Shakespeare in the Park
Jul. 29th, 2002 11:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sdelmonteYesterday was the gang's annual outing to see the Public Theater's free Shakespeare in the Park offering. This year, due to budget cuts, they are doing just one play instead of two, and the work is "Twelfth Night," such stars as Julia Stiles, Jimmy Smits, Oliver Platt, Chritopher Lloyd and Kristen Johnson.
Such a cast generates long lines waiting to get tickets and therein lies a tale. The way you get tickets is to show up early on the day of performance, and wait in line till the ticket office opens at 1 pm. In previous years, we sent one or two Manhattanites on ahead to claim a spot on the line, and the rest of us arrived by noon or so, each person getting two tickets. Turns out, interestingly, that this method of waiting was always against the rules, that you cannot let one person become seven as it is essentially cutting the line. But till last year, no one ever seems to enforce this rule.
Last year, with the run of "The Seagull" with Kevin Kline and Meryl Streep and a ton of other Really Big Names, the rules changed. Or got enforced. And that such changes carried over to this years's Play. Not that we entirely understood that. We had heard from someone who saw "Twelfth Night" that as long as the whole group was in place by 10 am, we were fine. As there was no signage to contradict this, and nothing on the theater's website or voice mail, and as no one from the theater was working the line, we had no way of knowing otherwise.
Till She saw Batya and I and a third friend join two other people on line. Let me state before going further that She was right. It is not fair for a small group to become a large group and circumvent the line. It is not fair for one group to ignore the rules. And losing my temper did no good with either She or the ticket manager. Nonetheless, I think I have rarely met someone so difficult as She was.
Who is She? Who knows? Just some woman in line. But She complained something fierce about our group getting larger, even after we sent the next batch of friends to the back of the line. Then She went and told the management. And told us that She had. I think, judging by something that someone from the theater said later, that She even told them how many of us had agreed to wait further back so we couldn't do the same thing twice.
I lost my temper, which accomplished nothing, but cannot quite understand what it was that got her so angry. It seemed like it was more than us cutting. For what it's worth, she got tickets in the same row as us, so I can't imagine She really believed she would lost her seat. What's more, when Batya tried to apologize to her and make sure She knew that we had sent most of our group to the back, she didn't accept the apology and one friend claims She insulted Batya under her breathe (and thank God I didn't hear that, if it's true - I may have lost it for real).
The end result is that while we got our tickets, our moods were soured. Someone had been rude and obnoxious only because she was a stickler for the rules in a way that even I, in my most moralistic moments, am not. We think that at some level, this woman is lonely and miserable and was taking it out on us - she was alone in line, waiting by herself for hours, seeing a show that draws couples and groups all alone - but I just don't think I want to know what really was eating at her.
Hours later, we got to the play itself. 13 of 14 had a good time. Guess who didn't? This production of "Twelfth Night," directed by Brian Kulick, emphasized the low comedy elements, and was little helped (for me, anyway) by a painfully broad and unpoetic performance by Oliver Platt, playing Toby Belch with no subtlety. I realize that this is probably very close to what Shakespeare had in mind, so the blame has to start with the Bard himself. I cannot say I think this is a good work. But choosing to direct it toward the lowest common denominator was, to me, a mistake.
There were some good points, but when I look at my watch after 45 minutes and sigh, it's not a good sign. The best things about the play were the unknowns, playing smaller but pivotal roles like the Jester - who needed and had a good singing voice to go with a skilled recitation of his lines - and Christopher Lloyd. Lloyd played Malvolio, the self-involved, puritanical and supposedly hypocritical aide of the lady Olivia. The subplot of the play - which actually got more emphasis her that the main plot - involved his drunken rival, Belch, embarrassing him and giving him what he deserved. Alas, Belch was unsympathetic to me, and Malvolio, while a stick in the mud, never came across as a hypocrite. If his job was to keep Belch from being a public nuisance, I can't fault him that much. Thus when Malvolio emerges from Belch's revenge, which includes a form of torture on top of making Malvolio look the fool, I understand why he seeks revenge on a kingdom that shrugs off his victimization as a practical joke. Never mind that one doesn't make a fool of a Puritan lightly - such people bring down inquisitions all too easily.
Lloyd doesn't read the lines with much poetic skill, and sometimes I saw tinges of Doc Brown, Judge Doom, and even Kruge peering out form under Malvolio's black garments. But Lloyd brought the right amount of restraint to a part that is likely played as over the top as Belch, and gave the role a degree of soul missing even from the work of better actors like Kristen Johnson. So when he leaves the stage swearing revenge, I started applauding just a bit early in my enthusisam for character and for player.
As for Julia Stiles, she gave a good enough performance, but her reading of the lines also lacked any poetry. With time, she might easily move from doing Shakespeare-inspired teen flicks to the real things with great ease. At this point, she's just an apprentice.
Of course, all of the above is conjecture and may be proved incorrect.
Such a cast generates long lines waiting to get tickets and therein lies a tale. The way you get tickets is to show up early on the day of performance, and wait in line till the ticket office opens at 1 pm. In previous years, we sent one or two Manhattanites on ahead to claim a spot on the line, and the rest of us arrived by noon or so, each person getting two tickets. Turns out, interestingly, that this method of waiting was always against the rules, that you cannot let one person become seven as it is essentially cutting the line. But till last year, no one ever seems to enforce this rule.
Last year, with the run of "The Seagull" with Kevin Kline and Meryl Streep and a ton of other Really Big Names, the rules changed. Or got enforced. And that such changes carried over to this years's Play. Not that we entirely understood that. We had heard from someone who saw "Twelfth Night" that as long as the whole group was in place by 10 am, we were fine. As there was no signage to contradict this, and nothing on the theater's website or voice mail, and as no one from the theater was working the line, we had no way of knowing otherwise.
Till She saw Batya and I and a third friend join two other people on line. Let me state before going further that She was right. It is not fair for a small group to become a large group and circumvent the line. It is not fair for one group to ignore the rules. And losing my temper did no good with either She or the ticket manager. Nonetheless, I think I have rarely met someone so difficult as She was.
Who is She? Who knows? Just some woman in line. But She complained something fierce about our group getting larger, even after we sent the next batch of friends to the back of the line. Then She went and told the management. And told us that She had. I think, judging by something that someone from the theater said later, that She even told them how many of us had agreed to wait further back so we couldn't do the same thing twice.
I lost my temper, which accomplished nothing, but cannot quite understand what it was that got her so angry. It seemed like it was more than us cutting. For what it's worth, she got tickets in the same row as us, so I can't imagine She really believed she would lost her seat. What's more, when Batya tried to apologize to her and make sure She knew that we had sent most of our group to the back, she didn't accept the apology and one friend claims She insulted Batya under her breathe (and thank God I didn't hear that, if it's true - I may have lost it for real).
The end result is that while we got our tickets, our moods were soured. Someone had been rude and obnoxious only because she was a stickler for the rules in a way that even I, in my most moralistic moments, am not. We think that at some level, this woman is lonely and miserable and was taking it out on us - she was alone in line, waiting by herself for hours, seeing a show that draws couples and groups all alone - but I just don't think I want to know what really was eating at her.
Hours later, we got to the play itself. 13 of 14 had a good time. Guess who didn't? This production of "Twelfth Night," directed by Brian Kulick, emphasized the low comedy elements, and was little helped (for me, anyway) by a painfully broad and unpoetic performance by Oliver Platt, playing Toby Belch with no subtlety. I realize that this is probably very close to what Shakespeare had in mind, so the blame has to start with the Bard himself. I cannot say I think this is a good work. But choosing to direct it toward the lowest common denominator was, to me, a mistake.
There were some good points, but when I look at my watch after 45 minutes and sigh, it's not a good sign. The best things about the play were the unknowns, playing smaller but pivotal roles like the Jester - who needed and had a good singing voice to go with a skilled recitation of his lines - and Christopher Lloyd. Lloyd played Malvolio, the self-involved, puritanical and supposedly hypocritical aide of the lady Olivia. The subplot of the play - which actually got more emphasis her that the main plot - involved his drunken rival, Belch, embarrassing him and giving him what he deserved. Alas, Belch was unsympathetic to me, and Malvolio, while a stick in the mud, never came across as a hypocrite. If his job was to keep Belch from being a public nuisance, I can't fault him that much. Thus when Malvolio emerges from Belch's revenge, which includes a form of torture on top of making Malvolio look the fool, I understand why he seeks revenge on a kingdom that shrugs off his victimization as a practical joke. Never mind that one doesn't make a fool of a Puritan lightly - such people bring down inquisitions all too easily.
Lloyd doesn't read the lines with much poetic skill, and sometimes I saw tinges of Doc Brown, Judge Doom, and even Kruge peering out form under Malvolio's black garments. But Lloyd brought the right amount of restraint to a part that is likely played as over the top as Belch, and gave the role a degree of soul missing even from the work of better actors like Kristen Johnson. So when he leaves the stage swearing revenge, I started applauding just a bit early in my enthusisam for character and for player.
As for Julia Stiles, she gave a good enough performance, but her reading of the lines also lacked any poetry. With time, she might easily move from doing Shakespeare-inspired teen flicks to the real things with great ease. At this point, she's just an apprentice.
Of course, all of the above is conjecture and may be proved incorrect.
(no subject)
Date: Jul. 29th, 2002 01:40 pm (UTC)Re Toby Belch -- I actually find it a lot less offensive to have an unpleasant Toby Belch and an unjustly assaulted Malvolio -- despite his name, even the baroness agrees that he -was- unjustly imprisoned, in the text, and trying to slant thing such that he actually does deserve it tends to be unbelievable.
OTOH, I found the Julia Stiles as Voila to be quite mediocre -- from plain-old misreadings (like when she recieves the ring, and the "she got it not from me" tone doesn't make any sense in -any- reading of the text) to simply uninspired -- the actress playing Viola in the 1989 production did a -far- better job at the role. The Olivia role, OTOH, was quite good (but far less crucial to the play).