The Threepenny Opera, with F. Murray Abraham

New York-area readers hungry for a little Weimer Republic-era color could do no better than the recent revival of The Threepenny Opera, currently at the Linda Gross Theater, 336 West 20^th Street, Manhattan.  In an English adaptation by Marc Blitzstein (1905-1964) of the Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) book, the small but game troupe of professionals breathes new life into the show with music by Kurt Weill (1900-1950).

Under the direction of Martha Clarke (born 1944), this production owes its artistic inspiration to the style of the seductive and seedy era of Weimar Berlin, and it is gamely played by the Atlantic Theater company.  The Blitzstein translation of the original is the same as appeared in the US in 1954, when the Opera played at the Lucille Lortel Theatre.

The Opera was originally adapted from an 18^th Century English ballad opera, John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera.  The Weill-Brecht show opened originally in Berlin in 1928, and was hailed as a socialist criticism of capitalist society.  Though filled with many fine songs, only The Ballad of Mack the Knife has since become a standard.  (There is a wonderful recording of Lotte Lenya, Mrs. Kurt Weill and star of the original production, singing with Louis Armstrong here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5362wt7-dEM.)

The story is simply told: two-bit punk Macheath (Mack the Knife) marries virginal Polly Peachum.  This enrages her father, who is King of the Beggars, and he works to have Macheath hanged for past crimes.  However, Tiger Brown, the Chief of Police, is an old crony of Mack’s, and he ensures the criminal’s safety.  When Peachum finally has Mack behind bars and heading towards a well-deserved hanging, the villain receives a pardon from the Queen, along with a baronetcy. 

Working on a bare-bone set, the cast manages to convey the seamy back-streets of London, a brothel, the home of the beggar king and an open-air hanging.  The invention of the staging is matched only by the game playing of the cast, who invest the show with rare theatrical alchemy.

Though Clarke’s staging is uniformly creative, it is, to our taste, marked by a taste for the sordid and the seedy.  It was hardly necessary for the brothel scene to be punctuated by moments of simulated sex or gratuitous nudity.  (No prudes here at The Jade Sphinx, we like nudity more than the next fellow.  It just doesn’t have to have such an unsavory, sordid air.)  At times, Clarke doesn’t trust the material and over-compensates, hardly necessary, considering the inherent theatricality of the show.  Clarke’s work may be very smart, but it leaves a dank taste at times.

As the Beggar King, F. Murray Abraham (born 1939) cuts a wonderfully, Fagin-like figure.  By turns majestic and threadbare, he manages to invest his character with a tremendous, conniving energy.  Mary Beth Peil (born 1940), as his wife, Mrs. Peachum, is a powerhouse of venom and indignation.

Laura Osnes (born 1985), as Polly, was recently seen in the Broadway production of Cinderella, and there are few more beautiful voices currently on Broadway.  Her acting is clean and direct, her charisma high and her singing magnificent.  More please.

Also solid is Rick Holmes (born 1963), as Tiger Brown, as well as two standouts in the ensemble: Timothy Doyle and Jon David Casey.  Doyle first came to our attention for his scene-stealing turn opposite Frank Langella in Fortune’s Fool some 10 years ago, and we wonder why he is not a bigger star.  Casey has an impressive physicality and presence, and his handsome face can easily transform into effective menace.  I’m sure we will see more of them both.

Perhaps the one disappointing performance comes from leading man Michael Park (born 1968), as Mack.  Where the role calls for calculating, slimy insouciance, Park never seems to be more than the self-centered football star remembered from our college days.  He never effectively projects menace, intelligence or charm – vital components of Mack.  Fortunately, the overall quality of the show transcends the hole in its center.

Recommended.

Frank Langella Is King Lear at BAM

We here at The Jade Sphinx are still reeling from the magnificent performance of Derek Jacobi (born 1938) as Lear at BAM nearly three years ago.  It remains, simply, the greatest Shakespearean turn we have ever witnessed.  Is Frank Langella (born 1938), one of the finest actors of his generation, up to the challenge?

Lear is one of the most provoking and ambiguous of Shakespeare’s plays.  Its place in his cosmology is deeply contentious – is the play one of the most bleak and despairing ever penned, or do the final reconciliations and admissions of frail humanity make it ultimately optimistic?  We have seen Lears howling into windstorms, mumbling quietly to themselves, and – sometimes, as in the case of Jacobi – opening their inner-selves to display the very workings of their souls.

The current production of King Lear is a mixed bag of delights.  As is often the case when a “Great Actor” tackles a major role, many of the supporting parts are stinted, and that is the case here.  Fortunately, the overall value of the production maintains a consistent interest.

We are first struck by the wonderful set by Robert Innes Hopkins, a blasted heath right out of a horror film.  Lit by torches, capable of suggesting a castle and a barren ruin, it strikes a wonderfully somber note (helped immeasurably by dramatic lighting by Peter Mumford).

Cavorting through this magnificent design is Langella.  Oddly enough this protean actor, so famous for the velvety richness of his voice, changes the timbre and pitch to something more like a growl.  Where Jacobi saw Lear as alternately a spoiled and abused child, Langella visualizes the King as both an old fool and an old bully.  It is an entirely valid approach, but his growling, shouting and raging in the first act strikes a single note, and his performance suffers from a lack of variety.

However, Langella improves exponentially in the second act.  His voice returns to its normal register.  His mad scene with Gloucester is delightfully played, and his reconciliation with Cordelia moving.  At her death, his reading of "Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, And thou no breath at all? O thou'lt come no more, Never, never, never, never, never” is among the most moving I have ever seen.  Langella pauses between each “never,” looking into different parts of the theater, his voice softly echoing through the house.  It’s a wonderful moment, and one wishes there were more like it.

Director Angus Jackson creates a wonderfully theatrical experience, with many showy set-pieces.  The raging storm where Lear descends into madness is effective (though the staging nearly overwhelms Langella’s playing), and the suggested battle bits (lights flashing behind looming trees) is impressive.  

Sadly, Jackson falls far short of providing sufficient support for Langella. Denis Conway, as Glouscester, William Reay, as Burgundy, and Steven Pacey, as Kent, are all fine without setting the stage afire.  On the other hand, Catherine McCormack, as Goneril, and Isabella Laughland, as Cordelia, are simply wretched.  (In fact, Laughland is never more convincing than when she plays a corpse.)  As Albany, Chu Omambala delivers the most flat and uninteresting performance I have seen this season.

Lauren O’Neil is terrific as Regan, and Harry Melling quite wonderful as the Fool.  (Why does Shakespeare make this wonderful creation vanish from the latter part of the play?  One of the many mysteries of the play…)  As Cornwall, Tim Treloar is deliciously evil.

Better still are Max Bennett and Sebastian Armesto as half-brothers Edmund and Edgar, respectively, who lend wonderful support.  Armesto makes a particularly appealing Edgar, and straddles the difficult line of rejected son to feigned madman superbly.  Better still is Bennett.  King Lear often becomes Edmund’s play when cast correctly, and the handsome and athletic Bennett makes a meal of his role.  By turns suave, puckish, conniving, and amoral.  It is a star-making turn, and this Lear may signify the debut of a major, North American classical actor.  Mr. Bennett, more, please.

At the end, we were somewhat moved when the final effect should’ve been devastating.  This Lear is highly dramatic, but only intermittently moving.  It could have been so much more.

This production of Lear premiered in October 2013 at Chichester's Minerva Theatre and plays its New York engagement at BAM through Feb. 9 in the Harvey Theater.

Frank Langella at the Cornell Club

                          

Your correspondent had the great pleasure of listening to a question and answer session with legendary actor Frank Langella last Friday at New York’s Cornell Club.  The luncheon event, presented under the auspices of the Hudson Union Society, presented Langella in a discussion about his latest star turn in Terrance Rattigan’s (1911-1977) Man and Boy, and then opened the floor to questions.

Langella is one the Americans actors who has carved-out both formidable film and stage careers.  For over 30 years he has morphed from a handsome leading man to a distinguished character player; Broadway roles have included Noel’s Coward’s Gary Essidine (Present Laughter), Sir Thomas More (A Man For All Seasons), actor Junius Booth (the interesting and overlooked Booth by Austin Pendleton), and, of course, Dracula in the Edward Gorey production of Dracula.  (He played a vampire of another type recently in Frost/Nixon, rightly portraying the former president as a slightly rancid revenant.)

Langella’s film career has been more spotty.  Studios worked to make him a mainstream leading man (playing Dracula as a romantic idol, for instance, or in the wonderful Those Lips, Those Eyes), but Langella was never wholly successful as a traditional lead.  Langella’s persona is too epic, too dangerous, and too larger than life for conventional leads.  By temperament and by technique, he is ideally suited for such figures as Sherlock Holmes and Leonardo da Vinci, Prospero and Cyrano.

Langella has had a formidable handicap to his classical theater ambitions – he is an Italian-American born in New Jersey.  (I well recall one waggish New York Times reporter calling him, “Bayonne’s gift to classical theater,” which is both snobbish and stupid.)  Langella, born in 1938, joins a small, select group of North Americans – Christopher Plummer and Kevin Kline come to mind -- with capabilities at classical parts to rival their European counterparts. 

If you have the opportunity to see Langella in Man and Boy, do not miss it.  Rattigan’s 1963 drama about a monstrous captain of industry, and how he ruins the lives of both investors and his own son, could not be timelier as the temperature drops around our Occupy Wall Street heroes. 

Last Friday, Langella was an amusing interview.  He graciously answered questions about his turn as Dracula – though it’s quite clear that he is more than tired of it.  (“It took the industry 10 years to forget that I played Dracula; it took me 10 minutes.”)  He also revealed that he is a dedicated craftsman as well was a great artist – he believes in being on and delivering for audiences.  If you can’t ‘turn it on’ or ‘turn it off,’ you should not be an actor.  He also told of an actor who had played Hamlet and three months after the run, could still not let go of the role.  “Then you did it wrong,” Langella said.

Happily, he spoke at length about Cyrano, who has played three times on stage, and he is preparing to direct a production next year.  It’s Langella’s belief that there is more than a little Cyrano in every man.  “We are all blocked by something – we think we’re too fat or think we’re too ugly, or that our nose is too big – and because of that, we’re unworthy of the love of a beautiful woman,” he said.  “But what Cyrano missed is that he was loved for his soul, and if a person has a beautiful soul, he is always worthy of love.”

Langella spoke with a mix of nostalgia and amusement about his upbringing in a noisy Italian-American home.  (“If pots weren’t flying, I thought something was wrong.”)  He also spoke at length about his preference for stage work, and how proud his is that his has mainly been a theatrical career.

It is always alarming to see a great actor at his ease.  I had the impression that I was with an indulgent uncle rather Dracula, Cyrano and Prospero.  But that is Langella’s point – there is something grand and elemental in even the most quiet people.