Review of "Death and the Maiden" at the Curio Theatre, published in Edge Philadelphia

While the American media seethes over Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence (and before that, Ford’s exculpation of Nixon), our news outlets devote considerably less attention to the pardoning of crimes perpetrated by the world’s more brutal regimes. The question in most of these countries is the moral theme that drives Ariel Dorfman’s play Death and the Maiden: “When the same judges who excused a government’s behavior now sit on the same benches to grant pardons, what happens to the criminals?”

With a script filled with heady political discourse, ambiguous ethical dilemmas, and three characters whose past and motivations he stains with disturbing moral complexities, Dorfman doesn’t make his play easy for any cast or director to stage. Yet Gay Carducci’s skillful direction and the superior talents of Curio Theatre’s cast creates a forceful and emotionally stirring production that seemingly makes short work out of Death and the Maiden.

Dorfman’s play takes place in an unnamed country still emerging from the remnants of a brutal dictatorship into the relative tranquility of democracy. Human rights lawyer Gerard Endawe (Jerry Rudasill) has accepted a recent appointment to head an official commission, one dedicated to investigate and uncover the truth about crimes committed by the former government.

He and his wife Paulina (Erika Hicks) hold a particular stake in the matter. While both sided with the opposition, she was imprisoned, tortured, and raped for her participation, and has yet to recover fully.

A chance roadside encounter—a flat tire without a spare—brings him into contact with the Good Samaritan Dr. Miranda (Paul Kuhn), who drives him home.

Paulina overhears them talking, and immediately believes that she recognizes Miranda’s voice as that of the doctor who prolonged the life of her fellow captives, assisting in their torture, and who had even raped her. Taking her husband’s gun, she binds Miranda, and through the course of an evening, works him over, both to extract a confession of his guilt and enact the vengeance that will allow her to finally move forward with her life.

From a seemingly awkward start that downplays the level of trust and genuine affection between the married couple, Carducci strikes a balance between the interests of all three characters. He skillfully escalates and draws out the tension between each link in the triangle, effectively highlighting the moral ambiguities and potential evidence revealed in Dorfman’s play: Gerard once promised to avenge Paulina, Miranda’s fondness for Schubert (the music played while she was tortured), and Paulina’s own longstanding rancor that suddenly finds a convenient, though much needed outlet.

Hick’s conveys a searing embodiment of her character’s pain, while at the same time showing the internal struggle between her desire to move forward and her uncertainty over what—violence or forgiveness—will best make that possible. As Gerard, Rudasill gave the evening’s most intense performance, that of a man walking through the minefield of his wife’s past, while trying to balance the interests of their future (his really) against the absurdity of the painful dilemma in which she’s placed him.

And while Hick’s sense of outrage tips the scales for many in the audience (who nearly cheer when she strikes or threatens Miranda), Kuhn’s brilliantly subtle innocence never allows them to sit in definitive judgment of his character. The question “Did he or didn’t he?” drives the play’s plot, and while the script offers hints, Kuhn’s spellbinding performance reveals nothing.

Kuhn’s set design-in-the-round even amplifies this by encouraging judgment, placing jury boxes of seats nearly inside the Endawe’s home, while Jared Reed’s sound design eerily accentuates the seaside location, a pacific background noise of waves crashing on the shore that creates a perfect contrast for the symphony of violence Paulina inflicts.

Who should forgive, forget, or do either? Will purges following regime change—democratic or otherwise—amount to any good or sense of justice achieved?

Curio’s production obliquely references South Africa, both in mentioning Soweto and transposing the “Escobar’s” from Dorfman’s original script into the “Endawe’s” of this production. If they intentionally specified this location, it’s only gives more reason to applaud the craft in their production.

After nearly half a century of human rights abuses, South Africa’s new government purposefully refrained from policies of redistribution and revenge against the former regime. But like Paulina’s character laments, how fair is it that the victims “must always make the necessary compromises to move a country forward,” when they’re the very ones who suffered the injustice? Dorfman’s play offers no easy answers. Curio’s production asks them with a fury.

Review of "Rigoletto" at the Opera Company of Philadelphia, published in Edge Philadelphia

Dramatically, the story of Rigoletto has everything to recommend it. Francesco Piave closely based his libretto on a play by Victor Hugo, whose theme consists of curse-spewing vengeance (fulfilled, no less), larger than life characters including a hunchback, assassin, and a philandering Duke, and a tightly woven plot centered on seduction, filial love, and revenge.

Musically, Verdi achieves a minor perfection to match, with the Duke’s easily recognizable arias and the tender songs of devotion offset by the dark intensity of Rigoletto’s anguish stricken numbers, not to mention one of the most engaging quartets in the genre. Little surprise that Verdi’s work ranks as the ninth most performed opera in America.

Verdi’s opera opens on the Duke of Mantua candid pursuit of the wife of one of his courtiers, a fellow noble named Ceprano. The Duke’s jester Rigoletto suggests simply imprisoning Ceprano, which the Duke considers before he’s interrupted by the appearance of Monterone, whose daughter the Duke had earlier seduced. While Rigoletto mocks, Monterone vows revenge, and the Duke sentences to death this potential threat to his libertinism, but not before Monterone puts a curse on both the Duke and Rigoletto.

Fearing Rigoletto’s influence, Ceprano and the court abduct Rigoletto’s daughter Gilda (they believe she is his mistress). Unbeknownst to them, the Duke has been disguising himself as a poor student in order to see Gilda on the sly, resisting his possibly true feelings of love while deceiving her into loving him nonetheless. When the courtiers bring her to the Duke’s palace, Rigoletto swears revenge, and hires the assassin Sparafucile to kill the Duke, after which he and Gilda can escape to neighboring Verona. Little of these competing plans come to fruition, as fate cruelly intervenes at the cross purposes of human action to ensure the tragedy and fulfill Monterone’s curse.

Musically, this is the best production I’ve seen at the Opera of Philadelphia since their 2003 Il Trovatore, largely due to the company premiere of Israeli born soprano Chen Reiss in the role of Gilda.

Matthew Polenzani, the much-hyped tenor playing the Duke, sings beautifully the solo arias that everyone loves in this opera (Questa o quella, La Donna e mobile), with his honey-toned voice so charming to hear that I didn’t even mind how softly the orchestra played underneath his singing.

Yet he’s exceptional when singing with Reiss, as she brings out of him not only more volume, but also the most pleasing aspects of his voice, particularly in the flourishes (the “Adio” runs) that end their first scene together.

Alan Opie‘s Rigoletto gravelly baritone proves capable, if not outstanding, expressing his anguish more through his pained expressions and tantrums of rage than in his singing. Kirk Eichelberger looms over the stage powerfully as the Duke-cursing Monterone, and Dimitrie Lazich‘s Marullo, and particularly Julian Rodescu‘s Sparafucile admirably round out this cast.

However, the evening’s real delight emanated from Reiss’ flawless, brilliantly controlled, beautifully sung performance. Beyond her exquisite coloratura, she made comprehensible to me (for the first time out of the half-dozen or so productions of this opera I’ve seen) the motivations why her character would sacrifice herself to such a lecher as the Duke.

Here, her singing proves all the difference—portraying a caged lament when paired with Rigoletto, contrasted strongly against the happiness of a moment’s freedom and the joyful exuberance of first love that her voice conveys when singing with the Duke. She makes the choice of options so visibly (audibly, really) clear that her fatal choice almost seems obvious.

(Ms Reiss, thank you for clearing up the only problem I’ve ever had with your character’s motivations in this opera. Now, if someone could finally show me why Sparafucile abandons his otherwise proud assassin’s duty…)

Dramatically, the new production suffered, though not from any aspects of the visually opulent staging. No sooner did the anguish-driven overture end than the curtain raised upon a palatial revelry brought to life by jugglers, ballerinas, clowns, and courtiers, all resplendently bedecked in Richard St. Clair’s costumes, right down to a Duke entirely clad in the devil’s red. Paul Shortt’s set design impresses by sheer enormity, notably the massive Rubenesque-styled painting that depicts an abduction (after his Leucippus, rather than his Sabine Women) which hangs over the entrance to the Duke’s chambers in Act II.

Yet (maybe because of all this) Robert B. Driver’s direction somehow manages to underscore the dark and tragic aspects of the story. Granted, the extremity of the tragic impact only comes in the very last scene (enhanced superbly by Drew Billiau’s lighting), but for a opera which contains a forced abduction, judicial murders, a curse, multiple currents of revenge, and deep moments of shame, nothing seems dark, and none of the negative emotions seem effectively conveyed by the production. Nothing made this lack more evident than when the audience laughed after Sparafucile told his sister to “mend the sack” in which he plans to put the corpse of his next victim (in addition to their laughter during several other nasty moments in the plot).

Not that Verdi’s opera could ever achieve a happy ending. Rigoletto, who proudly exclaims, “Let the world behold the Jester and the King,” gets a comeuppance undeserved by any figure in tragedy, while the only innocent figure in the piece suffers irreparably.

Yet Rigoletto stands as one of the more powerful and penetrating operas written, and the opportunity to see this piece in a musically beautiful new production marks a reason for opera loving Philadelphians to rejoice. My only hope: that the Opera Company of Philadelphia will plan their future seasons around more opportunities for Ms. Reiss to perform here.

An absolute must see.

Two Recent Arts Editorials published at The Broad Street Review

‘Death and the Maiden’ and Duke U. lacrosse BY: Jim Rutter 10.20.2007 Ariel Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden takes an even-handed look at the question of due process vs. cathartic revenge. But his premature support for action against Duke University’s lacrosse players suggests where his sympathies lie.

Death and the Maiden. By Ariel Dorfman. Through October 27, 2007 at Curio Theatre, 815 South 48 St. (215) 525-1350 or www.curiotheatre.org.

Click on the image above to read the article published at the Broad Street Review.

Artists and criminals BY: Jim Rutter 09.08.2007 Should a convicted drug dealer be allowed to put on a show about his crime? Performance artist Christian Lisak raised that question with his recent monologue, That’s Why They Don’t Call It a Picnic. Some Philadelphia theater people say yes and others vehemently disagree, but all of their reactions seem to misunderstand what art— not to mention crime— is really all about.

Click on the image above to read the article published at the Broad Street Review.

Review of "Three Tall Women" at BCKSEET Productions, published in Edge Philadelphia

BCKSEET Productions kicks off their second season in residence at the Society Hill Playhouse with a compelling production of Edward Albee’s Three Tall Women. Albee’s play—which attempts to come to terms with the memory of his mother—marks a strange choice for this young company, and a difficult choice for any company to attempt.

Act I poses all the problems. Imagine going to a home for seniors, not to see anyone you know, but to walk into the room of a wealthy, cantankerous 92-year-old matron (Jean Brooks, referred to in the script only as “A”), her left arm disintegrating from osteoporosis, her mind melting away under an equally progressive case of Alzheimer’s, to hear her ramble on about her life.

Competing for time in arguments and listening to the stories are two other women: A’s caretaker (Catherine Palfenier, only called “B”), and a young representative from A’s lawyer (Janice Rowland, as “C”). While certain plot-lines surface throughout this act—A believes everyone cheats her, C recoils in horror from the A’s physical decline which B tries to manage with equal parts callousness and compassion—ultimately the first half exists to offer a window into the inner life of the recalcitrant, slightly bigoted woman who once threw Albee out of her house, and with whom he never completely reconciled.

To his credit, Albee fills this seemingly bland scenario with enough intrigue, humor, and bitter and joyful anecdotes, so that director Oscar Dubon and this cast can plough through the first half. (Which is in many ways a placeholder for the meatier material of Act II, where A, B, and C each play Albee’s mother at various stages of her life, as the woman in the twilight of her year’s, at 52, and two year’s before marriage at 26, respectively.)

In Act II Albee offers a captivating scenario that many would like to experience, the opportunity to listen as our future selves give us advance notice of the painful reality to come. Here the play takes off, becoming a dynamic and poignant meditation on the very nature of human experience in a life where the only constant is change. Highly pessimistic (in the philosophical sense), Albee explores the notion that “a person’s character is their fate,” as C points at the future selves that now terrify her with their bitterness and shattered ideals and declares, “I will not become that,” long after the audience has seen the futility of this gesture.

I’ve seen productions of this play where the director seemed to relish in the vitriol, nastiness, and existential anguish, which if taken seriously, would result in “streets littered with adolescent corpses.” Thankfully, Dubon makes some choices that both add dimensions to this play and unburden the audience from the potential viciousness and despair laden into Albee’s script.

Where Albee’s script uses B’s telling her younger self tales of adultery and mid-life anguish in an attempt to implode C’s notion that “happiness is on the way,” Dubon lightens the presentation, having a much softer A than the woman we met in Act I, and by showing the source of B’s cynicism as having more to do with rage in her interaction with Albee’s onstage, though silent, character (Noah Mazaika). The overall feel of the production then capitalizes on the existential themes (when is the happiest time? Why do we struggle?), particularly as enhanced by Steve Heitz’s lighting in the final moments of the play.

All three women help Dubon maintain this softness, particularly Rowland, who gives a searching and very affecting performance that struggles to hold onto the hope of her ideals even while seeing their eventual betrayal. Palfenier’s intermittent callousness in both acts plays nicely against this, nailing the bitter humor in stories like her adulterous interlude with a stable boy on a pile of straw that “probably has shit on it,” while Brooks tames Albee’s mother with an almost sing-song reading of her lines in the second half.

In a sense, Brooks’ acting further cleaves the production in two, as there’s not enough of her temperamental Act I persona or her Act II gentility. But this is a minor loss compared to the only real detraction, which is that these three tall personalities don’t have enough room.

Christopher L. Butterfield’s design isn’t the problem, as the jagged lines of his set aptly harp on the fractured memories and timelines played out on stage. But the small space nonetheless smothers these actors, starving them of the necessary space—personal and theatrical—necessary for them to manifest the grandeur of each of the contradictory epochs in this woman’s life.

At an age where A can’t even remember which one of her husband’s eyes was glass, she remembers being tall. Ultimately this play is much more than Albee’s coming to terms with his mother, and this production very compellingly shows not just a woman who endured, but who fought her way through life with a confidence in the values of an era many are thankful no longer exists. The real question, “How do we not become our future selves, how do we not lose our ideals, our capacity for happiness?” goes unanswered, but I walked away with enough of the impact of Dubon’s production to still ask this question.

Review of "Man of La Mancha" at the Walnut Street Theatre, published in Edge Philadelphia

For theatre-goers accustomed to the visual and auditory onslaught of musicals written at the end of the 20^th Century, 1965’s Man of La Mancha offers little in the way of the spectacle.

While Dale Wasserman scripted his book for a large cast, only two muted, barely rousing chorus numbers take full advantage of their appearance. Joe Darion’s lyrics on many of the songs range from the straightforward to the simple, and that Mitch Leigh’s score contains four refrains, showing a seemingly boring lack of imagination (this isn’t Wagner where you expect motifs that work, or Andrew Lloyd Webber, where they often don’t). Moreover, though magnificent and impressive, the staging never deviates from Todd Edward Ivins’ initial set, most of the cast spends the entire evening sitting or lying down, little action takes place, and what does occur, all happens within the imagination of the main character. Not exactly a promising premise for a musical.

Yet, in terms of pure spiritual excitement and courage, I can think of no musical that matches it. I’m not referring to church or religion here, but to the spirit of the chivalrous Golden Age of Spanish literature from which this musical draws its source—Cervantes Don Quixote—a spirit that argues for a proud and noble bearing in the face of the constant onslaught of life. And in spite of (or maybe because of) all the elements of a traditional musical that Man of La Mancha lacks, this production still manages to soar.

Set in the late 16^th Century, Man of La Mancha opens on Cervantes (Paul Schoeffler) being thrown into prison by the Inquisition. His fellow prisoners quickly realize by his dress and bearing that he’s a gentleman (not to mention that his servant, Pancho (Jamie Torcellini) accompanies him even in a dungeon), and attack him, justifying themselves by setting up a mock court in which “one’s fellow prisoner’s determine your guilt first.” If found guilty, he must forfeit all his possessions, including the unfinished manuscript of Don Quixote.

Cervantes offers to stage his defense as a re-enactment of his novel—to explain why his “cowardly idealism” (as they see it) has landed him in a dungeon alongside thieves and murderers. More to relieve their boredom than to truly help out, the inmates take their parts, “converting” the dungeon into a castle, inn, and battlefield, the male prisoners into knights, fellow nobles, and priests (today they could play themselves), and having a prostitute named Aldonza play the princess Dulcinea.

It’s much to this musical’s credit and the Walnut Street’s production that they evoke so much of Cervantes novel with so little, a spectacular feat without spectacle that captures the spirit of indomitable virtue arising from imagination’s necessity in escaping despair. If any “spectacle” does color this production, it’s only noticeable in Jack Jacobs lighting that deftly narrates the play like a film camera that shifts from one location to the next.

Director Bruce Lumpkin stages the right amount of tedium and languor in both the prisoners and the background to imbue their side of the production with the necessary contrast for the grandeur of spirit exhibited by Schoeffler’s Quixote. And while Schoeffler initially seems ridiculous shifting back and forth between Cervantes and Quixote (mostly though, because he plays the latter role with the style of “Master Thespian”), his silky baritone quickly redeems his part, softly blending even his show-stoppers into the general tenor of the production.

Thankfully, the one role that gets to scream and make some noise does so with the fire of a hellcat, as Denise Whelan’s Aldonza ignites the stage with her passionate singing, while still managing to provide a heartbreaking final turn of character in the last moments of the play.

When Cervantes wrote his masterpiece four hundred years ago, Spain was slowly unwinding from the knight’s spirit of living boldly, finding beauty and goodness while fighting what was filthy and base. These Aristocratic values, long since lost on a democratic society, came back to life for a few hours at the Walnut Street, where the notion of “living beautifully” lived once more in song.

A two-hour withdraw from the world that’s well worth seeing.

Review of "An Empty Plate at the Cafe du Grand Bouef" at the ArdenTheatre, published in Edge Philadelphia

Though it delivers a “feast of adjectives and adverbs,” Michael Hollinger’s An Empty Plate at the Café du Grand Boeuf offers little in the way of plot, character development, or (dare I say) entertainment. More of a grad school exercise in animated storytelling than a real play, the Arden’s production of Hollinger’s play only left me hungry for more filling and creative fare.

The Arden Theatre is celebrating their twentieth anniversary in a number of ways. They opened their season with a smash production of Sondheim’s Assassins. In January, they will present a world premiere of Wittenberg, the much-anticipated follow-up to their hit Daedelus of a few years ago. And to solidify and commemorate their long-standing collaboration with local playwright Michael Hollinger, they’re currently reviving An Empty Plate in the Café du Grand Boeuf, the first of the six works that they’ve premiered.

I didn’t see Empty Plate when the Arden first presented it in 1994, but after watching this production, I can’t imagine how it ever launched Michael Hollinger’s career as a nationally produced, nationally recognized playwright.

Empty Plate opens upon the aptly named (I won’t spoil it) interior of the Café du Grand Bouef (Café of the Big Ox), a four star Parisian restaurant devoted solely to the gastronomic satisfaction of one individual, Victor (Douglas Rees), a wealthy American expatriate and former publishing magnate. As much the traveler as gourmand, Victor keeps the restaurant’s temperamental staff on-call 24/7, occasionally dining in to share the latest, fascinating stories of his pan-European exploits.

And that’s about it.

Well, not quite, as Hollinger invokes a pair of twists—one major, one minor—to make this particular evening different from all of Victor’s prior visits. The minor twist: the restaurant’s former busboy (we never meet him) has died, and the staff’s closeted bi-sexual head waiter Claude (Ian Merrill Peakes) has hired the object of his desire Antoine (James William Ijames) as a replacement.

The major twist: Victor, despondent over an unrevealed crisis, has returned from Madrid without his traditional dinner guest Miss Berger (Mikaela Kafka), and now refuses to eat, instead deciding to starve himself to death in the seat of his culinary paradise. Over the course of 90 (long) minutes, the staff tries to restore his “appetite for life,” tempting him with descriptions of a series of “empty plates,” while Victor relates both the story of his life “from birth to a bullfight,” and the present tale of woe that’s caused his despair.

A few plot-lets break up the monotony of his narrative. In his intermittent lust for Antoine, Claude has severely neglected his wife Mimi (Mary McCool), who longs to travel as Victor does. The chef Gaston (Richard Ruiz) despises Claude and secretly pines for Mimi, but fears telling her. Victor longs to die. Antoine, the only self-described happy character, simply longs to work as a journalist.

Now that’s really all there is to this play.

Hollinger conceived Empty Plate as a gourmet-inspired poetic meditation on longing. However, just as longing must be felt, in a play it must also be shown, and while Hollinger masters the art of culinary description (perhaps paying homage to the first careers of actors and playwrights everywhere), and cleverly inserts allusions to stories and snippets from Hemingway, the evening contains no action whatsoever. Like Victor’s twin narratives about life and loss, it’s all told to the audience, with little acted out or shown.

The actors struggle valiantly to overcome this, most notably the energetic Peakes and neurotically amusing McCool, playing the only characters (besides Victor) with enough lines and stage time to do anything with their roles. Dees emanates a certain type of mournful vivacity (indicative of his former self), and his placid, sarcasm heavy demeanor adds color and humor (though over all, this production lost a great deal of the humor of Hollinger’s script). But in the one passage where he’s called upon to act out the tragedy that’s befallen him, he falters, though it’s probably not his fault, as the script calls on the cast to convincingly portray the spectacle of a bull slaughtered in a bullfight.

Like the series of empty plates symbolizing the food left in the kitchen, all I can think is what a waste: of the talent of this cast, Jerold R. Forsyth’s intimate lighting, and Donald Eastman’s gorgeous café interior, the walls themselves a series of oil-painting panels bound by deep mahoghany columns.

As a short story, Hollinger’s play would’ve succeeded very well, and it’s not hard to imagine what Nolen felt when first reading it, that it “leapt off the page at him.” But on the stage it plays like a grad student’s experiment in “animated storytelling.” And while I might expect to entertain children with a main character who does little more than sit in a chair and tell stories, Empty Plate doesn’t satisfy the needs of theatre for grown-ups, or even for those looking for passable entertainment.

In one of her last lines, Mimi comments on one of Victor’s stories, that “it was very eventful.” If only I could say the same of Hollinger’s play, which in the end, only sent me home hungry for more fulfilling theatrical fare.