Superfluities Redux
On culture and theatre, by George Hunka
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Tuesday, 08 January 2008
Amazons and Their Men by Jordan Harrison. Directed by Ken Rus Schmoll. Music by Matt Carlson. Set design and projections by Sue Rees. Costume design by Kirche Leigh Zeile. Lighting design by Garin Marschall. Sound design by Leah Gelpe. With Rebecca Wisocky (The Frau), Brian Sgambati (The Man), Heidi Schreck (The Extra) and Gio Perez (The Boy). A presentation of Clubbed Thumb, Maria Striar and Meg MacCary, producers. Running time: 70 minutes, no intermission. Reviewed at the 5 January 2008 performance. At the Ohio Theatre, 66 Wooster Street, New York, 3-26 January 2008. Ticket and schedule information at OvationTix.
Compromise with a corrupt system in the hopes of freedom is an illusion in Jordan Harrison's play based on the career of filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl
Rebecca Wisocky as The Frau in
Amazons and Their Men.
(Photo: Carl Skutsch)
If I must choose the lesser of two evils, I will choose neither.
Karl Kraus
What Martin Heidegger was to philosophy, Leni Riefenstahl was to film history. The unquestionably talented director put her services to the work of the Nazi government in the 1930s, producing and directing films like Triumph of the Will and Olympia; later, Riefenstahl and Heidegger both sought to distance themselves from their contributions to the culture of Hitler's Germany. And, like Heidegger, Riefenstahl continues to influence her discipline to this day, especially in the final scenes of Star Wars, the composition of which George Lucas admitted was influenced by Riefenstahl's Triumph. When, later, Riefenstahl continued to make films, the reception of her work was tainted by her associations with the fascist government, regardless of the content of that work. (Whether the content of that later work itself was corrupted by her brush with Hitler and his minions is a question too complex to be gone into here.)
Jordan Harrison's new play at Clubbed Thumb, Amazons and Their Men, is a meditation on that story. His Riefenstahl stand-in, The Frau, is trying to make a film entirely for herself, a version of Penthesilea's story, in which she has cast herself as the Amazon warrior. Surrounding her are the actors and supernumeraries of her film -- those performers who are necessary but not sufficient to the completion of her new work. Also necessary to its completion is the money and cooperation of the Nazi government, which is funding the film. But it's 1939, and Hitler's government is far more interested in the eastern front than in film production. Despite The Frau's efforts to provide work and protection for the several homosexuals in her cast, the historical situation and her own arrogance lead to disaster for all but her.
Harrison navigates the churning waters of the issue with considerable deftness, aided by Ken Rus Schmoll's bare but kinetic staging; the only two setpieces are a comfortable leather chair in The Frau's apartment and a large modular structure on wheels. It swerves and circles during the sequences in which we see scenes from the film, in a dynamic and convincing imitation of The Frau's own camera movements. The four-person cast, too, is a convincing ensemble. Brian Sgambati and Gio Perez, playing two gay actors who portray Achilles and Patroclos in The Frau's film, offer considerable tenderness and tension as they find their own desires fired by their collaboration, and Heidi Schreck finds a woundedness as The Extra, doomed ever to die -- and live -- at the margins of The Frau's mise en scène.
But it's Rebecca Wisocky as The Frau who dominates the stage in one of the first memorable performances of 2008. Wisocky cleverly channels both Riefenstahl and Gloria Swanson's Norma Desmond in portraying the arrogant director. There is an appropriate campiness to her performance (camp an element of both Nazi and gay aesthetics in some of their manifestations), but she keeps it admirably channeled towards a violent emotional intensity in the quieter scenes of the play.
Amazons and Their Men, despite its subject matter, is a brisk and often very funny 70 minutes (thanks in no small part to Heidi Schreck's gift for physical comedy), but admirably it doesn't lose sight of its issues, which are just as significant today as they were in Germany in 1939. Despite all the seemingly apolitical work she did after WWII, Riefenstahl's career continues to be tainted by her association with Hitler's government and institutions, as does Heidegger's philosophy. And today, during a politically charged year, it's good to be reminded that we all work within a system, within institutions (of which the military is only one; there are social, corporate and artistic institutions as well) which have their own ideological presuppositions. Some may choose, like Riefenstahl, to work within them, assuming that eventually they will have the liberty to express themselves fully. But compromise does not buy artistic freedom -- or any other kind. It buys us instead.
Posted at 9.13 am in /Notices
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