|
The Illusion
THEATER REVIEW The Illusion January 12, 2004 The Chance is starting its 2004 repertory season with a double bang, with Chekhov's Cherry Orchard as its main billing, and Tony Kushner's powerful adaptation of the Pierre Corneille classic L'illusion comique as its alternate production. Brian Weed directed this intriguing piece with Maraca's haunting music threading through the scenes. At the core are the meanings of love, and the illusion and realities of life depicted through the mirror of theater. Being any more concrete on how the scenes play out would be giving the cleverness of the plot away, and, since this is revealed only at the last scene, rob the audience of a sense of awe and wonder when all is revealed. Suffice to say that the protagonists appear under three different names, and that is a clue and cue. Corneille wrote the play to legitimize theater's role and dazzle by its infinite possibilities of depicting nesting realities through various genres, not always reputable in his 17th century time. Furthermore, Corneille was stuffy and wordy, and Tony Kushner kept the gold nugget kernel of the premise and rewrote it in his own truculent verve. Firework displays of creative word torrents pour forth from the big mouth of Matamore (Marc Sanford). Pridamant (Ray Akin) is a bitter old man estranged from his son Clindor, aka Calisto and Theogenes (Brandon Murphy). In a last ditch effort to see his son before his impending death, he consults sorceress Alcandre (Myrna Niles) who obligingly offers glimpses of the lad's life at three separate moments of his life. The young man finds himself in various love quid pro quos with beautiful Melibea/Isabelle/Hippolyta (Heather Howe), while her scheming servant Elicea/Lyse/Clarina (Britt McEachern) is thwarting or abetting her mistress with various subterfuges. The tragi-comic elements would not be complete without a villainous father, Geronte (James Ross), also the Amenuensis, and a dueling rival, Pleribo/Adraste/Prince Florilame (Eric Lieberman). As the scenes play out, we find ourselves torn between ambivalent rooting for successful denouements which may or may not pan out according to Alcandre's wishes. The two rivals and their belles flirt with death, while the artful maid adroitly vies for her mistress's fortune, be it in bed or hard cash. Love, in the end, is all we have through the vagaries of life, and this is the truth the hardened father must confront if he is to find redemption, and, hopefully, be reunited with his son in the physical world. The illusion is complete for the audience through diffused lighting and a mysterious door which changes from a slamming white sliding one in the magician's cave to a red curtain in the metaphysical scenes replayed for the frustrated father. Theater within theater is nothing new, but this updated old twist leaves the audience with a sense of wonder and awe that will seduce even the most jaded. Heather Howe and Britt McEachern are dangerous seductresses who hold the fates of their various pretenders in their clutches, be they Brandon Murphy as a penniless poet, or Marc Sandford in his dashing uniform oozing breathless strings of puns and bon-most, or hapless Eric Lieberman as the spurned contender. The Chance's magic touch is sprinkling pixie dust that will leave you on your seat's edge for a couple of hours.
[top]
THEATER ARTICLE New Adaptation of Tony Kushner's
Play January 19, 2004 Between the glowing reviews for his recent Homebody/Kabul and the incredible praise for the HBO adaptation of his best known work, Angels in America, Tony Kushner may well be the most important voice currently working in the American theater. The Illusion is an earlier piece, freely adapted from a French drama of the 1600s, but with much of the brilliant dialogue and thought-provoking ideas that characterize his more recent work. The story involves a father gleaning advice on his son from a sorcerer, but the conflicting tales the sorcerer spins only lead deeper into a web of mystery. This version at the Chance is from director Brian C. Weed, and stars Ray Akin, Heather Howe, Eric Lieberman and Britt McEachern.
[top]
THEATER REVIEW "The Illusion's" power
proves real January 30, 2004 Though he may not be as well-known as Moliere or Racine, Pierre Corneille deserves recognition as the playwright who forged the creation of neoclassicism in the French theater of the 17th century. Considered a comedy in its day, his L'Illlusion Comique relates, in broad strokes, a characteristically harsh vision of human folly, yet one with comical undertones. In Tony Kushner's 1991 adaptation, the acclaimed playwright retained what's distinctive about Corneille's play while tightening it to two acts and reshaping it with new material. The resulting hybrid, called The Illusion, is on hand at The Chance Theater, giving local audiences a chance to see an example of French neoclassicism by a playwright whose original works are rarely staged outside France, as interpreted by one of contemporary theater's most intellectually challenging writers. Through characters more archetypal that realistic, The Illusion contains the mythic power and universality of any of the world's greatest fables. But for better casting two of the script's key roles, the Chance staging, directed by Brian C. Weed ... still communicates much of the play's potency. Corneille's storyline is pure fantasy: Searching for information on the son he drove away many years earlier, Pridamant, an old man, seeks out a sorcerer, who conjures three episodes from the young man's life. In each, however, the young man has a different name and occupies a different world. Still, there's a strange continuity to the three compressed tales. Only after the father has viewed all three visions is the truth about his son revealed -- and the real reason the sorcerer has chosen this method to enlighten him. As role-playing and the favored neoclassic device of the play-within-the-play are prominent, one might be tempted to assume that the "illusion" of the title refers to the craft of theater and its ability to create an imaginary world. The play's true subject, however, is love: Is it real or an illusion? One character flat-out states the latter, then likens love to a litany of ills that includes "a foul hydra, a tomb, a disease, misery..." It's a premise easily borne out by the head games the play's characters - real and imaginary - play on each other. By the second act, Corneille has us asking ourselves how far any person would go in the name of this most mysterious of emotions. By essaying three different characters in each of the three visions, Brandon Murphy, Heather Howe, Britt McEachern and Eric Lieberman prove their versatility. The old man has described his son as wild and dangerous, having a "feral stare" - yet as the young man representing him, Murphy is likable and innocuous. He's sympathetic in the various roles, whether in love's throes or using love to manipulate the women in his life. Howe and McEachern create discrete characterizations as, respectively, a woman and her maid - a pair whose destinies seem linked by their romantic involvements with the same man (Murphy). Howe is needy and vulnerable in her first incarnation, tough and blase yet impassioned in her second, devoted yet mistrustful in her third. McEachern also offers nice variations on the basic role of the scheming servant: cool and flirty, then troubled and vengeful, then mercenary and clever. It's the fine work of Howe and McEachern that makes this Illusion so eminently watchable. Though Lieberman's work is more than sufficient, Weed might have found a more imposing actor to portray the protagonist's romantic rival in all three stories. Marc Sanford has a field day as braggart Matamore, the military man who fancies himself a great fighter and a great lover but who shows a softer side late in the play. James Ross delivers admirable work, too, as the sorcerer's deaf-mute servant and, in the last vision, as an unfeeling father whose hard-heartedness is meant to force Pridamant to see how his own severity has hurt his son and himself. ... Weed's staging is visually intriguing, aided by solid scenic design (Joseph Horn), lighting (Casey Long) and costumes and sound design (Eric McGregor), making this Illusion well worth a look.
[top]
|