New York Classical Theatre's School for Husbands, 6/25
Company on Screen, 6/26
On the last weekend of June, my fiance and spent some time seeing some free/cheap performances in the city. The first was Moliere's School for Husbands, by New York Classical Theatre. If you're not familiar with them, they do performances in Central Park in which the audience must follow the actors around from scene to scene. They also perform in other places, but we like their Central Park performances because they occur basically across the street from us!
We enjoyed their performances of Shakespeare last year, but their performance of Moliere may have been even better. It was short--I think, but I am not sure, that the play was cut to focus on the plot with one of the sisters over the other. The shortness really helped, and Moliere probably lends itself to cuts more than Shakespeare. One can only take so much running from scene to scene, and an hour and quarter was the perfect length of time.
The actors acquitted themselves well, and the translation by Richard Wilbur effectively rendered Renaissance French into modern-sounding rhyming couplets in English. The delightful rhymes really added to the effect of the play. We also picnicked with a friend of ours before the play, which made the evening delightful overall. (We got cheese from the new NYC branch of Beechers Cheese, which was fabulous.) I recommend that everyone see their current production, Henry V performed in Battery Park and Governors Island... when the play travels to France, you see.
The next day, the fiance and I headed to see Company at the movie theater, starring Neil Patrick Harris, Stephen Colbert, and others. I am a big Sondheim fan, and I really enjoyed this production, but I at least couldn't help comparing it to the John Doyle production with Raul Esparza. I don't think it compared unfavorably, but the two were very different. I think the Doyle production is the only one that ever solved the problem of the cipher Bobby's epiphany seeming real, thanks to Esparza's performance and the conceit of his not playing an instrument until "Being Alive." NPH, on the other hand, slightly better captured the charm of Bobby that makes everyone like him so much. This version, filmed at Carnegie Hall, also did well with the show's humor, especially in the interaction of Stephen Colbert and Martha Plimpton as Harry and Sarah. Also worth mentioning was Anika Noni Rose as Marta, who blew the roof off singing "Another Hundred People." And, of course, it was a treat to see Patti LuPone take on "The Ladies Who Lunch."
As a future married couple, the fiance and I were given some food for thought--though, unlike Bobby, we didn't need convincing that it's better to be married than not. Although this version of the show is set when it was written, c. 1970, the theme of marriage as a kind of safeguard against the alienation of the big city is still fresh. We can still relate to the main idea behind "Another Hundred People," even if some of the references are dated.
The show, written by two gay men and in this case starring a gay man, seems to bring up the question of whether Bobby is actually gay--something a few lines here and there flirt with but drop. I don't quite agree that he is, but I think this review by James Jorden (aka La Cieca of the opera blog parterre.com), which addresses that issue, gets at some of the problems with the structure of the show. On the other hand, maybe the characters are meant to be types because people are meant to identify with them. Anyway, I think the Doyle production tackled some of the problems with the show, but the Carnegie Hall production just presented it straightforwardly. Which is just fine, for a one-night-only concert version. On that level, it succeeded in spades, and we enjoyed it a great deal.
