Notes on "Pericles"

We saw the California Shakespeare Company production of Pericles. Scholars are uncertain to what extent Shakespeare contributed to the authorship of this play. The language of the play did not have the richness, density, or playfulness I would have expected, so I would side with scholars that do not believe he contributed much. The character of Gower, the narrator, had all the poetry.

In general, the production was good. The set was interesting and versatile. The actors performed with energy and enthusiasm. It was well passed. But then there were the accents. The director chose to give the population of each locale of the play a different accent. I suppose this was to help the audience keep track of where we are (we travel all over the Eastern Mediterranean), but for this to work the accents need to be consistent and instantly recognizable. In this case, they were just confusing and made the language of the play more difficult to understand. Lose the accents and one would have a fine and worthy evening out.

- J

Notes on "Figaro"

The Berkeley Rep. is presenting Figaro, on an adaptation from Theatre de la Jeune Lune of the Beaumarchais play, The Marriage of Figaro, and the Mozart opera reimagined by wrapping it a flashback seen from the perspective of the French Revolution. The play was apparently controversial in its time and some have said it was a precursor to the Revolution. It is an interesting concept and nicely executed. It was rather more opera than drama, though. I imagine if I were more familiar with the original opera I would have been better entertained.

- J

Notes on "Tragedy: a Tragedy"

In Tragedy: a Tragedy by Will Eno, a new play at the Berkeley Rep, something cataclysmic has happened and we are in the last night. Or maybe not. But, the news team of a local station is on the case. There is an avuncular anchor, a man on the street reporter, a human interest reporter, a political reporter, and a "witness". The content free commentary of these reporters who really do not know anything is pitch perfect and very funny. As the play proceeds, we watch the reporters collapse under the strain of trying to report on a world they believe has turned upside down. Very 9-11.

-- J

Notes on "Wishful Drinking"

Wishful Drinking, at the Berkeley Repertory Theater, is a one woman performance written and performed by Carrie Fisher. Fisher, of course, was Princess Leia in Star Wars, was the child of Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, and was briefly married to Paul Simon. She has a clever, biting humor that she directs principally at the other celebraties in her life. The performance had the feel of a tell-all celebrity memoir dramatized. This was a narrative that started from the assumption that celebrities are the American royal class, and their doings have inherent interest. The events described might have weight and meaning for a dedicated fan of her or her parents, but meant not a thing to me.

- J

Notes on "Taking Over"

The one man show, Taking Over, at the Berkeley Rep was written and performed by Danny Hoch is about the gentrification of the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn from the perspective of the gentrifiers and of the gentrified. There are young neighborhood men, a black woman, and naive and cynical interlopers. It is an interesting subject entertainingly and movingly presented. The humor is sharp and cutting, and the audience laughed heartily even when we were the target.

There is an odd thing that happens when a neighborhood moves up economically. Residents become nostalgic for the poorer times. Some of Hoch's characters reminisce fondly about the crack dominated days of the eighties.

It got me thinking that K and I have been on both sides, in our time in Niles. We moved into our narrow little working class street. Our neighbors were retired steel workers, bikers, bar patrons, drug dealers, Viet Nam vets, and fishermen. The old time residents were suspicious and we knew it. We were "resident tourists", as a Hoch character calls the new Williamsburg buyers. We were attracted by the "character" of the place. The long time residents were the character.

A few years later a new wave of young professionals and tech workers moved into our part of Niles. They had money. They were different and strange. We felt they did not understand us. We missed the old days with the drug busts at 2:00AM across the street.

Californians are a people built to surf in other people's culture. We eat their food. We acquire and mispronounce their patois. We adopt their architecture. We think we understand. We think we see ourselves in them, while we are pushing them to the margins. That's because, following in the footsteps of Richard Henry Dana, we are a vigorous and energetic people. It is interesting to see how we are seen.

- J

Image is scaled down version from the show's promotional image, and as such, constitutes a fair use.

Notes on "Argonautika"

Someone needs to remind the good people at the Berkeley Repertory Theater that people go to see live theater to see live actors act. Spectacle can be had for under $10 a seat at the local multiplex.

This was a new play about the myth of Jason and the Argonauts adapted from older texts. They journey from Greece into areas of central Asia that are much in the news today.

Argonautika was yet another joint production with other regional theaters. Joint productions allow a company to invest more in the production. Mainly the investment appears to be in the sets and effects. The set, in this case was quite beautiful with simple clean lines. The effects were imaginative and fun to watch. But clearly, human actors acting was an afterthought. The people were props, thrown across the stage whenever the director conjured up a storm. Jason had the wooden delivery of Keanu Reaves or Kevin Costner. The Argonauts, a Greek myth super-group, are mostly barely distinguishable from one another. Perhaps this is intentional -- men are just playthings of the gods or some such, but is made for theater that felt a little Stalinesque.

Almost thirty years ago, K and I saw our first Berkeley Rep production in a storefront in the Elmwood district, an Edward Albee play, I think. The props were a couple of chairs, a table, and a lamp, not much more. I think the program offered them for sale after the show concluded. The actors were local. It was the actors that created the world that they and we inhabited for an evening.

- J

Notes on "After the Quake"

K and I saw "After the Quake" at Berkeley Rep last night, a play based on two stories by Haruki Murakami. It was structured as, and by all outwards appearances, a children's story, but was completely engaging for adults.

- J

Notes on "King Lear"

My wife and I saw the production of King Lear at Cal Shakes this afternoon. The weather cooperated wonderfully. The play started at 4:00. It had been a warm, brilliantly clear fall day. The storm scene was a little more than an hour in. Just at the moment the storm scene began a cold evening wind came down the valley. They reinforced one another. Throughout the amphitheater you could see audience members reaching for blankets and bundling close in their jackets. It would be impossible to say whether they were influenced to do so more from the breeze or the imaginary storm being created on the stage. Just as the storm scene ended, the breeze stopped and the sun came out again.

This was a truly moving performance. I found myself in tears towards the end. The roles of Lear and the Fool were each brilliantly played by Jeffery DeMunn and Anthony Fusco, respectively. Lear was played at a more human scale than in other productions I have seen and that made the tragedy the greater. The fool was made to convey one who could see the tragedy as it was about to unfold and was trying to teach Lear by any and every device he could how to avoid it. Often the fool is played with greater detachment.

- J

Aloe

More blue skies.

Over the weekend I repotted several of our aloe plants. These are the offshoots of a single plant my wife brought into our lives probably more than twenty years ago. The various plants live in a collection of pots on the front porch. Every time I tend these aloes I am reminded of the play A Lesson from Aloes by the South African playwright Athol Fugard that we saw in the Eighties at the Berkeley Rep. This was in the old days when the theater company had a much smaller budget for set design than it does today. The set was a bare stage with potted aloes around the edges. It was a powerful play, beautifully and simply performed about a white couple and a black friend in apartheid South Africa. It is funny how memory works. Most of the plays we saw then, a quarter century ago, are lost to me, but this little collection of mostly neglected potted plants holds close a thin thread of memory of long ago.

The amazing recent movie Tsotsi was based on another of his plays.

J

Update: I found that an image from the production referred to can be seen here. It is an extract from the book The Dramatic Art of Athol Fugard, by Albert Wertheim.