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Review

Joyful Noise: Anna Kohler’s “Immense Joy” Brings the Works of Clarice Lispector to Vivacious Life

The specter of Brazilian author Clarice Lispector pervades the stage at Immense Joy, a new production devised and directed by Anna Kohler, and presented by The Tank NYC. At the height of her fame, Lispector’s name (originally Chaya Pinkhasivna Lispector at birth) almost always conjured an air of mystery―not just because of her curious Ukrainian origins, but also because of the abstract way she wrote. And it is abstraction that finds its way into Kohler’s production through a series of vignettes, narrated through the use of innovative multimedia projections by Massimilliano DiMartino. The result is one of, well… immense joy itself.

In the course of nine novels and 85 short stories, Lispector’s work traversed varied human perspectives―most notably, perhaps, are her intimate portrayals of the inner lives of women. That it would be a woman who would eventually stage her work says a lot about Lispector’s ability to communicate through her seemingly unintelligible stream-of-consciousness prose. Having discovered Lispector through her then-student, now-fellow-actor Natalia de Campos, Kohler found herself immediately taken with the author’s words, which drape themselves all over the production like a diaphanous curtain. “Her unusual use of language and the visceral quality of her writing make it so that one feels ‘in it’,” Kohler says, “and from then on, I really, really wanted to create a show about this woman and her writing. I really ‘got’ Clarice Lispector.”

Such a body of work from a female perspective naturally calls for one onstage: here, in the form of Kohler as Olga Borelli, Lispector’s assistant and close confidant whom, according to biographer Benjamin Moser, “would become a key figure in the last years of Clarice’s life and whose tireless dedication and intellectual affinity facilitated the creation of Clarice’s great final works.” In the role of Olga, Kohler cuts just as much of a mysterious figure as Lispector herself as she recites passages of the author’s work. As Lispector once famously notated:

“How does one start at the beginning, if things happen before they actually happen? If before the pre-history there already existed apocalyptic monsters?”

From there, we are launched into the Lispector’s heady world of women—starting with de Campos’ Macabea, a lonely, troubled soul lost among the existential chaos that is part-and-parcel of a Lispector story. In one scene early on in the show, Macabea is practicing to be a bride; in another, she desperately clings to a man she’s only just met but claims as her boyfriend. As Macabea, de Campos is all at once hopeful and forlorn, assured and confused.

Interspersed among the vignettes of Joy, Macabea’s journey represents that of the many Brazilian women Lispector herself knew and observed (particularly, those from the Northeast where the author briefly had grown up). Their stories range from the lyrical to the strange, to even the dangerous: a circle of women singing “Eu Sou Pobre”; three animal-headed figures pick hydrangeas in a field, much to the chagrin of a pale visage at a window; a woman devises a plan to avoid getting raped on a train. These elliptical tales, “apocalyptic monsters” and all, don’t seem to provide a moral neatly tied together at the end so much as ruminate on the complexities of human existence. Indeed, as the woman on the train escapes her doom, only to realize that she secretly wished to be raped, certainly incites some thorny emotions from the perspective of our post-#MeToo landscape.

While it is the women who take center stage, the men which make up the rest of Kohler’s ensemble also make an impact here, gamely taking on the personages of Lispector’s imagination. From re-enacting a Coca-Cola commercial to having an open discussion about poverty with Kohler—actors Fabio Tavares and Justin Gordon impress with their ability to jump, dance, and sing across the stage, breathing life into each story as they go. As for John Hagan, who narrates as well as portrays Lispector in the final scene, he brings with him a grounded reality in his performance.

Taken together, the stories of Immense Joy stir up a world of emotional depth, leaving one with more questions than when one first set foot in the theater. But such is the immortal work of Clarice Lispector. After all, as she once wrote: “So long as I have questions to which there are no answers, I will keep on writing.”

Images courtesy of Theo Cote. Immense Joy runs until September 18, 2022 at The Tank (312 W 36th Street, 1st Floor, New York NY 10018). Tickets (starting at $15, with pay-what-you-can ticket tiers) can be purchased here.

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Show Girl Showstopper: Andrea Bell Wolff Dazzles as She Recalls her ‘Adventures in Vegas’

There’s nothing like a pandemic to make you a little nostalgic. At least, that was definitely the case for performer Andrea Bell Wolff, who opens her show Adventures in Vegas with a scene at a pandemic-era birthday gathering. From there, Wolff dusts off from the pages of her diary memories of Las Vegas and suddenly we are transported. The year was 1970, when the Rat Pack still ruled the strip. A nineteen-year-old Wolff, fresh off a run playing Ermengarde and understudying Minnie Faye for the national tour of Hello, Dolly!, sets her sights on ambitious roles on Broadway and film. Passed over for the likes of E.J. Peaker and Georgia Engel instead, Wolff seizes the opportunity for a part in the cast of Bottoms Up!, a comedic burlesque revue playing in the famed Caesar’s Palace. The successful revue takes her from Vegas to Sydney and back, proving to be one–if not the most–formative experience in Wolff’s life.

When I previously wrote regarding solo shows, I mentioned that it takes “a certain kind of physical stamina” to fill a stage on your own. Luckily, Wolff (who cuts a tiny-but-mighty figure onstage) manages to deliver a punchy performance with the help of fellow actor Elliott Litherland, who fills the roles of various people in Wolff’s life. Together, they make a vivacious pair, bringing the Las Vegas of 1970 into clear, vibrant focus. As a whole, Adventures in Vegas is a smooth ride down a glittering memory lane, with each stop along the way punctuated by musical selections from such varied artists as Sara Barielles, Whitney Houston, and Tom Waits. (Thrown in for good measure are actual numbers from Wolff’s past, originally performed by Grant Smith and Rusty Warren.) Under the musical direction of Jude Obermüller, each piece felt timeless, perfectly underscoring each memory so that it felt as if the songs were written especially for the show.

All in all, Adventures in Vegas provides the perfect escape into a simpler time.

‘Adventures in Vegas’ is running at the AMT Theater (354 W 45th Street) until August 24th. For tickets, go here.

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Netflix’s ‘Rebecca’ Resurrects the Gothic Romance for a New Generation

“Last night, I dreamt  I went to Manderley again…”

As someone once said: you can’t go home again—but with a new adaptation of Rebecca, now streaming on Netflix, it seems that once again finds itself within our cinematic purview in the form of Manderley.  And if the walls of this modern take on the grand manor could talk, one might find them in agreement.  In some ways, one wouldn’t go so far as to proclaim the gothic romance dead.  On the one hand, director Ben Wheatley’s take on the genre is at once sleek and lusciously rendered, bringing the grandeur of author Daphne Du Maurier’s 1938 novel into a fully technicolor world.  However, in appealing to 21st-century tastes, this re-telling falls short in truly showing Manderley and its titular mistress, flaws and all, in a truly new light.

Du Maurier’s story, now considered a classic of the genre, is chock-full of all the familiar trappings found in other gothic romances of its ilk (such as Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Northanger Abbey, and the like): a young ingénue, usually a woman; an imposing, stately manse; and a family with a dark secret.  This Rebecca is no different, telling once again the tale of a young woman working as a lady’s companion (Lily James), who is suddenly whisked into a whirlwind romance with a dashing aristocrat by the name of Maxim de Winter (Armie Hammer), only to subsequently find herself navigating the world of England’s landed gentry.  It is at Manderley—Maxim’s ancestral home—where the new Mrs. de Winter becomes increasingly haunted by the seemingly ever-constant memory of her predecessor, the first Mrs. de Winter, who mysteriously perished at sea.

Naturally, because of this, oceanic imagery pervades throughout the film; and much like those mercurial waters, the looming specter of both Manderley and its beloved former mistress first make their presence known with an almost calm, if unsettling, stillness.  A delicate piece of diaphanous lingerie.  The faint mist of perfume.  The heavily blotted ink of a single initial.  The rustle of a curtain.  The creaking of a decrepit boathouse.  But, most of all, it is the house’s omnipresent housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers (Dame Kristin Scott Thomas) through whom the late Mrs. de Winter’s spirit truly lingers, creeping around every corner with an ever-watchful eye.  “Still waters run deep,” as one character from Alfred Hitchcock’s own 1940 adaptation of the novel famously observes—and soon enough, Manderley reveals its own tempestuous temperaments bubbling just beneath its gilded surface.

Just like its protagonist, Rebecca strives to set itself apart from its own cinematic predecessor, albeit to mixed effect.  From the outset, we can see that this isn’t, as they say, your grandmother’s Rebecca—but rather, one intended for a new generation.  It can’t be easy to follow in the Master of Suspense’s footsteps, and director Wheatley (whose past work has comprised those within the horror genre) attempts to imbue his Rebecca with all the aesthetic sensibilities of a modern psychological thriller: from the inclusion of a sensual love scene in its early Monte Carlo sequence to the interesting juxtaposition of Pentangle’s 1968 recording of traditional folk ballad “The Sprig o’ Thyme”/ “Let No Man Steal Your Thyme”; to the grand-scale detail found in its production design and costumes, all the way to the film’s casting.  Yet, for all its pretty dressing, the film’s disparate elements never seem to quite coalesce in order to serve its story.  Though Wheatley does his best to carefully build tension throughout the first two acts, much of the expectant payoff is lost by the film’s denouement.  

The true revelation, instead, lies in Scott Thomas’ Mrs. Danvers—who cuts a more stylish and domineering figure in comparison to that of Judith Anderson’s mousy, more reticent servant in Hitchcock’s 1940 version.  Whereas Anderson is unassuming at first glance, radiating a sense of unease in just a single look or gesture, Scott Thomas brilliantly chooses to go the opposite direction; the latter slowly revealing the stirrings of a maddened mind behind a steely exterior, with a deftness that only a veteran actress could effortlessly bring to a role.  With just one devious, upturned curlique of her burgundy lips, she could bring down the whole house—literally.

Images courtesy of Netflix. ‘Rebecca’ is now streaming on Netflix.

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Just Press Play: Hulu’s ‘High Fidelity’ (2020) is One Infinitely Good Playlist

“Making a playlist is a delicate art.  It’s like writing a love letter, but better, in a way.  You get to say what you wanna say without actually saying it.  You get to use someone else’s poetry to express how you feel. And then there are the rules: It’s gotta be entertaining.  You gotta tell a story. You can’t be too obvious, but you can’t be too obscure, either. Anyway, a good compilation, like all things in life, is hard to do.”

As stated above, any good playlist has to be able to tell a story — and just like a good playlist, High Fidelity (based upon the eponymously-titled novel and film, both written and adapted by author Nick Hornby), is one story that steadily and satisfyingly builds over time.  While the series continues to cover the familiar rom-com territory its earlier iterations were built upon (it does display “fidelity” in its title, after all), it also works to further expand and update the mid-90s, early-2000s worlds of its source material with references to our post-Millennial present — all while told mainly through the point-of-view of record shop proprietor Robyn “Rob” Brooks, now in the form of a woman on the cusp of her thirties (Zoë Kravitz). 

Still nursing a broken heart after having split from her former fiancé, Russell “Mac” McCormack (Kingsley Ben-Adir) just the year before, Rob soothes her sorrows the only way she knows how: through flashbacks and awkward reunions over the course of ten half-hour episodes, she takes us down the list of her Desert Island Top Five Heartbreaks.  Her personal “tracklist” becomes the embodiment of music’s inextricable link with one’s memory: the way it could take you back to a time and place when a song or mixtape seemed to define a moment or alter the course of your life.  A great example of this is a bottle episode — and mid-season highlight — in which Rob’s former-lover, current-best-friend Simon (David H. Holmes) rehashes his own Desert Island Top Five. 

Bumping up the nostalgia factor in Fidelity is its production value — shot in a dreamy, hazy Brooklyn replete with neon-lit old-timey hipster dive bars and specialty shops clash with the sterile, Millennial-Pink we associate with Crown Heights these days.  The show’s own tracklist, which ranges from vintage bonafides like Prince and Blondie to modern indie favorites such as Hot Chip and TV on the Radio, proves just as satisfyingly genre-bending and nostalgia-inducing as the show itself — resultant of the collaborative efforts of music supervisors Manish Raval, Tom Wolfe, and Alison Rosenfeld; as well as executive producer Kravitz and special consultant Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson.  (Yes, that Questlove).

Fidelity‘s famously signature thesis (that it’s not what we are like, but what we like, that ultimately matters) is put to the test throughout the season.  As Rob says at one point: “Half of the neighborhood thinks we’re washed-up relics. The other half think we’re nostalgic hipsters. They’re both kind of right.”  Championship Vinyl is, after all, the very embodiment of all things once culturally cherished, the last bastion of a time when things were good — where the influencers were the people standing on the other side of the register.  Indeed, in one telling scene features Championship employee — and Rob’s other bestie — Cherise (scene-stealer Da’Vine Joy Randolph) confronts a customer mindlessly Shazaam-ing a song playing in the store, while completely ignoring the fact that she’s standing right in front of him. 

It’s this very confrontation of our current latte-guzzling, Instagram-Selfie culture that makes High Fidelity an interesting remix of the original — one you’ll want to replay over and over again.

Images courtesy of Phillip Caruso/Hulu. High Fidelity is now streaming on Hulu.

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On the Rise: Jessie Buckley’s Star-Making Turn in ‘Wild Rose’

There are star-making turns, and then there are star-making turns. And as much as I loved Lady Gaga in that other movie, nothing beats Jessie Buckley’s unforgettable, BAFTA Scotland-winning performance as Rose-Lynn Harlan in the Tom Harper-helmed Wild Rose (2018).  A decade into a post-Millennial boom in movie-musicals (one which arguably started with Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! in 2001 and peaked with John Carney’s Once in 2007, both Oscar-winners), the 2010s saw a more varied approach to merging music with film.   

(Moulin Rouge! has since been adapted for the stage and is now enjoying a Broadway run in New York; while a staged production of Carney’s heart-warming 2016 film Sing Street, is currently seeing an off-Broadway run of at the New York Theatre Workshop and heading to Broadway this coming spring.*) 

A new wave of movie-musicals from the UK and elsewhere have since popped onto the scene, and most notably dancing (and singing) to the beat of their own drum are those hailing from Scotland, such as the offbeat God Help the Girl (2014) and Anna and the Apocalypse (2017).  While perhaps not as lushly produced as a Luhrmann extravaganza, nor as unabashedly romantic as a Carney piece, Harper’s film still very much earns its place in the wider canon of movie-musicals.  In comparison, Wild Rose achieves a storytelling aesthetic that falls somewhere down the middle, though the film itself is anything but middle-of-the-road.

One might even venture to call it a rare flower among films of the genre, in that—much like the main character herself—it unapologetically delights in its own rags-to-riches tropes.  This might have something to do with the film’s excellent country-inflected soundtrack (featuring the likes of Wynonna Judd, Emmylou Harris, Chris Stapleton, Patty Griffin, and the late John Prine; as well as original songs co-written by actress Mary Steenburgen), which not only helps buoy Rose-Lynn’s story throughout without the use of the usual sung-through elements of a traditional musical but also keeps it grounded in the working-class roots of its own musical traditions.  

With additional standout performances by the always excellent Julie Walters and Sophie Okonedo (in supporting roles as Rose-Lynn’s mother and employer, respectively), this is one Rose everyone should stop and pay attention to.

Images courtesy of Neon.

*Portions of this review were written before the shutdown of Broadway as a result of COVID-19/Coronavirus measures.  The shutdown of all Broadway shows has since been extended to early June.  

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A Diamond in the Rough: Marina’s ‘Love + Fear’ Explores Multiple Facets of Human Nature

For singer-songwriter Marina Diamandis, it seems as if her identity has forever been inextricably linked with her music.  When she arrived on the scene with her 2010 debut The Family Jewels she was known then as Marina and the Diamonds,  a moniker which suggested the idea of a band — perhaps one similar to the glam-pop and -rock acts of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s — despite being, in fact, a solo act.  (The Diamonds, she would later explain, referred not to her backing band but, rather, her fans.)

This playful duality even seemed to be embodied in Diamandis herself: half-Greek, half-Welsh; elegantly beautiful, yet often dressed in outfits emblazoned with various pop-art iconography.  It’s a look crafted to reflect The Family Jewels’ themes of commercialism and society’s toxic obsession with fame (the album cover itself serves as an ode to Andy Warhol’s own covers for Interview magazine).  When she wrote her song, ‘Mowgli’s Road’, wherein she sang, “There’s a fork in the road/ I do as I’m told/ ‘Til I don’t know, don’t know, don’t know/ Who, who I wanna be”, the artist who would later be known as MARINA could not have possibly fathomed just how many iterations of selves she would eventually take on in the course of her career.   

Dualisms continue to abound in Diamandis’ latest effort — most obviously in the title itself: LOVE + FEAR.  Split into two parts, the double-album (each part capping at 8 songs) is the singer’s most ambitious project since perhaps her 2012 concept album, Electra Heart (for which she literally took on the role of her eponymous alter-ego: a theatrical, platinum-coiffed figure whose guise and impending downfall was inspired by similarly tragic figures such as Marilyn Monroe and Marie Antoinette).  The conceit for LOVE + FEAR takes its cues from a quote by the psychologist Elizabeth Kübler-Ross:

“There are only two emotions: love and fear. All positive emotions come from love, all negative emotions come from fear. From love flows happiness, contentment, peace and joy; from fear comes anger, hate, anxiety, and guilt. It’s true that there are only two primary emotions, love and fear. But it’s more accurate to say that there is only love or fear, for we cannot feel these two emotions together, at exactly the same time. They’re opposites. If we’re in fear, we are not in a place of love. When we’re in a place of love, we cannot be in a place of fear.”

Thus, Diamandis built each of the songs around LOVE + FEAR with Kübler-Ross’ quote acting as a writing prompt of sorts.  What results is a study of both the personal and the universal, in a way we hadn’t yet heard in Diamandis’ music — a direction many of her Diamonds had been anticipating since 2015’s FROOT.  True to its name, FROOT had been universally acclaimed by fans, Stans*, and critics alike as Diamandis’ most cohesive and substantial body of work at the time of its release.  

In an article for NYLON magazine that year, Phoebe Reilly had written: “In many ways, Froot feels like the natural follow-up to Family Jewels, except that her debut captured the yearning of a woman fresh out of her teens.”  Indeed, combining her signature mix of New Wave-inflected synth-pop and metaphor-laden wordplay, Diamandis certainly looked to be hitting a maturation point as a songwriter.  Songs such as ‘I’m a Ruin’ and ‘Weeds’, for example, spoke of heartbreak for Diamandis — as opposed to being the heartbreaker herself. In that same article, Diamandis had said of FROOT: “This is a lifetime record for me.  I don’t think I’ll do anything of this ilk again.”

That said, LOVE + FEAR is her attempt at doing so.  

Structurally, each side of LOVE + FEAR certainly achieves a sense of sonic chronology, reinforcing the feeling of the two titular emotions actually being at opposite ends of a spectrum, instead of two disparate entities, as Kübler-Ross’ quote suggests.  It is here that duplicitous dualisms once again find us, and where the album’s ultimate strength lies. For example, songs such as ‘You’ and ‘Superstar’ (which each feature on FEAR and LOVE, respectfully) are deceptively written, as if each could actually belong on the other’s half of the album.  ‘Superstar’ is about putting love up on a pedestal, to an almost idol-worship extent; whilst ‘You’, perhaps the most romantic song on FEAR, speaks of the destructive way the other can manipulate that love.  The former is lyrically sparse, considerably downbeat and ambient; meanwhile, the latter’s lyrics are contrasted nicely against an upbeat production.  

Other similar parallels between her past and current bodies of work abound: ‘Handmade Heaven’ and ‘Enjoy Your Life’, both evoke FROOT’s ethereal nostalgia; whereas other tracks like ‘Life is Strange’ and ‘Karma’ contain unusual production choices similar to The Family Jewels (Strings! Layered harmonic vocals! The “Oh my gawd!” of it all!).  In ‘Human’ and ‘Emotional Machine’, Diamandis continues in her tradition in examining the different sides of human nature, a tradition which started in ‘Savages’ and ‘I’m Not A Robot’.  The parallels in both ‘Savages’ and ‘Human’ are perhaps the most apparent: while she states in the former, “I’m not afraid of God/ I’m afraid of man”; she goes on to say, “And if there is a God,/ they’ll know why it’s so hard/to be human” in the latter.  

Despite all these familiar echoes, much of LOVE + FEAR’s sound has seen Diamandis shedding her signature sound and pushing towards more Top-40-friendly pop, as heard in the summery ‘Orange Trees’ (inspired by childhood summers spent on the Greek island Lefkáda), and in the guitar-driven Latin sounds of ‘Baby’. While hints of this new direction have been evident in recent collaborations with the group Clean Bandit in the years during her hiatus, it’s still a surprising turn for an artist who had previously spoken about her negative experience recording Electra Heart with high-powered American producers whose job it was to “find the new sound.”

Whether this will have the same alienating effect on her fans in the way Electra Heart had is hard to tell. For now, it’s clear that LOVE + FEAR, in all its aspects (even its album covers convey the singer without makeup, against a simple grey backdrop) sees Diamandis emerging anew as an artist without all the extra frills. It’s the idea of laying oneself bare in order to finally find love in another — and in oneself. After all, as she sings in ‘Soft to be Strong’: “There’s no shame in being sincere.”

Images courtesy of Atlantic Records UK.

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Twee and Twang: Stuart Murdoch’s ‘God Help the Girl’ is a Delightful Burst of Quirk

Some of you already know how much I love my movie-musicals — and recently, I’ve become very much obsessed with one in particular that I’ve been meaning to see for a while now: God Help the Girl (2014).  The brainchild of Belle & Sebastian musician Stuart Murdoch, the film also happens to be the offshoot of an eponymous side project, also created by Murdoch.  Over the years, as Murdoch began to write songs which were more suited for female voices and therefore didn’t quite have a place within the B&S ouevre, the idea of a concept album and accompanying film began to form.  

It was then that he took out an ad for female singers (as captured in the four-part documentary, Girl Singer Needed) — after which vocalists Catherine Ireton, Celia Garcia, Alexandra Klobouk, Brittany Stallings and Dina Bankole, among others.  What resulted then was a string of beautifully composed retro, girl group-style songs spanning a variety of genres — all illustrating an abstract story surrounding a girl named Eve, the ‘Girl’ of the project’s title. 

A few years after the album came out in 2009, a crowd-funding campaign on Kickstarter helped to finally, er, kickstart the film idea into motion.  It was released in 2014, and centers around Eve, an Australian girl suffering from anorexia nervosa, who escapes the psychiatric ward and absconds to the city of Glasgow to pursue her love of music and songwriting.  Along the way, she meets musician-slash-lifeguard James and his music student Cassie.  The three, each at a different crossroads in their life, begin a friendship around a shared love of music and decide to form a pop group. 

What results is a delightful flurry of quirky whimsy and bittersweet melancholy — with a huge dose of ear candy thrown in for good measure, of course.  Every second on the screen seems filled to the brim with aesthetically pleasing cinematography, along with the equally pleasant (and surprisingly so) vocal stylings of the film’s three ineffably charming leads.  As the titular character, Emily Browning embodies Eve with a depth of emotion evident in both her acting and her wispy lilt of a singing voice; while Olly Alexander (already a known musical talent in his own right with his band Years & Years) is perfectly awkward as James.  Reprising yet another role onscreen as a girl named Cassie, Hannah Murray continues to extend the same kooky-yet-ethereal quality in this film as she did with her similarly-named character in the television drama Skins.

Serving as perfect accompaniment to its homage to mid-century pop, the film playfully nods to iconic images of the past — particularly that of films of the era.  The most obvious of these is Browning herself, who is practically a modern-day dead ringer for Anna Karina — famed wife and muse to French New Wave director-auteur Jean-Luc Godard.  (Other visual references at play refer to Jacques Demy’s Young Girls of Rochefort and the Beatles’ Hard Day’s Night.) Murdoch not only turns one’s eye toward the beauty of his characters but also his native Glasgow.  While one might not immediately associate the city with particularly picturesque landscapes, the first-time director achieves just that with his portrayal of rivers, grassy hillsides, and moody city life.  In the end, it is a film which portrays a Scotland that is just as beautiful and multi-dimensional as not only the characters inhabiting it, but also the music which underscores it.

Images courtesy of Metrodome.

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The Body Keeps the Score: Marta Mondelli’s ‘Toscana, or What I Remember’ Exercises Some Muscle Memory

For many, memories can be a wonderful thing.  They have the ability to transcend time and space — perhaps to when things were simpler or more innocent.  For others, they can often leave one paralyzed in more ways than one, stuck on a never-ending loop.  In the case of Marta Mondelli’s Toscana, or What I Remember, it is the latter which seems to hold its grasp around the character Emma (played by Ms. Mondelli herself).  

The picturesque backdrop of Tuscany belies the painful memories it may bring to the people in it — particularly, ex-pat Emma, who has just returned to her native Tuscany for her father’s funeral.  Upon her return, she is confronted by memories at every turn.  From the children’s bookstore she remembers frequenting as a young girl; to the bakery which once stood across the street from her hotel; to even the familiar song a young girl nearby persistently sings (much to her annoyance) — a bevy of seemingly fond childhood remembrances but which in reality are relics representative of a more troubled past.  At the receiving end of her frustration is Emma’s American husband Fred (Scott Barton), who himself is bound to a wheelchair — the result of a car accident, referred to later in the play through expository dialogue.  Between the two of them, these memories of past traumas leave their relationship stilted and in constant turmoil, both emotionally and physically.

Serving as counterpoint (as well as some much-needed comedic relief) to the veteran couple is another couple on holiday: the younger and ever-so-cheery Coles, comprised of botany professor and expert Larry (Lance Olds) and his pregnant wife Sue (Nicole Kontolefa).  The Coles, who hail from Wisconsin, find themselves abroad due to a conference Larry is attending, and in awe at everything the Tuscan countryside has to offer (much, again, to Emma’s chagrin).  The two seemingly mismatched couples clash by the pool, their differences at first much more apparent than their similarities, whatever these may be.  

After a few awkward run-ins and misunderstandings, Sue and Fred find themselves alone, pondering the mysteries of the human body, whilst Emma and Larry do the same, albeit with the latter dispensing some botanically-infused wisdom along with it.  He describes something called habituation, in which a plant learns to adapt itself to its environment:  “There is this plant that opens and closes its flowers,” he starts.  “If you drop this flower, let’s say, fifty times, the first few times the plant will take a long time to re-open its flowers.  Because that’s a new stimulus.  But on the fiftieth time, it will take only a few seconds.”

The flower within the play itself, of course, is Emma, whose own memory seems to wilt and diminish as the play goes on, the repeated stimulus of the young child’s singing constantly haunting her.  Later on, when Larry encounters her once again by the pool, he witnesses Emma engulfed in yet another memory, splayed on a lounge chair and speaking to him in Italian, clearly mistaking him for her father.  She comes to, and once again, earlier musings on the effect of memories physically and metaphysically come back into play.  As she explains to Larry, the respective translations of the Italian words for “remember” and “forget” literally describe how memories lodge themselves within us: first, acquired through your heart (ricordare), before flowing through every pore of your body, eventually evaporating from your mind (dimenticare) and into thin air.  Emma’s own tortured memories do not dissipate quite as easily and instead completely take over her.  Eventually, it is revealed that the incidents of mistaken identity between the characters aren’t just scrambled memories, but rather something far worse: a muscle memory of sorts that Emma’s body can’t soon forget…even if her mind already has.

Toscana, Ms. Mondelli’s second outing at the Cherry Lane Theatre (the first of which being the excellent The Window, which I had the pleasure of reviewing for Off Off Online here.), is yet another example of the playwright’s many strengths.  The ability to condense big ideas into an intimate piece of theatre is perhaps one of the hardest tasks any writer is given, and one which Ms. Mondelli not only tackles gamely, but also executes with ease.  Such ease depicted onstage must also be attributed to the trio of cast members at her side, whose collective commitment to their respective roles lends just the right amount of gravitas, humor and everything in between.  As a whole, Toscana is a lovely exploration into Memory and its grasp on places and people, and a piece worthy of self-exploration of one’s own.

Images courtesy of Seth Perlman.

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Girl Anachronism: Aquila Theatre Company Reveals the Feminine Side to Literature’s Most Famous Private Eye

Just as a certain wildly popular celebrity departed from New York to commence production on a certain wildly popular television show based on a certain wildly popular, old-timey-but-updated sleuth, another iteration made its way back to the city.  Over at the Queens Theatre, Aquila Theatre Company presented an adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic stories of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.  Aquila, the Professional company-in-residence at New York University’s Center for Ancient Studies, is another in a recent line of companies at the theatre whose mission is to provide the public with accessible interpretations of classic works.

(The other one being the theater’s own company-in-residence, TITAN Theatre Company, the most recent production of which I reviewed here.)

As stated above, everyone’s favorite snarky sociopath has seen many a proliferation find its way into the pop culture canon over the years, namely: Guy Ritchie’s films with Robert Downey, Jr.; CBS’ Elementary; and the BBC/Masterpiece hit co-production Sherlock.  Books such as The Sherlock Holmes Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained and Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes — along with Conan Doyle’s original collection of works, of course — have lined bookstore shelves, further heightening the Holmesian craze.  If one were to actually apply these books’ methods, one would probably, and very logically, conclude that it would be only a matter of time until a stage adaptation crept upon us.

In which case, that would be correct.

However, unlike that wildly popular celebrity (y’know, the one whose name sounds a bit like Beryllium Cucumber), the Sherlock of Desiree Sanchez’s imagining is much less the tall, cherub-faced specimen of a man we’ve come to know and love onscreen, and instead takes his form in that of a tall, lithe-limbed…woman onstage.

Yes, that’s right, Sherlock Holmes is a female — at least for our purposes here.

Admittedly, it was this exact promise of a “female Sherlock” which led this writer to this particular production in the first place; not only because the prospect of a woman grasping the chance at playing such a character was too interesting and “hmm”-worthy to pass up, but also because the idea of girls in cloaks kicking ass arse was always a personal point-of-interest.  This Sherlock’s female-ness is certainly mentioned within the dialogue of the play, but done so in an almost flippant manner, as if seeing a woman don trousers (along with signature cape and deerstalker hat) in Victorian England instead of a corset and skirts were a natural occurence.  It would seem that this unusual piece of casting was not a device to highlight any political undertones in the text, as with the case of TITAN’s Othello last year; nor was it a way to subvert expectations, just as The Queen’s Company’s production of Sir Patient Fancy did two years ago..

This is not to say that Jackie Schram, the actress embodying the role, did not succeed in exceeding those expectations.  On the contrary, Ms. Schram brings into her Sherlock one that is just as quick-witted, observant and resourceful as the original canon’s, managing all the while to inject some physical humor along the way.  In fact, physicality played a major role in providing much of the levity in the play — aided most wonderfully by Ms. Schram’s delightful Watson to her Holmes, Peter Groom, who does everything from clacking away frantically at a typewriter to scuttering frightfully away from a creaking door.  The rest of the cast is rounded out with Kirsten Foster, Michael Rivers and Hemi Yeroham, all of whom gamely join in on the fun, as well; most notably, in a scene from Sherlock’s first case (‘The Adventure of the Copper Beeches’), wherein they are chased by a bloodthirsty dog — albeit, an invisible one.

The play, much like its characters in ‘Copper Beeches,’ fumbles along at first, trying to find its footing, tonally.  Many of the jokes only manage to garner a few laughs in many of the early scenes, but eventually hits its stride by the second case, ‘The Adventure of the Yellow Face,’ the conclusion of which is not revealed until the beginning of the play’s second act, providing some fun tension.  By the time we delve into one of the most famous of Holmesian cases, ‘A Scandal in Bohemia,’ the entire theatre attention is held rapt, as our female Sherlock comes face-to-face with Irene Adler, later dubbed by the detective as “The Woman.”  Again, despite many possibilities for an interesting, modern interpretation of this case (i.e., homo-erotic overtones), ‘Scandal’ was played rather straightforwardly, and disappointingly so.  Still, the ensemble’s strong and energetic performance more than made up for these missed opportunities, making for an enjoyable evening in the theater.

Images courtesy of Richard Termine. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ran from April 1-23, 2016 at The Queens Theatre (14 United Nations Avenue) and the GK ArtsCenter (29 Jay Street).

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How History Happens: TITAN Theatre Company Fearlessly Ushers ‘Julius Caesar’ Into a Brave New World

TITAN Theatre Company has seen the future — and the future is bleak.  The political climate gains momentum, with public opinion ruled by sweeping promises of  Rhetoric, rather than the practicality of Reason.  This could refer to the mud-slinging rat race currently going on in our country, referring instead to one which occurred hundreds of years ago.  The Queens-based theatre collective continues in their mission to breathe new life into classic works with a sleek, provocative take on William Shakespeare’s politically-centered historical historical drama.  The production marks the end of TITAN’s third full season as company-in-residence at the Queens Theatre, this time with Jack Young at the helm.  

In a lot of ways, Caesar stays true to many elements that have become part-and-parcel to a quintessentially TITAN production: a modern setting against which the company’s consistently strong ensemble of actors (along mostly intact Shakespearean dialogue) are juxtaposed.  However, while these elements are certainly carried over into Caesar, giving it that particular air of TITAN-esque familiarity, this production is also a departure from the company’s other works, leaning even more bravely toward the avant-garde.  This fearlessness is perhaps due not just to TITAN’s ensemble of actors (resident company members and visiting artists alike) and its artistic director, Lenny Banovez, but also to the production’s own design team.

Sarah Pearline’s scenic design truly sets the stage for Caesar‘s bleak dystopia.  Just like classic novels of the genre — particularly, George Orwell’s 1984 — the set, despite its stark minimalism, cloaks itself deep in complex symbolism.  Instead of the traditional Roman columns one might expect from the world of Caesar, Pearline punctuates TITAN’s futuristic Rome with the criss-crossing, ray-like beams across the back wall of the set, conjuring images of both the steel frames of corporate buildings and bars of a prison cell.  Either way, the people of Rome are certainly trapped in a less-than-idyllic system — a totalitarian regime, in fact, ruled by the titular tyrant Julius Caesar (Jonathan Smoots) himself.  

Early on in the first act, Cassius (Banovez) utters the famous lines: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in our Selves, that we are underlings.”  Not everything is as fated as we think it is, and if it is Rome that is in a state of complete tyranny, then it is because the people were complicit in their own subjugation.  This is made clear just as the ensemble enters the stage and we can see, etched across its floor, criss-crossing geometrical lines dotted at various points — remarkably similar to constellations in the sky.  At first, the group of Romans, decked out in black slacks and crisp white shirts by costumer Lorraine Smyth, step out individually into a strange assembly of movements.  These movements at first seem random until Caesar himself enters, standing at the center of the stage where all points of the “constellation” on the ground meet, and at the motion of his staff, they fall into a synchronized dance of sorts.  The choreography, abstract and yet specific in its thoroughly modern, Graham- and Cunningham-esque movements, most enhances the production’s aforementioned departures into bolder artistic territory.

However, it doesn’t just stop with just the design elements and choreography.  As they did in last year’s Othello, TITAN rounds up some of the best stage actors found on both coasts and in-between; and as always, it seems almost blasphemous to single any one actor out.  From the aforementioned “grand entrance” in the beginning to the inevitable assassination scene and its dramatic, consequential end the ensemble move as one, egos thrown aside for the sake of better serving the story.  That said, TITAN also utilizes double-casting in Caesar (something seen before in their previous productions –particularly A Midsummer Night’s Dream), which also allows for each actor in all of their varied, respective roles, to shine equally.

Unlike the dystopian doom they depict onstage, TITAN once again proves that unity as a group can positively serve the public at large, and that to progress in theater is not only to challenge its boundaries, but also compel one to think critically.

Images courtesy of Michael Dekker. Julius Caesar ran from March 25 – April 10, 2016 at the Queens Theatre (14 United Nations Avenue).

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