Author: Joe

Remember August: Osage County, Tracey Lett’s Pulitzer Prize winning three act masterpiece with a large cast centering around the Weston family in Oklahoma?  For those who relish enormously satisfying plays stuffed with full-blooded characters, the successor to the throne has arrived.  The Ferryman, written by the extremely talented playwright Jez Butterworth (Jerusalem, The River), should be on your must-see list.

After a brief ominous prologue, the play opens with a man and a woman playing Connect Four, drinking whiskey and debating which rock band they would want on a desert island:  The Beatles, The Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin.  Hearing her answer is incorrect, she clarifies that the question was who she wanted to be with on the island not whose music she wanted to hear.  This play is filled with conversational detail.  The action takes place in the home of the large Carney family who are rural famers in Northern Ireland.  The time is 1981 as the Maze prison hunger strikes are occurring during The Troubles.  The family is readying the household for Harvest Day.  The goose has been fattened up but goes missing.  Everyone seem to adore whiskey and relish storytelling.  Monologues, from comedic to tragic, occasionally mystical and often jarringly intense, are riveting throughout.

Themes pour out of this play nearly as often as the whisky flows.  It is possible that the only family member not to drop back a shot or a beer is the infant child.  The Ferryman is a celebration of Irish family, home and their famed culture of storytelling.  The Ferryman is also a commentary on The Troubles and how they impacted the Irish people generally and this family specifically.  Centuries of conflict between Northern Ireland and England.  Centuries of conflict between Catholics and Protestants.  How do everyday people live their lives?  Must we hate the opposite side?  Should we?  Is there even a side that is completely in the right?

For thousands of years our world has been engulfed in wars that never seem to end.  Somehow religion seems to be a key factor but we know that money and power are the bigger draws.  Mr. Butterworth has written a play that takes an intimate look at a political conflict within a much larger family drama.  The scope grows as the play ends and you realize that stories such as these can probably be similarly concocted for many cultures and their conflicts.  Being Ireland, however, the tale here is rich with words, imagery, gregariousness and alcohol.

Directed by Sam Mendes, the production is first-rate.  The acting is uniformly superb, notably by the children.  All of the creative elements work in support of the piece.  The Ferryman is always alive.  The nearly two dozen characters breathe, sigh, laugh and cry.  A vividly real and very colorful family is celebrating a holiday with serious political drama swirling in the air.  Aunt Pat (an excellent Dearbhla Molloy) stirs and stirs the pot.  Sound like an upcoming Thanksgiving dinner in America?

I visited Northern Ireland about a decade ago.  A driver took us down the street which was ground zero for The Troubles.  The protests were painted curbs rather than bombs.  In a pub near Galway, we met a group of young men who were on their way to an overnight bachelor party on the Aran Islands.  They befriended us for a few hours and stories were shared.  They bought so many rounds that there were four pints in front of me at one point.  That is the richness of a warmhearted people.  Go see The Ferryman.  It will touch your heart, stimulate your brain and maybe even provide a mirror for societal reflection.  That is how great a play Jez Butterworth has written.

www.theferrymanbroadway.com

In Sarah Bernhardt’s own words, “the roles of men are in general more intellectual than the roles of women… Only the role of Phédre gives me the charm of digging into a heart that is truly anguished… Always, in the theater, the parts played by the men are the best parts.  And yet theater is the sole art where women can sometimes be superior to men.”  The new play Bernhardt/Hamlet takes us backstage as Ms. Bernhardt prepares to take on Hamlet in the year 1899.  The great actress Janet McTeer (A Doll’s House, Mary Stuart) grabs hold of her portrayal of the legendarily great actress and a very compelling story soars.

Hamlet was one of Ms. Bernhardt’s famous stage triumphs.  In this play, she wrestles with how to grasp the character and the meanings of Shakespeare’s lines.  Current lover and playwright Edmond Rostand (an excellent Jason Butler Harner) is convinced to write a prose version to replace the bard’s poetry.  This famed actress rehearses and rehearses scenes from Hamlet and the audience is treated to an insight into the creative process.  When Ms. McTeer and Dylan Baker perform a classic scene between Hamlet and his father’s ghost, the magical spark of theater is realized for them – and for us.  This play and, most importantly, these performances illuminate the often rocky terrain required to reach creative peaks.

That theme and the presence of Ms. McTeer is satisfying enough.  The great news about Bernhardt/Hamlet is that the play offers so much more than that to ponder.  It’s loosely a biography of this famous actress, from her lover(s) to her illegitimate son.  The famed Art Nouveau graphic artist Alfons Mucha created her poster for Hamlet (which I just saw at the his namesake museum in Prague last month).  He agonizes how to capture the essence of what Bernhardt is doing.  Not everyone is convinced her taking on Hamlet is a good idea (nor the scandal of a rewrite).  At a café Rostand says to his companion, “you’ve made up your mind before you’ve even seen it.”  The reply:  “After all I am a theater critic.”

The creative risks taken by Ms. Bernhardt in shattering centuries of tradition to challenge herself to grab hold of one of the most important roles in the theatrical canon is pure drama itself.  Adding in her theatrical orbit, the supporters and dissenters, helps to paint a rich tapestry of the type of drive and desire required to unearth cultural milestones.  Ms. McTeer guides us through Bernhardt’s witty, egocentric, flamboyant, nervy, confident, mystified, uncertain and nervous persona.  While she does make a convincing feminist statement, the personal statement felt even bigger from my vantage point.

Moritz von Stuelpnagel (Hand to God) directed Bernhardt/Hamlet and the many laughs are perfectly executed.  The dressing room scene in Act II is one of my favorites of the year.  He has assembled an extraordinary team from the fine acting ensemble to the designers of the set, costumes and lighting.  As is fitting though, Sarah Bernhardt still manages to stand above all that, alone and iconic.  And Theresa Rebeck has created a marvelous vehicle to celebrate women, creativity, theater and risk taking worthy of its grand subject.

www.roundabouttheatre.org