this isn't a great play. it isn't an especially good play but it deserves a better production than this.
it needs, especially at the end of act II, crashing minor chords because for all practical purposes it's a soap opera.
it wants to be the kind of old fashioned well made play that held sway until all those dirty hippies in the village started attacking structure and academics ruined everything with their theory - so essentially it's written for the old man chasing kids off his lawn and the cleaning woman folding laundry and watching her stories.
unfair? i agree. inaccurate? i agree to that, too. the problem is that is exactly the feeling i got watching this anemic production completely lacking any vitality or vigor.
it isn't the playwright's fault. he wrote a better piece than what's up there. he's hobbled by two insurmountable handicaps; a director who doesn't understand where the beats in his play are and who gave nothing (unless it was bad) to a horribly miscast actor.
nina arianda does everything she can not to come off as a good actor in a bad production. she fails. tina benko and catherine chalfant would be fine if they weren't caught up in pacing that always feels either too fast or too slow. it's like they're hitting their marks but the play itself is always step behind.
then there's poor michael esper, who was terrific in the THE LYONS so it's not like the guy can't act. but who the hell cast him in this part? and why on earth did the director shape (or more accurately fail to shape) this kind of performance out of him?
POSSIBLE SPOILERS - if you've seen the play imagine this: imagine a more muscular and FAR more masculine performance than this. imagine a man full of the joy of life. a man full of swagger and bravado. a man with some balls. a well educated, lusty, hungarian peasant. because that is exactly what the playwright wrote.
i don't for a second lay the blame for this performance on the actor. it's the kind of performance you see when the director does't understand the character.
the saddest thing is, given how hard arainda - all the women in fact - work, if the character that was written had shown up everything else wrong about the production would have been if not fixed then at least glossed over enough for an enjoyable evening in the theater - which this was not.
costumes and make up are wonderful and the sets and the lights are excellent.
you know, they don't write 'em like this anymore. productions like this are the reason why.
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