Thursday, April 5, 2018

Yerma

B+

Although the Olivier which it was awarded was for Best Revival of a Play, the Young Vic production of Yerma now at the Park Avenue Armory is hardly a revival in the usual sense. With a different location, period, social class, motivation, outcome and text, there is not a lot left of Lorca’s 1934 drama except for the theme of a woman undone by infertility. What we get instead, in the words of the program, is a “radically reimagined adaptation.” Author/director Simon Stone has confined the actors to a glass box with stadium seating on facing sides. The voyeuristic effect is striking, but also distancing. The fact that the actors are heard only as mic’d voices is a bit unnerving. The play is divided into seven chapters. Video surtitles during blackouts announce the chapters and scenes and occasionally contextualize them. Some of the set changes between scenes are magically rapid. The downside is that to drown out the sounds of moving sets, there are deafening blasts of choral music. In this high-concept environment, the actors have their work cut out for them. Fortunately, they are up to the task and then some. As the title character, known in this version only as Her, Billie Piper plays a London newspaper journalist and blogger. Her long-time lover and then husband John (Brendan Cowell) is a businessman who is often away on international trips. Her mother Helen (Maureen Beattie) is a cold-blooded academic who is anything but maternal. Her sister Mary (Charlotte Randle) doesn’t let a bad marriage prevent her from repeatedly getting pregnant. Her ex-lover Victor (John MacMillan), whose child she had aborted a decade before, suddenly reappears in her life. Her young assistant Des (Thalissa Teixeira) encourages Her to blog about the painful experiences of trying to conceive, irrespective of the embarrassment it might cause others. It is painful to watch Her change from the brash confident woman we initially meet into the desperate, unhinged woman she becomes. Ms. Piper does not hold back; it is easy to see why she won the Olivier for her performance. Mr. Cowell is a fine foil for her. I admire Mr. Stone and designer Lizzie Clachan for the originality of their concept, even though I found it somewhat alienating. It was a stimulating evening. Running time: one hour 40 minutes; no intermission.

No comments:

Post a Comment