"Battlefield" at ACT

ACT photo

Right on the heels of seeing Needles and Opium and its spectacular staging just a couple of weeks ago, we returned to the Geary Theatre yesterday afternoon for a very different sort of show, Battlefield. Adapted from a portion of the famous poem "The Mahabharata," the play covers the aftermath of a devastating bloodbath. As the photo above suggests, the staging is quite sparse, basically a bare stage with a few sticks and boxes and a few cloth drapes. "Minimal" kind of understates how simple the staging is.

The Play

Coming as it does out of the middle of an extremely long story, the play leaves one to find and tie together some of the threads that are missing. We know we join the story after a mutual massacre: both armies have been slaughtered, almost to a man. The descriptions are quite poetic, delivered with a stoicism that seems to indicate shock. The "victorious" leader is to be crowned king of the defeated side, currently ruled by his uncle. [This is one of the points where we realize there is much, much more to this story, but we have to just go with it.] He decides he won't take the job, but the uncle insists, and sends him off to talk to his father, the victor's grandfather.

There ensues a lot of storytelling, focused on duty and destiny. There is a sort of reconciliation, but then the uncle and his wife head off into the woods. There is a lot of magical, mystical stuff going on out there. Some other stuff happens.

The Production

So this all goes on for about an hour and a quarter. The acting is pretty good, but always muted and unemotional. Obviously the situation is loaded with emotion, but the actors barely express any of it, either physically or verbally. This is all intentional. Director and co-adapter Peter Brook is apparently known for this style, so it's very innovative. Unfortunately, I don't find it very effective. Perhaps if I knew the story coming in, I would find some importance in the way the material is presented. But coming in cold, it just leaves me cold. I understand stripping away the artifice of scenery and props. But removing the human emotions makes no sense to me. Understated is one thing; unstated quite another.

It doesn't help that the play ultimately doesn't go anywhere. [Spoiler, I guess...] At the end, when the characters are supposed to find out The Meaning Of It All, we get a (very nice) drum solo by Toshi Tsuchitori, and then...nothing. The lights come up. Eventually people clap. We're done.

Bottom Line

Ho hum. The very sparing style of the production comes across not as a humble attempt to let the humanity come through in the absence of artifice, despite the stated intentions of the director, as noted in an interview in the program. Really, the emperor has no play, despite the praise heaped on him and it by his fawning fans. It just seems pretentious and, dare I say, lazy.

There are some nice elements in the staging, but ultimately, it's a pretty empty shell. Asking me to fill it in for myself begs the question of why I paid for a ticket to this play instead of reading the poem for myself.

OK, enough. I thought this was a pretty wasted effort. If the director can't be bothered to have a point of view and express it, I can't be bothered to go see his work.