Blog Exclusive Review: La Tragedie De Carmen

La Tragédie de Carmen Fascinates, But Falls Short of Gripping

Sandra Piques Eddy and Noah Stewart as Carmen and Don José in La Tragédie De Carmen at Chicago Opera Theater

It is all too rare that performers in operas actually fit their descriptions. How many Mimis from La Boheme have actually been thin and consumptive? How likely is it to find an authentically Japanese Madame Butterfly? And when was the last time that Carmen was sexy? Chicago Opera Theater's production of La Tragédie de Carmen, adapted by Peter Brook and Marius Constant from Bizet's legendary opera, has an exceptionally sexy Carmen in Sandra Piques Eddy. With a dark and enticing voice and fearless physicality, she makes you believe that a man would destroy his life for her. The problems, however, start with the other end of the central relationship. Noah Stewart's Don José has a stunning voice, and is believable enough as a soldier, but only in isolated flashes do we see the man destroyed by passion, the mutual sexual combustibility that would lead two people off a cliff. And without that, this production, despite its many exceptional qualities, never grabs you by the throat.

Brook, the legendary theatre director, and avant-garde composer Constant performed some pretty radical surgery on the original opera in the early 1980's: There are only 6 actors playing seven characters--the chorus is gone. The show is radically cut, down to only 80 minutes, and there are only 15 players in the orchestra. The music is reordered, reassigned and in one case, a recording.

I'm not an expert on the original, but Brook and Constant have created an exciting and satisfying play. The story is told sparely, but it's always easy to follow, and the show really moves and excites.

The production, however, somehow fails to grab. The virtues are many: in addition to Stewart's voice and Eddy's everything, the cast boasts a delicious, non-singing performance from Steppenwolf stalwart Rick Snyder in two small roles, as well as strong work from Michael Todd Simpson's Escamillo. (Krenare Gashi's histrionic and amateurish Michaela falls firmly into the debit column, though.) The 15-piece orchestra, under Alexander Platt, sounds amazing--especially percussionist Michael Folker, whose tympani playing during the Habanera is stunning. Chuck Coyl's fights actually look like they could do serious damage, and Christine Binder's lighting is exceptionally dramatic and exciting.

So what keeps this engaging, admirable show from being gripping? The aforementioned spotty chemistry is a serious issue, certainly. The Harris Theatre, at 1500 seats, is way too big for this show--I kept imagining how much better it would work in Northlight's space. (By the way, whoever decided to paint the lobby of the Harris with whitewash and then place neon lights in various lurid shades all over it should be banned from ever designing another theatre.) In the end, though, this production doesn't go far enough. To make this borderline melodramatic story work, the production needs more--more sex, more violence, more excitement. The show is still well worth seeing, especially for lovers of Bizet and Brook, but it never quite closes the deal.

La Tragédie de Carmen plays May 10 at 3 PM and May 13 and 15 at 7:30 PM at the Harris Theater in Millennium Park. Tickets are $17.50-120, and can be purchased by visiting chicagooperatheater.org.

Things I Have Yet To Comment On

I've been lax about writing, but a flurry of posts are coming in the next few days (hopefully). Here are a few things I have failed to mention recently:

The nominations for Chicago's Non-Equity Jeff Awards have been announced. You can see the full list of nominations here, but here are a few thoughts:

--Congratulations to Brian Plocharczyk, nominated for Lead Actor for his work in Stage Left's fall show, After Ashley. He was exceptional. I'm disappointed that The Day of Knowledge didn't get any nominations, but we knew that was coming when the committee failed to recommend us. Ah well, you can't please all of the people all of the time.

--David Cromer's hugely popular production of Our Town (which I never got to see) was nominated for Production and Director, but had no acting or design nominations. Given that the praise was spread pretty widely for that show, I find that pretty shocking. (Cromer now has a version of Our Town running Off-Broadway which opened to similarly rave reviews, and similarly sold-out houses, and just won the Lucille Lortel for Best Revival and Best Director.)

--An advance congratulations to Amanda Hartley of The Robber Bridegroom, the only nominee for Supporting Actress in a Musical. Work on that speech.

--Have The Hypocrites gone equity since Our Town? I'm shocked at no nominations for The Threepenny Opera, which was one of my favorites of last season.

--Congratulations to Joanie Schultz! She directed me in Saint Joan when I was an undergrad and she was getting her MFA at Northwestern, and her production of In Arabia We'd All Be Kings got nominations for Production, Director, Ensemble, Leading Actor, and Supporting Actress.

--I'm not sure what was going on in the "New Adaptation" category, but neither of the shows in that category that I saw were successful adaptations. The Picture of Dorian Gray at Lifeline was not terribly scary (though Supporting Actor nominee Paul S. Holmquist did do strong work) and generally confused. And Scoundrel Time at City Lit somehow managed to take all of the drama out of the story of Lillian Hellman and the blacklist--quite a feat, but not quite nomination-worthy.

--Overall, it reminded me of how much theatre I don't see. I don't think I made it to more than six or eight of the nominated shows. Need to get on that in the future.

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There has been shockingly little mention in the press of the death of Augusto Boal on Saturday. Boal was the legendary Brazilian director and educator who pioneered the "Theatre of the Oppressed," which used performance to engage people with their lives and political situations. Anybody who works in theatre education and creative drama has made use of his work, even if they haven't read his works. He  has left an exceptional legacy.

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The Tony nominations are tomorrow, and today the committee announced the special awards. The winners include composer Jerry Herman, who won a Lifetime Achievement Award, and Washington DC's Signature Theatre, which won the Outstanding Regional Theatre award. Full details on Playbill.

A Small Bea Arthur Tribute

Due to my being out of town this weekend, I haven't yet been able to write on Bea Arthur's death. The NY Times has, as usual, a wonderful obit, and my friend Leonard Jacobs has put together a great series of clips of her work (which I have not yet seen in its entirety). But here's my slightly more personal tribute to this exceptional woman:

1) The Golden Girls had a pretty major influence on my life, as it did for many people. I first watched it with my grandmother when it was new, and I had no idea what was going on. I later rediscovered it in Lifetime reruns, and it has been making me laugh since. All four of the stars did wonderful work, but Arthur's Dorothy was the glue that held the show together. It was silly and cliched, sure, but what wit and fun and good acting! I only wish someone had the guts to write a really clever show for some great older character actresses today.

2) "Bosom Buddies" from Mame is priceless, period. Who else could more than hold her own opposite Angela Lansbury?

3) Perhaps my favorite of her roles, though, is as Lucy Brown in the 1954 Off-Broadway The Threepenny Opera. I'd put the disc of Marc Blitzstein's exceptional translation, also starring Lotte Lenya, Jo Sullivan, and Scott Merrill, on my list of ten cast albums to take to a desert island, and Arthur's performance is a major reason why. She sings on only two songs--the "Jealousy Duet" and the "Barbara-Song," and her performance on the latter is particularly gorgeous. Biting wit and heartbroken sincerity at the same time, all in that unforgettable baritone. She does full justice to Brecht's lyrics and intent--we are emotionally affected and aware that we are listening to a performer at the same time--while singing the hell out of Weill's music. It's a treasure--track it down. Hell, I'll even lend you the CD, just ask.

Yep, she was a treasure. We're lucky to have gotten so much exceptional work from her.

By the way, does anyone know if Maude is on in reruns? Or have DVDs of it? It was apparently wonderful, but I've never seen an episode. Can someone help me out?

Debate on Ruined

Well, as tends to happen, people have all sorts of things to say about Ruined, and its Pulitzer win. The most interesting conversation is happening over at Kris Vire's blog. Kris didn't manage to see Ruined, but based on his colleagues' positive but far from rave take on it, he didn't think it worth chasing down. He speculates, however, that it may have won its Pulitzer more due to the subject (the war in the Congo and the ways that women are abused there) than the quality. I, among others, disagree with his assessment--I think Ruined is anything but a dutiful, dull issues play--but it's turned into a really thought-provoking discussion. Read it and leave comments with Kris or me. Does anyone else who has seen it (or even who hasn't) have a take on it? Any reactions to the conversation?

Ruined Wins Pulitzer

As has been reported all over the place, Lynn Nottage's Ruined won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, announced this afternoon. The play premiered last November at the Goodman, making it the second play in a row to premiere in Chicago and go on to win the Pulitzer (after last year's August: Osage County). Granted, Nottage is a New York-based writer and the premiere wa a co-production with Manhattan Theatre Club, but still, it's quite a good sign for our city's theatre scene.

I saw the production at the Goodman (Thanks, Elizabeth Neukirch, for slipping me in to a student matinee along with other friends of the theatre!) and think that the accolades are well-deserved. The play, set in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is definitely realistic in style, and doesn't really push boundaries stylistically. However, it is a painfully moving, gorgeous show. It shows the audience a world that they probably have never seen or considered and  intimately involves them in lives very different from their own. At the same time, it avoids the tedium and preaching of so many plays about important, depressing issues. I'm curious to see how it does in future productions--the script and Kate Whoriskey's production seemed so integrated that it's hard to tell how the script would look in a different version.

The runners-up, by the way, were Becky Shaw, by Gina Gionfriddo (whose After Ashley  was produced at Stage Left last fall to great acclaim), and Lin-Manuel Miranda and Quiara Alegira Hudes' In The Heights (building on their Tony wins from last year.) A good slate this year, I'd say.

What did I spend the fall doing?

So remember last fall when I was at Northlight Theatre, working as a literary/dramaturgy intern? Here's some proof of what I was doing all that time. As part of my work on The Lieutenant of Inishmore, I put together this little piece on the work of Martin McDonagh, to help acquaint audiences with his work--and his approach to violence. To get excited for the show, you can read it here. Enjoy!

New Article: RENT

I've had another article posted on Decider--this one's a preview of the new tour of RENT that starts tomorrow night at the Oriental Theatre. You can read it on the site here, which had pictures, videos, and the chance to comment (please do!) or just read the text below. Enjoy!

Jonathan Larson’s 1996 musical can hardly be called current anymore. Rent—based on Puccini’s La Bohéme but given a rock score and set among drug-addicted, HIV-positive artists in New York's East Village—was a flat-out sensation when it first opened. The musical was the cover story on Newsweek, and the production won the Tony Award for "Best Musical" plus the Pulitzer Prize for drama. Not to mention the legion of devoted fans.

But it’s been 13 years, and the show no longer creates excitement like it once did. The East Village it portrays, seedy and full of struggling artists, was gentrified out of existence. The 2005 film version flopped, and the Broadway production finally closed in 2008 (though not before reaching seventh on the list of longest Broadway runs ever). The show risks becoming one more example of misplaced '90s nostalgia.

So how are producers selling the new tour coming to the Oriental Theatre? They’re giving it the Hello, Dolly! treatment. That means original cast members Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal are touring in the roles they made famous 13 years ago, just like Carol Channing in Hello, Dolly! or Yul Brynner in The King And I. Of course, these parts are completely dependent on youth and energy, and the former-twentysomething unknowns playing struggling youngsters have reached their late-30s. Will the actors even be believable in those parts? History indicates no: The movie was widely reviled for featuring the original cast members, who are now a decade too old for those roles.

Still, despite having lost its cultural cachet, the show still has its fan base. And this is probably the best anyone's going to get as far as reviving the magic that sold audiences on the show the first time around.

New Review Posted: Mop Top Festival

Centerstage has posted another one of my reviews, of Mop Top Festival, presented by the Factory Theater at Prop Thtr, 3502 N Elston. It runs Fridays and Saturdays at 8 and Sundays at 7 through April 26. Tickets are $20-25 and can be purchased by calling (866) 811-4111 or visiting www.thefactorytheater.com.

You can follow the link to my review or just read it here:

The Beatles have inspired many works of art: covers of their songs, movies, theatre, novels, television, paintings…the list is endless. To that list, add "Mop Top Festival", Scott OKen’s fun but unfocused look at the culture of Beatles conventions.

The play is set at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare for the Mop Top Festival—a celebration of all things Beatles, with merchandise, cover bands, and film screenings. Twenty-one characters (played by 19 actors)—including guests, festival organizers, and hotel staff—all collide, displaying both Beatles geekery and personal drama. Guests seek precious merchandise, cover bands aspire to glory, the officious, origami-obsessed hotel manager (Christopher Marcum) tries to shut the festival down, and the first sparks of friendship and romance are struck.

To OKen’s great credit, the characters are memorable, and it’s never hard to follow who they are and what they want. A lot of the jokes are very funny. The problem is that the play is too in love with its eccentric characters and silly jokes, and not nearly concerned enough with plot and structure. Plenty of events happen, but the evening never quite works up a head of steam: every time the plot starts moving, it ambles to a halt for another scene of characters sitting around discussing the Beatles. The stakes stay low and the plot never becomes involving, while the show stretches at least 15 minutes too long.

Yet it’s hard to dislike this show. The excitement and brilliance of the music makes even the unnecessary scenes fun, and the cast ably incarnates the characters—though they can’t give them depth that’s not in the script. In the end, the show’s like spending an evening with a friend who loves talking about the Beatles, but can’t quite keep the thread: it’s frustrating, but still a good time.

To Every Theatre (Turn, Turn, Turn), There Is A Season (Turn, Turn, Turn)

So the past couple of weeks have seen three very interesting season announcements from Chicago theatres. Here they are, with my commentary, in the order they were announced.

Court Theatre

The Hyde Park company, which tends to produce classics, often in new ways, has announced its full five-show slot.

They start with August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, the first of Wilson's plays to be widely produced, about blues star Gertrude "Ma" Rainey in a Chicago recording studio in the 1920s. It hasn't been seen for a while in Chicago. I'm excited to see what Court does with it. Ron OJ Parsons directs.

Next is Charles Ludlam's The Mystery of Irma Vep, directed by that irrepressible scamp Sean Graney. The play is hilarious--two men play dozens of parts in a wild parody of gothic melodrama, with a heavy dose of camp. It's another show I've been dying to see.

January sees The Year of Magical Thinking, adapted by Joan Didion from her own memoir of the year that her husband and daughter both died. The play got mixed reviews when it was on Broadway a few years ago, but whether that was due to Didion's adaptation or Vanessa Redgrave, who some thought miscast (one reviewer described  Redgrave playing Didion as like "a hawk playing the role of a sparrow") is unclear. Mary Beth Fisher plays the one part, Artistic Director Charles Newell directs.

Next comes Tony Kushner's adaptation of Pierre Corneille's The Illusion. I don't know the play--the original is from the French Baroque, and Kushner brings his own spin to it--but it seems popular in Chicago these days: it was seen a few weeks ago from Promethean Theatre, and will be done in Northwestern's mainstage season in a few months. We'll see what Newell, directing again, does with it.

The season ends with Sizwe Banzi Is Dead, by Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona, directed by Parsons. The play looks at a man pretending to be dead in Apartheid-era South Africa. Interestingly, Remy Bumppo is producing Fugard, Kani, and Ntshona's other famous play from that era, The Island, a few months earlier. We seem to have a Fugard festival in the offing.

The season looks to be quite interesting--quite varied in tone and style (including an actual comedy!) and including shows that aren't often seen. One can see the hand of the recession, though--Irma Vep and Sizwe Banzi both have only two actors, and Magical Thinking has just one. Still, intriguing. You can see the Court's descriptions here 

Goodman Theatre

A very interesting season in the Goodman's two theatres. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be any playwright festival, but that's not a huge surprise--I bet the O'Neill Festival was huge enough to push them to the edge of ruin.

The larger Albert Theatre has five plays, four of which has been announced. (Of the fifth, all we know is that it will be directed by Chuck Smith.)

Fall will see Animal Crackers, a musical that was originally a hit for the Marx Brothers. It could be truly hilarious--it depends if they find good replacements for the Marx Brothers and Margaret Dumont, no simple task.

January sees a double bill of Eugene O'Neill's Hughie, about a broken-down gambler, and Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape, about an old man looking back on his life. The star will be the redoubtable Brian Dennehy, so the production is announced as Broadway bound. Dennehy's a star, but the shows are pretty bleak--hopefully the evening will connect with the audience. This production, starring Dennehy, was a hit at the Stratford Festival in Canada summer 2008, so it's a good sign.

March has a world premiere from Rebecca Gilman, often produced by the Goodman, A True History of the Johnstown Flood. It apparently explores the story of the infamous 1889 disaster through the lens of class and from the perspective of a theatre troupe from the time.

The summer sees The Sins of Sor Juana, written by Karen Zacarías and directed by Henry Godinez, about the legendary 17th Century Mexican poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, who was also a nun. It looks at her life and work--and how it threatened the church and the patriarchy. Victory Gardens did a play on Sor Juana a few years ago--Defiant Muse--so clearly she has something that excites the imagination. Godinez also directed a production of this play at Northwestern just a few months ago, so he clearly knows his way around it.

The Owen, the smaller theatre, will have three plays, all world premieres.

The first is Joan D'Arc created by Austrian director Aida Karic and Goodman Literary Manager Tanya Palmer, which will premiere in Austria before coming to the Goodman. It is based on Friedrich Schiller's Die Jungfrau Von Orléans, about Joan of Arc, and features live gospel music. I'm not sure what it'll be, but it looks like something exciting.

Next will be High Holidays by Alan Gross, set in the early 1960's in the Chicago suburbs, about the upheavals in a young man's life around the time of his Bar Mitzvah. Looks like fun--and it certainly has significant local appeal.

The spring will see the excitement of Philip Seymour Hoffman's directing debut at the Goodman, Brett C. Leonard's The Long Red Road, about a man trying to escape his past in alcohol on an Indian reservation. As seems always to happen, a stranger appears from the past to force him to face his past. It looks like this one goes to some profoundly dark places. I'm intrigued.

I find this to be a hearteningly adventurous season. There are four world premieres, and only the first two Albert shows are familiar titles. But Animal Crackers is almost never seen since the Marx Brothers left Broadway (70-some years back), and Hughie and Krapp's Last Tape are not what you call easy shows to take. Hopefully the gambles will pay off with some good shows. The Goodman's descriptions are here.

Northlight Theatre

My recent home has announced four of their five shows for their 35th anniversary season.

They start off with The Marvelous Wonderettes, written and directed by Roger Bean. A recent success Off-Broadway, the show is billed as witty and nostalgic, and deals with a girl group singing the hits of the 1950's and the 1960's.

Next is Souvenir, written by Stephen Temperley and directed by David H. Bell, a former professor of mine and a truly lovely human being. The show looks at the life of Florence Foster Jenkins, an extremely wealthy woman, convinced she was a great singer. She used her fortune to book concert halls--including Carnegie Hall--despite have no singing talent whatsoever. It looks like a really funny and entertaining show.

Next is the most exciting show of the season, in my opinion: Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing, directed by Steppenwolf Ensemble member Amy Morton and starring Rondi Reed, Steppenwolf Ensemble member, and Mike Nussbaum, Chicago theatre legend. The play is about a struggling Jewish family in the Bronx during the Depression, and is full of Odets' trademark crackling dialogue and moral fervor. It's a gorgeous, heartbreaking play, and I've been dying to see it done well. And I can tell you from experience, Odets is scarily relevant to the present. It should be something to see.

The fourth show of the season will feature John Mahoney, the Frasier star who has returned to Chicago, in Hugh Leonard's A Life, directed by Northlight Artistic Director B. J. Jones. The play looks at life in a small Irish town through the life of one man--played by Mahoney.

By the way, I'd recommend checking out Mauritius, currently onstage at Northlight. It's a fun, twisty ride, with some delicious performances. If you'd like to see what Northlight has to say about their season, visit their website.

Overall, it looks like we've got some interesting shows to come. Anyone have shows particularly exciting for them?

Zev's Opera Adventure Begins!

So my wonderful roommate Jessie Cluess is an opera fan. Not a fanatic, but she really enjoys opera and attends a few times a year. I've never really enjoyed opera. Part of it is simply that I didn't grow up with it--my parents aren't fans either, so I never heard the music around the house--but my main difficulty is theatrical: in my experience, opera's primary responsibility is to music. What story there is exists as a framework to show off the music and the singers. If the story is gripping, the characters are believable, and the production is involving, so much the better, but even if not, as long as it sounds wonderful, it's okay. I have respect for what opera singers can do--reaching 3,000-plus audience members without amplifications while sounding great is no small feat--and find some of the music quite beautiful, but I never felt a need to really explore the world of opera.

Jessie (who in addition to being my roommate is also a wonderful actor and playwright--theatres, cast her and do her plays!) thought that I really needed to give opera more of a chance before dismissing it entirely, and I figured it was worth a try. She saw that the Lyric Opera was doing the double bill of Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci. (The two one-act operas, written in 1890 and 1892, are almost always performed together.) She figured that since they were each only 75 minutes, they would make an ideal introduction. Since the Lyric has seats in the back of the second balcony for only (!) $32, we decided to go last night, along with my friend Whitney Powell (also highly skilled in design, technical, and production areas--hire her!).

Overall, I was impressed. First off, there is nothing like opera for sheer grandeur--Michael Yeargan's set and costumes are simply gorgeous, particularly for Pagliacci. The orchestra sounded fantastic (Renato Palumbo conducted) and the singing was, to my untrained ears, exceptional, and often genuinely thrilling.

But how did the evening fare as theatre?

First off, while they may be tightly plotted by opera standards, there's still an awful lot of putting the story on hold while people sing--there was at least one too many happy peasant choruses in Cavalleria, and Pagliacci, while it had a more interesting story, could still have used some judicious trimming. Still, each had moments that were thrilling. 

Cavalleria is a story of a love quadrangle, a pregnancy, and a duel in a small Italian town. Its peak comes when Santuzza (Dolora Zajick), pregnant and spurned by her lover Turiddu (Carlo Ventre), tells Alfio (Mark Delavan) that Turiddu has taken up with Alfio's wife, Lola (Katherine Lerner). His rage, her revenge and guilt, combined with Zajick and Delavan's singing--riveting. Didn't quite make up for the dull bits, though.

Pagliacci is the story of a group of clowns, where life imitates art: Nedda (Ana Maria Martinez) is cheating on Canio (Vladimir Galouzine), much as her character, Colombina, is cheating on his character, Pagliacci. The ending is a bit different, though--while they are performing their comedy, he stabs her and her lover. It's a much more interesting opera--the plot is more exciting, and the music is much more complex and vibrant. Martinez is a wonder--she has a gorgeous voice, and effortlessly portrays a young woman in an unhappy marriage, desperate for the escape of real love. Galouzine is more problematic. In the most famous aria, "Vesti la giubba" (you'd recognize it if you heard it) he isn't acting, exactly. He's playing the emotion, not the action: what we got was not so much a man in an untenable emotional situation, but an opera singer showing how sad and enraged he could act while sounding good. The audience loved it, but I found it severely underwhelming.

Overall, I'm glad I went. And the opera adventure won't end here. Daniel Jackman is an extremely tenacious man who works in the marketing department at Chicago Opera Theater--whose mission is to do exciting, theatrically vibrant opera productions. He discovered the blog (people actually read it, apparently) and wants me to come review the productions as a theatre critic. I'm fascinated by the idea, and I think I will continue my adventure into the world of opera. Look for three reviews in the coming months.

And if you want to see their shows, they are having a YouTube contest: make a video to explain why you deserve free seats to all three shows, and you could win! Information on the contest is here and COT's website is here. Check it out, and maybe you'll get to see the shows!