#1
Posted: 10/15/07 at 12:39pm
Saw the show yesterday and was very disappointed. While I enjoyed Griffin's direction for Pacific Overtures and A Little Night Music, it appeared he was simply painting by numbers with little-to-no "passion". While we are provided with the skeletal framework of staging the show in a way that makes good use of the space, it seems Griffin stopped there and left us with no meat on the bones. The opening pretty much set the tone for the entire show. Clara and Giorgio are seen in a frozen tableu of sexual frenzy completely nude as the orchestra plays the startling chord which melts into a post-coital bliss of relaxation. During the entire first number, Giorgio and Clara are quite obviously fighting to cover their bits with the bedsheet, which unintentionally becomes the third character to perform in this duet. The dance of the sheets is far more distracting than any flash of nudity could have been considering 1) we just saw them naked, so the mystery is gone and 2) the song basically repeats the same sentiment of how happy they are over and over again. It's not like we're going to miss any key plot points here due to a bare boobie. And from this point, the show remains firmly on its plateau of "now that we've finished blocking, we'll just do run-throughs until we open". The insufferable fate of most amateur productions.
Gasteyer's Fosca, while handling the vocals beautifully, never goes beyond the most basic charicature of Fosca. Her forced physicality and makeup suggest that she is ill and unattractive, but her acting never appears to have any truth behind it. She can express the basic emotions, but they never seem supported with any thought process or truth that provides the emotional arc of the character. Fosca is at turns, ill, angry, frightened, and upset, but missing is the soft touch of someone who has any capability of truly loving someone in a selfless way. Thus, Giorgio's compassion and eventual attraction to her is confusing and unrealistic. This Fosca is sharp, abrasive, selfish and completely unlikeable. So why are we supposed to care about her? It's hard enough to find pity for her until her background is revealed, much less compassion.
Brazier's Giorgio was not much better. Quite often, he would relax into more contemporary vocal and physical expression that would only highlight the immaturity of his peformance. He was the only cast member who couldn't project, forcing the audience to strain to hear anything he sang when more than one instrument was playing in the modest orchestra, turning the opening number almost into a solo for Clara. Like Gasteyer, he was serviceable in giving us the required emotions from scene to scene, but failed to connect the dots to create an entire emotional and intellectual journey. In the pivotal scene where Giorgio and Clara are forced to evaluate the future of their relationship, Brazier lacked the realization and, more important, acceptance of Fosca's philosophy, which is key to all the following scenes thereafter. They simply played out as episodic scenes bearing little-to-no relationship with each other like paragraphs torn from Cliff notes chapter summaries, completely devoid of subtext. It didn't help that he flubbed several lines, which is forgiveable, but painfully distracting in a piece such as this.
Voytko gave possibly the most textured performance in the rather underappreciated role of Clara. While her journey is shorter than those of Fosca and Giorgio, Voytko told Clara's story richly, leading us through the classic stages of a clandestine relationship and its inevitable conclusion. Her intermittent appearances effortlessly and seamlessly guided us through the tour of her relationship with Giorgio. Which only made the rest of the show appear that much more painfully choppy.
The rest of the ensemble was pretty strong, when the soldiers could get the choreography together. The orchestra was sublime and the singing was mostly excellent. But I think the production can be best summed up by a line of Colonel Ricci's. Just because the show is delivered with all the nuance of a military handbook doesn't mean we should welcome anything in print. Sondheim fanatics will no doubt applaud the production merely for being produced, but those unfamiliar with the show may be a bit bored and baffled by this particular offering.
Gasteyer's Fosca, while handling the vocals beautifully, never goes beyond the most basic charicature of Fosca. Her forced physicality and makeup suggest that she is ill and unattractive, but her acting never appears to have any truth behind it. She can express the basic emotions, but they never seem supported with any thought process or truth that provides the emotional arc of the character. Fosca is at turns, ill, angry, frightened, and upset, but missing is the soft touch of someone who has any capability of truly loving someone in a selfless way. Thus, Giorgio's compassion and eventual attraction to her is confusing and unrealistic. This Fosca is sharp, abrasive, selfish and completely unlikeable. So why are we supposed to care about her? It's hard enough to find pity for her until her background is revealed, much less compassion.
Brazier's Giorgio was not much better. Quite often, he would relax into more contemporary vocal and physical expression that would only highlight the immaturity of his peformance. He was the only cast member who couldn't project, forcing the audience to strain to hear anything he sang when more than one instrument was playing in the modest orchestra, turning the opening number almost into a solo for Clara. Like Gasteyer, he was serviceable in giving us the required emotions from scene to scene, but failed to connect the dots to create an entire emotional and intellectual journey. In the pivotal scene where Giorgio and Clara are forced to evaluate the future of their relationship, Brazier lacked the realization and, more important, acceptance of Fosca's philosophy, which is key to all the following scenes thereafter. They simply played out as episodic scenes bearing little-to-no relationship with each other like paragraphs torn from Cliff notes chapter summaries, completely devoid of subtext. It didn't help that he flubbed several lines, which is forgiveable, but painfully distracting in a piece such as this.
Voytko gave possibly the most textured performance in the rather underappreciated role of Clara. While her journey is shorter than those of Fosca and Giorgio, Voytko told Clara's story richly, leading us through the classic stages of a clandestine relationship and its inevitable conclusion. Her intermittent appearances effortlessly and seamlessly guided us through the tour of her relationship with Giorgio. Which only made the rest of the show appear that much more painfully choppy.
The rest of the ensemble was pretty strong, when the soldiers could get the choreography together. The orchestra was sublime and the singing was mostly excellent. But I think the production can be best summed up by a line of Colonel Ricci's. Just because the show is delivered with all the nuance of a military handbook doesn't mean we should welcome anything in print. Sondheim fanatics will no doubt applaud the production merely for being produced, but those unfamiliar with the show may be a bit bored and baffled by this particular offering.
"What can you expect from a bunch of seitan worshippers?" - Reginald Tresilian
