The Conical Glass: Myth-take

Friday, April 10, 2009

Myth-take

A few months ago, I wrote about the incredible level of audience hostility directed at A.C.T.'s revival of John Guare's "Rich and Famous." Fortunately, there was sweetness & light again during the crowd-pleasing run of "Souvenir," which was genuinely funny and terrifically well-acted, but it turns out that play was the equivalent of a delicious filling sandwiched between two moldy pieces of bread. Last night, we experienced "War Music," which seems to be so hated that it's practically the "Ishtar" or "Heaven's Gate" of theater. The reviewers on Goldstar.com are angry: "an absolute failure on every level"... "one of the poorest presentations I've seen in my 30 years of attending ACT"... "the worst theatre production I've ever experienced"... "there was no war & no music. I ended up sleeping during most of the play." Ouch!

Joe and I have season tickets in the dress circle, and during intermission, I went downstairs to hear what people were saying in the lobby. A tall, distinguished-looking man was talking to two friends, and he sounded pissed off. "This is exactly what Stanislavski was railing against in 1900!" he thundered. "People standing up and declaiming. It's as if Chekhov never existed!"

So many patrons were streaming out the doors that I went back upstairs and told Joe we should move to the orchestra for Act 2. We sat down in the fifth row, center. There were four other people in our row. The fourth row was completely empty.

What, you may be wondering, is the fuss about? "War Music" is a world premiere, an adaptation by Lillian Groag of Christopher Logue's telling of "The Iliad." The play depicts the end stages of the Trojan War, which, if you recall your mythology, involved the Greeks, Trojans and the Olympic deities. The same group of actors portray all three groups of warriors; the only way you can tell who they're playing is by the color berets they're wearing (or, if they're playing gods, they have masks on). These are all excellent actors whom I've seen many times before, but the fact that they don't really change their voices or mannerisms when they change character makes it hard to follow. I suspect that this decision was the result of budget. Having to employ another 25 or so actors would have been cost prohibitive.

As the man I quoted above indicated, there's not a lot of dramatic tension going on here. Three men act as narrators -- I think two of them are supposed to be Homer -- when they're not filling other roles. So a character will say a line, and the narrator will add, "he said." The effect is stultifying. And if you're not intimately familiar with "The Iliad," it's also very hard to follow if you can't tell your Agamemnon from your Artemis.

Did I mention that everyone is wearing khakis? In one scene, when the entire ensemble strikes a pose in their khaki pants and black T-shirts, all I could think of was how much it resembled a Gap ad: "Odysseus wore khakis." There are also a lot of anachronisms, like references to Uzis and modern battles, and in one scene, Zeus is playing with a yo-yo.

Things pick up a little toward the end of the second act, when Patroclus is killed and is grieved by Achilles, but the play ends abruptly as Achilles is going into battle to avenge him. Joe, who is way more knowledgeable about mythology than I am, told me afterward that Achilles winds up killing Hector, who slew Patroclus, and dragging his body around Troy on a chariot. Good to know.

This play couldn't have come at a worse time for A.C.T., which just sent out its season ticket renewals. The play runs for another two weeks, and I suspect the poisonous word-of-mouth will keep attendance way down. Since it is a premiere and has been developed by A.C.T. over the past three years, I'd be curious to know what the theater's powers-that-be really think of it: misunderstood masterpiece, or half-baked mistake? In my opinion, like another Greek god, Icarus, they were overambitious, flying too close to the sun -- and tumbled back down to earth.

posted by 125records @ 9:50 AM

1 Comments:

At 9:43 PM, Flasshe said…

They should've had Brad Pitt play Achilles.