Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – Streaming Diary: Caryll Churchill’s MAD FOREST, James Graham’s THIS HOUSE, and Lonnie Carter’s THE ROMANCE OF MAGNO RUBIO

• By drediman
• June 7, 2020
• No Comments

This past week, I streamed three plays note. As always, here are my thoughts!

Gavin McKenzie in Caryl Churchill’s “Mad Forest”, courtesy of Theatre for a New Audience and Fisher Center at Bard.

First up was Theatre for a New Audience and Fisher Center at Bard’s recent made-for-streaming Zoom presentation of Mad Forest (RECOMMENDED), Caryl Churchill’s 1990 play chronicling fictional and non-fictional events leading up to, during, and after the Romanian Revolution. Over the course of her lengthy career, Ms. Churchill has consistently proven herself to be one the visionary playwrights of our age via plays that shed piercing, revealing light upon human society. Her works are also often breathtakingly theatrical. Although I wouldn’t classify Mad Forest as one of her masterpieces, it still makes for beguiling political theater.

More theatrical tapestry than through-line narrative, the play is disarming in its contradictions; it’s messy but tightly structured, satirical yet inexplicably menacing. In questioning the very nature of revolution, it offers no easy answers as to humanity’s evolution, suggesting the limited effectiveness of social theory in its implementation. Performed by eager Bard drama students, there’s no getting around the fact that the production was unevenly acted. However, I found that the youthful, unpolished quality of the performances somehow captured the rough-and-tumble realities of revolutions. Additionally, I thought the Zoom presentation worked very well with the play’s episodic patchwork layout. Mad Forest was webcast live on May 22, May 24, and May 27.

Cast members of James Graham’s “This House” at the National Theatre.

The focus on politics continued with James Graham’s 2012 play This House (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED), which was captured by NT Live at the National’s Olivier Theatre in 2013 (the production subsequently returned to London’s West End). Mr. Graham is also responsible for penning the the similarly sprawling, muscular Ink, which played Broadway last year. This House depicts the knotty, labyrinthine workings of Britain’s Parliamentary system during the 1970s, particularly the dynamic friction between the diametrically opposed Labour and Conservative parties.

Happily, what could have been a dry history lesson turned out to be a theatrical rollercoaster ride, which both second-guessed, as well as glorified the country’s political machinations. The wordy, meaty 3 hour play – complete with a huge cast of characters – has been given a bravura, robustly-acted production by Jeremy Herrin, who is no stranger to epic theater having successfully staged Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall novels on both sides of the pond. Admittedly, it took me some time to get used to the governmental concepts and lingo. Nevertheless, the production ultimately elicited from me the same kind of reaction as watching the musical 1776 – both work brilliantly as history lesson and vivid, high stakes entertainment. This House was available for a week thanks to NT at Home.

The company of Lonnie Carter’s “The Romance of Magno Rubio” filmed at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

Lastly, I had the privilege of catching the recent webcast of Lonnie Carter’s The Romance of Magno Rubio (RECOMMENDED) (featuring original Filipino text by Ralph B. Peña), which was captured live in 2003 at the Cultural Center of the Philippines shortly after having premiered to great acclaim in New York. I have fond memories of seeing director Loy Arcenas’s original staging in 2004 in Chicago courtesy of the great Victory Gardens Theatre, albeit with a largely recast company of actors. As an impressionable young Filipino-American and budding theater fan, I remember being very excited to see people who looked like me and spoke in the rhythms of my homeland on the stage.

Based on Carlos Bulosan’s short story of the same name, the play tells the story of a group of Filipino American migrant workers in California during the 1930s, particularly that of the irrepressible Magno Rubio, who was vibrantly played in the 2003 film by Jojo Gonzalez. Seeing the play again after so many years was a treat, especially with respect to its depiction of the confusion and joy of the immigrant experience. And once again, I basked in the thrill of the Mr. Arcenas’s organic, ensemble-driven staging, which thankfully translated to the screen. The production was made available for streaming for 10 days by Ma-Yi Theater Company.