Theater Bill Pullman Shines in Sticks And Bones

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12/16/2015Theater: Bill Pullman Shines in Sticks And Bones | Evernote Web https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=13da3be7-fc93-4440-baad-5f8b9c953552&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&1/5Theater: Bill Pullman Shines in Sticks And BonesTheater: Bill Pullman Shines in Sticks And BonesSTICKS AND BONES ** out of **** THE NEW GROUP AT SIGNATURE THEATREDavid Rabe's Sticks And Bones is unquestionably a dated play. But what does that mean? People often use"dated" to refer to a work that simply isn't good. But a bad play is a bad play -- "dated" is often merely a politeway of saying everyone was wrong the first time around. In fact, it should refer to a play like this one. It's a workthat is fascinatingly dated as you imagine the power and impact it had at the time and suss out why it falls so flattoday.Vietnam veteran Rabe wrote it while a grad student and saw it staged at his college Villanova in 1969. It jumpedto the Public Theater in 1971 and then right to Broadway in 1972 where it won the Tony Award for Best Play andran for a respectable seven months. In the blink of an eye, it was turned into a TV movie and aired in August of1973. Clearly it struck a nerve.Surreal, soap box-ish and satirical, Sticks and Bones doesn't just take on Vietnam. It also tackles theindifference of people back home to what's happening overseas, the paper tiger of the happy nuclear familyembodied in sitcoms, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and the desperate demands of domesticity on men whofeel trapped by their responsibilities instead of ennobled. Rabe would write far better plays (including ones onVietnam, like Streamers). But none are as personal and passionate as this one feels. Though watching it, youfeel almost nothing.Surely even in 1971 the idea of mocking conformity by zeroing in on the sitcom was old hat. But here we are,introduced to the happy family of Ozzie (Bill Pullman), Harriet (Holly Hunter) and Ricky (Raviv Ullman). In 1971,the reference to the ultra-bland sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet would be immediately clear. Today, itonly slowly dawns on most of the audience and remains a modest meta nod, rather than shocking.Life seems easy. Guitar-slinging son Ricky walks in the door, greets his folks with a banal and indifferent "Himom! Hi dad!" and grabs some fudge while they trade small talk. Hints of turmoil are already present with someasides by Ozzie that almost don't register. But things really implode when repeated phone calls raise Harriet'sanxiety to new heights. Their older son David (Ben Schnetzer) is away in Vietnam and when Ozzie actssquirrelly, Harriet fears the worst. Is their son coming home in a body bag? It's odder than that. Their son is blindand Ozzie either wants to ignore this terrible situation or simply wants to not accept the "package" and hope theproblem goes away.David is just as disconcerted. A remarkably gruff Sergeant (Morocco Omari) dumps David in their laps despiteDavid's hysterical claims that this isn't his home, these aren't his parents. Tagging along is the ghost or thememory of the Vietnamese girl Zung (Nadia Gan) that David fell in love with but was too timid to marry. Shewanders around the house, hiding from the others at times, even though they (mostly) can't see her or evensense her presence. David starts declaiming speeches skewering their indifference to Nam and their emptyexistence. Zung pops in and out and then they toss in a warm chat with Father Donald (Richard Chamberlain)just so we can skewer religion as well.It builds to a disconcerting climax where a mysterious convoy of military trucks are dumping off the unclaimed,unwanted, unacknowledged wounded and dead all around them. Normalcy of a sort is restored by strangling the12/16/2015Theater: Bill Pullman Shines in Sticks And Bones | Evernote Web https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=13da3be7-fc93-4440-baad-5f8b9c953552&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&2/5memory of what happened, refusing to speak of it at all. They sink into a euthanized state, the TV meeklyplaying in the background while they stare dully away.If that sounds tiresome and heavy-handed, well it is. Rabe's play seems to have 18 different things on its mindand incoherently blasts them all. He insists it's not an anti-Vietnam War play; that is, a play that hopes or intendsto stop the war. Fair enough; he's got bigger fish to fry, like only a young playwright can. It's an ambitious effortand falls on its face with admirable overreach.So why is it fascinatingly dated? Because it must have had some incantatory power at the time. People weren'tinured yet to the idea that television's depiction of America was somehow false. (Even though The Brady Bunchwas a primetime hit?) Vietnam was still ongoing, but that shouldn't matter either -- war is always with us in oneway or another. And constraints versus the pleasures of family life will always be a ripe topic. You spend theplay trying to gauge how it spoke to people back then rather than for a moment thinking it speaks to us now.One tantalizing hint is that it's sometimes described as a black comedy. Because of how it's played now andperhaps the audience reaction, this production of Sticks and Bones is by and large deadly serious. Perhaps amore anarchic approach would have brought out some humor? But since it was satirized by Christopher Durangin 1977, it's doubtful even back in the early 1970s that Rabe's work was given a broad treatment. Surely youdon't satirize a satire.The set design by Derek McLane is deft: David's bedroom hovers over the living room and stairs seem to headin every direction. At key moments, it almost fractures as light reveals the fissures in the walls or highlights thebamboo-like echo in the material around the front door. The sound design and original music by Rob Milburn &Michael Bodeen also help immeasurably to give the climactic approach of trucks a genuine power otherwiselacking in the play.The cast is fairly consistent and despite the exhausting proceedings, several shine. Gan as the ghostlyVietnamese presence has a thankless role. At least she doesn't speak. Schnetzer (who stars in the currentmovie Pride) has the impossible part of truth-sayer, oracle, Angry Young Man and a lot more. Rabe barely giveshim any dialogue; it's more like polemic or pronouncements. The fact that Schnetzer is as watchable as he isproves a testament to his commitment and innate appeal.Chamberlain is a waspish, strong presence as a local priest and family friend. His scene confronting (he'scertainly not comforting) David is the best of the night for Schnetzer. Despite the very heavy-handed prejudice --almost no one can even mention the yellow peril of Vietnamese "whores" without spitting -- their sparring has arealistic back and forth where David actually seems like a real person and Father Donald seems like a real jerk.It's a delight to see Holly Hunter as Harriet on the stage though she seems torn between all-out nuttiness andrelative realism.Yet despite the awkward dramatics, two actors stand out. Ullman is a lot of fun as Ricky. If there's any hint of amore satirical, out-there take on the play, it surely begins with Ricky, who goes from a bland teenager to a guytelling his dad he just got a great piece of tail to urging his brother towards suicide. The handsome Ullmannavigates the humor smoothly, tossing off lines with aplomb and garnering most of the show's laughs.But Bill Pullman is the one who will stay with you. It's a shame how little we've been able to see him on stage.He's a theatrical actor to his bone, delivering memorable work in the absurdist comedy The Goat... by EdwardAlbee, where Pullman was so good. Here he manages to find a beating pulse in this work and it's the terror of aman who feels trapped in his domesticity. The simmering anger that lashes out of him at his wife and sons isn'tjust an authorial device when Pullman delivers it. His stories of a wandering youth, of the life he might have ledor might still lead are haunting. Pullman is so good that you might easily believe this play has almost nothing todo with Vietnam and David but everything to do with Ozzie.12/16/2015Theater: Bill Pullman Shines in Sticks And Bones | Evernote Web https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=13da3be7-fc93-4440-baad-5f8b9c953552&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&3/5How he does it is one of those alchemical mysteries of the theater, surrounded as he is by often woodendialogue and sentiments that were obvious or trite forty years ago. Director Scott Elliott clearly did somethingright if one actor could be this strong with this play. The only question is whether the rest of the production letthe play down or whether Pullman simply rose above it. At best, a new production of a dated play might allow usto see what it meant to audiences back then. And when we're lucky, a great actor can make it mean somethingto us today.THEATER OF 2014Beautiful: The Carole King Musical ***Rodney King *** Hard Times ** 1/2 Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead ** I Could Say More * The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner ** Machinal *** Outside Mullingar *** A Man's A Man * 1/2 The Tribute Artist ** 1/2 Transport ** Prince Igor at the Met ** The Bridges Of Madison County ** 1/2 Kung Fu (at Signature) ** Stage Kiss *** Satchmo At The Waldorf *** Antony and Cleopatra at the Public ** All The Way ** 1/2 The Open House (Will Eno at Signature) ** 1/2 Wozzeck (at Met w Deborah Voigt and Thomas Hampson and Simon O'Neill) Hand To God *** Tales From Red Vienna ** Appropriate (at Signature) * Rocky * 1/2 Aladdin *** Mothers And Sons ** Les Miserables *** 1/2 Breathing Time * 1/2 Cirque Du Soleil's Amaluna * 1/2 Heathers The Musical * 1/2 Red Velvet, at St. Ann's Warehouse *** Broadway By The Year 1940-1964 *** 1/2 A Second Chance ** Guys And Dolls *** 1/2 If/Then * 1/2 The Threepenny Opera * 1/2 A Raisin In The Sun *** 1/2 The Heir Apparent *** 1/2 The Realistic Joneses *** Lady Day At Emerson's Bar & Grill ***

Theater Bill Pullman Shines in Sticks And Bones

📄 Theater Bill Pullman Shines in Sticks And Bones

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