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| ORPHEUS DESCENDING Today | |
| Last Edit: sergius 06:47 pm EDT 07/16/23 | |
| Posted by: sergius 06:44 pm EDT 07/16/23 | |
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| Williams is opera. His speech isn’t just lyrical, it’s impetuous. Even as it’s strictly poetical, it’s free. And always trembling. With his lesser plays—ORPHEUS DESCENDING is among them—the melodrama often distracts from the heightened feeling which is almost always found in his language. If the dramaturgy is slack it can obscure this feeling; the language may be lost. Everyone’s struggling to animate the story here, which is at once threadbare and overstuffed, but it’s the speech that’s alive. None of these actors are abandoned enough—no one is unfettered—and so the play struggles to catch heat. Still, it’s always a pleasure to hear Williams even if you have to strain a bit. There’s a moment in this play when a sheriff describes the young beauty at its center—Valentine Xavier!—as possibly a wanted man. Xavier says: “I’m not wanted.” And the sheriff replies: “A boy like you is always wanted.” It’s a nonchalant, sly shrug but pure Williams. No one is unaware of or above yearning. But if desire isn’t full tilt, it doesn’t sing. | |
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| I literally can't tell what you think of it. | |
| Last Edit: ShowGoer 01:38 pm EDT 07/17/23 | |
| Posted by: ShowGoer 01:37 pm EDT 07/17/23 | |
| In reply to: ORPHEUS DESCENDING Today - sergius 06:44 pm EDT 07/16/23 | |
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| Someone below wrote "sorry to hear this", but based on your purple prose someone could just as easily respond "Glad to know it's worth it!". Let me see... the writing is poetical but it's free but it's trembling, the play is overstuffed but the speech is alive but it doesn't sing, the language is lost but it's a pleasure to hear but to do so is a strain... Ye gods. Write. More. Simply. |
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| re: I literally can't tell what you think of it. | |
| Last Edit: singleticket 10:03 am EDT 07/18/23 | |
| Posted by: singleticket 10:01 am EDT 07/18/23 | |
| In reply to: I literally can't tell what you think of it. - ShowGoer 01:37 pm EDT 07/17/23 | |
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| I actually depend on Sergius' reviews. I don't agree with all of them but I count their opinion as one that I take seriously here. ShowGoer, I usually try to not personalize my responses here and I'm not discounting your criticism of a post but perhaps you might want post some reviews of your own? |
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| re: I literally can't tell what you think of it. | |
| Posted by: seenenuf 12:05 am EDT 07/18/23 | |
| In reply to: I literally can't tell what you think of it. - ShowGoer 01:37 pm EDT 07/17/23 | |
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| Pay no attention. He/She is a windbag. Endless poorly written prose attempting at intellect. Simply skip and be the happier for it. |
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| re: ORPHEUS DESCENDING Today | |
| Posted by: schauspieler 08:20 pm EDT 07/16/23 | |
| In reply to: ORPHEUS DESCENDING Today - sergius 06:44 pm EDT 07/16/23 | |
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| Sorry to hear this. I'm still going to see it, but I had high hopes for a production that would erase the memory of that hysterical Vanessa Redgrave performance back when. I was also looking forward to seeing Christopher Abbott as Val but the part was re-cast. The movie with Brando, Magnani and Woodward is a favorite of mine. | |
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| re: ORPHEUS DESCENDING Today | |
| Last Edit: lordofspeech 03:36 pm EDT 07/19/23 | |
| Posted by: lordofspeech 03:31 pm EDT 07/19/23 | |
| In reply to: re: ORPHEUS DESCENDING Today - schauspieler 08:20 pm EDT 07/16/23 | |
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| I admire Sergius’ succinctness, and he always is clear. But it is hard to be succinct about Williams. His plots were not always strong enough to support his magnificent characters, and, sometimes, his protagonists were so lost we couldn’t get behind them to root for them, which is required of a « well-made play. ». One of Yale’s brilliant teachers, Leon Katz, would hold Williams’ SUMMER AND SMOKE up as a constitutionally inverted play because we can’t root for Alma until way late in the play because she herself doesn’t know what she wants. He spoke of it as a development of the play of character rather than of plot. There are elements of this…the fascinating, voluble character without a sound dramatic trajectory, in many of Tennessee’s works. The soundness of his three big successes, Menageries, Streetcar, and Cat, is because of their grounding in reality (and, especially, in a financial reality). But one still can thrill to the uncertain swoops and swirls in Iguana, Orpheus, and Sweet Bird and treasure them despite their insubstantial underpinnings. As I remember, Vanessa Redgrave got darn good notices for floridly inhabiting the florid character of Lady in that Orpheus revival, though she lost me. But the very melodramatic plot is off somewhere to the side in that play, with her husband and the town and the ‘confectionary.’ So too, the Boss Finley plot which drives Sweet Bird is almost 180 degrees away from The Princess. Just to say…he’s worth it even when all there are are the fascinating characters and the lush language, which I think was Sergius’ point. But we’re always hoping a director and his troupe can find ways to anchor the storylines, as well. (I left out Suddenly Last Summer, because it’s short, but its plot (will the lobotomy happen) is quite sturdy and supportive of the characters, despite the hallucinatory splashiness of the Sebastian narrative. That play actually balances out nicely.) I don’t really know Rose Tatoo; shoulda gone to the Tomei revival. |
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| re: ORPHEUS DESCENDING Today | |
| Posted by: singleticket 08:48 pm EDT 07/16/23 | |
| In reply to: re: ORPHEUS DESCENDING Today - schauspieler 08:20 pm EDT 07/16/23 | |
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| I agree that Vanessa Redgrave's performance was not a winner but I did like aspects of Peter Hall's production. That set was operatic and a faithful reproduction of the playwright's idea of a Southern five and dime Hades. I think Sergius is right that this play in particular demands a kind of lyricism in the acting style. |
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