steve's notebook

(Jan. 1, 2010)

Catherine Zeta Jones.  Charisma to spare.  The acting is on the surface-y side, but there are valid and interesting choices behind it.  One of the key characteristics of her Desiree is her instinct to placate, to put on a good face always.  Makes sense in light of her response to Henrik in the dinner scene, that “Send in the Clowns” is delivered here not with anger by somewhat apologetically.  Also a strong element of the characterization is that she isn’t really a good mother, though she loves her daughter—the way she leaves her alone to deal with Fred and Carl Magnus at the top of the second act, but also the warmth of her physicality around her daughter.

Lansbury.  Clear why legends are legends.  Her Mme A was less clever (or arch?) than kind of cruelly bitchy, at times toward Fredrika.  She wants what’s best for her granddaughter, but isn’t necessarily loving in the way she goes about trying to instruct her.  The wooden ring scene broke through this as she registered F’s perceptiveness giving lie to her beliefs, and this was particularly cemented by F wheeling her away for the first time after their exchange. The contrast between grandmother who knows how to raise a child but not love one and the mother who loves her daughter but doesn’t know how to be a mother wasn’t explicitly explored, but was there on some level and a new angle I was happy to discover.  I didn’t like the way her death was handled, though—my dissatisfaction was less how she died than that Fredrika never really responded, just went immediately into the scene transition and moved a bench.

Hanson.  Really made that last scene, the dialogue about feeling considerably less ancient, register better than anyone else I’ve encountered.  Gentler and less declamatory than Cariou.  It’s harder because I don’t have a easy reference point on which to judge the playing like I do for other characters.  A bit more complacent, not taking so much offense at Desiree’s assessment in the bedroom scene.  Worked against him to, as this general complacency throughout gave him less distance to fall to resignation once A and H run off.

Mallory. Liked her an awful lot.  Walked a pretty fine line between stylized and over-the-top, but what won me was that she brought it down a few notches after getting together with Henrik. Which makes a lot of sense.  And the discomfort when Fred tries to be intimate was well done.  Very pretty voice.

Henrick. Bad. Bad. Bad. Didn’t talk like a human. Not a good enough voice to justify that.

Davie.  What read to me as a very intelligent performance.  Those arch lines weren’t just arch lines, but her attempt to cloak herself in sophistication, which broke down every now and again.  Putting on sophistication when the emptiness/sadness in her life threatens to get the better of her.  Big laugh/applause on “retarded girls in Bettleheim”.  Liked her disappointment when CM plans to nap.  She really does love him, despite it all, so her victory was not just winning him back, but proving that her feelings are not entirely in vain.  I also liked her rapport with Anne.  She doesn’t necessarily like her all that much, but they’re in the same boat.

Lazar.  Competent, good voice.  Didn’t really register in a big way.  It Would Have Been Wonderful was kind of dead.

Larkin. Again, just ok.   Weird accent in the first scene, but that got better when it mostly disappeared later.  Still don’t get what people see in her, though I almost did during Miller’s Son, even if she did do some strange vocal things and could get really mannered a la Gypsy.  So it’s kind of a toss-up.  Good in the scenes with Anne and Henrik.

The girl as Fredrika was good for a child actor.  A few very smart moments.  “It’s all there is”, bewilderment at Anne’s flightiness while searching for Henirk.

Liebeslieder singers.  Mixed feelings about how they were handled.  I liked “Remember” and “The Sun Won’t Set”s.  Didn’t love them in the beginning, but that probably had a lot to do with this sort-of unspecified memory space that the show started out in.  Vague memory space isn’t as good a frame as vague performative space for this piece.  And their reprises at the end had a similar quality to this memory space, but it still kind of worked.  I miss the classical voices for the other-y quality they bring to the group, but they probably wouldn’t have worked as well with the intimacy of the production.  A little confusing during the Waltz to have them look so much like they characters, but maybe that works on some level?

Orchestrations didn’t bug me so much as to really notice them.  I still would have preferred a real re-working for the smaller orchestra than something that simply sounds like a reduction, but apart from some sketchy notes here and there they were serviceable and not overly small.  Missed the horns on the Rosenkavalier nod during “Weekend in the Country.”  The waltzing as the music decrescendos at the end.  Squeek squeek squeek. Squeek squeek squeek.  Oops.  Resole your shoes.

Set worked better than I was expecting.  I liked the panels in the walls, the door used to divide the Eggerman house.  Looking up at it rather than down, it filled my visual space.  The show did read, at least from where I was sitting, as intimate rather than cheap (recorded gunshot sound effect excluded).

Direction.  Probably not the best or most originally directed, but there were some unique emphases and approaches to scenes/characters/lines that let me consider aspects of the piece anew.  The Desiree/Mme Armfeldt mothering mirror, for instance.  The last two scenes worked really well.  The discomfort between Anne and Fred was good.  The dinner on the floor and the play-wthin-the-play scene were not so good.  The direction didn’t really get in the way, but it wasn’t particularly brilliant. I guess what I’m missing from the direction is the one sentence summary of what it’s all about.  It didn’t seem guided in a particular direction, the way that the Roundabout benefit seemed to center on D’s making up for a lifetime of muddle as emblem of everyone else’s mis-entanglements.

Still don’t love the poster design for the production.  The shade of purple reads as whatever the opposite of rich where color is concerned is.  Like Beauty and the Beast or something.  And the pink reads as vaguely firey, which is something the passions in this show decidedly are not.