Labors of Love

Two shows within a week's time invite comparisons: A Doll's House, Part 2 (DH2) at Round House (temporarily quartered at the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Lansburgh venue) and Love's Labor's Lost (LLL) comfortably nestled in the library-within-the-library at Folger. [Note: Spoilers within.]

Holly Twyford and Craig Wallace in A Doll's House, Part 2. Round House Theatre via Facebook.

Love's Labor's Lost set designed by Lee Savage for Folger Theatre

Both stories conclude that love is harder than it looks, no matter how agile your language skills are. Language requires communication skills, which are broader than the leaps over furniture Nora (Holly Twyford) effects in her abandoned Doll House. (Here, I go by the Signet Classics paperback edition, which eschews punctuation and possessiveness in titling Ibsen's play A Doll House rather than the more common A Doll's House. Signet also eschewed the hyphen in Moby Dick. What can I say.)

What the stories demonstrate is that true love requires respect, and respect comes from (and with) honest communication. Nora and Torvald traveled that road (with injuries) after Ibsen's story ends and Lucas Hnath's continuation completes. And Shakespeare broke the rules of Comedy by bringing this revelation about honesty and respect to his heroes and heroines without joining them in a four-way wedding at the end of the story (or five if you count Don Armado and Jaquenetta, which you should). I almost want to see Love's Labor's Lost, Part 2 after the four principal couples reunite a year and a day hence to see if respect conquers all after all. It didn't in Nora and Torvald's case.

As for the theater-going experience, I saw both shows in matinee mode, which I've been told doesn't bring out the best in either performers or audiences. I've always disagreed with that and have rarely been disappointed. I'm far more awake in matinees than evening performances, and I've never discerned a lack of energy in matinee performers.

That said, I'll say I appreciated DH2 but loved LLL. For some reason, I was expecting more comedy (though not necessarily Comedy) from DH2 than was there. As a modern take on Ibsen that wasn't reflected in the set (a broken home), the production added language (vernacular; i.e., vocabulary; i.e., dirty words) I didn't expect and didn't appreciate. It wasn't clever, to my mind and sensibility. 

The DH2 set was devoid of a home's warmth, which I suspect was the point but made for a somewhat lifeless experience. On the other hand, this allowed the focus to be on the character's speeches, which indeed were speeches rather than dialogue (mutually respectful communication). 

In contrast, the LLL set, a sumptuous library (with a hidden bar behind the books), provided an idealized world for would-be academics showing off their erudition and sophistication. 

For both DH2 and LLL, the delight is in the performances. I am in awe of actors, and the direction guided their performances to perfection. Round House is always full of favorites, and the cast of four--Twyford, Craig Wallace (Torvald), Nancy Robinette (housekeeper Anne Marie), and Kathryn Tkel (Nora and Torvald's daughter Emmy) all are RHT alumni. I always look forward to actors I consider familiar friends. Over at LLL, that familiar friend was Eric Hissom as the ridiculous Don Armado (I'm reminded of the Adolpho character in The Drowsy Chaperone). Other standouts in the cast were Zachary Fine as a virile yet ultimately humble Berowne and Megan Graves as an adorably impish Mote.

Love, hosaa

Respect's labor's found 

Juliet and Romeo

Back from yesterday's matinee of Romeo and Juliet at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre on Capitol Hill. It was a tight almost-three-hour afternoon, well paced, and I really really liked the production. Mostly. I have issues.

This is sort of a problem play for me, and the very spunkiness, intelligence, strength, and independence of the strikingly young-seeming actress Erin Weaver as Juliet made the problem all the more vivid. Juliet is too good for Romeo. She's too smart for what happens to her. It's always been a problem to me that Juliet doesn't just go off with Romeo in his banishment.

Erin Weaver, Michael Goldsmith, in Romeo and Juliet. Photo by Teresa Wood for Folger Theatre, via Facebook

Photo by Jeffrey Malet for Folger Theatre, via Facebook

This production gives her a little bit of a reason to stay: fear, in the form of the menacing ferocity of her angered father (played by Brian Dykstra). So maybe the answer is that she's too smart to run away from a father who is that determined to sell her off to his friend. One of the strengths of this production was seeing the growth of this Juliet, from nerdy, bookish little girl with a teddy bear to a passionate bride eager to begin her life as a wife.

But beyond the text (some of which was used for this staging, directed by Erin Weaver's husband, Aaron Posner), I do think that this Juliet was also too good for this Romeo (Michael Goldsmith). Just my opinion, but a feeling shared by a few of the folks in our Meetup group. I wasn't feeling the chemistry, the sense that these two were perfectly matched and meant to be. It's intangible, but there needs to be charisma, and I just didn't feel it from Goldsmith--nor, for that matter, from the Mercutio (Brad Koed) or the Tybalt (Rex Daugherty). I think they performed their roles well, but again, it's an intangible something I missed.

My eyes (and ears) went to the amazing Eric Hissom, portraying the good Friar Lawrence (as well as taking the lines otherwise assigned to the uncast chorus and Prince). He was the ghost-tiger at Round House last season in Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo.

Eric Hissom, via Maryland Theatre Guide

Cast, Romeo and Juliet. Eric Hissom, center. Photo by Jeffrey Malet for Folger Theatre, via Facebook

What a presence! What a voice!



So this brings me to the other "issue" I had with this production. I didn't mind the edits to the text, though I thought the accompanying exhibit out in the Folger Library's great hall was kind of funny: Titled "Here Is a Play Fitted," it seemed to be one great justification for abridging Shakespeare. There's even an exchange of letters between an actor and another early 20th-century theatrical type (producer?) agreeing that it is not possible to perform Shakespeare as written. (Excuse me?)

I'm not opposed to choices made in deference to exhausted audience members with short attention spans. The lines delivered were deliberate, clear, and clarifying. Scenes then overlapped one another, keeping the production tight and lively. So I never missed all that much of the excised text. Until the last lines.

I imagine there are few people attending a production of Romeo and Juliet willingly who don't know that the Prince is supposed to come out at the end and tell them that the tale of woe they just saw was a tale of woe. Yes, it's like, duh: Romeo takes poison in a brash romantic gesture to his dead love, only to recoil in horrific pain at the reality of that choice. Juliet then rashly thrusts the dagger into her own breast, making the same romantic choice, and likewise recoiling in horrific pain. The reality was obvious, so the recap by the Prince probably is superfluous.

But from a practical, audience point of view, that slow, silent fade out deprived me of that glorious voice of Eric Hissom one last time. I felt cheated. It also meant I didn't know when to applaud. Yes, you do need to cue the audience. Duh.

As I said, I really really liked this show. My criticisms are minor. Well, except for the last lines. I really wanted those:

A glooming peace this morning with it brings.
The sun for sorrow will not show his head.
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardoned, and some punishèd;
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
Folger Theatre (Washington, DC), October 15-December 1, 2013
Directed by Aaron Posner

Cast:
Juliet: Erin Weaver
Romeo: Michael Goldsmith
Friar Lawrence: Eric Hissom (also fight captain)
Nurse: Sarah Holt (understudy for Sherri L. Edelen)
Mercutio: Brad Koed
Tybalt: Rex Daugherty
Benvolio: Aaron Bliden
Lord Capulet: Brian Dykstra
Lady Capulet: Shannon Koob
Lord Montague: Allen McCullough
Lady Montague: Michele Osherow
Paris: Joe Mallon
Balthazar/Peter/Friar John: Matthew McGee

Production credits:
Composer: Carla Kihlstedt
Scenic design: Meghan Raham
Costume design: Laree Lentz
Lighting design: Jennifer Schriever
Sound design: Christopher Baine
Fight director: Casey Dean Kaleba
Dramaturg: Michele Osherow

eta ~ funny how I just now noticed that dramaturg Michele Osherow also played Lady Montague. She wrote in a nice bit of business for herself. I never remembered that Lady Montague dies before the end of the play. The textual reference to it must have been in the masses of words left on the cutting room floor. Here, the character is shown pouring poison into her own wine cup and drinking it, then joining the ghosts of Tybalt and Mercutio (and later, Paris) on the platform above the surviving characters, overseeing their actions. I thought it was a great staging.

Stages of the Mind

My two most recent outings, Our Town at Ford's and Henry V at Folger, share the conceit of an actor reminding the audience that we are required to use our imaginations to help actualize the fiction they are about to present.

That's probably where the comparison ends, but it did stand out for me since I got to see these plays on subsequent Sunday matinees. Both are small stages; like Ford's, the Folger Shakespeare Library makes much with very little space, even without the minds of the audience filling in the gaps.

And, like Ford's, Folger presents challenges to the audience in search of a clear sight line. Not knowing from nothing, I landed a great view of the pillar you see prominent in the right balcony. Well, at least the chair wasn't bolted down and I could scoot closer in and lean my chin on the rail.

I have to admit to being a bit of a dork when the Stage Manager/Chorus tell me to picture the landscape of Grover's Corner or the fields at Agincourt, because I did just that, thanks to the actors handling this role, Portia for Our Town and Michael John Casey for Henry V.

Lots of "old friends" to see at Ford's, including Tom Story as a Simon Stimson with unusually convincing drunken cynicism. Since this was my first trip to Folger's, all were new to me. My friends, this time, were real people (i.e., audience), thanks to the Meetup group. The actors I hope to see around town again include the above-mentioned Casey and Katie deBuys, the young actress shockingly playing both "Katherine of France" and "Boy." It was one of the Meetup mates who noted this astonishing accomplishment of casting when she read the program.

And in the department of As Luck Would Have it, I was reading the Henry V program on the Metro on my way home, and a gentleman seeing the program in my hands asked how I enjoyed the play (very much). It turns out he was Katie's proud father, and I was happy to deliver our group's enthusiastic reviews of his daughter's work.

So we are all made-up families and friends in real worlds of the imagination. Or the other way around.

Love, hosaa
imagining reality