Thursday, August 31, 2006
The Lotus In Central Park
An attempt at writing about Meryl Streep as MOTHER COURAGE , in the NY Shakespeare's production that we saw last night in the Park will take all my courage, because it was so wonderful and full of resonance for me and the audience, it almost feels like a responsibility to "get it right"...I realize how silly that is, because of course, the surest thing to trust is my own passion about it...allow it to flow.
Just as Meryl S. does in what could arguably be the hardest female stage role ever written. Her training is so fine, her sensibilities so healthy and in tune with her desire to serve the play, she sincerely crafts it to look like a pure brilliant conduit for each of Courage's passions. I know what work it is, the planning, preparing, plotting, measuring heavy lifting and building such a role takes...like a huge house, of complicated design and infinite possibilities, made solid , made spacious and sound, for a human family to fully live in...a role like MOTHER COURAGE takes a deeply schooled and wise craftsperson ,a strong , integrated and far-seeng person to fulfill it. We were fortunate to be in the presence of a true Master of the craft last night. And even actors we have typically come to expect less from were brought up to the level of committment and energy and ...well....passion...this important play demands ... we were therefore treated to more of a company experience than I have ever seen in the Park productions.
Because we are dazzled by beauty and ease, cleverness and coolness, American audiences allow...even encourage our actors to be lazy and nonchalant....we expect too little and sadly, receive it. So it was good to see certain actors inspired to fulfill the writing and mission of the play. And to remember their good training and perhaps the days when they wanted to do something important with theater , not just popular.
Musical Theater performers, if they are truly gifted, take us to the place we need to be taken more often than non-musical ones, because by sheer demand of the musical's requirements, they have to have strong, open, free and full bodies and voices...sadly, Musical Theater performers often are content with just that and leave out the necessary mind and spirit to make an evening in the musical theater truly great. So we have that rift between good non-musical theater and good Musical Theater...THE REAL THING, IS ALWAYS MUSICAL, (even when there is not a note written to be sung or played by an instrument other than our bodies) because ALL GREAT WORKS REQUIRE IT ALL OF US AT ALL TIMES!!!!
MOTHER COURAGE is like a lotus flower....and so was Meryl's performance...rooted in the everyday mud of a world at war...(and finally when is the world not at war? Even in times of peace, we battle each other.) But rooted in the slimiest of muddy bottoms, (if anything critical is to be said, this particular production was a bit too clean and shiny...especially the supposedly diseased Prostitute), rooted in shit, Mother Courage continuously rises from it, slogs through the daily samsara, doses herself with good brandy and keeps pulling the wagon...through the deaths of each child, she pulls...(I finally understood the MOTHER in Mother Courage, as she keened over the forlorn corpse of her dead daughter I have never heard such sounds like the ones that came out of her as she carefully arranged Katrin's rags)...
Streep was every instrument in the enormous orchestra..she played her voice and body like whatever instrument was required for that particular passage of script...but the music of the entire symphony flowed through her as one artfully (that's where the mind and spirit come in) composed piece of music...I'd swear there were times she was playing more than one instrument at a time, as the moment required the most complex of human reactions...so, for example as she keened for her dead daughter she was also making sounds and motions of joy at being the girl's mother...joy and grief in one moment ...all within the body of the actress...how could we not be mesmerized by that?"
And what actress do you know who can do that? In my experience, very few.
Meryl and Kevin Kline showed us their pedigrees...America does train actors well...we just don't encourage their further growth...we prefer to encourage their careers. Somehow, Meryl Streep, as she raised 5 of her own children, raised her gifts and consciousness too, and the benign result is an American artist we can be proud of. They say that Kevin K. will assay the role of KING LEAR in 2007...at this point , I would rather see Meryl Streep do it...but maybe Kevin will remember his roots and have a coaching session or two with his old comrade Streep and talk about the good old days...when rolling around in the mud was not only fun but fertile.
Just as Meryl S. does in what could arguably be the hardest female stage role ever written. Her training is so fine, her sensibilities so healthy and in tune with her desire to serve the play, she sincerely crafts it to look like a pure brilliant conduit for each of Courage's passions. I know what work it is, the planning, preparing, plotting, measuring heavy lifting and building such a role takes...like a huge house, of complicated design and infinite possibilities, made solid , made spacious and sound, for a human family to fully live in...a role like MOTHER COURAGE takes a deeply schooled and wise craftsperson ,a strong , integrated and far-seeng person to fulfill it. We were fortunate to be in the presence of a true Master of the craft last night. And even actors we have typically come to expect less from were brought up to the level of committment and energy and ...well....passion...this important play demands ... we were therefore treated to more of a company experience than I have ever seen in the Park productions.
Because we are dazzled by beauty and ease, cleverness and coolness, American audiences allow...even encourage our actors to be lazy and nonchalant....we expect too little and sadly, receive it. So it was good to see certain actors inspired to fulfill the writing and mission of the play. And to remember their good training and perhaps the days when they wanted to do something important with theater , not just popular.
Musical Theater performers, if they are truly gifted, take us to the place we need to be taken more often than non-musical ones, because by sheer demand of the musical's requirements, they have to have strong, open, free and full bodies and voices...sadly, Musical Theater performers often are content with just that and leave out the necessary mind and spirit to make an evening in the musical theater truly great. So we have that rift between good non-musical theater and good Musical Theater...THE REAL THING, IS ALWAYS MUSICAL, (even when there is not a note written to be sung or played by an instrument other than our bodies) because ALL GREAT WORKS REQUIRE IT ALL OF US AT ALL TIMES!!!!
MOTHER COURAGE is like a lotus flower....and so was Meryl's performance...rooted in the everyday mud of a world at war...(and finally when is the world not at war? Even in times of peace, we battle each other.) But rooted in the slimiest of muddy bottoms, (if anything critical is to be said, this particular production was a bit too clean and shiny...especially the supposedly diseased Prostitute), rooted in shit, Mother Courage continuously rises from it, slogs through the daily samsara, doses herself with good brandy and keeps pulling the wagon...through the deaths of each child, she pulls...(I finally understood the MOTHER in Mother Courage, as she keened over the forlorn corpse of her dead daughter I have never heard such sounds like the ones that came out of her as she carefully arranged Katrin's rags)...
Streep was every instrument in the enormous orchestra..she played her voice and body like whatever instrument was required for that particular passage of script...but the music of the entire symphony flowed through her as one artfully (that's where the mind and spirit come in) composed piece of music...I'd swear there were times she was playing more than one instrument at a time, as the moment required the most complex of human reactions...so, for example as she keened for her dead daughter she was also making sounds and motions of joy at being the girl's mother...joy and grief in one moment ...all within the body of the actress...how could we not be mesmerized by that?"
And what actress do you know who can do that? In my experience, very few.
Meryl and Kevin Kline showed us their pedigrees...America does train actors well...we just don't encourage their further growth...we prefer to encourage their careers. Somehow, Meryl Streep, as she raised 5 of her own children, raised her gifts and consciousness too, and the benign result is an American artist we can be proud of. They say that Kevin K. will assay the role of KING LEAR in 2007...at this point , I would rather see Meryl Streep do it...but maybe Kevin will remember his roots and have a coaching session or two with his old comrade Streep and talk about the good old days...when rolling around in the mud was not only fun but fertile.
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