King Lear

King Lear

Royal Shakespeare Company

BAM Harvey Theatre

April 7, 2018

Photo courtesy of Brooklyn Academy of Music
& Royal Shakespeare Company

The Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of King Lear, now playing at Brooklyn Academy of Music, is not to be missed.  This phenomenal company of actors, under the direction of Gregory Doran, boldly tells this tragic tale of family loyalty and personal honor.  The events are clearly woven and build to a sweeping and passionate conclusion.  The set and costume design by Niki Turner is dark and majestic.  It satiates the expansive space of BAM’s Harvey Theatre with stark and stunning, emotion-filled shapes and images.

King Lear (played by Antony Sher) decides to divide his kingdom and distribute it to his three

Antony Sher as King Lear
Photo courtesy of Brooklyn Academy of Music
& Royal Shakespeare Company

daughters.  He first asks each of them to declare their love for him.  His eldest daughter, Goneril (played by Nia Gwynne) glibly professes words of loyalty and devotion.  His second daughter, Regan (played by Kelly Williams) cunningly tops her sister’s proclamation.  His youngest and favorite daughter, Cordelia (played by Mimi Ndiweni), seeing through the veil in her sisters’ sentiments, does not reply.  This breaks the heart of the king.  He immediately disowns her, sharing his kingdom between his two “loyal” daughters.  When the Earl of Kent (played by Antony Byrne) speaks in defense of Cordelia, he is banished.  Meanwhile, Edmund (played by Paapa Essiedu), the illegitimate son of the Earl of Gloucester (played by David Troughton), is plotting against his father and half-brother, Edgar (played by Oliver Johnstone).  When Goneril and Regan turn their backs on King Lear, he leaves the court out of contempt to them both.  While on his journey, he descends into madness as he faces his sadness, flaws, and wrong doings.  Edmund joins Goneril and Regan to gain power over the kingdom, as Cordelia finds her father and tries to nurse him back to health.  Unfortunately, they are all too steeped in dishonor to be redeemed.

Photo courtesy of Brooklyn Academy of Music

In King Lear William Shakespeare launches a highly complex plot with varieties and layers of family betrayal.  The play clearly illustrates powerful themes of how love and loyalty are deeper than mere words and trifling action.  The older characters (Lear and Gloucester) are easily swayed by declarations of loyalty from their children and followers.  Their dependents (Goneril, Regan, and Edgar) know how to manipulate this need to gain favor and power from their superiors.  The younger characters (Cordelia and Edmund) do not partake in duplicitous gesture, yet stand on their own integrity and speak from their hearts.  These family stories of love and betrayal are timeless and, although told through royalty, universal.  The fall from grace in the royal family makes the tragedy highly dramatic, but no less poignant.

This production is magnificently conceived and superbly delivered.  King Lear is playing at the BAM Harvey Theatre through April 29.  Go see it!

Domenick Danza

The Judas Kiss

The Judas Kiss

BAM Harvey Theater

May 28, 2016

Photo courtesy of BAM Harvey Theatre

The Judas Kiss, starring Rupert Everett as Oscar Wilde, is presently playing at BAM Harvey Theater.  The play is written by David Hare and directed by Neil Armfield.  The first act takes place the afternoon before Oscar Wilde is arrested and tried for gross indecencies, and the second act takes place a few months after his release from serving his prison sentence.  The production is stunning.  The writing is prolific.  Rupert Everett and the cast are inspiring. 

The show is produced by Chichester Festival Theatre in association with Robert Fox, Theatre Royal Bath Productions, and Hampstead Theatre.  The set design, by Dale Ferguson, is lavish and simple, grand and stark.  Yes, these adjectives contradict one another, yet succinctly describe the skillfully crafted impact.  The lighting design, by Rick Fisher, is romantic and poignant.  The second act is dominated by an impactful shadow effect that brings clarity to the power struggle between Oscar Wilde and his two closer companions.  These bold and detailed designs play very well in the expansive stage of the Harvey Theater.

Rupert Everett as Oscar Wilde
Photo courtesy of BAM Harvey Tehatre

Rupert Everett skillfully portrays the complexity of Oscar Wilde with confidence and ease.  He creates a gentleman with great dignity, resolve, and deep belief in his talents and value as a poet.  As the second act progresses, his inner conflict is revealed and we understand why his demise is inescapable.

Cal MacAninch plays Robert Ross, one of Oscar Wilde’s closest friends.  The scenes between these two actors are riveting as both men cling to their principals in the face of turmoil.  In the first act Robert Ross implores Oscar to flee the country and escape into exile before his arrest, but Oscar Wilde holds firm.  In Act II he pleads with Oscar to stay true to the promise he made to his wife, but Oscar refuses.  Through these conflicts we gain a clear understanding of the social limitations, taboos, and expectations of the time period.  These two actors are brilliant together. 

Rupert Everett & Charlie Rowe
Photo courtesy of BAM Harvey Theatre

Charlie Rowe plays Lord Alfred Douglas (Bosie), with whom Oscar Wilde has an affair that brings about his arrest and trial.  The fire between these two men burns bright in Act I with passion and charm.  It burns even hotter in Act II with divergence and resentment.

The Judas Kiss is about love and betrayal.  It is a powerful and multilayered play that will keep you thinking long after it is over.  Just when you understand Oscar Wilde’s motives, playwright David Hare takes you deeper into the fears and loss of this great artist.  Neil Armfield’s masterful direction makes the profound themes easily accessible.  The play is in a limited run at BAM Harvey Theater.  It closes on June 12.  Don’t miss it!

   

Domenick Danza

The Glory of the World

The Glory of the World

Actors Theatre of Louisville

BAM Harvey Theatre

January 16, 2016

Photo courtesy of
Brooklyn Academy of Music

Sentiment leads to celebration, which leads to deep emotion, which leads to hurt feelings, which leads to anarchy… and it all stops for pizza.  That is the main action of Charles Mee’s The Glory of the World now playing at BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) Harvey Theatre.  Direct from Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival of New American Plays, this unique and original work directed by Les Waters is a celebration of the mysteries and complexities of our existence.

Photo courtesy of Actors Theatre of Louisville

The show begins when a solitary man silently enters, barefoot, and sits with his back to the audience in contemplation.  His thoughts are projected on the upstage walls of the set, which appears to be an empty warehouse.  As the man gets up to leave, the garage door upstage center opens and seventeen men walk downstage singing happy birthday to Thomas Merton (his 100^th).  He is toasted as a Buddhist, a Catholic, a Communist, a Bohemian, a monk… the list goes on and on throughout the play.  These men party with a sense of love, devotion, admiration, fierceness, and aggression that builds to an all-out brawl.  The action of one moment viscerally leads to another with a physicality that is humorous, musical, brutal, and metaphorical.  The amazing cast boldly commits with such a high level of vitality that you can’t help abandoning all thoughts and simply experience the journey of the moment.  Hence, the theme and purpose of the production, which is intuitively conceived, spiritedly constructed, and brilliantly delivered.  

Photo courtesy of Actors Theatre of Louisville

To have an original piece from the Human Festival presented in Brooklyn is a rare opportunity that needs to be taken advantage of.  The Glory of the World is an appropriate title for this production.  It runs at BAM Harvey Theatre through February 6th.  You have to experience it! 

Domenick Danza

Ghosts

Ghosts

Almeida Theatre and Sonia Freidman Productions

BAM Harvey Theatre

April 18, 2015

Photo courtesy of BAM Harvey Theatre,
Almeida Theatre & Sonia Freidman Productions

Ahh… Ibsen’s women.  There is no doubt that we can include Helene Alving from Ghosts in that specific category of female characters, alongside Hedda Gabbler and Nora Helmer (A Doll’s House), who risk their wealth and reputation by defying the strict social norm.  There is, however, a certain plunge that Mrs. Alving takes that seems deeper.  Perhaps it is the years of deceit that she has contributed to that makes her more equal to the men at the start of the play.  Perhaps it is how every choice she has made is purposefully decided so to prevent her husband’s sins from affecting her son.  Any way you look at it, the Almeida Theatre and Sonia Freidman Productions’ Ghosts, adapted and directed by Richard Eyre, makes a resilient statement on the inevitability of the ghosts of our past overwhelming our future.

Charlene McKenna and Lesley Manville in Ghosts
Photo courtesy of BAM Harvey Theatre,
Almeida Theatre & Sonia Freidman Productions

When the orphanage Helen Alving (Lesley Manville) donated in honor of her deceased husband is near completion, she reveals the truth about his drinking and womanizing to Pastor Manders (Will Keen).  The intrigue intensifies as they discuss their suppressed, deeper feelings for one another.  Pastor Manders speaks firmly about how the laws of society and the laws of God need to be more than merely perceived as followed.  This theme is put into conflict when juxtaposed against the kept secrets and reality of the characters’ truths.  Helene’s son, Oswald (Billy Howie), returns from Paris and flirts with their housekeeper Regina (Charlene McKenna).  Helene’s statement about how she is more afraid of the ghosts of her past than the retribution of laws of God is brought into a clear focus when she admits that Regina is the illegitimate daughter of her husband, and therefore Oswald’s half-sister.  The plot thickens in complexity, without being soap opera-ish, as only Ibsen can skillfully pull off (fires, blindness from venereal disease, and of course, what Ibsen play is complete without complications due to insurance matters).  The play left me speechless and in awe of concerted storytelling, an effective adaptation, sharp directing, and amazing acting.

Photo courtesy of BAM Harvey Theatre,
Almeida Theatre & Sonia Freidman Productions

The set, designed by Tim Hatley, is unique and simple.  In the foreground is the sitting room.   Through an opaque backdrop the audience is able to see the dining room.  Through another opaque backdrop more upstage, is the exterior of the house.  The design offered a view of each room simultaneously.  The audience sees what goes on behind closed doors, where secrets are kept, unintended for other characters to see or hear.  It also creates a sense of haunting when lit by lamplight.  Peter Mimford’s amazing lighting design sets a mellow and evocative mood, as well as creates a strong sense of the time period, before electric light.

Will Keen, Billy Howie, & Lesley Manville in Ghosts
Photo courtesy of BAM Harey Theatre, Almeida Theatre & Sonia Freidman Productions

When I took my seat and read in the program that the play was 90 minutes without intermission, I was surprised and did not know what to expect.  The Ibsen play is three acts, still this adaptation remarkably tells the penetrating story shadowed with years of remorse and secrets in a concentrated amount of time with a spectacular cast of five.  Kudos to Richard Eyre.  The production is here from London and runs at BAM Harvey Theatre through May 3.  Don’t miss it!

Domenick Danza