Oh Coward! At
the Writers’ Theatre By Dan Zeff GLENCOE—For its
revival of the Noel Coward revue “Oh Coward!” the Writers’ Theatre has
converted the performing space at the rear of the Books on Vernon bookstore
into an intimate supper club. Front row spectators sit around small
silver-clothed tables while Kate Fry, John Sanders, and Rob Lindley (posh
English accents in place) perform samples of the Noel Coward songbook,
interspersed with brief selections from the great man’s prose. “Oh Coward!” was devised by Roderick Cook and premiered in
1972 in New York City, the same year another Coward revue called “Cowardly
Custard” opened in London. In roughly 90 minutes, including an intermission,
the three performers take the audience on a tour of Noel Coward’s words and
music—variously sophisticated, urbane, witty, wry, rueful, droll, nostalgic,
patriotic, and romantic. Coward tagged himself, with unnecessary modesty, as a man
“with a talent to amuse.” Once pigeon holed as a writer of light comedies that
were charming but bordered on the trivial, Coward is now firmly enrolled among
the masters of twentieth century theater. Regrettably, Coward’s legacy as a
great playwright is only briefly touched upon in “Oh Coward!” The evening is
mostly spent listening to his clever lyrics and catchy melodies.
At his best, and he’s often at his best in this revue, Coward
was a brilliant wordsmith, with ingenious rhymes, frequently aimed at
satirizing the foibles of his fellow Englishmen and Englishwomen. That talent
to amuse permeates the show but does give it an insubstantial feeling. Those
stylish, upper class people gliding through life make entertaining company, but
after a while their breezy, insouciant attitudes grow, if not tiresome, at
least a bit brittle. The classic Coward set pieces are all represented, jaunty
numbers like “I Went to a Marvelous Party,” “Don’t Put Your Daughter on the
Stage, Mrs. Worthington,” “Mad Dogs and Englishmen,” and “The Stately Homes of
England.” We also get insufficient snatches of his memorable love songs, like
“Someday I’ll Find You” and “Zigeuner” (but where was “I’ll See You Again”?)
The Writers’ Theatre production injects a more pronounced gay
sensibility into the show, notably when the melancholy love song “Mad About the
Boy” is transferred from the female in the ensemble to Rob Lindley. The
interaction among the two males and female suggests that there may be some
light-hearted sexual dalliance among the trio in various combinations, or maybe
I was reading too much into the companionable behavior of three very close
friends. Fry, Sanders, and Lindley are all first rate as singers and
as denizens of Noel Coward’s rarefied high society world. The men look to the
manor born in their tuxedos and Fry is very glamorous in her backless second
act evening gown. Jim Corti’s direction sustains the atmosphere of nonchalant
urbanity, sometimes blended with a rather studied world weariness (one of the
numbers in the show is called “World Weary”). The production profits
immeasurably from Doug Peck’s on-stage piano accompaniment. Peck also provides
an agreeably mini concert of light music as the audience enters the theater. Kevin Depinet (set) and Rachel Anne Healy (costumes) are
responsible for the show’s period elegance, circa 1930. Ray Nardelli is the
sound designer and Jesse Klug the lighting designer. “Oh Coward!” is a bauble, though a shimmering bauble with its
effervescent wit. It certainly provides ample entertainment nourishment for
Noel Coward zealots. Others may find the
revue a bit too lightweight. The company will sell champagne and other
beverages that can be consumed at the tables in the spirit of the occasion. “Oh Coward!” runs through March 21 at the Writers’ Theatre,
664 Vernon Street. Most performances are Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.,
Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 4 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 6
p.m. Tickets are $40 to $60. Call 847 242 6000 or visit www.writerstheatre.org. The show gets a rating of three stars. December 2009 Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com
************************ The Maids At
the Writers’ Theatre By Dan Zeff GLENCOE—We don’t
hear much about the Theater of the Absurd these days, though back in the 1950’s
and 1960’s it was all the rage as the new cutting edge of modern drama. Of the
many European playwrights who emerged as Absurdists, only Samuel Beckett and
perhaps Eugene Ionesco are performed widely today. One of the leading playwrights of the Absurd era now off the
theater radar is Jean Genet. A writer known almost as much for his colorful
life as for his writings, Genet had several hit plays during the 1950’s,
primarily dealing with the ambiguity of identity and the perverse relationship
between good and evil.
Genet’s first produced drama was a chamber play called “The
Maids,” now being revived by the Writers’ Theatre. Viewers familiar with
Genet’s work and the ideology of the Theater of the Absurd should find the
production rewarding. Spectators coming to Genet and the play cold likely will
be perplexed and restless at what unfolds before them on the intimate Writers’
Theatre stage. “The Maids” runs about 100 minutes in a single act. The
setting is an elegant bedroom in a French city in the late 1940’s. The two main
characters are Claire and Solange, a pair of sisters employed as servants by an
upper class woman known as the Mistress. For the first minutes of the play, the
sisters act out a fantasy with Claire portraying the Mistress and Solange the
servant. Then the real Mistress appears and a semblance of a plot emerges. Claire had sent anonymous letters to the local police leading
to the arrest of the Mistress’s lover. The lover, who never appears on stage,
is released on bail and the Mistress, learning of his freedom inadvertently
from the maids, rushes out to meet him. The sisters had tried unsuccessfully to
poison their employer before she left and at the end of the play Claire drinks
the poison herself as a fatal gesture of the servant ascending to the level of
the Mistress. There are wheels within wheels in “The Maids.” The sisters
display lesbian tendencies embellished with sadomasochistic flourishes. They
have developed a love-hate relationship with each other and toward their
Mistress. They are members of the underclass, with no social status and no
economic power. They are society’s outsiders, living empty lives made endurable
with their role reversal play-acting. There are several versions of “The Maids.” The Writers’
Theatre uses the 1999 translation by Martin Crimp. It’s fluid and colloquial
enough but the dialogue and soliloquies are still dominated by Genet’s flowery
language that sometimes tends to wash over the audience’s ears like beautiful
noise. Motivation is not a long suit in the play. Unless I missed
something, we don’t know why Claire wrote those letters that led to the arrest
of the Mistress’s lover. Fear of their part in the lover’s arrest presumably
led the sisters to attempt the murder of their employer, but it’s hard to see
how the death of the Mistress would improve their situation. Symbolic
undercurrents abound, but they are difficult for the spectator to grasp, and
the endless flow of hothouse language tends to muddy as much as it illuminates. Helen Sadler as Claire and Elizabeth Laidlaw as Solange
deliver heroic performances as the blighted sisters, and if the audience is insecure
about what is going on during the play, the two performers seem in complete
control of their characters. At the outset I had a little trouble adjusting to
Sadler’s artless style but her performance grew on me as the play’s intensity
increased. Niki Lindgren enters halfway through the evening as the
Mistress, providing a fine portrait of a casually arrogant upper class woman,
though we learn almost nothing about her, not even her real name. The production operates within Brian Sidney Bembridge’s elegant
and intimate bedroom set. Rachel Anne Healy designed the 1940’s clothing,
including a closet full of upscale gowns and furs. Pete Dully designed the
lighting and Josh Schmidt the sound and original music. Jimmy McDermott’s directing is confident and draws committed
performances from his three-handed ensemble. His staging gives the show every
chance to succeed. It’s in the eye of the beholder whether the play is
engrossing and disturbing, a very long flood of purposeless verbiage, or
something in between. “The Maids” runs through April 5 at the Writers’ Theatre, 664
Vernon Avenue. Most performances are Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.,
Thursday and Friday at 8
p.m., Saturday at 4 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 and 6 p.m. Call 847 242
6000 or visit www.writerstheatre.org. The show gets a rating of three stars. December 2008 Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com.
************************* Nixon’s Nixon at the Writers’ Theatre By
Dan
Zeff GLENCOE—“Nixon’s
Nixon” is a very hot ticket at the Writers’ Theatre, a company that has had its
share of sold out performances during its illustrious history. People want to
see this historical comedy/drama about Richard Nixon and the show has been
extended three weeks already. And this is the second production of the play by
the Writers’ Theatre. The popularity of “Nixon’s Nixon” isn’t restricted to the
successful Writers’ Theatre productions. The show has captivated audiences
wherever it’s been staged since its off off Broadway premiere in 1995. Part of
the attraction is the play itself, a wonderfully funny and entertaining
recreation by dramatist Russell Lees of Richard Nixon’s final night in office
before resigning the presidency. But
the play is really a testament to the hold Richard Milhous Nixon has on the
American imagination. He may be one of the great villains in American politics
but he was also one of the most fascinating figures in American history and
audiences who lived through those turbulent Watergate years are still entranced
by the man’s career and mind--his paranoia, his feral intelligence, his
vulgarity, his baffling sense of denial as his world collapses around him. “Nixon’s Nixon’ takes place in the
Lincoln Sitting Room in the White House. It’s late in the evening of August 7,
1974. In the room are Nixon and Henry Kissinger. They have both had a lot to
drink as they try to get a handle on Nixon’s deteriorating position as disgraced
president. His resignation seems the only way out and Kissinger is on hand to
grease the skids on the president’s departure from office, mostly for his own
self-aggrandizing motives. Nobody knows what went on in that room
the night before Nixon resigned, but Russell Lees assumes the role of fly on
the wall as he fantasizes what might have taken place between the two men. The play runs about 100 minutes without an
intermission. Most of the action takes place in real time but there are
flashbacks as Nixon recreates encounters he had with Leonid Brezhnev, Mao
Zedong, John F. Kennedy, and Golda Meir. Nixon
and Kissinger go round and round about how best to extricate the president from
his political ruin. Late in the play,
they concoct an international incident that would force the country to keep
Nixon on as president, a plan so bizarre that the audience is dazzled by how
far Nixon and Kissinger could detach themselves from reality in this time of
crisis. Kissinger takes a drubbing in the play.
Lees portrays him as manipulative and sinister, interested only in preserving
his power as Secretary of State and his legacy in history. Kissinger panics
when he learns he has been caught in compromising conversations on tapes Nixon
possesses. For this Kissinger, loyalty is the first man down. For him, it’s all about saving his reputation
and keeping his political power. Nixon is a more mercurial personality,
foul mouthed and bitter, seeing himself as a man of the people who can point to
great achievements in foreign policy. Armed in his own sense of destiny, he
still sees himself surrounded by cowards and traitors trying to bring him
down. The mighty have indeed fallen and
Nixon rails at the injustice of it all. Larry Yando and William Brown repeat
their performances as Nixon and Kissinger and astonishing performances they
are. Everyone in the audience will be
familiar with both real-life characters so Yando and Brown don’t push the
impersonation too far. But Yando does beautifully catch Nixon’s vocal cadences,
his body language, and his wired personality. Brown nails Kissinger’s jowly
look and deep rumbling German accent. Both actors don’t play their roles so
much as inhabit them. “Nixon’s Nixon” doesn’t elevate the president
to a figure out of Greek tragedy, an outsized figure destroyed by his own
flaws. But the play does humanize him. We may detest Nixon and the harm he did
to the country as president, but Lees brings him alive as engrossing and often
amusing company for an evening. And Yando’s performance really is indelible. Jack
Magaw’s realistic set fits snugly and functionally into the tiny acting space
at the rear of the Books on Vernon bookstore in downtown Glencoe. Josh Schmidt
designed the sound, Keith Parham the tricky lighting effects, and Sarah Heberlein
the costumes. Michael Halberstam’s directing deftly shifts the play’s tone
from comedy to drama to satire to almost dreamlike fantasy. The production may
be a little long (other productions have run 80 to 85 minutes) but I couldn’t
suggest anything that could be cut with profit. In the end, no spectator could
complain of the 100-minute theatrical roller coaster ride Russell Lees, Larry
Yando, and William Brown take us on. Absolutely essential playgoing. “Nixon’s Nixon” runs through October 19 at the Writers’
Theatre, 664 Vernon Avenue. Performances are Tuesday and Wednesday at 7:30
p.m., Thursday and Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 4 and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2
and 6 p.m. Tickets are $60 to $75. Call 847 242 6000 or visit www.writerstheatre.org. The show gets a rating of four stars. August 2008 Contact Dan at zeffdaniel@yahoo.com . 
