Not a review: Ibsen’s Ghosts at BAM

The reviewers of the Almeida production of Ghosts are wrong and I’m right: it was ABOMINABLE.  Still on the warpath with reviewers, allow me. When we walked into the theater, a beautiful set with layers of glass (Yes! Ghosts were going to be appearing and disappearing between these layers! Clever!) was waiting for us on stage. I was excited. Its style was respectful of the period and place, while inventive and elegant. And then the maid, (couldn’t find the name of the actor who played her on the BAM website, forgettable socially, forgettable theatrically) ran on stage. I have a rule about theater which has proved quite correct again and again: stay away from plays that have a sofa on stage. There are a few exceptions to this rule (Lepage, Ostermeier), but on the whole it's proven itself. I’m thinking of adding a new rule: no young ladies running around the stage with their arms loose. Why should young actresses run!? It’s another theatrical cliché. Young men don’t run, older men don’t run, older women don’t run on stage. Children run on stage, and they should, because they do in real life. Or everyone should run if that’s an expression of an inner state. That young actress was signaling acting, she had been informed they were all the correct signals.

I tried to hang in there, a little bit of irksome running should not be a source of panic, the production could still be good. Was hoping the other actors yet to appear on stage might still act rather than act acting.Maybe just be the maid got it wrong. But no. All the other actors followed suit, a sure sign the director was involved. They were so convinced that they were acting right. Everyone told them. The director. The Oliver Awards. Even the New York Times. Well I dispute. Good acting cannot be self satisfied. Every night, setting foot on stage should be a risk. The appropriately named stage fright. That's one of the contracts between the actors and the audience. The actor who played the priest, Will Keen, was a bit less liked, a bit less sure, and therefore he was just a little bit more bearable to me. It could well be all these actors are able to act, but they were misguided.

At the end of the play, the son, actor Billy Howle, goes into seizures, then becomes blind. His physical degradation, the whole night, unravels in a collapsed time frame, which has to be dealt with theatrically. Richard Eyre did not come up with an effective solution to that challenge. Treated realistically, the resulting production is massively over dramatic. The mother, actor Lesley Manville, decides to give to her son the pills he had gathered to terminate his own life when the time came. Her tears provoked an all time high in my embarrassment for the actors. Which turned into ill humor when they came back to collect their - oh so well deserved as far as they were concerned - applause.

The one thing I enjoyed was the head of the young actor. It was overdimensioned. That was really interesting, and oddly satisfying. His whole head was half a size larger than would be expected for his body size. His eyes, his nose, his mouth, his skull, freakish in a good sense. That is all I got out of this production, the oversized head and the blue glass set.

I actually like melodrama. Visconti. Zola. Dickens. But this production’s combination of cocksure acting and heavy drama rubbed me the wrong way. Richard Eyre is on my watch list now, I’ll beware. The production was 90 min long, clearly not its natural stage length. And without an intermission. Thank god for small mercies, as Fiona Shaw repeated memorably in Beckett’s Happy Days. On that same BAM stage.

Contributed by  - - Arabella Hutter

This is not a review: Semele at BAM

What is to be done with an opera that has beautiful music and an atrocious libretto, most arias consisting of the same convoluted line repeated over and over?? Involving a complicated plot about humans and Olympian gods, that nobody in their right mind should care about? Is is possible to produce such an opera in a way that would allow a modern audience relate to it without resorting to a contemporary production which can get pretty annoying when people are singing 17th century music in US military gear, for example? (Yes, this is a long, convoluted sentence, because it's a blog, and it's not a review nor an opera)

In the Canadian Opera production of Semele, the curtain opens, - that dramatic moment every every opera lover relishes, to reveal a blank wall right behind, hitting us as if we had run into a concrete wall. Wait. It's not a wall, it's a screen. Projection of a short documentary about a 12th century temple in a small town in China, while orchestra plays overture. The temple was used to store grain during the Cultural Revolution. Later a couple lived there, but the husband killed his wife's lover, and was executed by a firing squad. The woman sells the temple to unknown entity to increase the chances of her son in finding a wife. Shot of temple in warehouse. The overture ends, the screen rises and the actual temple is on stage, under our very eyes,  all 17 tons of it, exactly in the place and dimension it was projected on the screen. One of the many dramatic, operatic moments imagined by designer artist director Zhang Huan.

I will not reveal every trick out of Huan's hat, but can't resist sharing the last one. After the opera has come to a close, a procession of Buddhist monks hum the communist hymn, l'Internationale, carrying the burnt corpse of Semele who died from looking at Jove/Zeus. The musical score to one of the 20th century disappeared gods: communism. Humans meet Gods, East meets West. Way out of the box inventive, dramatic, musical. Good ensemble singing, good orchestra, great score. Conductor Christopher Moulds, with his dramatic sense of timing, gets the everything out of the singers. Jane Archibald, soprano colatura, sings her guts out.

My suggestion for the next production of Semele or similar work is to completely rewrite the plot and lines, just keep the music. And forget English as a language for opera unless it's 20th/21st century, no offence meant. I don't think it can get better than this production with the existing Semele in lacklustre English verse. 


Additionally:
Nay only to the Sumo wrestlers: too cute. 

I didn't know Hilary could be a man's name.

Almost forgot: it's really funny too. There is sex on stage. Also a horse in pajama with a huge penis.

Too far out for Canadians, just right for New York?  The audience loved it.

I hope I'm not starting to sound like a reviewer, this divinely appointed opinion maker?


Published by  - -  Arabella Hutter

Adorable Derrida

Je trouve qu'il n'y a rien d'adorable chez Jacques Derrida. Sauf ses parents. Trois anecdotes:

Les parents de Derrida l'ont nommé Jackie en honneur au petit garçon dans le "Kid" de Chaplin. Qu'y pourrait-il y avoir de plus adorable? Il a changé son nom plus tard en Jacques, plus distingué.

A un repas avec des amis, ceux-ci félicitaient Derrida de ce que "différance" avec un a était entré dans le dictionnaire. La mère de Derrida s'est tournée vers lui, avec ce reproche: "Oh, Jackie, tu n'as pas su écrire juste "différence"?!"

Sa mère gisait mourante dans son lit d'hôpital. Elle gémissait. Derrida s'est penché vers elle:

"Où souffres-tu, Maman?"

" J'ai ... mal ... à ... à .... ma ... mère."

Publié par  - -  Arabella Hutter

As far as I'm concerned, there is nothing adorable about Jacques Derrida. It's a different case when it comes to his parents. Here are three anecdotes:

His parents named him Jackie, after the little boy in Charlie Chaplin's "The Kid'.  How adorable is that? Later, Derrida changed his name to Jacques, which sounds more elegant.

At a dinner party, Derrida's friends were congratulating him on his "différance" having made it into the French dictionary.  Différance being a word that Derrida created to express a different concept from "différence", as it is usually spelled. Derrida's parents turned to him, upset: "Jackie, come on, didn't you know how to spell "différence" correctly?

Finally, as his mother was dying in her hospital bed, Jacques leant towards her and asked where she hurt. She replied, barely audibly:

"I ... hurt ... at ... my ... mother..."

Un petit bijou de kitsch/A gem of kitsch in Midtown, New York

On croit connaître sa ville comme la paume de la main, et c'est toujours un ravissement de découvrir un événement inattendu, un endroit unique. Je parcourais rapidement la 32ème rue entre deux rendez-vous, quand une étrange entrée attire mon attention, entre deux bâtiments. Placée à distance de la rue, elle donne l'impression d'ouvrir sur un bâtiment en sous-sol, comme la Penn Station qui est si vaste et pourtant semble ne pas avoir de surface: qui a jamais vu la Penn Station de l'extérieur?

Je n'ai pas vraiment le temps, mais la tentation est irrésistible: je m'aventure. On dirait l'entrée d'une clinique ou d'un bureau des services sociaux. Il me faut immédiatement choisir entre l'église du haut ou celle du bas. Friande de paradoxe, je descends l'escalier. Pour la suite, voir les photos. 

L'église du haut a très nettement un caractère XIXème penchant vers un mélange d'extrême gothique préraphaélisme romanesque flamboyant, mais l'église du bas s'apparente aux halls de gare années 50s, quand on s'est enfin mis à penser à la facture de chauffage et on a construit des plafonds bas, et aux cryptes moyenâgeuses pour le frisson. Dans les deux, beaucoup d'Asiatiques, Philippins je suppose, et de Latinos, jeunes et vieux. Les fidèles prient à genoux avec ferveur, puis quêtent les faveurs des saints par le contact de l'or, en caressant leurs têtes, en effleurant leurs pieds.

Mérite trois étoiles dans le Guide Bleu qui ne les donnera jamais, évidemment, soyons sérieux.

We think we know our city like the palm of the hand, and it is a delight to come upon an unexpected event , a unique place. I am quickly pacing 32nd street between two appointments, when a strange doorway between two buildings catches my attention. Back from the street, it gives the impression of opening on a basement, like Penn Station, which is so vast and yet seems to have no exterior shell : who has ever seen Penn Station from the outside?

I did not really have the time, but the temptation was irresistible : I ventured. The entrance looks like it would lead to a clinic or social services offices . I must immediately choose between the lower or the higher church. Fond of the paradox , I walk down the stairs. For more, see photos.

The upper church has very much a 19th Century character leaning towards the flamboyant , but the lower church is similar to a station concourse from the 50s, when thoughts went to the heating bill , and  to a medieval crypt for the thrill. In both, many Asians, Filipinos I suppose, and Latinos, young and old. The faithful pray kneeling with fervor and hope to gain the favor of the saints by the contact of gold, stroking their heads, worshiping their feet.

Deserves three stars in the haughty Guide Bleu which will never award them, obviously, soyons sérieux s'il vous plait.

                                               

Publié par / published by Arabella Hutter

Eglise du Haut/Higher Church

Un miroir au coin de l'Univers

J'écoutais à la radio un jeune philosophe américain anthropique, David Chalmers, affirmer que nous avons une raison d'être. Nous serions la conscience de l'Univers. Nous en serions les peintres, les poètes, les musiciens, les philosophes. Sans nous, l'Univers ne saurait pas qu'il existe.

 Cette proposition nous brosse les poils à rebours. Après des siècles où le Christianisme a mis l'homme au centre de l'Univers, enfant chéri de Dieu, nous avons fait le dur apprentissage de l'humilité, étape après étape. La terre n'est pas au centre de l'Univers et le soleil ne lui tourne pas autour. Les animaux ont aussi des droits. Nous ne sommes pas la création ultime de Dieu, mais un accident de parcours dans l'évolution biologique. Le monde est aléatoire et non voulu par Dieu. Voilà notre crédo, en tant qu'intellectuels européens. Il a été forgé au XXème siècle par Heidegger, Sartre, Lévy-Strauss et les autres.

Arrivent des penseurs et scientifiques qui bouleversent ces certitudes. D'anthropocentrisme, ils passent à l'anthropisme. Leur théorie peut être interprétée de deux manières. D'une part, on peut la prendre simplement comme une vision de la réalité, une optique. Il est indéniable que nous ayons une conscience qui nous permet d'avoir conscience, justement, de l'univers. J'apprécie le côté poétique de cette version de l'humanité, nous autres femmes, hommes minuscules sur notre minuscule planète dans une des innombrables galaxies du cosmos, que nous en soyons le miroir. Sans nous placer au centre de l'univers, au contraire, nous sommes dans un coin, à refléter l'émerveillement de l'univers. S'il n'y avait pas de conscience, l'existence de l'univers, ainsi que son essence seraient ignorés. C'est assez facile à accepter. 

Le second aspect de la proposition, que notre raison d'être soit notre rôle de miroir est plus difficile à avaler. Même s'il est intéressant d'aller à contre courant et de considérer la possibilité que nous ayons une raison d'être. Si notre existence a un but, cela présuppose une entité supérieure qui l'ait choisi. Evidemment, le candidat de choix pour ce poste est dieu, ce qui ferait plaisir aux Créationnistes. Dieu ou autre, il présuppose une conscience qui gère et alors nous ne sommes plus les seuls à être conscients de l'univers.

Certains de ces philosophes affirment aussi, statistiques à l'appui, que nous serions les seuls êtres dans notre univers, mais qu'il y aurait d'autres univers qui produiraient aussi des êtres conscients. Je trouve cette interprétation des statistiques douteuses. Par contre, assez sympathique d'imaginer ces autres univers avec ces autres consciences, comme nous voyons nos compagnons humains dont nous savons qu'ils ont chacun une conscience sans pouvoir jamais en faire l'expérience. Mais quant à moi, j'espère fermement que nous ne sommes pas les seuls dans notre univers et qui nous allons faire connaissance tout bientôt.

Cette théorie présuppose aussi que les animaux n'ont pas conscience de l'univers. Je consulte mon chat. Il est assis à la fenêtre. Il regarde l'univers. Peut-être que sa perception sans mots, sans imagerie, sans théories, dans une ontologie pure, est plus adaptée à ce qu'est vraiment l'univers que la nôtre.

Publié par  - - Arabella Hutter