Reviews plus a little restaurant happiness

I’ve been hearing a lot about the new play, Unnatural Acts, being performed in the CSC space downtown, and produced by Plastic Theatre, so when a discount offer crossed my desk, I decided to check it out.  I originally had a ticket for Tuesday night, but they called me over the weekend and said the Tuesday performance was cancelled and could I please exchange?  I found that odd, but chose to exchange my ticket to last night’s performance.  When I got there, I quickly discovered why they needed to cancel Tuesday—they had three actors out and only two understudies.  So one of the co-authors stepped in to take one of the roles.  I’m wondering if the change in performers had an impact on how the show affected me.

I have to say, I wanted to love this show more than I did.  Clearly, it’s an important episode to dramatize and the co-authors took things very seriously in the script.  Perhaps too seriously.  I couldn’t help feeling as if they were doing some weird dramatization of the ‘gays must be punished’ movies as depicted in The Celluloid Closet.  The acting just seemed so lurid and stylized, and the dialogue was so on-the-nose, it was hard to like and/or sympathize with these characters.  And if the show was supposed to be a commentary on those types of movies/plays, I didn’t get that.  Intellectually, I know I was supposed to feel sorry for these characters and the horrible situation they were in (and of course I did, in the abstract), but I couldn’t get there emotionally.  Perhaps the understudies were trying too hard, or maybe I just wasn’t understanding the methodology of the script, but I felt so distanced from everything that I desperately wanted to connect to.  I’m not sure I should’ve had to work so hard. 

Having said that, I did feel quite horrified during the trial scenes (as I think I was supposed to), and although I completely didn’t understand the directorial choice in the scene leading up to the final tableau, I couldn’t help but be moved by the frenzied agony of our narrator.  And, of course, when each character describes how their life turned out, it’s awful, and I wished I’d cared more about these characters sooner.   I think I would like to see this same story dramatized by someone else.  Sorry, Plastic Theatre.

The show is beautifully directed and designed.  I can’t imagine it being given a better physical production.  And the actors are certainly committed, though it was hard for me to tell if they were actually good actors due to the dialogue and acting stylistic choices.  I did enjoy Jess Burkle as the most flamboyant of the students, and I thought Roe Hartrampf brought great pathos to his role of the conflicted and closeted athlete.  I wasn’t as keen on the guy who played our narrator, or the actor who played a pivotal character at the end of the play.

I fully acknowledge that perhaps I just didn’t get what they were trying to do.  Maybe I went in with my expectations too high.  Maybe I wasn’t supposed to be moved the way I wanted to be.  It’s frustrating, but I just don’t know…

Last night, I finally finally got to see Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem—of course, had I known it was also the Project Runway premiere, I might’ve tried to see it a different night, but oh well.  J      Thankfully, I was not disappointed in the least.  On the contrary.

My seat was in the last row, far left of the house.  Not the greatest seat—I feel like I missed some entrances and exits that I would’ve liked to see, but on the whole, the show has been well-directed to be enjoyed from the entire theater.  I think I may need to go back and see it again from another location, just for fun.  It has been on TDF quite a lot.  Oh, and moment of panic:  when I sat down and opened my Playbill, a nasty slip of paper fell to the ground.  With dread, I picked it up and read…a new understudy was joining the cast.  Whew.  Dodged a bullet there.

I loved the show.  LOVED IT.  It’s three hours long and you have to be right there, but I was with them throughout and the time seemed to fly by.  The play is chock-full of imagery and mythology and pagan comedy.  If it’s a little dependent on understanding English history and current economic status, that’s ok.  I got the gist of what was going on, and I’m woefully ignorant of current affairs.  ;)

Mark Rylance (about whom I’ll wax rhapsodic in a bit) plays Johnny “Rooster” Byron, an earthy, boozy, strung-out raconteur, who is on the verge of being evicted from his ramshackle trailer on the edge of the woods (the play takes place over a single day).  The character is like a hedonistic Pied Piper—he has a group of teenage hangers-on, whose lives aren’t so great at home so they gravitate to the honesty and lust for life that Byron has.  Well, and his drugs and booze.  The young actors playing the teenagers are really wonderful and not only support Rylance, but also confidently take their own turns.  The whole ensemble is terrific.  Special props to Mackenzie Crook as Ginger, the most faithful of the followers—I really felt his desperation and need.

You can sort of describe the play as an almost standard lower-class vs suburban middle-class battle, but it’s so much more than that.  There’s an elemental, primal, deep, force-of-nature struggle that’s happening, and a mythological stature to Byron and his tall tales.  The stories he tells make you laugh and then make you think and then make you wonder.  The layers to the storytelling in the play are quite wonderful.  And very unusual.  At least to me.  I’ve never seen a play quite like it before.  Oh, and the way Butterworth uses and alludes to the brief and powerful hymn (and poem) “Jerusalem” is brilliant.

I’m wondering, though, if we would ever have seen this play without Mark Rylance in the lead.  In all honesty, the character of Byron should be a repulsive turn-off, but Rylance turns him into a character for the ages.  He is truly the most amazing physical actor I have ever seen onstage.  His whole body inhabits this character—he has this incredible personal charisma, but he combines it with a character charisma that is so compelling.  His acting style is grandly large, yet beautifully small and detailed as well.  It may seem as if he’s overacting and just using tricks, but he also underplays and commands your attention and sympathy with just the smallest of gestures.  I can’t really explain the genius of this performance.  I just know that I did think it was genius.  My mind kept going to ‘acting savant.’  I don’t know, that’s not quite right either.  But his performance is startling in its complexity.  It’s sort of mind-boggling to me that La Bete and Jerusalem were in the same theatrical season.  I really do think that people who value great acting should see this performance. 

Brief restaurant note:  last Friday, after seeing Harry Potter 2 in IMAX (woo hoo!  it was AWESOME!), I went with some friends to dinner at Il Punto, on Ninth Avenue at 38th Street.  Yum yummy.  I highly recommend it.  Our appetizer was prosciutto and cheese.  As I'm not eating meat at the moment, I sadly refused the prosciutto.  But the mozzarella was fresh and deliciously soft.  Our wine was terrific, and my main course of pasta shells with broccoli, cauliflower and shrimp, was incredible.  I also enjoyed our server, who was charming and very knowledgeable about the menu.  I definitely recommend everyone try Il Punto.  Enjoy the photos.