Pretty in the meantime

Last night, I attended the postponed first performance of this year's first splashy educated-people-of-culture-mainstream event, that is, Tom's Stoppard's new adaptation of Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard directed by Sam Mendes and playing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, produced as part of the US/UK "Bridge Project" mandate of Kevin Spacey at the Old Vic in London. Whew! So many important names! And so... what did I think?

Since August, I've seen shows of many kinds (tragical, comical, pastoral-historical-comical, etc.). They included a big-budget summer-stock old-pop musical, a shiny revival of a Broadway farce, a neo-faithful neo-Elizabethan Shakespeare, a post-modern-ish hip-ishly upstart midtown/downtown Jacobean tragedy, a new Off-Broadway ironic British sex and death flashback, an old Irish 60s vaudeville-cum-play at a brand-new neo-traditional regional ensemble company, and a now-old-new-play-turned-new-movie in the local "Off-Broadway style" pro shop. And finally, to round out last year in the new, I went too see this impressive and inconsistent 'Orchard' with its elegant clarity, understated and humane performances, and menacing and self-conscious directorial touches.

Since last summer, I've aimed for variety, and lots about most was worth it. Yet there was a common, underlying element to all I saw, and I must admit I was generally bored even when I was being intermitently impressed.

A notable exception: The best thing I saw last year, every moment of it, was this:

Foofwa

One other exception was Neil Medlyn's Unpronounceable Symbol at PS122. But neither of these exceptions were interpretations of scripted drama...

I'm attempting to point my mind's finger toward an apt clarification of what's made mearly all of my theater-going since August mysteriously irrelevant to me--including perhaps most poignantly this new Cherry Orchard. The Cherry Orchard is close to my heart, and yet...

In the meantime, from another world, here's something prettier. Click on the pic (or here)!