Just Because

Review of Lear, Yale Summer Cabaret

In keeping with their practice of featuring revisions and revamps of canonical plays, Yale Summer Cabaret’s Canon Balle season ends with a bang and a ball. Young Jean Lee’s Lear is a fascinating and disarming take on Shakespeare’s King Lear poised, after a fashion, from the point of view of the younger generation.

People generally know that Goneril (Francesca Fernandez McKenzie), Regan (Danielle Chaves), and Cordelia (Amandla Jahava) are the daughters of King Lear in Shakespeare’s most demanding play. And they should know that Edgar (Stephen Cefalu, Jr.) and Edmund (Jake Ryan Lozano) are the two sons, legitimate and illegitimate, respectively, of Lear’s chief counselor Gloucester. The other key plot point is that Goneril, Regan and Edmund abuse the older generation and that the two good children are disowned: Cordelia goes off to France after displeasing her father and Edgar takes on a disguise to try to help his father in the dire circumstances. What Young Jean Lee’s Lear shows you that you may not know about these characters is abundantly amusing, disconcerting, and, in the end, touching.

Edgar (Stephen Cefalu, Jr.) (photo: Elsa Gibson Braden)

Directed by this very successful Summer Cabaret season’s co-artistic director Shadi Ghaheri, Lear intrigues even before anyone comes on stage. Stephanie Osin Cohen's diagonal set is established against one wall of the Cabaret space like a storefront window display in which we see what look to be the wares of a baroque SoHo boutique: a vanity, a dais with throne, a chair in the shape of a hand, all illuminated in a purplish pink that suggests a decadent and modernistic Louis Quatorze era. There’s also a giant flatscreen TV.

Regan (Danielle Chaves), Goneril (Francesca Fernandez McKenzie) (photo: Elsa Gibson Braden)

Then the characters arrive, clad in Sophia Choi's trippy baroque garb—complete with wigs like towers of intricate confection and a day-glo palette—to dance a little gavotte. Edmund and Edgar, though still not on the same page, seem to have joined the court of the sisters Regan and Goneril, and together they prey upon each other’s insecurities while trying to justify their acts, their tastes, their selfishness, and the kinds of things that would be at home in an existential play about how to cope with the boredom of being. Meanwhile, the brothers battle each other in a video game and each character gets a soliloquy to apprise us of the general anomie. They speak in a heightened and absurdist manner that abounds in non sequitur, odd asides, wry guts-spilling, and, at one point, dolphin-talk.

Edgar (Stephen Cefalu, Jr.), Edmund (Jake Ryan Lozano) (photo: Elsa Gibson Braden)

Eventually Cordelia returns to the fold, and shows herself to be steely enough to deal with her sisters. Meanwhile Edmund and Edgar battle each other in hilariously juvenile terms. Lee doesn’t seem to think much about the dignity and maturity of the generation she takes to task, but, oddly, the script doesn’t seem mean-spirited, which has much to do with the earnestness of the speakers. Each member of the cast adds to a spirited ensemble able to follow this mercurial play wherever it goes, whether to Cefalu’s nicely understated and deliberately awkward breaking of the play’s fiction for the reality of our viewing experience, or to Sesame Street and an appearance by a beloved TV personality, enacted with unironic panache by Lozano.

Cordelia (Amandla Jahava), Lear (Francesca Fernandez McKenzie) (photo: Elsa Gibson Braden)

Particular mention as well of Francesca Fernandez McKenzie who plays up the mannequin-like perfection of the imperious Goneril in the early going, then transforms startlingly into a mimicry of her father at his most peremptory, and, after yet another transformation, undertakes the great final speech Shakespeare gave his more sinned against than sinning creation. It takes guts to drop towering pathos into a casual conversation and that’s what Lee’s text demands. Much as it demands a potentially mawkish scene late in the play and a final soliloquy from the actor playing Edmund—here Jake Ryan Lozano—that reads like a personal comment from the playwright herself.

And if all that isn’t enough to keep you laughing and wondering and guessing, and maybe even sniffling, there are Yaara Bar’s adventurous projections that feature holograms of the actresses’ faces, as well as appropriate footage, whether of computer-generated dolphins or race cars wiping out. Such touches—including garish lighting and a varied soundscape—constitute innovations on the part of this production, showing that Ghaheri and Canon Balle are not only in the business of revamping classics; they’re also quite willing to take liberties with contemporary works. The tech design is amazing but never overpowering.

Some might wonder how a play as powerfully achieved as King Lear benefits from passing through the eye of Ionesco, and if Lee were simply goofing on Shakespearean sublimity, I might wonder as well. Instead, she has the presence of mind to conflate a father agonizing that his child will never come again with a child learning that even people on TV die. The readiness is all.

Lear
Written by Young Jean Lee
Directed by Shadi Ghaheri

Production Dramaturg: Ariel Sibert; Scenic Design: Stephanie Osin Cohen; Costume Design: Sophia Choi; Lighting Design: Krista Smith; Sound Design: Tye Hunt Fitzgerald; Projections Design: Yaara Bar; Stage Manager: Caitlin O’Rourke; Associate Sound Design: Kathy Ruvuna

Cast: Stephen Cefalu, Jr., Danielle Chaves, Amandla Jahava, Jake Ryan Lozano, Francesca Fernandez McKenzie

Yale Summer Cabaret
August 4-13, 2017

Canon Redux

Sneak Peak at Yale Summer Cabaret 2017

The upcoming season at the Yale Summer Cabaret will be announced today. Co-Artistic Directors Rory Pelsue and Shadi Ghaheri have planned four plays, “adaptations of four pre-20th century European works, updated and directed by living women, queer artists, and artists of color as a radical and provocative response to the theatrical ‘canon.’”  Called “Canon Balle,” the 43rd season of the Summer Cabaret looks to be a provocative interrogation of canonical works, reconfigured by the pressures and interests of contemporary theater-makers and theater-goers.

The Yale Summer Cabaret team: Rory Pelsue and Shadi Ghaheri (seated); Trent Anderson, Dashiell Menard, Leandro A. Zanetti (standing)

First up, June 2-11, is Shakespeare’s Antony + Cleopatra, adapted by Rory Pelsue. Pelsue, a rising third-year director at the Yale School of Drama, presented a staging of Othello as his second-year Shakespeare project that was a dramatic enactment of passions held to a knife’s edge, exploring the sexual tension between Othello and Iago, as well as Othello and Desdemona. While it is well-known that all parts in Shakespeare’s theater were enacted by men, Pelsue’s all-male Antony + Cleopatra will bring a decidedly drag element to the play, described as “playful and anarchic,” with a “butch” Antony having to face his feelings for a seductively femme Cleopatra.

Next, Shadi Ghaheri, also a rising third-year director at YSD, whose presentation of Titus Andronicus this spring was a take-no-prisoners assault of political vengeance and victimization, undertakes Euripides’ Trojan Women, a play about the fate of women in Troy after the death of the hero Hector and the fall of the city in the famed war against the invading Greeks. This all-female production of a 1995 translation by Ellen McLaughlin takes its cue from the war in Bosnia, but addresses the role of women in war from 400 BC to the present day. June 23-July 2

August Strindberg’s Miss Julie is a classic, late nineteenth-century play of the conflict between class and gender. As adapted by South-African playwright Yaël Farber, Mies Julie, set on a remote farm in post-Apartheid South Africa, ratchets up the drama with interracial and colonialist tensions not present in the original. Directed by Pelsue, July 14-23

Young Jean Lee is an experimental artist known for provocative approaches to theater. The final show of the season is her take on the story of King Lear. In Lear, directed by Ghaheri, the focus is on the twenty-something children of raging and abused parents, Lear and Gloucester. Will the change in perspective humanize the younger generation or show them to be as mad as their suffering parents? August 4-13

Stay tuned for previews and reviews of the individual plays as the summer gets closer. For information about tickets, including 4-ticket passes at $100 or 8-ticket passes for $192, check out the Summer Cabaret’s website, beginning May 8.

In summer in New Haven, the Yale Summer Cabaret is the hottest show in town.

Yale Summer Cabaret
Season 43
Canon Balle

Artistic Directors: Rory Pelsue, Shadi Ghaheri
Managing Director: Leandro A. Zaneti; General Manager: Trent Anderson; Production Director: Dashiell Menard

June 2-August 13, 2017

Yale Cab Recap

The Yale Cabaret’s Season 44 ended last month and a number of its practitioners will be graduating from the Yale School of Drama this month.  The work the YSD students do at the Cab doesn’t count as part of their work toward graduation—it’s done for love of theater and for the joy of working together on pet projects. And for numerous Cab fans, the productions at the Cab—intimate, avant-garde, inspired, off-the-wall, experimental, outrageous, inviting—are the live wire of the YSD season.  And so it’s time for a “thanks for the memories” moment to take note of the more memorable productions, performances, and displays of artistry that took place in the 2011-12 season (the procedure here: four notables in each category, chronologically by production date, with the fifth-mentioned earning top billing, in my estimation) [note: dates after names indicate prospective year of graduation from YSD]: First, overall Production: the skilled staging of Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, produced by Michael Bateman (*13); the comically outrageous first-semester ender, Wallace Shawn’s A Thought in Three Parts, produced by Kate Ivins; the frenetic staging of Adrienne Kennedy’s The Funnyhouse of a Negro, produced by Alyssa Simmons (*14); the moody, musical trip to the underworld, Basement Hades, produced by Kate Ivins; and . . . the crowd-pleasing Victorian Gothic Camp of Mac Wellman’s Dracula, produced by Xaq Webb (*14).

Next comes attention to the technical accomplishments that are often so remarkable in transforming the tiny, unprepossessing space of the Cabaret:

In Set Design: Kristen Robinson (*13) for creating the distinct spaces of Persona; Adam Rigg (*13) and Kate Noll (*14) (aka Daniel Alderman and Olivia Higdon) for the gallery exhibit space of Rey Planta; Reid Thompson (*14) for the creepy and campy locations of Dracula; Brian Dudkiewicz (*14) for the historical and ethnic space of The Yiddish King Lear; and . . . Kate Noll (*14) for the Miss Havisham-like clutter of The Funnyhouse of a Negro.

For work in Costumes: Martin Schnellinger (*13), for the interplay of clothed and unclothed in A Thought in Three Parts; Elivia Bovenzi (*14), for helping create the theatrical layers of The Yiddish King Lear; Kristin Fiebig (*12), for the fantasia of whiteness in The Funnyhouse of a Negro; Nikki Delhomme (*13), for the lively get-ups of Carnival/Invisible; and . . . Seth Bodie (*14), for the uncanny outfitting in Dracula.

For memorable work in Sound Design: Palmer Heffernan (*13), for the roving speakers in Street Scenes; Ken Goodwin (*12), for the atmospheric aura of reWilding; Jacob Riley (*12), for the full scale presence of Dracula; Palmer Heffernan (*13) and Keri Klick (*13) for the soundscape of Basement Hades; and . . . Ken Goodwin (*12), for the wrenching sound effects of The Funnyhouse of a Negro.

For illuminating work in Lighting: Solomon Weisbard (*13), for the psychic landscapes of reWilding; Solomon Weisbard (*13), for the interplay of lights with movement in Clutch Yr Amplified Heart and Pretend; Masha Tsimring (*13), for the moody madhouse of The Funnyhouse of a Negro; Masha Tsimring (*13) and Yi Zhao (*12), for the Underworld of Basement Hades; and . . . Masha Tsimring (*13), for the stylish thrills of Dracula.

For striking use of Visuals: Paul Lieber (*13)’s projections and “home movies” in Persona; Christopher Ash (*14, aka Glenn Isaacs)’s ghostly projections in Rey Planta; Michael Bergman (*14)’s intimate use of visuals in Creation 2011; Michael Bergman (*14)’s atmospheric projections in Dracula; and . . . the rich use of projections in Basement Hades, by Hannah Wasileski (*13), and assistants Michael Bergman (*14), Nick Hussong (*14), and Paul Lieber (*13).

For striking use of Music: the ambiance of Sunder Ganglani (*12) and Ben Sharony’s music-scapes in Slaves; the mood-setting popular songs in Persona; the expressive tunes in Clutch Yr Amplified Heart and Pretend; the accompaniment and sound effects of The Yiddish King Lear, Dana Astman, Music Director; and . . . the beautifully evocative score and performances of Basement Hades, Daniel Schlosberg, Composer, and Schlosberg and company as the instrumentalist Orpheuses.

One of the strengths of the Cabaret is its mix of pre-existing plays with new, often conceptual creations by students in YSD or in other disciplines at Yale.  First, among the published plays offered, the ones I was most pleased to make the acquaintance of: Persona, Ingmar Bergman’s harrowing exploration of the self; Rey Planta (translated by Alexandra Ripp, *13), Manuela Infante’s caustic exploration of manic consciousness; Dracula, Mac Wellman’s comic exploration of vampirism and Victorian mores; The Funnyhouse of a Negro, Adrienne Kennedy’s haunting exploration of racial identity; and . . . Church, Young Jean Lee’s arch and affecting exploration of religious community.

Among the concept pieces this year—and Season 44 was strong in such offerings—the ones I liked best were: Slaves, an enigmatic investigation of theater by Sunder Ganglani (*12)  and the ensemble; Creation 2011, a celebration of awkward theatricality by Sarah Krasnow (*14) and the ensemble; Clutch Yr Amplified Heart and Pretend, a celebration of theatrical movement by the ensemble; Carnivale/Invisible, a questioning of American entertainment by Ben Fainstein (*13) and the ensemble; and . . . the deft interweaving of myth and music in Justin A. Taylor (*13) and the ensemble’s Basement Hades.

And, because most of the shows at the Cab feature strong ensemble work, let’s recognize special merit in ensemble: the entire lubricious cast of A Thought in Three Parts; the large cast of seekers in reWilding; the mad women at the table, and their attendants, in Chamber Music; the actors in the play, in the Purim play within the play, and in the audience in The Yiddish King Lear; and . . . the demonically entertaining cast of Dracula.

With so much concept and ensemble work, it becomes trickier to pick out individual performances, but I’ll follow the industry practice of dividing performances by gender and proceeding as if these actors/actresses can somehow be subtracted from the wholes of which they provided memorable parts, ladies first:

For her expressive, uninhibited performances in Slaves, A Thought in Three Parts, and Clutch Yr Amplified Heart and Pretend, Jillian Taylor (*12); for her roles as the silent actress in Persona, the voice in Rey Planta, and the stridently “sane” Amelia Earhart in Chamber Music, Monique Bernadette Barbee (*13); for her riveting portrayal of the conflicted nurse in Persona, Laura Gragtmans (*12); for her awkward Joan of Arc in Chamber Music, and her deliciously demur and brazen Lucy in Dracula, Marissa Neitling (*13); and . . . for the stand-out performance of Season 44: Miriam Hyman (*12) in The Funnyhouse of a Negro.

For his roles as the blinking, speechless king in Rey Planta, and as the badgering inspector in Christie in Love, Robert Grant (*13); for his intensely realistic character studies in reWilding, Dan O’Brien (*14); for his scene-stealing Van Helsing in Dracula, Brian Wiles (*12); for his kvetching patriarch in The Yiddish King Lear, William DeMeritt (*12); and . . . for his play-as-cast gusto in such roles as the confused husband in Persona, the appalled constable in Christie in Love, the babbling, spider-eating Jonathan Harker in Dracula, and the unforgettable Chicken Man in reWilding, Lucas Dixon (*12)

And for great work in directing: Alex Mihail (*12), for exploring the psychic tensions of Persona; Dustin Wills (*14), for orchestrating the varied misfits in reWilding; Jack Tamburri (*13), for finding the perfect pitch for the vaudevillian creepshow of Dracula; Ethan Heard (*13), for conducting the interplay of music, miming, and monologue in Basement Hades; and . . . Lileana Blain-Cruz (*12), for the inspired tour de force mania of The Funnyhouse of a Negro.

Deep appreciation for all the work and all the fun, and . . . see you next year!

All Are Welcome

Is there anything as polarizing as church?  You either share the faith or you don’t.  We may disagree about politics, food, tastes in entertainment, clothes, but none of those things are absolutes.  And if we visit a friend’s family we already know we won’t belong in quite the same way as relatives do.  But if we visit a friend’s place of worship, we either join in or become an outsider. That choice is evoked by Young Jean Lee’s Church, now playing for two more shows at The Yale Cabaret.  The audience is the congregation and is preached to by the righteous Reverend José, and greeted, with handshakes and hugs, by three beneficently smiling female reverends, and listens to testimonials of how God got involved in the lives of the reverends, and witnesses hymns and dance.

The name of the church we never learn, nor could I say for certain what the tenets of belief are, beyond praise of Jesus and fear of the devil, though charismatic Reverend José (Matthew Gutschick) and his trio do make a few pronouncements that conjure a liberal faith—accepting all races and sexual persuasions and against anti-abortion, and not willing to insist on God’s gender.  The main symptom of moral turpitude, it seems, is “masturbation-rage”—behavior that goes beyond ego-inflated navel-gazing to a more active love affair with the self, in denial of the need for God.

At first, Reverend José is just a voice out of the darkness, crying in a wilderness as it were, and his sermon is of the “tear down the ego” variety designed to inspire penitence.  This is followed, in the bad cop/good cop rhythm of things, by the smiling, humble reverends greeting us, and then Reverend Kate (Kate Attwell) asks the congregation to suggest prayer requests—subjects to pray for—and members of the audience oblige.

At that point theater, to some extent, ends and ritual begins.  Of course, the two have always been related, but when persons in the audience ask for prayers for relatives, or for world peace, or for their work, and we’re asked to pray silently, then, if some are really praying, who’s to say we aren’t in church?  As Jesus said, “wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there am I.”

We don’t hear his name too much, mainly in the beginning and in a Christian rock song to which the reverends leap and dance and twirl, like a cross between bacchantes and cheerleaders, near the end of the piece.  But the sense of worship as giving honor to God is never absent, not even in the somewhat surreal and rambling or bathetic or funny testimonials that the reverends deliver, all straight-faced and without any overt sense of parody.  And what they describe—rising on a fountain of blood, a parable of the lantern-maker who wanted to be a sandal-maker, battles of good and bad angels, behaviorial addictions, a goat that eats from its master’s hand—are different only in degree not in kind from what one finds in any actual testimonial’s mangled version of scripture configured for the modern world.  And Reverend Laura (Laura Gragtmans)’s prayer of thanks for a comfortably useful life at the close seems as sincere and beneficent as any speech to God should be.

What’s the point of the piece, ultimately?  Final things, just as in any church, and how to live while we’re here.  As Jim Morrison, one of the reverends of the church of rock, says, “No one here gets out alive.”  Humbling, frightening, maybe gladdening as it may be, that’s the thought that makes life on earth a life “in church.”  Hallelujah.

Church Written by Young Jean Lee Directed by the Ensemble, with Sunder Ganglani Yale Cabaret November 3-5, 2011