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JOHN DOYLE....What's the Deal???

Posted by: StaunchKarakter 10:04 pm EST 11/13/14
Just got home from Allegro. Can someone who values and loves John Doyle's work please explain to me why. I've seen a few productions of his now (Road Show, Company, Passion, Sondheim's 80th) and always leave feeling highly agitated.

He sucks out the humor. Does this man see any joy in life?

He takes away eye contact and direct lines of communication. Actors rarely get to look at each other or touch each other. So the actor's job becomes that much harder. Only he doesn't cast strong actors. He casts musicians. Maybe these folks could be better actors, but Doyle is so obviously not an actor's director. I was trying to imagine what his rehearsals are like. Surely he never talks about actions or emotions in his scene work with actors. It must just be blocking (ENDLESS, sloppy marching in every show) and concept. Pushing concept that is inapplicable to the source material.

And so much unfocused, somber stage business that is upstaging any real moments. We start to get a nice, vulnerable moment with a girl singing the conditional love song (So Far), but as soon as she starts, Joe gets up and starts fumbling downstage looking angsty. The audience is ROBBED of a genuine, joyful moment.

I tried to consider maybe his style is Brechtian...keeping our emotions at bay so that we can intellectually process the story. Maybe that's what Doyle is trying to do, but it's not quite stylized enough to be that. It's messy. It's a little bit of this and little bit of that, and everyone just ends up doing awkward, embarrassing, BORING work.

Again, if someone can speak articulately on his behalf, come at me. I've been confused and annoyed for years.


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Previous: re: Discussion of new Peggy Lee biography (WNYC) - JohnDunlop 01:22 pm EST 11/14/14
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