|
Speed
Freaks [film]
Unconscious
Motives of the Motion Picture Industry
|
In 1936, Clare Booth Luce, a formidable Manhattan personality and writer (who also happened to be married to Time magazine publisher, Henry Luce), wrote a popular Broadway drama entitled The Women, a regular "meow mix" about a group of catty, upper-class women and their momentary comeuppance. Luce noted at the time: "The women who inspired this play deserved to be smashed across the head with a meat ax." Flash forward 60 years, and say hello to Robert Cucuzza. Approaching on tippy-toes with a sly, slightly mad grin on his face, Cucuzza is the perfect modern day ax-bearer. A brilliant, highly original, young (28) director, Cucuzza likes nothing more than creating funny, entertaining theatricals. Mean Rich White Ladies, his version of Luce's classic, is a fast-paced, pie-in-the-face to the highfalutin' production, complete with his usual dose of Marx Brothersesque physical comedy and insanely energetic choreography. Tall and affable, with black hair and black-rimmed glasses, the born-to-ignite Cucuzza (he's originally from Bradford, Pennsylvania, home of the Zippo lighter) needed nothing more than a tall lemonade at Cafe Orlin to 'fess up. He explains that the original play was terribly misogynistic," and that there was a lot of talk about "distrusting the female gender" and "how people would rather be men," etc. So the first thing he did was, "cut about half the text, including all the pontificating and philosophizing,' thereby transforming a three-hour three-act into a 90-minute one-act. They've changed character interpretations, too. In the original, "Mary," the wife of an adulterous husband, receives a lot of sympathy and serves as the play's moral heroine. "In our production," Cucuzza gleefully says, "Mary is very neurotic, very confused, sometimes psychotic and a much stronger character." Admits Cucuzza: "It's a very superficial presentation of the play. There are 8 actors, all women, playing 30 roles. We think the play is pretty idiotic, so there are many moments when you see the actors reacting to lines that they just recited or lines that are particularly ridiculous. The cringe element is there. Cucuzza has several tricks up his theatrical sleeve. Some would call them "stage devices." He calls them "toys." An example: "The script has terrible stage directions. So we have a person on mic reading some of them, directing the actors reactions, etc." This results in "egging on the characters or annoying the actors. We're really out to interrupt the play as often as possible." Expect dancing during the scene changes, and music throughout the production. Cucuzza says, "I always do dancing. I love seeing it, and they love doing it." He adds, with an eye to the future, "I'm just gearing up for the 'big musical' next year: The Music Man-set in a 1939 Berlin cabaret." I can hardly wait!
Review
by Jacob Lewis In Hangdog Theater's biting adaptation of Clare Boothe Luce's classic 1936 play, the socialites display a cynical, schizophrenic bent that makes this bitchy romp tough to resist. If, while you're cracking up, you can catch your breath, you may want to (as Luce herself once suggested) smash the ladies "across the head with a meat ax," but then you'd only lose out on the fun. With such wickedly delightful characters and a flamboyant dance number to boot, this high-falutin' look at the superficial world of society mavens–where everyone cheats and tattles and marriages are meant to fail–develops into an acidic joy that makes Nan Kempner look down-to-earth. |
Back Stage
What can you do with "The Women"? The 1936 Clare Booth Luce play–currently filtered through Robert Cucuzza's Hangdog Theater as "Mean Rich White Ladies"–possesses a tentative grip on the American theater canon as a sort of classic of its type. Yet the mealy-mouthed Broadway sentiments expressed by the two score members of the play's eponymous sex are now so antiquated and often embarrassing as to be nearly unplayable. All that remains to recommend the work (and all people remember, primarily from the famous movie) is the sparkling, jagged, wit. And a play's wit makes for the brittlest of skeleton frames on which to build a production. That Cucuzza knows this is telegraphed by his adaptation's title. His reason for producing the play is to spoof Luce. As with "Stage Door," there's not much else you can do with such a play. Just feed it to the camp and kitsch vultures and stand back, ironic laughter at the ready. It's not much of a reason. But, that said, this is a vastly entertaining and zestfully performed piece of expressionistic vaudeville. Dawn Robyn Petrlik's set is chic, Anita Yavich's costumes amusing. Cucuzza's direction is self- reflective, of course, but razor sharp, and filled with wonderful details: pauses, takes, and pivots. The eight actresses are dominated by the direction, but take their performance firmly in their own hands, raiding the acting styles of Katherine Hepburn, Mae West, and about every other prewar female film star. You don't often see so many talented actresses tearing away at comic business so adeptly. Best is Rebecca Finnegan in the showboat role of catty Sylvia Fowler With her broad face, wide feline smile, and eyes like roving beacons, every reaction is like a comic epiphany. Equally good on a lower flame is Tory Vazquez as a stronger, but slightly psychotic, version of the play's homey heroine, Mary Haines. The rest of the cast is uniformly excellent: Linda Donald, Sibyl Kempson, Jennifer Krasinsky, Alicia McMillen, Rebecca Wisocky, Jennifer Woodward, and Chandra Oppenheim (whose read-aloud stage directions are treated like bones thrown to the hungry cast).
VOICE
CHOICES Director Robert Cucuzza shoots Clare Booth Luce's The Women–a poison cocktail served to her gender–through a lens that pities and pierces the self-hatred and fuels up on the energetic bitchery. The production, he vows, "achieves a beautiful superficiality," as he remixes the war horse with Hangdog Theater's usual brew of "high velocity scenes, big dance numbers (choreographed by David Neumann), physical comedy, class warfare, and schizophrenic character doubling."
|
