When a Play Tries Too Hard

One thing I really like about DC is its totally accessible theater scene. The reputable theaters can nearly be counted on one hand, and I live a block away from one of them. Many theaters here gladly offer discount tickets for those of us under 30 or 35, which makes the theater extremely affordable as well. But of course, this all comes with a huge downside: DC is no New York. Shows arrive here long after their debuts. Good revivals are often bought up well in advance, as in the case of Cate Blanchett's Streetcar Named Desire. Nonetheless, the affordability meant that I was able to see two interesting productions recently: As You Like It at the Shakespeare Theatre, and the Arena Stage's The Fantasticks at the Lincoln Theatre.

Both of these productions featured new twists on class stories, but only one of them pulls it off. This production of As You Like It takes place over the course of three hundred years. That’s right – three hundred. The movie begins in Shakespearean time in England, where Rosalind decides to follow a main she loves, Orlando, into the forest of Arden. The next scene quickly moves to 18th century America, and then America during the Civil War, and then the American West, before concluding in jazz age America. This is because the forest of Arden equals “Classic American cinema” in this production. This staging not only makes the play incredibly confusing in the first half, it also makes the characterization completely inconsistent. In one scene they have British accents, in the next they have Southern antebellum accents. It’s difficult to believe in the character when the character changes basic traits like this every twenty minutes.

The Arena Stage’s production of The Fantasticks is a more successful rendering. The Fantasticks, which ran off Broadway from1960 to 2002 straight is about the importance of nostalgia. Essentially, two young lovers experience a fall from innocence when the narrator of the play separates them and exposes them to the real world. In the original version, the narrator, El Gallo, is a mysterious bandit. The new version at the Lincoln Theatre portrays El Gallo as more of a friendly magician. As the BF pointed out, this change is effectively made because it is consistent, even if it makes the show more child-like than one might prefer.

Needless to say, As You Like It with its myriad sets and costume changes was more elaborate than The Fantasticks. But at the same time, the Shakespeare production defined trying too hard.

The Original of Laura: Journeying inside Nabokov's Mind

The Original of Laura belongs on the coffee table more than it belongs on the bookshelf. Vladimir Nabokov's posthumously published "novel" reproduces the 138 index cards of a novel he was working on at the time of his death. The pages of this Knopf production consist of card stock, with perforations surrounding each index card to boot. Typeset text of Nabokov’s words accompanies each index card, like the descriptions of paintings accompanying a coffee table collection of Van Goghs. This package feels nice and heavy in your hand. Flipping the pages reveals interesting tidbits about Nabokov’s thought process. He numbered his index cards in an elaborate system, identifying first the chapter, and then the number within that chapter. He also misspelled many things, whether because he couldn’t be bothered to spell things correctly or because he was unsure of the correct spellings.

Flipping through the pages, however, does not provide a comfortable reading experience. The reader is solving a mystery, both trying to piece together a narrative that makes sense from Nabokov’s index cards, while trying to figure out whether or not he intended the readers to read it that way. As far as I can tell, the story is about a woman named Flora, who has a book written about her by a former lover called “My Laura.” The real Flora is married to an older professor, Philip Wild, who tries to figuratively make his body disappear, and thus, to die. Nabokov’s index cards tell both the story of Flora and the story of Laura, occasionally confusing the reader about which is which.

Moments of gorgeous prose about the female body or about what it feels like to cut off to remove one’s toes are pleasurable, but are not enough to go by to judge the quality of Nabokov’s novel.

The unfinished-ness of The Original of Laura raises the whole question of whether or not incomplete manuscripts should even be published. As Sam Anderson points out in New York Magazine, Nabokov was a perfectionist—he even wanted the original Lolita to be burned—who would not have been pleased by the prospect of strangers reading his scribbles. At the same time, The Original of Laura probably contributes to Nabokov’s reputation as a brilliant thinker who could piece together intricate plots by shuffling index cards. This fan, at least, is grateful for the opportunity to experience a Nabokov work in progress.

Journey through American Art at the Met

Today I went to the Met for the first time in a year. My boyfriend, his parents and I braved the holiday crowds to see two exhibits, which taken together, provide examples of social commentary through art throughout American history. In addition, they provide a good example of how social commentary has also changed form through the years.

"American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915," is a heavily curated show that traces American figure painting for two centuries. The exhibit features all the American greats from Copley to Homer to Sargent. Since so many of the featured pictures are already iconic (Morisot's Little Girl in a Blue Dress, Homer's Snap the Whip), it's helpful for the curation to cast a new light on these paintings by accompanying each picture with ample texual description. I probably spent more time reading than I did looking at the images in this exhibit. The text maps American painting closely to American history. Paintings from the early 19th Century, for example, commented on the idea of rural versus urban America. One painting shows a woman choosing between a country suitor and a city suitor; another visualizes the campaign slogan "Tippacanoe and Tyler Too," favoring the western Harrison to the refined van Buren. The late 19th Century, on the other hand, featured Americans experiencing the glamours of Europe at a time when Americans were becoming more worldly. Each room of the exhibit highlights a particular era. Going through all the rooms in order evoked the sense of walking through an American History textbook, minus any of the awful memorization.

"Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans" is an exhibit commemorating the 50th anniversary of Robert Frank's photography book, The Americans. In the 1950s, the Swiss Frank drove across the US taking over 700 rolls of film along the way. He condensed his pictures to an 83 image book called "The Americans." While it was viewed as subversive --even anti-American--at the time, it's been rehabilitated since. This exhibit displays all 83 photos in order, along with some explanation about the themes that Frank was trying to illuminate. Some of the most memorable photos include a black nurse holding a white baby, and a diner bar full of working men on a lunch break looking skeptically at the camera. At first glance, the value of these pictures seem to lie in their ability to capture a bygone time. After all, the picture are all black and white and features such mechanisms as drive throughs and jukeboxes. Frank's social commentary is the second most noticeable thing. He grouped his pictures carefully to comment on America's racial segregation, consumerism, and hard-working spirit. One series of pictures uses the titles "Parade" and "Founding Fathers" ironically. They depict several forlorn people looking out of a window with a flag on the building and a group of men looking on at the betting track in derbies -- not exactly a typical parade or typical founding fathers. Indeed, Frank's is social commentary by arrangement. His grouping abilities sometimes surpass his photographic abilities.

What's most interesting about looking at Frank's pictures fifty years after he took them is to think how similar America is. If someone went around the country and tried to capture the same themes and images, they would be able to do it, nearly frame for frame. There is still plenty of despair, patriotism, and hope.

Three Terrific Short Story Collections

Short stories are what I turn to when trying to figure out how fiction works. Though short stories are often less rewarding than novels, they are often punchier and more revelatory when handled by the best writers. I've recently been on a short story binge, reading the selected stories of Raymond Carver, Alice Munro's latest collection, Too Much Happiness, and Maile Meloy's latest collection Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It. Short stories are seen by most fiction readers as novels in training wheels. Yet, the difficulty of selecting exactly the right words and sentences is felt more acutely in short stories than longer novels. It's thus helpful to read collections by the best authors to see exactly what they choose to reveal, and to what effect.
Reading these three authors in such a short time period illuminates the effects of different stylistic choices. Raymond Carver's stories typically describe a short time period and may not even have a beginning middle and end. His entire story may span the course of an afternoon or a day. One of his more well known stories, "What we talk about when we talk about love," centers around a conversation four people have during dinner. Over the course of dinner, they reveal their romantic histories, as well as their current attitudes towards love. The action takes place over conversation and sideways glances. In the end, we get a picture of four people's outlook on love at one very specific point in their lives. Carver doesn't choose to tell us much about his characters' histories or their futures; his scenes are merely snapshots of his characters' lives. Readers can make up the rest.

In contrast, Alice Munro's stories are almost like short novels. Her recent collection, Too Much Happiness, features many protagonists reflecting on their lives. Munro uses this perspective to tell an entire life's story in twenty pages. By doing this, she essentially distills a life to one aspect of it. This is necessary to fit everything in twenty pages, but also gives the reader a skewed sense of what is significant in a character's life. For example, the story "Fictions" begins as the story of a marriage between a woman, Joyce, and her husband. Her husband leaves her for a lumberjack-type woman. In the second half of the story, Joyce is a 65 year old married to her second husband. At a party, she meets a woman who is the daughter of the woman that Joyce's first husband left her for. The daughter is now a successful short story writer. Joyce picks up her book at the bookstore, and -- of course-- one of the short stories is about her. The story then unfolds as a series of Joyce's predictions about the short story and the author's subsequent ability to exceed these expectations. We see everything from Joyce's perspective, but through the short story, we see everything as a film reversal.

Finally, Maile Meloy's Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It tells beautifully constructed, yet more conventional stories than either Munro or Carver. In precise, twenty page stretches, Meloy shapes a beginning, middle and end. Most of her stories are set in the Northern Midwest/Plains states and evoke a sense of isolation. They range in theme from stories of growing up to stories of settling into marriage. Meloy's voice, however, reveals something new about each of these themes. Her story "Spy vs. Spy," for example, at first appears to be a typical story of sibling rivalry. Aaron and his younger brother, George, gather for a ski trip with Aaron's family and George's girlfriend. Over the course of the trip, we learn that Aaron is the responsible one who resents his brother's free-wheeling life. Of course, Aaron challenges George to a black diamond slope, falls, and gets in a fight with George. But Meloy peppers Aaron's thoughts with childhood memories that add dimension to the characters.

"If they'd had it out when they were younger, really whaled on eac other, then maybe it would be out of their systems...But George had always been younger, and Aaron too restrained to take advantage of his greater strength."

This come at exactly the moment when we're wondering why they hadn't fought before.

In all, these three collections made terrific holiday season reading, and will be remembered all year round.

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Boring Movie

Two visually enjoyable films in this December's otherwise lacking line up are Avatar (December 18) and Sherlock Holmes (December 25). The bf and I trekked through the snowscape that was DC yesterday to a matinee showing of Avatar. It's basically everything the reviews say. Visually exciting, technically game-changing, but with an overtly anti-colonialist message and completely predictable plot. I really have little new to say about this beyond what Manohla Dargis and Dave Denby have already stated better. Avatar is ultimately memorable, though, the way that the first time you saw Star Wars or Jurassic Park was also memorable, simply for the thrill of seeing something so cool for the first time.

Sherlock Holmes is a different matter. What seemed to be a ribald historical/literary adaptation turned into James Bond of the 19th century. In other words, a thriller with a lot of improbable fighting sequences and technology. The only difference is that instead of pen-sized lock pickers, Sherlock Holmes features odorless fuels and invisible numbing agents. Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) also fights with his mind rather than his brawny Daniel Craig-like muscles. It’s pretty cool to see Holmes plan out his punches in his mind before he socks it to his opponents.

Sherlock Holmes also exemplifies the movie industry’s increasing reliance on CGI. Remember back in the day when historical films meant cool costumes (Pride and Prejudice, Marie Antoinette, Braveheart)? Now, historical films – especially those aimed at men – increasingly mean cool special effects (Troy, Kingdom of Heaven, 300). CGI is used well in Sherlock Holmes. The streets of London give off the right amount of gritty dampness. A half-built suspension bridge looms in several foreshadowing scenes before it’s featured in the final sequence.

Unfortunately, the special effects are the best parts of the movie. The story plot is a poor imitation of Dan Brown. Essentially, Lord Blackmore and his “secret society” (think, Freemasons), plot to take over England, the United States, and then the world. Holmes must stop him with his powerful deduction skills. Of course, we know that Holmes will be victorious, but we aren’t given the clues to follow along like we are in the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle short stories. Instead, there’s a reversal every five minutes to show explain otherwise inexplicable events. These get tiresome.

Holmes’ central problem is also supposed to be his lack of emotion. His practicality and logic get in the way of his feeling. So he can’t admit that he’s sad that Dr. Watson (Jude Law) is leaving him to get married, or that he has feelings for Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams). While Downey does a good job coming across as an eccentric genius, the script is too thin for him to explore any other feelings, leaving the movie as more of a CGI enhanced action flick than historical drama.