Theater Hunchback Sings Ibsen Stuck in Stone For Posterity

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12/16/2015Theater: "Hunchback" Sings; Ibsen Stuck in Stone For "Posterity" | Evernote Web https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=7ed64560-8fec-430c-b251-222c073cdb3f&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&1/5Theater: "Hunchback" Sings; Ibsen Stuck in StoneFor "Posterity"Theater: "Hunchback" Sings; Ibsen Stuck in Stone For "Posterity"THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME ** out of **** POSTERITY * 1/2 out of ****THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME ** out of **** PAPERMILL PLAYHOUSEThis musical version of Victor Hugo's sprawling melodrama has had its eye on Broadway ever since JamesLapine turned the Disney animated film into live theater for Germany back in the 1990s. After many years andmuch tinkering, I'm afraid a happy ending on Broadway is as unlikely as a happy ending for the disfiguredQuasimodo. But it isn't for lack of trying: the show boasts truly excellent singing from its four leads, huge vocalsupport from the Continuo Arts Symphonic Chorus that certainly adds punch to the show's many, many climacticmoments and superior playing from the orchestra conducted by musical director Brent-Alan Huffman. Quitesimply, this work could not ask for a better showcase. The many failings on display are strictly its own.For all the Les Miz-like sprawl on display, the story is simple and can be quickly reduced to three men all in love-- to varying degrees -- with one woman. The religious leader of the Church of Notre Dame is Dom Claude Frollo(Patrick Page). He's always been drawn to a life of strict denial, perhaps in response to his wayward brotherJehan. The more fun-loving Jehan (a memorable Jeremy Stolle in a small role) falls in love with a gypsy, is banished from their home in Notre Dame and dies, leaving only thedeformed child Quasimodo. Frollo raises the boy in the belfry with a confused mixture of love and sternness,seeing the child's outward ugliness as a sign of Jehan's sin.They are both bewitched by the gypsy Esmerelda (Ciara Renée), who enters Paris for the annual Festival ofFools. Esmerelda (Ciara Renee) is kind to the now-adult hunchback (Michael Arden), wary of the feverishlyenraptured Frollo and flirty with the handsome new Captain of the Guards Phoebus (Andrew Samonsky). Frollobecomes more and more obsessed with this gypsy -- this reminder of his brother's fall -- and he is determinedsomehow to have her carnally and save her soul. Since both are hardly possible, it's no surprise when he turnson her, damns Esmerelda as a witch and rouses the guards to hunt her down and burn her at the stake. It fallsto Quasimodo to claim "Sanctuary! Sanctuary!" by swinging into action, rescuing the beautiful and sweet womanand taking her to his home in the belfry, holding off seemingly all of Paris in the process. Oh, and there's a lot ofsinging.Needless to say, it doesn't end well. This version retains most of the songs written by Stephen Schwartz andAlan Menken for the film, including some which weren't even originally used. It has a new book by Peter Parnelland a great deal of sound and fury. Seemingly every other scene ends with a clamor; when you've got lots ofbells and a full choir on stage, the temptation to use it all is resisted about as well as Frolo's desire for flesh. Hepunishes the gypsy girl; the show punishes us by starting at full volume and never stopping. Subtlety was neverreally called for in a melodrama like this. But when not seeming like a poor cousin to Les Miserables, the showfeels like all peaks and no valleys.The two romantic leads are cardboard cutouts on paper. Renée adds some genuine charm as Esmerelda but12/16/2015Theater: "Hunchback" Sings; Ibsen Stuck in Stone For "Posterity" | Evernote Web https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=7ed64560-8fec-430c-b251-222c073cdb3f&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&2/5Samonsky feels resolutely modern as Phoebus. Patrick Page fares much better as the conflicted Frollo but it'salmost entirely to his presence. Certainly would-be big numbers like "Hellfire" add nothing to his role. Indeed, allthe songs blend together, whether rousing openers like "The Bells Of Notre Dame," tunes of yearning like "OutThere" or romantic ballads like "Someday." Those who are musically inclined will appreciate the complexity ofthe score, the motifs for characters that are repeated throughout and the Latin choral work drawing on classicreligious melodies for the act two curtain raiser. But no one will be singing them. There's a reason the film hasnot earned its place in the Disney canon.Certainly the staging doesn't help. The scenic design by Alexander Dodge manages to be both very busy, evencluttered really in the margins while almost non-existent for the main action. It's the worst of both worlds, withcountless stairs and ramps leading to nowhere interesting but just a few pieces of removable railing to suggestthe soaring balcony high above Paris. (When Quasimodo straddles one and scares Esmerelda by pretending tofall, I was a little worried too since it was so rickety the railing trembled.)But The Hunchback Of Notre Dame truly falls apart with a shocking lack of theatrical imagination at the finale.Anyone who has seen the various feature film and TV movie versions (notably Charles Laughton in the greatestof them all from 1939) will remember that action-packed climax. Quasimodo swoops in to rescue Esmerelda,scales the walls of Notre Dame and pours boiling oil from the belfry to ward off attackers among other derring-do. If you can't think of an interesting, theatrically exciting way to do this finale, why would you stage it at all?Instead, this show mostly just stops and describes what happens during the final pages of the book. As inhaving a chorus member step forward and say, "And then Quasimodo...." Ludicrously, when the hunchback isscaling the outside wall, this is illustrated by having actors "pose" as the wall and having Quasimodo weave inand out of them as he walks across the stage. It looks more like he's wandering a garden maze and of course ittakes place from stage right to stage left when what you want is to have Quasimodo descend or ascend a greatheight.Similarly, the boiling pitch is banally and ineffectively depicted as a silky banner while the throwing of a bodyfrom the belfry -- the emotional peak of the story -- is also very poorly handled. All of this constitutes what shouldbe a crescendo of action after two hours of mostly internal strife. Instead it's quite bereft of any theatrical magicfrom director Scott Schwartz and his creative team; the climax is the first thing they should have tackled andsolved but in fact they never came close to figuring it out. Not helping matters is the mawkish, misguided flourishat the "Finale Ultimo" in which the chorus insists that there is literally a little Quasimodo in all of us. (The onlytheatrical magic to be found at all is a modest but effective bit in which a beheaded statue talks to Quasimodo;it's simple but engaging.)So stick figure characters, unmemorable songs and a bungled climax. What should be an utter failure is actuallywatchable thanks to the assembled cast. Page holds the stage throughout and makes you believe in his turmoileven when the writing and songs give him little to work with. Stolle was distinctive enough as his brother to leavea memory of that man an effective touchstone for the rest of the show. (Stolle certainly deserved more than acredit as "Ensemble" in his bio for this small part.) Joseph J. Simeone is a stand-out in the hardworking chorus.The music is too insistent but it's sung powerfully and played beautifully, thanks to the trio of musical supervisorMichael Kosarin, orchestrator Michael Starobin and music director and conductor Huffman. They do sterlingwork.That leaves Quasimodo, played by Michael Arden. I can't call it a star-making turn because the role isn'tremotely good enough. Besides, there's not enough Quasimodo in the show. The character almost disappearsfor chunks of time in a musical that is, after all, named for him. Nonetheless, Arden makes a strong impression,from the opener -- where the handsome but approachable Arden is transformed onstage via a few modesttouches into Quasimodo -- right to the finale.12/16/2015Theater: "Hunchback" Sings; Ibsen Stuck in Stone For "Posterity" | Evernote Web https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=7ed64560-8fec-430c-b251-222c073cdb3f&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&3/5He keeps this easily cliched character from slipping into bathos, letting only a few modest fawning gesturestowards Frollo tell us what we need to know about this beaten-down fellow. When alone, Quasimodo stands alittle taller and belts out in a truly beautiful and powerful voice. When other characters are present, he sinksdown lower and sings more awkwardly, meaning Arden transitions back and forth throughout the show, givingvaried shadings to his speaking and singing based on Quasimodo's emotional state. He never belabors thepoint or calls attention to it; both as actor and singer, Arden is excellent.The show asks about the difference between a monster and a man. Which leads one to ask, what's thedifference between a talented actor and a star? A great role in a great show, I think. Hopefully Arden will landone soon.POSTERITY * 1/2 out of **** ATLANTIC THEATER COMPANY AT LINDA GROSS THEATERPlays about famous artists crossing paths with one another (or with artists we know will fade into obscurity) areirresistible to playwrights, apparently. Whether these meetings are real or imagined, thoroughly documented orleft to the imagination, you know that Art will be discussed and debated, chuckles drawn from now-datedcomments like "Movies are a fad and will soon disappear!" or some such thing and the judgement of Historyhangs heavy.All the pitfalls of such endeavors are unfortunately present in Posterity, the new drama written and directed byPulitzer Prize winner Doug Wright. It boils down to two main scenes.In one, sculptor Gustav Vigeland (Hamish Linklater) is on the brink of securing a commission to create hismasterwork. (He will ultimately become Norway's most famous sculptor.) However, in order to gain thisopportunity he must convince the towering, world famous, aging but obstinate playwright Henrik Ibsen to sit forone final bust, a concrete expression of his fame. They fence intellectually, playfully and fiercely, with Vigelandseizing on everything from flattery to insult to suggesting history will forget him in an effort to bend theunbending Ibsen.In the second scene, sudden illness has prompted a death watch at the great man's home while Ibsen mustersthe strength for a sitting that soon turns into a confession of his many personal failings.Ultimately, neither scene truly works.Like the show, technical elements are spotty. Derek McLane's set for the working studio of Vigeland is gorgeousand convincing, with soft lighting from David Lander adding immeasurably to the effect. The costumes by SusanHilferty are similarly on target.However, a switch to the home of Ibsen is rather bizarrely handled in act two. Suddenly, for no discerniblereason, three large oil paintings are brought out and arrayed across the front of the stage, all of them portraits.One might think they were portraits of Ibsen, Vigeland and Vigeland's manager Sophus Larpent (Henry Stram).Who else could they be? But since they are soon placed on the walls of Ibsen's home, clearly it couldn't be thelatter two. But why are they paraded out and placed in front of us? A spotlight is focused on one and then theother and then the other. Why? Is it to distract us from the set change taking place? Whatever the reason, theirmysterious appearance in such prominent positions at such a key moment, never to be referenced again, waspuzzling to say the least.Worse was the incidental scene-setting music of David Van Tieghem (who also did the fine sound design). It'smelodramatic and ponderous in the extreme, emphasizing and calling attention to the weakest elements of theshow. No music is needed and the little offered here unfortunately weighed down an already shaky show.Dale Soules and Mickey Theis are saddled with unfortunate minor characters. Soules has a speech at the very12/16/2015Theater: "Hunchback" Sings; Ibsen Stuck in Stone For "Posterity" | Evernote Web https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=7ed64560-8fec-430c-b251-222c073cdb3f&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&4/5start where this elderly domestic mocks her penny pinching employer. Soules I sense is a fine actor doing herbest in a poor part. But it's the sort of scene opener that immediately makes clear this show will hit mostly falsenotes. You don't buy this woman who has a husband and child dependent on her would speak out so mockinglywhen her job is at stake; indeed she never shows similar spunk the rest of the evening. So it's entirely out ofcharacter and unconvincing. Soules is not at fault, though. Theis however is woefully miscast as Vigeland'sassistant. He may be one of those actors who simply doesn't convince in period pieces. It surely doesn't helpthat his role is a muddle as well.Every time these two take center stage we feel the play is killing time until the inevitable showdown between thesculptor and the playwright. We simply don't care about them and the play never gives us a reason to do so oreven a reason to accept them as real. Stram has it little better as the patron/manager (another ill-definedcharacter in a show with only five). Stram is a pro and at least creates the illusion of one for a while.So we're down to those two sparring sessions. In the first, Linklater seemed rushed and uncertain the night Iattended. He's one of my favorite actors and I felt Linklater was trying to gin up some emotion, some enthusiasmfor this tired debate about Art and Life and Posterity. The writing just wasn't there and he knew it or at leastsensed something was missing and struggled to bring it to life.Noble fared much better in that first scene. He entered and the restless audience immediately sat up straight.The silly simpering of the servants wasn't needed for us to understand: this is a formidable man. Noblecommanded attention by simple force of will. With two such skilled actors, it was inevitable that even this forcedexchange of philosophies would be somewhat entertaining. But it fell into a predictable rhythm right down to ajoke about James Joyce. (It's this show's equivalent of "Cars will never replace horses".)Noble certainly hoped for better in their second scene, which has a long, soul-baring monologue for the frosty,proud Ibsen. He does a marvelous job physically as the broken down man who hears the beating wings ofDeath (as we're told repeatedly). But that monologue is too clearly a Monologue and goes on too long. Or to bemore accurate, isn't interesting and varied enough to sustain our interest for the time it lasts. The details of hisrevealed flaws are at first poignant but become maudlin after Wright drags out the moment well past its breakingpoint. Poor Linklater is reduced to murmuring the occasional "Yes" and "Mm-hmm" as Ibsen goes on and on,though Noble brings what dignity and dramatic powers he can to bear.That scene is modestly effective if attenuated...and then Posterity spoils whatever glow Noble and Linklater giveit with a final plot twist that is pure, unearned bathos. One needn't wait for the judgment of posterity to know thisisn't one for the ages.THEATER OF 2015Honeymoon In Vegas ** The Woodsman *** Constellations ** 1/2 Taylor Mac's A 24 Decade History Of Popular Music 1930s-1950s ** 1/2 Let The Right One In ** Da no rating A Month In The Country ** 1/2 Parade in Concert at Lincoln Center ** 1/2 Hamilton at the Public *** The World Of Extreme Happiness ** 1/2 Broadway By The Year 1915-1940 ** Verite * 1/2 Fabulous! *

Theater Hunchback Sings Ibsen Stuck in Stone For Posterity

📄 Theater Hunchback Sings Ibsen Stuck in Stone For Posterity

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