Superfluities Redux

by George Hunka
Artistic director, theatre minima

A Theatre Surrounds a City:
Vienna's Burgtheater

Wednesday, 05 May 2010

Michael Billington puts up his dukes

The recent announcement that the Broadway production of Lucy Prebble's Enron will close this Sunday unleashed rare vitriol from the pen of the Guardian's Michael Billington today. Apart from some harsh words (including "obtuse") for the review of the show from New York Times' chief critic Ben Brantley, Billington is more exercised about Broadway in general:

[One] reason for the attacks is the entrenched American view that visual pyrotechnics and razzle-dazzle are the special province of the musical. Plays, on the other hand, are judged by their fidelity to what a critic once called "the visible and audible surfaces of everyday life." It's permissible for Wicked or Legally Blonde to deploy expressionist techniques but, on Broadway at least, plays are expected to conform to the realist rules. ...

If the melancholy saga of Enron proves anything, it is Broadway's irrelevance to serious theatre. It is simply a big, gaudy commercial shop-window where fortunes can be won and lost; and I've long argued that the beating heart of American theatre is to be found in Chicago, from which a truly terrific American play, Tracy Letts's August: Osage County, recently emerged. Next time an ambitious producer thinks of taking a London hit play to Broadway, I'd suggest they ask themselves one simple question: is your journey really necessary?

With the rumored transfer of Jez Butterworth's highly-regarded Jerusalem, which recently concluded a successful West End run, to Broadway soon, it will be interesting to see if Billington's dismay is well-founded (though from all reports Jerusalem is as realist as ... well, as August: Osage County). Meanwhile, off-Broadway, MTC is now previewing the American premiere of That Face, the Olivier-nominated debut work from British playwright Polly Stenham.

Though Brantley (and the Times generally) has the reputation of being somewhat Anglophilic, this Anglophilia I think has been rather limited to only a few Brits — Tom Stoppard, Martin McDonough, and perhaps a few others. Obviously it doesn't extend to Lucy Prebble; will it extend to Butterworth and Stenham? Only the future can tell; in the meantime, Billington's full article is here.

Posted in /Guardian
Permanent link to this story

Wednesday, 05 May 2010

Tony nominations for Jan Maxwell

Jan Maxwell. (Photo: Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)

Congratulations to Jan Maxwell, who yesterday was nominated for not one but two Tony Awards for the 2009-2010 season: one for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play (for The Royal Family) and a second for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play (for Lend Me a Tenor, which is now on Broadway). It's quite a trick, and in the 63-year history of the Tonys she is only the fourth actress to garner double nominations in a single season.

But Broadway and Tony aficianados will probably be surprised to learn that Ms. Maxwell is also one of the foremost performers of the work of Howard Barker in the United States. She is a founding member (with Richard Romagnoli and Robert Emmet Lunney) of The Barker Project, won a Drama Desk nomination for her performance as Galactia in the 2008 Potomac Theatre Project's production of Scenes from an Execution, and was a revelation in the title role of Barker's Judith in a reading for the 21-for-21 festival of the playwright's work last year.

Which makes us doubly glad that she'll taking some valuable and no doubt hectic time out to join us for the Howard Barker at the Segal Center event next Monday, where she'll be discussing Barker's work on a panel that will also include Romagnoli and Lunney, and reading a scene from Barker's Gertrude — The Cry, directed by the Red Bull Theater's artistic director Jesse Berger.

I'm grateful that Ms. Maxwell will provide a welcome dose of Broadway lustre and glamour to our proceedings, and again offer my sincere congratulations to her.

Posted in /Upcoming
Permanent link to this story

Superfluities Redux home page

George Hunka home page

theatre minima home page

Theory and polemic
95 Sentences About Theatre (2007)
Organum I (2006-2007)
Organum II (2008-2009)
Critique of Tragedy (2010-continuing)

Notes
Howard Barker 1
Howard Barker 2
Samuel Beckett 1
Samuel Beckett 2
Bertolt Brecht
Richard Foreman 1
Richard Foreman 2
Je Suis Sang
Sarah Kane
Music
Marilyn Nonken
Saint Oedipus

Contact
geh@panix.com