Two Takes of "A Streetcar Named Desire"

Last month, a friend invited me to see her teenager son starring as Stanley Kowalski in the seminal American play, A Streetcar Named Desire, in his Oakland School for the Arts production.  Since I've seen this amazing young actor and his school mates' performance before, I did not have much trepidation on their behalves.  Even so, it was still quite ambitious for high school actors and their teacher to tackle this overtly emotional operatic piece.

Yet, I was gladly satisfied and quite moved by their performance - a performance was quite vivid, natural, honest and moving.  If here or there one wished for a bit more display of emotion or chemistry, it was not the fault of their young age - those "shortcomings" could be as easily encountered in a full-fledged professional troupe.  It was simply the challenge to portray the incredibly emotional and unstable characters, the challenge many adult and more experienced actors had often than not failed to wrestle to the ground.  I also truly appreciated the rather understated, less melodramatic portrayals, a relief from common fault often seen  in a Tennessee Williams' play.  Most impressive was that those actors matched each other well, particularly amongst the well-balanced central quartet, with the appropriate focus on Blanche.

The young actors had pledged not to watch the famous film so as not to ape the inimitable Marlo Brando and Vivian Leigh, et al., therefore, breathed their and their teacher's own readings into these roles.  I was particularly startled and impressed, positively, by the young actress' reading of that famous line of Blanche: "I don't want realism. I want magic!"

This line could be read many ways and here, her exclamation was a desperate attempt to stay afloat and a protestation against her foreseen doom.  That contrasted greatly with another "A Streetcar Named Desire" I saw on stage in 1998, an operatic adaptation by San Francisco Opera, composed by André Previn, to the libretto (a condensation of the play) by Philip Littell, starring the American star soprano, Renée Fleming.

Previn's music for this operatic Streetcar was a meandering train wreck and I was terribly bored by the obvious musical and dramatic gestures provided by the composer and his diva.  Previn constructed "I want magic" as a concert diva showpiece and when golden-voiced but always dramatically noncommittal Fleming sang it, it sounded like a willful five-year-old girl telling her mommy that she didn't want to know that Santa Claus is not real, that fairies do not exist.  Rather, she "wants magic".  It had neither fragility, tragedy, grandeur, doubt or delusion, therefore, a dramatic dead spot, and emotionally false, became a parody of a self-conscious diva prancing, however gracefully, in front of a gilded mirror.

Below is a segment of Fleming performing "I want magic!" in a concert and however lovely she sounded, it was dramatically false and even coy, from this lovely singer:


Related posts on Art · 文化 · Kunst:
- Theater Experiences in Wien (Vienna)
- Mark Rothko and "Red" at Berkeley Repertory Theatre
- Funny Theater, Not Textbook - David Henry Hwang's Chinglish at Berkeley Repertory Theatre
- Princess Turandot
- High Romanticism - German Tenor Jonas Kaufmann's Recital in Berkeley
- Angelic Voice - Philippe Jaroussky at Hertz Hall, UC Berkele

Illusion versus Reality, From Bake Sale in Berkeley to Molière at Oregon Shakespeare Festival

The contrasts between illusions and realities are too stark to believe, yet, due to people's follies, they can often surpass the widest imaginations.

The Americans, who don't want the government to tax the super-rich more, because they had imaged that they belong to that most exclusive club, or that their grandsons might join it one day, while suffering the ever greater income inequality, is the prime example of that folly.

Last Tuesday, 26 September 2011, two such events took place in my immediate sphere, one in the place I live, Berkeley, California, and the other, on the stage of Angus Bowmer Theatre, Ashland, Oregon, as part of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival 2011, which I was visiting for the first time.

The former was a widely reported "bake sale" on the campus of University of California, Berkeley, - "Increase Diversity Bake Sale" hosted by the Berkeley College Republicans, who claimed that the minorities pay smaller share of tuition and fees to the university, and to the society, while white men shoulder the biggest burden.  In regardless if this sale was a racist, or sexist, event, their argument was full of holes.

The easiest argument is that the inequality between male and female workers - not just the costs but their income as well.  Let's look at the chart below (source: Wikepedia):


In every ethnic group in the US, men make way more than women.  This is not due to the nature of the jobs men or women hold.  For same jobs, men make more than their female counterparts.  In 2009, women's median weekly earnings were lower than men's median weekly earnings in all industries:


Therefore, the $0.25 off for all women did not reflect reality.  Instead, someone argued, white men need to pay way less than $2.00 to reflect the reality that their wealth-expense ratio was way greater than any other groups mentioned in this Bake Sale:


image source: L.A. Times

If the right-wing Republican student groups had their skewed illusions, so did the left.  On the same day of the Bake Sale, I arrived in Ashland, Oregon for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.  That night, I attended a performance of a new adaptation of Molière's "Imaginary Invalid" (Le Malade imaginaire) at the Angus Bowmer Theatre.


Angus Bowmer Theatre

The play was heavily re-written and many contemporary references were thrown in.  The adapters, Oded Gross and Tracy Young, with the latter as director as well, changed Molière's naughtily humorous comédie-ballet into a grossed-out farcical musical.  Not entirely inappropriate.  However, the new version significantly changed one of the daughters (Louison) of the protagonist, from a healthy ten year old to an old maid with a hemp and pigeon-toed.  The adapters and director also gave another character, young Thomas Diaforious, a large belly and so they could heap endless humiliating jokes upon these two helpless characters, and every time they were ruthlessly laughed at, the audience roared with approvals.  I, however, winced every time.

In case my readers mistake the Festival and the audience for adherents of social Darwinism, I need to point out that they took great pride in their progressiveness - the adaptation made many references to the health care reform and pined for a public option, in ways not entirely inappropriate but utterly gratuitous, and the audience gave such references most hearty cheers and applauds.

Therefore, emerged the great divide of the illusion and the reality.  In reality, the creative team of this play, and the audience, behaved as the most heartless and cruel gang; yet, they congratulated themselves as the most compassionate.  It was beyond sickening.

In the next night, I saw Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part II, in which Sir John Falstaff and the gaggle of other tavern dwellers were laughed at constantly.  But, they were laughed at because of their "bad" deeds, and their being "bad" persons; which here, in the updated Molière, poor Louison and the Thomas, were laughed at purely for their physical deformity which did not grow out of their fault at all.  Through Thomas's mouth, we learned that he was not even a glutton, like Falstaff, rather he absorbed fat in an abnormal rate.

I am not a prude.  I am not allergic to comedy and farce.  I enjoy great farces as much as grand tragedies like Julius Caesar, which I saw three days later and was deeply moved and excited by it, and I will discuss it later, and appreciate the difficulties in staging a comedy.  I am also familiar with the idiom of commedia dell'arte, and can tolerate some crude jokes, like the endless body function jokes employed here to wring laughter out the guileless audience.  But laughing at weak characters' physical weakness really made me nauseated.

In the end, I was deeply offended by the heartless and the crassness of the production team and detested this update very much, in contrast to the uproarious approvals from the majority audience members who gave it an enthusiastic standing ovation.

There are two well-known hunchbacks in literature - Verdi's Rigoletto in the eponymous opera (based on Victor Hugo's Le roi s'amuse) and Quasimodo in Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris.  Rigoletto was a twisted character, but Verdi did not dwell on his physical deformity, rather, it was the deformity of his soul Verdi concentrated upon.  Being compassionate, Verdi presented Rigoletto as a passionate and selfless father, thus redeemed him from condemnation.  Hugo did not shy away from describing Quasimodo's ugliness but he used this physical monstrosity to offset his inner kindness.  Here, the adapters (not Molière), invented the physical deformities so as to invite the audience to laugh at them for no other reason other than being deformed.  Progressive?  No.  Regressive for sure.

On the OSF's official website, it stated such about the play, "set in the 1960s, this satiric comedy will be best enjoyed by playgoers 13 and up who can handle the potty humor, yucky medical remedies, and a few instances of suggestive gesture, innuendo and costuming."

I think it would be most sensible to require playgoers to be also 15 and below to enjoy the potty humor, yucky medical remedies, and a few instances of suggestive gesture, innuendo and costuming.

Remembering My London Trip (2004)

The newly identified likely Shakespeare portrait, reminded me my wonderful trip to UK, along with the Netherlands and Belgium, in 2004.

Since this was my first trip to UK, I naturally visited other prominent landmarks, such as Parliament, Westminster Abbey, etc., but museums and theaters were definitely the highlights of the London visit.

On the very first day, I tried to catch the Edward Hopper retrospective, which ended that very day (5 September 2004), in the newly opened Tate Modern, metamorphosed gloriously from a former power plant. Unfortunately one of the Underground lines was closed on weekend, so it took much longer for me to get to our hotel; and when the proprietor offered a nicer room after we checked in, we were detained further. The bus we took to the museum stopped off the regular route so we had to walk a long stretch and when we breathlessly reached the window, they had just stopped selling tickets to the Hopper exhibit. The consolation was the Tate itself. Honestly I don't remember the collection much, except for some enormous sculptures in the front hall. The museum itself was a masterwork, with a breathtaking view of the Thames.

The main place for paintings was National Gallery. It had way too many treasures for me to recount. My favorite was "The Doge Leonardo Loredan" (1501-4) by Giovanni Bellini, and "The Arnolfini Portrait" or "Portrait of Giovanni (?) Arnolfini and his Wife ('The Arnolfini Portrait')" (1434) by Jan van Eyck. Incidentally, when we moved on to Brugges, Belgium in the same trip, we stayed in Hotel Lucca, built by the very same Arnolfini.



National Portrait Gallery boasted many important portraits and I was equally fascinated by their Tudor portraits and contemporary ones.
















I was very moved by the Parthenon Frieze (aka Elgin Marble) Room in The British Museum. The great reading room was stunning and I looked for the footprint supposedly left by Karl Marx. The newly covered grand courtyard was visually stunning and I stayed there for a long while, as if time ceased to exist. I also loved their Babylonian and Egyptian collections. I felt disoriented after the visit.

I stumbled upon the Wallace Collection, which was the "finest private collection of art ever assembled by one family" according to their own website. I honestly, though, cannot remember a particular piece, only the general musty and mysterious atmosphere. According to Frommer's, "the art collection includes works by Watteau, Boucher, Fragonard, and Greuze, as well as such classics as Frans Hals's Laughing Cavalier and Rembrandt's portrait of his son Titus. The paintings of the Dutch, English, Spanish, and Italian schools are outstanding."

The last museum in London I visited was Tate Britain, which featured British art, particularly Turner's.

Our day trips in UK included a rain-drenched trip to Stonehenge and an excursion to Cambridge, highlighted by the mandatory punting on the Cam. The permanent collections at Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge contained remarkable antiquities from ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Again, I cannot pinpoint any specific piece of work. I only remember that I felt exhausted and exulted.

In other cities, besides fine arts, cathedrals and cemeteries, I might go for classical music. In London, I went for drama. It was Olympic year in Greece so we were blessed with two remarkable plays by by Euripides -- Iphigenia at Aulis at Royal National Theatre and Hecuba at Donmar Warehouse. The former was good and it was wonderful to see one play at Royal National Theatre but the later was an experience as remarkable as the opening night of Spring Festival in Prague, with President Václav Havel in attendance. I rank Hecuba as the best drama experiences I ever had, period. It turned out that the actress Clare Higgins won Laurence Olivier Best Actress Award for this portrayal. I had never heard of Donmar Warehouse before but a little searching yielded some information: Since 1992, Donmar original productions have received 27 Olivier Awards, 17 Critics' Circle Theatre Awards, 9 Evening Standard Awards, as well as 12 Tony Awards from eight productions transferring to Broadway (wikipedia.com).

I had a certain trepedation when I approached Shakespeare's Globe Theatre for Measure for Measure by Shakespeare. Kitsch! I was afraid. Jesters opened the curtain and trumpets rang out. Kitsch! I murmured. It turned out to be a nice surprise. It was a high quality performance, not the tourist trap at all. A few hours' standing and looking up the raised stage tired me, though in our general standing "seats" I did feel that I had experience a little bit resembled those of the great Elizabethans.

I was surprised that I loved London more than I cared to admit. The Queen was in Scotland for her summer holiday therefore she didn't deign to receive me. Alas.

"Crime and Punishment" and "Betrayed"

Last week, I attended the performances of "Crime and Punishment" at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and "Betrayed" at Aurora Theatre. The two plays were fascinating and a little frustrating in different ways, though overall both were qualified successes.

Crime and Punishment, based on Fyodor Dostoevsky's seminal novel, was adapted by Marilyn Campbell and Curt Columbus, and directed by Sharon Ott. The feverish degeneration of Raskolonikov's mind was faithfully captured and presented, symbolized by the multi-layered, functional doors, like the cells of protagonist’s brain. The staging itself was a triumph. The adaptation, blessedly devoid of the trap of a cheap thriller, focused tenaciously on the main point of the novel, which was admirable. However, there were a few dead spots, no where more damaging than the gratuitous and embarrassing "questioning the audience" out of blue. It was a desperate act to engage by shaking the shoulders of the audience. The final transformation and denouement of the play was murky and rushed, therefore less than utterly convincing.

The three actors gave decent to great performances except for the speeches and body language mannerisms of Delia MacDougall who portrayed an array of roles, and somehow slightly out of sync in Tyler Pierce's portrayal of Raskolonikov in his emotional outbursts or physical responses to exterior knockings. His flaw was not as damning as in comedy and could be ironed out easily with the run. The other actor J.R. Horne was brilliant as inspector and Sonia's father.

The overall impact was however strong and the non-linear structure served Dostoevsky well, considering the enormous challenge of staging such an internalized story. It was a 90 minutes evening well-spent.

Betrayed, written by New Yorker's staff writer George Packer, depicted the plight of some Iraqis who had participated in re-building Iraq after the country was invaded by the US forces and Sadam Hussein was overthrown. These Iraqis became stigmatized and faced threats on their lives, and indeed some died because of their "collaboration" with the US. The journey from naïvety to the awakening of an idealistic diplomat, Prescott, who tried to help those Iraqis, was almost parallel to that of the playwright, who, as a journalist, helped to drum up the invasion of Iraq. Consider this his own atonement.

One would not and should not compare this play to those by Ibsen, Strindberg or Chekhov. The characters, though vividly written and performed, stubbornly remained types. I believe that was out of the choice. The playwright didn’t want us to dwell on one individual, but rather a class of such people who magnanimously pronounced that they, the helping Iraqis, didn’t really feel betrayed. So, the play should be best described as "Betrayed?"

The evening was preceded by an event hosted by The List: Project to Resettle Iraqi Allies. The List Project was created by Kirk Johnson to help such Iraqis to relocate to safe countries. Prescott seemed based on Kirk Johnson as well. After the show, Johnson was joined by CEO of Ning.com, who had reached out to him to set up a social network to advance his cause, representative from Tides Foundation who helps non-profits to incubate, and a relocated Iraqi engineer who currently works at UC Berkeley. It was a moving experience to see so many people come together to atone for our sins. It was mentioned that PBS had video-recorded the New York production of Betrayed and it is a mandatory viewing for us, the Americans -- it was in our names, that our Army invaded and is still occupying Iraq.