cruel and human
Saw Three Sisters at the American Repertory Theatre tonight, the first time I've ever seen anything by Chekhov. The sisters are: Olga, a schoolteacher, Irina, who works at the Post Office, and Masha, who married too young to a local shmuck (played with perfect horse's-ass obliviousness and energy by Will LeBow, the voice of Stanley from Dr. Katz). In the small Russian city where they live, Olga, Irina, and Masha are like the Angels before meeting Charlie: frustrated and trapped by their jobs and lives, dreaming of escape--in this case, to a fevered vision of Moscow.
Which, of course, they never reach. Early on, the characters seem more like stage symbols of despair (complete with stilted delivery of lines, zombie-like movements across stage, even eerie soundtrack music) than real people. But somehow the director (Krystian Lupa) manages to create compelling individual stories and moments of disappointment. Credit some excellent performances (including Sean Dugan as Andrey, the family's only brother, who channels Phillip Seymour Hoffman--not as Capote, but in his earlier incarnations as dishevelled, ruined creatures).
Late in the 3rd Act, Andrey delivers a paranoid, agitated monologue to his sisters, which culminates in his admission that he's mortgaged the family house to pay off gambling debts. A rush of sentimental affection and guilt overcomes him, and he collapses on a nearby bed. When Olga moves to comfort him, he falls on her, kissing and groping. Starved for contact, she accepts him, until he realizes what he's done, and backs away horrified.
Sounds bad, I know, but it plays as a great sequence of confused passions. (Not in the original Chekhov, by the way: director's discretion.)
One great thing about watching plays (and dance performances) vs. movies is seeing characters at a distance rather than at larger-than-life big-screen scale: from the cheap seats, where I always end up, you can never really tell if dancers or stage actors are hot or not. Very tantilizing.
"Chekhov's genius lies in his desire to explore incomphrenesible aspects of human existence, which for me constitute the core of truth...Chekhov was striving to say something that can't be said [using realism]. And if we abandon a purely realistic telling of the story, I hope that we will discover a wild world, absurd and beautiful, in which human unhappiness and helplessness is presented in a way that is both cruel and human."
--Krystian Lupa
New Year's resolutions:
1. Start a 30-day blog.
2. Buy all back-wedding presents (4)
3. Watch more movies; write occasional reviews
4. Draw every day (especially self-portraits and landscapes)
5. Play a one-time-only Valentine's Day gig with an ad-hoc band.
Saw Three Sisters at the American Repertory Theatre tonight, the first time I've ever seen anything by Chekhov. The sisters are: Olga, a schoolteacher, Irina, who works at the Post Office, and Masha, who married too young to a local shmuck (played with perfect horse's-ass obliviousness and energy by Will LeBow, the voice of Stanley from Dr. Katz). In the small Russian city where they live, Olga, Irina, and Masha are like the Angels before meeting Charlie: frustrated and trapped by their jobs and lives, dreaming of escape--in this case, to a fevered vision of Moscow.
Which, of course, they never reach. Early on, the characters seem more like stage symbols of despair (complete with stilted delivery of lines, zombie-like movements across stage, even eerie soundtrack music) than real people. But somehow the director (Krystian Lupa) manages to create compelling individual stories and moments of disappointment. Credit some excellent performances (including Sean Dugan as Andrey, the family's only brother, who channels Phillip Seymour Hoffman--not as Capote, but in his earlier incarnations as dishevelled, ruined creatures).
Late in the 3rd Act, Andrey delivers a paranoid, agitated monologue to his sisters, which culminates in his admission that he's mortgaged the family house to pay off gambling debts. A rush of sentimental affection and guilt overcomes him, and he collapses on a nearby bed. When Olga moves to comfort him, he falls on her, kissing and groping. Starved for contact, she accepts him, until he realizes what he's done, and backs away horrified.
Sounds bad, I know, but it plays as a great sequence of confused passions. (Not in the original Chekhov, by the way: director's discretion.)
One great thing about watching plays (and dance performances) vs. movies is seeing characters at a distance rather than at larger-than-life big-screen scale: from the cheap seats, where I always end up, you can never really tell if dancers or stage actors are hot or not. Very tantilizing.
"Chekhov's genius lies in his desire to explore incomphrenesible aspects of human existence, which for me constitute the core of truth...Chekhov was striving to say something that can't be said [using realism]. And if we abandon a purely realistic telling of the story, I hope that we will discover a wild world, absurd and beautiful, in which human unhappiness and helplessness is presented in a way that is both cruel and human."
--Krystian Lupa
New Year's resolutions:
1. Start a 30-day blog.
2. Buy all back-wedding presents (4)
3. Watch more movies; write occasional reviews
4. Draw every day (especially self-portraits and landscapes)
5. Play a one-time-only Valentine's Day gig with an ad-hoc band.
posted by jerome at 9:28 PM
1 Comments:
You should see "Vanya on 42nd Street." Are the Hissy Fits defunct?
Post a Comment
<< Home