The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui

D+

The election of our current president has led to a glut of productions of this parable of fascism and corruption during the rise of Hitler; this version at Classic Stage Company is the fourth in New York this year. Since my track record with Brecht is not good — I will admit somewhat shamefacedly that I have never really enjoyed a Brecht play — it was probably a mistake for me even to get a ticket. However, hope springs eternal and I was curious to see what CSC director John Doyle would do with the play and how Raul Esparza (Company, The Homecoming) an actor I have always enjoyed, would fare in the title role. I should have stayed home. I found the production wanting in just about every respect. First there is the play itself. I did not think transposing Hitler’s rise to the story of a gangster fighting for control of the Chicago cauliflower trust was an apt metaphor. Lest we miss the connections, an announcer bursts in periodically to tell us what event in Germany corresponds to what is happening onstage. Secondly I had a problem with George Tabori’s translation, which alternated between stilted verse and gangster talk. Thirdly, I was puzzled by Doyle’s ugly set which fences off the back of the stage to represent some vague industrial space with workmen’s lockers, helmets hanging on the wall and bright lights shined at the audience periodically. (Regular readers of this blog know how I feel about shining bright lights in the audience’s eyes.) The actors periodically drag chairs and folding tables from this back room to and from the main performing space. The costumes by Ann Hould-Ward (Passion, Allegro) offered little help in defining the characters. I never did figure out why actors donned welder’s helmets from time to time. The quality of the acting varied. I thought Eddie Cooper (This Ain't No Disco) as Roma and Christopher Gurr (All the Way) as Dogsboro/Dullfeet stood out. The other actors were George Abud (The Band's Visit), Elizabeth A. Davis (Allegro), Omozé Idehenre, Mahira Kakkar (The Winter's Tale) and Thom Sesma (Pacific Overtures). As for Raul Esparza, he coped reasonably well with a role that was not a natural fit. The first act builds rather slowly. In my favorite scene, Ui hires an actor to teach him how to walk, talk and sit. After intermission, the audience was a bit smaller. The mood darkens in the second act and we start hearing faint recorded shouts of “Sieg Heil!” in the background. The transformation of this shout to “Lock her up!” in the final moments was about as subtle as a sledgehammer. While a cautionary tale about how fascism develops is certainly welcome today, I don’t feel this is a very effective one. Running time: two hours five minutes including intermission. NOTE: CSC no longer distributes paper programs so you may want to download the digital version on your smartphone before you arrive.

The Band's Visit revisited

I have been eager to attend this show again to see how well it made the transition from off-Broadway to Broadway. I didn’t want to spend a fortune so I have been entering the show’s $40 lottery (thebandsvisitlottery.com) whenever I could and finally got lucky, landing a good seat in the second row of the mezzanine.

Here is what I had to say about the show the first time I saw it:

 Sunday, November 27, 2016

The Band's Visit

B+

Atlantic Theater Company is presenting this musical adaptation of the popular 2007 Israeli film about an Egyptian police band that inadvertently becomes stranded overnight in an isolated town while on a goodwill visit to Israel. The music and lyrics are by David Yazbek (The Full Monty) and the book is by Itamar Moses (Bach at Leipzig). The songs are well-integrated into the story with much of the music being performed by actors playing band members. The book, faithful to the screenplay almost to a fault, incorporates large chunks of dialog from the film. It is virtually impossible to develop 20 characters in any depth in 95 minutes even without making time for a dozen songs. In some cases, we get a bare sketch, but in others, the characterization actually goes deeper than in the film. The show is greatly enhanced by a fine cast and high production values. Katrina Lenk (Indecent) is excellent as Dina, owner of the town cafe. John Cariani (Something Rotten!) brings richness to the role of Itzik. Ari’el Stachel is just right as the band’s young hunk Haled. George Abud and Sam Sadigursky are standouts as actor-musicians. Last but not least, Tony Shalhoub (The Price) brings dignity and compassion to the role of Tewfiq, the bandleader. The evocative scenic design by Scott Pask (Something Rotten!) makes effective use of a revolving stage. Sarah Laux’s (The Humans) costumes fit their characters well. The direction by David Cromer (Tribes, Our Town) is fluid and assured. The result is an intimate, engaging show with an edge of poignancy. I could not suppress a twinge of regret over how badly the situation in Egypt and Israel has deteriorated since 1996, the year in which the story is set. Running time: one hour, 35 minutes; no intermission.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that very little had changed. Except for the replacement of Tony Shalhoub by Dariush Kashani (Oslo, The Invisible Hand), the cast was the same. The beauty of the score remains the highlight for me, along with the strong performance by Katrina Lenk. Kashani is creditable, but lacks Shalhoub’s barely masked sadness. The pacing seemed a bit sluggish, but it clocked in at only five minutes longer than at the Atlantic. Somehow, the various elements did not cohere as well for me this time around. The band’s musical number during the curtain call was enjoyable, but seemed tacked on. I heard considerable grumbling from people around me who were expecting a more traditional Broadway musical. Apparently, it’s not for everyone, but if you enjoy a low-key poignant story with gorgeous music, you will be rewarded. Running time: one hour 40 minutes; no intermission.

The Band's Visit

B+

Atlantic Theater Company is presenting this musical adaptation of the popular 2007 Israeli film about an Egyptian police band that inadvertently becomes stranded overnight in an isolated town while on a goodwill visit to Israel. The music and lyrics are by David Yazbek (The Full Monty) and the book is by Itamar Moses (Bach at Leipzig). The songs are well-integrated into the story with much of the music being performed by actors playing band members. The book, faithful to the screenplay almost to a fault, incorporates large chunks of dialog from the film. It is virtually impossible to develop 20 characters in any depth in 95 minutes even without making time for a dozen songs. In some cases, we get a bare sketch, but in others, the characterization actually goes deeper than in the film. The show is greatly enhanced by a fine cast and high production values. Katrina Lenk (Indecent) is excellent as Dina, owner of the town cafe. John Cariani (Something Rotten!) brings richness to the role of Itzik. Ari’el Stachel is just right as the band’s young hunk Haled. George Abud and Sam Sadigursky are standouts as actor-musicians. Last but not least, Tony Shalhoub (The Price) brings dignity and compassion to the role of Tewfiq, the bandleader. The evocative scenic design by Scott Pask (Something Rotten!) makes effective use of a revolving stage. Sarah Laux’s (The Humans) costumes fit their characters well. The direction by David Cromer (Tribes, Our Town) is fluid and assured. The result is an intimate, engaging show with an edge of poignancy. I could not suppress a twinge of regret over how badly the situation in Egypt and Israel has deteriorated since 1996, the year in which the story is set. Running time: one hour, 35 minutes; no intermission.

Peer Gynt **

Classic Stage Company’s new production directed and adapted by its incoming artistic director John Doyle is a case of too little Ibsen and too much Doyle. Up to a point, Doyle’s stripped-down version with just seven actors works, but there is so little specificity about location or identity of the characters that it all runs together into a blur. Perhaps Doyle thought this would give the play more universality, but I wasn’t buying it. Doyle’s signature tic of having the actors play instruments has become a cliche; fortunately, only two actors (Jane Pfitsch and George Abud) are so burdened in this production. Other directorial choices puzzled me — the character called The Undertaker (Adam Heller) speaks with a New York accent while The Mother (Becky Ann Baker) has a Southern accent. The usually fine Dylan Baker (The Doctor) and Quincy Tyler Bernstine (Solveig) do not have much opportunity to show their strengths. Not even the amazing performance by Gabriel Ebert as the title character is enough to hold things together. Doyle must have instructed him to downplay Peer Gynt’s age in the final scenes, which robs the play of some of its pathos. Nevertheless, Ebert is a wonder to behold. He is onstage for virtually the entire play and probably has 90% of the lines. This adaptation falls between two stools: it’s too long to sit comfortably through for two hours but too short to do justice to Ibsen. David L. Asenault’s scenic design features a raised rectangular platform with a step on each end. Ann Hould-Ward’s modern-dress costumes are stylish. The music for violin by Dan Moses Schreier is no threat to Grieg. I hope this production will not set the template for what we can expect during Doyle’s reign as artistic director. Running time: 2 hours, no intermission. NOTE: Avoid seats in the 200 section where you will often face the actors’ backs and in the front row of the two side sections which are benches with no arms or back.

Nathan the Wise **

For his final production as artistic director of Classic Stage Company (CSC), Brian Kulick has chosen this 1779 “drama of ideas” by German Enlightenment philosopher/playwright Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. Set in Jerusalem in 1192 during the Third Crusade, it makes a case for religious tolerance between Jews, Muslims and Christians. The title character (F. Murray Abraham) is a wealthy Jewish merchant, just back from a long journey, who learns that his daughter Rachel (Erin Neufer) has been rescued from a fire by a mysterious Knight Templar (Stark Sands) who had been spared from execution by the Muslim ruler Saladin (Austin Durant) because of his strong resemblance to Saladin’s late brother. The Templar at first vehemently refuses to have anything to do with the Jew Nathan, but is rather suddenly won over by his intellect and soon falls in love with his daughter. Daya (Caroline Lagerfelt), Rachel’s Christian nurse, tells the Templar a secret that puts Nathan at great risk from the Patriarch of Jerusalem (also played by Lagerfelt). The other characters are Al-Hafi (George Abud), a dervish who provides comic relief; Sittah (Shiva Kalaiselvan), Saladin’s clever sister; and Brother (John Christopher Jones), a monk with a secret. The central portion of the play deals with a perilous challenge from Saladin for Nathan to tell him which religion most pleases God. Nathan adroitly handles the situation by telling a parable about three rings, one of which has magical powers. A father who loved his three sons equally had two duplicates made and told each son that he had been given the original ring. A wise judge told the sons that the only way to determine who had the magic ring was for each to behave as if worthy of it. Saladin succumbs to the powers of Nathan’s intellect and takes him as his friend. A pair of revelations about two orphans provides a rather hackneyed ending. I found some of Kulick’s choices perplexing. The entire back wall of Tony Straiges’s set is covered with a sepia photograph of a bombed-out street in a place like Syria or Gaza. This wall is covered by an unexplained projected Arabic script at the beginning of each act. There is a row of chairs across the back of this wall where the actors sometimes sit when they are not in a scene. The floor is covered with oriental carpets which are rolled, unrolled or pulled up at various moments. In a framing device, the play opens with the actors in modern dress arguing in Arabic until Abraham shushes them so he can tell a story. The costume design by Anita Yavich has each don an attractive white robe covered with ornamental calligraphy appropriate to the character’s religion. The actors wait for the second act to begin while Durant and Abud say their evening prayers. What we are to make of this mishmash of imagery was not clear to me. The acting is uneven. Lagerfelt was very good in both roles. Sands coped well with the abrupt changes in his character's behavior. Abraham was blessedly restrained. It was a minor pleasure to be exposed to this rarely seen curiosity. Running time: two hours.