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Wednesday, 19 May 2010
In the comments section of yesterday's post on the New York opening of Polly
Stenham's That Face, Aaron Riccio wrote that its New
York
reception "[doesn't have] anything to do with the Enron divide,
though. This isn't a symbolic or showy production; it's a dismally
effective glimpse at how illness affects a family." Well, hell, Ben
Brantley thinks it does, in his New York Times review of the play today:
That Face created a sensation when it hit London
several
years ago, moving quickly from the Royal Court Theater to a West End run.
The excitement was generated partly by the youth of its author, who was
only 19 at the time. ... That Face also opened at a time when the
newspapers were full of lamentations about the sorry state of British
youth, and it was a good moment for a "blame the elders" play, written by
an
enterprising younger person.
As the recent Broadway failure of the West End smash
Enron
reminded us,
the tastes of London and New York theatergoers are not always in sync. And
Manhattan audiences may be less eager to embrace That Face,
especially the
cripplingly self-conscious version directed by Sarah Benson. ...
Perhaps Ms. Benson, who did a smashing job with the New
York premiere of Sarah Kane's Blasted, is trying to tone down the
play's more flamboyant aspects, the better for us to see the wounded
souls
behind the fireworks. But without a Martha who tears up the stage, the
play starts to look like a series of unconvincing poses, a problem
compounded by the stiffness that can afflict American actors doing posh
British accents.
Don't blame me; I didn't start it, though perhaps given
what I mentioned about accents in my post yesterday I should set up shop
as a prognosticator of New York Times theatre reviews.
I'm not sure what's more condescending about this review: Brantley's
call for a "moratorium" on plays about crazy moms (though he doesn't seem
to have a problem with those who sing, as his admiration for
Gypsy and Next to Normal attests) or his recent
explicitly parochial disdain for new British plays, especially by
teenaged playwrights with a bone to pick with their parents.
Brantley is right that the mother-child relationship is a central
thematic element in theatre, as it is in the other arts, for it is central
to human experience. When mental illness and class issues infest this
relationship, drama arises, as it should; perhaps Brantley believes that,
only at a safe historical distance (Medea, Long Day's Journey
into Night, The Glass Menagerie to name just three plays),
it
becomes more palatable, even amusing and entertaining when the mad mother
is Ethel Merman.
It is neither, either on stage or off. Which just makes me more
interested in seeing That
Face, though my time and my $75.00 must be spent when I'm not at
my day job in raising my growing family and buying diapers.
It's fine that he didn't like the play; but perhaps he should have just
left it at that, instead of providing more grist for the
blogospheric mill, as it likely will.
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Superfluities
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George Hunka
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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
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Samuel
Beckett 2
Bertolt
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Foreman 1
Richard
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Je Suis
Sang
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Kane
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Nonken
Saint Oedipus
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by George
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