Interludes

VIEWPOINTS – The risks and rewards of high concept revivals: TACT’s SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER vs. Roundabout’s THE CHERRY ORCHARD

• By drediman
• October 17, 2016
• No Comments

High concept revivals can be thrilling affairs. Take last season’s Tony-winning revival of Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge, in which Belgian avant-garde theater director Ivo van Hove stripped the play of its naturalistic trappings to reveal the Greek tragedy at its core. The results hit audiences in the gut. At the same time, nontraditional directorial takes can also be risky affairs. A case in point, also from last season, was the unfortunate revival of Harold Pinter’s Old Times, which suffered from an overly fussy staging by Douglas Hodge (a very fine actor in his own right). This season, two revivals which recently opened also reflect the risks and rewards of high concept revivals.

TACT’s revival “She Stoops to Conquer” at The Clurman Theatre in Theatre Row

TACT is one of those Off-Broadway theater companies that isn’t afraid to make bold choices when it comes to mounting revivals. The results can be mixed, as their confounding production of The Killing of Sister George by Frank Markus made evident a few seasons ago. Luckily, they get it right most of the time, as does the company’s delightfully scrappy revival of She Stoops to Conquer (RECOMMENDED) by Oliver Goldsmith, proving once again the benefits of rethinking classic texts for today’s audiences. Directed by Scott Alan Evans with a light touch and a contemporary comedic sensibility on one of the more intimate stages in Theatre Row, the revival very easily dusts the cobwebs off of this creaky old war horse of a play about mistaken identities and misunderstandings. The acting is inspired throughout the cast. Cynthia Darlow and John Rothman are particularly frothy fun as the Hardcastles, and Richard Thieriot almost steals the show as the scheming Tony Lumpkin.

Roundabout’s revival of “The Cherry Orchard” at The American Airlines Theatre

Just down the street from Theatre Row, also on 42^nd Street (at the American Airlines Theatre), we have the highly anticipated Broadway revival of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard (NOT RECOMMENDED), courtesy of Roundabout Theatre Company. To say the production is misguided would be an understatement – a trainwreck is more like it. This is deeply frustrating given the pedigree of those involved, particularly Stephen Karam who wrote the adaptation and is responsible for the extraordinary Tony-winning The Humans, and up-and-coming British director Simon Godwin. Mr. Godwin’s work, in particular, robs this Cherry Orchard of that dramatically tantalizing Chekhovian tension between the comedy and tragedy of life. Instead, he chooses the garishly unsubtle approach in which everyone is a clown. Without the aforementioned tension, the play becomes inert, dull, and one-dimensional. And insufferable. Luckily, some of the performances salvage some of the irreversible damage – Diane Lane is irrepressibly glamourous as Ranevskaya, even in this drivel of a production, and Celia Kennan-Bolger actually does sensitive work as Varya.

SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER
Off-Broadway, Play
TACT at the Clurman Theatre
2 hours, 15 minutes (with one intermission)
Through November 5

THE CHERRY ORCHARD
Broadway, Play
Roundabout Theatre Company at American Airlines Theatre
2 hours, 15 minutes (with one intermission)
Through December 4