re: The Coast of Utopia: Voyage Reviews- Page 2

[queendork]

Posted: 11/28/06 at 12:44am

Herzen's popularity and writings were/are largely forgotten or out of favour because of the course of (Russian) history. However, to categorize him as a marginal or unimportant figure is unfair and inaccurate.

As I've said, I had some major issues with several of the performances, but I enjoyed the play and am (as I have been) looking forward to Shipwreck most of all.

As far as the play being dense - The people behind me (including a jerk who kicked my seat for three hours straight) were complaining that the play wasn't dense enough. They were "disappointed" that they understood everything. Oookay...

[BroadwayChica]

Posted: 11/28/06 at 12:47am

Ha!

Snobs...pffft!

I have to say, the play certainly whetted my appetite for Russian history/literature. I'm going to delve into it during my winter break. I've been stydying the Brits for far too long.

[InfiniteTheaterFrenzy]

Posted: 11/28/06 at 12:54am

I honestly would recommend Voyage to anyone with an open mind about theatre. I love love love loved it. Far more than I thought I would.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 11/28/06 at 1:13am

Spend the money - go see it.

I thought VOYAGE was absolutely fantastic. Not boring at all. I could not agree with Brantley's review more. SEE IT.

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/28/06 at 1:24am

Thanks for taking the time to post that, BroadwayChica.

The writer seems to be so caught up with his own extreme political viewpoints that he was incapable of evaluating the merits of this production on its own terms. It's true that Bakunin was an antisemite -- so were many other members of his class of the time. This is not to excuse that aspect of his character, but it also doesn't lessen his influence on Russian political history. There are many books and other sources detailing his importance. For a quick read, here's his Wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bakunin

Similarly, Herzen, is considered the father of Russian socialism -- another influential early figure in shaping the Russian state in the 20th century:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herzen

The figures he cites -- Trotsky, Kamenev, Axelrod -- were basically the philosophical grandchildren of the characters in Stoppard's play, who weren't even born during the time that this play covers (1820s to 1860s). They came of age in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and were able foment effective revolution partially because of the work that Herzen, Bakunin et al had begun many decades before (Herzen, for example, played a crucial role in the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 -- I believe -- which made revolution possible 56 years later).

The writer is criticizing THE COAST OF UTOPIA for something that it never intended to be. Stoppard wasn't attempting to write about the figures that had a direct hand in the Russian revolution of the early 20th century. He is writing about a unique and fascinating time earlier in that country's history, when the strength of the landed aristocracy was at its height (and the vast majority of Russians lived under feudal oppression), and a small coterie of intellectual young men -- heavily influenced by the West -- were beginning to question the status quo, debate the essential questions of liberty and freedom and construct a new political philosophy that they hoped would one day lead their country out of oppression. At great personal risk to themselves and their families (most ended up in prison and/or exile) these men -- Bakunin, Herzen, Belinsky, Turgenev, et al -- were responsible for sowing the seeds of revolution and Russia's eventual liberation.

It's a great epic story in which we observe these characters go from youthful passion, idealism and ambition (in this first play) through their personal and public struggles to hold onto their ideals and the hopes they have for their country until the final acts in which we see their triumphs and failures, their sacrifices and disillusionment, all throughout carrying with them visions of utopia -- a perfect society -- something probably unattainable, but what they spend their lives striving for.

It's easy to see why Stoppard was attracted to dramatizing this period and these characters -- never again would so much idealism exist in Russia in so pure a form -- and it's somewhat ridiculous that the writer of that review was so blinded by his narrow ideology that he couldn't see the richness and beauty that Stoppard was trying to capture in this work.

Updated On: 11/28/06 at 01:24 AM

[BroadwayChica]

Posted: 11/28/06 at 1:30am

Beautiful. Thanks for the insight, Margo. As always. :)

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/28/06 at 1:34am

The Newark Star-Ledger is Positive:

"Opening yesterday at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, "The Coast of Utopia, Part One -- Voyage" is no easy story to follow but the passionate acting and thrilling stagecraft of director Jack O'Brien's production provide unforgettable theater.

The brainiest British playwright since George Bernard Shaw, Stoppard has given the stage such deeply cerebral works as "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" and "The Invention of Love." This latest epic shapes up as his most ambitious and demanding of all. With two more plays of the trilogy still to come this season, "The Coast of Utopia" already is the headiest drama on Broadway.

_______________________________________________________________

A swift series of brief scenes, the drama brims over with dozens of figures and intellectual viewpoints. Too many people and ideas arise for spectators to grasp completely, but enough manifest sufficiently to engage rather than befuddle the audience.

Such a maelstrom of thoughts and characters reflects the tempestuous era that Stoppard's immense canvas strives to depict. Anybody willing to listen attentively and go with the torrential flow of this voluble drama will not be bored.

Vivid flashes of humanity are rendered by a 44-member company under O'Brien's masterful direction.

_____________________________________________________________


Perceptively lit by Brian MacDevitt, the awesome settings by Bob Crowley and Scott Pask befit such monumental drama. As the play concludes, a disgraced Michael has fled into exile. The next play, subtitled "Shipwreck," resumes the saga two years later. Can't wait to see what happens next. "

http://www.nj.com/entertainment/ledger/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-1/116469292741710.xml&coll=1

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/28/06 at 1:42am

John Simon is Mixed-to-Positive:

"``The Coast of Utopia' is Tom Stoppard's trilogy about the 19th-century forefathers of the Russian Revolution. Part One, ``Voyage,' has just opened at the Vivian Beaumont Theater, with the others to follow, each a few weeks apart. Supposedly independent entities, they strike me as three acts of one enormously long play. Gluttons for pleasure (or punishment, depending on your point of view) will have the option of taking in the whole at one daylong marathon toward the end of the run.
_______________________________________________________________

There are others to advance and complicate the several plots with which Stoppard stuffs the play to bursting. For those unfamiliar with Russian history and literature, not to mention influential German thinkers from Fichte and Schelling to Kant and Hegel, this can be quite an overload.

Granted, Stoppard delivers clever harangues and tart epigrams from drolly idiosyncratic characters, but all their twisting and turning becomes exhausting to follow. That Jack O'Brien -- a practiced hand with Stoppard's gnarly dramaturgy -- is the cleverest of directors can be both stimulating and overwhelming. Often thrilled but sometimes clobbered, we reel between flights of verbal fancy and intricacies of staging.

______________________________________________________________


Still, how is one to evaluate performances that may evolve in future installments? And how pronounce on a play that has revealed only a third of itself? I was and remain interested, though not yet convinced.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=auUFfO.rMFvQ&refer=muse

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/28/06 at 2:32am

NY Sun is Positive:

"Ambition, doomed and glorious, informs every word and action of the sextet at the center of "The Coast of Utopia," Tom Stoppard's nine-hour epic that began last night with the opening of "Voyage," the first of three linked plays. A sort of Greatest Generation of tsarist Russia, the likes of Ivan Turgenev, Alexander Herzen, and other, lesser-known philosophers spent a good-size chunk of the 19th century agitating for reform — a crusade that led inexorably to betrayal, death, and the obliteration of one lofty dream after another.

Mr. Stoppard, never one to shrink from a challenge, has put his formidable intellect to the test in harnessing these men's chaotic political, intellectual, and personal lives into a viable narrative. As evidenced by the first play (Part II,
"Shipwreck," opens next month, followed by "Salvage" in February), he has swung for the fences and — along with his equally ambitious director, Jack O'Brien, and a marvelous cast — connected with towering success.

By focusing on the blind spots and emotional underpinnings of the philosophies at the play's center, Messrs. Stoppard and O'Brien have united head and heart with a mastery that makes "The Coast of Utopia," at least so far, the most exciting theatrical event Broadway has seen in a long, long time."

http://www.nysun.com/article/44212

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/28/06 at 3:18am

Washington Post is Mixed:

"The more we are exposed on this particular evening to Stoppard's teeming portrait of 19th-century intellectual fervor, the less able we are to forge a compelling bond with many of the figures who populate it.

This being the singular Stoppard, though -- a playwright capable of extracting meaningful drama from such unlikely sources as landscape architecture and quantum theory -- theatergoers have to take it on faith that investing time in Part 1 will lead to more substantial profit in Parts 2 and 3. Perhaps this band of comrades from the Russian intelligentsia, philosophers and poets, anarchists and journalists will register more seductively as the subversive currents introduced in Part 1 begin to coalesce more powerfully.

_______________________________________________________________

The highly capable O'Brien keeps the proceedings crisp, and freshest of all is the ravishing look of the piece. At the back of the stage behind a scrim, a multitude of mannequins cloaked in tattered shrouds maintain a haunting vigil; they're the faceless serfs -- "souls" in "Utopia" parlance -- whose plight gives the play its political conscience.

The set designers, Bob Crowley and Scott Pask, in concert with the lighting and costume designers Brian MacDevitt and Catherine Zuber, come up with other eye-catching marvels, as in a dazzling collection of Moscow skaters gliding under an ice sculpture of the Kremlin.

These stage pictures, however, tend to have more staying power than the people who inhabit them.

It's perplexing to note that at the curtain call, when all 36 actors march purposefully forward to take their bows, the exuberance is of a magnitude that hasn't been exhibited all evening. Only at the last are we permitted a real kinship with everyone on the stage."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/27/AR2006112701542.html

[MargoChanning]

Posted: 11/28/06 at 3:22am

The Philadelphia Inquirer is Positive:

"The Coast of Utopia, three three-hour plays (Voyage, Shipwreck and Salvage), requiring 44 actors (and what a brilliant cast has been assembled!) in more than 70 roles; the trilogy opened in London in 2002. Voyage's American premiere at Lincoln Center is not to be missed.

________________________________________________________________

Theatrically, Voyage is gorgeous. Before it begins, we are at sea in dark, swirling waves under a dark, foggy sky, an effect so compelling that the audience is rapt before a word is spoken. The lighting will transform the gleaming black stage from water to ice to street to ballroom floor. Two scrims (gauzy, semitransparent curtains) will reveal, from time to time, a world of serfs, standing in mute suffering and reproach. And wait until you see the Kremlin and the ice-skaters.

Stoppard's intellectual power, his refusal to relinquish contemporary drama to mere psychologizing, requires actors who can convey, naturally and entertainingly, important ideas through dialogue. It's a thrilling cast - any one of these actors will draw an audience to the theater, but to have them all there, working at the top of their craft, under the remarkably intelligent direction of Jack O'Brien, is to feel real joy in theatergoing."

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/magazine/daily/16111286.htm

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 11/28/06 at 7:00am

Just_Jonh, spend the money this is a once in a lifetime event and anyone who has ever spent time in a theatre would be a fool to miss this.

And this is coming from someone who is over 20,000km away, if i could get there tomorrow, i would be on a plane.

[James2]

Posted: 11/28/06 at 7:46am

Clive Barnes gives it four stars:

The game's afoot! Tom Stoppard's thrilling trilogy of 19th-century Russian thinkers and the women who loved them, "The Coast of Utopia," got under way last night at the Vivian Beaumont Theater with "Part One: Voyage."

As Bette Davis once said of old age: "It ain't for sissies."

But forget what you may have heard about the plays: There is no required reading list, only a willingness to accept art as wondrously disordered as life.

Stoppard has hit upon an enthralling, little-known story and deftly welded it into a soap opera for the thinking classes.

He takes the rebellious Russian intelligentsia over a period of some 30 years starting in the early 1830s, shows how the power of their ideas brought about the eventual end of Russian serfdom and finally, after their deaths, influenced the overthrow of Czarist rule.

Stoppard then weaves this life of ideas through the personal lives of the actual men and women who generated it, along the way running dazzling circles around the philosophic concepts of Hegel, Kant, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Wow! Whew!

These people (not the philosophers) and their interplay - the wealthy Bakunin family, sons of the serf-owning landed gentry, a few middle-class journalists and others - are compellingly presented by a cast of 26, including Billy Crudup, Richard Easton, Jennifer Ehle, Josh Hamilton, David Harbour, Jason Butler Harner, Ethan Hawke, Amy Irving, Bryan F. O'Byrne and Martha Plimpton.

Making this first installment more complex is Stoppard's oblique manner of telling the story in a nonlinear way: The first three scenes of Act Two come chronologically in between the first two scenes of Act One.

Confusing? A little, at least until you realize the scheme of things. Each of the play's 23 scenes is also marked, albeit briefly, by a date projected above the stage.

When "Utopia" was first staged at Britain's National Theatre years ago, all three parts were unveiled for the critics in a one-day, nine-hour marathon.

In the fashion of Wagner's operatic "Ring" cycle, the three plays are said to stand alone - and to an extent they do.

That said, I suspect the National and Trevor Nunn, the original director, knew what they were doing when they showed them in one fell swoop, for it's while taken as a whole that they make most poetic and dramatic sense.

For this New York production, whirlingly directed by Jack O'Brien, Stoppard has nipped and tucked the plays to about 81/2 hours total. So far, the staging is less passionate than the London version: There seems more motion and less heat.

Major improvements here are the superb, evocative settings by Bob Crowley and Scott Pask - though whoever came up with the idea of using stationary puppets behind a scrim to represent the dead souls of the Bakunin estate should have thought again.

There will be more time later in the story to consider the actors swirling through the trilogy (O'Brien makes telling use, by the way, of the often derided Beaumont stage), but even at this first stopping point, enormous praise is due to Crudup's mousy-looking but valiant sketch of the great Russian critic Belinsky; O'Byrne's centered revolutionary, Herzen; and the shining-faced Ehle as the doomed, Chekovian-like Bakunin sister, Liubov.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/11282006/entertainment/theater/tres_bon_voyage_theater_clive_barnes.htm

[TomMonster]

Posted: 11/28/06 at 10:27am

I was at the opening last night and loved it! As the lights came up at the end, I felt as if I had been awoken from a dream and couldn't wait to go back to it!

Stunning piece of theatre.

Thanks, Chica for posting parts of that ridiculous review being handed out in front of the theatre before the show. Too funny!

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 11/28/06 at 2:02pm

The mixed reviews for Hawke shock me. I, for one, had no idea the man was so gifted an actor.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 11/28/06 at 2:04pm

I completely agree, Tom. I can't wait for the next two parts. Currently, I am seeing SHIPWRECK on January 14th. I can't seem to score SALVAGE tickets yet, but I'm sure more will be released closer to the dates.

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 11/28/06 at 2:04pm

You obviously missed him in HURLYBURLY. He was fantastic, as he is in this piece as well.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 11/28/06 at 2:14pm

YEs, but his role in HURLYBURLY is far from his role in VOYAGE. I have seen him in many, many things - and always thought he was good with generally "safe" material. He certainly proved himself in VOYAGE. I hope he gets nominated.

Perhaps part of my apprehension came from the fact that he was nothing more than lacklusted in HENRY IV...

[madophelia]

Posted: 11/28/06 at 3:57pm

Despite having majored in European History (nearly enough courses for a Russian Area Studies degree),the names Bakunin and Herzen didn't even ring a bell, though I'm very familiar with all the German philosophers. No need to look any of them up.

As for the wikipedia now proclaiming Herzen the "father of Russian socialism," I find that rather amusing. In nearly all societies, there are likely to be radical thinkers and people who take up the latest philosophical movements. The Russian upper class was no different. It was particularly more enamored of all things foreign than fomenting revolutionary change.

Peter the Great began the process of introducing Western European ideas and innovations to Russia in the late 17th century. One result was that the Russian upper classes were more likely to speak French than be able to speak to any of the "souls" they owned.

In my opinion, unless you can trace Herzen's influence to the revolutionary upheaval of the early 20th century, then he's merely an interesting person in my books and not the "father" of anything.

I have just begun reading Voyage and plan to dig out my textbooks to see if these "revolutionary thinkers" merited a footnote. Of course, this might all be rubbish, as it has been quite a few years...


Updated On: 11/28/06 at 03:57 PM