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A CurtainUp Review
A Life in the Theatre
By Elyse Sommer
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Superior theater is like a little walnut, meaty on the inside and tight all round. —
Robert
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Patrick Stewart and T. R. Knight
(Photo: Carol Rosegg)
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Slight and predictable as it is, this little backstage comedy has enjoyed considerable success since Mamet penned it more than thirty years ago. It had a long run at the Theater de Lys (now the Lucille Lortel, with Ellis Rabb as Robert and Peter Evans as John) and a revival five years later at the now defunct Jewish Repertory Theater (F. Murray Abraham as Robert, Anthony Fusco as John). It's also had its share of regional productions with no shortage of actors jumping at the chance to replay this tender theatrical version of a son outgrowing a knowledgeable father who in turn becomes increasingly aware of his waning powers. Feelings of resentment and rivalry thus sour the mentorship and the parent or fading star finds it painful to pass the torch to the rising star.
Actually neither of Mamet's characters is a big star. Their 26 scenes are set during a season at a repertory theater of no great renown. But that's not the case for the actors in the current revival.
With Mamet's cachet ever on the rise, both his new and revived plays have in recent years been mounted on Broadway with the producers hedging their bets with actors who bring both stage credentials and the ticket-selling mass appeal of popular TV roles. Patrick Stewart as Robert and T. R. Knight as John certainly fit the bill. Stewart — make that Sir Patrick Stewart — is a classically trained actor who last played Macbeth on Broadway but is probably most famous as Star Trek's Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Knight, also no stranger to the stage (he was in the last Broadway revival of Noises Off), achieved mass market fame as Dr. George O'Malley in Grey's Anatomy.
Stewart's Robert (a part he previously played in London five years ago, also with a well known TV actor) is every inch and every spendidly enunciated word the grandiose hammy actor whose life is indeed the theater and nothing but the theater. Knight's John is a perfect counterpoint. He's boyish (hard to believe he's in his 30s), agile and ambitious in the sense of wanting it all — a personal life as well as a career beyond this theater company with its cheesy, under rehearsed lineup of plays. However, even their considerable talent and charisma can't transform this amusing but slight comedy into top drawer Mamet.
Neil Pepe, who so successfully directed the last revival of Speed-the-Plow has enlisted top of the line designers to help him make everything look and feel as if it belongs on a Broadway stage. The talented Laura Bauer has created lots of scene setting costumes. Scenic wizard Santo Loquasto has designed a high fallutin' background onto which to roll an impressive array of sets for Mamet's genre spoofing plays within the play. While some of these play snippets are great fun, the pumped up production values heighten the sense that Robert and John's story belongs in a smaller, more intimate space. What's more, the constant moving of scenery between scenes impedes fluidity and ultimately becomes tiresome. The prop movers are so much in evidence that they should be given credit in the program's cast member listing.
I saw the original version too long ago to spot any really significant revisions made for this production. Essentially the play remains a chronicle of the fraught friendship between Robert for whom acting is a do or die, all consuming religion and the a younger, less experienced John, who is at first flattered and grateful at the older man's interest but wants more distance as he gains confidence. The backstage scenes, many of them with the actors preparing for a performance in their shared dressing room or leaving the theater after a performance is realistic, full of the kind of talk about a performance or fellow performer. These interchanges show Mamet's developing ability for saying much with a look or a pause.
The realism turns into Saturday Night Live skit mode for the excerpts from plays which seem familiar but are actually Mamet's way of poking fun at various genres. Both Stewart and Knight obviously enjoy playing these pratfall prone mini-romps through Chekhovian dramas, marital drama à la Maugham or Noel Coward, war and revolution dramas and Marx Brothers type slapstick. The costumes work well to help us identify who and what's being spoofed and Loquasto's props support the often hilarious sight gags.
All the mock play scenes have us watching the actors from the rear as they play to the footlights, but not are equally funny. The backstage interaction is most involving and sympathy arousing as it becomes clear that this is not a lifelong friendship, that John will move on and away and that Robert will remain committed to his life in the theater because that's all he knows. When the curtain finally goes down on the play rather than another play snippet, we applaud Stewart and Knight's quick change artistry but their characters remain archetypes rather than really memorable individuals.
For more about David Mamet and links to other plays of his we've reviewed, see our Mamet Backgrounder.
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A Life in the Theatre By David Mamet Directed by Neil Pepe Cast: Patrick Stewart (Robert), T.R. Knight (John) Scenic design by Santo Loquasto Costume design by Laura Bauer Lighting design by Kenneth Posner Wig design by Charles LaPointe Fight choreography by J. David Brimmer Stage Manager: Matthew Silver— Running time: 90 minutes, with no intermissions Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, 236 West 45th Street between Broadway and 8th Avenue 239-2600 From 9/17/10; opening 10/12/10; closing 1/02/11--closing early, 11/28/10 Tuesday and Wednesday at 7 pm, Thursday through Saturday at 8 pm, Wednesday and Saturday at 2 pm, Sunday at 3 pm. Ticket$76.50 - $251.50 Reviewed by Elyse Sommer 10/14/10 press performance |
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