The Crucible Previews- Page 3

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 3/1/16 at 11:39pm

I'm just getting home from tonight's preview (the play got out at 11pm) and I feel like I'm once again left on the outside of another Ivo van Hove production, and make no mistake, the Playbill cover may say Arthur Miller's The Crucible, but this is Ivo van Hove's The Crucible from start to finish. From Abigail going full on Carrie at the prom to the dystopian Hunger Games-esque world this seems to be taking place in, I personally feel like all the trappings take away from the evening rather than enhance it. I don't think you have to work so hard to make Miller's plays work. The Crucible is already a parable about McCarthyism; Miller himself has provided the layers for the play. He doesn't need any "help" getting the point across. 

 

Of course the text is still wonderful and the performances are strong, but I just can't get past what I consider the self-indulgent direction of van Hove. The critics might rave and I know many here loved View From the Bridge and could easily feel the same about this production, but it's just not my thing. 

[RippedMan]

Posted: 3/1/16 at 11:43pm

Hm...... I don't know the play at all, so I'm curious. 

[ColorTheHours048]

Posted: 3/1/16 at 11:46pm

SPOILERS (kind of) BELOW

 

Well... I'm not really sure how to feel about that. In some ways, the approach is as minimalist as van Hove is known to be; in others, the whole production feels totally overblown and swallows itself up. The casting is uneven, ranging from the near-perfect (but somehow underused) Saoirse Ronan to the sadly miscast Ben Whishaw. She is all rage and cool evil, throwing herself head first into the material and - more specifically - the production. He, however, never fully shows us John Proctor's backbone, resorting instead to fits of shout-acting that do nothing but diminish him. (I would also like to give shout out to Tavi Gevinson, who I very much enjoyed in THIS IS OUR YOUTH and continue to enjoy in this. Mary Warren is maybe my favorite character in the play and she really gets her.)

 

The physical production has moments of the white knuckle power we saw on display in this season's A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE: a fight erupting between Abigail and John in the courtroom, a stray animal sniffing and prowling in the dark, the quintet of girls in schoolgirl uniforms hinting that there may actually be a touch of the supernatural at play. Everything is set in what appears to be a schoolroom, complete with a large chalkboard, wall-to-wall windows on one side, mismatched linoleum tile floor, and plain wood and metal desks and chairs. The girls are the students in this hellish high school, while the adults are... parents? teachers? I'm unsure. The costumes do nothing to differentiate class (save Sophie Okonedo, who looks and plays Elizabeth as though she were a recently lobotomized homeless woman, a choice that would only be effective at the end if we had seen what a proud, honorable woman Elizabeth was before her imprisonment) and, frankly, look like an afterthought. It all feels like a half-baked concept that could have become a delicious multi-layered cake, but mostly it tastes of slightly burnt cookies.

 

I'm just not sure what I was meant to take away from this production. It has nothing new to say about the text, not enough raw brute force to enliven its 3-hour run time, and the actors can't decide if they're going for realism or something beyond naturalism. Given that this was the first preview, I'm sure many of my qualms will have either fixed themselves or settled into something resembling comfortability. But I left feeling a mix of exhilarated and deflated.

[QueenAlice]

Posted: 3/1/16 at 11:48pm

He is definitely love it or hate it, but I think as you say Whizzer, when Ivo Van Hove directs a play, the draw really is to see his deconstructed, abstract interpretation of it.  As such, I don't really think you can say that he is 'working hard' to do Arthur Miller, because you just can't compare his productions to any traditional stagings of the authors works. That of course would also be the case of Ivo Van Hove's takes on STREETCAR, LITTLE FOXES, HEDDA GABBLER, etc.  They are almost presented as an 'alternative' take on the material for an adventurous theatre goer. Not for all tastes of course.

 

 

 

Updated On: 3/1/16 at 11:48 PM

[ColorTheHours048]

Posted: 3/1/16 at 11:50pm

I should add that I loved VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE and felt it did an exceptional job deconstructing the text. This... not so much.

Updated On: 3/1/16 at 11:50 PM

[QueenAlice]

Posted: 3/1/16 at 11:54pm

What was on display tonight definitely didn't have the cohesive power or laser focus of A VIEW FROM A BRIDGE, but I do think we have to keep remembering that BRIDGE came to the US after a year of work in the UK. Tonight was the very first public performance ever of his take on THE CRUCIBLE.  I'm sure the production will be a work in progress during previews.

Updated On: 3/1/16 at 11:54 PM

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 3/1/16 at 11:57pm

For me the text felt obscured rather than illuminated. I paid more attention to Philip Glass' wall to wall underscoring than the dialogue at times, and the hypnotic beats had me fighting a few drowsy moments. 

 

To piggyback off what colorthehours wrote, I don't know what I was meant to take away from this nor any other van Hove production I've seen. I don't get the point of all his weirdness and concepts that sometimes make interesting stage pictures, but ultimately leave me cold. I feel like his productions try so gosh darn hard to be devastating and all the extra effort has the opposite effect on me. It's like when you see a performer emote too hard and cry when they sing. Nothing. Hold back the tears, give us some subtlety and you'll make us cry every time. Basically, stop trying so hard. 

[ColorTheHours048]

Posted: 3/2/16 at 12:07am

QueenAlice said: "What was on display tonight definitely didn't have the cohesive power or laser focus of A VIEW FROM A BRIDGE, but I do think we have to keep remembering that BRIDGE came to the US after a year of work in the UK. Tonight was the very first public performance ever of his take on THE CRUCIBLE.  I'm sure the production will be a work in progress during previews.

 

"

It will definitely grow and take shape during the preview period, of course. I don't deny that. But van Hove isn't some young wunderkind director fresh out of grad school. He's been working professionally for almost two decades. This is a man who knows what he wants and gets it from his actors and production team. While I assume there will be tweaks here and there, this is - by and large - the finished product. I'm not saying I expect all of his work to be as polished as AVFTB, but this is finger painting. Carefully calibrated finger painting, but finger painting.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 3/2/16 at 12:08am

This is so disappointing to hear. This is one of the greatest plays ever written and to hear these things about it make me sad, since I've really been looking forward to this. 

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 3/2/16 at 12:09am

I've recently been thinking somebody needs to do the Lazarus of Crucible productions.

[WhizzerMarvin]

Posted: 3/2/16 at 12:10am

QueenAlice, I guess I just need to come to terms with the fact that van Hove's productions just aren't for me. I keep giving them a chance, hoping to see what so many others I respect see; I've caught his Little Foxes, View from the Bridge, Lazarus and now this. Oddly, I think I enjoyed his vision for Lazarus the most because the piece itself was so weird and basically was a lump of clay waiting for a director like van Hove to mold it. 

[QueenAlice]

Posted: 3/2/16 at 12:14am

In the interviews I've read with Ivo Van Hove, he has spoken that his approach is essentially to embrace heightened theatricality (as opposed to cinematic realism which has become much more common in the 21st century) to highlight the text.  More often than not for me, he succeeds, and I always feel like I come away from one of his productions with some new understanding of the play being performed.  And I do feel that is the case for the CRUCIBLE as well. At least the first preview beginnings of it.

 

But yes, of course anyone who goes to see this hoping for a classic Broadway revival will be disappointed.  That's just not Ivo Van Hove's thing. I frankly find it a miracle he is working on Broadway at all, but am glad that if we are going to get a revival every four years of these classic plays, we are at least getting one take that is wildly unique.

 

ColortheHours --- Actually Ivo Van Hove's productions have been known to change a lot as they are developed.  I understand his vision for BRIDGE changed greatly throughout the performance period in the UK.  So I do expect THE CRUCIBLE to have his usual 'play in the sandbox' - throw everything at the wall period.

Updated On: 3/2/16 at 12:14 AM

[RippedMan]

Posted: 3/2/16 at 12:18am

I will say that the poster is the most beautiful of the season. Love that design. 

[wicked_beast4]

Posted: 3/2/16 at 12:23am

It's so funny-- this was my third Van Hove production this year, my second in the past two weeks, and though conceptually he may operate in the poles ("stripped down" yet emotionally explosive/raw), I don't think his point is to elicit immediate emotional devastation in his audiences. I always find his approach to leave me percolating, simmering in a charged state. I think he does a brilliant job at stripping down the latent structure of our American mythologies (which are arguably what Millers plays are) and making them undeniable-- I never find that Van Hove is trying to strip down his works in ways that devalues the conventional/traditional portrayals of the texts, and often they gain their brilliance in knowing that much of the audience is familiar with the tropes of these now-canonical characters. 

 

It was far from perfect, and it still feels like a piece in flux (as would any show at its first preview, especially a classical reinvention), but damn I loved it. Whishaw still seems to be finding his Proctor, and I too felt Ronan was underused (though I also think my perceptions of the size of that role have been altered by the Daniel Day Lewis film version). I was personally enthralled by Okonedo-- the bizarre tension of her broken-resilience was captivating to me. Hinds seems especially well cast, and Gevison was special, I agree. 

 

Also, I don't think Miller will ever need help in making his plays socially relevant, especially the Red Scare allegory that is the Crucible, but I thought this production did an effective job at pushing that relevance into extreme topical territory without being at all condescending or clunky-- subtle is never a word I would use to describe a Van Hove production simplistically, but his morals and the relevance are deftly conveyed. 

 

(as you can tell, I'm a fan of Van Hove.)

Updated On: 3/2/16 at 12:23 AM

[QueenAlice]

Posted: 3/2/16 at 12:23am

WhizzerMarvin said: "QueenAlice, I guess I just need to come to terms with the fact that van Hove's productions just aren't for me. I keep giving them a chance, hoping to see what so many others I respect see; 

 

Whizzer, I feel the same way about Eric Shaeffer, whose career I can not understand. And hey nothing wrong with that. Different strokes for different folks. At least you've been open to seeing something different!

"

 

[ColorTheHours048]

Posted: 3/2/16 at 12:27am

I think the reason Ronan felt underused was because her Act 2 scene with John was tacked onto the opening scene. Which was weird, tonally, that early in the play and really diminishes Abigail's presence. In my opinion.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 3/2/16 at 12:30am

The big missing puzzle piece in these discussions is Ivo van Hove's Angels in America, which I wish more people saw so we can could hash that one out.  Tony Kushner was in the audience the night I saw it and always otherwise engaged or I would have tackled him during a break and asked, "How did this happen?"

 

The performance was immediate and raw and devastating (with probably the best Roy Cohn I've ever seen), but what it wasn't was Tony Kushner's Angels in America.  

 

Lazarus was a gorgeous gooey Bowie-themed mess and I loved A View... but what I would love to know is how the hell does he get to do what he does?  Who gives him the permission?

 

Updated On: 3/2/16 at 12:30 AM

[wicked_beast4]

Posted: 3/2/16 at 12:30am

ColorTheHours048 said: "I think the reason Ronan felt underused was because her Act 2 scene with John was tacked onto the opening scene. Which was weird, tonally, that early in the play and really diminishes Abigail's presence. In my opinion.

 

"

 

Something that definitely felt "first preview" and hopefully open to some playful change was some of the structuring of scenes and (perhaps moreso) their transitions. I'm still puzzling out the flash of schoolgirls at the top of the show and the brief moment of flight, and how's those factored into the larger structure of the production  

 

Updated On: 3/2/16 at 12:30 AM

[QueenAlice]

Posted: 3/2/16 at 12:32am

I can't remember the text of THE CRUCIBLE well enough to remember, but isn't it one of those plays Arthur Miller continued to tinker with and so there are several different versions of it?

 

I frankly think the play could use a little bit of trimming, but I know thats probably sacrilege to say so.

[QueenAlice]

Posted: 3/2/16 at 12:42am

The estates and authors who give Ivo Van Hove permission to do their works do so knowing that they are going to get a wildly different take on the material. I really think you have to look at his works through the prism of 'deconstruction' or 'alternative'.  And the estates allow it because he is largely brilliant at what he does. There is value to a good deconstruction of a play because it shows that the play has strength and structure as a piece of writing.  And since his productions obviously don't take anything away from the gazillion other productions of THE LITTLE FOXES or THE CRUCIBLE or even ANGELS IN AMERICA being done all around the world in very traditional productions, why not?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 3/2/16 at 12:55am

Except in a pre-interview with Kushner before the BAM performances of the Dutch Angels in America he said somebody, maybe somebody from the Signature, called him from Amsterdam and said, "You have GOT to come over here and see this production of Angels in America."  I don't know why Kushner would agree to the changes.  It had more politics than the operatic adaptation had, but even deeper cuts.  There was no final benediction scene at all.  And my sense from the way Kushner talked about going to see it was that Ivo had already van Hoved the thing before he got there.

 

It was a fantastic night of theater to me, but it was not really Angels in America.

[ColorTheHours048]

Posted: 3/2/16 at 1:01am

Kushner has said that he found van Hove's production emotionally devastating. It's brought up in the New Yorker's article on Ivo titled "Theatre Laid Bare," which is a really good read if you like van Hove or just want to learn more about where his approach comes from.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 3/2/16 at 1:07am

It was devastating, I agree!  ESPECIALLY (somehow) the Cohn storyline.  I guess I'm just so used to a world in which writers don't readily agree to the evisceration of their work that I am left wondering if Kushner saw what Ivo did after Ivo had already done it and thought, "I'm not going to fight this, because it works on a different level"?  I mean, people who've only seen that haven't really seen Angels in America.  They've seen Essence of Angels in America sans Conclusions. I imagine if they did see the full show later it would be like a kid who had seen a bunch of school editions of shows later seeing full blown revivals of the real deals and realizing they are different animals.

[ColorTheHours048]

Posted: 3/2/16 at 1:20am

I think van Hove, if nothing else, makes us confront why we find the structure of plays so precious today. One of the great grad school playwriting exercises is to write a play in five scenes and then mix up the order of those scenes. If it still works, you were successful. If it doesn't, the play never had the power in its story.

 

I have no problem with him taking a scalpel and some kitchen knives to preexisting works. I wish more directors had the guts to do that. But sometimes "because why not?" doesn't cut it (no pun intended). It has to serve a purpose.

[wicked_beast4]

Posted: 3/2/16 at 1:23am

And the self destructive cycle of institutional ignorance present in the Crucible once again proves him right in doing it with a purpose.