Let me say for starters that this is simply my favorite piece of theatre from the Road. While I unfortunately missed their two biggest hits from the last year, I have seen my share of shows there. The Road has an extremely unusual and lucky situation whereby all their rent is paid by the city, which means that their actors' (sizable) dues and donations can go straight into production elements. The result is that very often the best work on their stage IS the stage. And while Desma Murphy's set for "And Neither Have I Wings to Fly" is lovely (the interior and exterior edges of an Irish country home), the play is a first-rate piece of theatre.
Ann Noble's drama revolves around the Donnellys--an Irish family in the 1950s coping after the death of the mother. The youngest daughter is slated to marry a nice--if ordinary--young man, but bumps into a traveling actor she once had a crush on, putting her feelings into a tailspin. Meanwhile, the older daughter continues to put her life on hold--as she did throughout her mother's illness--in order to be the stabilizing force in everyone else's life. The father is just trying to catch his breath.
There is little new here, per se, but the sum of these parts very much does add up to a greater whole. From the first scene Scott Cummin's nuanced, straightforward and utterly solid direction sucks us into the world of the Donnellys. These are all people you can relate to with believable human-sized needs; a familiar, real family dynamic. It didn't take long for me to feel like these were not just actors in a play, but...well...old friends, the way the characters in your favorite book take on that quality. You need to know what happens to them and you're sad they're gone at the end of the play. If that isn't the hallmark of great theatre I don't know what is.
Ultimately it's a play about family, love, letting go and being true to yourself. These big, fat, universal themes--as well as the solidity of the script--should place this play up there with the best new American works. And this inaugural production should go a long way to getting it there.
Two other things I loved: 1) the casting. The sisters look like sisters. The one daughter's fiance and his brother look like brothers. You get so used to just overlooking this idea in entertainment media (whom would YOU rather cast: the better actor or the one who looks like the star actor's relative?) that when it's so noticeably right it's quite striking. And 2) Ms. Noble's performance in the role of older sister, Eveline. So often when a playwright acts in his own play he is SO concerned that the audience get EVERY SINGLE DETAIL that the performance becomes overwrought and unwatchable. Not so with Ms. Noble. An experienced pro, she knows this character down to the bone and she shows her to us as a three-dimensional person: good, bad and ugly and all of it as real as it gets--down to her can-do, ungraceful walk. It's a standout performance in an exceptional cast.
If you read this while "And Neither Have I Wings to Fly" is still running, I can not urge you strongly enough to make the time to see it. A!
'Til next time!
--HDSQ, Jr.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
"Canned Peaches in Syrup" at the Furious Theatre Company
So, it would seem this is what is passing for great contemporary theatre these days, if you are to believe some of the critics of LA: a play that recycles television but with a wink at literature and a nose-punch of "meaning" so that you know it is not only "literate" but "relevant".
This was my interpretation of the mostly well-acted new play "Canned Peaches in Syrup" at the otherwise terrific Furious Theatre Company in Pasadena. Just as I hate movies where I can see the pitch meeting in the film making, I hate plays where I can see the playwrights age and influences when I'm in the audience. Alex Jones clearly grew up on lots of American TV, as his "dystopian" fantasy is little more than an overlong episode of "The Twilight Zone". It's set in a not-too-distant future (aren't they all?) where the apocalypse came with an environmental whimper, not a bang, and what appears to be left of humanity is roaming the plains looking for food, staying out of the sun, and avoiding their cannibal counterparts...or if you're a cannibal, searching out their vegetarian counterparts. I awoke 15 minutes into the play (no kidding--that's how fast this thing made me fall asleep) wondering when Burgess Meredith would show up to liven things up. Because beside the snail's pacing, two of the characters on stage are named "Ma" and "Pa" and they speak with a drawl, and that can only mean one thing...yes, the end of the world only occurs in the American West...ever!! Go take a look at IMDB and look for apocalyptically plotted cannibal movies and you'll see how often this is the case! Go on...I'll wait.
See!? And since they're from that region, they are uneducated, paranoid sheep (seems the books didn't survive this holocaust). Because aren't they ALL uneducated, paranoid sheep in Oklahoma, where the play is set? No? Funny...sure seems that way from movies and TV.... Sure would be way scarier for people in the largest city in the country to see how much we'd be screwed if this happened in a CITY. But I digress.
But wait...this sounds kind of familiar in another way. A family...Ma and Pa...surviving in a dust bowl.... Could it be...? YES! It's a STEINBECK reference! That's how you know it's clever! Except that it really isn't. The similarity to literature ends there and you're left with a whole lot of characters you just can't give a crap about. Which reminds me: it also seems that this playwright watched "Deadwood". A whoooooole lot of "Deadwood". If the F-bomb were really an explosive, it would go a long way to explain why there's no life left on the planet in this play, as "fuck" and words that subtlety make up a vast majority of the dialog. A VAST majority. Now, I am no prude by anyone's scale, but I believe very much in the notion that there's more mileage in the creative use of our language, especially if a piece is set in the future where it might have evolved (see: "Firefly"/"Serenity", where it's done right). But the similarity to HBO's excellent western continues on in only one other way: two of the characters in this thing seem to be lifted right out from that show (for anyone who cares: William Sanderson's EB Farnum and Robin Weigert's Calamity Jane). Although, to be fair, this might be the director's fault for allowing two of his cast to go SO close to imitation that that was the only thing I was left with in watching them. But that's as close as "Peaches" comes to imitating great art of any kind.
Finally, what passes for the plot revolves largely on a "Romeo and Juliet" situation: a cannibal falls for a vegetarian and gives up his people-eating-people ways, much to the disgust of his peers. (See?? The IS hope for humanity!)
Now if all of this sounds sort of intriguing, I can't say as I blame you--it sure did to me when I read about it. But I gotta tell ya, the play--called a "farce" by the LA TIMES--lands with all the subtlety of a cinderblock to the noggin. Because on top of all the above, no scene is written with brevity in mind. Many of the BIG SCREAMING ENVIRONMENTAL MESSAGES are repeated over and over and over and over and over again. My issue: we all saw Al Gore's movie--or at least know the message-- thanks, plus we read the newspaper, AND we listen to NPR, ANNNND we live in Los Angeles where this message is hammered into us on a daily basis...we GET IT!! (Take the play to Texas, huh? Maybe they can use it!) I'm a fan of Issues plays, but the best of them are about people we can relate to, set within the Issue. That's how we learn to care about the Issue--through the characters and how the Issue effects them. Not so in "Peaches in Canned Syrup", where the Issue--the destruction of the environment--is a constant, so we never really get a chance to see how it effects our heroes, other than by comparison to how we live now.
Which brings me to my final annoyance with this play: the title. In the play there is a can. Of peaches in syrup. That plays an important plot point. But when it is finally dealt with--the title object, the precious tin of what-is-left-from-better-times--it is handled by both director and playwright with such nonchalance that it made me want to throw them another can and make them do it over.
Bottom line: a perfect example of everything wrong in contemporary theatre with the exception of the fact that the cast was largely watchable, the production values were high (apart from poorly thought out lighting choices) and the damn thing was at least not about teenagers losing themselves to drugs, like everything else lately.
And still...not the worst thing I have ever seen. (See my post about "Godislov" for that.) There are bits that work very well, some performances that do hit home, and the set design is really sharp. And maybe that's why this production made me SO crazy: it had so much potential to be powerful, but floundered in all the usual places, instead.
Oh...and did I mention the "preacher man"? Can't have a western wasteland without one of those.... C+
--HDSQ,Jr
This was my interpretation of the mostly well-acted new play "Canned Peaches in Syrup" at the otherwise terrific Furious Theatre Company in Pasadena. Just as I hate movies where I can see the pitch meeting in the film making, I hate plays where I can see the playwrights age and influences when I'm in the audience. Alex Jones clearly grew up on lots of American TV, as his "dystopian" fantasy is little more than an overlong episode of "The Twilight Zone". It's set in a not-too-distant future (aren't they all?) where the apocalypse came with an environmental whimper, not a bang, and what appears to be left of humanity is roaming the plains looking for food, staying out of the sun, and avoiding their cannibal counterparts...or if you're a cannibal, searching out their vegetarian counterparts. I awoke 15 minutes into the play (no kidding--that's how fast this thing made me fall asleep) wondering when Burgess Meredith would show up to liven things up. Because beside the snail's pacing, two of the characters on stage are named "Ma" and "Pa" and they speak with a drawl, and that can only mean one thing...yes, the end of the world only occurs in the American West...ever!! Go take a look at IMDB and look for apocalyptically plotted cannibal movies and you'll see how often this is the case! Go on...I'll wait.
See!? And since they're from that region, they are uneducated, paranoid sheep (seems the books didn't survive this holocaust). Because aren't they ALL uneducated, paranoid sheep in Oklahoma, where the play is set? No? Funny...sure seems that way from movies and TV.... Sure would be way scarier for people in the largest city in the country to see how much we'd be screwed if this happened in a CITY. But I digress.
But wait...this sounds kind of familiar in another way. A family...Ma and Pa...surviving in a dust bowl.... Could it be...? YES! It's a STEINBECK reference! That's how you know it's clever! Except that it really isn't. The similarity to literature ends there and you're left with a whole lot of characters you just can't give a crap about. Which reminds me: it also seems that this playwright watched "Deadwood". A whoooooole lot of "Deadwood". If the F-bomb were really an explosive, it would go a long way to explain why there's no life left on the planet in this play, as "fuck" and words that subtlety make up a vast majority of the dialog. A VAST majority. Now, I am no prude by anyone's scale, but I believe very much in the notion that there's more mileage in the creative use of our language, especially if a piece is set in the future where it might have evolved (see: "Firefly"/"Serenity", where it's done right). But the similarity to HBO's excellent western continues on in only one other way: two of the characters in this thing seem to be lifted right out from that show (for anyone who cares: William Sanderson's EB Farnum and Robin Weigert's Calamity Jane). Although, to be fair, this might be the director's fault for allowing two of his cast to go SO close to imitation that that was the only thing I was left with in watching them. But that's as close as "Peaches" comes to imitating great art of any kind.
Finally, what passes for the plot revolves largely on a "Romeo and Juliet" situation: a cannibal falls for a vegetarian and gives up his people-eating-people ways, much to the disgust of his peers. (See?? The IS hope for humanity!)
Now if all of this sounds sort of intriguing, I can't say as I blame you--it sure did to me when I read about it. But I gotta tell ya, the play--called a "farce" by the LA TIMES--lands with all the subtlety of a cinderblock to the noggin. Because on top of all the above, no scene is written with brevity in mind. Many of the BIG SCREAMING ENVIRONMENTAL MESSAGES are repeated over and over and over and over and over again. My issue: we all saw Al Gore's movie--or at least know the message-- thanks, plus we read the newspaper, AND we listen to NPR, ANNNND we live in Los Angeles where this message is hammered into us on a daily basis...we GET IT!! (Take the play to Texas, huh? Maybe they can use it!) I'm a fan of Issues plays, but the best of them are about people we can relate to, set within the Issue. That's how we learn to care about the Issue--through the characters and how the Issue effects them. Not so in "Peaches in Canned Syrup", where the Issue--the destruction of the environment--is a constant, so we never really get a chance to see how it effects our heroes, other than by comparison to how we live now.
Which brings me to my final annoyance with this play: the title. In the play there is a can. Of peaches in syrup. That plays an important plot point. But when it is finally dealt with--the title object, the precious tin of what-is-left-from-better-times--it is handled by both director and playwright with such nonchalance that it made me want to throw them another can and make them do it over.
Bottom line: a perfect example of everything wrong in contemporary theatre with the exception of the fact that the cast was largely watchable, the production values were high (apart from poorly thought out lighting choices) and the damn thing was at least not about teenagers losing themselves to drugs, like everything else lately.
And still...not the worst thing I have ever seen. (See my post about "Godislov" for that.) There are bits that work very well, some performances that do hit home, and the set design is really sharp. And maybe that's why this production made me SO crazy: it had so much potential to be powerful, but floundered in all the usual places, instead.
Oh...and did I mention the "preacher man"? Can't have a western wasteland without one of those.... C+
--HDSQ,Jr
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