Theatre/Spectacle

[Eric Grace]

On the topic of lush productions, list readers might enjoy this review,
copied from today's New York Times.
Eric Grace
__________________________________________________________
 
 February 6, 1996
 
          London Theater: Refitting Large-Screen Classic Onto
          Small Stage
 
          By VINCENT CANBY
 
          [L] ONDON -- Most flops are forgettable. A few drill
              their way into the memory like a melody that won't
          be dislodged by anything short of brain surgery.
 
          Thus one of the more memorable events of the current
          London theater season is "Les Enfants du Paradis," the
          elaborate, dizzying, wrong-headed Royal Shakespeare
          Company production that opened last Tuesday on the huge
          main stage of the Barbican Center.
 
          As misconceived stage ventures go, "Les Enfants du
          Paradis" makes Broadway's "On the Waterfront" look like
          a model of theatrical intelligence. Here is another
          attempt to find the stage equivalent of a film classic,
          in this case a film beloved for its spectacle, art and
          Gallic spirit.
 
          There are, or have been, other more highly regarded
          offerings this season, especially the Royal National
          Theater productions of David Hare's "Skylight" (not
          playing now but due to travel to New York this year),
          Bertolt Brecht's "Mother Courage and Her Children" and
          Ben Jonson's "Volpone," as well as the Donmar
          Warehouse's energizing revival of Stephen Sondheim's
          "Company."
 
          Yet it's "Les Enfants du Paradis" that is the news at
          the moment. Among other things, it demonstrates that
          state-subsidized theater companies can hold their edge
          over commercial West End producers with their mistakes
          as easily as they do with their successes.
 
          The man behind "Les Enfants du Paradis" is Simon Callow,
          who adapted the Jacques Prevert screenplay for Marcel
          Carne's 1945 film and who went on to direct the
          production. What, you have to wonder, did he think he
          could bring to a stage adaptation that isn't better
          realized in the film?
 
          In an interview in The Daily Telegraph last week, Callow
          noted that Carne made the film during "the mess" of the
          Nazi occupation with the intention of celebrating "the
          human heart." That's especially important today, he
          said, in "a valueless world."
 
          He also gave the interviewer the impression that he had
          saved the film from a fate worse than death: "Lots of
          people have been trying to write it into a musical, and
          that seems to me to be a kind of hell."
 
          Yet when his own dialogue doesn't sound like spoken
          English subtitles, it sounds like song cues from "The
          Phantom of the Opera." If you have fond memories of the
          film, you had better steer clear of the play. If you
          don't think highly of the film, this adaptation will
          reinforce your reservation. It functions like a
          guileless movie review.
 
          The film is a panoramic, sumptuously mounted romantic
          drama set in the milieu of the boulevard theaters of
          early-19th-century Paris, the theaters of pantomime,
          melodrama, vaudeville and knockabout farce. Its
          narrative, however, is pure schlock, a series of
          interlocking love stories including one so pure that
          only the camera can trick you into briefly believing it.
 
          This is also the work that helped to confer legendary
          status on its stars: Jean-Louis Barrault as the mime
          Baptiste, Arletty as the femme fatale she was in life.
 
          If the close-up hadn't already been around, Carne would
          have invented it to record Arletty's serenely enigmatic,
          wanly superior angst. Yet it isn't the cast that carries
          "Les Enfants du Paradis"; it's Carne's sense of
          tumultuous time, place and movement, his vision of
          life-as-theater and theater-as-life, his understanding
          of high-toned cinema.
 
          Take away the camera and all you have left is a very
          long plot outline. This production is carried entirely
          by a turntable.
 
          Callow is the author of the recently published "Orson
          Welles: The Road to Xanadu," the first installment of a
          projected two-volume biography. He thinks big. His stage
          adaptation runs 4 hours and 15 minutes, an hour longer
          than the film. He has worked hard to put all (or most)
          of the narrative on the stage, but he hasn't rethought
          it to take advantage of the theater, to reveal the human
          heart he means to be celebrating.
 
          Just as his all-too-faithful script calls attention to
          the film's shortcomings, his direction emphasizes almost
          everything the stage cannot do. The set is a huge
          skeletal structure that looks like a jungle gym for
          giants. Inside are ramps, stairs and platforms that,
          without conviction, represent theater interiors, seedy
          hotel rooms, mansions, bars, dance halls and, at one
          crucial point, a Turkish bath.
 
          In a futile attempt to recreate cinematic movement, the
          set is precariously placed on the Barbican's great
          turntable, which, because of the many changes of scene,
          moves at speed, seemingly nonstop and creaking like a
          schooner under full sail.
 
          The result of this crazed merry-go-round effect is a
          certain confusion. It's the movie remembered in a lot of
          bitty, unitalicized scenes, separated by crowd scenes of
          tens upon tens, all viewed in a single, oppressive long
          shot. It's also a bit too suspenseful, appearing to be
          dangerous for the cast. The actors are further hampered
          by being so far away from the audience and so dimly
          lighted that it's not always possible to recognize them,
          much less respond to their performances.
 
          There were many empty seats after the intermission at
          the performance I attended, but I should report that a
          13-year-old in my company sat rapt from beginning to
          end.
 
          Things are a lot more upbeat at the Royal National
          Theater, where turntables are also much in evidence,
          though used less desperately. They make possible the
          limpid, fluid stagings of both "Mother Courage" and
          "Volpone," which have been playing in repertory with the
          hit revival of Stephen Sondheim's "Little Night Music"
          in the Olivier Theater. Though the Olivier is the
          largest and most architecturally intimidating of the
          Royal National's three theaters, it overwhelms neither
          Brecht nor Jonson.
 
          "Mother Courage" is helped by David Hare's
          self-effacing, witty new adaptation and by the director
          Jonathan Kent's use of the Olivier: a kind of spacious,
          eerie calm now hangs over Brecht's scathing tale of war,
          desolation and survival. The star is Diana Rigg, who
          gives a full-throttle, actressy performance in the title
          role.
 
          Wearing simulated rags, her face perfectly smudged, she
          hauls her cart through the Thirty Years War and somehow
          manages to be simultaneously furious, funny and worth
          listening to. She may not be the Mother Courage Brecht
          would have chosen; he's reported to have wanted Ethel
          Merman for an American production.
 
          You might say that her star quality works as its own
          distancing device. More accurately you might say that
          here is a "Mother Courage" that ropes in members of the
          bourgeoisie who have never heard of the Berliner
          Ensemble.
 
          Though Michael Gambon received the lion's share of the
          notices for "Volpone" (which went out of the Olivier
          repertory on Jan. 27), it was Simon Russell Beale who
          stole the show the night I saw it. He's not a physically
          imposing actor, being a little too tubby for some of the
          classical roles he likes to play, but he was a
          splendidly comic Moscha: alternately servile, aggressive
          and thoroughly mean-spirited. Possibly because it was
          near the end of the run, Gambon's performance looked as
          lazy as the slack-jawed expression his Volpone always
          adopted when conning still another greedy supplicant.
 
          The director Matthew Warchus's use of the turntable
          allowed the action to move from Volpone's bedroom to the
          streets to the law courts and back to the bedroom
          without a beat being missed. The production simulated
          the speed of film without ever losing its stage
          presence.
 
          The Sam Mendes revival of "Company" has just closed at
          the Donmar Warehouse, the 252-seat Off West End theater
          of which Mendes is artistic director. Not to worry:
          "Company" is transferring to the Albery in the West End
          on March 7.
 
          While light on scenic refinements, the Donmar production
          rediscovered the exuberant life in the show that wasn't
          always to be found in the recent Roundabout revival in
          New York. Most crucial to the success of the production
          was the performance of Adrian Lester as Bobby, who's
          supposed to be the center of the show but who's a cipher
          as written.
 
          With the help of Mendes, Lester was in charge of this
          "Company" from start to finish, largely because his
          strong, no-nonsense, singing and dancing persona
          commanded attention. He was terrific.
 
          This has been a good season for the Donmar. Mendes's
          production of "The Glass Menagerie" is now in the West
          End, with Zoe Wanamaker starring as Amanda. Last week
          the Arts Council came through with a one-time grant
          that, with an even bigger corporate grant, will help
          keep the theater solvent and open for another season.
 
          In the meantime, Mendes is being touted as a likely
          successor to Richard Eyre, who retires as the artistic
          director of the Royal National at the end of the year.
          But there's some doubt that he would take the job if it
          were offered. Mendes is 30 (five years younger than
          Bobby in "Company") and may not be ready to settle down
          with the Establishment quite yet.
 
 
                 Copyright 1996 The New York Times Company
 
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