'Alexander Calder: Modern from the Start' (MoMA, 2021-22)

 

On 1 January 2020, I posted a report called “The ‘New’ MoMA, 2019.”  It was my account of the last visit I made to an art museum, on 19 December 2019, before the pandemic shut-down.  (New York City’s Museum of Modern Art had just reopened on 21 October after an extensive reconstruction of its West 53rd Street building.  This had been my first chance to see the new facility.) 

I hadn’t set foot in any sort of art show since then and, consequently, I hadn’t posted an art report of my own on Rick On Theater since that date.  (I have, though, republished articles on art by other authors.)  Then, on 31 December last year, the day of New Year’s Eve 2021, my usual theater partner, Diana, and I checked out Immersive Van Gogh, a virtual art experience, but not an actual exhibit of art, which was followed on 10 and 13 January by my report on the animated digital video show.

Now I have a true, in-person art exhibit, for the first time in almost 25 months, on which to report.  On Wednesday, 12 January, Diana and I went back to MoMA to catch Alexander Calder: Modern from the Start before it closed on Saturday, 15 January.  (Originally scheduled to close on 7 August 2021, it was extended in June.)

I’m going to try to reboot my art-appreciation eye and re-ink my pen (metaphorically speaking) and see what I can make of my first live art experience in over two years.  So, first I hope I can make something cogent out of this different kind of art immersion (to appropriate the terminology of IVG and its sister programs; there are a dozen, give or take).  Then I have to see if I can articulate that experience to try to communicate it to ROTters.

Wish me luck.  Whatever skills I ever had for this task feel rusty—not to say atrophied. 

Let’s do the prelims—the factual background of the exhibit—and see if that doesn’t limber up the ol’ joints.  (I’m going to take this slow, so bear with me . . . .)

Alexander Calder: Modern from the Start opened on 14 March 2021 in MoMA’s Edward Steichen Galleries on Floor 3.  (There were two pieces in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden outside the first floor; I’ll mention these later.)  The show included approximately 70 artworks supplemented by films, historical photographs, printed matter, letter facsimiles, and other archival materials from MoMA’s own collection, augmented by loans from the Alexander and Louisa Calder Foundation.

Organized by Cara Manes, Associate Curator in the Department of Painting and Sculpture, with Zuna Maza and Makayla Bailey, Curatorial Fellows in that department, the exhibition delves deeply into the full breadth of Calder’s career and inventiveness.  Modern from the Start brings together early wire sculptures and carved wood figures, works on paper, jewelry, mobiles in motion (some by way of ancient motors), and monumental abstract sculptures called “stabiles.”  

(Mobile is a word invented by Dada and Surrealist painter Marcel Duchamp [French, 1887-1968] in 1931 to characterize Calder’s moving sculptures.  Stabile was coined by Dada artist Jean (Hans) Arp [German-French, 1886-1966] in 1932 to describe Calder’s non-motile sculptures.  Somehow, I find that neat. 

(Outside the field of invention itself, I don’t know how many folks have had even one word made up just for them—and here’s an artist who not only got two, but the coiners were world-class artists themselves!  That’s like a Nobel Prize in art.)

Diana and I met at the museum at 12:30 on Wednesday afternoon.  As usual, I got there before she did, but I was early, so we were right on time for out timed tickets.  The last time we were at MoMA, Diana was a member (she let her membership lapse over the shut-down) and we had attended a Member After Hours, so we used a different entrance than the main one.  I hadn’t seen the new Entry Lobby since the remodeling.

The main lobby just inside the 53rd Street entrance, next to the Museum Store, used to be basically a wide-open area with large, square hassock-like seats.  I expected to sit on one, facing the doors, and keep an eye out for Diana, as I had the tickets. 

But the redesigned lobby has no seating at all, just rope lines, checkpoints, and counters; the only seats near the entrance were off the left (as you enter) in the West Lobby.  (It’s the space that used to be the store, which is now on the floor below, beneath the West Lobby.)  I wouldn’t be able to see Diana as she went through the vaccination and ID check outside and she’d never see me even after she got inside unless she knew to look there.

So I took the one seat, a hard, unupholstered bench, that was right at the corner of the wall that separates the entrance from the seating area.  I soon lost all feeling in my tush.  (Eventually, I got up to stretch the muscles and took the few steps to my left to where the security guards stand to monitor visitors—and Diana showed up just outside at that moment.)

So, even at this late date, I discovered a consequence of MoMA’s redesign that’s disadvantageous.  I’ll add to that the signage—for where each exhibit is displayed—inadequate and confusing.  The listings of the contents of each gallery are almost all next to the elevators, so first you have to find one.

Then, the directories are light boards—and they change every few seconds.  That means if the exhibit you’re looking for has just been displayed before you find the directory, you have to wait while the sign goes through all its changes floor by floor before the exhibit you want comes up again.

(MoMA, like most art museums, used to have printed guides visitors could carry with them, but like all other printed matter, that courtesy has disappeared.  The brief brochure for each exhibit that was so useful was dispensed with a long time ago.  Everything has migrated over to the museums’ websites and smart-phone apps, it seems.)

Okay, enough bitchin’ and moanin’ for now.  Let’s get to the art and the display thereof.

I should acknowledge here that Alexander Calder (American, 1898-1976) is one of my favorite artists.  (There’s a short bio of the artist in “Calder: Hypermobility at the Whitney,” posted on Rick On Theater on 21 August 2017; https://rickontheater.blogspot.com/2017/08/calder-hypermobility-at-whitney.html.)  I love his whimsy, his sense of humor, his ingenuity, his inventiveness.  His work makes me chuckle, wonder, imagine and dream, and delight.

One of my favorite Calder pieces, by far his largest mobile and the last major art work he created, the red-and-black Untitled (1976), hangs from the ceiling of the center court of the National Gallery of Art’s East Building in Washington, D.C. 

I used to visit NGA’s East Building hundreds of times when I went to Washington, and Calder’s Untitled and the Joan Miró (Spanish Surrealist, 1893-1983) tapestry Woman (1977) in the same vast, open atrium just beyond the museum’s entry were always my first pleasures, no matter what show I was there to see. 

Both pieces were removed for cleaning and maintenance, the Calder in 1988 and the Miró on 2003, and I missed them dearly.  (The mobile was returned to its proper place, but the tapestry was replaced.)

For many years, I spent a lot of time at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.  As much as anything else I accomplished there—mounds of research—I loved walking under Le Guichet (“The Box Office”), Calder’s monumental 1963 black stabile directly in front of the library’s entrance. 

When it, too, was removed during a make-over of the Lincoln Center Plaza, I actually missed it.  I suppose that’s partly because I often used to “open” the library and arrived a few minutes before its noon opening and sat looking at the sculpture or walking around it for the time I had to wait.  (There was also a Henry Moore [English sculptor, 1898-1986] sculpture, Reclining Figure [1963-5], in a pool a few yards north of the Calder.)

I even own a Calder lithograph that’s of the same iconography as the sculptor’s mobiles—the same color palette and the same blobby shapes.  It could, in fact, be seen as a study for a possible mobile (though I’m pretty sure that’s not what it was intended for).  The title, Magie Eolin (1972)—the nearest translation for which I can come up with is “magic of the wind”—might suggest that it was inspired by the wind-driven sculptures so beloved by both the artist himself and his fans.  

I have a faux-Calder mobile in my study, too.  My mother bought it as a gift for my father at one of the Washington museum shops, the NGA or one of the Smithsonians, and they passed it on to me sometime after I moved into my present apartment—which has an extra room for my study/guest room.  It’s not an actual Calder, but it was clearly modeled after his work (and could almost pass for one of Calder’s mobiles . . . if you don’t look too closely).

So you can judge why I was so ready to get to Modern from the Start before it closed.

Calder had a long and symbiotic association with MoMA.  It started when the institution was in its infancy and the sculptor was just beginning his career.  Each gave a boost in prominence and stature to the other. 

In the words of Artbook, a distributor of art books and museum exhibition catalogues, “Through MoMA, Calder came to be known as a pioneer of modern sculpture, and through Calder, MoMA came to understand itself as an American museum of modern art.”

Calder’s work was first exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in 1930, in the exhibition Painting and Sculpture by Living Americans, just months after MoMA opened to the public.  (The museum opened in November 1929 and led a peripatetic existence for 9½ years.  Painting and Sculpture ran 3 December 1930-20 January 1931.)

The museum’s unofficial “house artist,” Calder created a number of pieces commissioned by MoMA for special events during its earliest years.  In 1939, for example, when the Museum of Modern Art moved into its permanent home on West 53rd Street, the sculptor made Lobster Trap and Fish Tail, a multicolored mobile that still hangs at the top of the lobby’s grand staircase for which it was made.  The staircase, with the mobile, is just outside the exit from the last gallery of Modern from the Start.

Also in 1939, for the celebratory dinner on 8 May MoMA hosted for its tenth anniversary, Calder was commissioned to make huge free-form silver candelabra.  Some of the candelabra, which when connected up looks like a model rollercoaster, were on view in Modern from the Start.

Calder also worked closely with the MoMA curator, in collaboration with artists Marcel Duchamp and Herbert Matter (Swiss-born American photographer and graphic designer, 1907-84), on his major 1943 mid-career retrospective at MoMA, Alexander Calder, which introduced the artist, already known in Europe, to an American audience.  

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Calder’s sculptures were a mainstay of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden, where they have continued to reappear in the succeeding decades.  For Modern from the Start, for example, Man-Eater with Pennants, a giant standing mobile of several different painted metal components affixed to rods that move around a central post by means of air currents, commissioned by MoMA in 1945 for the Sculpture Garden, has been remounted there after an absence of 50 years.

In 1966, ten years before his death, Calder made a gift to MoMA of 19 artworks in order to fill out the institution’s holdings.  The donation included mobiles, stabiles, wood and wire sculptures, and jewelry dating from the 1920s to 1964, making the institution’s Calder holdings the largest and most complete collection by the artist in any museum at the time.  The works were put on display in Calder: 19 Gifts From The Artist (1 February-5 April 1967).

Alexander Calder: Modern from the Start used the connection between the artist and the museum as the lens through which to look at Calder’s career and his art.  It started in a large gallery devoted to the artist’s stabiles (plus one mobile, Snow Flurry, I, 1948) from the 1930s to the ’50s.  The rest of the exhibit proceeded mostly chronologically.  (I won’t, however.)

Cara Manes’s organization clearly revealed that Calder had what amounted to multiple careers.  “One of Calder’s objects is like the sea,” wrote philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (French, 1905-80), “always beginning over again, always new.”  In addition to his several forms of sculpture, he made lithographs, children’s books, jewelry, and theatrical set designs.

I wasn’t in the least disappointed with the exhibit.  The last Calder show I saw, the Whitney’s Calder: Hypermobility in 2017, was devoted to the artist’s mobiles, his wonderful kinetic sculptures.  Modern from the Start covered the whole range of Calder’s creativity.

That’s a little like the menu item labeled a “mixed grill,” an assortment of several kinds of broiled or grilled meats and vegetables served together.  My dad wouldn’t ever order such a meal, which he complained included too much of things he didn’t like and not enough of things he did like.

Well, Modern from the Start didn’t suffer from that failing.  It was a wonderful sampler of Calder’s delightful, imaginative creations.  For instance, I hadn’t seen a display of his wire sculptures, whimsical and often satirical little portraits or caricatures made from bent wire—like, maybe, three-dimensional doodles—since I saw Focus: Alexander Calder (14 September 2007-14 April 2008) at MoMA.  Modern from the Start had a terrific selection of about half a dozen examples.

The wire sculptures, made mostly in Paris, were from the 1920s through the ’40s.  The playful figures, both human and animal (Sow, 1928; Cow, 1929), generic (The Hostess, 1928; Portrait of a Man, c. 1928) and famous (Josephine Baker (III), c. 1927; Marion Greenwood, 1928), are delightfully rendered. 

They’re almost childlike, except that they’re too sophisticated in execution, both in terms of ingenuity and visual sense, to be by a child.  Calder’s ubiquitous whimsy is still evident: in Cow, which is otherwise in steel wire, the sculptor gives us several tiny cow pies made from brass!

The Hostess, subtitled Dowager, is a great example.  The forward thrust of her body suggests what a snob she is; the lorgnette, extended almost at arm’s length, is a sort of illustration of looking down her nose; offering the limpest of handshakes shows her sense of her superiority.  All this is communicated by the merest suggestion of corporeality—just like a satirical cartoonist, except Calder used steel wire instead of ink lines.

The wire sculptures were shown with some of Calder’s wood carvings because both artforms were his earliest efforts.  The Horse and Cow were both carved in 1928, the same time Calder was making his wire pieces. 

Cow (not to be confused with the wire sculpture of the same title) is particularly interesting because it looks as if the animal is emerging from the block of wood, possibly a found piece.  The head is sweetly naturalistic, but as the body recedes toward the wood block, it becomes more impressionistic and ambiguous, until it melds into the wood.  It reminded me vaguely of Michelangelo’s explanation of sculpting that his subject lives in the stone and all he has to do is get rid of everything else and the statue emerges.

Except, of course, nothing Michelangelo ever carved was as cute as Calder’s wooden cow.  (I feel I should add at this point that if Vincent van Gogh [Franco-Dutch painter, 1853-90], on whom I blogged on 10 and 13 January, is my all-time favorite painter, Michelangelo [Italian sculptor and painter, 1475-1564] is my all-time favorite sculptor.  My remark was not a put-down, just a differentiation.)

In the section displaying the mobiles, among the many engaging pieces, is one of special significance to this exhibit.  I’m going to give the mobiles short shrift because I covered the topic so extensively in my 2017 Hypermobility report, but I will say some words on 1934’s A Universe, one of Calder’s first motorized mobiles. 

First of all, how could I ignore a work of art that gripped Albert Einstein (1879-1955), according to the museum, so that he “reportedly stood transfixed in front of its slowly moving orbs for the entire forty-minute cycle.”  MoMA curators allege that the scientific genius uttered, “I wish I’d thought of that.”

Second is the aspect that made A Universe important to Modern from the Start: it was the first piece of Calder’s art to become part of MoMA’s collection, purchased the year he made it.

First shown in MoMA’s Cubism and Abstract Art (2 March-19 April 1936), A Universe is an abstract vision of the cosmos.  A small red sphere and a larger white one suggest planets and move along curved wire orbits at different speeds, completing a full cycle in forty minutes. 

Note, particularly, that it isn’t the universe.  Prompted, reportedly, by the discovery on 18 February 1930 of the (now demoted to dwarf) planet Pluto, the mechanized sculpture is an abstract representation of a conceptual collection of worlds. 

Calder’s mobiles date from 1931, a year after he paid a visit to the studio of his friend Piet Mondrian (Dutch Abstract painter, 1872-1944), which marked a turning point in Calder’s career: it fully opened the American sculptor’s eyes to Abstract art.  As Roberta Smith, the New York Times’ “co-chief art critic,” put it, Calder “suddenly got what modernism and abstraction were all about.”  It is to this epiphany that the MoMA exhibit’s subtitle alludes.

The mobiles, however, clearly show Calder’s background in mechanical engineering (see his bio in my Hypermobility post or some other site), both the mechanized ones and the wind-driven ones (though for different aspects of physics).  That’s one of the elements of his creativity that so fascinates me—the confluence of science and art.  You can see it in the work, and it isn’t even incongruous in practice—only in people’s minds is there a conflict.

Physics informed Calder’s art-making in that the scientific laws shaped the pieces and made them work. Different forces act upon the sculptures—gravity, air currents, vibration at the hanging point—setting them in motion.  Yet these forces aren’t evident in the experience of the artwork; that depends on the viewer’s perception of how the work’s many parts function together to achieve its full expression.

As obvious as this is in the mobiles, especially the wind-and-gravity-driven pieces, it’s also present, though less visibly, in the stabiles.  Though they don’t move, the stabiles are still in balance, even if only to the viewer’s eye. 

In the Brooklyn Rail, sculptor Brandt Junceau asserted that “the stabile is a special case of the mobile: same vocabulary, sans only wire, plus only stove bolts.  Both planar, with the same touch-and-go relationship to support and gravity, but the stabiles bristle with a menace that is often vanishing but never entirely disappears from the fully airborne works.”

Optics is also a physical science, and Calder’s stationary constructions work on the eye in not dissimilar ways that the mobiles move and turn: they draw your attention from one element to another by its size and shape. 

In the Wall Street Journal, art reviewer Lance Esplund, who’s the author of The Art of Looking: How to Read Modern and Contemporary Art (Basic Books, 2018), declared that the stabiles “feel alive” and remarked that they “appear to be in continual states of interplay and metamorphosis.”

The gallery displaying the stabiles contained both three large sculptures (Black Beast, 1940; Black Widow, 1959; Spiny, c. 1939)—not quite the monumental size of Lincoln Center’s Le Guichet and Flamingo (1973) in Chicago—and a pair of maquettes (Spiny, c. 1939; Black Beast, 1940).  (A maquette is a small model or study in three dimensions for a sculpture.  The two in Modern from the Start were, indeed, models of two of the full-sized stabiles on exhibit.)

Calder’s stabiles, monumentally scaled abstract works in steel and aluminum, quite the opposite of his delicate, kinetic mobiles, which they closely followed chronologically, were, like the moving sculptures, influenced by Calder’s momentous 1930 visit to Mondrian’s studio.

Despite their often massive size—many of his later stabiles were created for outdoor public spaces or voluminous indoor atria—the great, soaring arches, the blocky triangles and trapezoids joined by thick metal plates and reinforced by ribs, all held together by large bolts come together to seem almost delicate and airy.

Earlier, I mentioned taking pleasure from walking under Le Guichet to get into the performing arts library.  Calder intended the stabiles to be accessed that way; he wanted people to walk through them, touch them, lean against them.  They invite interaction with people.  Indeed, the Wall Street Journal’s Esplund asserted that the stabiles “demand that we not merely consider them as works of art, but that we interact with them.”

They also engage the viewer, like me when I sat in the Lincoln Center Plaza and spent some minutes watching Le Guichet while waiting for LPA to open.  As big as they are, they please the eye.  Consider Spiny, one of the full-sized stabiles in Modern from the Start.  With a fat crescent near the floor at one end and large triangular panels in the middle and the other end, the piece still looks like a graceful, elegant dance in progress.

The bulbous crescent down at the bottom of one side is opposed to a tall, thin upside-down-L-shaped spike high up at the other.  The crescent-shape anchors the sculpture, but the spike acts like an arrow pointing off to a distant destination.  Almost all Calder’s stabiles work like that.  It’s art and physics in tandem.

In the section where the silver candelabra was shown were also examples of Calder’s jewelry, something he made throughout his life.  Most of the pieces are items he made for friends as gifts, such as the curled brass J and S cufflinks he made in the 1930s or 1940s for James Thrall Soby (1906-79), a longtime trustee of MoMA and an early supporter of Calder’s work.  I found these objects little more than curiosities next to the wire pieces, the mobiles, and the stabiles.

I said at the beginning of this report that I’d say something about the Calder pieces on display in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden, outside the north side of the museum’s first floor.  The reason I didn’t make any comments in the body of the report is that, though Diana and I came to MoMA with the full expectation of seeing the exhibit in the garden, when we arrived and asked for directions to Modern from the Start, the staffer who checked us in said that the main exhibit was on the third floor, but that the garden was closed that day.

The upshot was that we didn’t see the two pieces out there.  I don’t know the reason for the closure; it wasn’t on the website and there’s no indication that the garden is closed Wednesdays as a rule (there have been many events scheduled there on Wednesdays).  Here’s what we missed (not counting a glance out the windows from the lobby):

I’ve already mentioned the return to the Sculpture Garden of Man-Eater with Pennants, the 1945 standing mobile Calder created for the garden on commission.  It was on view there from 1945 to 1949, when it was removed, ostensibly because of reconstruction of the garden space.  Reportedly, however, the story is that the sculpture was considered a failure.

Among the complaints was the concern that the mobile, limned by the Wall Street Journal’s reviewer as “an unapologetically intimidating conflation of tree, anchor, flagship and farm machinery—like standing under an alighted helicopter,” didn’t move enough due to the weight of the steel-rod-and-sheet-iron structure and the absence of ball bearings.  The museum’s head of the Department of Architecture and Design had reservations about the ironwork, which he called “clumsy,” the “far from pleasing” colored forms, and faulty engineering.

Furthermore, fears about the public injuring themselves on the mobile began immediately, and, in the interest of public safety, a small fence was set around the mobile.  Of course, there were also supporters, but the sculpture was nonetheless removed. 

Man-Eater traveled to outdoor venues in London and Houston in the 1950s and then returned to MoMA. Its last showing at the museum was from 1969 to 1970, and then it was put away in storage, where it’s remained until reinstalled in the Sculpture Garden for Modern from the Start. 

When the exhibit closed on 15 January, Man-Eater was once again removed from display.

The other Calder sculpture on view in the Sculpture Garden for Modern from the Start was Sandy’s Butterfly from 1964, another standing mobile that’s been a favorite of the garden curators and visitors since MoMA acquired it in 1966.  The Journal’s Esplund described it as “a carnivalesque combination of windmill, flower and whirligig.”  Roberta Smith called it “sturdy [and] bright” in the Times.

Esplund’s entirely laudatory assessment of the show overall, which he dubbed a “compact retrospective,” was that it was “a spirited, synergistic environment from start to finish” that “will surprise even diehard Calder fans.”  The Journalist made separate comments about some of the component displays of the exhibit throughout his notice.

Of the opening gallery, where the stabiles were seen, Esplund declared it “absolutely stunning”—“[p]layful, muscular, fantastical and serene”—and pronounced it “among the most striking gatherings of Calder's art I have ever seen.”

The WSJ writer labeled the jewelry on display “endlessly inventive” and compared the wall-mounted “Constellations,” a name devised by Calder’s friends Marcel Duchamp and James Johnson Sweeney (1900-86; curator of MoMA from 1935 to 1946) for the spidery sculptures from the World War II years (when there was a scarcity of metal) made from small pieces of carved wood linked by wires into a new, open form of sculpture, to “still-writhing animals, enormous bugs and trophy heads.” 

Esplund’s sum-up of Modern from the Start was, “This exhibition, a roaring toast to Calder, should become a permanent installation.  It’s a tribute to one of Modernism’s giants, and a living reminder of what made MoMA modern—from the start.”

On HypeArt, a website associated with the fashion site HypeBeast, Shawn Ghassemitari, the associate editor of HypeBeast, observed, “Few artists can take an existing medium and completely reinvent it.  Alexander Calder is one such artist, who took the idle grounds of sculpture and brought a kinetic dynamism that continues to spin the minds of millions to this day.”

“The amorphous shapes of his sculpture invite deep reflection,” explained Ghassemitari, “but just as you think you’ve grasped the idea of one, they continually change to varying degrees of light and shadow.” 

Fellow sculptor Junceau warned in the monthly Brooklyn Rail that Modern from the Start is “[n]ot a career retrospective, but it is a lot of stuff.”  He characterized Calder’s motorized mobiles as “tottering between an age-appropriate quaintness (they’re nearly 100 years old) and their original, nervy DIY impudence.”   Junceau added that “we know perfectly well every mobile, every stabile is alive.”

The pro tem review-writer asserted, “The exhibition may not answer some of its own questions, but . . . Clement Greenberg [very influential visual art critic, 1909-94; an editor at Partisan Review, art critic for The Nation, and associate editor of Commentary in the ’40s and ’50s] . . . acknowledged Calder’s multifarious talents and noted the light felicities of his work, but was that enough?” 

Junceau summed up Calder’s imprint with the assertion, “Calder is justly beloved for his unpretentiousness, but there is an aethereal condescension somewhere high in that egalitarian voice.”  (I confess that Junceau said many things in his article—I’m not sure it should be labeled a review—that I couldn’t unpack.  It wasn’t the words he used, but the ideas he was expressing that confounded me.)

In the Times, Roberta Smith reported, starting with the stabile exhibit, “The first gallery’s austerity is startling.  It . . . reminds us that while visual wit is rarely absent, Calder’s work has its dignified, somber side.”  She explicated:

Constructed of several planes of cutout sheet-metal, the sculptures emphasize his control of nuanced shapes, both rounded and straight-edged, and his ability to angle them together so that your interpretations change restlessly among animal, human and abstract as you move around them.

“The contrast between the first two galleries—the big black sculptures and the delicate wire pieces—form a Calder primer,” the Times art reviewer continued.  “The bent-wire pieces speak to his extreme sensitivity to line, including the linear shadows cast by the wire portraits, which provide alternate, moodier expressions.”

After the first two galleries, explained Smith, “The remainder of the exhibition is one large, loosely divided space that tracks Calder after 1930, examining the different ways he made modernism his own.”  She remarked of the mechanized mobiles that “[t]hey are some of the most lovable abstractions in modernist art history, partly because they are too casually handmade to be purely abstract.  They brim with personality, a condition of much of Calder’s art.”

(Smith made an additional comment that I found particularly droll, suggesting that the mobiles “bring out the previously unknown playfulness of Russian Constructivism.”  Constructivism, a largely austere art movement, was founded in 1915 and flourished in the Soviet Union, in support of the Bolshevik Revolution until Socialist Realism was established as the official artistic style by Stalin in 1934.)

Smith ended her notice with what seems to me a somewhat romantic notion, characterizing Modern from the Start as “a beauty of a show that . . . will make the world a better place.”  Let’s hope.

In the Upper East Side neighborhood paper Our Town, Val Castronovo explained that

the curators [of Modern from the Start] are less concerned with chronologies and timelines and more intent on letting viewers experience the works, taking their cue from the artist himself, who, in fact, wanted most of his sculptures to be lived with—touched and engaged with at home—not put on a pedestal in a museum, where touching is prohibited and viewers are cautioned to distance themselves from the art.

Castronovo concluded his comments on the MoMA show by advising, “With virus fears spiraling again, it seems like there’s no better time to enter Calder’s universe and be spirited away.”

For Reuters, the London-based international news service, Soren Larson reported that Modern from the Start “draws on the rich and varied holdings MOMA has by Calder” and that curator Manes asserted that “her aim was to show how varied and experimental the artist was.” 

Larson felt, “From large, sheet metal sculptures bolted together, to tiny hanging wire caricatures called ‘stabiles,’ the MOMA exhibition offers new insight into the resourceful and creative artist.”  (Note that Larson got his Calderian terms mixed up: the “large, sheet metal sculptures” are, of course, the stabiles, and the “wire caricatures” are . . . well, Calder’s wire sculptures.)

I can’t say how well I made out conveying this art experience to you all; you’d have to judge that.  What I can tell you is that I enjoyed the attempt.  After so long a lay-off, it was a pleasure to be writing about art again.  It turned out to have been a fortunate turn of events that the subject was Alexander Calder, not just because his work is so familiar to me by now, but because I like it so much.  It was actually fun to write this report.  Calder does that to me!

[This report is Rick On Theater’s 1,000th post.  I started the blog on 16 March 2009, just under 13 years ago.  I’m surprised ROT’s lasted that long.  I'm astonished I’ve lasted that long!]

"As Attendance Falls, Now Is the Winter of Broadway’s Discontent"

by Michael Paulson 

[As most theatergoers know, Broadway shut down on 19 March 2020.  Other theaters and entertainment venues followed suit.  They began to reopen in September of last year, but the reopening hasn’t been smooth.  Many shows have cancelled performances at the last minute, even, in some cases, after spectators were seated.

[Other shows have announced temporary closings until later this year and some productions have closed outright.  Even plays that are still running are having trouble attracting audiences, with empty seats all over the house.  Productions for which tickets were hard to come by pre-pandemic are no longer a difficult get.

[The question of how to manage this situation, which effects the artists, crews, theater staffs, and the very economy of the city, and keep the industry alive is what Michael Paulson’s New York Times article below, “As Attendance Falls, Now Is the Winter of Broadway’s Discontent,” examines; it was published on 17 January 2022 in Section A, the front section, starting on the first page (below the fold).]

Curtains are rising again after the Omicron surge caused widespread cancellations, but attendance has fallen steeply. Nine shows are closing, at least temporarily.

The reopening of Broadway last summer, following the longest shutdown in history, provided a jolt of energy to a city ready for a rebound: Bruce Springsteen and block parties, eager audiences and enthusiastic actors.

But the Omicron variant that has barreled into the city, sending coronavirus case counts soaring, is now battering Broadway, leaving the industry facing an unexpected and enormous setback on its road back from the pandemic.

In December, so many theater workers tested positive for the coronavirus that, on some nights, half of all shows were canceled — in a few troublesome instances after audiences were already in their seats.

Now, producers have figured out how to keep shows running, thanks mainly to a small army of replacement workers filling in for infected colleagues. Heroic stories abound: When the two girls who alternate as the young lioness Nala in “The Lion King” were both out one night, a 10-year-old boy who usually plays the cub Simba went on in the role, saving the performance.

But there’s a new problem: Audiences are vanishing.

During the week that ended Jan. 9, just 62 percent of seats were occupied. That’s the lowest attendance has been since a week in 2003 when musicians went on strike, and it’s a precipitous drop from the January before the pandemic, when 94 percent of seats were filled during the first week after the holidays.

The casualty list is growing. Over the last month, nine shows have decided to close their doors, at least temporarily. “To Kill a Mockingbird,” a huge hit before the pandemic, announced last week that it would close until June; on Sunday “Ain’t Too Proud,” a successful jukebox musical about the Temptations, closed for good.

Box-office grosses are falling off a cliff. The all-important Christmas and New Year’s weeks, which producers count on each year to fatten their coffers in anticipation of the lean weeks that follow, generated just $40 million this season, down from $99 million before the pandemic. Requests for ticket refunds are now so high that on some days some shows have negative wraps, meaning they are giving back more money than they are taking in.

“This is the worst I have ever experienced,” said Jack Viertel, a longtime executive at Jujamcyn Theaters, which operates five Broadway houses.

Over the long run, industry leaders say, there is every reason to remain bullish about Broadway. Until the pandemic, the industry had been enjoying a sustained boom, fueled by a rebound in the popularity of musicals and by New York’s gargantuan growth as a tourist destination. And this downturn might not last long: There is some evidence that the Omicron surge may be peaking, at least in some parts of the country, including New York.

But before it eases, the slump will cost investors tens of millions of dollars, and will push theater workers back into unemployment, as dwindling attendance forces productions without abundant reserves to close. And the distress is not just financial: Artists spend years developing shows before they get to Broadway, so a premature closing is a crushing blow.

“It’s harrowing, and there will be a lot of damage done,” Mr. Viertel said. “Some shows will be put out of business permanently, and this will be career ending for some individuals.”

Dominique Morisseau, the playwright who wrote the book for “Ain’t Too Proud,” and whose new play, “Skeleton Crew,” is now in previews [opening 20 Feb. at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre] following two virus-related delays, called this moment “extremely painful.” “My play is about plants shutting down during the auto industry collapse [Sept.-Dec. 2008], and factory workers wondering every day, ‘Is it shutting down?’” she said. “Now that’s how we’re coming to work.”

The Broadway League, which represents producers, has asked labor unions to consider pay cuts to help shows survive this rough patch. At one point, in a step previously reported by The Daily Beast, the League asked workers to accept half-pay when Covid-19 forced performance cancellations; there have also been discussions about offering lower pay for scaled-back performance calendars.

“We’re doing everything we can to keep as many shows open as possible,” said Charlotte St. Martin, the president of the Broadway League, citing safety protocols and marketing efforts as well as labor discussions.

The talks stalled as unions sought more financial information.

“It’s fair to say that all the unions recognize that shows remaining open is important — that represents jobs for actors and stage managers and everyone else who makes a living in the live theater,” said Kate Shindle, the president of Actors’ Equity [the union that represents theatrical actors and stage managers]. But Ms. Shindle noted that Broadway shows had received tens of millions of dollars in federal aid last year, and that the industry is no longer even disclosing weekly box-office grosses for individual shows, as it did before the pandemic. “Pretty universally, the unions’ response has been that if you want us to make financial concessions, we need financial transparency,” she said.

Meanwhile, shows are collapsing. There are always closings in January, a soft time of year for Broadway, but this season a crush of announcements started in December, usually one of the most lucrative months.  []The musicals “Ain’t Too Proud,” “Diana,” “Flying Over Sunset,” “Jagged Little Pill” and “Waitress,” as well as the play “Thoughts of a Colored Man,” all decided to close earlier than planned after Omicron hit. And three other shows, including “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “Girl From the North Country” as well as “Mockingbird,” said they would close for a few months and then attempt to reopen.

“If it means that shows get to come back, hooray,” said Jenn Gambatese, the lead actress in “Mrs. Doubtfire.” “The alternative was, run another week and buh-bye.”

More and more theaters are now dark. By next Sunday [23 Jan.], there will be only 19 shows running in the 41 Broadway theaters. Cast and crew members from shuttered productions are trying to figure out whether they even worked enough weeks to qualify for unemployment; those who do will get less assistance than they did earlier in the pandemic, because the maximum weekly benefit in New York is now $504, down from $1,104 when the federal government was offering a supplement.

The surviving shows seem to have figured out how to avert the cancellations that bedeviled the industry last month.

One reason: So many workers have already tested positive, and are now back at work (and, notably, no performers are known to have been hospitalized during this latest round). More important: Productions have trained and hired additional replacement workers, including for crew members.

Playbills are regularly stuffed with cast-change inserts. One night, Keenan Scott II, the playwright of “Thoughts of a Colored Man,” kept his show afloat by going on to replace an actor who tested positive. “Come From Away” saved a performance by deploying eight swings, including alumni and a touring performer who had never worked on Broadway. At “Wicked,” a longtime understudy who had left Broadway to become a software engineer in Chicago returned and performed as Elphaba.

And then there was “The Lion King,” where the young Simba went on as young Nala (uncostumed, and after a preshow explanation to the audience).

“I didn’t want the show to close,” explained the child actor, who performs as Corey J. “I was nervous at first, but then the person who plays Shenzi winked at me, and I wasn’t nervous anymore.”

In the wings between scenes, cast members cheered him on, and at the end of the show, the cast gave him the honor of the show’s final bow.

Producers say they are confident Broadway will regain strength, although they can’t be sure exactly when.

“Let’s face it — producing on Broadway in the best of times is a ridiculous proposition, and the amount of risk involved doesn’t make sense for any sane person,” said Mara Isaacs, a lead producer of “Hadestown.” “But the dreamers will continue to dream. Yes, it’s going to be harder for a little while, but I do believe we will recover.”

One major challenge producers face now is shoring up consumer confidence. Follow the social media account of any Broadway show and you’re likely to see a simple message: Broadway is open. Worried about safety? All patrons are vaccinated and masked, and many theaters have stopped selling food and drinks so masks can stay up.

The most popular shows are still packed, but not quite as tough to get into as they were: Last week, there were seats available even at the industry’s most in-demand shows, including “Hamilton,” “The Music Man” and “Six.” (Premium seats at “Hamilton” were selling for $299, compared to $847 before the pandemic.)

And this has become a good time for bargain hunters. Tickets to shows like David Byrne’s “American Utopia” and the best musical Tony winner “Moulin Rouge!,” both of which were routinely sold out before the pandemic, are now discounted at the TKTS booth in Times Square. And the city’s annual Broadway Week, which starts Tuesday and offers 2-for-1 tickets for most Broadway shows, this year will last 27 days — the longest in the program’s history.

“I would never be able to afford a normal Broadway ticket, but now it seems super affordable to someone like me,” said Amy Grimm, a 45-year-old administrative assistant from Brooklyn, who this month has seen “Girl From the North Country” and “Six.” She said she enjoyed “Girl,” but added, “There was hardly anyone in the audience, and it was sad to see.” “Six,” she said, felt more normal. “I hooted and hollered through my mask,” she said, “and it was fine.”

[Michael Paulson is the theater reporter for the New York Times.  He previously covered religion, and was part of the Boston Globe team whose coverage of clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service (2003).]

More Script Reports V: Classics (Continued)

 

[On 14 December last, I posted the latest collection of script reports.  It was devoted to plays from the classical era rather than new scripts.  Now I’ve assembled another group of classic plays, several that precede the 19th century (of which “More Script Reports IV” consisted), reaching back into the 17th and 18th centuries. 

[I suppose it’s obvious that evaluations of old plays, whether they’re classics, like the ones from 14 December and those here, or “standards,” plays from the more recent past that are staples of theater repertoires, are less about the scripts’ quality than about their suitability for production at a particular theater (in this instance, StageArts Theater Company) and whether a production would meet its needs, budget, and capabilities.

[As I said in the introduction to “More Script Reports IV.” there are some plays here I don’t actually like, but Nell Robinson or Ruth Ann Norris, the S/A artistic directors, had an interest in them and wanted my take on them.  In this batch, as in the previous one, there are plays that I knew were just out of the StageArts wheelhouse.]

--------------------

[I’d guess that most people, even if they’re not opera buffs, have heard of The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro, known around the world as Italian operas by Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868; Il barbiere di Siviglia, 1816) and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91; Le nozze di Figaro, 1786). 

[But I suspect that few who aren’t conversant with classic French theater know that both those librettos were based on plays by the same French playwright, Pierre de Beaumarchais (1732-99).  In fact, I’d be surprised if many Americans, unless they studied world literature or world drama, even know Beaumarchais.

[In a way, that’s remarkable, because Beaumarchais was more than just a dramatist of the French Enlightenment, but also a watchmaker, inventor, musician, diplomat, spy, publisher, horticulturist, arms dealer, satirist, financier, and both American and French revolutionary. 

[Beaumarchais’s life rivals his work as a drama of controversy, adventure, and intrigue.  The son of a watchmaker, he invented an escapement mechanism, a device that permits controlled motion (in a watch or clock, it’s the mechanism that controls the transfer of energy from the power source to the counting mechanism). 

[The question of its patent led to the first of many legal actions, for his defense against which Beaumarchais wrote a series of brilliant polemics (Mémoires contre Goëzman [“Memoirs against Goezman”], 1774), which made his reputation, though he was only partly successful in court.

[After 1773, because of his legal involvements, Beaumarchais left France on secret royal missions to England and Germany for both King Louis XV (1710-74; reigned: 1715-74) and Louis XVI (1754-93; reigned: 1774-91).  

[Despite growing popularity as a dramatist, Beaumarchais was addicted to financial speculation.  He bought arms for the American revolutionaries and brought out the first complete edition of the works of Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet, 1694-1778).  

[Of his dramatic works, only his two classic comedies have had lasting success.  Because of his wealth, he was imprisoned during the French Revolution (in 1792), but, through the intervention of a former mistress, he was released.

[Beaumarchais didn’t invent the scheming valet character type, who appeared in comedy as far back as Roman times (3rd-2nd centuries BCE) and was prominent in commedia dell’arte (16th-18th century) and was a staple of the comedies of Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, 1622-73), but Figaro, the hero of both plays evaluated below, became the highest expression of the type. The valet’s resourcefulness and cunning were portrayed by Beaumarchais with a definite class-conscious sympathy.

[There’s a third Beaumarchais comedy with some of the same characters as his two masterworks, La Mère coupable ou l’Autre Tartuffe (1792; The Guilty Mother, or the Other Tartuffe), but it was less popular (though is occasionally still performed in France).

[The Barber of Seville, a four-act farcical drama was first performed and published in 1775 as Le Barbier de Séville; ou, la Precaution inutile (The Barber of Seville; or, The Useless Precaution).  It was greeted with great popularity for Beaumarchais’s ingeniously constructed plot and lively wit. 

[The Barber of Seville is an example of comedy of intrigue, a comic form in which complicated conspiracies and stratagems dominate the plot.  The complex plots and subplots are often based on ridiculous and contrived situations with large doses of farcical humor.  Another, perhaps more familiar example of comedy of intrigue is William Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors (1592-93), a humorous exploitation of the confusion resulting from twin masters and their twin servants.

[The only production of the play (as distinguished from the popular opera) in New York on record was a French presentation by the visiting Comédie Française on Broadway in 1955.  I found no record of an English production either on or off Broadway until 1996-97 at the Off-Off-Broadway Pearl Theatre Company in the East Village, directed by John Rando.

[In Princeton, New Jersey, in 2014, however, the McCarter Theatre Center presented The Figaro Plays, an adaptation translated and directed by Stephen Wadsworth of two of Beaumarchais’s plays, The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro.  (The Guilty Mother was originally expected to part of the repertoire, but the funding fell short.)  Wadsworth, instead of transposing the plays to another time and/or place, staged them in the style of the 18th century theater where they’d have débuted.]

StageArts SCRIPT EVALUATION

7/5/84
[Rick]

The Barber of Seville [Le Barbier de Séville] by Pierre Caron de Beaumarchais

  

            Plot Synopsis:  Rosine succeeds in evading the advances of her amorous old guardian, Dr. Bartholo, with the aid of the barber Figaro and young Lindoro (Count Almaviva), with whom she is in love.  The plot is moved along chiefly by the intrigues of Figaro and by the devices with which the Count obtains entrance into Bartholo’s house.

            Theme:  Young love’s defeat of old lust and ridicule of aristocracy.  (In 1775, this was indicative of the coming revolution.)

            Genre/Style:  Farce (in the manner of Molière).

            Structure:  Classical 4 acts (divided into French scenes).  Unified time, place, and action.

            Setting:  18th-century Spain: street outside and reception room in Bartholo’s house.  Need not be realistic.

            Language:  Prose, but highly stylized, witty, and fast-paced.  There are a number of songs and several brief soliloquies.

            Characters:  Rosine is 18-20; 12 men: 3 20-30, 6 30-50 (4 have no lines), 3 50-60.  Rosine sings; Figaro and Almaviva/Lindoro sing and play guitar.  All require style and ability to handle language and period manners.

            Evaluation: (I have not read this play in English, though there is a French’s version available [Samuel French, Inc. is a publishing company that publishes plays and scripts, mostly so-called acting editions].)  This is the play on which [Gioachino] Rossini based his opera, and it has a charm and energy all its own.  There may be expense in the costuming, but sets and props need not be elaborate to suit the style of the production.  The wonderful characters (especially Figaro, a Harlequin/Scapin type) and romantic plot combined with the witty ridicule heaped on the aristocracy makes Barber a spirited romp and a sure audience-pleaser.

            I don’t recall a recent production here [i.e., New York City] or anywhere of this farce.  Few people know Beaumarchais, though both his major farces are popular operas (The Marriage of Figaro [see below] became Mozart’s opera).  The title should sell itself, and the fact that it isn’t often done might shake loose some critics.  I don’t think you can miss with either Beaumarchais comedy.  (Besides, they’re such fun!)

            Recommendation:  Produce.

            Source:  [Rick]

[An explanation of the theater terms used above: a French scene is a scene in which the beginning and end are marked by a change in the presence of characters onstage, rather than by the lights going up or down or the set being changed.  If a character enters or leaves the stage, a new French scene has begun.

[The three unities represent a prescriptive theory of dramaturgy that was introduced in Italy in the 16th century and was influential for three centuries.  They were particularly significant in the plays of the Enlightenment, an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries—including the political philosophies of the American and French Revolutions.

[The three unities are:

⠂the unity of action: a play should have one principal action with no subplots

⠂the unity of time: the action in a play should occur over a period of no more than 24 hours

⠂the unity of place: a play should exist in a single physical location.]

*  *  *  *

[Pierre de Beaumarchais’s The Marriage of Figaro, a comedy in five acts, was first performed in 1784 as La Folle journée; ou, le Mariage de Figaro (The Madness of a Day, or the Marriage of Figaro). It’s the sequel to the comic play The Barber of Seville (see above).

[Like Barber, Marriage, the play, has been overshadowed by its operatic adaptation.  In France, it gets staged regularly, but abroad, it seems someone has to have a radical take on the 18th century classic to make it stageworthy. 

[In the New York area, productions since the ’80s have included a 1985 Circle in the Square version directed by Polish experimentalist Andrei Serban from a script by Richard Nelson in which Figaro soars in a swing and the cast moves about the stage on rollerskates.  (New York Times writer Mel Gussow dubbed the staging, the cast of which included Anthony Heald, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Christopher Reeve, Louis Zorich, and Dana Ivey, The Barber of Starlight Express.)

[At the Yale Repertory Theater in 1994, Stan Wojewodski, Jr., mounted a collage by Eric Overmyer made up of Beaumarchais’s Marriage and Austro-Hungarian dramatist Ödön von Horváth’s (1901-38) Figaro Gets a Divorce (1936).  In 2001, Off-Off-Broadway’s Target Margin Theatre put on a “deliberately wacky” production of Marriage featuring dead-pan humor.

[The next year, Off-Off-Broadway’s Jean Cocteau Repertory produced a new translation of Beaumarchais’s play, transposed to Palm Beach, Florida.  The new text by Rod McLucas was directed by David Fuller, the company's artistic director.  Adapted by Charles Morey, Marriage was staged by another OOB troupe, the Pearl Theatre, under the direction of Hal Brooks.  In this version, the company blurs the line between the title character and playwright Beaumarchais, while straddling the gap separating pre-revolutionary France from early 21st-century America.

[In Princeton, the 2014 McCarter Theatre Center presentation of The Figaro Plays (see The Barber of Seville, above), including The Marriage of Figaro, was also part of this list.]

StageArts SCRIPT EVALUATION

7/5/84
[Rick]

The Marriage of Figaro [Le Mariage de Figaro] by Pierre Caron de Beaumarchais

 

            Plot Synopsis:  For services rendered in The Barber of Seville (the predecessor of Marriage [see above]), Count Amaviva has made Figaro major-domo of his castle.  On the eve of his marriage to the countess’s chambermaid, Suzanne, Figaro learns that the Count, invoking an old feudal privilege, intends to spend the night with [Figaro’s] bride.  [This was a practice known as the droit du seigneur, the “right of the lord.”] 

The ensuing battle of wits between the powerful nobleman and the resourceful ex-barber leads to fireworks and ends with the Count’s humiliation as he makes love to his Countess whom he mistakes for Suzanne. 

Through these confusions stumbles the page Cherubin, one of the most charming characters of French comedy, in love with every female on the stage. 

Theme:  A more direct criticism of rank and privilege than Barber, still surrounded by the romantic theme—young love vs. old lust.  (Marriage was written in 1784—only 5 years before the revolution.)

Genre/Style:  Farce.

Structure:  Classical 5 acts (divided into French scenes).  Unified time, place, and action.

Setting:  18th-century Spain: various interiors in Almaviva’s house; park. 

Language:  Prose dialogue of high style and wit.  Several famous soliloquies by Figaro and several songs (though fewer than Barber).

Characters:  3 women: 2 18-25, 1 50-60; 10 men: 4 20-30 (2 minor), 4 30-50 (3 minor), 2 50-60 (1 minor), 1 boy, 14-15 (Cherubin—usually played, at the request of Beaumarchais, by a “young and very pretty woman”); 2 girls, 15.  Extras: valets and peasants.  The Countess sings and plays guitar; Figaro sings.

Evaluation:  Marriage is a little more serious than Barber and contains more social satire.  It combines elements of Molière and Dumas, but is original to Beaumarchais in its sparkling wit.  My remarks regarding Barber apply here as well.

StageArts could not go wrong with either Beaumarchais.  It might even be worth considering doing both together on alternate evenings or in successive productions with Almaviva, Figaro, Rosine/Countess, Bartholo, and Bazile played by the same actors in both plays.  (There is even a third Beaumarchais farce with some of the same major characters, The Other Tartuffe, or the Guilty Mother, but it was not successful and I do not know it.)

Recommendation:  Produce.

Source:  [Rick]

*  *  *  *

[Thomas Otway (1652-85) was an English dramatist and poet, one of the forerunners of sentimental drama through his convincing presentation of human emotions in an age of heroic but artificial tragedies.  His masterpiece, Venice Preserved (1682), was one of the greatest theatrical successes of this period.

[Otway studied at Winchester College and at the University of Oxford but left in 1671 without taking a degree.  He went to London, where he was offered a part by Aphra Behn (1640-89), one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing, in one of her plays.  He was overcome by stage fright, and his first performance was his last.  His first play, a rhyming tragedy called Alcibiades (1675), was produced at the Duke’s Theatre at Dorset Garden in September 1675.  

[His second play, Don Carlos, produced in June 1676, had an immense success on the stage and is the best of his rhymed heroic plays.  Titus and Berenice, adapted from Jean Racine (1639-99), and The Cheats of Scapin, adapted from Molière, were published together in 1677.

[In 1678 Otway obtained a commission in an English regiment serving in the Netherlands, and he was abroad when his first comedy, Friendship in Fashion (1678), was staged.  His next play, Caius Marius, a curious mixture of a story from Plutarch (46 CE-119 CE) with an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, was staged in 1679.  He published his powerful, gloomy autobiographical poem, The Poet’s Complaint of His Muse, in 1680.

[Otway’s most memorable dramatic work was done in the last years of his short life.  In the spring of 1680, his blank-verse domestic tragedy The Orphan had great success on the stage.  On 1 March in the same year his best comedy, The Soldier’s Fortune, probably drawn from his military experience, was produced.  Venice Preserved, also written in blank verse, was first performed at the Duke’s Theatre in 1682.

[Until the middle of the 19th century, Venice Preserved was probably revived more often than any poetic play except those of Shakespeare.  John Dryden (1631-1700), who wrote the prologue, praised it highly.  Otway’s tragedies, particularly Venice Preserved, are notable for their psychological credibility and their clear and powerful presentation of human passions.

[Venice Preserved, a Restoration drama, was the most significant tragedy of the English stage in the 1680s.  It was first staged in 1682, with Thomas Betterton (1635-1710), the leading male actor during the Restoration period, as Jaffeir and Elizabeth Barry (1658-1713) as Belvidera.  The play enjoyed many revivals through to the 1830s.

[In 2019, Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company staged a modern adaptation at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.  In the United States, the earliest production on record was presented at Booth’s Theatre (at 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue; not to be confused with the present-day Booth Theatre on West 45th Street in the Theatre District) in 1874.  The first production in the New York area in the 20th century that I could find was in 1933 at New Haven, Connecticut’s Yale Theatre, performed by student-actors in the Yale School of Drama.

[In 1955, the Phoenix Theatre presented the play with a cast that included Dana Elcar and Edward Asner, both later familiar from film and television.  (Another cast member was Mark Leonard, but I can’t confirm that he’s the same actor as Mark Lenard, another film and TV actor best known as Sarek, Spock’s father in numerous Star Trek episodes and films.)]

StageArts SCRIPT EVALUATION

7/6/84
[Rick]

Venice Preserved, or a Plot Discovered by Thomas Otway

 

Plot Synopsis:  Based on a historical Spanish conspiracy against the Venetian Republic in 1618, the play is the story of Jaffeir, a Venetian, who enters into a plot to kill the Venetian Senators because of his friend Pierre.  Both have reason to hate Priuli, a member of the Senate.  Priuli has reviled and persecuted Jaffeir for 3 years, ever since he married Belvidera, PriuIi’s daughter. 

Pierre loves Aquilina, a Greek courtesan, but she has been entertaining Priuli.  Jaffeir confides the plot to his wife, who, in deference to her father, prevails on him to abandon the conspiracy.  He bargains with the Senate to expose the plot in exchange for the conspirators’ lives.  They agree, but the plotters choose death over dishonorable life. 

In the end, to thwart Priuli’s wishes, Jaffeir stabs Pierre on the scaffold rather than allow him to be hanged, and then stabs himself.  Belvidera goes mad at the news and dies. 

Theme:  Jaffeir is torn between his duty to his friends and his love for Belvidera.  It is not clear which is the right choice—both will bring disaster.

Genre/Style:  Restoration [Jacobean] tragedy (though Orway was more “Elizabethan” in his depth and strength).

Structure:  Classical 5 acts, several scenes.  Unified time, place, and action; a subplot can be easily cut.

Setting:  Various locations around 17th-century Venice.  A unit setting is necessary.

Language:  Blank verse; difficult and less lyrical than Shakespeare.

Characters:  2 women, 20’s; 21 men (many can be cut): 2 50-60, 2 20-30, remainder any age; extras (can be cut).  The conspirators (12 aside from Jaffeir and Pierre) are a mix of nationalities; only 2 are major roles.  The role of Senator Antonio is a contemporary caricature of the Earl of Shaftesbury [Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury (1621-83)] and his 2 scenes are bawdy romps and can be (and often were) cut with no damage.

Evaluation:  Though Otway was compared to Shakespeare, his work is not nearly as lofty.  Like its Restoration contemporaries, VP is heavy and brooding with little to relieve the feeling of impending doom.  Even eminently cuttable bawdy scenes are not lusty enough to compare to Falstaff’s or Toby Belch’s in Shakespeare [Henry IV, Part 1 & Part 2, The Merry Wives of Windsor; and Twelfth Night, respectively].  The catharsis at the conclusion is not as clean as Hamlet or Othello, and Belvidera’s death scene is very anticlimactic (and might be cutable).

Otway’s poetry is not easy and could be a problem for many actors to bring to life.  The characters, too, are difficult to realize, and it might be very hard to make a modern audience care about the dilemma Jaffeir, Belvidera, and Pierre are in.  The play was written in 1682—less than 70 years after the incident on which it was based—and the facts were likely familiar to its original audience.  We could not rely on that familiarity.

It was also an allusion to the so-called [and fictitious] Popish Plot of 1678, only 5 years earlier, in which the English Catholics set out to destroy both King [Charles II (1630-85; reigned: 1660-85)] and Parliament.  The parallels would have been obvious to a contemporary audience.

The fact that VP has been successful in regional reps indicates that it can be a playable script.  We must question, however, whether it is advantageous for StageArts.  My feeling is that at present, it is not.  Otway is not very well known, but VP is not a “neglected classic”—it is produced—and its down-beat conclusion is not in StageArts’ vein.  In a future season, when extra time can be spent on the script and in rehearsal (a 4-week showcase rehearsal may be insufficient for this play), presenting VP may be worthwhile.

Recommendation:  Reject

Source:  RAN [Ruth Ann Norris, co-artistic director of StageArts]

[I’ve used the term ‘showcase’ several times in these script report posts, but I haven’t defined it.  Those readers who aren’t theater people, especially in New York City, may not know the meaning of this inside expression, which New York actors throw around casually as if everyone is conversant with it.

[According to a New York Times article on the topic, “Showcases are nonprofit productions meant to display the talents of actors to agents, casting directors and producers in the hope that they will be chosen for roles in other shows or that the play will be picked up by a producer.  The actors receive no weekly salaries.”  They are supposed to be compensated for transportation costs and expenses, however.

[“Showcases also present works by new playwrights and directors,” wrote Andrew L. Yarrow in the Times (“Showcase Theater, Outlet for Inspired Nobodies,” 25 November 1988).  “Many producers use showcases to win potential backers, but others consider them the only affordable way to stage experimental theater in New York.”

[Since showcase productions don’t operate under an Actors’ Equity Association contract, shows that want to cast union actors or employ a union stage manager must abide by certain rules set down by Equity in the Showcase Code.  These are known as “Equity showcases” and casting notices usually say so to attract union actors to the auditions.  There are also many non-union showcases, in which Equity members are not supposed to perform.  StageArts, of course, produced union showcases.]

*  *  *  *

[Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) was a Belgian Symbolist poet, playwright, and essayist who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1911 for his outstanding works of the Symbolist theater.  He wrote in French and looked mainly to French literary movements for inspiration.

[Maeterlinck studied law at the University of Ghent, where he was born, and was admitted to the bar in that city in 1886.  In Paris in 1885-86, he met Auguste Villiers de L’Isle-Adam (1838-89) and the leaders of the Symbolist movement, and he soon abandoned law for literature.  His first verse collection, Serres chaudes (“Hothouses”), and his first play, La Princesse Maleine, were published in 1889.

[Maeterlinck made a dramatic breakthrough in 1890 with two one-act plays, L’Intruse (The Intruder) and Les Aveugles (The Blind).  His Pelléas et Mélisande (1892), produced in Paris at the avant-garde Théâtre de l’Oeuvre by the director Aurélien Lugné-Poë (1869-1940), is the unquestioned masterpiece of Symbolist drama and provided the basis for a 1902 opera by Claude Debussy (1862-1918).  Though written in prose, Pelléas et Mélisande may be considered the most accomplished of all 19th-century attempts at poetic drama.

[Maeterlinck wrote many other plays, including historical dramas such as Monna Vanna (1902).  Gradually, his Symbolism was tempered by his interest in English drama, especially William Shakespeare and the Jacobeans (1603-25).  Only L’Oiseau bleu (The Blue Bird, 1908) rivaled Pelléas et Mélisande in popularity.  First performed by the Moscow Art Theatre in 1908, this somewhat sentimental dramatic parable was highly regarded for a time, but its charm has evaporated, and the optimism of the play now seems facile.

[After he won the Nobel Prize, however, Maeterlink’s reputation declined, although his Le Bourgmestre de Stilmonde (The Burgomaster of Stilmonde, 1917), a patriotic play in which he explores the problems of Flanders under the wartime rule of an unprincipled German officer, briefly enjoyed great success.

[In his Symbolist plays, Maeterlinck uses poetic speech, gesture, lighting, setting, and ritual to create images that reflect his protagonists’ moods and dilemmas.  Often the protagonists are waiting for something mysterious and fearful that will destroy them.  The profound and moving atmosphere of the plays, though lacking in intellectual complexity, is augmented by tentative dialogue, based on half-formed suggestions, at times naively repetitious, and occasionally sentimental, but sometimes possessed of great subtlety and power.

[As a dramatist, Maeterlinck influenced Hugo von Hofmannsthal (Austrian novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist; 1874-1929), W. B. Yeats (Irish poet, dramatist, and prose writer; 1865-1939), John Millington Synge (Irish playwright, poet, writer, and collector of folklore; 1871-1909), and Eugene O’Neill (American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature; 1888-1953).  Maeterlinck’s plays have been widely translated, and no Belgian dramatist had greater effect on worldwide audiences.

[Maeterlinck’s prose writings are remarkable blends of mysticism, occultism, and interest in the world of nature.  They represent the common Symbolist reaction against materialism, science, and mechanization and are concerned with such questions as the immortality of the soul, the nature of death, and the attainment of wisdom.  Maeterlinck was made a count by the Belgian king in 1932.

[Aglavaine et Sélysette was first performed in December 1896.  Maeterlinck was 34 when he wrote the play, which was inspired by actress Georgette Leblanc (1869-1941), the sister of the novelist Maurice Leblanc (1864-1941), whom Maeterlinck had met a year earlier.  She was 26 years old, and was destined for a career as an opera singer.  With this play, the Belgian author said he’d gone from shadow to light.  He wanted to detach himself from the force of fate that ran through the plays that had made him famous. 

[New York-area productions of Aglavaine and Selysette I could identify began with a 1914 performance, given outdoors on “The Green” on New York University’s main campus in the Bronx by the English department, followed by a special 1916 performance by the renowned Washington Square Players only for the troupe’s subscribers. 

[The latest presentation was a 1920 mounting at Maxine Elliott’s Theatre on West 39th Street.  The production’s star was Eva le Gallienne (1899-1991).

[Symbolism was a late-19th-century art movement of French, Belgian, and Russian origin in poetry and other arts, including drama, seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against Naturalism and Realism, which were quickly becoming the dominant theatrical styles of the era.

[In symbolist plays, the sets and props are often unrealistic and are used to evoke a threatening atmosphere to the audience.]

StageArts SCRIPT EVALUATION

7/6/84
[Rick]

Aglavaine and Selysette [Aglavaine et Sélysette] by Maurice Maeterlinck

 

Plot Synopsis:  Aglavaine, the widow of Selysette’s brother, comes to live with Selysette; her husband, Meleander; her grandmother; and little sister.  Though Meleander loves Selysette, he finds he also loves Aglavaine, who loves both him and Selysette.  And Selysette loves both of them.  The “eternal triangle” becomes inextricably complicated when Aglavaine decides she must leave to let Selysette and Meleander’s love survive.  When she hears this, Selysette, believing that Meleander could not love her as much as he loves Aglavaine, throws herself (or falls accidentally?) from the castle turret. 

Theme:  People struggling vainly against Fate; what is beautiful cannot take the place of what is merely human.  It is the story of the endeavor—and failure—of noble souls to act nobly.

Genre/Style:  Symbolist drama.

Structure:  5 acts, several scenes.  Action and place are unified; time is unspecific and vague.

Setting:  Several locations in and near the castle home of Selysette and Meleander.  Unlocalized unit set, probably in symbolist style, is necessary. 

Language:  Maeterlinck’s prose is almost poetry and requires skill and sensitivity to realize.  His symbolistic style is subtle and delicate.  There is a song which Selysette sings on several occasions, and several long monologues. 

Characters:  4 women: 1 10-12, 1 16-18, 1 20-25, 1 50’s; 1 man, 20’s.  Both Aglavaine and Selysette are beautiful, but Aglavaine must be striking and unusually so—almost ethereal.  Aglavaine, Selysette, and Meleander must have extraordinary ability to handle delicate, poetic language and make it sound real and comfortable.

Evaluation:  This is a lovely, moving, and sad play that is both unusual and beautiful.  It is a little slow-moving and will not be easy to perform.  The tendency to push the romantic elements and turn it into a soap opera must be avoided.  The language, even in translation, is special and must be handled with special care and a light touch.  Producing A&S would be a gamble, but I suspect it would pay off in the end.

Maeterlinck, one of the theater’s foremost Symbolists, is known for nearly only one play—The Blue Bird (and a little for Pelleas and Melisande).  Presenting one of his lesser-known works would be theatrically significant.

Recommendation:  Second reading.

Source:  [Rick]

 *  *  *  *

[Harley Granville-Barker (1877-1946) was an English dramatist, producer, and critic whose repertoire seasons and Shakespeare criticism profoundly influenced 20th-century theater.

[Granville-Barker began his stage training at 13 and first appeared on the London stage two years later.  He preferred work with William Poel’s (1852-1934) Elizabethan Stage Society and Ben Greet’s (1857-1936) Shakespeare repertory company to a West End career, and in 1900 he joined the experimental Stage Society.

[His first major play, The Marrying of Ann Leete (1900), was produced by the society.  In 1904 he became manager of the Court Theatre with J. E. Vedrenne (1867-1930) and introduced the public to the plays of Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906), Maurice Maeterlinck, John Galsworthy (1867-1933), John Masefield (1878-1967), and Gilbert Murray’s (1866-1957) translations from Greek.

[Granville-Barker’s original productions of the early plays of George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) were especially important.  His wife, Lillah McCarthy (1875-1960), played leading roles in many of the plays he produced.  Among new plays produced at the Court Theatre were several of his own: The Voysey Inheritance (1905), the most famous, showing Shaw’s influence; Prunella (1906), a charming fantasy written with Laurence Housman (1865-1959); Waste (1907); and The Madras House (1910).

[Also revolutionary was his treatment of Shakespeare.  Instead of traditional scenic decor and declamatory elocution, Barker successfully introduced, in the Savoy productions (1912-14) of The Winter’s Tale and Twelfth Night, continuous action on an open stage and rapid, lightly stressed speech.  He and theater critic William Archer (1856-1924) were active in promoting a national theater, and by 1914 Barker had every prospect of a brilliant career.

[After World War I, however, during which he served with the Red Cross, he found the mood of the postwar theater alien and contented himself with work behind the scenes, including presidency of the British Drama League.  He settled in Paris with his second wife, an American, collaborating with her on translating Spanish plays and writing his five series of Prefaces to Shakespeare (1927-48), a contribution to Shakespearean criticism that analyzed the plays from the point of view of a practical playwright with firsthand stage experience.

[In 1937 Barker became director of the British Institute of the University of Paris.  He fled to Spain in 1940 and then went to the United States, where he worked for British Information Services and lectured at Harvard University.  He returned to Paris in 1946.

[The Voysey Inheritance is a play in five acts written in 1903–1905.  It was originally staged at the Royal Court Theatre in 1905 and revived at the same venue in 1965, the Royal Exchange, Manchester, in 1989, and at the National Theatre in 1989 and 2006. 

[Of modern stagings, the 1990 adaptation by James Luse at New Haven, Connecticut’s Long Whart Theatre transported the action from London to Boston in the 1900s.  In 1999, the Off-Off-Broadway Mint Theatre did the original version (in a production which I saw).  The troupe revived the production the following January.

[In 2006, American playwright David Mamet wrote what Charles Isherwood of the New York Times called a “canny new adaptation” (7 December 2006) of the play for New York’s Atlantic Theatre Company (of which Mamet is a founder).  Fritz Weaver (1926-2016) starred as the patriarch of the Voysey family.

[(In December 2008, financier Bernard L. Madoff (1938-2021) was arrested in Manhattan for securities fraud.  Immediately, parallels with Granville-Barker’s Voysey family were noted.  After Madoff pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 150 years in prison for the huge Ponzi scheme he’d perpetrated, Neil Pepe, the artistic director of the Atlantic Theater, was quoted in the Times saying: “It’s almost verbatim the story of ‘The Voysey Inheritance,’ which was written 100 years earlier.”)]

StageArts SCRIPT EVALUATION

8/19/84
[Rick]

The Voysey Inheritance by Harley Granville-Barker

 

Plot:  Edward Voysey learns from his father that the older man has been stealing from his clients’ funds for many years.  Edward chooses to stay with the firm to keep matters from becoming worse, and when the old man dies suddenly, Edward is faced with the choice of letting the thefts be known and putting an end to the secrecy, or continuing the machinations in order to put the money back before anyone outside the family learns of the situation. 

For various reasons, not all of them honorable, the Voysey family prevails on Edward to continue the practices of old Mr. Voysey—and he begins by replacing the money looted from the accounts of the poorer clients, those who would be beggared should the firm go bankrupt. 

All seems to be going well, though Edward is under great stress and would prefer to be found out and put an end to the situation, until an old client of great wealth demands his funds in toto.  Edward, almost relieved at last to be out from under the pressure, tells him the truth. 

In the end, however, with the advice and assistance of a young woman with whom he had long been in love, Edward manages to keep things as they are in order to put things right.

Theme:  Sometimes the only way to do the right thing is to do the wrong thing.  Edward must do the wrong thing (not reporting a crime) for the right reasons (to prevent clients from losing their savings).

Genre/Style:  Realistic drama.

Structure:  Well-made play in 5 acts.

Setting:  2 sets, both realistic: Voysey office and family dining room.  Set in early 20th century (1905) England, but may be up-dated and transferred to US with some small editing.

Language:  Realistic dialogue, not at all stilted or anachronistic.

Characters:  Large cast, but a number of roles are cuttable: 8 women: 1 60’s, 2 40’s, 1 30’s, 4 20’s; 10 men: 2 60’s, 2 50’s, 1 40’s, 1 30’s, 3 20’s, 1 9-15 (all ages are adjustable 5-10 years either way, but the age-relationships need to remain the same). 

This is really an ensemble play, except for the role of Edward, and each of the characters has a fairly strong personality, though some may be a little stereotyped by today’s standards.  Cutting some of the smaller roles would be easy, and even some of the others may be excised with a little care and rewriting.  The central roles would be good showcases for actors. 

Evaluation:  This would undoubtedly make an interesting production if some adjustments are made.  Granville-Barker is a recognizable theater name, but his plays are not often done here.  There is nothing in this play that is dated or topical—it’s a universal situation that could happen as easily today as 80 years ago. 

The two sets could be combined by a judicious “relocating” of the play so that all the scenes can be performed in one place, and several characters can be cut/combined to reduce the cast size.  Some of the talkier scenes will need to be trimmed, but that would be an easy task.  In the end, this would make an excellent choice for a S/A season in a revival slot. 

Recommendation:  Possible production.

Source:  [Rick]

Rights:  Last known to be held by [Samuel] French.  (Editions are out of print—will have to xerox library copy for use.)

[A well-made play is a form of dramaturgy that arose in France in the late 19th century (la pièce bien faite) involving a tight plot, a largely standardized structure, and a climax close to the end.  The story usually depends on a key piece of information kept from some characters, but not the audience, and moves forward in a chain of actions that use minor reversals of fortune to create suspense.

[The genre was common at the turn of the 20th century, but modern writers like Alan Ayckbourn (b. 1939) and Noël Coward (1899-1973) continued to use it.  Even greats like Shaw and Ibsen applied the form to their work.]