Gotta Play That Rock 'N' Roll Music
buffalorising.com | Mar 10th 2011 4:50 PM
Tom Stoppard's ROCK 'N' ROLL opens at the Kavinoky Theatre...
ROCK 'N' ROLL, Tom Stoppard's masterful multi-media saga of personal and
political liberation opened in a sweeping and dynamic production at the
Kavinoky Theatre on Friday (March 4).
Featuring some terrific performances, a wonderful mix of rapid-fire dialogue
and the artful use of multi-media techniques, the production makes for a
thought- provoking and even compelling evening of theatre. The Kavinoky is to
be commended for its grand effort here. This is not a production without its
flaws, and it is a play not easily undertaken, neither by a theatre nor an
audience, yet it is a play well worth the effort. It's one that will stick to
the ribs and come to mind long afterwards.
In a recent interview in the New Yorker, Mr. Stoppard mused on the art of
playwriting: "It's about controlling the flow of information, arriving at the
right length and the right speed and in the right order.... If the audience is
made to do not enough work, they resent it. Too much and they get lost."
I think Mr. Stoppard has hit all the marks on this one, except perhaps, that at
two hours and forty-five minutes, he might want to re-think that length thing.
Still, the time goes by easily enough, and time may be the least of the
challenges confronting this play, which spans twenty-two years. More daunting
is the roster of eighteen characters whose roles have been doled out among only
twelve actors. The author intentionally doubled some roles, but consider the
potential for befuddlement. To his great credit, Director Doug Zschiegner,
with some help from costume designer Dixon Reynolds, wig designer David Bova,
and some very deft work by his actors, is able to keep the confusion of who's
who to a minimum.
Also helpful is the fact that, unlike some of Mr. Stoppard's time-twisting
works, this story follows a straight chronological and historical arc as it
looks at the world of Communist Czechoslovakia and one particular Czech
academic, Jan (a thoughtful and subtle Ian Lithgow). Starting from the era of
"The Prague Spring" of 1968 to the Soviet Invasion later that year, through the
cycles of repression and counterrevolution, we end up at the fall of the Berlin
Wall and the Warsaw Pact in 1989, all topped off with the triumphant 1990
Rolling Stones Concert in Prague. A curious continuance? Yes, a bit, but you
will see, a remarkable one.
The story, obviously one close to the heart and personal history of the author,
shifts back and forth between the action in Jan's Prague and England's
Cambridge, where Jan's mentor Max, a university professor (the venerable David
Lamb) resides with his wife Eleanor, (played by the striking Josie DiVincenzo)
who is also a professor. They live with their free-spirited daughter Esme (the
young version of Esme is played by a very lively Stephanie Dale. The mature
Esme in Act II is played by Ms. DiVincenzo. Who's who indeed!)
Together they live the life of a typical University Don in the relative comfort
and security of post-war Britain. Theirs is a privileged world which mixes
mundane issues of health and family life with the heady academic world of
western philosophy. Max and Eleanor count bottles of wine along with angels on
the head of a pin. It is not fluff, but it is far from Iron-Curtain Bohemia.
Max is a rabid, dogmatic, old-style communist, unwilling to abandon the ideals
of Soviet Marxism while forgiving it everything from Stalin's purges to the
occasional invasion of fraternal Eastern Block states with Russian tanks. Max
never tires of reminding us that he was born in the same year as the Bolshevik
Revolution. He suffers some ridicule as his brand of hard-line communism
eventually falls into disrepute, but Max, in his quintessential ivory tower, is
essentially insulated from the practical consequences of totalitarian
repression.
Jan, on the other hand, encounters just about all the slings and arrows an
intellectual could suffer under the iron hand of the Czech puppet state. Born
in post war Czechoslovakia, Jan was raised in England by his refugee mother. He
is voluntarily repatriated to his native land after the Soviet re-occupation in
1968. Jan abandons the cocoon of East Anglia, and his less than challenging
teaching position, in order to experience the "real life" that is unfolding in
Prague.
Jan has no agenda other than to help his motherland, he wants only to get along
and live his life, do his writing and enjoy his music. Even his police
interrogator (in a wonderful turn by Peter Jaskowiak) cannot believe Jan's
childlike innocence. Jan refuses to sign the hail of protest petitions
advanced by his friend Ferdinand (nice work by Steve Petersen) nor in any way
offend the powers that be. Things just aren't that bad, one should look on the
bright side. Jan's naivety, however, eventually undoes him, and costs him
dearly.
Therein lies the dynamic of ROCK'N'ROLL. As director Szchiegner posits:
"When do we keep faith in the beliefs of the past? When do we reform? (or) Go
with the flow?"
So, as Tina Turner might ask, what's Rock'n'Roll got to do with it ?
A great deal, actually. Mr. Stoppard employs the parallel world of Rock music
to elucidate the political and social interaction unfolding on the stage. The
Rock music scene is not merely a euphemism here, that is, it's not simply a
symbol of Western democratic notions of rebellion and individual liberty. Rock
music becomes a character within the play, it propels the storyline, marking
not only the passage of time, but the passage of innocence.
Rock music serves as a platform upon which to examine the dichotomy between the
blaring pursuit of an Americanized, self-satisfied (hedonistic?) liberal
lifestyle and the necessarily cramped, underground rock scene in the Communist
East. The Rolling Stones represent a lifestyle which, if it is political at
all, is political more often by some casual intention than by any pressing
necessity.
Meanwhile, their ersatz poor relations, the Czech rock band The Plastic People
of the Universe, may have been a pale Eastern European imitation of rock and
roll, but they were musically sincere to the core and struggled just to exist
as a band. Even while trying to avoid politics directly, they became political
by default, by their mere existence. Perceived as a counter revolutionary
threat to the state, the Plastic People, (along with a vast number of the
intelligentsia) suffered arrest, show trials and imprisonment for the sake of
their songs.
Ultimately, Rock 'N' Roll is more than music. Rock represents a fundamental
political paradigm. Rock is the purest example of capitalism's ability to
change, to adapt and re-invent, to become reborn. It was this evolutionary ace
up its sleeve that guaranteed the triumph of the West and, lacking that same
genetic code, it also guaranteed the doom of Soviet style socialism.
Incorporating the Rock element, the recorded music and images, as a theatrical
device into this production is a neat trick and was no easy task.
Upon entering the theatre, I confess, my heart sank when I saw the television
monitors flanking the stage and a very large screen hovering above the set.
Usually, such visual gimmicks mean only one thing: the play itself cannot be
contained on the stage and the electronic media is needed to complete the
story. Too often that betrays a failure to structure the play properly, or a
failure to somehow incorporate the pre-recorded elements into the live action
on the stage. The unfortunate by-product can be a jarring intrusion of
flickering video images which tend to pull the everyone out of the theatrical
experience, out of the theatre and cause the actors to constantly re-establish
their connection to the audience.
Here, however, the director has added the perfect moving images to the
playwright's extensive (and explicit) playlist. The effect of the combined
sound design (by Tom Makar) and video design (especially created for this
production by Brian Milford) is inspired. It complements the action on stage
and grounds the audience in both the time and place as time and place move
along, and it does so without displacing the story unfolding onstage. It may be
a gimmick, but it's a gimmick that works well for this production.
The principal actors had some rough going in the beginning. Mr. Lamb's Max was
somewhat stiff and rote, and Ms. DiVincenzo struggled for a consistent English
accent. To be fair, this may have only been due to traditional opening night
jitters, (ah yes, even old hands can get the butterflies). Fortunately,
however, as the play warmed up, so did the stars.
By the time Eleanor held a tutorial with her graduate student Lenka, (the
excellent Leah Russo - who is just terrific here), Ms. DiVincenzo had got her
Eleanor down and we began to empathize with her. Mr. Lamb's thaw was more
gradual, but by the time his Max had retired to sip his whiskey and soothe away
the aches and pains of old age, both the actor and the character had reached a
comfort level which connected more easily with the audience.
Ian Lithgow as Jan, also seemed a bit slow out of the gate, so deliberate and
reticent at first, I feared an imminent attack of narcolepsy. But Mr. Lithgow's
Jan was always present, the intention was always there, and as uncontrollable
events swirled about him, Jan's Zen-like temperament served only to heighten
the cruelty and stupidity of the police state's heavy-handed oppression.
Ultimately, all Jan's emotional distance and stoic forbearance provided for a
smashing pay-off in his final reunion with Max in the last act. I won't spoil
anything, suffice it to say it's really good. Well done.
All the other actors do fine work. Besides the aforementioned Mr. Jaskowiak ,
Ms. Russo and Mr. Petersen, Nathan Winkelstein, Stephanie Dale, Hanna Lipkind,
Kurt Erb, and Beth Donohue do some excellent work in either single or double
cast roles. Chris Kelly deserves a special mention for his witty performance
as Milan, a shady secret policeman.
The set by David King works well, with the usual fine lighting by Brian
Cavanagh. Kudos also to the stagehands. The Kav, I must say, has got the art of
the fast scene change down pat.
As noted by the author, a little work on the audiences' part will go a long
way. Try to get to the theatre early enough to look over the handy program
insert, or go to the Kav's website and look at the historical material very
cleverly contained there. It's not a requirement, but it's always nice to have
a little scorecard if you're going to play the game. This is a really good
show, try not to miss it.
ROCK 'N ' ROLL by Tom Stoppard, Directed by Doug Szchiegner for the Kavinoky
Theatre, through April 3, www.kavinokytheatre.com.
Original Page:
http://www.buffalorising.com/2011/03/gotta-play-that-rock-n-roll-music.html
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