re: The Coast of Utopia: Voyage Reviews

Talkin Broadway is Positive:

"There are few greater pleasures in living a theatre-full life than expecting to be drowned by a towering show and instead finding yourself washed away on a tide of exciting, thought-provoking entertainment that nonetheless eventually deposits you safely on shore. Or should that be the coast?

Let's go with that, if only for the moment. For tribute must be paid to The Coast of Utopia, Tom Stoppard's epic trilogy of plays that just got its official start with the opening of its first chapter, Voyage. Lincoln Center Theater is occupying itself with this mammoth opus for the better part of the season, and if you want to step foot in the Vivian Beaumont between now and March, the only way to do so is by way of 19th century Russia. Believe it or not, this is less threatening - and more rewarding - than it sounds.

Despite Stoppard's not entirely undeserved reputation for writing dense plays on esoteric subjects ranging from philosophy and chaos theory to literature and England's occupation of India, Voyage is some of the most instantly accessible Stoppard Broadway has seen in years. Advanced word from London, where The Coast of Utopia premiered a few years back, was that the work was compelling and brilliantly written but stuffy and perhaps even self-absorbed. Under Jack O'Brien's direction here, Voyage doesn't smolder or steam - it crackles and blazes.

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It's there, though, that the production's sole caveat rears its hazy head: This is not, in and of itself, a full play. If you're expecting a well-rounded, self-contained dramatic piece, you won't find it here: Voyage is less exciting for the glimmering jewels it contains than the stars it promises. While you can delight at Stoppard's masterful construction of the framework for the rest of the trilogy, payoffs at this point are few and far between, if not altogether nonexistent.

The sparkling, ghostly majestic sets of Bob Crowley and Scott Pask, which hauntingly evoke everything from the unwashed masses to the familiar spires of St. Basil's Cathedral; Catherine Zuber's countless handsome costumes; and Brian MacDevitt's spirited lighting are already beyond reproach, and might well only get better in the shows to come. But it's unusually challenging to appraise the performances this time around, as practically nothing exists here solely on its own terms.

Crudup's antic literary critic, a lone voice against a deafening chorus of silence, seems a major highlight, and Crudup lands every laugh in traversing the treacherous territory of this definitely dangerous young man. And I wasn't taken at all with Hawke's manic, unfocused Michael, who seems more like a Vietnam draft card burner than a hopeful idealist, and draws his convictions from the surface of his skin rather than the depths of the soul that his compatriots plumb. Hawke might, however, be setting up this expectation to grant more impact to a cataclysmic fall later on; I wouldn't put it past him. The supporting players, including Richard Easton (here as Michael's disapproving father), Amy Irving (as Michael's mother), and Jennifer Ehle and Martha Plimpton (as Michael's sisters), are all superb, communicating a continuity and community that give even this wading pool of an opener a real, satisfying depth.

Even if titanic major events here are few and far between, they fulfill their most important function of setting the stage for the world-changing conflicts to come. What all will those involve? Only time will tell, and judging from the foundation that's been laid here, it can't tell us soon enough.



http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/UtopiaVoyage.html

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Updated On: 11/27/06 at 06:54 PM

The performance is still going on. As a courtesy, most publications wait until after the opening night curtain goes up to post reviews online (though they occasionally pop up before then). The reviews are already filed since they're based on one of the critics' previews from last week and not on tonight's opening performance.

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I'm so excited. I got the boxed set of the three plays to prepare myself for my Voyage expierence!

YAY!

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Forced my dad to buy tickets earlier before the reviews came out for all three parts...I CANNOT wait.

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The Times is Positive:

"The world turns quickly in Lincoln Center Theater’s exhilarating production of Tom Stoppard’s “Voyage,” the first installment of his “Coast of Utopia” trilogy about Russian intellectuals in the 19th century dreaming of revolution.

It isn’t simply the industriously employed revolving stage of the Vivian Beaumont Theater, where the play opened last night, that gives the heady sense of an entire culture about to spin off its axis. As directed by Jack O’Brien and performed with freshness and vigor by an immense and starry cast led by Ethan Hawke and Billy Crudup, “Voyage” pulses with the dizzying, spring-green arrogance and anxiety of a new generation moving as fast as it can as it tries to forge a future that erases the past.

The play may have been written by a man in his 60s, and its principal performers are at least into their 30s, yet even more than in its London incarnation at the National Theater, where I saw it four years ago, “Voyage” is paced and defined by the quicksilver changes of mood and conviction that come from being young in a time of flux — by the feeling that everything and nothing is possible. It’s a work infused with the metabolism that lets college students talk furiously until dawn about big thoughts they are sure have never been thought before.

Given this play’s awareness of the futility of prophesying, I am not going to predict that the succeeding parts of this production of Mr. Stoppard’s trilogy — “Shipwreck,” which opens on Dec. 21, and “Salvage,” which opens on Feb. 15 — will maintain the same standard as its characters slide into middle age and disenchantment. But youth, at least, has been served in high style.

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Mr. Stoppard, Mr. O’Brien and the genius set designers Bob Crowley and Scott Pask have refitted and streamlined the play in ways that both quicken pace and enhance clarity. And not to sound shallow when the subject is so deep, but did I mention that it all looks absolutely ravishing?
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As for the central performances, there isn’t space here to describe them in the detail they warrant. If some lack the subtlety of their London predecessors, none are wanting in present-tense vividness. (Mr. Easton, Amy Irving, Jennifer Ehle and Martha Plimpton, as members of the same fraught family, are especially affecting. And I enjoyed David Cromwell’s take on an aging, worldly man of letters.)

Though Herzen dominates the trilogy (and the brooding Mr. O’Byrne certainly seems up to the task), it is Bakunin fils and his friend Belinsky, a socially inept literary critic, who set the energetic pace for “Voyage.” The duty is joyously fulfilled by Mr. Hawke, born to play the excitable egoist Bakunin, and Mr. Crudup, unmatchable in conveying the discomforts of self-consciousness.

When the house lights came up at the end of “Voyage,” I felt as if a thick novel in which I had totally lost myself had been snatched from my hands. Bring on the next chapter, please. I can’t wait to watch these young idealists grow up."

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2006/11/28/theater/reviews/28coas.html?ref=arts

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Reuters is Mixed-to-Positive:

"When the Lincoln Center Theater presents a new work by Tom Stoppard, it means one thing for theatergoers: homework time. This is particularly true of "The Coast of Utopia," the playwright's massive, three-part, nine-hour trilogy documenting the passions of Russian intellectuals in the 19th century. Unlike the previous production at London's National Theater in 2002, here the three works are being opened separately over the course of as many months so audience members can at least take more time to attempt to familiarize themselves with the events and figures on display.

The first part, "Voyage," is, as with so many of Stoppard's works, alternately fascinating and tedious, poetic and discursive, informative and frustrating. It offers many rewards for those with enough patience to endure its Chekhovian longueurs, but it is hard not to wish that the playwright had demonstrated a little restraint and perhaps reined in its sprawling focus.

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Even with its three-hour length, there's an inevitable feeling that the first part is but a setting of the scene, with its convoluted, time-shifting narrative failing to cohere in satisfying fashion. Instead, one must appreciate, as always, the beauty and wit of Stoppard's language, especially as delivered here by the excellent ensemble, and the expansive history lesson that the text provides.

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O'Brien's staging, performed on Bob Crowley and Scott Pask's simple but effective set and beautifully illuminated by Brian MacDevitt's dramatic lighting, expertly and fluidly handles the complicated action. From its startling opening tableaux featuring what seems like literally dozens of people onstage to its quietly intimate moments, it provides a vivid theatricality to match the complex intellectual ideas on display. "
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=stageNews&storyID=2006-11-28T035026Z_01_N27163539_RTRIDST_0_STAGE-STAGE-UTOPIA-DC.XML&WTmodLoc=EntNewsTheatre_C1_%5BFeed%5D-4

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I was there tonight, and had NO idea it was the opening performance.

A young man was outside the theater handing out a laughable review of the play, discouraging people from seeing it. I read it when I got home. His biggest complaint was that there were no Jews depicted in the play (the reviewer's criticism of Ethan Hawke's character - that in real life he had little to no impact in Russian political history- is, well, precisely the point.) Nevermind that Stoppard was writing fiction, based on history, yes, but with liberties taken. Even at 9 hours, you can't expect COMPLETE historical accuracy, nor should that be the aim of art.

Anyway, I'm glad to read the positive reviews, as I found the play to be STUNNING. The acting was good all around, though the real standout was Billy Crudup. I was left wanting more. I'm looking forward to parts 2 and 3.

Oh, also, I knew little to nothing about Russian history, and had no problem following the story. It is an engaging and at times quite thrilling play, and really shouldn't be missed.

Updated On: 11/27/06 at 11:23 PM

I wonder if that TheaterMania review is gunna sink the play...

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Ethan Hawke's character, Michael Bakunin, was, in fact a MAJOR figure in Russian Political history -- he's considered the father of modern anarchism and was a seminal inspiration a generation later for the Bolsheviks who led the Russian Revolution of 1917, overthrowing tsarist rule.

As for there being no Jews in this play, well, I don't know if that's true or not (I haven't read the next two plays yet), but is there some reason the young man thought that there were supposed to be Jews in this particular play? Stoppard (who is Jewish) is writing about a very specific group of Russian intellictuals and their families, during a very specific era of Russian history -- nearly every one of these characters were real people in history who's lives did intersect in various ways during the period in question. If they weren't actually Jewish in real life, then was Stoppard supposed to make them Jewish anyway for some reason?

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Updated On: 11/27/06 at 11:41 PM

yay sarcasm

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Yeah - on a scale of 1-10, how boring is this play?

Alright, thanks you just saved me $300.