Shakespeare – Behind the Proscenium

March 4, 2011April 26, 2011

Chekhov’s Platonov

This week I had the pleasure to sit down with Heinrich Mantle, the director of the upcoming Manka Black Box theatrical treat Platonov by Anton Chekhov. Mantle has challenged audiences for three decades with his deconstruction and recomposition of many of our most beloved classics. He has repeatedly shown that he has no fear, artistically.

Kyrle Lendhoffer: Heinrich, welcome to Behind The Proscenium.

Heinrich Mantle: My pleasure.

KL: Let me cut to the chase. Why Platonov? Why now?

HM: As for Platonov, why not? It’s never performed. It had an original running time of six hours. Chekhov didn’t even like it compared to his other work. As for why now? Broadway needs Chekhov. But Broadway needs the Chekhov that Chekhov didn’t appreciate. Because even though Broadway needs Chekhov, it doesn’t need regurgitated Chekhov. And speaking of that, if I see Uncle Vanya or The Cherry Orchard one more time with period costumes in a pretty little country villa, I will be physically sick.

KL: But isn’t that what Chekhov intended?

HM: How do we know what Chekhov intended? He is dead! Maybe he would have preferred The Cherry Orchard on the moon. We’ll never know for sure – but we can try!

KL: Tell me about your ideas of conceptual theater.

HM: I believe in bringing fresh, new perspectives to shows that have been – shall we say – heavily produced in the past. And these concepts bring modern audiences directly into the viewing experience, where they’re forced to confront their previously conceived notions, prejudice and feelings of the piece and, most importantly, their own lives.

KL: Like your production of Strange Interlude. It caused quite a controversy.

HM: Strange Interlude was a strange duck indeed! I kept everything in line with Eugene O’Neill’s vision – with one very major change. Instead of the characters turning to the audience to say their internal monologues, another actor – representing a player from the Miami Dolphins 1972 NFL Championship team – would come out say the lines.

KL: Why the 1972 Miami Dolphins?

HM: Who wouldn’t want their deepest thoughts expressed by the only undefeated team in modern NFL history? And, yes, I am including last year’s Super Bowl choking New England Patriots.

KL: I would prefer the 1927 Yankees—

HM: Base-baller!

(Laughter)

KL: So, the character of Marsden was represented by Bob Griese…

HM: And Evans, Larry Csonka. Nina’s inner self was represented by Garo Yepremian.

KL: Nina… by Garo Yepremian?

HM: Who better to represent a woman than a place-kicker?

KL: Wicked!

HM: Indeed…

KL: And then you placed Shakespeare’s The Comedy Of Errors in a Gothic mausoleum. Very bold!

HM: I don’t think audiences were quite ready for that one.

KL: Why a mausoleum?

HM: Think of it like this… you have two sets of twins running around Ephesus, there is confusion, laughter. How do you remind the audience of their own mortality? You surround the play with death!

KL: Doesn’t that damage the comedy?

HM: Exactly! And in the confusion, the audience can then see nothing but the truth!

KL: Amazing.

HM: Thank you.

KL: Back to Platonov. How have you approached this one?

HM: It was difficult. I was tearing apart my brain. You see, normally I find a concept. I work on that concept until it is perfect. Then I find a play that I can force that concept on. In this case, I worked in reverse. I found Platonov, and then I worked on the concept.

KL: And that concept was…?

HM: Thinking about it. Platonov’s life is hanging by a thread. But aren’t all of our lives hanging by threads?!? Then it hit me. The actors would hang from the ceiling with wires – or by a thread! And then as the actor’s relationships changed, they would rise above or below each other as their class status increased or decreased.

KL: Amazing again.

HM: Yes. For example, in a key scene between Platonov and Anna Petrovna, each character moves past each other spatially, or up and down to the layman, seven times. You can actually see where they stand.

KL: Or hang…

HM: Or hang, yes.

KL: Wow. One question – you said the play originally ran six hours. How long are you running now?

HM: After fierce cuts, the show now runs three hours – without an intermission.

KL: And the actors are hanging from wires the entire time?

HM: Yes, they are very dedicated.

KL: How do they use the bathroom?

HM: We’re working on that.

As you can see, Heinrich Mantle isn’t afraid to attack our comfortable views of what theater is. And even more important, what theater SHOULD be. It was a pleasure to interview him (again) for Behind The Proscenium.

Kyrle Lendhoffer – Behind The Proscenium

February 21, 2011April 25, 2011

Romeo and Juliet @ Circle In The O

Oh, dear reader! What my eyes have seen! That is, what my eyes have seen RECENTLY!

I have just returned home from a theatrical experience that has left me speechless – but thank the gods that it has not left me type-less.

I ask (rhetorically, of course) how often has it been that you have seen what you think that you would never see? Once? Twice? More like never. And yet we think that moment will definitely occur – like watching a full moon rise, or seeing a double rainbow (like that delightful man who cried on my computer – what bravery he had letting himself be set up for humiliation on the world wide web) or getting a decent table a Le Bernardin (try the oestra-sprinkled Spanish mackerel tartare, IF YOU DARE) on short notice. Impossible. But no.

Shakespeare has been performed in many ways in the thousands of years since the Bard of Avon took pen to paper and spilled his genius on the page. Each of his miraculous plays has been performed hundreds, nay thousands, nay hundreds of thousands of times.

I have seen “Midsummer’s” set at a high school in America during the 1950s; “Shrew” set in the Old West and; “Richard III” set in Hitler’s Germany (or Franco’s Spain, or Mussolini’s Italy – I get it, Dick was a fascist). I’ve seen “Hamlet” in a black box theater with the cast in t-shirts and black jeans… “Much Ado About Nothing” in 18th century Spain… “The Tempest” in a hippie commune… “Richard II” in a bath house (with real steam!).

I thought I had seen it all. Until last night. Glorious, wonderful last night.

What made last night so glorious (and wonderful)? The unexpected! And what made THAT so brilliant is that I had no idea that it was coming. The marquee read “Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare”. I was sitting in the “Circle in the O – Presented by Manka Broadway”. What would I see? Our young, tragic lovers updated to New York, “West Side Story” style? Or would they be of two different races on an alien planet? Romeo from a Confederate and Juliet’s supporting the Union? I quivered with anticipation.

And then it happened.

The curtain came up and I choked – LITERALLY CHOCKED in amazement – a beautiful set appeared – showing Verona as it was sometime in the 1590s! And then the actors came on stage… dressed in the same period!

I couldn’t believe my eyes. “Stop lying to me, eyes!” I shouted at my eyeballs (in my mind). What could the director be thinking? Setting a Shakespearean play in the Elizabethan period – in the country the play was set in as seen through the eyes of a person from Elizabethan England?

I was stunned, my reality had been shattered. Could this be? After two hours traffic of the stage (well, three hours – Shakespeare must not have thought about how long it can take an American actor to get through his words – after all, America wasn’t invested until much, much later) I realized that this COULD be. That this SHOULD be.

So, my extended theater family, are you ready to see what has never been done before? Are you ready to have your mind stretched like so much taffy (which is dreadful and pulls out your dental work)? Then make yourself ready to see Shakespeare set in a totally alien environment. Where it was intended?

An Apology From Behind The Proscenium

This is an apology. An online mea culpa. I take the proverbial cat o’nine tails and self flagellate. This is an open apology to the great Zenobia Lassiter.

Last week, I posted an interview and diatribe against her brilliant new work, Pussy. Yes, I said brilliant. I’ve not had time to process what I saw on stage.

I saw her put a fish in her “V” word and felt its power.

I saw her put on a Hitler mustache and read excerpts from Mao’s Little Red Book and now understand what it is to be forced to work retail in a strip mall.

I now know that as I listened to her describe her last colonoscopy that she was in fact talking about our need to vote on a regular basis if we ever hope to sustain democracy.

I had to nerve to say that performance art is neither! I was a Philistine. An ignorant man, who although he lives in a metropolis, has the mind of a plastic suburbanite. If I could find a way to spit on myself, I would.

So, dear Zenobia, here is what I have to say: I couldn’t possibly be more sorry. You are a genius. You are a colossus, and we peep about your feet like insects (I paraphrase my Shakespeare, but you know what I mean).

Zenobia, can you ever forgive me? Will you ever allow me to speak to you again, to sit in your angelic presence and absorb your unabashed brilliance? To be a mortal in the aura of a goddess? Please? Pretty please?

Ha!

The day that I apologize to the likes of you is the day that I buy season tickets to the barbaric New Jersey Devils and their hyper-man-beast NHL. YOU MAKE ME SICK!

Faithful readers, I hope you had a little chortle at my innocent prank.

In a week or so, I will be interviewing some of the artistic minds involved with the Manka Center Stage World Premiere of Tennessee Williams’ lost classic Haunted Alligators. You can see the 1960 film version all this month on Manka Classic Movies.

Yours In Art,
Kyrle Lendhoffer – Behind The Proscenium