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REVIEW: "The Chinese Lady" at Barrington Stage

REVIEW: “The Chinese Lady” at Barrington Stage

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REVIEW: "Heisenberg" at Shakespeare & Company

REVIEW: “Heisenberg” at Shakespeare & Company

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REVIEW: "Mothers and Sons" at Shakespeare & Company

REVIEW: “Mothers and Sons” at Shakespeare & Company

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by Roseann Cane

“There is nothing permanent except change.”  –Heraclitus

As the lights come up we see two people, a mature woman wrapped in a mink and a handsome man on the outskirts of middle age, peering into the distance. They stand parallel, about a couple of yards apart, in a well-appointed New York apartment, but they are clearly making an effort to engage in polite small talk. Perhaps the man, Cal Porter (Bill Mootos) is trying a bit harder to entertain his guest, Katherine Gerard (Annette Miller), as he describes the sweeping view from their Central Park West window. He animatedly points out the reservoir, the Metropolitan Museum, the building where Jacqueline Onassis lived.

Occasionally he pauses to ask Katherine if he may take her coat (“I’m not staying”) or if she would like some refreshment (“I’m fine, thank you”). Her eyes never leave the view of Central Park, and we notice there is a profound sadness behind the pinched expression on her face. We notice that although Cal looks in her direction frequently as he continues chatting, Katherine continues to stare ahead for awhile. It takes her a bit of time to participate in the conversation.

Katherine’s son, Andre, who died from AIDS 20 years earlier, had been Cal’s partner. She has not seen Cal since Andre’s memorial service, and today’s visit was unexpected. She has been living in Texas and, we soon learn, her husband has recently died.

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Miller’s quietly blistering a performance is masterful. Her Katherine wrestles with despair, anger, and regret. As she states her belief that “Andre wasn’t gay when he came to New York,” that somebody “made him gay,” we learn that Andre had been a talented actor whose career was on the rise, yet she never attended his performances. Mootos elegantly conveys Cal’s capacity for forgiveness. He is a man who has learned to accept and embrace life’s changes. His is a steady, knowing portrayal, emanating loving kindness even as he steels himself for Katherine’s resentment.

Cal’s husband, Will Ogden (David Gow), and their six-year-old son, Bud (Evan Miller in the performance I saw, alternating with Hayden Hoffman) eventually burst into the apartment after a romp in the winter-slushy park. Gow’s performance seems effortless and natural, and the tender attachment between Cal and Will is palpable, as is the love for their bright, energetic son. (Evan Miller was thoroughly adorable.)

The contrast between Katherine’s life, and the life of this family, is arresting. Only because of the compassion and acceptance of Cal, Will, and Bud do we realize that the newly widowed Katherine has shown up here because, albeit unconsciously, she desperately craves love, and Bud’s friendly curiosity becomes her vehicle for redemption.

Director James Warwick has done a stellar job of casting and orchestrating Mothers and Sons. His work demonstrates a clear grasp of the complexity of human relationships, and of McNally’s message. The technical side of this production was satisfying all around, including Patrick Brennan’s set (a lovely, lived-in Central Park West apartment) and Stella Schwartz’s well-turned-out costumes. James W. Bilnoski’s lighting design beautifully underscored the significance of a cold winter’s day evolving into a warmly lit home. The sound design by Erik T. Lawson was first-rate and heartwrenching.

I left the theater feeling as if I knew the characters intimately, and I felt privileged to have joined Katherine as she burrowed mightily through sadness and resentment to emerge knowing something of the possibilities created by acceptance and optimism.

Mothers and Sons by Terrence McNally, directed by James Warwick, runs August 16 – September 9, 2018 in the Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA. Set Designer: Patrick Brennan. Lighting Designer: James W. Bilnoski. Costume Designer: Stella Giulietta Schwartz. Sound Designer: Erik Lawson. Stage Manager: Matthew Luppino. CAST: David Gow as Will Ogden, Hayden Hoffman and Evan Miller (alternating) as Bud, Annette Miller as Katharine Gerard, and Bill Mootos as Cal Porter.

Tickets for Mothers and Sons are available online at shakespeare.org, or by calling Shakespeare & Company’s box office at [phone]. The Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre is air-conditioned and wheelchair accessible. Shakespeare & Company is located at 70 Kemble St. in Lenox, Massachusetts. Mothers and Sons is generously sponsored by Jerry and Honie Berko.

REVIEW: “Mothers and Sons” at Shakespeare & Company by Roseann Cane “There is nothing permanent except change.”  --Heraclitus As the lights come up we see two people, a mature woman wrapped in a mink and a handsome man on the outskirts of middle age, peering into the distance.

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by Roseann Cane

In 1927 the German physicist Werner Heisenberg posited what is often referred to as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: it is not possible to measure simultaneously the position and the velocity of an object, even in theory. Playwright Simon Stephens has said that this quantum theory seems to define the way in which people live: unless we are seen by or engaged with other people, we barely exist.

The setup of Stephens’s play Heisenberg is a familiar one: an extroverted, eccentric woman “meets cute” with an older, introverted, conventional man; they clash, sparks fly, and they walk into the sunset together. Stephens asks that we take this setup and examine it through the lens of the Uncertainty Principle, applying it to human relationships.

The couple in question, an American woman named Georgie Burns (Tamara Hickey) and an Englishman of Irish descent named Alex Priest (Malcolm Ingram), meet in a London railway station. The fortyish Georgie strikes up a conversation with 75-year-old Alex, who is sitting quietly on a nearby bench.

Hickey, all frantic gesticulation and shrieking verbalization, homes in on Ingram with such delirium that even a marginally sane person would flee into the night. She moves in sometimes sweeping, other times jerking fashion, arms and legs jutting in multiple directions, and lights on Ingram’s bench. Buttoned-up Ingram, though nonplussed, submits to her questions and the two have something of a conversation.

Almost exactly one year ago, I had the great pleasure of seeing Hickey play Ariel in the company’s Roman Garden production of The Tempest. Hers was one of my favorite performances of the entire season, and she was the main reason why I’d looked forward to seeing Heisenberg. It grieves me to say that her portrayal of Alex was so abrasive and unnatural that I squirmed throughout the very long, intermissionless 90-minute play. Alex, we learn, comes from New Jersey. Hickey’s relentless screeching in an accent that swayed between working-class New York and Boston, with an occasional dash of the Queen’s English thrown in for good measure, distracted mightily from everything else, including Ingram, in the play.

Ingram was well cast, and gave a sensitive, substantive performance, but he may as well have been in another play. I wish director Tina Packer had reined in Hickey, and given her more guidance. Because Hickey presented a caricature rather than a real human being, there was, for me, no transmission of feeling, and that’s deadly for a theater audience.

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Packer did a neat job of directing the transitions between each of the six scenes, where the actors managed to dress and undress on stage as well as to help move pieces of Juliana von Haubrich’s elegantly minimalist set. Charlotte Palmer-Lane’s costumes expertly intensified Georgie and Alex’s characters. I did find Amy Altadonna’s sound design rather peculiar at times; for example, during a scene where Alex is reminiscing about his 10-year-old sister, I was certain I’d heard a baby cooing and gurgling from somewhere in the audience, but when that cooing and gurgling emerged a second and third time, I realized it was a sound effect. It make no sense to me. Dan Kotlowitz’s lighting was beautifully designed and brilliantly enhanced the action.

Despite the familiar setup of Heisenberg, the subjects of human connection and isolation can’t be overexplored. While I wouldn’t call Stephens’s play masterly, I think there is so much potential for transformative poignance in the two characters he created, and I wish that potential had been mined in this production.

Heisenberg by Simon Stephens, directed by Tina Packer, runs August 11-September 2, 2018 in the Tina Packer Playhouse at Shakespeare & Company. Set Designer: Juliana von Haubrich. Lighting Designer: Dan Kotlowitz. Costume Designer: Charlotte Palmer-Lane. Sound Designer: Amy Altadonna. Stage Manager: Hope Rose Kelly. CAST: Tamara Hickey as Georgie and Malcolm Ingram as Alex.

Tickets for Heisenberg are available online at shakespeare.org, or by calling Shakespeare & Company’s box office at [phone]. The Tina Packer Playhouse is air-conditioned and wheelchair accessible. Shakespeare & Company is located at 70 Kemble St. in Lenox, Massachusetts.

REVIEW: “Heisenberg” at Shakespeare & Company by Roseann Cane In 1927 the German physicist Werner Heisenberg posited what is often referred to as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: it is not possible to measure simultaneously the position and the velocity of an object, even in theory.

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by Macey Levin

The first Chinese woman to arrive in America was Afong Moy in 1834; she was 14 years old.  Her father sent her here after receiving a payment from the Carne brothers who exhibited her in the Pearle Museum in New York City.  Afong Moy is the protagonist in Lloyd Suh’s The Chinese Lady having its world premiere at Barrington Stage’s St. Germain Theatre in Pittsfield.

When the audience enters a huge packing crate with the label “China Trading Company” completely fills the stage.  The crate is opened to reveal a small room decorated in Chinese fabrics and art.  Posed in a chair is Afong Moy (Shannon Tyo) who turns to us to tell her story starting with the year 1834.  She is assisted by an aloof translator Atung (Daniel K. Isaac.)  She has learned a routine speech she delivers to welcome American gawkers. Each of the many scenes opens in the same manner with much the same speech noting the change in the date as time moves forward.

In her expository speeches she apprises us of the many differences between Chinese and American cultures.  Her people use chopsticks, an elegant tool, whereas, she says, a fork is used to stab food, something she doesn’t understand.  She describes how the bones in young girls’ feet are broken so that they may be bound, a status symbol of the elite and a mark of beauty.

At first she is flattered and honored to be the first Asian woman in America, too young to realize she is being exploited and is owned by the Carnes.  As she ages and relates her experiences, her articulation becomes more relaxed and vocabulary more colloquial (i.e. “Okay.”)  She comes to realize, especially when P.T. Barnum buys out the Carnes in 1849, that she is considered a freak and a commodity.

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As she cites events in American and world history (“Emperor” Andrew Jackson, the Civil War, Britain’s annexation of India, the opium war with China) she also implies her disillusionment with America.   When she reaches the age of sixty-two in 1882, she refers to the Chinese Exclusion Act which banned Chinese migration for ten years; it was renewed for another ten years and then became law in the early 20th century.  She recites a litany of horrific acts of murder and torture of Chinese-Americans. She regrets that she couldn’t have been more effective in bringing harmony to the two cultures.

Ms. Tyo is charming in Afong Moy’s early years and becomes more and more reflective and harder, evaluating her past actions, as she ages.  Without a change in makeup she morphs from the 14-year-old girl to the 82-year-old woman (and even older) in her physical carriage and speech patterns.  It is a luminous, delicious performance.

Mr. Isaac’s role is, in some ways, more difficult.  The vast majority of his comments are succinct and obedient since he is of a lower class than she and is, after all, her servant.  But he is ingratiating and as their thirty-year relationship evolves a mutual respect grows.  He has a lyrical monologue in which he tells us what his life is like, of his simple aspirations, of his dreams.  It is a touching speech in the midst of a touching portrayal.

Director Ralph B. Pena, working within the limited space of designer Junghyun Georgia Lee’s set dictated by the script, moves his actors gracefully with no wasted movement or time.  The slow evolution of the two characters relationship demands our empathy especially with the knowledge that they are worlds apart.  The costumes, also designed by Ms. Lee, are traditional Chinese at first and then become more westernized and suggests the different classes of the two characters.  Fabian Obispo’s compositions and sound design and Oliver Wason’s lighting immeasurably add to the atmosphere of the production.

The Chinese Lady is a warm delicate play, probably unlike anything you’ve seen before.  It will touch your heart, fill your mind and have you remembering this brave woman who learns about life in a world that does not accept her.

The Chinese Lady by Lloyd Suh ; Directed by Ralph B. Pena; Cast:  Daniel K. Isaac (Atung) Shannon Tyo (Afong Moy); Scene/Costume design: Junghyun Georgia Lee; Lighting design: Oliver Wason; Composer andSound design: Fabian Obispo; Stage Manager: Geoff Boronda;

Running Time: 90 minutes, no intermission; Barrington Stage Company, St. Germain Theatre, Pittsfield, MA; From 7/20/18; closing 8/11/18

REVIEW: “The Chinese Lady” at Barrington Stage by Macey Levin The first Chinese woman to arrive in America was Afong Moy in 1834; she was 14 years old.