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12/7/2015Theater: Loneliness Doesn't Go Distance; Machinal Hums Along | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=64630a43-eb4c-4c0f-8ff4-f21bf76dac74&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&1/4Theater: Loneliness Doesn't Go Distance; MachinalHums AlongTheater: Loneliness Doesn't Go Distance; Machinal Hums AlongTHE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER ** out of **** MACHINAL *** out of ****THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER ** out of **** ATLANTIC THEATER COMPANYThis play is just 80 minutes in length but it's a long 80 minutes because we learn everything we're ever going toknow about our hero in the first five minutes. The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner is based on theclassic Angry Young Man British film that launched the career of actor Tom Courtenay. He's a teen sentenced toa boys reformatory (essentially, prison) for a petty robbery. But his skill as a runner earns him privileges and themovie shows this young man Colin running while reflecting on his life and what brought him to this moment --wondering if winning the race will just make him a pawn to the Man, the System.The play follows the same trajectory, but it's been updated to take place just after recent riots in London and ourhero is now black. He's also noticeably less angry. In the film, Courtenay is literally bristling with unfocusedanger at everything and everyone. Life, the government, his dying father, the mother who was cheating on hisdying father and whom -- wrongly -- Colin believes killed him by withholding pain medication. Colin is furiousover her new boyfriend and the spectacle of his mother wasting insurance money on a flurry of clothes and thelike. In other words, Colin is very, very angry and in many ways has every confused reason to be so.But this stage adaptation by Roy Williams confuses things. Perhaps because Colin is now black they were afraidto show him as furiously angry with the world, fearing cliche or that Colin might be dismissed as a thug. The veryappealing Sheldon Best plays Colin and wins us over immediately with his rather reasonable, sensible approachto an aimless life.
12/7/2015Theater: Loneliness Doesn't Go Distance; Machinal Hums Along | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=64630a43-eb4c-4c0f-8ff4-f21bf76dac74&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&2/4
He didn't take part in the rioting and looting and seems to have a good head on his shoulder, at least for a kidwith very few prospects. His mom didn't cheat on his dying dad or add to the man's pain. All of this makes Colinappealing but far less volatile. When he actually instigates a petty theft of a bakery, it makes no sense based onwhat we know of him.Indeed, the play removes almost everything about Colin that made sense, especially his injured fury. The moviewas part of the British New Wave, which is literally known as the Angry Young Man movement. Colin has plentyof reasons to be angry at a bankrupt economy and dim prospects for work (which, to be fair, doesn't reallyappeal to him). But the very real and personal reasons for his anger have been tamped down or removed and allwe have is a young man we get to know who does a foolish act we don't understand.The entire piece should lead up to his rebellion, the possibility that Colin will finally stand up to the System andrefuse to play their game. He'll literally throw away the possibility of winning. In the 1950s, this had a certainsymbolic appeal. In the context of today, however, it comes across as a sadly self-destructive act, not the firststep to claiming piece of mind the way it was in the film. Truly, anyone who has never seen the movie will simplybe puzzled by the action taking place.Though the script is lacking and various theatrical touches (like having cast members appear at times to the sideor the back of the stage like a Greek chorus) simply fall flat, the show succeeds very well at its central conceit:showing Colin running a long distance race. Best is as mentioned a very likable presence, all the moreremarkable since he delivers his dialogue often while running in place. The projection design by Pauline Lu &Paul Piekarz are top notch at evoking movement and various settings like some woods near the detentioncenter Colin is held at. The tech elements overall are solid throughout. But kudos especially to Best's actingchops and fitness.He has very good chemistry with Jasmine Cephas Jones as the potential romantic interest Kenisha. Indeed, the
12/7/2015Theater: Loneliness Doesn't Go Distance; Machinal Hums Along | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=64630a43-eb4c-4c0f-8ff4-f21bf76dac74&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&3/4entire cast is solid, with Zainab Jah turning the contradictory role of Colin's Mum into a sensible, believablecharacter and Raviv Ullman a handsome presence in dual roles as a scowling guard and later a friendlycompetitor in the race named Gunthorpe. Unfortunately, the key role of the would-be mentor Stevens is handledpoorly by Todd Weeks. He never hints at the possible complexity of the character. Is Stevens using Colin for hisown career, genuinely trying to help the lad or some complicated mix of the two? Instead, all we see is someoneawkwardly emphasizing his dialogue and never letting us forget for a moment that he's an actor playing a role.Director Leah C. Gardiner handles the many technical demands and the strong cast with assurance. It's a pitythey didn't realize that updating and weakening the impetus for our hero's distress was cutting the legs out fromunder him.Here's the trailer to the original British film.MACHINAL *** out of **** ROUNDABOUT THEATRE COMPANYMachinal means of or pertaining to machines. And life can certainly seem a grinding machine to one whosespirit is snuffed out -- one imagines -- even before it can begin. Coincidentally, "the Machine" was the nicknamefor the mammoth set design that dominated the recent production of Wagner's The Ring at the MetropolitanOpera. It was huge, it was noisy, and it sometimes seemed a lot of bother for just a few brief moments of epicbeauty.The Roundabout has revived writer Sophie Treadwell's 1928 play Machinal and it too has a flashy set design, arotating box that is flashy and sometimes noisy and dominates the proceedings. But the Met might just sneakdown to the Roundabout to see how perfectly this particular set design complements the play it was created for,how every turning of the set demonstrates how our heroine seems trapped on a treadmill leading right towardsher fate: the electric chair. Sometimes it creaks and sometimes it groans but this is just right for a life that toorarely gives voice to its despair until a brutal and sad act of violence.I've never seen Machinal before. It was apparently brought back to life by a revival at the Public in 1990, justbefore I arrived in New York and has become more of a fixture in the repertory ever since. My first impression isthat the Roundabout has squeezed out about everything it can from a story that is sometimes avant-garde andoften bloodless as it shows a woman who can barely breathe, much less control her own destiny. (The real-lifemurder that inspired it was much more Double Indemnity than the dehumanizing Metropolis on display here.)Luckily, this high-minded work that might feel a bit dated has the wonderful, intelligent Rebecca Hall as the lead,a young woman who is so worn down by life she is referred to in the Playbill as simply Young Woman, which isto say Every Woman. She is late to work because the subway feels stifling and the Young Woman has a panicattack. Her dull as dishwater boss (Michael Cumpsty, excellent as always) asks her to marry him and this toosends her into a nervous tailspin. Her Mother (an effective Suzanne Bertish) is indifferent to her plight andconfused when the Young Woman wonders if perhaps maybe she should actually love her potential husband,rather than shrink from his touch?But the Machine is indifferent and life trudges on and she is married and on her honeymoon and crying andlistening to her husband insist the blinds be drawn so no one can see in (and she can't see out) and a child isborn but she can't bring herself to nurse it and the machine rotates and her life trudges on until out of nowhereshe has a Lover (Morgan Spector, very good in a role first tackled by Clark Gable). For a moment, the Machineseems to pause and she is smiling and emotion is pouring through in a show that has heretofore seemed a bitdry, a bit didactic. It helps that Hall is in a slip and smiling and the strap of her clothing falls off her shoulder. Ishappiness possible? We'll never know.As mentioned, the play is based on a famous murder trial of the time but the inevitability it held in 1928 seems a
12/7/2015Theater: Loneliness Doesn't Go Distance; Machinal Hums Along | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=64630a43-eb4c-4c0f-8ff4-f21bf76dac74&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&4/4bit hard to swallow. Why did her Lover go away? Was he uninterested in a long-term affair? (That's certainlyhinted at.) But why didn't the Young Woman just divorce her husband? Are her frantic inner monologues simplya stream of consciousness that reflects her inner turmoil a la Virginia Woolf? Or is the Young Woman perhapsmentally ill, struggling as she does to handle day to day life?This Machinal does not provide the satisfying answers or even emotional complexity that might make a lack ofanswers feel more like real life than just a play that simply has a predetermined finish line. But director LyndseyTurner makes one happy to go along for the ride. The set design by Es Devlin is a tour de force but needless tosay it wouldn't work without all the other technical elements being right in sync, from the costumes and lightingto the excellent sound design of Matt Tierney and the choreography of Sam Pinkleton.Hall breathes life into what on paper seems more like a conceit and Cumpsty manages a wonderful balancingact. His role as the stultifying Husband might be played for buffoonish laughs or turned into a controllingmonster. Cumpsty manages to get the laughs and some chilling moments ("Wait! WAIT!" he barks in one keyscene) but he creates interesting tension and humor while letting the husband be exactly and essentially nomore than what he is: dull. That is no easy task. Ashley Bell is vivid as a good-time Telephone Girl. And RyanDinning offers up every possible spin on "Hot dog!" known to man while using his body language to tell the storyof a young man become rather willingly seduced in a bar.Indeed, it's a faultless cast doing its best with a work far more unconventional than is usual for the Roundabout.Here's hoping their subscribers appreciate this nervy stretching of the definition of what a Roundaboutproduction can be.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 ***
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=64630a43-eb4c-4c0f-8ff4-f21bf76dac74&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&1/4Theater: Loneliness Doesn't Go Distance; MachinalHums AlongTheater: Loneliness Doesn't Go Distance; Machinal Hums AlongTHE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER ** out of **** MACHINAL *** out of ****THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER ** out of **** ATLANTIC THEATER COMPANYThis play is just 80 minutes in length but it's a long 80 minutes because we learn everything we're ever going toknow about our hero in the first five minutes. The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner is based on theclassic Angry Young Man British film that launched the career of actor Tom Courtenay. He's a teen sentenced toa boys reformatory (essentially, prison) for a petty robbery. But his skill as a runner earns him privileges and themovie shows this young man Colin running while reflecting on his life and what brought him to this moment --wondering if winning the race will just make him a pawn to the Man, the System.The play follows the same trajectory, but it's been updated to take place just after recent riots in London and ourhero is now black. He's also noticeably less angry. In the film, Courtenay is literally bristling with unfocusedanger at everything and everyone. Life, the government, his dying father, the mother who was cheating on hisdying father and whom -- wrongly -- Colin believes killed him by withholding pain medication. Colin is furiousover her new boyfriend and the spectacle of his mother wasting insurance money on a flurry of clothes and thelike. In other words, Colin is very, very angry and in many ways has every confused reason to be so.But this stage adaptation by Roy Williams confuses things. Perhaps because Colin is now black they were afraidto show him as furiously angry with the world, fearing cliche or that Colin might be dismissed as a thug. The veryappealing Sheldon Best plays Colin and wins us over immediately with his rather reasonable, sensible approachto an aimless life.
12/7/2015Theater: Loneliness Doesn't Go Distance; Machinal Hums Along | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=64630a43-eb4c-4c0f-8ff4-f21bf76dac74&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&2/4
He didn't take part in the rioting and looting and seems to have a good head on his shoulder, at least for a kidwith very few prospects. His mom didn't cheat on his dying dad or add to the man's pain. All of this makes Colinappealing but far less volatile. When he actually instigates a petty theft of a bakery, it makes no sense based onwhat we know of him.Indeed, the play removes almost everything about Colin that made sense, especially his injured fury. The moviewas part of the British New Wave, which is literally known as the Angry Young Man movement. Colin has plentyof reasons to be angry at a bankrupt economy and dim prospects for work (which, to be fair, doesn't reallyappeal to him). But the very real and personal reasons for his anger have been tamped down or removed and allwe have is a young man we get to know who does a foolish act we don't understand.The entire piece should lead up to his rebellion, the possibility that Colin will finally stand up to the System andrefuse to play their game. He'll literally throw away the possibility of winning. In the 1950s, this had a certainsymbolic appeal. In the context of today, however, it comes across as a sadly self-destructive act, not the firststep to claiming piece of mind the way it was in the film. Truly, anyone who has never seen the movie will simplybe puzzled by the action taking place.Though the script is lacking and various theatrical touches (like having cast members appear at times to the sideor the back of the stage like a Greek chorus) simply fall flat, the show succeeds very well at its central conceit:showing Colin running a long distance race. Best is as mentioned a very likable presence, all the moreremarkable since he delivers his dialogue often while running in place. The projection design by Pauline Lu &Paul Piekarz are top notch at evoking movement and various settings like some woods near the detentioncenter Colin is held at. The tech elements overall are solid throughout. But kudos especially to Best's actingchops and fitness.He has very good chemistry with Jasmine Cephas Jones as the potential romantic interest Kenisha. Indeed, the
12/7/2015Theater: Loneliness Doesn't Go Distance; Machinal Hums Along | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=64630a43-eb4c-4c0f-8ff4-f21bf76dac74&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&3/4entire cast is solid, with Zainab Jah turning the contradictory role of Colin's Mum into a sensible, believablecharacter and Raviv Ullman a handsome presence in dual roles as a scowling guard and later a friendlycompetitor in the race named Gunthorpe. Unfortunately, the key role of the would-be mentor Stevens is handledpoorly by Todd Weeks. He never hints at the possible complexity of the character. Is Stevens using Colin for hisown career, genuinely trying to help the lad or some complicated mix of the two? Instead, all we see is someoneawkwardly emphasizing his dialogue and never letting us forget for a moment that he's an actor playing a role.Director Leah C. Gardiner handles the many technical demands and the strong cast with assurance. It's a pitythey didn't realize that updating and weakening the impetus for our hero's distress was cutting the legs out fromunder him.Here's the trailer to the original British film.MACHINAL *** out of **** ROUNDABOUT THEATRE COMPANYMachinal means of or pertaining to machines. And life can certainly seem a grinding machine to one whosespirit is snuffed out -- one imagines -- even before it can begin. Coincidentally, "the Machine" was the nicknamefor the mammoth set design that dominated the recent production of Wagner's The Ring at the MetropolitanOpera. It was huge, it was noisy, and it sometimes seemed a lot of bother for just a few brief moments of epicbeauty.The Roundabout has revived writer Sophie Treadwell's 1928 play Machinal and it too has a flashy set design, arotating box that is flashy and sometimes noisy and dominates the proceedings. But the Met might just sneakdown to the Roundabout to see how perfectly this particular set design complements the play it was created for,how every turning of the set demonstrates how our heroine seems trapped on a treadmill leading right towardsher fate: the electric chair. Sometimes it creaks and sometimes it groans but this is just right for a life that toorarely gives voice to its despair until a brutal and sad act of violence.I've never seen Machinal before. It was apparently brought back to life by a revival at the Public in 1990, justbefore I arrived in New York and has become more of a fixture in the repertory ever since. My first impression isthat the Roundabout has squeezed out about everything it can from a story that is sometimes avant-garde andoften bloodless as it shows a woman who can barely breathe, much less control her own destiny. (The real-lifemurder that inspired it was much more Double Indemnity than the dehumanizing Metropolis on display here.)Luckily, this high-minded work that might feel a bit dated has the wonderful, intelligent Rebecca Hall as the lead,a young woman who is so worn down by life she is referred to in the Playbill as simply Young Woman, which isto say Every Woman. She is late to work because the subway feels stifling and the Young Woman has a panicattack. Her dull as dishwater boss (Michael Cumpsty, excellent as always) asks her to marry him and this toosends her into a nervous tailspin. Her Mother (an effective Suzanne Bertish) is indifferent to her plight andconfused when the Young Woman wonders if perhaps maybe she should actually love her potential husband,rather than shrink from his touch?But the Machine is indifferent and life trudges on and she is married and on her honeymoon and crying andlistening to her husband insist the blinds be drawn so no one can see in (and she can't see out) and a child isborn but she can't bring herself to nurse it and the machine rotates and her life trudges on until out of nowhereshe has a Lover (Morgan Spector, very good in a role first tackled by Clark Gable). For a moment, the Machineseems to pause and she is smiling and emotion is pouring through in a show that has heretofore seemed a bitdry, a bit didactic. It helps that Hall is in a slip and smiling and the strap of her clothing falls off her shoulder. Ishappiness possible? We'll never know.As mentioned, the play is based on a famous murder trial of the time but the inevitability it held in 1928 seems a
12/7/2015Theater: Loneliness Doesn't Go Distance; Machinal Hums Along | Evernote Web
https://www.evernote.com/Home.action#n=64630a43-eb4c-4c0f-8ff4-f21bf76dac74&ses=4&sh=2&sds=5&4/4bit hard to swallow. Why did her Lover go away? Was he uninterested in a long-term affair? (That's certainlyhinted at.) But why didn't the Young Woman just divorce her husband? Are her frantic inner monologues simplya stream of consciousness that reflects her inner turmoil a la Virginia Woolf? Or is the Young Woman perhapsmentally ill, struggling as she does to handle day to day life?This Machinal does not provide the satisfying answers or even emotional complexity that might make a lack ofanswers feel more like real life than just a play that simply has a predetermined finish line. But director LyndseyTurner makes one happy to go along for the ride. The set design by Es Devlin is a tour de force but needless tosay it wouldn't work without all the other technical elements being right in sync, from the costumes and lightingto the excellent sound design of Matt Tierney and the choreography of Sam Pinkleton.Hall breathes life into what on paper seems more like a conceit and Cumpsty manages a wonderful balancingact. His role as the stultifying Husband might be played for buffoonish laughs or turned into a controllingmonster. Cumpsty manages to get the laughs and some chilling moments ("Wait! WAIT!" he barks in one keyscene) but he creates interesting tension and humor while letting the husband be exactly and essentially nomore than what he is: dull. That is no easy task. Ashley Bell is vivid as a good-time Telephone Girl. And RyanDinning offers up every possible spin on "Hot dog!" known to man while using his body language to tell the storyof a young man become rather willingly seduced in a bar.Indeed, it's a faultless cast doing its best with a work far more unconventional than is usual for the Roundabout.Here's hoping their subscribers appreciate this nervy stretching of the definition of what a Roundaboutproduction can be.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 ***