review of *The Illusion*

(seen Oct. 18 at Cowles Auditorium; remaining performances on Oct. 23-24)

[ Pierre Corneille, 1606-84 ]

The final twist in Tony Kushner’s adaptation of Corneille’s The Illusion (at Whitworth, Oct. 23-24) is so ingenious, so unexpected, that it drew gasps and delighted laughter.

A lawyer seeks out a magician for helping in conjuring visions of the lawyer’s long-lost son -- and we’re treated to four episodes from the son’s life. Except that the details are all off, distorted. The father’s confused: Why are the situations and characters in my son’s life sort of what I expected, but also terribly inconsistent?

In a play that’s all about acting and metatheatrical in the extreme, the Whitworth student actors are all engaging. (Sorry, away from my program just now.) Diana Trotter directs so as to keep the sometimes exaggerated rhetoric of Corneille’s original in check, leavening it with jokes and undercutting the sentimentality. Peter Hardie designed the cave-interior set, complete with unexpected features that  certainly help in the special effects department.

For those who love acting and meditating about artifice -- and who like comedy mixed with bits of seriousness -- I’d recommend seeing this show. It appeals to theater types, and it’s not frequently done.

But there are two problem areas. First,.the four episodes ought to be been trimmed: Corneille tends to set up a situation and then elaborate it at length. We get that the idealistic young lover is head-over-heels for the lovely ingenue, and we get that later on, he must be frustrated when reduced to acting as a servant and submitted to men who are clearly his inferior. There’s a through-line, but it’s vague and wispy -- and yet the through-line is the payoff. Bobo’s mind wandered a bit: Now the son has learned to be contrite about his dalliances, and the father and the wizard are still standing around as spectators, and the emotional point of each scene, taken separately, tends to become clear -- and then yammered about at length.

Again, the Whitworth actors were spritely, energetic, engaging. But the scenes didn’t contain enough reversals. 

The second problem area is Leonard Oakland’s performance as Pridamant, the aged lawyer-father. (Full disclosure: It pains me to say this, because Leonard and I taught in the same department from 1990-97, and because he is a wonderfully warm person, gifted teacher, valued colleague and just a swell bon vivant.) But much of his performance is wooden and unconvincing. (There are moments, especially when Pridamant gets to express sarcasm or disappointment in his son’s adventures.) But Leonard is also called upon to express anguish and fear. A lot of his line readings were whiny, hesitant, not fully felt.

None of this should be taken as intending to dissuade playgoers from choosing this  production. And it was especially touching to hear that Trotter wanted Oakland in her cast because, after 43 years of teaching at Whitworth, he has justly earned at paternal image around campus. I mean, the students who get to act with Leonard Oakland are enjoying a real privilege.

But being learned, compassionate, twitchy, wise, eccentric, passionate -- all of which Leonard is -- does not necessarily equate with acting ability. The same lecture-hall talent for being presentational (in delivering a lecture) does not enrich an actor’s interiority. Leonard’s gangly, glasses-on-the-forehead exuberance behind the lectern detracts here from his depiction of Pridamant, who is emotionally distant, disoriented, exasperated, anguished.

Director Diana M. Trotter on Whitworth’s *The Illusion*

at Whitworth’s Cowles Auditorium, 300 W. Hawthorne Rd., on Fridays-Saturdays, Oct. 16-17 and Oct. 23-24, at 8 pm; also on Sunday, Oct. 18, at 2 pm. Tickets: $7; $5, students and seniors. Call 777-3707. Or go here.

Bobo’s Q&A with director Diana Trotter of Whitworth’s Theater Arts department and (at the end) with Leonard Oakland of Whitworth’s English department (and of Movies 101 and the Sunday-morning classical music show on KPBX) — a mashup of three e-mail exchanges:

In 1988, Tony Kushner revised Pierre Corneille’s 1636 play, L’Illusion Comique. He has added scenes, modernized the language (removed all those Alexandrine couplets) and more. 

Bobo:  I read it years ago and hated it, and all I know is: It's about regrets, false memories, the old man wishing he'd been a better parent, alternate realities, and so on. But I’m excited to see it onstage.
Professor Trotter:  Wow! I love it! But I do find as with all Kushner’s plays, that it doesn’t give itself up on the first reading — his plays get better and better for me each time I read them. I think he’s deceptively brilliant. And I personally love his ironic sense of comedy that pokes through even the most tragic of moments.

Why should we pay attention to some dumb 300-year-old French play?
Because Kushner has made it very relevant to a contemporary audience by highlighting what is not only timeless, but transforming it into a contemporary setting. The play challenges our clichés and assumptions, our dreams and ideals, by revealing that life isn’t a fairy tale and things are not always what they seem — which to me seems very contemporary. Yet there is still tremendous hope and power in his play. It’s a play that strikes me as refreshingly truthful and honest — ironic, given its title and theme. Ah! I love Kushner!
I’ve wanted to do this play for years – I think it’s probably one of the most challenging pieces I’ve ever done. I find it funny, poignant, joyous, tragic, and ultimately redemptive — but not an easy, pat redemption. Rather, it’s a redemption that comes from pain and growth as we learn to see ourselves as we truly are.

How will you stage it to reflect the play’s dreaminess?
We’re still talking about the design, but the set is really cool with lots of scrims to help us with theater magic. I would like to use as much theater magic as we’re able to come up with in our severely limited facility… Lighting and soundscape will be big factors, I imagine.

What kinds of changes did Kushner make?
For me, the really significant aspect of what Kushner has done is that he’s taken a very conventional romance/adventure and explored what’s beneath it. He’s taken two- dimensional, stereotypical characters common in 17th-century French drama and played with what would happen if they turned out to be real human beings with flaws. What’s beyond happily-ever-after? What motivates behavior that we just take for granted in an adventure? What happens if the hero loses the duel?
Kushner’s use of language is beautiful, rich and full of powerful imagery – but without the opaqueness of Corneille’s 17th-century verse. He also has his trademark sensibility of ironic humor — sometimes smacking us out of a false sentiment with a splash of cold water, as it were. Yet he also never shies away from deep genuine sentiment. I find this play heartbreakingly beautiful and poignant. His other characteristic is his ambiguity: When I teach this play, the students are always split over whether the ending is hopeful or bleak.

What are the play’s themes?
The cost of genuine love, the price and pain of redemption, the power of the arts and of the intangible “illusions” of life such as love, faith, hope, transcendence.

What's the funniest line or episode from the play? (Don't give away any spoilers — but I'm afraid people might think it's all very heavy and intellectual.)
It’s so not heavy and intellectual — it’s a comedy, albeit an ironic one, with surprising poignancy and depth. There’s a Don Quixote-type character who is hilarious. And a fight between two rivals who are too young to know how to fight that’s also really funny. The other fights are exciting and scary!

Why does the magician show the old man his son in three differing and varied scenarios? What's the point of introducing all the confusion?
Well, now, there’s the question! I’m not telling because that would be a spoiler.

What's been the biggest surprise in rehearsals so far?
How challenging this play is. But then, I really wasn’t surprised by that. The actors have to play characters who are the same but also different in each of the three scenarios. They have to grow up and mature as the scenes get more complex — it’s not easy!



Anything else?
Leonard Oakland is playing the role of the father who comes seeking information about his rebellious son — I’m really excited about that! He’s really talented and has such a strong wonderful presence as the father. Plus his role as a mentor to so many students at Whitworth makes him doubly resonant as the father figure at odds with his child.


Bobo’s e-mail exchange with Leonard Oakland:
Bobo:  What are Pridamant's two best and two worst traits? (I don't have a script. I keep reading that he has his faults and virtues — but what are they?)
Professor Oakland:  He is a granite-hearted, vain and rich lawyer who drove out his son years ago. He is ashamed to be visiting a sorcerer for news of his son, but he can’t stop thinking about him, now that he is facing death.
He is not a man of many evident virtues or kindnesses, he lacks self-knowledge (always a dead give-away), but he is shocked into tears (his first ever) by the visions of his son provided by the sorcerer.

In slogging through rehearsals, do you have newfound respect for actors? In what sense?
I have a huge respect for actors (my daughter has been one much of her life, though not at present). I also have a renewed respect for the ability of 20-year olds to memorize lines quickly. The students are all off-book, but I am not despite going over and over my speeches. When actors are working well, they convey a brilliance it is almost hard to watch up close, when I am on the stage. And they have apparently endless energy (even in flu season).

Has the father/son dynamic in the play at all affected your father/son dynamic in real life?
Not at all. I have always been brutal to my children to prepare them for the world, so Pridamant is merely typecasting.

[ photo: from a Feb. 2005 production of The Illusion at the University of South Carolina; see more photos here ]

*A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum* -- Philia, Hero, Hysterium and Pseudolus

at Spokane Civic Theatre's Main Stage, May 15-June 14, 2009
directed by Diana M. Trotter
www.spokanecivictheatre.com
325-2507

[photo by Josh Smith -- in back: Callie Bley as Philia and Jesse Ward as Hero
In foreground: Gary Pierce as Hysterium and Jerry Sciarrio as Pseudolus ]

Opened on Broadway 47 years ago this week with Zero Mostel as Pseudolus and Jack Gilford as Hysterium.
Jerome Robbins, of course, is the one who insisted that the show needed a rousing opening number -- which inspired Sondheim to write "Comedy Tonight."
Based on three plays written 2,200 years ago by the Roman playwright Plautus.
Erich Segal wrote translations of Plautus -- his translation of *Miles Gloriosus,* for example, appeared in 1969, the year before *Love Story* (the novel; the Ali McGraw-Ryan O'Neal movie appeared in '71); Segal continues to this day as a classics scholar.
All three actors who have played Pseudolus on Broadway (Mostel '62, Phil Silvers '72, Nathan Lane '96) have won the Tony for Best Actor.
The 1966 film was Buster Keaton's last; he played Erronius. Michael Crawford (as in Phantom)) was Hero. Mostel and Gilford reprised their stage roles from four years before. Michael Hordern (distinguished British actor, played King Lear and Prospero in the BBC Shakespeare series of 1978-84) played Senex. But the movie cuts Pseudolus' song "Free," which he sings right after making the deal with Hero and falling out of a tree. The movie, in fact, cuts much of Sondheim's score.

Pseudolus is the laziest slave in Rome. He yearns to be "Free." When Senex and Domina leave town, Pseudolus gathers that their son Hero has the hots for the virgin-among-courtesans next door, Philia. If Pseudolus procures the girl for Hero, can he gain his freedom? Well, there are a few complications along the way.

The two houses next door belong to Marcus Lycus, the pimp for a house of ill repute, and Erronius, who's out wandering around and looking for his long-lost son and daughter.

Philia has been promised to Miles Gloriosus ("braggart soldier"). So Pseudolus convinces Marcus Lycus that Philia caught the plague in Crete -- she really needs to be sequestered over at Hero's house. But Marcus Lycus insists that Philia ultimately belongs to the army captain.
So Pseudolus concocts a story about how Philia has died of the plague -- which requires him to get her a sleeping potion that will mimic death. Then Philia and Hero can stow away on a boat and be together. Pseudolus gets a recipe for a sleeping potion from Hysterium, the head slave; all he lacks is a key ingredient, mare's sweat.

But then Senex returns home unexpectedly, and things get complicated. For reasons too complicated to go into, Philia throws herself at Senex (thinking that he is the army captain), and he's only too happy to play along; Senex decides to take a bath in Erronius' house, just before the latter returns from his wandering; Erronius is convinced that his own house is haunted, and so Pseudolus sends him on a wild goose chase all around Rome, just to be rid of him.

Miles Gloriosus turns up to claim his bride, which causes Pseudolus to impersonate Marcus Lycus and come up with a not-very-good lie. The army captain gets suspicious, and Pseudolus looks to be in a really tight spot. When Domina shows up, worried that her husband Senex might be engaging in some hanky-panky, she disguises herself in a virginal white robe and veil -- just like Philia, and just like Hysterium, who's in drag because ... oh, just go see the show.

*A Funny Thing ..." at the Civic: cast list

*A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum*
Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart

Directed by Diana Trotter
Musical direction by Scott Miller

with Jerry Sciarrio as Pseudolus
Gary Pierce as Hysterium
Robert Wamsley as Senex
Lauralynn "Lulu" Stafford as Domina
Jesse Ward as Hero
Callie Bley as Philia
Tom Heppler as Marcus Lycus
Shawn Hudson as Miles Gloriosus
George Morrison as Erronius
Todd Kehne, David McCarthy and Shawna Nordman as Protean
Rachel Ewing and Jessica Shirley as the Geminae
Jess Liles as Gymnasia
Leah Dach as Vibrata
Rachel Packard as Panacea
and Kim Kromholtz as Tintinabula

May 15-June 14 at the Civic
Tickets: $26; $24, seniors; $16, students; $8, student rush
Visit www.SpokaneCivicTheatre.com or www.TicketsWest.com or call 325-2507 or 325-SEAT.

*A Funny Thing* at IBDb.com is here.
The Zero Mostel production opened in 1962.

[ image: from digitalsheetmusic.com ]

*Forum* auditions, March 22-23

*A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum*

Try out at the Civic's Studio Theater on Sunday, March 22, at 6 pm or Monday, March 23, at 6:30 pm. (Callbacks: Tuesday, March 24, at 6:30 pm. Rehearsals will begin on Wednesday, March 25.)

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by Burt Shevlove and Larry Gelbart

Directed by Diana Trotter

Roles available for a dozen men and a dozen women.
Cold readings; Also perform a verse and a chorus from a contemporary musical. Please bring your own sheet music. An accompanist will be provided.

Performances: May 15-June 14

Featuring the unforgettable tunes "Comedy Tonight," "Lovely," and "Everybody Ought to Have a Maid."

Of COURSE you know that Zero Mostel and Nathan Lane starred as Pseudolus in the '62 and '96 Broadway productions. But to find out who starred on Broadway in the rather ill-fated '72 production, go here.

Diana Trotter on *The Cradle Will Rock* at Whitworth

(photo: Marc Blitzstein at the piano; undated, possibly from c. 1937)
at Cowles Auditorium
Thursday, Oct. 9 (dress rehearsal), Fridays-Saturdays, Oct. 10-11 and 17-18, at 7:30 pm, and Sunday, Oct. 12, at 2 pm
$7; $5, students
Call 777-3707

from Wikipedia:
*The Cradle Will Rock* is a 1937 musical by Marc Blitzstein. Originally a part of the Federal Theatre Project, it was directed by Orson Welles, and produced by John Houseman.
The musical is a Brechtian allegory of corruption and corporate greed. Set in "Steeltown, USA", it follows the efforts of Larry Foreman to unionize and otherwise combat wicked businessman Mr. Mister. Blitzstein portrays a whole panoply of societal figures: Mr. Mister's vicious, outwardly genteel philanthropic wife and spoiled children, sell-out artists, poor shopkeepers, immigrant families, a faithless priest, and an endearing prostitute named Moll. The piece is almost entirely sung-through, giving it many operatic qualities, although Blitzstein (as he often did, even in his full-blown operas) included popular song styles of the time.

See the Oct. 9 Inlander, p. 40, for Tammy Marshall's article on the show

** Bobo: Honestly, were you attracted to doing the show even before Tim Robbins’ ’99 movie?
Diana Trotter, professor of theater arts, Whitworth University: I was always interested in the show because I of course had read about it, and was very curious about what it looked and sounded like. When I saw the movie and saw the re-enactment of some of the scenes and heard the music, I fell in love with it. It’s been on my short list of “must-do” plays for a few years now. I love that big presentation style, I love the music, and of course I love the political and social commentary.

** Musically, what’s the most complex moment in the show, the most difficult to stage?
Trotter: A lot of the music is very challenging — one of the most complex aspects is that even the dialogue is underscored and thus has to be in rhythm with the music, and some of those places are really tricky. In the final scene, there is a montage of overlapping singing and dialogue that was a bear to put together — both musically and in terms of staging.

[ Bobo sez: There's a kind of surprise ending to Trotter's staging of *Cradle* -- He wishes he could give it away, but has been sworn to secrecy. Let's just say that Blitzstein's power-to-the-people theme will be embodied by the staging at one point. ]

** Whitworth students tend to be upper-middle-class (and not working class) and conservative (not liberal). Doesn’t that affect the students’ receptiveness to a show like this? And hasn’t this wealthy/conservative bias only GROWN in the 15 years you’ve been there?
Trotter: I think the bias has grown, although in just these past couple of years I have seen a shift in the other direction among the students. There is a lot more concern about the environment and other social causes on campus then there used to be. I think the Murdock grant (five years, $5 million) really changed the climate here — a lot more intentional emphasis on social justice, civic engagement, community-based programming. It’s made a difference. I also think that the very fact that our students come from a particular social and economic background makes this play very important from an educational standpoint, because they don’t know about the history of labor or of unions. They don’t know much about the Federal Theatre Project (until they take Theatre History). But because they’ve been involved with this show, they know more about those issues than they used to. And we’ve talked a lot about how these issues are once again becoming critical as we move in to this global economy with job outsourcing and endless reductions in the very benefits they were fighting for in the 1930s. As the market has crashed and we witness this incredible economic catastrophe, the issues raised in the play become even more interesting to them. As for students NOT in the play, many freshman seminar sections are requiring attendance. And we have a high school audience of more than 700 coming next Thursday morning for our reduced-rate school production.

** You have smart students there, but I bet there were jaw-dropping things that they DIDN’T know about the Depression (setting aside Welles, Houseman, the WPA, unions, etc.) Any examples you care to share?
Trotter: They didn’t realize that most of the benefits we take for granted didn’t exist in those days: worker’s comp, minimum wage, 40-hour work week, anti-discrimination, at-will firings, etc. They also didn’t know about the violence perpetrated by the companies and the government on the workers. I sent them news articles about some of the strikes back in the 1930s, and they were stunned by what they read. At this age, they have an innate sense of fairness and are easily outraged by what they see as injustice once they know about it.

** And as Trotter notes, the 1937 production of *The Cradle Will Rock* represents the only time in American history when the government sent armed guards to keep a play from being performed.