Sweet Charity at the Donmar: Can This Retroactively Win the Olivier?by Randi / May 16, 2019You tell me Sally Field is coming to London, I’m gonna be there front and center holding up a big sign with GO SALLY! WE LIKE YOU! written in bubble letters. Metaphorically speaking, of course; I’m not a monster. So the chance to see the absolute ledge, what a ledge, perform live is something I’m grateful for. I’m glad I got to see her. What a treat.
You can tell I’m trying to delay talking at all about the play, huh? Okay, well let’s just say it’s fitting that I saw All My Sons at the Old Vic theatre in London in the same week I finished reading Zadie Smith’s book Swing Time, as both were not unpleasant to experience, but ‘not unpleasant’ is literally all I can say about them. There was nothing gripping about either work. While I liked watching both Sally and Bill Pullman (seriously, Bill Pullman! ledge on ledge!), everyone else felt slightly (or heavily) miscast and misdirected. It felt like Arthur Miller’s classic play has aged out of relevance, and rather than feeling like a noteworthy period piece, it instead felt like a dusty relic.
Sally and Bill (I met them; we’re friends) play a married couple of an adult son. Just one son. They had another son but he died in the war (sad). Two sons is still not enough for an ‘all’, you’re correct – the title phrase reveal was one of the only creative turns of phrase in the whole script. Anyway, so the dead son (sorry) had a sweetheart when he went off to war (as they do, as they do). Ever since – three years now – the girl, Ann, has been corresponding with the other (living) (sorry) son, Chris, and THEY now want to get married. This play was written in a time when it was SUPER NORMAL for a girl whose sweetheart died in war to marry the guy’s brother instead, and that is WEIRD. Luckily, the family also thinks it’s weird, but not in a women-aren’t-property-to-be-inherited-when-a-family-member-dies-that’s-super-gross way, more in the they-don’t-actually-believe-their-son-died way.
Turns out, War Son was only reported ‘disappeared’ those three years ago, so even though all signs point to Dead, Sally (let’s just call her Sally) is making herself sick holding onto any thread of hope that her son is alive. Which you can’t really fault her for, it’s so sad. Poor sad Sally! But even WITHOUT the hope that the son is still alive, it’s still super weird to sign off on your other son marrying the fiancee. Oof.
Anyway, the girl, Ann, comes to visit the family so she and Chris can announce the engagement, and we learn about the friction between the two families that exists for reasons other than brother-swapping weirdness. Bill and Ann’s father worked together, and some shady shit went down, but only Ann’s father ended up in jail. Did her father do crimes? Or was Bill guilty but got away with it by throwing Mr. Ann under the bus? The problem with this being the main conflict is that no one cares.
The other main problem with the show is that Chris (Colin Morgan, Merlin) is miscast, and without a strong Chris to really nail all the nuance and emotional beats and relationships, it all falls apart. His choices felt off, like surprisingly off; I’m surprised at the director here. The only confident, successful directorial choice was the very opening moment, with the house moving upstage amid flashing Americana television screens. I’m disappointed that that new, confident display of this classic work wasn’t continued at any other moment.
In fact, the only emotional beat that rang true was an extraordinarily minor moment between Ann’s brother George and a super-minor-character-neighbor-lady when they acknowledged that they would have ended up together had George not gone off to army, mother. It’s like, literally the neighbor lady’s only scene, so great job making your mark, but the fact that nothing else in the entire show felt as authentic is a shame. Of course, London audiences being as insane as they are, they laughed when George declines meeting her kids, even though it’s a heartbreaking moment, but that’s CLA (crazy London audiences) for you.
While I’m sure this play was revelatory in its time, what being about the problems with profiting from war and all the emotional turmoil it causes in its wake, it felt irrelevant today. And some of the twists seemed nonsensical. When Bill Pullman yells at his son (living) in the climax, he all of a sudden asks, “Was the money the problem? You had too much money?” and I literally went, “um, weird flex”, because that was literally the most random reaction to the argument, coming out of nowhere and clearly not the issue. Everything sort of felt untethered like that, disjointed and random. Even the big reveals at the end, both about Bill’s true actions regarding the crime and the other son’s disappearance, feel incredibly unsatisfying. (They also don’t make a ton of sense on examination. If Larry (dead son) knew about the dad’s trial and potential crime, that means it was at least MONTHS since the incident/arrest, and he never once spoke to his family to hear their response or thoughts? He just assumed his father was guilty and then decided to do what he did? do not buy it.)
And yet, despite all this disappointment in the play, I think Sally (and Bill, really) did a nice job. Poor sad Sally was literally shaking the entire time, but you believed that she was a grieving mother with too many traumas to keep in their appropriate boxes, leaving everything threatening to unravel. I just didn’t think this production was strong enough for her talents.
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3 Great Productions You Probably Missed: HMS Pinafore, Once on this Island, Dogfight
It’s Theatre Thursday! We’re celebrating a FANTASTIC week of theatre-going by looking at not one, not two, but THREE great-to-fantastic shows…that all sadly closed on Saturday. However, they’re all established shows that we should see future productions of fairly soon.
H.M.S. Pinafore at Wilton’s Music Hall
Whenever a Gilbert & Sullivan classic comes to Wilton’s Music Hall, we’re there. Well, whenever anything comes to Wilton’s we’re there, because they’re our neighbors. Hey neighbors! But their G&S productions are without fail hysterical, in a way that really lets the comic masterpieces shine. Thanks to the Opera Della Luna company, the recent H.M.S. Pinafore continued the trend, with their game cast showing off their perfect comedic timing.
With an ensemble of just 8 players, many changing in and out of several roles, Opera Della Luna energetically tells the tale of the poor sailor in love with the captain’s daughter, the captain’s daughter who loves him back but is promised to an admiral, the absurdly funny captain who never (well, hardly ever) uses bad language, and all the confusion and hilarity that abounds aboard the ship.
For those of you unfamiliar with the 1878 comic opera, it takes place on a docked British warship. An older woman named Buttercup comes on board to sell some ‘wares’ which no matter what the context or show or painting always looks like a basket full of ribbon, which is like, not what I’d expect sailors to need on board. Ralph Rackstraw, a sailor in the fleet, comes on deck and pretends to buy from Buttercup and then doesn’t, which as someone who ran a vegan bakery stall on Brick Lane for six months I can tell you is really shitty behavior. Nothing more frustrating. Anyway Ralph is like ‘no I don’t need ribbon but I LOVEEEE JOSEPHINEEEE’ who is the captain’s lovely daughter (with the best voice in the cast). The other sailors are like ‘avast ye matey, she’s the captain’s daughter so she can’t be with you.’ And then the captain, Captain Corcoran, comes on deck and sings his famous song about how he ‘hardly ever’ does a bunch of stuff and is HILARIOUS and I wish that I could find the name of the actor from the ODL website but it’s incredibly confusing and I think only has the 2000-era cast lists for this show up because I googled the names and they don’t look like who I need the name of, guys, so please tell whoever plays Corcoran how great he is.
The captain talks to the old lady Buttercup and they def have some history or future or something going on, but there’s no time for that because the Admiral that Josephine’s set to marry comes aboard (never seen so much coming and going on a ship) with his sister, his cousin, and his aunt and he sings a forking hilarious song introducing himself and his sister, his cousin, and his aunt. The Admiral is a bumbling fool who despite being in a very high position in the Queen’s Navee knows nothing about the sea or sailing, like most men in power. He also thinks the Captain should say ‘if you please’ to his sailors whenever giving orders. The Admiral and the Captain are comedic gold and definitely the standouts here, although they do have the two best roles.
After the Admiral, Sir Joseph, sings about how British sailors are any man’s equal – except, of course, his own – Ralph is buoyed by the thought and confesses his love to Josephine. She loves him back, but knows her duty is to marry the goofy old man so JUST LIKE NIKKI K HIGH-KICKING IT DOWN AT THE MOULIN ROUGE, she pretends not to love Ralph back which is like RULE #1 of farcey romcoms and lies IN ORDER TO SAVE HIM. HURT HIM, TO SAVE HIM, as the wise and scary Jim Broadbent told Nikki K before she didn’t win the Oscar she should have won.
Ralph threatens to kill himself due to his broken heart and his shipmates are like ‘eh them’s the breaks matey’, surprisingly cool with the very bad plan, but the luckily Josephine enters again and sees him and is like NO DON’T I LOVE YOU, and while I’m sure there are examples of this very shitty plot device in older works, for now I’m going to blame Pinafore for giving weak misogynists this ploy in their arsenal, that if a pretty woman doesn’t love them they should threaten to kill themselves so they know it’s ‘their fault if they die’ which is SOME REAL MISOGYNIST GASLIGHTY BULLSHIT.
My only real complaint with the story though; the rest is so fun and ridiculous.
In Act II, Sir Joseph complains to the captain that Josephine hasn’t officially accepted his proposal yet and he’s like wahhhh just make your teenage daughter marry my old ass alreadyyyyy, and the Captain suggests that maybe she’s overwhelmed by his lofty rank and feels he’s too far above her. Sir Joseph says pish posh and sings a song arguing that love ‘levels all ranks’, which he doesn’t realize, of course, is arguing that Josephine and Ralph should be able to marry despite their different ranks. DRAMATIC IRONY.
Josephine and Ralph plan to leave the ship and elope but the Captain catches them and is unmoved by their protestations of love, saying – historically noteworthy because omg he said like the worst word ever uttered on stage at that time – “why damn, it’s too bad!” I KNOW! bad. Sir Joseph is horrified by the bad language and confines the Captain to his quarters. Sir Joseph asks the crew what happened to make the Captain CURSE SO BAD, Ralph spills the beans about him and Josephine, which Sir Joseph does NOT like, and so he orders Ralph to be loaded with chains and taken to the brig, which is shipcute for jail! We definitely need a completely random deus ex machina to save Ralph from this fate right about now guys! Oh good, here comes one in the form of a revelation from random lady Buttercup: She steps forward and reveals to the crew that many years ago, she practiced BABY FARMING, and she cared for two babies, one of low birth, one upper-class, and she mixed the babies up. OKAY IT SOUNDS LIKE A WAR CRIME, this baby farming, but what of this now? Well the two babies – are you ready – were RALPH AND THE CAPTAIN. So CLEARLY the big revelation is supposed to be ‘oh wow, Ralph is actually of noble birth and the Captain is the lowly one, so their troubles with the whole marriage issue are over if Ralph chooses!’ but the real revelation is HOT FUCK RALPH IS THE SAME AGE AS THE *FATHER* OF THE WOMAN HE LOVES OMG THAT IS GROSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. So Ralph is like 20 years older give or take the era-appropriate standard deviation than the girl he loves?? Blech. Josephine RUN/swim.
So instead of like taking a beat and realizing how stupid the whole idea of noble blood is and how they’ve lived in the ‘wrong’ lives long enough to prove that, instead RALPH AND THE CAPTAIN SWITCH POSITIONS. Ralph literally puts on Corcoran’s uniform, says “I’M THE CAPTAIN NOW”, and Corcoran becomes a lowly sailor. WAT. Didn’t the captain earn his captaincy? Like wtf. Obviously, Josephine, the daughter of a sailor, is now too low for the Admiral to marry, so she and Ralph are cleared for takeoff despite their truly gross age difference. And now, since Corcoran is a lowly sailor, he can up and marry…Buttercup! LIKE WTF. SHE JUST RUINED YOUR LIFE. And why did it take her so long to share? What an asshole!
Anyway it was amazing.
Dogfight and Once on this Island at the Southwark Playhouse
If anyone, for whatever bad reason, was worrying about the future talent pool in Britain, there’s no need to worry. The British Theatre Academy’s two fantastic youth productions that played the Southwark Theatre in August were both brimming with impressive young talent, up to the task of handling two challenging – and two of my all-time favorite – shows. We all know how overprotective I can be of things that are my faves, and how attached I am to past great productions. My review of the recent Broadway revivial of Once on this Island is pretty much me saying OMG OMG OMG THIS IS AMAZING OMG OMG OMG OMG I CAN’T BELIEVE HOW MAGICAL IT’S AMAZING MAGIC for like 4 pages.
But despite my high standards for my (not mine) truly beloved show, the BTA yoots blew me away. Despite the smaller space, budget, experience level, everything, the yoots put on a show that was just as magical and moving and TRIUMPHANT as I could have hoped. Lee Proud’s clever direction captured all the thrills that elevate the story, from the Ti Moune switch (which never fails to make me sob, even when I’m just listening to the cast recording and know it’s that part) to the charming representation of the chirping birds. His equally fantastic choreography brought to mind the greatest parts of Camille A. Brown’s work on Broadway (which should have won the Tony), with powerful and vigorous ensemble dance numbers the most compelling and exciting.
What was done with this small space and barely any props or set truly begs for another longer run, or a transfer. Since I saw the Broadway revival, I’ve read the infamous words of Brandon Victor Dixon condemning this show, and I was prepared to see what he meant regarding the issues in the story, now that I was enlightened. But such a lovely, blissful production made it hard to agree with him. And sure, as a white person I’m not the person to comment on whether the show’s attempt to comment on issues of race fail and it becomes itself racist. But the audience, filled with people of all backgrounds, all jumped to their feet at the end faster than I’ve ever seen, weeping and cheering. It’s hard to find fault with a show that does that.
And that ensemble, man alive, the talent on display was so uplifting. Everyone seemed to be having the time of their lives (especially my favorite boy ensemblist who was just SO young and SO happy, and I was just so happy for him) and that kind of joy was infectious. The standout performer for me, who as a casting agent I’d be keeping an eye on, was Aviva Tulley, who played the goddess of love Erzulie. Her natural ease and grace suggested a performer of much more experience. Others in the cast, like Ti Moune (the very talented Chrissie Bhime) and Euralie, will need to work on melting into their characters more and not obviously Acting, but for a youth ensemble they’re all ahead of where you’d expect.
We found it really interesting that both our Ti Moune and our Rose, in Dogfight, both frequently tended to speak the ends of sung lyrics for emphasis instead of acting through their singing, which is definitely one key technique to work on. But like our Ti Moune, our Rose (the roles are double cast and nowhere in the programme or theatre was our show’s cast listed, which is a shame, because I’d like to give her her due) was otherwise very impressive. She gave an added nerdy awkwardness to Rose’s self-consciousness that was different from any other production of Dogfight I’ve seen, and it worked. (It reminded both of us of Ben Platt’s Evan Hansen tics.) I was also greatly impressed by our Eddie. With Dogfight, no set is required (and as this one was in the Southwark’s “Little”, the black box room, there was none), but the story needs shrewd and careful direction to sing as it’s meant to. Dean Johnson’s direction definitely let the story land properly, as did the talent. It could be because we were all so close in that tiny room, but I was struck more than ever at how the soldiers’ reprise of their anthem was being sung out of heartbreaking desperation, a need to convince themselves that they were special and that what they were doing was guaranteed to garner them a homecoming parade, because if they stop thinking that for one second, they’ll realize they’re probably going to die. This was so well done, making you feel for the soldiers even though they’ve already established that they’re mostly bad people. And that’s the beauty of Dogfight, telling so effectively a character-driven story that lets you recognize the humanity in people that you might hate, and maybe their ability to change, which felt incredibly relevant in today’s culture.
Hopefully another production, or another run of these productions, will be coming to London again soon, because it was quite wonderful to see such strong work.
“The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk”: Love, War, and Marc Chagall
IT’S THEATRE THURSDAY Y’ALL! Today we are talking about “The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk”, currently at Wilton’s Music Hall as it begins its tour.
A relatively new, fairly abstract play called “The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk” is currently playing at Wilton’s Music Hall in London, and you should see it. I had no idea what it was about, but I live nearby and it’s theatre so I was game. This charming little play, amusing and moving, surprised me with how much it accomplished with so little. It tells the love story of Marc Chagall and his wife Bella, and how they created art and love during world wars. Light acrobatics and mesmerizing movements augment their narrative, to create a touching, energetic story about a painter’s personal life. The play it seemed to be in the beginning was not the play we were left with in the end, but even so, it’s a worthwhile endeavor to tell this story.
Honestly the only thing I knew about Marc Chagall going in was that Julia Roberts owned the famous painting of his, the one with the goat playing a violin flying around in space, and gave it, the real one, to Hugh Grant in “Notting Hill”, as you do to shy lil bookkeepers who may or may not ever want to see you again. Luckily he did (spoilers!) so she didn’t like give away a priceless authentic Chagall painting that would be so stupid. Anyway it’s a great painting so I figured the creator of it might be interesting. Like all artists, his character seemed to have a not-great set of priorities, as they put creating their art ahead of things like oh I don’t know the birth of their child, but still seemed to be a man capable of great feeling and understanding of the more abstract things than common sense, like love. From writer Daniel Jamieson and director Emma Rice, this play – seemingly, from the director’s note, produced out of their actual love story – is small but often powerful.
At the start, we see young Marc and Bella meet in the town of Vitebsk, now in Belarus. More than half the population was Jewish and so it had a staggering number of synagogues at the time (early 1900s), and so it was completely decimated in the war, they tell us in the beginning. The 90-minute play, though it uses the two onstage musicians in the action sometimes, is essentially just Marc and Bella, what people in the theatre would call a ‘two-hander’ because there are only two actors but I will fight my whole life against that phrase unless the two actors each only have one hand. (It should be called a four-hander, am I right?) Anyway, it’s nice to see a play about two Jews in a room bitching. Especially in London, where many people think Jews are alien. So Marc and Bella instantly fall in love and their initial courtship is kind of adorable. They talk to the audience a lot, and Bella confides in us that she knew he liked her and yet he waited so long to kiss her. One day on a picnic she thought he was coming in for one but instead he asks for his jacket, which she is sitting on. Super awkward and so funnily adorable! It’s crazy to hindsight to think back on how lighthearted a romp it felt in these hilarious moments compared to the heartbreaking weight of the end. The best scene is when Bella celebrates Marc’s birthday – his first birthday, he says, because he never celebrated it before. This play, in its first iteration 25 years ago, was actually called ‘Birthday’, I assume to highlight this event which surely solidified Marc’s love for Bella.
As Bella and Marc’s relationship grows, they portray this by doing aforementioned acrobatics, just a little bit, enough to completely captivate and convey their story and make you want more. It was so effective to see how they were falling for each other when they were literally falling through the air and being caught by the other and stuff, to see a representation of all of Marc’s famous paintings of them flying through the air together, buoyed by their love. LOVES IT. I loves it so much that the fact that they used this incredible movement only sparingly and only in the first half made me very upset. The selling point for this show, in my view, is that it’s telling this biographical tale in this fascinating new way. I mean it’s literally called “the FLYING lovers”, you know? I wanted much more flying. To take away the part that’s different, the part that sets it apart from other straight biographical plays, makes it just like any other straight drama and it’s not strong enough without its special quirks to stand out. Still good, still moving, but not as special as it would be if the movement were incorporated throughout. And I get that the directing choice may have been to decrease the brightness of such movement as the subject matter darkened, but I am sure that they still could have integrated some sort of choreography to tell the more serious parts of the story. And some of the movement we did see was valuable in conveying melancholy. I think it could have worked throughout the darker parts. I mean Cirque du Soleil is terrifying as shit.
It also uses music to tell the story, and also moreso in the beginning. I am not sure if I would call it a musical as opposed to a play with music, since it doesn’t actually tell the story but add to it, and of course because the music, like the fun movement, is front-loaded. The two onstage musicians, James Gow and Ian Ross, jump into the action a lot to lend their voices to some songs and to say a few lines as Soviet police officers here and there, and they do a fine job supporting the two stars. Marc Antolin as Marc (I know his name is with a ‘c’ too it was fate) and Daisy Maywood as Bella are lovely actors who really make you believe that they are feeling all the things. Their trust for each other is remarkable, and since it’s there I mean why not put it to more use with more of the acrobatic partner work? I know I can just repeat myself over and over but I just so want to see what this play could be with more of what made it special since that unique aspect was so effective.
We see Marc and Bella move to Paris and to St. Petersburg, then back to Vitebsk, and hither and thither during the war time as their safety and the lives of all Jews were threatened. As the second half loses the acrobatics and a lot of the music, a little magic was lost as well, but it may also be due to the story getting serious. It felt like it was dragging a bit as we learned about how terrible the war was, but that may be because war sucks. Also, as we learned more about the characters, the initial sheen fell away. Marc, it turns out, had anger issues like many artists have when their work isn’t seen as the end all be all of everybody’s lives. At one point, Bella gives birth to their daughter while they are living in a tiny apartment amid horrible atrocities occurring, and Marc is nowhere to be found. Days later, days after his child is born, he comes home and Bella’s like ‘duuude what the hell, I’m still in so much pain and I need your help taking care of a NEWBORN’ and Marc replies “Do you think what I do happens painlessly?” Artists are not in touch with reality, I guess, is a lesson of this play.
But this artist is in touch with his emotions, and his love for Bella helped him create some of his best work. The two characters talk about how they see new colors together, through and in each others’ eyes, and it’s true that Marc was considered one of the best when it came to understanding color, probably thanks to their love, which seemed significant. As I said, the second half did drag and lose some of its distinctiveness, because as a straight play without its special assets it has to measure up to other regular straight plays, better ones. But the end kind of tied everything together in a heartbreaking bow. A song that the characters sing to open the show seemed meaningless, just a fun period-appropriate song to get the party started, but when they reprise it at the end, it seems to envelop and explain the whole story in a superb, poignant way, and in turn to fortify whatever weaknesses in the play came before it.
INFORMATION
This Kneehigh company production of “The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk” is playing at Wilton’s Music Hall in London until February 10. After that, this production will tour England as well as the USA, making tour stops in Los Angeles and South Carolina. So if you are in those places, you should see it.
At the start, we see young Marc and Bella meet in the town of Vitebsk, now in Belarus. More than half the population was Jewish and so it had a staggering number of synagogues at the time (early 1900s), and so it was completely decimated in the war, they tell us in the beginning. The 90-minute play, though it uses the two onstage musicians in the action sometimes, is essentially just Marc and Bella, what people in the theatre would call a ‘two-hander’ because there are only two actors but I will fight my whole life against that phrase unless the two actors each only have one hand. (It should be called a four-hander, am I right?) Anyway, it’s nice to see a play about two Jews in a room bitching. Especially in London, where many people think Jews are alien. So Marc and Bella instantly fall in love and their initial courtship is kind of adorable. They talk to the audience a lot, and Bella confides in us that she knew he liked her and yet he waited so long to kiss her. One day on a picnic she thought he was coming in for one but instead he asks for his jacket, which she is sitting on. Super awkward and so funnily adorable! It’s crazy to hindsight to think back on how lighthearted a romp it felt in these hilarious moments compared to the heartbreaking weight of the end. The best scene is when Bella celebrates Marc’s birthday – his first birthday, he says, because he never celebrated it before. This play, in its first iteration 25 years ago, was actually called ‘Birthday’, I assume to highlight this event which surely solidified Marc’s love for Bella.
As Bella and Marc’s relationship grows, they portray this by doing aforementioned acrobatics, just a little bit, enough to completely captivate and convey their story and make you want more. It was so effective to see how they were falling for each other when they were literally falling through the air and being caught by the other and stuff, to see a representation of all of Marc’s famous paintings of them flying through the air together, buoyed by their love. LOVES IT. I loves it so much that the fact that they used this incredible movement only sparingly and only in the first half made me very upset. The selling point for this show, in my view, is that it’s telling this biographical tale in this fascinating new way. I mean it’s literally called “the FLYING lovers”, you know? I wanted much more flying. To take away the part that’s different, the part that sets it apart from other straight biographical plays, makes it just like any other straight drama and it’s not strong enough without its special quirks to stand out. Still good, still moving, but not as special as it would be if the movement were incorporated throughout. And I get that the directing choice may have been to decrease the brightness of such movement as the subject matter darkened, but I am sure that they still could have integrated some sort of choreography to tell the more serious parts of the story. And some of the movement we did see was valuable in conveying melancholy. I think it could have worked throughout the darker parts. I mean Cirque du Soleil is terrifying as shit.
It also uses music to tell the story, and also moreso in the beginning. I am not sure if I would call it a musical as opposed to a play with music, since it doesn’t actually tell the story but add to it, and of course because the music, like the fun movement, is front-loaded. The two onstage musicians, James Gow and Ian Ross, jump into the action a lot to lend their voices to some songs and to say a few lines as Soviet police officers here and there, and they do a fine job supporting the two stars. Marc Antolin as Marc (I know his name is with a ‘c’ too it was fate) and Daisy Maywood as Bella are lovely actors who really make you believe that they are feeling all the things. Their trust for each other is remarkable, and since it’s there I mean why not put it to more use with more of the acrobatic partner work? I know I can just repeat myself over and over but I just so want to see what this play could be with more of what made it special since that unique aspect was so effective.
We see Marc and Bella move to Paris and to St. Petersburg, then back to Vitebsk, and hither and thither during the war time as their safety and the lives of all Jews were threatened. As the second half loses the acrobatics and a lot of the music, a little magic was lost as well, but it may also be due to the story getting serious. It felt like it was dragging a bit as we learned about how terrible the war was, but that may be because war sucks. Also, as we learned more about the characters, the initial sheen fell away. Marc, it turns out, had anger issues like many artists have when their work isn’t seen as the end all be all of everybody’s lives. At one point, Bella gives birth to their daughter while they are living in a tiny apartment amid horrible atrocities occurring, and Marc is nowhere to be found. Days later, days after his child is born, he comes home and Bella’s like ‘duuude what the hell, I’m still in so much pain and I need your help taking care of a NEWBORN’ and Marc replies “Do you think what I do happens painlessly?” Artists are not in touch with reality, I guess, is a lesson of this play.
But this artist is in touch with his emotions, and his love for Bella helped him create some of his best work. The two characters talk about how they see new colors together, through and in each others’ eyes, and it’s true that Marc was considered one of the best when it came to understanding color, probably thanks to their love, which seemed significant. As I said, the second half did drag and lose some of its distinctiveness, because as a straight play without its special assets it has to measure up to other regular straight plays, better ones. But the end kind of tied everything together in a heartbreaking bow. A song that the characters sing to open the show seemed meaningless, just a fun period-appropriate song to get the party started, but when they reprise it at the end, it seems to envelop and explain the whole story in a superb, poignant way, and in turn to fortify whatever weaknesses in the play came before it.
INFORMATION
This Kneehigh company production of “The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk” is playing at Wilton’s Music Hall in London until February 10. After that, this production will tour England as well as the USA, making tour stops in Los Angeles and South Carolina. So if you are in those places, you should see it.
