Henrik Ibsen | Hedda Gabler / 2009

burned up

by Douglas Messerli

 

Henrik Ibsen Hedda Gabler, adapted by Christopher Shinn / Roundabout Theatre Company, American Airlines Theatre / the production I saw was a preview on January 17, 2009

 

As New York Times critic Charles Isherwood suggested in his piece (January 18, 2009) on the upcoming production of Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, Hedda is an "antiheroine" who inevitably draws actresses to her. She is, to put it mildly, one of the nastiest people of 1890s Norway, and one of the "meanest" (as Isherwood describes her) women in theater history.

      To start, she has just married the innocent scholar Jørgen Tesman without any love for the man (she cannot even abide his scholarly interests in domestic crafts of the Middle Ages) but for the reason, as she puts it, "I had danced myself out... My time was up"—in short, within the confining society of the time, as a woman in her late 20s she is in danger of being described as an old maid.

     Equally without purpose, she has demanded they move into a large city house, replete with expensive furniture, this despite the fact that George has not yet been offered the teaching position he hopes will help with the expenses. Rather than accommodating George and his beloved aunt, Hedda demeans both by pretending to believe the aunt's new hat—purchased especially to please Hedda—belongs to the servant, who has tossed it upon the chair. The flowers sent to honor her return from her honeymoon are trashed.

      Later it becomes clear that Hedda has had close relationships both with George's intellectual foe, the romantic and dissipated Eilert Løvborg, and with the family's friend, Judge Brack, who has helped attain and fund their new house and belongings.

      These relationships, however, are not exactly sexual, for Hedda is what we might describe today as a sexual tease, drawing the men toward her only so that she might have control over them. The minute they cross the line, she pulls out her father's (the General's) pistols and shoots.

      Hedda might be said to represent the military way of life. Disinterested in cultural history, she uses the past only as a method of strategy, of determining how to control the men under her "command," demanding of Løvberg, as she hands him one of her pistols, death. When Judge Brack, a far cleverer opponent, wily finds a way to put her under his control, she reacts with the only response she knows, committing suicide with the remaining gun.

 

     Hedda is, quite clearly, an intense woman burning up with desire, but so afraid of losing her self- control, so determined to rule each situation, that she must destroy everything around her, including the brilliant manuscript Løvberg has just written and lost on his way home. Like the uncontrollable behavior fueling her actions, she burns his book in the stove, destroying his metaphorical "child," the only force of life and possibility in the play, and in that act, seals her own doom.

     Yet, as Isherwood and others have pointed out, this "queen of mean" must reveal some other qualities just to make her believable. We need to comprehend her beauty, her wit, her positive qualities—whatever they are—just enough to understand why the intelligent Løvberg, the slimy Brack, and the doddering academic husband all find her so necessary in their lives. For, in the end, all she has touched, all she has thought she controlled, turns to naught. Løvberg does, indeed, die, but as the result of an accidental shooting in the groin, not a bullet through the head. Brack has no real need of Hedda; for him she is simply another tool for manipulation. And "poor" Jørgen ends up happily with Mrs. Elvsted, an attractive woman who has just left her husband to help Løvberg with his writing, who now will surely find a soul mate in Tesman. Accordingly, if Hedda is only presented as a mean, hateful being, the play ends in black hole as the energies of the piece (represented by Hedda and Løvberg) collapse, leaving us with only good, empty-headed bourgeois folk. Despite her aberrations, the audience needs to have been in love with Hedda!

     Unfortunately, the preview of the production I saw in New York on January 17, 2009, offered no solution to the problem. Although Mary-Louise Parker may have been perfect as a sort of sexual gamin in previous plays such as Reckless, Prelude to a Kiss, and How I Learned to Drive, here she has little sexual warmth, mouthing Hedda's evil wit with a not-so-subtle wink and nod, slowing down the action so that, by the end of the play we feel superior to all the characters in the work. Her intense queries directed at Mrs. Elvsted, for example, seem more like an interrogation than the somewhat desperate questions of a jealous woman. Similarly, Michael Serveris' Jørgen Tesman is played as such a fool that even if Hedda feels his offer of marriage was her last chance, we, like Løvberg, cannot comprehend her decision. Rather than creating an innocent alternative to Hedda, Ana Reeder's Thea Elvsted seems an even greater simpleton than Jørgen, unable to understand the comic manipulations of Hedda concerning their shared years in school.

    Christopher Shinn's adaptation of this play, as far as I could tell upon rereading the Fjelde translation of the play a day later, eliminates any possibility that Hedda may have any good qualities, such as her determination to remain faithful to her husband. Anything that might have softened Hedda, to help us to see her as the great lady we are told she is, seems to have been obliterated. In the end, when Judge Brack reacts to Hedda's suicide, "People don't do such things!" we might almost respond: "But then Hedda isn't really a person, is she?"

 

Los Angeles, January 24, 2009

Reprinted from USTheater, Opera, and Performance (January 2009).

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte | Cosí fan tutte / 2011

so are we all

by Douglas Messerli

 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (music), Lorenzo da Ponte (libretto) Cosí fan tutte / LAOpera, at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion (the performance I saw was on Sunday, October 2, 2011)

 

 Despite the often splendiferous musical beauty of da Ponte's and Mozart's wise comic satire, there is something patently unfair about the major series of events. Yes, we easily conclude with Don Alfonso, "Women are like that," but so too, do we comprehend, are men. And it is the men in this opera who truly step out of bounds in testing their sweetheart's faithfulness.

 

    To be fair, the two young soldiers, Ferrando (Saimir Pirgu in the production I saw) and Guglielmo (the handsome Ildebrando D'Arcangelo) begin the opera singing endless praises of their loves, Fiordilgi (Aleksandra Kurzak) and Dorabella (Ruxandra Donose). We immediately recognize their naiveté; and when I say we, I think I can speak for the whole of USA culture given that the current divorce rate is 50% which rises substantially with second and third marriages. Although divorce may be caused by many things other than unfaithfulness, it appears that, in the US at least, Americans are fickle.

      But the young men are easily challenged and persuaded into obedience to their friend Don Alfonso (Lorenzo Regazzo), who, without much difficulty, convinces them to lie to their sweethearts by pretending to go off to war, and to themselves play cheats. After all, to dress up in the costumes of other men, taking on their very different personalities and to court each other's fiancées certainly suggests that they are willing to be guilty of behavior they do not hope to find in their fiancés. Costumes are extremely important in Cosí fan tutte (and, of course, in the whole of the commedia dell'arte tradition, on which much of this opera is based); a slight costume change, an attached moustache, a bit of acting immediately convinces others that a familiar figure is someone else. Even women like the maid Despina can easily dupe their employers, dressed like a man (she becomes in the opera both a mesmerist doctor and a notary). In short, by donning costumes they temporarily become another person, and so too are these young soldiers allowing themselves in their transformations to become unfaithful seducers of the two sisters they proclaim to love.

     Moreover, Mozart gives his sweet heroines a great deal of reverence and fortitude in which to protect them. The celestial song they sing as their lovers go off to war, "Soave sia il vento" ("May the wind be gentle") is almost enough to convince the most hard-hearted realist that these two mean what they say. And to back it up, Fiordiligi sings the powerful "Come scogli" ("Like a rock") pledging her love to Guglielmo.

     The weaker of the two is obviously Dorabella who must be reminded consistently by her sister of the role she should play, and seems, quite early on, more distressed by being left alone than by the absence of Ferrando. Yet, despite her obvious interest in the two strange Albanians who suddenly appear in the sister's home, she also remains impervious throughout Act 1.

      The Albanians, on the other hand, although declaring their love for the two beauties, seem more interested in their own prowess than in the women they are trying seduce. A great part of the humor of da Ponte's text lies in the constant metaphors that point up their "endowments," Guglielmo, in particular, pointing to his masculine attributes in "Non siate ritrosi" ("Don't be shy").

     In the production I saw this was reiterated by their attempt at suicide by arsenic poisoning, wherein their dying bodies were laid out upon a chaise longue, the two men almost on top of one another, hinting at a greater interest in their own bodies than in the two of what they later relate as "the fair sex." If nothing else, the scene suggested a long homoerotic embrace between Ferrando and Guglielmo, made even more apparent when the women come to revive them, all four crawling over and under one another.

     Clearly they are not "playing fair," forcing the women to brush against and touch them—often in somewhat lewd positions. These are beautiful young people, all four of them, and like most young people, are easily aroused.

      What Mozart and da Ponte also make clear is just how boring these wealthy sister's lives are. Except for the excitement through sexual flirtation, there is little do in their house, as Dorabella, in particular makes clear. Despina serves them meals and sweets such a chocolate, they play puzzles, and, mostly, sit discussing their situations. Might it not be fun to do something else since their soldiers have gone off?      Even when Dorabella despicably gives in, exchanging a necklace, containing Ferrando's picture, for a gift from the Albanian Guglielmo, Fiordiligi runs away from her temptation, desperately trying to regain control of the situation through her consciousness ("Per pietà, ben mio, perdona," "Please, my beloved, forgive"). Her brief decision to dress up like a soldier and run off to war to find her lover is absurdly touching, if ludicrous. There is, obviously, no war, and one wonders to where she might run. And if she were to find Guglielmo, how could she show him her love dressed—like Isaac Bashevis Singer's Yentl—as a man? The opera, fortunately, does not take us down that path. Instead, Ferrando challenges her again with suicide. What is a woman to do, given that she has already tried to save him as chastely as she can? Her only choice apparently is to give in.

     The men, all ego, are furious with the obvious turn of events, but fortunately Don Alfonso is wise enough to insist that they accept the natures of their loved ones, without mentioning their own obvious failures and deceits. "Marry them," he advices, and so, apparently they do, both symbolically, with the fake notary marrying Dorabella and Fiordilgi to the Albanians (each linked to the opposite of their lovers in their previous existences) and then, again—at least in promise—to the miraculously returned soldiers. What does it matter, truly, who marries whom, when a simple moustache and coat can alter any personality. And, in that sense, Cosí fan tutte, is neither a celebration of faithfulness or even a return to order, but a joyful tribute to sexually-inspired love.

 

Los Angeles, October 3, 2011

Reprinted from Green Integer Blog (October 2011).

Cailin Maureen Harrison | Defenders / 2019

attempting to save a people who do not need saving

by Douglas Messerli

 

Cailin Maureen Harrison Defenders / directed by Reena Dutt at The Broadwater Black Box / the performance I attended was on December 8, 2019

 

Cailin Maureen Harrison’s play Defenders, directed by Reena Dutt at The Broadwater Black Box in Hollywood, although based on fact, is nearly an absurdist work, revealing perhaps just how absurd things can become in war.

      Fearful that Iceland would come attack of the Nazis, the American military ordered soldiers into that island country. The three figures of this play— Lieutenant Marcus Jansen (Bryan Porter), Sergeant Frank McKinley (Tavis Doucette), and Private Fred LaFleur (Spencer Martin)—are ordered to the island’s northern coast.

       But almost everything that could go wrong does. A powerful storm shipwrecks their vessel, and they are forced with a broken radio and jammed machine gun to take refuge on the smaller, rocky island of Hrisey in a derelict church. They are so fearful that the area may have already infiltrated by Germans, that they almost reject the much-needed help of two locals, Geir Stirdson (John P. Connolly) and his daughter Vigdis Geirdottir (Una Eggerts), who finally are able to convince them that they are friendly, fetching coal for the ancient stove, feeding them, and bringing homemade liquor to comfort the small military unit.

      While McKinley desperately attempts to bring the radio back to life and LaFleur tries again and again to unjam the dead gun, the dynamic leader of the group, Jansen barks out orders and every now and then attempts to scout out the island in search of the enemy, each time returning with more and more serious injuries as he and his loyal second in-command fall into bogs, are whipped apart by the unusually strong winds, and are nearly struck by lightning. All McKinley wants to do is return home, hoping that the evidently wealthy Jansen might eventually take him along into a better financial life.

      Although Geir speaks English, his beautiful daughter speaks mostly Icelandic spiced with an occasional English word (the actress is an Icelander). On top of that LaFleur, obviously from the backwaters of Louisiana, speaks a mix of heavily accented English and Creole. While his seniors pretend to be rational beings, the Private is almost a kind of young mystic, intertwining biblical verses with the Icelandic Eddas, a collection of which has been left behind in the church. It is almost inevitable that he and Vigdis shyly fall in love.

     In short, if this play of meaningless acts did not end so tragically, it might almost be described as a comedy of errors.

     Yet a kind of madness ultimately takes over the mind of Jansen, while a mix of magic and myth spills over from the Icelanders coloring, LaFleur’s already overwrought imagination.

      Iceland, and particularly this small offshore island, has a history of different sets of invaders and pirates, and the stories of the Edda call forth the harsh weather they daily suffer as a kind of protection. Accordingly, they are almost as fearful of the recently arrived American soldiers as the three intruders are of the Nazis, whom they seem imagine behind every rock.

      Accordingly, despite the best intentions of those trapped in this quite ridiculous situation, weapons are brought out, ending in the death of Jansen and the near death of McKinley before an American vessel arrives to save them. Only the innocent LaFleur walks off the island by himself. But we also recognize that he will never be the same again, that the absurd experience where his leaders attempted to save a people who did not need saving, will haunt him the rest of his life.

      The small company which presented this arresting play, Pandelia’s Canary Yellow Company, has created a truly admirable production, with all the actors performing quite brilliantly, and with an arresting set by David Goldstein, appropriate costumes by Shon LeBlank, and excellent sound design by Jesse Mandapat. One might wish that all such small theater Los Angeles companies were so wonderfully professional.

      If Defenders is not precisely a major work of theater drama, it’s certainly a fascinating one, searching out through these long-ago events to balance the impossible-to-believe with a heart-felt spirituality—a need to believe. Every war throughout history has seen such bizarre encounters that only fiction and theater—the representations of our myths—can tell.

 

Los Angeles, December 9, 2019

Reprinted from USTheater, Opera, and Performance (December 2019).

Adrienne Kennedy Funnyhouse of a Negro / 1964 [reading of play]

hersevles: a chamber piece

by Douglas Messerli

 

Adrienne Kennedy Funnyhouse of a Negro / 1964

Adrienne Kennedy Collected Plays & Other Writings, ed. by Marc Robinson (New York: Library of America, 2023)

 

One is tempted to describe Adrienne Kennedy’s 1964 play, Funnyhouse of a Negro, as a kind of chamber piece in black and white. The play takes place in the bedroom of a young woman, Sarah, lit in harsh white played behind a bright white, torn, cheaply-made curtain. Surrounding this spot of “ghastly” white is an “unnatural” black, in which the various imaginary encounters with other “herselves”—the Duchess of Hapsburg, Queen Victoria Regina, Jesus, and Patrice Lumumba—the interior companions of Negro-Sarah, as she is referred to in the cast listing, take place. Accordingly, the very stage set sets up the central tension of this play, an interchange of black and white. And interestingly, despite Sarah’s self-detestation of her own “blackness,” it is in the “unnatural” darkness where all her creative activity occurs. The “white room” of her world is only vaguely defined by the author: “Her room should have a bed, a writing table and a mirror. Near her bed is the statue of Queen Victoria; other objects might be her photographs and her books.” It is a world, in short, of commodities.     

     Yet Kennedy’s startling play is not simply about the basic dichotomies at the heart of this work—the American culture’s long history of breaking down everything into black-and-white (both racially and intellectually)—but is more about all that lies in between, both in terms of racial makeup and in terms of reality—or perhaps what I should speak of as “surreality.”

      Sarah might be to the society at large a “negro,” but to herself she is of mixed heritage, her mother appearing so white that her hair as not even “frizzy,” evidently the product of a mixed marriage. Sarah’s father, whom she detests and is terrified of, is described of as very black, a man haunting Sarah each night from the jungle he once inhabited. Through bits and pieces of dialogue and various retellings from the imaginary characters of Sarah’s mind, we begin to perceive that, upon marrying Sarah’s mother, the father moved his family to Africa where he might, as his own mother wished, “save the race.”

 

                              You must return to Africa, find revelation in the midst

                              of golden savannas, nim and white frankopenny trees,

                              white stallions roaming under a blue sky, you must walk

                              with a white dove and heal the race, heal the misery, take

                              us off the cross…..

 

Her vision of this paradisiacal Africa, in short, is as absurd as Sarah’s own desire to live at the edges of things, in anonymity:

 

                              I am an English major, as my mother was when she went

                              to school in Atlanta…. I am graduated from a city college

                              and have occasional work in libraries, but mostly spend my

                              days preoccupied with the placement and geometric position

                              of words on paper. I write poetry filling white page after

                              white page with imitations of Edith Sitwell. It is my dream

                              to live in rooms with European antiques and my Queen

                              Victoria, photographs of Roman ruins, walls of books, a

                              piano, oriental carpets and to eat my meals on a white

                              glass table. I will visit my friends’ apartments which will

                              contain books, photographs of Roman ruins, pianos and

                              oriental carpets. My friends will be white.

 

Sarah, in sum, wants everything that a bourgeois consumer might desire. Yet each night she is haunted by the return of her dead father—a man whom we are told by the other two “other” figures of this play hung himself in his Harlem hotel upon the death of Patrice Lumumba, but whom Sarah insists she herself as killed by bludgeoning him with an ebony mask—reminding her of her societal position as a “nigger,” and all that dreadful aspersion signifies in a racist world.

     Sarah’s desired world contains no love, and she herself is unable to forgive. She admits to not particularly liking her friends, and makes it clear, despite her occasional sex with him, that she does not love her neighbor, Raymond. She is a product of both passion and hate, born from a mother who ceased having sex with her husband and a father her raped her. Her own writing is pointless, an imitation of a poet, Edith Sitwell, who, dressed in velvet and turbans, poured out often abstract rhythmical works, which, despite their modernity, often earned her the label of poseur.

      A major problem, one shared by all “herselves,” is a clearly Freudian one; each of them is losing their hair, like Sarah’s mother, now locked away in an asylum: fear, humiliation, failure, and embarrassment is at the center of Sarah’s life.

       Yet it is these very fears and the almost mad manifestation of Sarah’s fractured selves that is at the center of any real love and creativity she exhibits. Unlike the white frozen world of objects and vague relationships at the center of her “dream,” the horrible terrors of her own past and the dark world with which she is associated—her always “knocking” obsessions—are at the core of this play, a work which critic Deborah Thompson has observed is “‘founded’ in groundlessness, alienation, errancy, transience, and multiplicity,  written, Kennedy has explained, during a sea voyage: "Away from all my old books, but now besieged and surrounded by a myriad of real, astounding new imagery (ocean, staterooms, the decks, standing at the rail), my unconscious and conscious seemed to join in a new way."

     Tragically, in the world in which Sarah lives—a world filled with a gossipy and uncaring landlady, a cold cynical lover, and those white friends, “shrewd, intellectual and anxious for death”—there is no way to mend the rents and tears of Sarah’s fractured world. The society, in its racist distinctions, does not allow such bourgeois aspirations from a woman of color. And, accordingly, Kennedy’s play must end in Sarah’s destruction, another victim in a culture that does permit one to accept the multitudinous realities of life.

      In full gothic irony, Raymond suggests at play’s end that, in truth, Sarah’s father did not hang himself in a Harlem hotel, but is a “doctor married to a white whore”: “He lives in the city in rooms with European antiques, photographs of Roman ruins, walls of books and oriental carpets. Her father is a nigger who eats his meals on a white glass table.”

 

Los Angeles, January 9, 2015

Reprinted from USTheater, Opera, and Performance (January 2015).