Review: Theatre of the New Ear

Some events live up to the hype.

The arrival of the Theatre of the New Ear ("Leave Your Eyes at Home!") in London's Royal Festival Hall was loaded with anticipation. Two original sound plays by the writer/director Coen Brothers (Raising Arizona, Big Lebowski, The Man Who Wasn't There, Fargo) and writer/director Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). The cast featured mainly former stars of their work including Meryl Streep, Steve Buscemi, John Goodman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Hope Davis, and Peter Dinklage. Carter Burwell set the plays to music and Parabola provided the orchestra.

The tickets for the event sold out in a day as fans of the critically acclaimed and populist directors flocked this one-night-only opportunity. In the only other previous or scheduled performance, the plays were staged three times to packed houses at St Ann's Warehouse, a converted industrial space in hipster Brooklyn.

In the program notes Carter Burwell (composer on many of the Coen Brothers films) further sets the stage:

"You're watching a movie, in a theatre at home, and starting to doze. You can't keep your eyes open, but the sound of the film still seeps through your ears, which sadly are never closed. Your mind paints the picture itself in that meaningful but not quite visual way that dreams play out. This is the experience I'd like you to have now."

All true except you couldn't keep your eyes off the stage. A performance like this one could herald the return of the sound play as a popular art form. Broadcast on Digital Radio I'm sure it would be fantastic to hear as radio drama, but it was electric in person. Sawbones featured a rapid-fire dialogue and Oh Brother Where Art Thou style score. And as one of Charlie Kaufman's characters in Hope Leaves the Theatre says: "I'd watch Philip Seymour Hoffman read the phone book."

But it was Kaufman's play that stole the evening. He is a master of the narrative within the narrative, or "the play within the play within the play within the play, all right we get it Charlie Kaufman" as a critic in the play comments. He has a wonderful talent for shifting perspective, often poking fun at himself, and this play is no exception. From the program notes: "Kaufman wrote Hope Leaves the Theatre in 1997 during his last year at Windsor Prep, where he was just embarking on his now famous struggles with issues of identity, weight gain, and pornography addiction".

Meryl Streep is an incredible actress. Watching her live on stage is an engrossing experience. She reads across a range of Kaufman's characters shifting voice constantly from a black woman to a radio man and sailor. She has a wonderful rapport with the audience, at one point climbing to sit on the edge of the stage and discuss her lament on the direspects shown by modern theatre audiences. Peter Dinklage is introduced by a Hope Davis character sitting in the seats waiting ... "Peter Dinklage ... Isn't he that dwarf? ... Oh Ya. He was in that movie Train Station." ... Once again to the program notes: "redefined leading man in The Station Agent". All of the characters have fun at each other's expense and the story has a wonderful flow, caressed by Streep's magnetic personalities, Dinklage's booming voice and charm, and Davis' tour de force as the lead female character, who when her cell phone goes off in the theatre gets told off by Meryl Streep, a claim to fame for her mom. You get the picture. I mean the sound.

Bravo to both the Coens and Kaufman for reintroducing an art form to mainstream consciousness and doing such a good job while they were at it. And the obvious enjoyment the actors got out of playing their parts on stage bodes well for creative collaborations like these in the future. It might even turn out to be a great way to stage a screenplay in the interests of getting it produced into a film. You need a band, some actors (call Meryl and she if she is available?), and a screenplay. Oh ... and a director, preferably one with a habit of writing irresistibly stimulating prose.

Some more links to reviews of the play:

Ain't it cool news
Aussie James
Being Charlie Kaufman forum topic
Chocolate and Vodka

Labels: film, theatre

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Saturday, May 14, 2005