#1
Posted: 6/16/06 at 12:32pm
The delay of opening for previews is never a promising sign, but this production of Macbeth at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park by The Public Theater's New York Shakespeare Festival needs a quick overhaul or it will be in big trouble with the critics.
This being one of my favorite plays, I am hoping they can clean up this train wreck, and will offer what I can for suggestions. How they chose Moises Kaufman, who has no background in directing classics to direct Shakespeare in the Park is beyond me, but he is clearly in WAY over his head and needs an experienced classicist director to help him out. Quick!
First there is the problem of Jennifer Ehle as Lady Macbeth. She is butchering the verse of Shakespeare and totally miscast as Lady M. If only they would quickly exchange her for the brilliant actress Ching Valdes-Aran, onstage as Weird Sister #2, that would immediately solve the problem. Ehle races where she shouldn't, emphasizes where she shouldn't, goes for comedy when she shouldn't, squeals in a high-pitched annoying head voice constantly, is completely ignorant of the rhythm in the verse and is so clueless she is completely unaware of how terrible she is in the role.
Possibly if Ehle spent all of her days studying dutifully with a RADA/RSC actor coach she could improve a bit before opening, learn to use the verbs, not to sit on the lines, etc. But frankly, I hold no hope for her success and think they should REPLACE her quick. When there are brilliant actresses out there like Kathryn Meisle and Emily Bergl from whom words fall as pearls from their mouths, why did they have to go with this lame "naturalistic" TV-type actress Ehle? And to think the Park will be boasting the fine Meryl Streep later in the summer.
Liev Schreiber is a gifted actor, great voice, comfortable in the verse, strong presence. (I see him on the streets sometimes and in the subway as he lives near me. He is always deeply private, eyes downcast.) At this point he seems to me to still be exploring in his process for the role, not there yet. (I imagine it is very hard to play off Ehle.) As of Wednesday night, his emotions were way magnified and "out there." Looked like he was taking every emotional consideration out to its furthest extreme, exploring them, and had not reined them in yet for performance. The rehearsal delays regarding rain don't really make any sense to me, wasn't there an indoor space big enough that they could have still rehearsed the play in, at least to go through this part of the process before you got before an audience, even if previews? I expect that he will be reining it in within the next couple weeks to give a more internalized, more powerful performance.
I hope Kaufman is not directing it for an emotional overdisplay because this Shakespearean tragedy would only suffer from that approach. I don't think Liev needs to jump up on the table to get our attention. I don't like a big emotional screaming mess, I prefer my tragedians to crack heartbreakingly and more subtly, not be gushing down on the floor at the first opportunity and every one thereafter. In fact, I don't like them to gush at all. I like them to be trying to maintain face and hold it all together.
There were times when Liev had not quite got the lines down, again he seems still in the process, with a misread on "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" somehow trying to attach it to the prior news of Lady M's death, instead of moving on there in a new thought which needs to happen to make sense of the line.
[As an aside, if anyone else saw Liev in the film "Sum of All Fears," he makes a fantastic and intense filmic presence as a secret agent, and I believe he should have been a serious contender as the new James Bond.]
One further abysmal casting is the screeching Florencia Lozano giving a hysterical-from-the-getgo winceable stab at Lady Macduff. Ghastly. Clearly no comprehension of the verse or her role whatever. Here again, there are so many talented actresses who could go to town with this little plum of a role it is very hard to sit and watch it being butchered. A replacement is screamed for here, but I gather this summer's audience is just going to have to sit and suffer through it.
Costumes are a total mishmash in the production, with various different style military jackets. The coronation scene for some odd reason gives Ehle a white bridal gown that seems absurd. Conjuring whom? Evita? Even, and it is horrid, the witches or Weird Sisters are wearing hideously unflattering ashy shroudish gray military uniforms.
Which brings up two brutal flaws toward the play's end. First, there is a sudden battlefield scene where, in this swordplay play, a whole bunch of long guns appear with the soldiers on the battlefield for an affected fall by gunshot slowtime balletic nonsense. Second, the returning forces ready to reclaim Scotland for the forces of good, analogized to the WWII allies, mouth off before the jarring presence of a sudden long stick microphone, much more in the Hitler or Mussolini style. Who's the Hitler here? Macbeth's second wears the long dark leather jacket of the Nazi SS so is there a major bit of confusion here? Please don't give the mic to Macbeth, just get rid of it.
As to the set. I wish they would clear the mess off both sides of the set which is passing as some kind of modern gray war wasteland but which is just ugly rubbish that blocks the view from low seats near it. Gimme a flat openstage for the actors to move around on. And I see no reason to have the ugly two metal towers to each side of the set frontispiece. For what? The two unnecessary chandeliers for the coronation scene? To hold up a few lights that could be hung elsewhere? The frontispiece on its own would be fine without the excess towers and rubbish.
The Scottish play is supposed to be cursed and associated with all kinds of mishaps. But not this bad.
Hie thee! Get to 't! Fix the damn thing quick!
© 2006 All Rights Reserved nomdeplume by pseudonym
This being one of my favorite plays, I am hoping they can clean up this train wreck, and will offer what I can for suggestions. How they chose Moises Kaufman, who has no background in directing classics to direct Shakespeare in the Park is beyond me, but he is clearly in WAY over his head and needs an experienced classicist director to help him out. Quick!
First there is the problem of Jennifer Ehle as Lady Macbeth. She is butchering the verse of Shakespeare and totally miscast as Lady M. If only they would quickly exchange her for the brilliant actress Ching Valdes-Aran, onstage as Weird Sister #2, that would immediately solve the problem. Ehle races where she shouldn't, emphasizes where she shouldn't, goes for comedy when she shouldn't, squeals in a high-pitched annoying head voice constantly, is completely ignorant of the rhythm in the verse and is so clueless she is completely unaware of how terrible she is in the role.
Possibly if Ehle spent all of her days studying dutifully with a RADA/RSC actor coach she could improve a bit before opening, learn to use the verbs, not to sit on the lines, etc. But frankly, I hold no hope for her success and think they should REPLACE her quick. When there are brilliant actresses out there like Kathryn Meisle and Emily Bergl from whom words fall as pearls from their mouths, why did they have to go with this lame "naturalistic" TV-type actress Ehle? And to think the Park will be boasting the fine Meryl Streep later in the summer.
Liev Schreiber is a gifted actor, great voice, comfortable in the verse, strong presence. (I see him on the streets sometimes and in the subway as he lives near me. He is always deeply private, eyes downcast.) At this point he seems to me to still be exploring in his process for the role, not there yet. (I imagine it is very hard to play off Ehle.) As of Wednesday night, his emotions were way magnified and "out there." Looked like he was taking every emotional consideration out to its furthest extreme, exploring them, and had not reined them in yet for performance. The rehearsal delays regarding rain don't really make any sense to me, wasn't there an indoor space big enough that they could have still rehearsed the play in, at least to go through this part of the process before you got before an audience, even if previews? I expect that he will be reining it in within the next couple weeks to give a more internalized, more powerful performance.
I hope Kaufman is not directing it for an emotional overdisplay because this Shakespearean tragedy would only suffer from that approach. I don't think Liev needs to jump up on the table to get our attention. I don't like a big emotional screaming mess, I prefer my tragedians to crack heartbreakingly and more subtly, not be gushing down on the floor at the first opportunity and every one thereafter. In fact, I don't like them to gush at all. I like them to be trying to maintain face and hold it all together.
There were times when Liev had not quite got the lines down, again he seems still in the process, with a misread on "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" somehow trying to attach it to the prior news of Lady M's death, instead of moving on there in a new thought which needs to happen to make sense of the line.
[As an aside, if anyone else saw Liev in the film "Sum of All Fears," he makes a fantastic and intense filmic presence as a secret agent, and I believe he should have been a serious contender as the new James Bond.]
One further abysmal casting is the screeching Florencia Lozano giving a hysterical-from-the-getgo winceable stab at Lady Macduff. Ghastly. Clearly no comprehension of the verse or her role whatever. Here again, there are so many talented actresses who could go to town with this little plum of a role it is very hard to sit and watch it being butchered. A replacement is screamed for here, but I gather this summer's audience is just going to have to sit and suffer through it.
Costumes are a total mishmash in the production, with various different style military jackets. The coronation scene for some odd reason gives Ehle a white bridal gown that seems absurd. Conjuring whom? Evita? Even, and it is horrid, the witches or Weird Sisters are wearing hideously unflattering ashy shroudish gray military uniforms.
Which brings up two brutal flaws toward the play's end. First, there is a sudden battlefield scene where, in this swordplay play, a whole bunch of long guns appear with the soldiers on the battlefield for an affected fall by gunshot slowtime balletic nonsense. Second, the returning forces ready to reclaim Scotland for the forces of good, analogized to the WWII allies, mouth off before the jarring presence of a sudden long stick microphone, much more in the Hitler or Mussolini style. Who's the Hitler here? Macbeth's second wears the long dark leather jacket of the Nazi SS so is there a major bit of confusion here? Please don't give the mic to Macbeth, just get rid of it.
As to the set. I wish they would clear the mess off both sides of the set which is passing as some kind of modern gray war wasteland but which is just ugly rubbish that blocks the view from low seats near it. Gimme a flat openstage for the actors to move around on. And I see no reason to have the ugly two metal towers to each side of the set frontispiece. For what? The two unnecessary chandeliers for the coronation scene? To hold up a few lights that could be hung elsewhere? The frontispiece on its own would be fine without the excess towers and rubbish.
The Scottish play is supposed to be cursed and associated with all kinds of mishaps. But not this bad.
Hie thee! Get to 't! Fix the damn thing quick!
© 2006 All Rights Reserved nomdeplume by pseudonym
Updated On: 6/29/06 at 12:32 PM
