THEATRE REVIEW:
KPBS
AIRDATE: May 02, 2003
Power differentials are everywhere. And
as both history and current events have shown, oppression often leads to
aggression. Dominance can be exploited in all quarters -- from the boardroom to
the Pentagon, from classroom to kitchen, from the bedroom to the gates of Hell.
And directly or indirectly, it's all played out onstage. Asian American
Repertory Theatre and The Fritz have banded together for "Sex and
Power," a David Mamet duet. And the Muse Theatre is presenting "The
House of Bernarda Alba," the taut 1930s drama by Federico Garcia Lorca. In
condemning authoritarianism, all three focus on some aspect of subjugation of
women in society.
In Lorca's play, set against the
backdrop of rising fascism in Spain, a rigid matriarch represses her five
daughters by enforcing an eight-year mourning period for their father. Tension
builds and violence ensues. In the contemporary Mamet one-acts, a professor
makes a female student feel demeaned in "Oleanna" and she takes
revenge. In "Bobby Gould in Hell" an impatient, horned interrogator
humorously forces a Hollywood sharpie to confront the abuse of his girlfriend
and other heinous acts. "Bobby Gould" is the weakest play in terms of
message, but by far the strongest production. Director Katie Rodda displays a
wonderful comic touch, with a delicious quartet of performances and some nifty
special effects.
In the Asian American Rep production,
"Oleanna" has morphed from a highly controversial critique of
academia and political correctness to a treatise on inter-sex
mis-communication. The direction seems mis-guided, its sexually-charged
interludes seriously interfering with Mamet's carefully calibrated corrosion of
the imbalanced teacher-student relationship. All the subtext and subtlety are
missing. Denton Davis is wholly professorial, but he virtually ignores the
simultaneous devolution of the man's marriage. Anne Tran succeeds in making the
sketchily written student credible, but her costumes tend toward the seductive
and like the interludes, they distort Mamet's intent.
According to playwright Lorca,
"Bernarda Alba" was written not as a poem, but as a
"photographic documentary." Director Francine Chemnick needs to
accentuate her sporadically lovely stage pictures and heighten the seething
intensity beneath the surface. After a slow-paced start, the calamitous
household emerges as too polite and mannered; the underplayed severity and
passion diminish the shock of the violent ending. But kudos to the Muse for
continuing to take dramatic risks.
Applause is always due to theaters who
make us view our present in light of the past; suppression of rights, then as
now, will always provoke rebellion.
©2003
Patté Productions Inc.