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Writer-director Maggie Greenwald’s Sophie and the Rising Sun is an unconventional period piece about race, public and private spaces, and romance. Set in 1941 in the South, the mysterious arrival of a badly beaten Japanese man disrupts small town life. Greenwald talked to us about adapting the novel, the importance of costumes and locations, and more.
[Read more…] about Maggie Greenwald on Sophie and the Rising Sun
Kurzel takes his cues from the text, but he expresses his ideas about the text through images and sounds — the whistling wind, the clashing swords, and the ghostly hooded figures — rather than through the dialogue. The verse, in Kurzel’s hands, is barely even identifiable as poetry. But what is Shakespeare without the unforgettable language?
[Read more…] about Kurzel’s Macbeth emphasizes tone over text
“My mummy says I’m a miracle!
My daddy says I’m his special little guy!
I am a princess
And I am a prince.
Mum says I’m an angel sent down from the sky
My daddy says I’m his special little soldier,
No one is as handsome, strong as me.
It’s true he indulges my tendency to bulge.
But I’m his little soldier!
Hup, two, four, free!
My mummy says I’m a miracle,
One look at my face, and it’s plain to see.
Ever since the day doc chopped the umbilical cord,
It’s been clear there’s no peer for a miracle like me!”
– lyrics to “Miracle” from “Matilda: The Musical” by Tim Minchin
The fantastic touring production of “Matilda: The Musical,” now at the SHN Orpheum Theatre until August 15, opens with the rollicking number “Miracle,” in which scores of children at a fifth birthday party, surrounded by their parents, parade around the stage boisterously informing us of how precious their parents have assured them they are. As a school teacher points out, “It seems that there are millions of these one-in-a-millions these days.” At the bridge of the song, we switch sets to a doctor’s office where the nine-months-pregnant Mrs. Wormwood (Cassie Silva) discovers she’s about to have a child.
It culminates with the introduction of a messy-haired blonde girl, Matilda (Mabel Tyler, full of star power), whose been fed nothing but discouragement from her parents. As the party table parts, Matilda comes forward and quietly repeats what she’s been told, “My mummy says I’m a lousy little worm./ My daddy says I’m a bore./ My mummy says I’m a jumped-up little germ./That kids like me should be against the law.” Tim Minchin’s tongue-twisting lyrics are the perfect match for the prodigy Matilda. I’ve been listening to the Broadway soundtrack on loop since catching the production, and I’m still humming it.
It’s the perfect way to set the tone for this smart, clever, humorous story of an exceptional five-year-old feminist role model. You see, Matilda is the one-in-a-million that her classmates only claim to be. Her parents may not see this, wishing that she’d set aside her books for the telly, but she keeps her mind active reading everything from Tolstoy to Dickens.
The lack of love and encouragement Matilda gets at home is tough, but she’s also got a mischievous sense of irreverence which helps her understand that it’s simply not right. As she sings in her first solo number, “Naughty,” “Just because you find that life’s not fair it/ Doesn’t mean that you just have to grin and bear it /If you always take it on the chin and wear it/ Nothing will change….We’re told we have to do what we’re told but surely/Sometimes you have to be a little bit naughty.” She’s a little crusader for justice, too!
The ‘90s, when the film version of “Matilda” was made, was the decade of Girl Power Fight The Patriarchy stories on film. In the last decade or so, audiences would do better to turn to the stage, where stories like “Wicked” and now “Matilda” offer better feminist tales than recent children’s films. What distinguishes “Matilda” from the other riffraff is not just the immense talent of all involved — even the children in the cast whose enunciation could be a bit better to do justice to Tim Minchin’s fast-paced tongue-twisting lyrics — and the terrific music, which are already uncommon feats. But the real star of this show is Director Matthew Warchus who exquisitely realizes the story in a visual spectacle that pulls your heartstrings, challenges the mind, and dazzles you with its cohesion and momentum.
Warchus’s work with the Olivier-winning set designer Rob Howell and choreographer Peter Darling is astonishingly good. All of the walls of the sets that come and go throughout the play feature letters of the alphabet, a tribute to the veneration for the written word that Matilda and Miss Honey share. The Wormwood’s house, a place of illiteracy, is all bright colours and tacky decor, with only a few, sparse, large lettered blocks, whereas the library features stacks of bookshelves to the ceiling of the stage, with ornamental letters. It’s a set that truly makes use of the inherent verticality of live theatre that Julie Taymor points out.
The story gets going when Matilda starts school where she meets her teacher, the sweet but meek Miss Honey (Jennifer Blood), who immediately recognizes how special her student is. But school is also a scary place, reigned over by the martinet Headmistress, Miss Trunchbull (the scene-stealing Bryce Ryness). The entrance to the school is a gothic, iron gate with letters interspersed throughout, just like the rest of the set. Here, they seem rather sinister. When the older kids welcome the new students with “School Song,” it’s in a minor key, riffing on the lyrics in “Miracle.” The older kids warn the new students that being a princess means nothing in this place where the Trunchbull doles out cruel punishment for even the smallest of offenses, like stealing a piece of her chocolate cake.
Once again, Matilda finds herself in a world full of unfair rules made by grown ups who aren’t nearly as clever as she is. And she uses her wits and compassion to fight to make things better. Miss Honey’s classroom is Matilda’s sanctuary, where her intellectual curiosity and precocity are encouraged. The three rows of desks set in front of a chalkboard allow for some great choreography when the kids sing in class, already in a 3×3 formation. Although Matilda is always in the back so she’s closest to us, when she stands just a few feet to the side of the corner desk, it’s a powerful statement of how different she is from everyone else.
But the threat of Miss Trunchbull is never far away, yet another wrong that Matilda must set right, because if she doesn’t, no one else will. It’s this tyranny of the adult world that leads to one of the play’s most emotional songs. As the children sit on or stand around four tall swings centre stage, they sing “When I Grow Up,” dreaming of being adults so they can stay up late and eat candy. But there’s also an innocence and sadness that’s so true to childhood. The Trunchbull may put them through torment in phys-ed because she senses “The Smell of Rebellion,” among what she calls “revolting children.” But by the end, the children take back that language, in a battle cry that’s triumphant and clever: “We are revolting children…/Living in revolting times/We sing revolting songs/Using revolting rhymes.”
I don’t think it’s possible to leave the theatre without a giant smile on your face and a melody in your heart. But there are a few things I could nitpick though I wouldn’t want these to discourage anyone from seeing this magnificent production. The play occasionally drags when we stop to hear Matilda’s story of an escapologist, his daughter, and her evil guardian. It’s key to the play’s story arc, but Tyler isn’t quite up to holding our attention through such long monologues despite how well Warchus animates these.
I’m not quite sure how I feel about the fact that the Trunchbull is always played by a man, even though Warchus initially auditioned both men and women. On the one hand, she’s a domineering caricature, a masculine figure, and the sheer towering height of a male actor yields a powerful effect. There’s a strong tradition of gender-swapping on the English stage, and there’s humour to be had, if somewhat uncomfortably, from Ryness’s oh-so-skinny legs and the giant pillow in his chest that stands in for breasts.
On the other hand, there’s a troubling, homophobic and transphobic undertone to having the evil woman played by a cross-dressed man. Is this all that different from the fact that Disney villains tend to always be “gay-sounding,” from Scar in “The Lion King” to Shere Khan in “The Jungle Book”? I’m not sure, but despite the standing ovation Ryness received for his terrific performance, something doesn’t quite sit right. But since the gender stereotypes come from the source text, it’s going to be as much of a problem to address as making Petruchio palatable to modern day audiences in Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew.”
“Matilda: The Musical” plays Tuesday – Sunday at the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco until August 15, with shows on weekday evenings at 7 p.m., Friday and Saturday evenings at 8 p.m., and 2 p.m. matinees on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Tickets range from $45–$210 and can be purchased here.
Thomas Vinterberg’s film adaptation of Far From The Madding Crowd opens on a long shot of Bathsheba Everdene (a terrific Carey Mulligan) opening the door to a dark barn. Illuminated by just a glimmer of light, she’s dressed sensibly in a leather coat and trousers, readying her horse. In voiceover, she explains that some say she’s too independent. As she rides through the hills and forest, sometimes even lying back on her horse, Vinterberg shoots her in long shot, offering us an image of a woman in charge of her path, moving through the greens of the meadow and the blue sky. Whereas the book begins from the perspective of Farmer Gabriel Oak (Matthias Schoenaerts), the film sets its agenda to prioritize slightly differently from the start. This is Bathsheba’s story told largely from her perspective, even in her own words.
Despite the fact that Thomas Hardy wrote the book in the late 19th century, Bathsheba is a surprisingly modern woman. My only complaint might be that men fall head-over-heels for Bathsheba not just for her striking personality, but because she’s conveniently beautiful, too. Fully aware that marrying would also mean becoming someone’s property, by law, Bathsheba is determined to remain single even when she’s penniless.
But there would be no story without suitors, and Bathsheba has three, at various points in the story: , her stalwart friend and partner, Gabriel Oak; her proud and wealthy new neighbour, Mr. Boldwood (Michael Sheen); and the rakish Officer Frank Troy (Tom Sturridge). She commands their respect. Most of them wouldn’t dare tell her what to do. And it’s remarkable that she’s allowed to make mistakes, recover, and start again.
Gabriel first proposes to Bathsheba, rather abruptly after first meeting. She turns him down, despite the fact that she would benefit from the security he’s offering. As played by Matthias Schoenaerts, Gabriel practically smoulders on screen. And as Mulligan’s close up reveals, Bathsheba feels a stirring of desire for him that she can’t quite acknowledge. Once she inherits her uncle’s farm, which gives her a stable, independent income, the idea of a man in her life seems even more superfluous.
Bathsheba’s newfound inheritance arrives just as Gabriel loses his farm to debt. As Bathsheba rides her horse-drawn carriage to her new home, dressed in brand new scarlet clothes, Gabriel wanders the countryside with nothing but a pack on his back. Fate brings them together again when he unknowingly seeks work at her new farm. Never using their past intimacy against her, Gabriel proves a loyal employee with nothing but respect for Bathsheba. The first time she gathers her staff together in a room, she’s seated behind a desk in the position of power — Vinterberg frequently pays great attention to illustrating power dynamics, visually, in a scene — and as she commands the room, we cut to closeups of Gabriel smiling at her in quiet admiration.
Bathsheba’s boldness at the farm, insisting on managing her business affairs herself, while lending a hand in the field or even the mud, quickly earns her the respect of her employees and peers. Gabriel grows into a close friend and confidant, always there to catch her if she falls. Their closeups start to be connecting by a single shot, swiveling from one to the other, before they’re ready to be seen, primarily, in close up, side by side, like partners. But he’s no push over but he also understands his rank and place. They’re constantly in a dance of give-and-take: he won’t let her order him around when she needs him most. He offers his opinion when he feels he can help, but he won’t push the subject any further. His is the only opinion she values though she can be stubborn about shutting him up when she knows it’s going to be something she doesn’t want to hear.
Even in a crowded room, their eyes always meet. But even their enormous chemistry can’t surmount her pride now that he’s beneath her. At a celebratory dinner with the staff, seated at the head and foot of the table, their eyes warmly meet across the crowded room. But when Mr. Boldwood arrives unexpectedly, Gabriel must give up the seat of honour and take his seat in the middle of the table. What Vinterberg does here is terrific, placing Gabriel physically in the middle of the potential new lovers. He gazes back and forth between them, sometimes as a blurry, almost irrelevant figure. When Bathsheba sings for the group, Mr. Boldwood joins her in duet, in alternating closeups — the same visual queues she once shared with Gabriel at the beginning of their relationship. But it’s telling that once a proposal is made, in a medium two-shot, Boldwood invades her close-up.
But it’s Officer Frank Troy, a man of noble blood but no money, who manages to win Bathsheba’s hand in marriage through flattery and boldness. Because he lacks the propriety and respectfulness of her other suitors, only Frank dares to kiss her, touch her, or even deliberately awaken anything sexual — albeit in the shelter of the green forest. It’s enough to persuade her to hastily marry, despite Gabriel’s attempt to caution her. When we see them together next, Frank is driving her carriage — a troubling reversal from how we first met our heroine. In stolen, private moments, we see Frank’s attempted dominance doesn’t sit well with his wife or Gabriel.
Even as a married woman, Bathsheba’s friendship with Gabriel continues to deepen. They treat each other more and more as equals, even when he doesn’t agree with her choices. A series of narrative MacGuffins interfere to give Bathsheba more trouble in her marriage, as well as new hope. But the men who love her, or pretend to, so easily become casualties of her pride and poor choices, that by the end, we’re left wondering if the moral is that she should have just married Gabriel when he first proposed, sparing heartbreak and worse for all. Yet she didn’t know then, as she does by the end of the film, that they could be truly equal partners, that she need not be tamed, and that he would never be able to treat her as property even if the law allowed it. Then again, if premarital sex or divorce were easy possibilities, Bathsheba’s troubles would have been much more easily solved. Is Hardy’s story meant as a cautionary tale? Or, to our modern eyes, does it merely expose the problems with a patriarchal system?
There’s nothing ostentatious about Vinterberg’s direction, but it’s immensely effective. He’s constantly using the rustic landscape to tell the story, whether it’s shooting it in long shots as beautifully idyllic, or sending Bathsheba into lush, tall, green woods to meet Frank, highlighting the rich blues to create a place of forbidden eroticism. When framing Gabriel and Bathsheba in a two-shot, Vinterberg finds increasingly romantic and dramatic compositions, once even showing them in silhouette from behind as they watch the rain. Whether it’s the blue and pink of the sunset or the golden light of the afternoon, cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen lights each exquisite frame for a romantic effect.
Yet Far From the Madding Crowd is also a very personal story. Because the performances are so precisely understated, you have to watch closely to see how much each frame reveals. Although Bathsheba tries to maintain an implacable front, remaining polite and self-possessed, in closeup, Mulligan reveals an uncertain Bathsheba in conflict. With Gabriel, we see Bathsheba relax while Frank’s brutishness makes her uncomfortable. The Belgian Schoenaerts, whose English accent sometimes falters, is at his best in silent moments. When talking to Mr. Boldwood about Boldwood’s feelings for Bathsheba, he fidgets slightly, with his eyes downcast, burying his face in his scarf, revealing his discomfit. Gabriel still harbours feelings of his own.
Featuring a cast of seven actors who have to find a balance between pathos, humour, the absurd, and incorporating a meta-narrative, “Stupid F##ing Bird” is bigger and better in every sense. The set fills the stage, with a bridge stage right, that doubles as a stage within-a-stage, and a cabin stage left, which works to divide the stage in the first act and as an interior space in the second act. A series of silk panels upstage set the scene and serve as areas for entrances and exits. There’s just as much detail and precision in this set as we’d expect in the old space — the tap in the cabin even has running water — but it’s been expanded to create a series of more intimate spaces on stage, dividing the space.
As in “The Seagull,” “Stupid F##king Bird” follows a bourgeois family gathering in rural Russia where tensions and the troubles of unrequited love come to a head. Aspiring experimental playwright Con (Adam Magill) has come to visit his uncle Sorn (Charles Shaw Robinson), a doctor and landowner, and to showcase his latest work. There, he’s forced to contend with his mother, Emma (Carrie Paff), a vain, narcissistic aging actress, who is barely capable of expressing affection. Emma has brought along her lover, the renowned playwright Trig (Johnny Moreno). While Con pines after the young actress Nina (Martha Brigham), who he’s cast in his play, Nina pines after Con, while the servant Mash (El Beh) lusts after Con and Con’s friend Dev (Joseph Estlack) pines for Mash. It’s a perfect storm of emotions and egos, which erupts with humour and devastating drama.
Obsessed with new forms of theater as the solution to the world’s problems, Con has constructed an absurd play that largely consists of its star repeating, as if with great depth, “Here we are.” It seems ridiculous at the start, but as the play progresses, we get the sense that all of these characters could learn a thing or two about living in the moment, settling, and dealing with reality. Are new forms what we need or better versions of old forms? Do we really need to reinvent the wheel when we have Shakespeare to build on? Posner toys with these ideas as his characters frequently break the fourth wall to comment on the action, remind us we’re watching a play, and to comment on their characters as themselves. My favourite is when Con sizes up his audience: “gays, Jews, retired academics, and people who did plays in high school.”
Packed full of witty one-liners “Stupid F##king Bird” is more obviously and immediately funny than “The Seagull,” if not as structurally sound or clever, which should serve to engage a modern and younger audience and maybe even interest them in checking out this classic of theatre. The immensely talented cast is easily able to deliver jokes, impassioned speeches, and melodramatic turns, all on a dime.
El Beh’s no-nonsense Masha is a particular standout; Beh was also easily the best thing about “Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson” and “Into the Woods” at the SF Playhouse. As Con, Adam Magill has mastered the angry young artistic man, with wry wit and a juvenile manner: his Con a ham and a crowd-pleaser, the one most frequently breaking the fourth wall. Joseph Estlack as Dev may have the fewest lines but he’s a rich performer to watch when he listens, always engaged and responding with intelligence. Veteran actors Johnny Moreno and Carrie Paff are also very strong, but their characters are more limited: they’re perfect, but Emma isn’t written as anything richer than an aging starlet and Trig is just a tad more complicated than an arrogant, lecherous, lone genius. Although Sorn is probably the most thankless roll, Charles Shaw Robinson makes him a sad, quiet presence even as he works to lighten everyone’s mood, and Robinson is a whiz on the clarinet.
Fifty Shades of Grey is far more interested in Anastasia’s thoughts and conscious decisions than in giving Christian even a semblance of a personality.
[Read more…] about Don’t be fooled by the title, Fifty Shades of Grey is Anastasia’s film