the future."

But it’s a bad drama of apartheid politics, unevenly delivered. All the real action of this play could have taken 30 or 40 minutes, gravitating on what both Buntu and Banzi see as the unfortunate moral payoff: "If someone was to offer you the things in life that would make me or my family happy in exchange for a name, wouldn’t you swap?"

Though this production proves otherwise, Banzi’s dilemma ultimately seems easy. Buntu asks, "who are you to a white man...but a ghost?" And Sizwe becomes Zwelinzima. And why not? Romeo’s life would have been infinitely easier (and perhaps not ended in suicide) had he acceded to Juliet’s request.

Buntu nails it on the head when he says "there’s nothing we can leave behind except the memory of ourselves." But what kind of memory is it? Schopenhauer once wrote that "we remember our own lives a little better than we do a novel we once read, little more." Seen in that light, the decision seems easy. A man might have to die in order to live again, but it’s Fugard’s play that makes Banzi's dilemma into a hard decision.

Review of Lantern Theatre's The Government Inspector

First published in Edge Philadelphia, 11-30-2008:

My 2008 Christmas wish: that Philadelphians will forego their presents this season and instead ask friends and relatives to donate money to the Lantern Theatre. That way, the Lantern can hire enough actors to properly stage a work like Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector.

The fault doesn’t lie in the actors that director David O’Connor cast -- in fact, the Lantern’s show includes one of Philadelphia’s best comedic talents (Tony Lawton), the city’s most capable character actor (Seth Reichgott), and Sarah Sanford, who I consider the single most versatile actress in the region. But those three, along with Luigi Sottile and David Ingram must together cover twelve parts, and the costume changes, slow-to-develop in-characterizations, and forced exits and entrances to accommodate actors playing multiple roles strangle the quick pace that a satire like "The Government Inspector" requires, sucking the life right out of this production.

Gogol’s simple, straightforward plot should make for an incredibly funny play. Tsar Nicholas I has sent a government inspector from St. Petersburg to a small town in Russia to report on the state of his realm. The Mayor (Reichgott), School Supervisor (Sanford), Judge (Ingram), and Hospital Director (Lawton) all worry that he’ll arrive and expose their corruption: classes filled with idiots, geese in the courtroom, and hospitals lined with dying villagers. Like all politicians, the last thing they want is to be exposed as idiots and lose their cushy well-paying patronage jobs.

In Armina LaManna’s translation, this simple premise consumes well over two hours and in O’Connor’s production of the overly dense script, the pacing suffers, the satire evaporates, and the only laughter left comes at the climax of well-executed, often painstakingly set up sight gags.

The cast performs admirably, but not even Lawton and Sanford’s versatility can revive the squandered humor of the play. Able to flesh out their roles, Reichgott and Sottile deliver outstanding performances as an infuriated Mayor and a petulant spoiled rich-kid respectively, and Ingram’s savvy servant adds depth. But despite the best efforts of its cast, this production needed at bare minimum one more actor to increase the pace and successfully capture the comedy.

Lawton’s Bobchinsky/Dobchinsky schizophrenia notion gets old quick (and it’s not that funny to begin with), and Sanford’s brilliant quartet of performances nearly gets swallowed up in the confusion of speaking through a puppet. Admittedly, the doll she carries leads to a spectacular joke late in the play, but I’d rather an evening of consistent, quick-witted humor than the slow, drawn out pacing under which this production labors. And until almost the end of the show (when the script reveals otherwise), I thought Sanford played her School Supervisor as a woman, further showing the limits of her quadruple-casting.

Millie Hiibel’s outrageous costumes of poofy-sleeved dresses and gold-braided drum major uniforms help with the characterizations and mesh well with the teetering house-of-cards aspect of Meghan Jones’ set. But the transitions, punctuated by the quickly tiresome conceit of "scene change" as the actors move props and hang signs, only lengthen the production-time and dilute any momentum in the action.

Perhaps I’m too jaded by current affairs to buy into Gogol’s particular satire of small-town politics, or the material’s too dated, too Russian and too obvious. (Only last year Putin created a brand new constitutional office just so he could stay in power.) But what is clear is that the Lantern’s budget is too meager to take on "The Government Inspector." Donations, anyone?

The Lantern Theater Company presents Armina LaManna’s translation of Nikolai Gogol’s The Government Inspector. Playing until Dec. 28th at St. Stephen’s Theater, 10th and Ludlow, Philadelphia. www.lanterntheatre.org

Review of Lantern Theatre's production of "QED" at Broad Street Review

As the Nobel physicist Richard Feynman, Peter DeLaurier captures the intensity and sheer zest for living that Feynman exhibited throughout his life. And director Kathryn Nocero modulates the impact of DeLaurier’s performance with impeccable timing. But actor and director are ill served by Peter Parnell’s one-dimensional script, which fails to capture the magnitude of this remarkable man’s life.

To read the full review, click here.