First Flashback Friday of 2016!

This is kinda freaky - in a strange coincidence, when I woke up this morning, I had the music from Coast of Utopia running through my head.  I often wake up with really random music playing; yesterday, it was Swan Lake.  Not one of the really famous bits, mind you, but a piece from one of the scenic transitions.  Last week, I kept hearing "Sister Suffragette" from Mary Poppins when I woke up.  WHY?!?!  I always fantasize about someone inventing a phone app where you can enter what song was in your brain and the app tells you what it means.  Can someone please get on that?

Anyway, NINE years ago today (I can't believe it's that long, I remember some of these stage pictures as if I saw them last night) was the happy day I saw two parts of a trilogy of plays.  This reminds me that I'm dying for a new Stoppard play....  Enjoy!

1/8/07:  Well, I saw both parts of Stoppard’s Coast of Utopia on Saturday.  Afterwards, I was totally ready for a midnight showing of part three.  This is a cracking good story, acted terrifically and perhaps is the best directed production I’ve seen in years, if not ever.  It is that amazing.

We’re watching the dawn of a new age, in Russia and Europe, through the eyes of six characters who really witnessed it.  They rage and argue over philosophy and love, and we see how history unfolds, not only for a country, but for individuals, and how the one can reflect the other.  It’s filled with the dizzying intellect of all of Stoppard’s plays, but it plays out in very human and personal ways, which makes the intellect all the more accessible.

photo credit: Sara Krulwich

The acting is first-rate.  Ethan Hawke is quite good, if a little one-note, as the young philosopher turned revolutionary.  He is the brother to four sisters who idolize him to the point of ruining their own lives.  Billy Crudup is nearly unrecognizable as the socially inept literary critic.  His speeches on art and life are gorgeous.  Brian O’Byrne is the social philosopher, and perhaps the eyes through which we’re going to see how everything plays out.  I don’t totally love his characterization but I admit he’s really a masterful actor.  David Harbour, Richard Easton, Jennifer Ehle, Amy Irving all play different characters in parts one and two, and they are all terrific in both roles.  Jason Butler Harner is very touching as Turgenev.  Actually, everyone is terrific. 

The storytelling in part one is different from the storytelling in part two and that was fascinating.  Part one, act one, is set totally in Ethan Hawke’s family home outside of Moscow.  Seven years or so go by, with projections telling us how much time has gone by.  Part one, act two, takes place in Moscow, in the same years.  It shows us the events that are talked about in act one.  SO interesting.  Part two is told somewhat chronologically, though we do see scenes replayed a couple of times, to see how the beginning of an event can somehow bend in on itself.  Again, really interesting.  I’m looking forward to seeing if part three has a different device altogether.

photo credit: Sara Krulwich

There are some simply stunning visual images in both pieces.  SPOILER IMAGE:  The show opens with a striking image of an old Brian O’Byrne, sitting in a chair high above the stage, while cloth underneath him represents the swirling waters of change (I think), and then he spins down down down under the stage as the waves swirl higher and higher.  The cloth suddenly disappears into the stage, then we see all of the actors, along with some mannequins, standing across the mirrored stage.  It’s amazing.  It looks like hundreds of people on that stage.  The mannequins appear now and then, standing there as the masses of humanity that all of the philosophy will eventually effect.  Gorgeous.  There are just so many beautiful stage pictures that I can’t describe them all.

I seriously cannot wait to see part three.  For once, in a way, I feel like Ben Brantley did—at the end of his review of part one, he said he felt like a wonderful book had been torn from his hands before he finished it.  Since I saw the shows, I’ve felt like I’m walking among the characters I met Saturday.  Just like in a fabulous book that stays with you.  I’m dying to see how it all turns out.