"Thomas and Sally" at Marin Theatre Company

Marin Theatre Company photo by Kevin Berne

Well, everybody else is talking about this play this week. Turns out this is the right time for me to have seen it! It is highly unusual to encounter protesters trying to talk you out of going into a theater to see a play. But that was our introduction to Thomas and Sally on Saturday night at Marin Theatre Company. I had initially been indifferent to seeing this show, but my wife wanted to see it, so we did. After we bought our tickets a friend went and left at the first intermission (yes, there are two) because he didn't care for the play, which he summed up in three uncomplimentary adjectives (about the writing, not about the production).

Then today I was skimming Twitter and learned that a group of local theater artists, mostly African American, had written an open letter to Marin Theatre Company expressing their belief that this production "is an irresponsible, deeply harmful project with no accountability to black women and girls." Since I am neither a black theater artist nor affiliated with MTC, I won't get in the middle of that. But it is worth reading. I know quite a number of the writers and signers of that letter, and I respect their views.

What follows is my own thinking, based on my experience of the play, though obviously at least somewhat informed by the dialogue going on around me. It's probably safe to say this isn't the same post I would have written had I done so immediately upon coming home (which is probably good, because it was very late!), but I think most of the ideas are pretty similar.

The Play

Thomas and Sally is a very ambitious undertaking. It's a world premiere play, commissioned by MTC and written by Thomas Bradshaw. Artistic Director Jasson Minadakis (who also directed the play) hails from Virginia and has a passion for American history and particularly Jefferson and his relationship with the Hemings family, and he was really taken with Bradshaw's writing, so collaborating on this play made sense.

If you've been living under a rock (and if Minadakis is to be believed, a fair portion of his audience has been), you might not know about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. The short version is that plantation owner Jefferson had a "relationship" with Hemings, who was one of his slaves. It's a fairly big topic in historical circles.

Jefferson (Mark Anderson Phillips) was one of the "founding fathers" of the United States, primary author of the Declaration of  Independence, first Secretary of State, third president, provider of the initial stock for the Library of Congress, and so on. He was also a wealthy Virginia plantation owner, and among his possessions were over 600 slaves, including the Hemings family, including Sally. Nothing unusual there in colonial America, really. The kicker being that Jefferson had inherited the Hemings family on the death of his father-in-law, John Wayles (Robert Sicular). OK so far. But after the death of Wayles' third wife, he had taken a fancy to one of his slaves, Betty Hemings (Charlette Speigner), and fathered a number of children (eight, IIRC). Some of those children, including Sally Hemings (Tara Pacheco) survive and pass down to Jefferson. So Sally Hemings was the half-sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha (Ella Dershowitz). So even by the standards of the day, to adopt modern parlance, it's complicated.

This means Jefferson has a group of "special" slaves that his father-in-law has told him to treat well, keep out of the fields, etc. But they're still slaves, and can't be freed because then they would have to leave Virginia, among other things (it's the law; that's complicated, too). Among other things, some of the new Hemings slaves displace other slaves, such as Jefferson's long-time valet, Jupiter (played brilliantly by L. Peter Callender). That act of casual cruelty is one of the more realistic scenes in the play. And the overseer (Scott Coopwood) foresees that it will be difficult having some slaves treated almost as free servants while others slave in the fields. There is a lot going on.

Keep in mind that we have to go through the entirety of Act I to get all this. From what Minadakis explained in the after-play Q&A session, the first draft of that act was about 80 pages long, or nearly what a full play often covers. Though it has been edited considerably, it has to move at a quick clip, but it does so rather awkwardly.

But the play has three acts, and we're just getting started. Heck, we haven't even met Sally yet. As Act I turns into Act II, the recently-widowed Jefferson has been named minister to France, so he and his daughter, Patsy (normally Rosie Hallett, but read by someone else on Saturday--sorry I missed the name), and James Hemings (William Hodgson) head for Paris, where James apprentices as a chef (because...it's complicated). Later they are joined by younger daughter Polly (Dershowitz), who is accompanied by Sally Hemings.

So now lonely, widowed Thomas, much like his late father-in-law, finds himself alone, but with "needs" that can be met by...one of his slaves! So he slides into a sexual relationship with Sally, being at least somewhat discreet, at least at first. Needless to say, it's complicated. There is sex. There is seeming affection, and eventually, the inevitable pregnancy, right about the time the French Revolution breaks out, and the Jefferson/Hemings party needs to head back to Virginia. Somewhere in here we've had a super-awkward intermission break, because it happens while Thomas and Sally are in bed, and though the lights drop and the bed turns around, the actors are still visibly in it, so it doesn't really feel like one should leave. Stage hands eventually roll the bed off, but wow...uncomfortable moment.

Act III covers the (complicated, of course) decision about who goes home and when. James wants to stay in Paris where he can be free and a great chef. Thomas wants him to return to Virginia and "pay back" his apprenticeship. Sally really wants her child(ren) to be free, which pretty much means staying in France, but she also wants to be with her family, and maybe with Thomas. But with a few twists and turns, everybody ends up going home to Virginia, amidst promises of freedom for some, eventually, sort of.

The Frame Story

What I've left out here is the frame story. The play opens in a modern college dorm room, occupied by two young women, Simone and Karen (Dershowitz and Hallett-or-her-reader, respectively). Karenis writing a paper about slavery or Thomas Jefferson or something. It didn't seem that critical, so I forgot exactly what the topic was. Simone conveniently turns out to be a descendant of Jefferson and Sally Hemings, and proceeds to launch into a (three acts worth!) retelling of her family history, all the way back to the Wayles family refusing to sell Betty Hemings back to the captain (Coopwood) who fathered her on the voyage over from Africa (yes, really, three generations of these complications). All punctuated by several admonitions that "I'm not a historian." Because what this complicated story desperately needed was an unreliable narrator.

And to tie things up at the end, the two students have a little discussion about slaves and agency and love and such. Simone is quite adamant that slaves exercised all they agency they possibly could, all the time. Karen is non-committal about where she's going to come down on all this; she'll think it over. And she promises to do research to verify all the stories Simone has told her.

The Production

As with most MTC productions, the quality is high. The actors are capable, the sets well-designed and -built, good lighting, costumes, and so on. I don't have many complaints here. The bed, mentioned earlier, where Jefferson and Hemings ... er ... "sleep" is upright. As in they are standing up against an upright "bed" with bedding draped around them like a curtain. It looks really strange. It's especially awkward when Jefferson is lying in bed, having taken ill, and James comes in to talk to him, standing next to the bed. Combine that with the way Act II ends in the bed, and it's just way too weird. All the other beds (and there are a number of them, from the dorm room to Wayles' home to Monticello, to the rest of the time in Paris when Jefferson an Hemings aren't doing it) are horizontal, and we get along quite fine there.

And for some reason, the scene changes are done quite abruptly and loudly, with rumbling, sliding and squeaking and actors shove things relatively short distances. This seemed often unnecessary and quite distracting.

The play, and especially the first act, is too long. 2:45 with two intermissions. I think it actually ran long, in addition to starting late. I suspect the late start was due to whatever kept one of the actors from performing. The understudy/replacement sat in a chair off to one side of the stage and read the lines from a script. She did it pretty well, but it definitely detracted from the overall performance. I'm sure there was a good reason for all this, but it made the start of the long evening just that much odder.

And then there is the sex. Obviously, sex is an important part of the story, because if it weren't for the three generations of masters impregnating their slaves, we don't have a story at all. Fine, we get that. But the opening scene starts with a discussion of a missing/borrowed dildo and then we get a fair amount of rather juvenile taunting about penis size and then way too much detail about the highly implausible first encounter between Thomas and Sally. The last got a lot of feedback in the post-show discussion, but it was clear there was never any notion of cutting or changing that scene, though they thought of ending it a little bit sooner.

The Problems

Clearly, I have some issues with this play and production. And it's a bit hard to separate whether my issues are actually with the play as written or with the play as produced, because I haven't read it. And since this is the world premiere of a work that was commissioned and developed by this theater and this cast and creative team, it's hard to say that a problem lies on one side or the other. I take it as given that this crew knows and expresses the wishes of the playwright pretty closely.

Any writing about Jefferson and Hemings suffers from the tremendous imbalance of available information on the two subjects. Jefferson is extremely well-known and well-documented. About Hemings, very little is actually known directly. So virtually everything said or done by or about Jefferson we can weigh against what we know or believe. But with Hemings we don't have that luxury. Everything here is either an invention or an interpretation by Bradshaw, but we don't have a way to evaluate its validity.

In this story as related by Simone, we see and hear Jefferson do things that are clearly not correct. For example, there is a scene where Ben Franklin and John Adams essentially abdicate the job of writing the Declaration of Independence onto an unwilling Jefferson. But anyone who knows much about Jefferson knows that is completely out of character, and that he proudly drafted the Declaration. And in dialogue we hear him declare himself to be "the foremost abolitionist of his day." Is this Simone putting words in his mouth ironically? Or is this the family lore, that Jefferson desperately wanted abolition, but wasn't able to free his slaves because...take your pick of various reasons. Lots of signalling here that we can't take any of this at face value: Fine. But at no point does Bradshaw ever come down on any side at all. And indeed, he leaves us with Karen saying she'll think it all over before writing her college paper.

That's it? Three hours of play to leave us with "decide for yourselves"? Or, you can take Simone's strident defense of slaves acting with all they agency they could whenever they could, and take her Act III romantic scene at face value, that Sally and Thomas loved each other, that he couldn't free her because she would have to leave Virginia and basically go underground, or she would have to leave him (for example, staying in Paris during the revolution). Sure, it's complicated. But that's not a very effective message to express.

Furthermore, Jefferson was famously able to hold and profess at least two or three contrary positions on the question of slavery. So the fact that the play portrays those contradictions doesn't really do much to assist the audience is reaching any conclusion.

And then there is the language, particularly of Act I. I don't know if it's just the amount of editing that had to be done, or whether the playwright or the director really intend for all the historical characters in that act to come across as caricatures, but that is largely (yet not entirely) what happens. Are we supposed to take this as the playwright being ironic, signaling that he knows we know these are just simplistic expressions of complicated ideas? Or does the awkwardness and anachronism derive from the interpretations of the young college student (who is not, not, not a historian!). And if we don't believe the caricatures, does that mean we're supposed to believe the characters when they become more realistic in Act II?

Ultimately, the play tries to do too much, and ends up doing too little. By trying to condense the vast amount of information that is actually known about Jefferson, supplemented with all the cool research on The Wayles and Hemings families and the creative writing about Sally, and surrounding it with a fictitious frame story, Bradshaw seems to have lost track of what story he actually wanted to tell, and instead of telling a story just presents a lot of bits and pieces that never tie together. That's pretty unsatisfying.

The Q&A

I would be remiss not to talk about the Q&A session that followed the play. Director Jasson Minadakis came out on stage and took questions from the audience for a long time, and we learned a lot about the play, the development process, and some of the controversy that has surrounded the production. A lot of his stories were interesting and instructive, but ultimately not very satisfying. It doesn't feel like he's quite understanding what all the fuss is about. I was pleasantly surprised with the number of people who stayed to talk, and both the quantity and quality of questions they raised.

As with the curtain speech before the show (which was delivered by someone else), Minadakis was pretty dismissive of the protesters outside, saying they haven't seen the show, so their view is invalid. I was impressed when one African-American woman spoke up to say she had basically been deputized by her reading group to come and see what this was all about. And she had some pretty damning comments about the production that really hit home. I kind of wish she hadn't framed it as "fake news," since that term is pretty overloaded at the moment. But I think it's fair to summarize at least part of her point as being that the story as presented, whether you want to classify it as seduction or mutual attraction and affection or whatever, cannot be true. I haven't even talked about the vast age difference between Thomas and Sally when they first "hook up," never mind the vast difference in power and influence (an oh, yeah, the whole owner/property thing), but the essence of the message was that any portrayal of a relationship between a master and slave that suggests the two are even remotely in a consensual relationship is deluded. Again, my words here.

One question I asked related to the unreliable narrator, and why hand the story over to her if it's not going to result in a modern interpretation of the situation. The answer, such as it was, dealt with Bradshaw's musings over how to explain the situation to his own mixed-race children. Not very illuminating. Perhaps more disturbing was Minadakis' insistence that Bradshaw doesn't want to give us a conclusion, that he's presented us with enough clear examples to reach our own conclusions. Indeed, from the program notes from the dramaturg and an online interview with Bradshaw, the recurring message is that there is no message, that it's an exploration, that we can never really know the truth.

That feels like a serious cop out. Even if we can't reach absolute metaphysical certainty, we can certainly draw some meaningful conclusions. Or we can explore different avenues and see where they lead. But this play doesn't do that. It just presents, without comment or evaluation, a quite implausible scenario. And it has certainly irritated a lot of people, so I guess if that's what one means by "provocative," it has certainly provoked. But to what end?

The Inevitable Comparison

Here's the thing: I've already seen this "exploration" done much more provocatively, and much more effectively. Last season at Berkeley Rep, we saw An Octoroon, by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. I won't rehash it here, since you can just click over to my earlier comments. But the point is that Jacobs-Jenkins masterfully manipulates his audience, doing things that are outlandishly offensive (and thus, "provocative"), and then stepping back and examining how that works. Time and again we got pulled into a point of view, only to have it invalidated. And the thing is, it deals with the love between a white slave owner and a woman he nominally owns. It's complicated, too, but Jacobs-Jenkins doesn't let that get in the way of really making his audience face up to the questions presented.

If I hadn't already seen An Octoroon, I might have been more impressed with Thomas and Sally. But having seen a production that not only "explores," but genuinely examines issues, taboos, and prejudices, I know that it's not enough to just present some (im)possible scenario and let people think about it. The playwright's job is to take us somewhere, and if the playwright doesn't have a point, he really doesn't have a play, he just has a bunch of people watching a show.

No wonder people get upset. There are some clear and obvious lessons one can learn from giving even cursory analysis to a situation like this. To simply ignore that and say "this isn't what I believe, it's just something to think about" is insulting to the audience and even more insulting to those whose views, agency, and very personhood are denied by the scenario presented.

The Bottom Line

It seems only reasonable to ask what the point of this endeavor really is. If the playwright and director don't want to have a point of view, why are they producing this play? I suppose the answer might lie in my initial statement about this being an ambitious undertaking. MTC saw an opportunity to raise its profile by commissioning a work from a hot New York writer, and everyone perhaps took their eyes off the finish line in the excitement of working together. There's plenty of interesting material here, but it seems irresponsible to merely stir things up if you have no actual reason for doing so, and no way to help resolve the inevitable frustrations of those who see the play and those who feel they are hurt by the presentation.

Talk-backs after the show help. Indeed, I don't know that I've ever seen a show that needed a talk-back afterward like this one did. But if you find that you have to talk people down after every show, perhaps that's a sign that you should have incorporated some of that into the show itself. And I do give Minadakis full credit for sitting up there on stage taking questions from all comers. He made it pretty clear that he was there as long as people wanted to ask. discuss, vent, or what have you. That's not easy, and he did it with equanimity. Still, I have to think that a bit of awareness earlier in the process could have saved a lot of the current angst.

Originally scheduled to end this past weekend, it appears MTC has extended the run another week, through October 29. I wish I could endorse going to see this show, as it has some good talent and some interesting bits. But on the whole, I didn't find the show itself particularly interesting. I admit that I'm glad I saw it, as it gives me better insight into the controversy. But as far as theatrical productions, I'd give it a pass. There are plenty of shows out there that are more worth your time.

"The Farm" at TheatreFIRST

I read George Orwell's "Animal Farm" in my freshman English class in high school. The book is a very accessible introduction to a number of different aspects of literature, including political satire and extended metaphor. By portraying the characters with different kinds of animals, Orwell provides a richness to his characterizations beyond the individual personas he creates. Not only do we understand some of the sub-groupings of individuals on the farm, but we impute characteristics to those groups based on our knowledge of the animals.

This works great on the page, but I wondered how it would translate to the stage. A few years before I hooked up with the Shotgun Players, they had produced Jon Tracy's adaptation of "Animal Farm" called The Farm, but I missed it. As luck would have it, the opening show of TheatreFIRST's current season is a revived and updated rendition of The Farm.

The Play

The script stays pretty close to the story thread of the book, at least as I recall it. The animals, tired of working for the farmer only to end up slaughtered, rise up and drive out the farmer, taking over the running of the farm for themselves. They set up an egalitarian collectivist structure with a set of seven precepts or commandments, which they paint on the wall for all to see (even those who can't read). The most important and memorable of these is the dictate that "All animals are equal," along with "Four legs good; two legs bad."

As the story progresses and the ideals of the revolutionary animals meets up with the reality of running a farm, behavior seems to diverge from the commandments of Animalism, but it turns out that the commandments themselves have been altered, too. And no one can quite recall when or how that happened, but somehow there are now conditions and modifiers on the very straightforward original laws.

The longer we go, the clearer it becomes that the pigs are running the farm for their benefit, much as the humans had, even to the point that they are making deals with the neighboring human farms. And by the end of the story, the pigs have become essentially indistinguishable from the humans, and have subjugated all the other animals. Indeed, some animals are more equal than others.

The Production

On a rather dark, stark stage with some nondescript structure to suggest fencing or pens, the animals arrive. Rather than creating elaborate costumes, each type of animal has a sort of uniform suggesting their species. The horses, for example, wear tan work coveralls and boots. The sheep have woolly sweaters, and so on. What I found particularly effective was the small behaviors that each animal affected, perhaps most notably Clover the horse (Anna Joham), who had a distinctive way of tossing her head and pawing the ground that was quite equine. The designers (particularly costume designer Miyuki Bierlein) and co-directors (Michael Torres and Elena Wright) have done a terrific job of making the visuals subtle, yet evocative. That's good, because the story is a pretty blunt instrument, and trying to accurately present animals or a farm would probably distract from the point of the play.

Adapter Jon Tracy has taken the ordinary prose of Orwell's story and converted it into something more like a poem, with snappy little rhymes and rhythms that keep it flowing and show a cleverness without overwhelming the flow of the story. It's only occasionally that the language draws attention to itself, but when it does it's generally to good effect. Similarly, the insertion of little songs, chants, and raps flow pretty seamlessly. Much as the pigs' conniving to distort the messages of Animalism to their own ends is done in such as way that the other animals either don't notice or are powerless to oppose it, Tracy's adaptations of the story fit so neatly that one almost doesn't notice that some dialogue has morphed into rhyme until it goes somewhere else, and you find yourself thinking "well, that was neat!"

There are other good touches, such as the use of the revolutionary hog, Old Major (Anthony Frederick Aranda). His imposing figure introduces the animals to the idea of rising up, but his early demise removes him from the immediate action, though he remains an inspiration and a touchpoint (either his memory or his physical skull). The production handles that by having Old Major linger in the background, beating a drum off and on, maintaining his presence throughout. And every time the wise donkey, Benjamin (Dean Koya), tries to point out that the pigs are violating the precepts of Animalism, someone points out that he is an ass.

The Bottom Line

I was really impressed with this production. The acting ensemble is very strong. I haven't called out many of the individuals, largely because they function so well as a collective. It's not that there aren't good performances, but more that no one really dominate the story or the audience's attention. The ringleader of the pigs, Napolean (Tierra Allen) is very good, but not in a way that outshines the rest of the pigs or the other animals, and indeed, that's kind of the message of the story.

TheatreFIRST has done a good job of creating a balanced, diverse cast and crew, in keeping with their mission. I have a little qualm about whether "The Farm" really fits their stated goal of "amplifying marginalized stories," given how well-known the source material is. And really, critiques of communism and socialism are hardly marginalized in Berkeley! That said, it is definitely a fresh, lively take on the story, and the creativity of both the adaptation and the staging are clear.

This is a show that deserves to be seen, not so much because people need to see "Animal Farm" on stage, but more because it shows how powerfully a creative group can take a familiar story and turn it into something fresh and relevant without having to produce a giant, flashy spectacle. Indeed, it's refreshing to see the story kind of stripped down to its essence, with the effort placed on character and nuance instead of realism and flash.

And for once, I saw a show early enough in its run that I can recommend that you go to see it. The show runs through November 11, and ticket prices are very reasonable. It's well worth a trip to the Live Oak Theater to see this one.

"Blasted" at Shotgun Players

Shotgun Players photo by Cheshire Isaacs

I've been anticipating this night for more than a year. Last September, when Shotgun announced that they were going to produce Sarah Kane's play Blasted this season, there was kind of a collective gasp from the audience from those who knew about the play. I wasn't one of those, because I didn't know about it. I have come to understand that this is kind of the third-rail of modern theater, a play so controversial because of its explicit onstage portrayal of truly awful human behavior that for the most part no theater will touch it.

Shotgun, however, is in the midst of a a couple of seasons of intentionally working to get patrons to actively react to their productions, hosting nightly talkbacks and choosing plays that really insist that the audience engage both in the auditorium and (at least intellectually) afterward. So producing Blasted is at a minimum going to invoke some strong reactions of "why are they doing this?"

And before I did too deeply into this production, I should add my usual disclaimer that I am a member of the board of the Shotgun Players, so I am involved with this theater, though not really in the artistic aspects, just on the business side. Although I often sponsor productions at Shotgun, Blasted was not one.

The Play

Sarah Kane was an extremely controversial and noteworthy playwright in the 1990s. She  was also deeply, clinically depressed, and only wrote five plays before she committed suicide in 1999. She apparently started by writing a play about an older man and younger woman meeting up in a hotel, but was distracted by the genocide going on in Bosnia at the time, and decided to tackle the issue of how people could attend theater as a distraction from the gross inhumanity taking place daily by bringing some of that inhumanity onto the stage.

And make no mistake, the play brings inhumanity in both large and small senses into an inescapable room in front of our eyes. There is no way to avoid the full range of bad human interactions from really small microaggressions in the conversation of the two lovers meeting up to the full on, physical and psychic attacks and other transgressions that follow later. There is really no way to escape the fact that our characters behave really, really badly to one another. And there are plenty of reasons that no one under 18 is admitted to the theater for this show.

It's ugly, it's cruel, and it's pretty relentless. But that is kind of the point. War is hell, and Kane wants us to know that you can't get away from that just because you're not directly in the war. It affects us all.

The play spends a considerable portion of its time allowing Ian and Cate to really descend into some bad places, tinged with some real humanity and affection, though not in a very appealing way. Only later does the larger aspect of war intrude in the person of the Soldier. And only then do we get truly blasted.

The characters are well-written and believable, though I'm not sure how relatable any of them are, perhaps with the exception of the soldier, who seems to have had a lot of this thrust upon him. The other two seem to be inexplicably drawn together in a mutually destructive relationship that can't possibly lead anywhere good for either.

The Production

If you're going to do this play at all, you have to do it well: No one wants to see an ugly unicorn. So Shotgun has recruited an excellent cast of actors, top-notch designers, and tasked company member Jon Tracy to direct. In my limited exposure, it's clear that Tracy does not shy away from a difficult challenge, so he seems an ideal candidate to tackle this play. Similarly, the three actors need to be convincing professionals, and Robert Parsons (Ian), Adrienne Kaori Walters (Cate), and Joe Estlack (Soldier) are all terrific in their portrayals. Parsons carries perhaps the heaviest load, since he is on stage virtually the whole play, and even when he is offstage, his presence dominates the mood.

The initial scene is an excellent setup for the remainder of the show. Ian and Cate come onstage separately, each silently reacting to the hotel-room set (stunningly designed, as usual, by Nina Ball) in dramatically different ways. So before anyone speaks, we know there will be some areas of conflict. The lighting by Heather Basarab and sound by Matt Stines make the whole thing work, as the hotel and its occupants get quite literally blasted along with all the emotional explosions.

Indeed, I don't really have issues with the way the show was presented. The hotel room looks quite authentic--I'd stay there. And the acting is really well done. All three actors have crawled into some very difficult characters and found a space that entirely works for them. And the intimacy of the small stage placed so close to the front row of seats makes it impossible to avoid the matters that confront the audience. It's right there, in your face.

So, What's the Big Deal?

The question, as noted earlier, is why one does this play. It's not enough to just make a big splash--the world is full of people behaving very, very badly. That's not news. The question is, why put this on stage?

And truthfully, I'm still grappling with that question. I don't question the importance of the issues. Indeed, we see those issues portrayed, albeit with less immediacy, fairly frequently. There are tons of movies that portray the horrors of war, both on the combatants and civilians, in even greater detail than this play does. There are lots of plays that portray a lot of these same issues, too, although more symbolically or metaphorically. And there are abundant sources of first-person accounts of these atrocities (Elie Weisel's Night comes to mind) and documentary films and historical documents that illustrate this behavior in real situations.

It's not like we don't know this stuff. So I'm of two minds when it comes to the question of why put this on stage. What jumps to mind is that, as with any live theater production, especially in a small house, there is an ineffable, tangible experience that is qualitatively different from other media. And that may be true for some. But for me, at least, reading accounts or seeing documentary footage is extremely visceral, and in ways that any artifice, even extremely well-done artifice, cannot duplicate.

There is probably an argument to be made that if theater wants to make a statement on this subject, this is the way it has to do it. We can't put actual holocaust survivors or historical footage on stage (although, now that I think of it, the Tracy-directed show Leni at Aurora last season did some of that quite effectively--using historical footage and artistic portrayals of historical figures, though in service of a quite different message). But there is a case to be made that this might be the closest live theater can come to the experience of a war documentary or memoir.

But another side of me ponders the notion that in fact Kane's premise is incorrect, that there is nothing per se wrong with escaping from the reality of the days news and atrocities to go to the theater. On some level, there is value in allowing oneself to remember that there is, in fact, something better out there. That one can aspire to remember and to strive to be the "better angels" that we know can inhabit us. Indeed there are many examples of people surviving periods of atrocity by engaging either in the practice or the memory of art, music, or even theater.

In short, it's not clear to me that the only way theater can address these issues is by dragging us all down into them in person. It is one way, and it is effective and thought-provoking, but it's definitely not the only way, and I'm not even sold that it's the most effective way.

Bottom Line

Regardless of whether the approach appeals to one, it is clear that the issues addressed are important and timely. And frankly, there's no reason necessarily to shy away from producing a play such as this. It will be controversial, but controversy is the key to discussion and thought. Far too many productions here in the bay area preach to a choir of the already converted, safely allowing us to land on the same side of what might be a controversial issue or presentation elsewhere. It's nice to see a theater taking on a subject and presentation that its own artistic company, staff, and audience disagree on the merits of.

In that sense, it's worth seeing to make up your own mind. I have to say that after a year of anticipation and warnings and such, I didn't find much in this play to be actually shocking, though much of it is quite disturbing, and it's hard to see it happening live in front of you on stage.

The show runs for one more week, through October 22nd.

"Hamlet" at ACT

ACT photo by Kevin Berne

I believe this is the fourth time I have blogged on the play Hamlet in just the last couple of years. The fact that I saw it well over a dozen times last year at Shotgun Players suggests that I like the play. It's a classic for a reason, and watching different stagings and castings and interpretations is always educational.

The Play

No, really, I'm not going to summarize the play. If you don't know, go read it. Or go see it. Or (better yet) both.

What I will say here, since there are many ways to cut or otherwise alter the play, that ACT largely kept the full text in place, meaning it was a 3-hour production. Since the vast majority of my recent viewings were of Shotgun's reduced version, I was looking forward to seeing the full show again. Truthfully, the wrapper story with Norway doesn't really add much to the play (except in the sort of academic sense that it gives us a third iteration of sons avenging slain fathers). I marveled at the fact that Jomar Tagatac as young Fortinbras really does only appear for about the last two minutes of the play, with no other roles, until I realized he is also the understudy for Hamlet, which is plenty to keep him busy.

That said, it's really nice to hear some of the less-famous speeches in all their Shakespearean fullness. Much of the joy of Hamlet is the beauty of the poetry, so although it doesn't necessarily enlarge on the story per se, it does increase the enjoyment of the telling.

The Production

As with most productions of Hamlet, the discussion starts with the casting of the title role. It's a huge role (in terms of the number of lines and time spent on stage). ACT went with a very experienced Shakespearean actor, John Douglas Thompson, last seen at ACT in Satchmo at the Waldorf. He's a bit old for "young Hamlet," but that's not an insurmountable obstacle. Indeed, by casting mature actors for the older generation [Gertrude (Domenique Lozano), Claudius/Ghost (Steven Anthony Jones), and Polonius (Dan Hiatt)], director Carey Perloff makes it at least plausible that Hamlet the son is at least pushing middle age, and his friend Horatio (Anthony Fusco) is of similar age.

Somewhat less plausible, however, are the castings of Hamlet's love interest, Ophelia (Rivka Borek), and his friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (Teddy Spencer and Vincent J. Randazzo, respectively). They all do terrific jobs, but there is no covering for the fact that their characters all seem much too young for the relationships they have with an older Hamlet. The friends aren't too worrisome, but the scenes between Hamlet and Ophelia just have a certain...uncomfortable aspect.

A few other notes on casting and performances. Hiatt as Polonius does a fine job. He's a really solid, reliable character actor who manages to make his character here credible without veering over into farce. All of the actors who are members of the ACT MFA program (Borek, Peter Fanone, Adrianna Mitchell, and Randazzo) blend extremely well into the cast, unlike some of their predecessors. I usually worry when I see MFA students in the cast, but this time I was very pleased with the results. On the downside, I had been looking forward to Jones' portrayal of Claudius, as he is one of the long-time stalwarts of the ACT company and I have many memories of him carrying shows over the years. Unfortunately, here he seemed a bit out of place, struggling for lines at times, and generally displaying little energy or fire in a role that really requires it. As a result, some of the energy that should exist between Hamlet and his uncle/stepfather is just missing, and though the words are there, it falls a little flat.

As for design, scenic designer David Israel Reynoso seems to have taken rather literally the lines about Denmark being a prison. It feels a bit like being in a really large, dreary Alcatraz prison. Within that setting, some of the choices seem a bit odd, such as the heavy plastic curtain behind which the ghost appears, or the various curtains and arrases the slide noisily in and out between scenes. One of the few fittings in the structure, a brass showerhead, seems oddly placed when we're in the throne room, though less so when the setting is one of the characters' bedrooms. It just seems an odd choice in such a sparse staging to have one very obvious object that is not itself important.

And my resident clothing historian tells me that the costumes (also by Reynoso) place the characters clearly in the late 1950s to early 1960s, which is fine for the setting, I guess, but there doesn't seem to be any actual reason to set the play then. Perhaps there is some large message to this timing that eludes me, but I get nothing from it.

Finally, there are the weapons. At times there are wooden "daggers" that seem like harmless sparring practice tools, and that's OK, I guess. But then later they pull out some "swords" that look like some weird cross between a metal pipe and a screwdriver. This seems rather inexplicable, as it doesn't seem in keeping with the period of the setting at all, unless I'm supposed to see them as improvised weapons like shivs that prisoners might construct. Otherwise, I don't quite get it.

The Bottom Line

All in all, it's a decent rendition of Hamlet. I expected a bit more from the experienced members of the cast. The chemistry between the characters is just not really there. Besides the aforementioned lack of fire between Claudius and Hamlet, I also don't see the friendship between Hamlet and Horatio. Both are so reserved around each other, they seem more like long-time coworkers than best friends. And similarly, I have trouble understanding the relationship between Hamlet and Laertes (Teagle F. Bougere), perhaps because they don't seem to understand it, either. Laertes' ire seems to ebb and flow very quickly, but it's hard to see him as being particularly incensed at Hamlet, versus just angry.

Producing such a well-known play sort of demands that you have a reason for doing it, a message that you're trying to get across. It's not really enough to just put on the play, say the words, and check it off on your bucket list. And that's what I feel like I'm seeing: an actor who always wanted to play Hamlet, and director who wanted to direct it, and yet neither seems to have a compelling message to put across with this production.

It's not bad, and parts are good. But I can't help feeling that it should have been much more.

The play runs for another week, through October 15th.

"Measure for Measure" at California Shakespeare Theatre

California Shakespeare Theatre photo by rr jones

Cal Shakes wraps up its season with a bit of Shakespeare, albeit one of the odder comedies, given that it sort of flaunts a lot of the conventions of the comedic genre: Measure for Measure. But on the heels of such strong productions earlier in the season, my expectations were quite high. I have to say this production was a bit of a let-down from the quality I've come to expect, but it was not without merit.

The Play

I call Measure odd for a comedy in part because it's quite dark, with characters condemned to death and relatively little of the lighthearted banter I associate with Shakespearean comedy. And even the "happy" ending with marriages is not quite the mega-happy outcome one might expect. Director Tyne Rafaelli's states in the program that she sees the play as being "essentially about a political regime change," which really is pushing it. Although the interim duke (Angelo) aspires to wield power, it reminds me more of when Mike Curb was California's Lieutenant Governor under Governor Jerry Brown (the first time around). Every time Brown would leave the state, Curb would issue orders as Acting Governor, which Brown would then countermand as soon as he returned.

This is much like the play, where Angelo rather runs amuck, though the actual Duke is disguised and watching the whole thing play out. Although Angelo is literally playing with matters of life and death, we know the Duke is going to unravel it all, so there is no real regime change here, just aspirations of power. The other themes she cites, though, justice versus mercy and love and (especially) forgiveness, are all quite clearly there, and (to me) much more important to the play.

Although the production makes some attempts to soften the edges of some of the more atavistic aspects of the play such as bartering a woman's chastity for the life of her brother, the choice of setting the action in a distinctly modern setting makes much of the action seem even less plausible than normal. This strikes me as a needless attempt to make a play feel more relevant and approachable to a modern audience. It's really quite clear how all of this pertains to contemporary life without the modern costumes and music and such.

The Production

I've already strayed into some of the aspects of the production, but now let's focus. The set design by Annie Smart is quite nice, though a little busy, requiring a fair amount of running up and down stairs that seemed gratuitous. And Cal Shakes seems to have a thing about sliding doors. It was better here than in some of their previous designs (I'm looking at you, Glass Menagerie), but still rather excessive.

But visually and audibly, the production clashes with its setting. In the absence of the Duke (Rowan Vickers), who wears a rather normal, modern suit, Angelo (David Graham Jones) and Escalus (Tristan Cunningham) and the Provost (Patty Gallagher) go quasi-Nazi drag in outfits that look like Scandinavian Airlines dressed its flight attendants at the Folsom Street Fair or something. It sort of works when we get to the various scenes of police brutality and such, but hardly in line with the strict piety that Angelo supposedly presents. Similarly, Isabella (Lindsay Rico) is dressed appropriately in a white shift, about to take her vows as a nun, but at the same time is searing black boots with clear heels that look most un-nunly, like she's about to hit the disco. And the music...even after reading sound designer Brandon Walcott's statement in the program, I can't fathom how the blasts of music were meant to advance my understanding. The early sounds were so jarring that I just forced myself to tune them out later.

And finally, the language. In this summer's OSF production of Off The Rails, an adaptation based on Measure for Measure, many of the best bits were the parts that were actually Shakespeare's language, the beauty of which was soothing and lovely, in spite of being set in the American west. But in this Cal Shakes rendition of the actual play, the poetry and majesty of the language seem to have been sacrificed to the modernization of the setting. I'm not clear whether it's the intention to deliver the lines this way, or whether the actors just aren't up to the challenge of the text, but most of the language comes across flat, almost stilted. And that's too bad, because one of the redeeming features of this rather troubling play is the beauty of the language behind much of it.

Bottom Line

As you can tell, I was disappointed. The strong, extremely professional productions of the first three plays of the season really set my expectations high, and this just didn't measure up to that. Although I liked the set and the lighting was effective, the rest of the design and direction just weren't of the same caliber, and the acting was OK, but not nearly at the level seen earlier in the year.

So it was definitely a disappointing end to the season. Overall, I thought the quality of the shows at Cal Shakes this year was terrific, much better than in past seasons. I hope the earlier shows are a better indication of what to expect in the upcoming year, because they have committed to some very challenging material. We'll have to wait until next summer to see how it turns out.