Phoenix Theatre Ensemble

Hapgood

mandy — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 03:00:00 +0000

Tom Stoppard’s 1988 espionage thriller, Hapgood, addresses the insanity of the Cold War by zooming in on a band of British spies. Alongside the CIA, the group engages in crosses and double-crosses, the end result being little more than a game of chicken.

Led by Mrs. Elizabeth Hapgood, AKA Betty, AKA Mother--played by actor Elise Stone with a perfect mix of sass and sadness—the reconnaissance team’s efforts are a showcase for three distinct plot lines: The juggling of employment and child rearing responsibilities for single mothers; the temptation of forbidden love; and the competitive race for scientific knowledge between the “free world” and the Communist bloc. While the first two themes are presented with straightforward punch, the latter is muddled, perhaps emblematic of the Cold War itself. As Hapgood says near the denouement of the play, “It’s them or us. We’re keeping each other in business. We should send each other Christmas cards.”

Indeed, the inanity of the spy effort is underscored as the two-act drama unfolds. Can anyone be trusted? Is it possible to know good people from bad? As the characters assess and then reassess one another, a host of preposterous, and often funny, mishaps occur. Hapgood’s associates—Ridley (Jason O’Connell), Merryweather (Brian Costello), and Kerner (Joseph Menino)—stomp, probe, and snoop, all the while trying to determine who among them is leaking strategic military secrets to Moscow. Unfortunately, despite terrific acting and wonderful staging, this element of the plot is confusing as it intertwines numerical data—supplemented by a host of algebraic and scientific formulae that are projected onto the stage’s back wall—into the dialogue. Yes, it’s illustrative of the secrets being pursued, but the long-winded repartee gets tiresome for non-scientifically inclined audience members.

Apparently, this was of little concern to Stoppard who reportedly became obsessed with particle physics when his son was studying the subject. “Stoppard saw in physics a metaphor for human nature,” the Playbill for Hapgood explains. “Does light operate like a bullet or a wave? The answer is both—depending on whether it’s being observed or not. So too people, who have different selves sharing the one body, which appear or disappear depending on who’s looking.”

Hapgood’s exploration of duality includes all the tricks of the international spy trade—or at least the ones one might find in a John Le Carre novel. There’s blackmail, entrapment, fraud, lying, and kidnapping. At the same time, there’s also kindness, collegiality, loyalty, and love between contending parties.

Some critics have found Hapgood dated, but while the Cold War is surely over, the ongoing international quest for domination and conquest of the Middle East and Africa makes espionage as relevant today was it was decades back. That said, I would have enjoyed Hapgood more had it been pared down, with a tightened script that shifted the focus to politics rather than mathematical and scientific jargon.

Stoppard had an answer for critics like me: “I must stop compromising my plays with this whiff of social application. They must be entirely untouched by any suspicion of usefulness,” he wrote in the late 1970s. Using that criterion, Hapgood fits the bill, turning the foreign policy foibles of world governments into something that is both absurd and mildly entertaining.

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, December 19th 2010

A Man’s A Man

mandy — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Phoenix Theatre Ensemble

If playwright Bertolt Brecht were alive today, he’d likely blanch at the contemporary tendency to seek common ground with those whose ideologies are diametrically opposed to one’s own. His dozens of plays speak truth to power in daring, direct language and, while farce and sarcasm are employed, his repeated denunciations of colonialism, war, and militarism are boldly presented. A Man’s a Man (sometimes called Man Equals Man) was first staged in Dusseldorf and Darmstadt, Germany in 1926. Eighty-four years later, The Phoenix Theatre Ensemble’s beautifully-presented staged reading of the play is so relevant that the audience quickly forgets the age of the work.

Themes include the folly of armed conflict; the ways gender stereotypes are used to manipulate men and women into serving the Empire; and the ways youth are unscrupulously lured into patriotic service. Identity—whether we develop into thinking adults or order-following automatons—also comes into focus. The end result is riveting—full of wit, sass, and pointed jabs at the never-ending quest for land and resources that ensnares so many political regimes.

The action of A Man’s a Man follows a motley band of soldiers who belong to The Royal Imperial Army. In Kilkoa, India to guard—or perhaps loot—the Pagoda of the Yellow Monks, the play zeroes in on the Eighth Regiment, AKA The Scum—and what happens when one of their members, Jeraiah Jip, suddenly becomes unable to continue in Her Majesty’s armed forces. Since a Unit requires four men, the remaining three expect big trouble when Sergeant Fairchild, AKA Bloody Five [played by Grant Neale], arrives on the scene. Known for his fiery temper—Bloody earned his nickname after killing five Hindu prisoners—his underlings know that their superior will be apoplectic when, or if, he learns that Jip is gone.

In short order, Unit members devise a plan in which happy-go-lucky Galy Gay (Josh Tyson), “a man who can’t say no,” is hoodwinked into pretending to be the no-longer-present Mr. Jip. “One man is as good as another,” the soldiers quip, thrilled to have concocted so simple a solution to their conundrum. Gay is first promised cigars and beer for agreeing to go along with the deception; later, as they step up their brainwashing, the audience watches Gay morph into the perfect soldier—compliant, docile, and obedient.

The ten short scenes of A Man’s a Man, framed by a Prologue and Epilogue, move quickly, and include a bevy of rousing—and pitch-perfect, often hilarious—song-and-dance numbers. The nine characters, plus a keyboardist, are on stage at all times. They read with tremendous force, unapologetically delivering Brecht’s none-too-subtle critique of imperialist expansion. Elise Stone is particularly good as Widow Begbick, whose wily charms are used to raise questions about what it means for men to be men. Her sexy persona is used to profound effect and showcases the inane impact of both personal and political rapacity—whether in 1920s India or today’s Iraq and Afghanistan.

The seven-year-old Phoenix Theatre Ensemble is to be commended for reviving a play that other actors had relegated to history’s attic. The Company asks that patrons pay $25 per ticket, but their policy is to allow audience members to pay whatever they wish for each show.

Written by: Eleanor J. Bader, November 26th 2010

I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me By a Young Lady From Rwanda (4/13/2008)

admin — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 03:18:00 +0000

Phoenix Theatre Ensemble

New York, New York

I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me By a Young Lady From Rwanda is an amazing two-person play set in London, England in the modern day. It chronicles one Rwandan refugee’s struggle to write about what happened to her in 1994, and the Englishman who helps her.

While living in England, Juliette (Susan Hayward) meets an aging poet, Simon (Joseph J. Menino), who works at the refugee center part-time. She comes to him for help in getting her book about the Rwandan genocide published. After reading her work, Simon notes that the book is completely—and only—historical and factual, so much so that he asks, “Where are you in all of this, Juliette? Where is your story?”

The rest of the play follows Simon and Juliette as they create a much more personal account—Juliette’s account—of the genocide. They are the only two characters we ever see, but Simon’s wife and Juliette’s younger brother are important off-stage recurring characters. The theater itself is set very sparsely; only a small table and two straight-backed chairs adorn the stage while most other props are brought to life through the actors’ movements.

I found two things especially interesting about the way the play is performed. First, Simon and Juliette tell the audience their thoughts. At one point, Simon “reads” his poetry for a group of people, but instead of the poem, the audience hears an inner monologue—what Simon is thinking while he’s reading aloud to the imaginary audience. He and Juliette both speak as though directly to the (real) audience throughout the play, whether or not the other character is present. Hayward and Menino, however, do a great job clarifying the separation between personal thoughts meant only for their characters (and the audience) and dialogue with one another.

Secondly, even when Juliette and Simon face each other, they also face the audience. For example, when Simon is reading his poetry to an imaginary audience, he faces the actual audience. Juliette, who is part of the imaginary audience, sits near him, but is also facing the real audience. The effect is notable; though they are not looking at one another (or even facing each other), the actors did a great job making the connection between the two characters clear.

Running for ninety minutes without an intermission, I Have Before Me a Remarkable Document Given to Me By a Young Lady From Rwanda is a beautiful tribute to the humanity within the inhumanity in the Rwandan genocide. I don’t want to spoil the play for those who would like to see it, but let me say it’s certainly worth the watch. I was brought to tears more than once. The play ends with Juliette and Simon reading her the beginning of her book to an imaginary (and the real) audience: “Once upon a time…” belays their hope for a good and humane future. I congratulate the Phoenix Theatre Enemble, Sonja Linden (the playwright), Joseph J. Menino, and especially Susan Hayward for putting together a truly remarkable performance.

Written by: Viannah Duncan, April 23rd 2008