The Cherry Orchard

Post by Mondschein

"The Cherry Orchard" at Classic Stage Company, December 2, 2012

(photo: Carol Rosegg)

Classic Stage puts up The Cherry Orchard, the last production of its Chekhov Initiative, that included The Seagull, Uncle Vanya and Three Sisters in a new and very casual translation by John Christopher Jones.

Mr. Jones reportedly worked directly with the cast during rehearsals to make the vocabulary choices for their respective characters.  It had to have been great fun for the actors, but the result ends up straddling the border of anachronism and "huh?"  It was my first time seeing this play and I can't help but wonder there's something about Chekov that never makes it through translation.

Unnatural Acts

"Unnatural Acts" at Classic Stage Company, June 18, 2011

This new dramatization by the Plastic Theatre chronicles the events leading up to the "secret court" hearings conducted by Harvard University in 1920, following the apparent suicide of Cyril Wilcox.

Amit Paley, a student journalist for The Harvard Crimson, discovered a reference to the incident in university archives.  Harvard eventually allowed Mr. Paley to review the documents, prompting Tony Speciale of Plastic Theatre to make his own investigation.

The School for Lies

Posted by Mondschein

"The School for Lies" at Classic Stage Company, April 30, 2011

David Ives returns to CSC with another update of a classic. This time it's a fresh interpretation of Moliere's The Misanthrope.

And fresh, indeed.  Mr. Ives manages to combine the French salon of the empire with a hilarious farce entirely in verse and using quite contemporary and usually anachronistic language.  It's a similar feat to that of this season's revival of David Hirson's La Bete, but this time it doesn't require the masterful skills of Mark Rylance to achieve success.


Mr. Ives kicks off this grand time with the names assigned to his characters.  The misanthrope, a man incapable of guile or dishonesty, even for the sake of polite society is aptly named Frank (Hamish Linklater).  Celimene (Mamie Gummer) is the widowed owner of the manse where the action occurs, and has a slander charges pending against her. She sports a barbed tongue as sharp as Frank's, but wields it purely for sport, "I never gossip, I just repeat."  Losing the case will render her penniless if her secrets are revealed.  Complicating the suit is Celimene's rival, Arsinoe (Alison Fraser).  She also has three suitors: the obnoxious and untalented, self-styled poet Oronte (Rick Holmes), Acaste (Matthew Maher) a vapid hanger-on, and her oily lawyer Clitander (Frank Harts).  Philante (Hoon Lee) and Elainte (Jenn Gambatese) round out the cast as friends of Celimene and Steven Boyer doubling as servants of both Celimene and Frank.

Orlando

"Orlando" at Classic Stage Company, September 21, 2010

(photo by Joan Marcus)


Virginia Woolf's tale of an Elizabethan nobleman, who lives as a man until age 30, then wakes from a 6 month coma to find he has become a woman who lives another 370 years without aging comes to Classic Stage Company care of Sarah Ruhl.  It's an aggressive challenge to take on a work that Ms. Ruhl herself describes as "...language...so exquisite it would have seemed like a terrible bastardization to just leave the narration behind and make up dialog."  Despite the over theatricality of the novel's premise, that quality doesn't guarantee great theatre.  Ms. Ruhl, in apparent deference to Ms. Woolf's erudition, gives us an evening that is part acting, part exposition where the characters recite their activities in third person more often that portraying a role.  In the end, it feels more like a writing exercise than a play.

Venus in Fur

Posted by Mondschein

"Venus in Fur" at Classic Stage Company, January 23, 2010

A tale of lust, domination and submission, based on a German novel from the late 1800s, David Ives has adapted Leopold von Sacher Masoch's Venus in Furs into a contemporary, clever, 90 minute two-hander.  The theatricality is heightened as he juxtaposes the tale into the setting of a playwright conducting auditions for his own stage adaptation of the original text.

Frustrated by poor productions of earlier work, Thomas (Wes Bentley) is directing his new play himself.  His "perfect" Wanda and she hasn't turned up yet at his auditions.  He is about to give up for the day when Vanda (Nina Arianda) bursts into the room.  She's late for her appointment (weather, trains, blah, blah) but wants to read even though Thomas didn't have her name on the list.  She quizzes him on the finer points of the story, "It's really just porn, isn't it? I mean...really?"  Exposition ensues and the games begin.  Power flips back and forth as they read each character, and as director and actress work through the story.