3-2-07
Lifeline Scores with Piano Adaptation
It will come as no shock to filmgoers to learn that literary adaptation is, at best, an inexact endeavor. Just because a book captures the mind and heart, doesn’t mean a screen (or stage) adaptation will. And much cinematic disappointment has occurred over this very problem. However, Chicago is blessed to have a theatre that succeeds more often than most in the difficult translation of book to stage.
In the case of The Piano Tuner, Lifeline had one advantage – in my case at least. I’d never read the book. It’s much easier to appreciate a good story when there’s no pre-existing interpretation involved. And The Piano Tuner seems the sort of tale that would lend itself well to dramatization. There’s an epic journey from 19th century England to 19th century India. There’s fighting and romance and all the necessary ingredients for good action-driven storytelling. And there are the strange characters – not the natives of India for the most part – but the Englishmen who live among them.
Lifeline’s production also has two strong central performances to further recommend it. Patrick Blashill plays the title role with the proper degree of weediness, while still allowing a sense of the man’s depths. Kurt Ehrmann, as Dr. Carroll (along with many of the other British authority figures), cuts a striking figure and manages the difficult task of living up to the man described throughout the first act.
All this combined with Alan Donahue’s set, which gives director Jonathan Berry the opportunity for some striking stage pictures – even as it limits his choices from moment to moment – makes The Piano Tuner a truly enjoyable theatrical experience. In fact, the night I attended, several audience members felt strongly enough to give the show a standing ovation.
This is not to say that James E. Grote’s adaptation lacks its flaws. But most of those flaws are typical in literary adaptation: some of the action – particularly at the end of play – feels rushed, as though too much of the book is being compressed to keep the running time reasonable. Some of the character development feels equally compressed – the piano tuner’s obsession with Khin Myo (Fawzia Mirza), for instance, seems to arise from nowhere. Still, they’re minor problems in light of both the adaptation and the production’s overall success.
So check out The Piano Tuner and take a moment to appreciate Lifeline’s ongoing success transforming page to stage. It’s not as easy as they make it look.
The Piano Tuner, Lifeline Theatre
Chris Jones, Tribune – “I wouldn’t claim the Burmese environment is fully realized. And some parts of the novel feel rushed and a few moments unearned. But there are some rich performances here – especially one by Shole Milos, who turns his British military operative into a figure of real complexity. And you’ll be drawn into the tuner’s journey, for sure. The apparent close fit between this novel and Grote’s shrewd, practical adaptation makes you wonder why this lush cinematic novel has yet to become a movie. In Chicago, at least, we have the Lifeline.”
Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times – “The Piano Tuner is expertly scripted by James E. Grote and ingeniously directed by Jonathan Berry, with help from a grand team of designers. We watch as Drake blossoms by way of actor Patrick Blashill’s impeccable performance. Drake’s wife, Katherine (a savvy turn by Melanie Esplin), is gradually pushed into the half-light by the appearance of an elusive, English-speaking guide and seductress named Khin Myo (Fawzia Mirza works her subtle magic) and by the formidable presence of Carroll (the first-rate Kurt Ehrmann). Deftly shape-shifting as dozens of other exotic characters are Shole Milos, Yosh Hayashi, Eric Martig and Danny Bernardo.”
Kerry Reid, Reader – “James E. Grote’s smart adaptation, cunningly directed by Jonathan Berry, captures the feverish quality of Mason’s prose and honors the complexity of his characters, who are not quite what they appear. It’s 1886, and a diffident piano tuner (a nuanced Patrick Blashill) is sent from London to work on a rare piano owned by a Kurtz-like British army surgeon (tantalizing enigma Kurt Ehrmann) posted to a region of Burma torn by various factions. Both men are caught up in the conflict between devotion to art and the imperatives of British colonial rule, and the results are heartbreakingly inevitable.”
Kris Vire, Time Out – “The tension between what’s good for the crown and what’s good for Burma is ever present, and Grote preserves that complexity; we’re invited to share Drake’s sense of wonder while we’re reminded that his is the outsider’s gaze. Carroll is similarly complicated, a seemingly benevolent eccentric whose motivations and loyalties grow more unclear at every step of Ehrmann’s commanding, charismatic portrayal. Berry’s great triumph is in creating a fascinatingly foreign world with a small but tightly focused cast and Lifeline’s tiny space (with a great debt to Joshua Horvath’s sound design and Alan Donahue’s immersive set).”
Mary Shen Barnidge, Windy City – “Lifeline Theatre regular Patrick Blashill never repeats an emotion as his naive observer moves from skeptical curiosity to unquestioning conviction. He is flanked by an ensemble of eight actors who evoke a dazzling array of multi-ethnic personalities (and objects) with protean alacrity, thanks in large part to dialect coach Elise Kauzlaric and dramaturg Lavina Jadhwani.”
Betrayal, Steppenwolf Theatre Company
Chris Jones, Tribune – “It’s by no means a major or an entirely successful Steppenwolf revival, but it offers challenges and food for thought. You might not agree with all the choices, but you find that you respect their richness. And there are some deliciously malevolent line readings and brilliant little actor-driven moments from [Tracey] Letts and [Amy] Morton that will surely snap you to attention… I doubt, though, that you’ll leave caring much about these people or wanting to be in their presence any longer. Time hasn’t been so kind to their crises and indulgences.”
Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times – “Rick Snyder, a most sensitive director, has cast a trio of actors whose maturity easily feeds the past lives of these Pinter characters. Letts (himself a gifted playwright) brings a gravitas and terrific sharklike bite to every line; [Ian] Barford (a new inductee into the Steppenwolf ensemble), suggests Jerry’s mix of charm, weakness and all-around tentativeness. And actress-director Morton, (who still looks sensational in a miniskirt and boots, but also can suggest a fashionably streaked blonde ‘adult’), expertly suggests the many thoughts that remain suppressed in Emma, whether she is in the company of her husband or her lover.”
Albert Williams, Reader – “Harold Pinter’s 1978 drama, about an adulterous affair between a literary agent and the wife of his best friend, charts the relationship in reverse chronological order. Under Rick Snyder’s direction, actors Tracy Letts, Amy Morton, and Ian Barford mine the dry humor and quiet pain in the characters’ brittle chitchat, as Pinter illuminates the way people use language to compartmentalize their emotions.”
Nina Metz, New City – “As far as the play is concerned, the unseen wife – Jerry’s wife – is a non-entity. And yet surely she is just as betrayed as the central trio – and perhaps even a betrayer herself. Her absence has a poignancy not found in the suppressed emotions of the three self-involved characters we see on stage. But what this Steppenwolf revival has going for it are the kind of knifelike performances we have come to expect from ensemble members Tracy Letts (as Robert) and Amy Morton (as Emma) – their bedroom scene, as directed by Rick Snyder, retains a sly passive-aggressiveness – and Ian Barford (as Jerry).”
Novid Parsi, Time Out – “Harold Pinter’s play, in which Emma has a seven-year affair with her husband’s best friend, hits hardest when characters don’t say what they’re really saying. Yet it’s ultimately a conventional adultery drama under a reverse-chronology disguise. Because Betrayal doesn’t establish that these characters ever experience faith (in each other, in love), their betrayal of that faith lacks meaning. But then there’s Tracy Letts and Amy Morton, expressing through a look or touch the emotions that Pinter’s words don’t.”
Catey Sullivan, Windy City – “Betrayal is a backward-spinning triangle where the tumbling points in the relationship are portrayed with exacting nuance and richness by Amy Morton, Tracy Letts and Ian Barford. Each is a force that subtly dazzles at delivering the audible portions of Pinter’s clipped, exacting text. And each is equally deft at pulling the audience into the seismic emotional fissures forever cracking and shifting in the silences and pauses between and just beneath the words.”
Landscape of the Body, The Artistic Home
Nina Metz, Tribune – “All these juxtapositions are meant to be funny and askew – everyone Betty loves or cares about ends up dying – and yet there is something strained in this production. Mossman, who worked wonders last spring at the helm of Clash by Night, is unable to conjure a sense of time and place needed to give the story its context and structure. And with the exception of Ed Krystosek’s brief but memorable turn as the dopey Dope King of Providence, Rhode Island – he is an anecdote from Betty’s past – the actors seem unsure of the landscape wherein they tread.”
Jack Helbig, Reader – “Director John Mossman’s intimate, pressure-cooker production is well suited to John Guare’s eccentric, overheated philosophical murder mystery, about a Maine housewife turned Times Square porn star accused of killing her son. Filled with intense performances and executed at a pace that unifies Guare’s intentionally jagged storytelling, this staging reveals the pockets of brilliance in this sometimes inspired, sometimes just self-indulgent 1977 play. Mossman’s pitch-perfect cast easily negotiates the story’s many mood shifts – from dark to light, grotesque to silly, nihilistic to mildly sentimental.”
Once Upon a Time (or the Secret Language of Birds), Redmoon Theater
Chris Jones, Tribune – “Toy theatres, by definition, are designed for a handful of people crowding around them in someone’s parlor. Redmoon needs to play to well more than 100 at once, so the puppet show is recorded as it’s performed, with the result projected on a big movie screen above the toy theatre. That works to a point. It’s a marriage of high-tech and retro sensibilities, and Redmoon clearly is playing with the contrast between three-dimensional reality and the illusionistic storytelling of the camera. But screens are dangerous in live theatre. And here, the flatter image tends to dominate. Your head bobs up and down. And some of the show’s homemade romance feels compromised.”
Hedy Weiss, Sun-Times – “In the company’s innovative new production, Once Upon a Time (Or the Secret Language of Birds), which opened Friday at Redmoon Central (a sprawling industrial space made so cozy and welcoming it almost feels like a Victorian parlor), Old World craftsmanship is artfully mixed with high technology and a film-noirish narrative. The result is an hour of blissful escapism that lifts you out of the workaday world by way of something akin to an adult pop-up book for the 21st century.”
Laura Molzahn, Reader – “Redmoon Theater thinks small in Frank Maugeri’s toy-theatre show: tiny cardboard cutouts ‘perform’ on cunning cardboard sets. The videotaped and projected action has visual impact, but Terry Gilliam was doing much the same decades ago. And Joe Meno’s story, about a little girl who rescues a city’s stolen birds, is simplistic and meandering, full of missed opportunities.”
Nina Metz, New City – “Maugeri is going for something both retro and hi-tech here, and the Redmoon space does have the feel of an old-fashioned parlor with a puppet theatre at its hearth. As the story plays out, a video camera is trained on the action, and high above the stage you can see the puppets projected on a screen, larger than life. It is a worthy experiment, mixing Victorian-era toy theatre with cinematic techniques, but the effect is distancing. Ironically, the close-ups are not compelling; the camera is unable to adequately track movement, and you miss the context and details of the set itself, designed by Tracy Otwell and a team of others. A spectacle in miniature, perhaps, only really works when you see it in miniature.”
Venus Zarris, Gay Chicago – “While the story is told with vivid and captivating narration, impressively provided by Lindsey Noel Whiting, tiny delicate creations with moving parts, at the hands of gifted performer-puppeteers, bring the fantastical world to life. It is a play, a puppet show and a cartoon. But mostly it is a magically charming story told with unbridled creativity that draws heavily on lost arts from the past combined with cutting-edge art from the present. The result of this fusion of techniques is a production that defines unique and embodies Redmoon’s distinctively inventive form of spectacle theatre.”
Quote of the Fortnight:
”Cirque du Soleil’s Carmen Ruest has one of those job titles that doesn’t sound real. Like the job title my first boss favored: Master of Time and Space. (He was a manager at a fast food restaurant.) Ruest is director of creation.” – Jack Helbig in an editorial in the Daily Herald about Cirque du Soleil’s production of Delirium.