Knightley’s Duchess Shines in an Uninspired Period Piece

Last night, after more than willingly being wined and dined, I, in my rather happily besotted state, was introduced to Georgiana, an impeccably dressed, lovely young woman of eighteen years of age who was abundantly pleased and honored to be selected for marriage by the Duke of Devonshire.  Perhaps “honored” isn’t exactly the right word for it: poor Georgiana, after all, was about to enter a formal and loveless marriage to the rather stiff and dull Duke, who would show his two similarly personality-deficient mongrels more affection than he ever would his own wife and children.  Throughout the course of their opulent aristocratic existence, Georgiana would painfully discover the selfishness and desperation of the women of her time; that, in truth, marriage is always a “duty,” never a joy; and that every woman must sacrifice her own happiness for that of her children – who, one day, will inevitably do the same for their own luckless progeny.

If the sentiments and situations of screenwriter Jeffrey Hatcher’s The Duchess appear all too familiar, that’s because they are.  While we’ve been transported from France to England, and there’s a distinct lack of excessive parties, decadent desserts, and an insanely awesome shoe collection, and certainly everyone’s head remains firmly attached to the body, The Duchess does remind us a bit of Sophia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette, as well as countless other films that deal with the constricted lives of the softer sex in periods past.  While Saul Dibb’s direction is more classic costume drama in its elegant simplicity than stunning in its stylishness (as Coppola’s work was), his softer and more reserved tone is supported by Gyula Pados’s lush and sweeping cinematography that fittingly reminds us of that acclaimed period piece (Pride & Prejudice) that also boasts the waifish yet sassily strong-willed Keira Knightley.

 

Knightley

 

 

Knightley gives one of her finest and most affecting performances to date as the Duchess of Devonshire (and yes, I’ll go so far as to say her skills here are even more stunning than those she demonstrated in Atonement).  With every personal disappointment and  societal restriction that is forced upon Georgiana, this young and quite talented actress reacts honestly and flawlessly:  composed and refined on the surface, Georgiana’s heartache and fire are kept in check, always subtly visible on Knightley’s delicate porcelain doll face, but never overcoming, and we feel our own guts wrench as we know hers must at such trying times.  Only once does G – as her husband familiarly (and therefore strangely) refers to her –  allow her composure to crumble, and only when her maternal feelings and warmth are questioned, but even then, only for the briefest of moments.  But oh, how we feel her suffering thanks to Knightley’s keenly nuanced depiction of the Duchess’s difficulties.   Ralph Fiennes is the cold, distant, and unfeeling husband who refuses G’s every pleasure – even that of a lover, though he himself takes on a myriad of mistresses.  As per usual, Fiennes doesn’t disappoint, though it would be nice to see him play a role that requires a bit of warmth and emotion at some point.  

While the entire cast is lovely and in sync, all offering gratifyingly subtle performances (thank goodness Mama Mia! and History Boys’s Dominic Cooper – playing G’s lover – is finally given a decent vehicle through which to demonstrate his fine abilities), they can never quite make us forget that what we’re watching, we’ve all seen before.  Not only that, but we’ve seen it done better.  Georgiana Spencer didexist in 18th century England, and she is well-known as being one of the very first celebrities, as well as a politically active feminine figure for her time.  But does the film capitalize on these choice characteristics?  No. Rather, her importance as a British cultural and historical icon (and one who contemporary women could certainly relate to) is offered in the form of only slightly interesting, yet entirely throwaway tidbits that actually, when they appear, are quite irksome as they take away from what the film raises as the main issue at hand: will the spirited G ever leave that dastardly Duke?  As tame as the film’s politics are, it does attempt to make some kind of comment on freedom, which theme is not exactly seamlessly woven throughout the plot, and which never appears to resolve itself through the film’s uninspiring conclusion (if one can call it that).

Despite its lack of fervor in meaning and topicality, The Duchess offers many wonderful moments brimming with quiet, yet deeply felt emotions thanks largely due to the dedicated and sensitive Knightley.  Will Oscar be a-buzzin’ ’round everyone’s favorite British It Girl?  Unfortunately, I think Knightley’s intuitive and moving performance is not flashy enough to draw attention to this quiet film and its creators, but one hopes that it will draw her to films more worthy of her high caliber of talent.

A Rather Sad “Affair”

Despite overcast skies and that tangible feeling of impending rain, 48th St. on Sunday afternoon exuded happy anticpation with its line of chatty theatergoers and group of smiling producers who milled about with a sense of satisfied ease.  The atmosphere inside the Walter Kerr Theatre, however, more closely mirrored the weather outside:  only 90 minutes later, emotions would run high and fast, and there would be flowers, many tears, and a wistful farewell speech.

But is anyone really surprised that A Catered Affair, which walked away empty-handed from both the Tonys and the Drama Desk Awards, would close on July 28 after only 116 performances?  What many describe as a chamber musical – my favourite vague and most unnecessary categorization since “concept musical” – this melancholy little musical with its understated score and realistic (ie. imperfectly rhymed and not quite eloquent) lyrics by John Bucchino, in his first attempt at the Broadway book musical, is based on an original teleplay by Paddy Chayefsky as filmed by Gore Vidal.  Penning the sober book is Broadway favourite Harvey Fierstein who gave himself the only few laughs in the production as the flamboyant live-in uncle of the Hurley family.  When Jane (Leslie Kritzer) announces to Ma and Pa Hurley that she wishes to elope with beau Ralph Halloran (an under-utilized Matt Cavenaugh, last seen in the much more interesting Grey Gardens), she offers the only dramatic impetus in a show built solely around the theme of marriage.  The Bronx family is scraping by in an apparently loveless 1950s marriage as father Tom attempts to start a new business in a desperate attempt to give his family a better life – all the while dealing with the recent death of their only son in the war and desiring to give their oft-neglected daughter a wedding to remember. 

Celebrated director John Doyle, instead of enriching the emotion and intimacy necessary for such a small musical, offers sparse and rather cold staging.  Presumably to compliment the rather thin book and score, Doyle places gossiping housewives on various flats representing apartment levels (David Gallo’s set is reminiscent of a more bare bones West Side Story fire escape), and the actors wander back and forth across only a small portion of the stage.  It appears that without instruments in hand, Mr. Doyle, famous (notorious, perhaps?) for his use of actor-musicians in the recent revivals of Sweeney Todd and Company, was unable to manipulate the large space to create a necessary intimacy.  As it was, the large Broadway house swallowed the Hurleys whole; this small and curious musical, like so many others in past years, suffered largely because it simply did not belong on the Great White Way.

Had Affair been placed in a smaller space, with audience and actors in closer connection, it may have effectively pulled spectators into the emotional undercurrents of the show, despite the understated dialogue and the score that never soars to emotional heights or even offers a standard Broadway melody to hum along to.  Not that Bucchino should be limited by such expectations: the score’s conceit of offering a constant undercurrent to the show (much dialogue is underscored) that allows the performers to weave out of spoken, and into sung, dialogue is an interesting and certainly a valid one for a show in which the characters are so ordinary and emotionally reserved that they would never, ever sing.  While this quiet and rather unmelodic score suits the conservative Hurleys, it does not, however, offer an inspired or cathartic evening at the theatre.  

Fortunately for Mr. Bucchino, Affair was lucky enough to gather the extraordinary talents of Tom Wopat as Tom Hurely and Faith Prince as his wife, Aggie.  While the score may deny the Hurleys the dramatic motivation and emotional release they so achingly need, Wopat and Prince rise above the constraints of the show and offer audiences performances filled with pain, longing, bitterness, and defeat.  It is not when Tom angrily retorts to his wife in song, “I Stayed,” that we recognize and actuallyfel his suffering, but in the tortured look he gives her when she states that their marriage is and has always been loveless.  And it is not when Aggie offers her “Vision” of a perfect wedding that we truly see what she has sacrificed and denied herself all of these years; it is when Prince is left sitting in a chair, disconsolately staring off into an empty room that we feel the deep sadness that is within her character.  Musical scores need not heighten emotions nor cause us to leave the theatre humming a happy tune, but their selection as a method of storytelling should be of a more inspired reason:  if the characters are not emotionally capable of singing, as Bucchino’s constant spoken/sung and subdued score implies, why set their story to music at all?    Not a rhetorical question at all, but perhaps one that writers and producers alike should more thoughtfully consider when taking on such a project. 

* * *

Outside, a few persistent raindrops fought to break through the thick air surrounding the Walter Kerr. Inside, during their final curtain call, the cast of A Catered Affair, after ninety straight minutes of restrained emotion, was finally allowed a moment of release.  

And the rain felt good.

 

The Not-So-Pretty Shape of Things

Neil LaBute is nasty.  

His characters are harsh, cruel, at times entirely despicable, and the dramatic situations don’t exactly bring out the best in them.  There’s nothing pleasant about a Neil LaBute play and everyone who’s read or seen one would agree.

When you hear something like the above, it makes you want to see it — and like it — even more.  And boy, did I want to like LaBute.  Clearly the guy’s got chutzpah, and I wanted to know what all this huffing and puffing was about — especially when it came from folks who, in their next breaths, would spout the praises of Mamet or Shepherd.  I mean, really.

Which is why one hot, sticky night last summer, stuck in Times Square with not a reasonably priced Broadway show in sight, I hopped on the train and headed to Greenwich Village where I promptly bought a $15 tkt, settled into the cozy MCC Theater, and gleefully waited for what I could only hope was to be a brutal drama full of vicious characters throwing snarky daggers of dialogue at one another.  

In a Dark, Dark House is aptly titled.  Abuse can’t be construed as a light subject matter no matter how you spin it, and LaBute took full advantage of that, creating both complex and extraordinarily difficult – in both senses of the word – characters.  I wasn’t bothered by the fact that I never took a liking to any of the three presented; rather I was intrigued by their stories – how they came to be so hard and unsympathetic and how their relationships worked, especially the maliciously dismissive manner in which the brothers spoke and responded to each other.  If the play didn’t excuse their actions, at least it offered us reasons behind their behavior.

Maybe it’s because I’ve never seen it, but The Shape of Things wasn’t as effective in its own endeavor to discuss relationships via art.  I knew the plot before reading it, and though that may have taken away a bit of the ending’s shock value, it doesn’t account for my frustration while reading it.  

Evelyn, an MFA art student, is working on her thesis project when she meets Adam, a schlubby college student by day, security guard at the local art museum by night.  The relationship dynamic is clear from the start:  the pretentious hardass would-be Picasso is going to have meek, malleable Adam wrapped around her not-so-dainty pinky in no time.  And sure enough she does:  she thinks he’d look cuter with shorter hair, so he cuts it.  That 90s reject of a corduroy jacket that he loves so much?  Good Will, baby.  Then there’s that extra bit of flesh on the tip of his nose…Yep, he sure does  go under the knife for her.  

Of course, we’re talking about relationships here.  How far would you go for someone you love?  How much would you change about yourself?  Are there limits?  Adam doesn’t think so.  Adam goes all the way.  And in the end, he pays for it.  

Sounds a little too obvious, right?  And it is.  Even more laborious is that, woven in and around all of these horrid makeover scenarios is the inevitable question:  what is art?  Can Evelyn’s transformation of Adam be considered art?   (Oh yes, my friends, back to philosophizing grad school, we go).  I do believe there was a statement declaring (and I’m paraphrasing here): “When Picasso took a shit, he didn’t call it a sculpture.  He knew the difference.”  I know the difference, too, Mr. LaBute, and your play is not quite the latter.

The Shape isn’t totally off though.  All the ingredients are there:  the characters are alive and vivid (in all their wretchedness and crippling insecurity), the dialogue is quick to the cut and starkly real.  There’s something about LaBute’s use of language that always manages to grab you from the start and sucks you in until the very end:  it’s sparse, but succinct, and very much American.  The way his characters never quite manage to finish a spoken thought — how they actually avoid speaking, because as soon as they do, all that pent up emotion comes pouring out of them in torrents of bitterness and anger.  It’s a powerful device, but certainly one that has the ability to alienate just as many as many as it has struck a chord with.  And with Shape, LaBute doesn’t quite seem to hit his stride.  It’s all too…Evelyn…so to speak.  Evelyn’s aloofness and elitism — extended to her cruel judgement and treatment of Adam’s friends who she deems uncultured and lacking — doesn’t just define her, it defines the play.  The art speak is convoluted and elite in its own right — LaBute, for example, abuses Oscar Wilde —  not only his multitudinous thoughts on art (which are, in fact, more apt than any play which quotes them), but his tragic life as well.  Too often, the play, like the artist Evelyn herself, feels like it’s trying to prove itself.  To whom exactly, I’m not sure, but the result — much like Adam and Eve(lyn)’s ending — is the poorer for it.