Theater Eves Song

SEO TEXT: Article Content for Search Engines

More Create Blog Sign In THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 08, 2018 THEATER: "Eve's Song" Preaches On The Original Sin Of Indifference EVE'S SONG * 1/2 out of **** THE PUBLIC Just as filmgoers sometimes idly wonder "What exactly is a best boy? "theatergoers pouring over credits might ask themselves, "What does a dramaturg do?" The answer varies from production to production and-- in the case of an ongoing institution like The Public -- fromcompany to company. In its simplest form, a dramaturg is often another pair of eyes, someone who can observe your theatrical piece without an agenda. A set designer might want a bigger set, an actormight want more lines, a producer might want to save money. But adramaturg? They don't care if a particular song or monologue is added or cut except for one reason and one reason alone: they are always thinking about what is best for the work as a whole. And so while theiropinion may have no more weight than anyone else, it is a blessedlyneutral one. I haven't a clue as to the role of the dramaturg at the Public or what role if any they played in this debut. But they are nurturing playwrightPatricia Ione Lloyd and part of that nurturing should have included aneutral and trusted set of eyes that might have kept Eve's Song from numerous obvious missteps. It's a piece with a lot on its mind and eager to spell that out for you. Lloyd tells the story of Deborah (De'Adre Aziza), a divorced womanoverseeing her just-out daughter and isolated son Mark (Karl Green), ateen who obsessively watches news footage of police brutality against young black men. Deborah is succeeding at a difficult job where her talents as an executive are used but not wholly appreciated, while her status as a woman of color is abused with incessant sexualharassment. Eve's Song deals with gender and #MeToo and sexualMICHAEL GILTZ AT WORK Michael Giltz is a freelance writer based in NYC and can be reached atmgiltz@pipeline.com FAVORITE LINKS Americablog Five O'Clock Lightning baseball blogDeep Pop -- Lori Lakin's Blog The Back Page -- Jason Page on ESPN Radio Cine-Blog -- George Robinson's Blog Documents On Art & Cinema - Daryl Chin's Blog Brucie G's Wondrous Blog Of Adventure and Mystery -- Bruce Greenspan's Blog BLOG ARCHIVE ► 2019 (7) ▼ 2018 (34) ► December (7)orientation and the societal invisibility of violence against black women and ghosts and legacies and activism and inequality and presumably a few other issues I forgot about. All admirable, if spelled out far too flatly. But Eve's Song also rolls the dice theatrically, playing with abrupt changes in style that veer from satire to surreal to naturalistic drama to a heavy-handed, ghostly climax. Even the stuff that doesn't work (and there's a lot) is at least bold in its attempt. One can easily see why Lloyd caught the eye of the Public -- she has ambition and humor and some sharp, original dialogue. But part of nurturing talent is to help them shape their work. It's hard to understand why no one ever spoke up and said, "Hey, you know what'sreally working here? The relationship between the daughter Lauren(Kadijah Raquel) and the activist Upendo (Ashley D. Kelley)." Youknow, the rare scenes that actually stick to the form of a traditionalplay, one where people meet and bounce off each other and something real and tangible happens. Playwrights may love to fire on all cylinders and try every trick in the book the first time out, but that doesn't meanit's a good idea. Family scenes are played in a highly theatrical manner, with the momand kids sitting in rhythmic unison, flapping their cloth napkins andspeaking with exaggerated politesse. But prowling around the stage are ghost-like people, dubbed Spirit People in the text. And a crack in the wall of the living room turns into an August Wilsonian crack in thefirmament through which the desperately unfair and unacknowledgedtrauma black women endure comes pouring out. But every once in awhile Lloyd just tells a story. Lauren spots Upendo at a bus stop and their tentative sparring is sweet and human, with both actors fleshing out these roles with chemistry and genuine emotion. That's the play one would actually like to see. But even the play Lloyd has written should have been steered more thoughtfully by director Jo Bonney or the dramaturg or someone . For example, early in the play,▼ November (4) THEATER: Mike Birbiglia's "New" Baby THEATER: The Irresistible Raul Esparza in "Arturo ... THEATER: A Musical "King Kong?" Bananas! "American... THEATER: "Eve's Song" Preaches On The OriginalSin... ► October (6) ► September (1) ► May (5) ► April (6) ► March (4) ► February (1) ► 2017 (6) ► 2016 (2) ► 2015 (14) ► 2014 (2) ► 2013 (5) ► 2012 (18) ► 2011 (15) ► 2010 (10) ► 2009 (43) ► 2008 (86) ► 2007 (781) ► 2006 (2412) ► 2005 (5)the lights dim, a spotlight falls on the mom and she addresses the audience with her personal thoughts. Soon after, the same happens with the daughter. And the son? Nothing. For almost the entire play,he does not get his moment to open up and reveal something abouthimself. Naturally, you just assume he won't; this seems a perfectly reasonable stance since the play is focused on the silenced voices of black women. But right towards the end, suddenly the lights dim andthe spotlight turns on him. You sit up straight -- since his confessionalscene has been saved till the last moment and he's had the least dialogue of the three, you have every reason to assume it's going to be a doozy of some sort. Instead, it's just as unremarkable as their asidesto the audience. Either he should be given a moment up front like theothers (so we're not kept in suspense and expect too much) or it mighthave been cut entirely for the thematic reasons I just gave. The only choice that shouldn't be made is the one Lloyd went with. Similarly, much is made of a creaky floorboard. The house is "haunted" perhaps and coming apart at the seams as their middleclass existence is smashed apart by a racist and misogynist society. The son trips over the floorboard. It's commented upon. Eventually the mother and son take the time to check it out...and the floorboard isaccidentally ripped up! Do they find something buried underneath? Dospirits escape it? Does it play any role whatsoever after that? No, theyjust move a table to cover the unsightly bulge in the floor. Those Spirit Women? Like the son, they are not given a moment to speak out -- until they do, three quarters of the way through the play.Again, they spent so much of the play NOT speaking that we acceptedtheir mute presence. Having them first speak up so late in the play feltlike a violation of the rules the play had set. If what they said proved remarkable, of course all would be forgiven. There are no "rules," much as I am quoting convention. Yet what they ultimately offer areblunt recitations of the abusive violence black women suffer, tellingtheir stories of woe. It feels far, far removed from the story at hand, like a blunt intrusion from another, more didactic play. Even here, the play is confused. The mom suddenly blurts out that her son is "weird," though it certainly wasn't obvious to us. We know he'sdeeply disturbed by police brutality against young black men and views examples of it online over and over again. Yet, the play condemns the world for not paying equal attention to the brutalitymeted out against black women. Is the son being somehow condemnedfor his fixation? His fears do seem unhealthy, though of course he livesin a world where unthinkingly running down the block or an abrupt comment to a cop will put his life in danger. But is he bad or wrong? If he's indifferent to the plight of black women, we don't see it. Certainly the women in his life have no ideawhat he's worried about and don't try to educate him. Worse, the play begins with the mom and son watching the local news. It begins with a story about a pet trapped down a well and the mom eats it up, evensmiling when the cat is rescued. But when the next story is about a black man brutalized by the police, the son sits up alertly...and the mom turns off the tv. That's a weird way to begin and what could it possibly mean, given what comes later? However much one needsviolence against black women to be treated seriously, surely turningoff the TV when the violence against black men is finally covered after decades or centuries of indifference is not the answer. While a major climatic plot twist was surely essential to the play Lloyd had in mind (though deeply misguided and unconvincing), there is noexcuse for the blunder at the very end. The drama reaches the end, the lights slowly dim, characters are backlit against the image of a painting melting into nothing and if there's a moment of "ok, theybuilt to a moment," well this is it. And then inexplicably there isanother very minor scene of such unimportance that you are shockedthat no one said, "Hey, I think the play already ended. That last littlebit? Does it add anything? Maybe it should be cut?" Howeverdelicately one would word this in the real world, it's absurd that conversation never took place. Raquel and Kelley actually have characters rather than archetypes to play and they bring a spark to their scenes. True, their relationship flies by in record time, going from meet-cute to passionate romance to woke activism to Lauren suddenly deciding Upendo's activism isn'twoke enough and she's ready to move on! As with the son being weird (he is?), the accusation that Upendo is a flighty activist obsessed withlikes on social media comes out of nowhere, as does Upendo's rejoinder that privileged Lauren couldn't really appreciate the struggle. If Llioyd wanted to show economic inequality affecting theirrelationship or even just coloring it, she should have done so. But likeso much else here, she usually tells rather than shows. It's a credit to the two that we buy their romance as much as we do. The set by Riccardo Hernandez lacks either the imagination or -- far more likely -- the money to bring to life the disintegrating home of thefamily that the play calls for. Still, this production essentially showsthe Public presenting a play -- flaws and all -- at a level most writers can only dream about. Lloyd will surely learn from the experience and grow, though she might have grown more with better guidance allaround. THEATER OF 2018 Homelife/The Zoo Story (at Signature) *** out of **** Escape To Margaritaville ** Broadway By The Year: 1947 and 1966 *** Lobby Hero *** Frozen ** Rocktopia * Angels in America ** 1/2Mean Girls ** 1/2 The Sting ** Mlima's Tale ** 1/2 Children Of A Lesser God ** 1/2 Sancho: An Act Of Remembrance ** 1/2 The Metromaniacs *** Summer: The Donna Summer Musical * The Seafarer ** Henry V (Public Mobile Unit w Zenzi Williams) * 1/2 Saint Joan ** Travesties *** 1/2 Summer and Smoke ** 1/2 My Fair Lady ** 1/2 Broadway By The Year: 1956 and 1975 ** 1/2 Bernhard/Hamlet * 1/2 On Beckett *** What The Constitution Means To Me ** The Winning Side * Oklahoma ** Mother Of The Maid * Love's Labour's Lost ** 1/2 The Lifespan of a Fact ** India Pale Ale * Thunderbodies *** The Ferryman *** 1/2 Eve's Song * Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the creator of BookFilter, a book lover’s best friend. It’s a website that lets you browse for books online the way you do in a physical bookstore, provides comprehensive info on new releases every week in every category and offers passionate personal recommendations every step of the way. He’s also the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox , a weekly pop culture podcast that reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day with top journalists and opinion makers as guests. It’s available for free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website. Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and also available for free on iTunes. POSTED BY MICHAEL GILTZ AT 12:33 AM NO COMMENTS: Post a Comment Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)Newer Post Older Post Home

📄 Theater Eves Song

SEO TEXT: Article Content for Search Engines