Speed the Plow, a play by David Mamet, seen Saturday, October 27, 2018 at Road Less Traveled Productions theater. Directed by Scott Behrend.
I have a problem with this play. I have no problem with the production itself. Matt Witten and Kevin Kennedy are very good as Bobby Gould and Charlie Fox, two full-of-themselves Hollywood producers who've been promoted. They play the profanity-crammed buddy dialog pretty well. Mamet does the profanity quite realistically. Having worked in corporations most of my career, I've heard men talk this way many times (mostly salesmen, and sometimes women), though never quite this non-stop. Laura Barriere is also good as the temporary secretary with schemes of her own. Nice stage set. The whole production moved with a snappy verve, as a Mamet play should.
My problem is with the play itself. There are two holes in the story for me.
1. The courtesy read book (whatever it's titled) is so bad, it's hard to imagine any producer being interested in it as a movie. Yes, I understand that it's Mamet's intention that the book (as presented through the segments read aloud by Karen and Bobby) is supposed to be comically ridiculous. But the book is too ridiculous. Bobby decides to promote the book as a movie thanks to being won over by Karen (who wins him over by having sex with him). Bobby Gould, and men like him, can have all the sex they want with the Karens of the world. A night of sex with Karen is not enough to make anyone like Bobby Gould dump his longtime ally and friend Charlie and even temporarily promote this absurd movie idea. To me, it simply doesn't make sense.
2. Then there's Karen. Why would Karen promote this book? What's in it for her? That's never clear. We are made to believe that Karen is not as innocent as she presents
herself at the beginning. Fine. She turns out to be ambitious. Okay. She wants to be in a movie. Great. But
she could have more easily wormed her way into the movie that Charlie was promoting with that mega-star director as this stupid. And what is it about Karen that gives her so much power over Bobby? That's never clear either.
Together, these two problems make this otherwise taut, well-shaped play puzzling and nonsensical. That's my problem.
Postscript
From a Facebook post, I replied to a friend:
"...yes, as I was listening to the read-aloud excerpts of the courtesy-read
book, I had the feeling that in the 70s or 80s, such a book may not
have seemed quite so ridiculous to many in the audience. And perhaps
Karen might have seemed more plausible as a sort of peace-love crusader.
In that sense, the play is kind of 'dated'."
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Tuesday, September 25, 2018
The nearness of death being a certainty: Atul Gawande's book, Being Mortal
Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande. Metropolitan Books, New York 2014.
Being Mortal is a complicated book to summarize. It's a good book. Gawande concentrates on the last period of our lives, when we or our legal surrogates decide on how we live those final days and months. We may be either in failing health because of old age, or are in the last stages of a painful terminal disease, such as a cancer. The medical and life decisions to be made are often excruciating. Either way, those last days are often spent in suffering and torment. The nearness of death is a certainty.
Gawande focuses the first part of the book on how the elderly live their lives as they become weaker. Usually, it's in an institution, an assisted living center where the staff follows an economical and efficient regimen. Medicines are dispensed, rooms and "residents" or "patients" are checked, meals are served, and healthy approved activities are organized all on a schedule decreed by management. All of this is at great financial expense, but worse still is that many of the elderly are deprived of what they want most -- to live meaningful lives doing the things they enjoy doing, on their own schedule. My father-in-law bitterly resented his years in a highly rated, comfortable assisted living center. He hated the loss of his privacy (staff nurses would knock on his room door once and immediately unlock his door with their keys and enter). He called himself and the other residents "inmates", as if they were incarcerated. "Believe me, John", he frequently said, "Half the people here, they'd like to just not wake up tomorrow morning -- but they won't let you die because they keep barging in".
The remedies, which Gawande wholly supports, is to return autonomy, decision-making, and the elements of normal everyday to the elderly. Gawande reports on several assisted living centers that are experimenting, both architecturally and programmatically to make this possible. My favorite was the hilarious experiment in New Berlin, New York, bringing pets into a nursing home to live with the residents -- dozens of parakeets, dogs, and cats. The delightful chaos and crises alone of feeding and caring for these creatures transformed the place. The point of all the experiments he details is that they brought a normal life back to the residents -- life was worthwhile.
Gawande is a bit light in telling us the long-term effects of the experiments. Do they actually work financially, administratively? I agree they sound like better alternatives (I'd much rather be in a place with parakeets, dogs and cats), but I didn't learn enough about whether actual large-scale changes have taken effect because of these experiments. Nor does Gawande really delve into situations where elderly patients have declining mental abilities. The examples he gives of elderly and cancer patients near the end of their lives are of people who still have all their moral and mental capabilities. Yet, when you enter a nursing home, you immediately see many patients who don't have the capacity to decide for themselves, or who are very confused. The Alzheimer's ward is a very difficult place.
The second focus of the book is on the central dilemma facing a dying man or woman: should we employ medicine to fight the onset of our deaths in the hope of a cure or of extending our lives? He shows how that often relegates us to even more intense suffering from medical side effects, impaired mobility and communication, and often brings no cure or extension of life. Or should we choose to accept death as imminent, forego medical interventions, and concentrate on living the last period of life as pain free as possible, so that we can enjoy this period as much as possible and communicate as much as possible with loved ones?
Another way of putting is -- do you want to let your disease take its course and live a worthwhile, bearable life in your few final days, or do you want to attempt to lengthen those final days by continuing the struggle against your affliction, which is likely going to kill you no matter what you do?
Gawande examines a number of patients who faced heart-wrenching choices because of their diseases (including the touching story of his own father, who was afflicted with terminal spinal cancer in his last years). He carefully records his own fumbling attempts as a surgeon to help patients with their difficult choices, and demonstrates how ill-prepared doctors are to talk about these issues with their patients. He repeatedly argues for helping the patient to spend the remaining time in his or her life in control of their mental faculties, in control of moral decision-making, to get whatever enjoyment is left to them without struggling against the inevitable. Some would call this "giving in" or "surrendering". He acknowledges that each case is individual, that seemingly miraculous cures do occur, but the arc of his argument tends towards palliative care, to reduce the suffering of the patient and allow as much dignity to the patient while their disease works its course.
Here is a quote from page 141, which I think is at the heart of the book. "The battle of being mortal is the battle to maintain the integrity of one's life -- to avoid becoming so diminished or dissipated or subjugated that who you are becomes disconnected from who you were or who you want to be. Sickness and old age make the struggle hard enough. The professionals and institutions we turn to should not make it worse."
Gawande does not bring up children who are faced with the ends of their short lives. I suppose that's a different book. Children, or very young people, who are near death because of disease or accident, would have raised another set of moral issues. Can the children make their own decisions? Who makes the decisions for them?
Being Mortal is a complicated book to summarize. It's a good book. Gawande concentrates on the last period of our lives, when we or our legal surrogates decide on how we live those final days and months. We may be either in failing health because of old age, or are in the last stages of a painful terminal disease, such as a cancer. The medical and life decisions to be made are often excruciating. Either way, those last days are often spent in suffering and torment. The nearness of death is a certainty.
Gawande focuses the first part of the book on how the elderly live their lives as they become weaker. Usually, it's in an institution, an assisted living center where the staff follows an economical and efficient regimen. Medicines are dispensed, rooms and "residents" or "patients" are checked, meals are served, and healthy approved activities are organized all on a schedule decreed by management. All of this is at great financial expense, but worse still is that many of the elderly are deprived of what they want most -- to live meaningful lives doing the things they enjoy doing, on their own schedule. My father-in-law bitterly resented his years in a highly rated, comfortable assisted living center. He hated the loss of his privacy (staff nurses would knock on his room door once and immediately unlock his door with their keys and enter). He called himself and the other residents "inmates", as if they were incarcerated. "Believe me, John", he frequently said, "Half the people here, they'd like to just not wake up tomorrow morning -- but they won't let you die because they keep barging in".
The remedies, which Gawande wholly supports, is to return autonomy, decision-making, and the elements of normal everyday to the elderly. Gawande reports on several assisted living centers that are experimenting, both architecturally and programmatically to make this possible. My favorite was the hilarious experiment in New Berlin, New York, bringing pets into a nursing home to live with the residents -- dozens of parakeets, dogs, and cats. The delightful chaos and crises alone of feeding and caring for these creatures transformed the place. The point of all the experiments he details is that they brought a normal life back to the residents -- life was worthwhile.
Gawande is a bit light in telling us the long-term effects of the experiments. Do they actually work financially, administratively? I agree they sound like better alternatives (I'd much rather be in a place with parakeets, dogs and cats), but I didn't learn enough about whether actual large-scale changes have taken effect because of these experiments. Nor does Gawande really delve into situations where elderly patients have declining mental abilities. The examples he gives of elderly and cancer patients near the end of their lives are of people who still have all their moral and mental capabilities. Yet, when you enter a nursing home, you immediately see many patients who don't have the capacity to decide for themselves, or who are very confused. The Alzheimer's ward is a very difficult place.
The second focus of the book is on the central dilemma facing a dying man or woman: should we employ medicine to fight the onset of our deaths in the hope of a cure or of extending our lives? He shows how that often relegates us to even more intense suffering from medical side effects, impaired mobility and communication, and often brings no cure or extension of life. Or should we choose to accept death as imminent, forego medical interventions, and concentrate on living the last period of life as pain free as possible, so that we can enjoy this period as much as possible and communicate as much as possible with loved ones?
Another way of putting is -- do you want to let your disease take its course and live a worthwhile, bearable life in your few final days, or do you want to attempt to lengthen those final days by continuing the struggle against your affliction, which is likely going to kill you no matter what you do?
Gawande examines a number of patients who faced heart-wrenching choices because of their diseases (including the touching story of his own father, who was afflicted with terminal spinal cancer in his last years). He carefully records his own fumbling attempts as a surgeon to help patients with their difficult choices, and demonstrates how ill-prepared doctors are to talk about these issues with their patients. He repeatedly argues for helping the patient to spend the remaining time in his or her life in control of their mental faculties, in control of moral decision-making, to get whatever enjoyment is left to them without struggling against the inevitable. Some would call this "giving in" or "surrendering". He acknowledges that each case is individual, that seemingly miraculous cures do occur, but the arc of his argument tends towards palliative care, to reduce the suffering of the patient and allow as much dignity to the patient while their disease works its course.
Here is a quote from page 141, which I think is at the heart of the book. "The battle of being mortal is the battle to maintain the integrity of one's life -- to avoid becoming so diminished or dissipated or subjugated that who you are becomes disconnected from who you were or who you want to be. Sickness and old age make the struggle hard enough. The professionals and institutions we turn to should not make it worse."
Gawande does not bring up children who are faced with the ends of their short lives. I suppose that's a different book. Children, or very young people, who are near death because of disease or accident, would have raised another set of moral issues. Can the children make their own decisions? Who makes the decisions for them?
Saturday, September 15, 2018
Murderously insane and likeable at the same time: Sweeney Todd, at the Kavinoky Theater
Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Music by Stephen Sondheim, book by Hugh Wheeler. At the Kavinoky Theater, directed by John Fredo.
The complicated Victorian-era story is about a man who was wrongly accused of a crime and sentenced to prison in Australia for fifteen years. On his return to London, he is told his beautiful daughter has become the ward (actually, concubine) of the evil judge who sentenced him, and that his wife has since poisoned herself. To wreak his revenge, he takes the name of Sweeney Todd, sets himself up as a barber above a meat pie shop and the friendly woman who helps him, and murders a slew of customers, ultimately murdering the judge himself.
I had never seen this musical before. I love Sondheim. This is of course a macabre, grotesque story, full of sometimes humorous songs that belie and are dissonant to the murderous events. That's Sondheim. If it's possible to enjoy a play where you like and feel moved by people who are insanely murderous, then this is that play. Todd is insane. Mrs. Lovett, who makes meat pies out of the corpses of Todd's victims, is insane. They cold-bloodedly murder people who have done them no harm. Yet, we like them, their songs are about love, affection, overcoming hardships. How can we not like them and feel moved by their complicated stories?
There is that central falsehood in this play. The lyricist can give Todd and Mrs. Lovett these songs. The playwright can put reasonable words in their mouths, and give them actions that show them to be compassionate, caring people. Yet they are monsters who cut the throats of innocents as well as evil judges. In what reality can such a story take place?
The cast and the entire production were great. Matt Witten's Todd was controlled and restrained. Todd is seething with rage, and yet we see a quiet, almost contemplative Todd on the stage (up until the instant he slits the throats of his victims). Witten's restraint, and the music, heightened the tension leading up to the two attempts on the judge's life -- almost unbearable, Sweeney Todd wielding the razor, we know what he's about to do, and he's singing. Anthony Lazzaro was exceptional as the young innocent sailor Anthony Hope (great name).
The complicated Victorian-era story is about a man who was wrongly accused of a crime and sentenced to prison in Australia for fifteen years. On his return to London, he is told his beautiful daughter has become the ward (actually, concubine) of the evil judge who sentenced him, and that his wife has since poisoned herself. To wreak his revenge, he takes the name of Sweeney Todd, sets himself up as a barber above a meat pie shop and the friendly woman who helps him, and murders a slew of customers, ultimately murdering the judge himself.
I had never seen this musical before. I love Sondheim. This is of course a macabre, grotesque story, full of sometimes humorous songs that belie and are dissonant to the murderous events. That's Sondheim. If it's possible to enjoy a play where you like and feel moved by people who are insanely murderous, then this is that play. Todd is insane. Mrs. Lovett, who makes meat pies out of the corpses of Todd's victims, is insane. They cold-bloodedly murder people who have done them no harm. Yet, we like them, their songs are about love, affection, overcoming hardships. How can we not like them and feel moved by their complicated stories?
There is that central falsehood in this play. The lyricist can give Todd and Mrs. Lovett these songs. The playwright can put reasonable words in their mouths, and give them actions that show them to be compassionate, caring people. Yet they are monsters who cut the throats of innocents as well as evil judges. In what reality can such a story take place?
The cast and the entire production were great. Matt Witten's Todd was controlled and restrained. Todd is seething with rage, and yet we see a quiet, almost contemplative Todd on the stage (up until the instant he slits the throats of his victims). Witten's restraint, and the music, heightened the tension leading up to the two attempts on the judge's life -- almost unbearable, Sweeney Todd wielding the razor, we know what he's about to do, and he's singing. Anthony Lazzaro was exceptional as the young innocent sailor Anthony Hope (great name).
Sunday, August 12, 2018
Sarah Ruhl's unconvincing Stage Kiss, at the Shaw Festival
Stage Kiss, a play by Sarah Ruhl, produced by the Shaw Festival at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada. Seen August 11, 2018.
In this comedy/farce, a pair of bitter ex-lovers are cast as the lead characters in a comically awful play in which they play current lovers. The exes reunite, discover they cannot continue their affair, and then resume their everyday lives.
First, the production itself -- it's all terrific. The actors (starring Fiona Byrne as She, and Martin Happer as He) were excellent, as were the stagecraft and directing. I loved watching Fiona Byrne as the lover/wife who resumes an affair off-stage with her ex-lover He. I found myself watching her face -- in many instances, just before a confrontation, confusion, laughter, goofiness, anger all fly over her face in a couple of seconds. And Martin Happer, with his square jaw, Bad Boy good looks, and affability, is very good as He. The entire cast is wonderful.
But the play itself left me cold. There are funny spots, particularly early on, as the predictable plot is taking shape. We all know that the two ex-lovers will race to his apartment for sex within a few minutes -- after all, they hardly seem bitter or angry with each other. And neither character expresses any real reservations. What's to stop them? The plot itself has too many absurdities to describe, and that in itself is okay (it is a comic farce, after all).
What bothers me is the sense that the playwright seems to have set out to write a "summer festival comedy". She has the commercial concept -- the ex lovers/actors playing lovers in a play within the play -- and she draws the stereotypical characters to fit into the concept. Sort of like paint-by-numbers. Along the way, we get bursts of the word "fuck", some mild romping in bed, disconnected philosophizing about the "soul" and religion, and demonstrations of how fractured family life is (I think this is meant to congratulate us in the audience for attending such a contemporary and sophisticated play). None of this is convincing, not much is funny (the laughs slowly get more and more strained as we go along).
At the end of this play, what did I actually see? I'm not sure I can describe it. I'm glad that She returns to her boring but decent husband. I'm glad that He gives up on his affair with her in a friendly way. But I wish I liked the play more.
In this comedy/farce, a pair of bitter ex-lovers are cast as the lead characters in a comically awful play in which they play current lovers. The exes reunite, discover they cannot continue their affair, and then resume their everyday lives.
First, the production itself -- it's all terrific. The actors (starring Fiona Byrne as She, and Martin Happer as He) were excellent, as were the stagecraft and directing. I loved watching Fiona Byrne as the lover/wife who resumes an affair off-stage with her ex-lover He. I found myself watching her face -- in many instances, just before a confrontation, confusion, laughter, goofiness, anger all fly over her face in a couple of seconds. And Martin Happer, with his square jaw, Bad Boy good looks, and affability, is very good as He. The entire cast is wonderful.
But the play itself left me cold. There are funny spots, particularly early on, as the predictable plot is taking shape. We all know that the two ex-lovers will race to his apartment for sex within a few minutes -- after all, they hardly seem bitter or angry with each other. And neither character expresses any real reservations. What's to stop them? The plot itself has too many absurdities to describe, and that in itself is okay (it is a comic farce, after all).
What bothers me is the sense that the playwright seems to have set out to write a "summer festival comedy". She has the commercial concept -- the ex lovers/actors playing lovers in a play within the play -- and she draws the stereotypical characters to fit into the concept. Sort of like paint-by-numbers. Along the way, we get bursts of the word "fuck", some mild romping in bed, disconnected philosophizing about the "soul" and religion, and demonstrations of how fractured family life is (I think this is meant to congratulate us in the audience for attending such a contemporary and sophisticated play). None of this is convincing, not much is funny (the laughs slowly get more and more strained as we go along).
At the end of this play, what did I actually see? I'm not sure I can describe it. I'm glad that She returns to her boring but decent husband. I'm glad that He gives up on his affair with her in a friendly way. But I wish I liked the play more.
Thursday, May 3, 2018
Who or what is the devil? -- "The Christians", at Road Less Traveled Productions
A friend and I went to The Christians, a play by Lucas Hnath, performed at Road Less Traveled Productions, downtown Buffalo NY. Directed by Scott Behrend.
You can read Ben Siegel's good review of the production in the Buffalo News. He said some things better than I can.
I was so glad that Lucas Hnath, the playwright, takes the Christian characters of his play seriously. The small group of characters depend on their church to guide them through their lives and to inspire them. They are not the ignorant cartoon Christians so easily mocked in comedy skits and Twitter rants. Their anguish at having their old beliefs and practical concerns pushed aside is real, and makes them sympathetic characters with echoes to my own life and experiences.
The central story of the play is about a successful mega-church evangelical pastor (played with admirable modulation by Dave Hayes) who one day tells his congregation that he can no longer accept his church's doctrine that only a Christian who has made Christ his savior can be saved from eternal Hell. The pastor voices a legitimate dilemma. He cites an example, an event he saw on a video. A brave young non-Christian boy in an Asian country sacrificed his life to save his sister from a fire -- and despite his sacrifice, he will be consigned to Hell for eternity because he never announced Christ as his savior. How can Christians accept this? The pastor announces a revised version of Heaven and Hell: all are instead eventually welcomed to Heaven after death, regardless of faith, or what they've done on earth. There is no judgement waiting us.
This announcement causes the young associate pastor (movingly played by Aaron Moss) to leave and form his own church, troubles the church elders, and nearly causes the pastor's wife to leave him. All rebuke him for having shaken the church and the lives of the congregation without consulting them first. A parishioner pointedly asks him if he would have made his radical announcement if the church had not recently paid off its mortgage. Why didn't he say these things before? Was he deceitful? Was he actually filled with doubts but afraid to say anything lest the church lose its financial footing? The pastor's replies are all variations of, "God had not made ready to talk until now".
You can hear all sorts of echoes to other church life issues in the play -- the role of money, financial tensions, the tensions between ancient accepted beliefs with modernity. All of it will feel familiar to anyone who attends some faith, or who has struggled with faith.
One thought I had about the play's central premise is that many Christians are quite comfortable with the idea of non-Christians finding their own sense of salvation. I think the emphasis on emphatically accepting Christ as one's savior in order to assure salvation is an evangelical Christian doctrine. As an Orthodox Christian, I believe we and other branches of Christendom accept that salvation is not assured, and that God's actual judgement is unknowable. Therefore, it's hard to get too worked up about whether you are Christian or not -- you are not simply assured of salvation one way or another based on your avowed faith. It's your life's actions that matter.
This is a terrific production by Road Less Traveled Theater. I liked all five actors. I thought it was a great decision to make for the associate pastor to be played by a young black actor. Aaron Moss effectively shows us a man who fought and sacrificed his way up through his faith to get where he is, and he's not about to lose it all. The RLT stage was sparse, but gave a good feeling of the characters speaking to a larger auditorium. The sound design and lighting were effective, with each character using a microphone, as if on a Sunday service.
You can read Ben Siegel's good review of the production in the Buffalo News. He said some things better than I can.
I was so glad that Lucas Hnath, the playwright, takes the Christian characters of his play seriously. The small group of characters depend on their church to guide them through their lives and to inspire them. They are not the ignorant cartoon Christians so easily mocked in comedy skits and Twitter rants. Their anguish at having their old beliefs and practical concerns pushed aside is real, and makes them sympathetic characters with echoes to my own life and experiences.
The central story of the play is about a successful mega-church evangelical pastor (played with admirable modulation by Dave Hayes) who one day tells his congregation that he can no longer accept his church's doctrine that only a Christian who has made Christ his savior can be saved from eternal Hell. The pastor voices a legitimate dilemma. He cites an example, an event he saw on a video. A brave young non-Christian boy in an Asian country sacrificed his life to save his sister from a fire -- and despite his sacrifice, he will be consigned to Hell for eternity because he never announced Christ as his savior. How can Christians accept this? The pastor announces a revised version of Heaven and Hell: all are instead eventually welcomed to Heaven after death, regardless of faith, or what they've done on earth. There is no judgement waiting us.
This announcement causes the young associate pastor (movingly played by Aaron Moss) to leave and form his own church, troubles the church elders, and nearly causes the pastor's wife to leave him. All rebuke him for having shaken the church and the lives of the congregation without consulting them first. A parishioner pointedly asks him if he would have made his radical announcement if the church had not recently paid off its mortgage. Why didn't he say these things before? Was he deceitful? Was he actually filled with doubts but afraid to say anything lest the church lose its financial footing? The pastor's replies are all variations of, "God had not made ready to talk until now".
You can hear all sorts of echoes to other church life issues in the play -- the role of money, financial tensions, the tensions between ancient accepted beliefs with modernity. All of it will feel familiar to anyone who attends some faith, or who has struggled with faith.
One thought I had about the play's central premise is that many Christians are quite comfortable with the idea of non-Christians finding their own sense of salvation. I think the emphasis on emphatically accepting Christ as one's savior in order to assure salvation is an evangelical Christian doctrine. As an Orthodox Christian, I believe we and other branches of Christendom accept that salvation is not assured, and that God's actual judgement is unknowable. Therefore, it's hard to get too worked up about whether you are Christian or not -- you are not simply assured of salvation one way or another based on your avowed faith. It's your life's actions that matter.
This is a terrific production by Road Less Traveled Theater. I liked all five actors. I thought it was a great decision to make for the associate pastor to be played by a young black actor. Aaron Moss effectively shows us a man who fought and sacrificed his way up through his faith to get where he is, and he's not about to lose it all. The RLT stage was sparse, but gave a good feeling of the characters speaking to a larger auditorium. The sound design and lighting were effective, with each character using a microphone, as if on a Sunday service.
Sunday, February 18, 2018
Loved the Sibelius Violin Concerto and Elina Vähälä's playing
That
was a great concert by the Buffalo Philharmonic, Sunday afternoon, February 11. Wang Jie's Symphony
No. 1 was a good way to open the program, brief and adventurous.
Loved the Sibelius Violin Concerto and Elina Vähälä's solo performance. She played with controlled emotion, not showy but powerful. The cadenzas were beautiful. No signed CDs during the intermission? I'd have bought one.
I was not looking forward to Sheherazade, having heard it a million times on the radio, but I was completely won over. Dennis Kim, the first violinist, was terrific as usual. Hearing it live, and seeing JoAnn Falletta conduct it, was exciting and moving.
Loved the Sibelius Violin Concerto and Elina Vähälä's solo performance. She played with controlled emotion, not showy but powerful. The cadenzas were beautiful. No signed CDs during the intermission? I'd have bought one.
I was not looking forward to Sheherazade, having heard it a million times on the radio, but I was completely won over. Dennis Kim, the first violinist, was terrific as usual. Hearing it live, and seeing JoAnn Falletta conduct it, was exciting and moving.
Sunday, January 28, 2018
The Nether, a contemporary classic, at Road Less Traveled Productions
The Nether, a play by Jennifer Haley. Directed by Katie Mallinson. A very good cast. Road Less Traveled Productions, downtown Buffalo.
This is a complex, good play, impressively directed, well-performed, with an excellent set and staging. It's a difficult play that feels like a contemporary classic.
I'm glad to have read Ben Siegel's review of this production in the Buffalo News. This is a demanding play, and it helps to read a good critic's words to settle your own thinking.
The time of this play is described as near-future, something in the next few years. "The Nether" of this play is a virtual reality world, accessible by logging in, just as you log in to your Gmail account today. Once logged in, you can act out your fantasies, benign or criminal. The story of the play is that a detective Morris -- icily well played by Eve Everette -- is investigating the online child sex operation run by Sims (Steve Jakiel). Men such as Doyle (Dave Marciniak) can enter the virtual reality world and act out their fantasies, sexual and murderous. Detective Morris wants to shut down the operation.
We see scenes inside the nether, cleverly constructed in Victorian British settings -- no doubt alluding to Alice in Wonderland author Lewis Carroll's penchant for young girls. We see the emotional connections and tensions among the logged-in characters. I wondered what the characters actually got out of their virtual reality activities (essentially a kind of dream state). But the playwright Haley shows us that the men are dramatically changed by their experiences in the online world. Doyle is desperate to stay in that world, he depends on it. It's like an addiction for him, and he reveres Sims, the man who makes his virtual life possible.
At first I didn't grasp why the state, in the form of detective Morris, is interested in what happens in the Nether. If these are avatars acting out their whims according to the prescribed algorithms, why would the state care? But then I began to see that what happens there really does affect what happens in the real world ("offline"). The online world seems just as real to the men, and to us, as their flesh and bones world. And thus the state has an interest in both worlds. A man who would act out his desires for a young girl online must be a danger in the real world as well (though Doyle argues the opposite).
There are plenty of thought-provoking turns in the story. It's almost too much. It's the best contemporary play I've seen in a long time.
This is a complex, good play, impressively directed, well-performed, with an excellent set and staging. It's a difficult play that feels like a contemporary classic.
I'm glad to have read Ben Siegel's review of this production in the Buffalo News. This is a demanding play, and it helps to read a good critic's words to settle your own thinking.
The time of this play is described as near-future, something in the next few years. "The Nether" of this play is a virtual reality world, accessible by logging in, just as you log in to your Gmail account today. Once logged in, you can act out your fantasies, benign or criminal. The story of the play is that a detective Morris -- icily well played by Eve Everette -- is investigating the online child sex operation run by Sims (Steve Jakiel). Men such as Doyle (Dave Marciniak) can enter the virtual reality world and act out their fantasies, sexual and murderous. Detective Morris wants to shut down the operation.
We see scenes inside the nether, cleverly constructed in Victorian British settings -- no doubt alluding to Alice in Wonderland author Lewis Carroll's penchant for young girls. We see the emotional connections and tensions among the logged-in characters. I wondered what the characters actually got out of their virtual reality activities (essentially a kind of dream state). But the playwright Haley shows us that the men are dramatically changed by their experiences in the online world. Doyle is desperate to stay in that world, he depends on it. It's like an addiction for him, and he reveres Sims, the man who makes his virtual life possible.
At first I didn't grasp why the state, in the form of detective Morris, is interested in what happens in the Nether. If these are avatars acting out their whims according to the prescribed algorithms, why would the state care? But then I began to see that what happens there really does affect what happens in the real world ("offline"). The online world seems just as real to the men, and to us, as their flesh and bones world. And thus the state has an interest in both worlds. A man who would act out his desires for a young girl online must be a danger in the real world as well (though Doyle argues the opposite).
There are plenty of thought-provoking turns in the story. It's almost too much. It's the best contemporary play I've seen in a long time.
Thursday, January 4, 2018
The movie Darkest Hour -- great speeches can change everything
I saw the movie Darkest Hour at the comfortable North Park Theater, in the University Plaza. The movie, directed by Joe Wright and written by Anthony McCarten, focuses on the short period of time in May 1940 when the Germans were threatening to destroy the 300,000 man British army near Calais, and Churchill (played by Gary Oldman, in a good performance) becomes the new Prime Minister of Britain. He refuses to negotiate with Hitler to sue for peace and save the army, though he is under increasing pressure from Lord Halifax and Neville Chamberlain, and even the French. In the end, moved by a scene in the London subway in which Churchill seems to ask the counsel of ordinary Londoners, Churchill decides to stand firm and refuses to negotiate, giving his famous "We shall fight them on the beaches" speech.
Much of the movie is about the political drama played out among Churchill, Halifax and Chamberlain, and the King. It's entertaining drama. The film starts slowly and builds in drama as we see Churchill beset with impossible problems on all sides. I'm not sure whether he and Britain just muddle through and save all those men at Dunkirk, or if it's Churchill's skill and stirring competence that does the job. The movie implies it's the latter, aided by Churchill's rhetorical skill. It's hard to beat quotes from heroic British poetry:
“Then out spake brave Horatius, The Captain of the Gate: "To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his gods,” ― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Lays of Ancient Rome.
The subway scene is odd. We see a group of ordinary Londoners that seem as if they're from central casting. The camera looks them squarely in their faces, emphasizing their humble, straightforward natures. A black man (the lone black character in the film). A white workingman. Working women. Churchill's questions seem obviously slanted to elicit the courageous response -- we'll never surrender. It might have happened that way, but the scene has the air of a wartime propaganda film.
Some friends in Facebook said that this Churchill depiction was a kind of rebuke to Donald Trump -- this Churchill was a real leader. But I think both the pro- and anti- Trump camps will find things they like in the film.
I did find myself wondering what the filmmaker's intention was in making the film. I'm not sure we learned something that we didn't already know about Churchill, or that dark time.
Much of the movie is about the political drama played out among Churchill, Halifax and Chamberlain, and the King. It's entertaining drama. The film starts slowly and builds in drama as we see Churchill beset with impossible problems on all sides. I'm not sure whether he and Britain just muddle through and save all those men at Dunkirk, or if it's Churchill's skill and stirring competence that does the job. The movie implies it's the latter, aided by Churchill's rhetorical skill. It's hard to beat quotes from heroic British poetry:
“Then out spake brave Horatius, The Captain of the Gate: "To every man upon this earth Death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his gods,” ― Thomas Babington Macaulay, Lays of Ancient Rome.
The subway scene is odd. We see a group of ordinary Londoners that seem as if they're from central casting. The camera looks them squarely in their faces, emphasizing their humble, straightforward natures. A black man (the lone black character in the film). A white workingman. Working women. Churchill's questions seem obviously slanted to elicit the courageous response -- we'll never surrender. It might have happened that way, but the scene has the air of a wartime propaganda film.
Some friends in Facebook said that this Churchill depiction was a kind of rebuke to Donald Trump -- this Churchill was a real leader. But I think both the pro- and anti- Trump camps will find things they like in the film.
I did find myself wondering what the filmmaker's intention was in making the film. I'm not sure we learned something that we didn't already know about Churchill, or that dark time.
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