 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
| Oedipus Synopsis |
play reviewed by Newsday
OEDIPUS. Written and directed by Dare Clubb. With Frances McDormand,
Billy Crudup, Johanna Day, Jeffrey Donovan, Jon de Vries, Camilia Sanes,
Jonathan Fried, Alan Tudyk, Carolyn McCormick, Alex Draper, Kevin Geer,
Lawrence Nathanson. Sets by Narelle Sissons, costumes by Christianne
Myers, lights by Christopher J. Landy. Blue Light Theater Company at
CSC, 13th Street west of Third Avenue, through Oct. 25. Seen at Friday's
preview.
Anyone who knows Frances McDormand for her Oscar-winning turn as the
laconic cop in "Fargo" or as a no-nonsense sibling on Broadway in "The
Sisters Rosensweig" should be startled to find her writhing in verbose
sexual longing for an adopted son in Off-Broadway's tiny CSC Theater.
People who know Billy Crudup as the charismatic talent who burst
straight from NYU to the dashing tutor in "Arcadia" and
young-Hollywood's A-list may be shocked to find him so doggedly
unromantic as one of world drama's great tragic characters.
And that's nothing compared to the disorientation audiences may
well feel if they go to the Blue Light Theater Company's production of
"Oedipus" expecting, you know, the usual Sophocles business about a
young Greek royal who kills his father, marries his mother and
capitulates to his divine fate. Did we say disorientation? Make that
disappointment. OK, dismay.
Alas, the "Oedipus" that opened a limited run last night with such an
intriguing cast is a "world premiere," a sporadically entertaining,
willfully wayward four-hour hair shirt of a would-be epic by a
playwright named Dare Clubb. It seems he and McDormand have been friends
since they met 18 years ago at the Yale Drama School. What brought his
wildly ambitious, intensely over-written tome onto the Blue Light's
radar screen is less immediately clear.
The company, formed four years ago under the partial stewardship of
Joanne Woodward, has tended toward such passionate middle-of-the-road
revivals as its calling-card production, Clifford Odets' "Golden Boy."
Some may believe that fate brought these unlikely sensibilities
together. Then again, perhaps someone simply could not resist the chance
to hear McDormand deliver what may turn out to be the best - i.e.,
most demented - line of the season: "I can't marry you, Oedipus! I am
not your mother!"
Since Clubb is not without a wicked sense of whimsy and a definite
grasp on a high-flying riff technique, we find ourselves asking,
periodically, if he is serious. The answer is, ultimately and
unfortunately, yes. Deadly serious. There are some marvelous flights of
imaginative writing, especially for a demented rural philosopher
character called the Hunter (played with irrepressible wild-eyed madness
by Jon De Vries), who describes gruesome meals with the glee of a
connoisseur foodie.
More often, however, the style is tangled in purple poetry,
self-conscious verbalizing and such needlessly convoluted locutions as
this doozy, "If a thought doesn't think, what does it?" Oedipus is
obsessed with the uniqueness of his fate, as if he can assert his
singularity by acting out the actions assigned him at Delphi. Thus, the
hours are filled with questions about "what am I without my fate?" When
he tells the Hunter that he is fated to kill his father and marry his
mother, the fellow actually says, "Ahhhh, not good. No, that is
severe."
Yes, that it is. Clubb sees the classic conflict between
predestination and free will as a picaresque series of misadventures by
a young royal punk named Oedipus. McDormand plays his mother, but her
name is Merope, not Jocasta. Her secret is that he was adopted as a
foundling and, when we meet her, she has driven herself nuts with the
realization that she is hot for him. McDormand, usually such a straight
forward actress, begins in hysteria and goes from there. She paces, she
recoils, she flirts and writhes like a character Martha Graham could
have loved. We admire her commitment enormously. We actually almost
believe her. We just question the justification for the effort.
Crudup, whom we never found less than fascinating onstage
before, is a mope as Oedipus, a floppy, charmless fellow whose emotional
convolutions are not less annoying than those of an average teenager.
When he cries out "I am not yet who I am!," we cannot help thinking the
cry for help is coming from the actor more than the character.
Clubb gets more interesting performances from subsidiary members
of his large cast. These include Johanna Day as Merope's incredulous
woman-in-waiting, Jeffrey Donovan as Oedipus' slacker pal Teiresias, and
Carolyn McCormick as his clear-eyed real mother, Io-Caste. Narelle
Sissons' set is a simple collection of gray plaster shards with a
useful pit. Christianne Myers' vaguely modern costumes are
unpretentious. Would that we could say the same for the play.
back to filmography
|
|
| |
|
|
THURSDAYS
