The Authenticator

“Spoiler alert: Vanessa was oh so refreshing. I walked in with tempered expectations. A new kind of opera...? I watched Puccini’s Turandot in all its glory the night before at the Met. Swapping uptown’s grandiose imperial China for the Baruch Performing Arts Center’s black box initially felt a bit like getting sent to the back of the plane after a leg in first class. What am I doing here? Schlather strips Samuel Barber’s 1958 Vanessa to five singers, seven musicians, a few chairs, and shadows. The minimalism reserves all the oxygen for its singers and a seven strong orchestra. At times, all that oxygen felt rich for the small theatre, though it did bring a theatrical intensity and intimacy a classic opera sometimes misses. R.B. Schlather has rebuilt this opera as theatre first – an inversion that made Vanessa refreshing to watch. I now understand exactly why the Williamstown Theatre Festival broke with tradition to make this the first opera ever staged in its history last summer. Frederick Ballentine’s Anatol seduces Vanessa, Erika, and the 200-strong audience in roughly that order. Inna Dukach plays Vanessa with the weariness of a woman who has already grieved the man she is about to marry. It’s the only honest way to play her. Kelsey Lauritano’s Erika is quietly the center of this production. Joshua Jeremiah perfected the Doctor’s perpetual state of intoxication and gave us the only lightness in the house. Finally, Mary Phillips, the silent Baroness, elegantly makes the case that sometimes judgement carries further than speech.”

“Having gone to theatre school, I’m embarrassed to admit I never saw Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman live. Lucky me, a friend braved the early morning queue and secured tickets. This play continues to be all the rage, and in New York that means something. As a Euro in the US, the ‘American Dream’ has lived rent free in my mind for years. Miller’s play is as relevant today as ever, and I find comfort in knowing he cast doubt on the concept seventy years ago. Hope may be the strongest antidote to suffering. Steadfast belief is admired when the upside materializes, but one risks looking foolish when it never does. Miller masterfully bends hope into disillusionment, perpetual optimism into naiveté. Nathan Lane, as Willy Loman, is gut-wrenchingly believable. His wife, played by Laurie Metcalf, supports him unwaveringly as the world around them crumbles, both romantic and tragic. Biff inherits the weight of the dream and crumbles under it. Willy, caught up in his own web of delirium, fails to see his son was never the diamond in the rough he imagined. His continual attempt to polish something that simply isn’t there cuts deep. Do we keep rooting for the Willy Lomans of this world? With all their flaws, I think yes. To be clear, he really ain’t a hero. Hope is not a strategy. But I’d rather live in a world of dreamers than one dictated by realists.”

“Is existentialism having a moment? It certainly felt like it at the Royal Court for this thought-provoking double bill. Godot's To-Do List sent a chill through the audience as we recognized the inner voice—or perhaps even more frighteningly, an outer AI or social media one—endlessly controlling our lives but stopping us from doing what we really want to do. Both curtain raisers were two sides of the same coin, and this wonderful piece of contemporary writing was paired with Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape. Directed and performed by Gary Oldman, this was the spectacle the pumped audience was here to devour. Enter Gary Oldman on the second night of his first live stage performance in London for 35 years. Firstly, he mastered his audience with significant aplomb, although he actually used a banana! Once he had us, he carefully led us through the process of Krapp's last tapes, meeting his younger self in the form of a voice recording which was laid down as a birthday ritual. Beckett's magnificent script and a very clever use of lighting did the rest, and the audience were spellbound throughout. Of course, Beckett is a matter of taste; it’s grown up, like a martini. My own preference is surgically cold and very dry, without even the tiniest (and perhaps irresistible) twist of sentimentality.”