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Korea Herald
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
Yoo Seung-ho returns to stage as Brutus in reimagining of 'Julius Caesar'
Actors Yoo Seung-ho and Son Ho-jun, who last shared the stage in the Korean production of "Angels in America," are reuniting for "Killing Caesar." The new theatrical project will run from May 10 to July 20 at Sogang University's Mary Hall in Seoul. The actors shared that their return to the stage — less than a year after their last performance — was driven by what they described as 'a longing that overpowered the fear of the stage.' "The stage is a place of learning for actors. And I wanted to experience the joy of breathing with an audience once again," Yoo said at a press conference Wednesday at Chungmu Arts Center in Seoul. Yoo reflected on the challenges of his stage debut in "Angels in America," in which he portrayed Prior Walter, a gay character and drag queen, who becomes a victim of social prejudice and self-hate after being diagnosed with AIDS and is abandoned by his lover. 'I know I didn't receive great reviews. I recognize that I was lacking. It was my first time performing in front of a live audience, and everything felt overwhelming,' he said. 'After the show ended, my fellow actors told me, 'Someday, you'll want to do theater again.' Strangely enough, it didn't take long before I missed being in rehearsal.' "Killing Caesar" is a reimagining of the Shakespearean tragedy "Julius Caesar," adapted by playwright Oh Se-hyuck and directed by Kim Jung. Unlike the original, which builds toward Caesar's assassination, "Killing Caesar" opens with the murder and shifts its focus to the power vacuum and political fallout among the conspirators. The production foregrounds Brutus' idealism and the moral ambiguity between principle and betrayal. In a casting twist, Yoo and Son — who previously played the same character in "Angels in America" — now face off in opposing roles. Son plays Caesar, while Yoo steps into the role of Brutus. 'There's a stereotypical image of Caesar and Brutus, and also of the actors Yoo and Son,' the director said. 'We wanted to break that mold. Seeing how these actors challenge expectations will be part of the fun.' The star actors' previous collaboration has also forged a lasting offstage friendship. In March, Yoo joined Son's newly founded management company, 333, after leaving YG Entertainment. The two continue to meet regularly with "Angels in America" castmate Yang Ji-won to talk about their craft. Yang joins "Killing Caesar" as well, taking on a dual role as Mark Antony and Cassius. Playwright Oh revealed that the project began with a message from Yang in the winter: 'Three passionate actors want to do a passionate play.'' 'To be honest, I was scared to take on theater again. But working with people I trust gave me the courage to try once more," said Yoo.
New York Times
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
In Two New Works, the Power of Generational Connections
Adam Gwon's new musical, 'All the World's a Stage,' is an unassuming, 100-minute marvel that follows a closeted math teacher at a rural high school in the 1990s. Like some of that decade's gay-themed indie movies, including the earnest 'Edge of Seventeen' and 'Trick,' this musical is not looking to reinvent the wheel with its storytelling, but is charming, specific and appealing in its rendering of gay life outside the mainstream. Ricky (Matt Rodin), a 30-something teacher with a new job, befriends a kind secretary, Dede (Elizabeth Stanley), and meets Sam (Eliza Pagelle), a rebellious student in whom he finds a kindred love of theater and simmering need to break free from societal expectations. They bond over 'Angels in America,' the new risqué play and the source of her monologue for an acting scholarship audition. But her selection threatens the school administration's conservative sensibilities. At the same time, Ricky is striking up a romance with Michael (Jon-Michael Reese), the owner of a gay-friendly bookstore in a slightly more progressive town where he's settled down. When Ricky's two worlds inevitably collide, they do so with well-crafted wit. Gwon's yearning, pop-classical score flows together beautifully, yet is composed of numbers distinct enough to allow the four excellent cast members to flex their skills. That balance between individuality and unity proves a key theme, expressed in the title's idea that each of us is always adapting our performance across circumstances. (He also has fun with some clever lyrics, at one point setting up 'hara-kiri' to seemingly rhyme with 'Shakespearean.') The director Jonathan Silverstein draws warm portrayals from his troupe (matched by a quartet playing onstage) in his modest, efficiently staged Keen Company production at Theater Row. Jennifer Paar's costumes are instantly evocative; button-up shirts and wire-frame glasses for the teacher and bomber jackets for his pupil. Patrick McCollum's movement work is gently expressive and Steven Kemp's scenic design is similarly to-the-point, with a bookcase or chalkboard rolled in as needed, a lone student desk and an American flag hanging ominously in the corner. Gwon locates in each of his archetypal characters a unifying love of art. Whether it's Dede's penchant for schmaltz like 'The Notebook,' or the radical zines Michael sells, they all seek escape through culture. This disarmingly powerful show aims for the same, and lovingly succeeds. At the Bushwick Starr in Brooklyn, Shayok Misha Chowdhury is engaging in his own generational classroom performance in 'Rheology.' Chowdhury, a writer and director whose 2023 play 'Public Obscenities' wove together academia and deep sentiment, this time enlists his mother, the physicist Bulbul Chakraborty, for a theatrical take on exposure therapy. The short, presentational piece in which they both star is clear in its ambitions: Chowdhury cannot bear the thought of losing his mother, so decides to see what staging her death might feel like. How this all unfolds is its own delight, with a lively structure that's a mishmash of scientific lectures, traditionally staged scenes and meditations on how the two have grown closer by seeing each other passionately pursue their work. Mother and son have a natural stage presence that prompted me to consider the nature and reality of performance. (When I saw the show, just as I thought it was all too heady, an audience member ran out crying during a frank discussion of parent mortality.) As in 'Public Obscenities,' Chowdhury plays with form and language. The show is performed in English and Bangla, and uses supertitles, live camera feeds, singing, and a cello accompaniment, by George Crotty, reminiscent of the melodrama in both Bollywood and in Bernard Herrmann's film scores. Krit Robinson's lablike set, Mextly Couzin and Masha Tsimring's lighting, Tei Blow's sound and Kameron Neal's video designs shine in a surreal moment toward the end. Like his earlier works, 'Rheology,' named after the study of the flow behavior of substances, combines Chowdhury's Bengali heritage and knack for rigor (his father, too, was a scientist) with his own artsier, more American tastes. For a promising artist in New York theater, it feels like a special new intervention in the sandbox he's claimed for his exploration.
Los Angeles Times
05-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
A new revival of Suzan-Lori Parks' ‘Topdog/Underdog' misses the beat at Pasadena Playhouse
A new revival of Suzan-Lori Parks' 'Topdog/Underdog,' even one as tepid as the one at Pasadena Playhouse, provides an opportunity to reflect on the work's strange, eventful history. The play transformed the career of a playwright who, until that time, had been an Obie-decorated darling of New York's downtown avant-garde. A writer of experimental collages on the manifold nature of the Black experience, Parks contended in a style guide to her tricky, unorthodox early work that 'language is a physical act.' And indeed, words in her plays have the force of whirling objects. From the start, her innovative thinking on form connected her more to the theatrical traditions of Adrienne Kennedy and Richard Foreman than those of Lorraine Hansberry and August Wilson. Quite unexpectedly, 'Topdog/Underdog' catapulted Parks to Broadway. When the play won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize, she became the first Black woman to receive the award for drama. The glory hasn't diminished in the intervening years. In 2018, a panel of New York Times critics, surveying the great works of American drama since Tony Kushner's 'Angels in America,' ranked 'Topdog/Underdog' No. 1 on a list of 25 plays. An interesting footnote to this illustrious history is that when the play had its premiere at New York's Public Theater in 2001, there was great consternation in the downtown theater community that yet another Bob Dylan was going electric. How dare Parks dabble in discernible narrative! In the more rarefied reaches of this coterie world, the mainstream embrace of 'Topdog/Underdog' implied selling out. What was perhaps most ironic about this critique was that there's such a clear throughline between 'Topdog/Underdog' and its predecessors. The notion of a Black man impersonating Abraham Lincoln in an arcade inviting customers to take a shot at the president a la John Wilkes Booth — an audacious conceit of 'Topdog/Underdog' — was tried out by Parks in 'The America Play.' Unquestionably, 'Topdog/Underdog' has a more classical structure than Parks' work up to that point. The play revolves around two modern-day brothers, Booth and Lincoln, whose fate may be determined by the names their profoundly neglectful parents saddled them with as a joke — a joke with an archetypal punchline. But the play's ferocious verbal music — the true engine of the drama — unmistakably bears the linguistic signature of Parks' adventurous early plays, such as 'Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom' and 'The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World.' George C. Wolfe, who directed the off-Broadway and Broadway premieres of 'Topdog/Underdog,' was an ideal interpreter at this stage of Parks' career. A showman who, as the author of 'The Colored Museum,' was fully at home in more abstract realms of playwriting, he knew how to balance radical theatricality with more conventional storytelling panache. The enduring vibrancy of 'Topdog/Underdog' was apparent to me in a 2012 South Coast Repertory revival that may not have retained the play's syncopated rhythms but found enough jazz in the character dynamics to hold us under Parks' spell. A critically heralded 2022 Broadway revival directed by Kenny Leon left little doubt about the play's standing as a 21st century classic. All of this brings me to the latest production, directed by Gregg T. Daniel, at Pasadena Playhouse. If I had never seen the play before, I might be questioning its pedigree. It's a lesson in how even subtle miscalculations in casting and directing can distort one's impression of a time-tested work. I recall a starry revival of 'A Doll's House' many years ago that made me want to dismiss Ibsen's play as creakily obsolete. But then not long after, I saw the astonishing 1997 Broadway production, directed by Anthony Page and starring a blazing Janet McTeer, that compelled me to reverse course and declare Ibsen's drama an evergreen wonder. What went wrong at Pasadena Playhouse? Not the glorious physical production, which creates a theatrical world unto its own in a manner evocative of an American Beckett. Tesshi Nakagawa's basement apartment set made me imagine an 'Endgame' relocated to urban slum housing. The superb lighting designer Jared A. Sayeg, who incidentally worked on Alan Mandell's 2016 production of 'Endgame' at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, endows the scenic picture with a painterly aura. The visual precision lifts us into a heightened aesthetic realm beyond realism. The setting simultaneously situates the play in a rich theatrical history. If Athol Fugard's 'Blood Knot' is a forerunner of Parks' creation, then Tarell Alvin McCraney's 'The Brothers Size' is a direct descendant. But the production doesn't live up to its three-dimensional canvas. Brandon Gill as Booth and Brandon Micheal Hall as Lincoln are talents of striking sensitivity. They bring a new generational sensibility to their characters, embodying a millennial version of Booth and Lincoln, a milder tack than the Gen X example of Jeffrey Wright and Mos Def, who starred in the Broadway premiere. (Wright played opposite Don Cheadle's Booth in the play's off-Broadway launch at the Public Theater.) The actors tune into the traumatic history of the brothers but at the expense of the play's theatricality. Abandoned at a young age by their parents, Booth and Lincoln are still stuck in survival mode. Their desperate living conditions — no bathroom in the unit and only one bed — are a constant reminder of their broken upbringing. But they act out their past more than they brood over it. The apartment belongs to Booth, who doesn't work and seems incapable of holding down a job. He's practicing his slick three-card monte moves and patter, wanting to pick up his brother's old line of work. Lincoln, who has been in limbo since his wife dumped him, is trying to hang on to his new job as a Lincoln impersonator at the arcade. Pretending to get shot might not seem like a step up in employment, but Lincoln is relieved to be off the streets. Booth glamorizes the hustle, but Lincoln lived the dangers. He also appreciates being paid to sit around all day with his unsettled thoughts. He needs time to put himself back together, but time is a luxury these brothers have never been able to afford. Gill underplays Booth's mental challenges, perhaps forestalling a diagnosis that could make it easier for us to distance ourselves from the character. But there's a tentativeness to the portrayal, a watering down of the fraternal volatility that ultimately makes Booth so dangerous. Hall's Lincoln wears a sweater in the second act that looks like it came from Saks Fifth Avenue. It's the one noticeable design misstep in Daniel's production, but it reflects the character's desire to become part of a world that has always seemed ready to forsake him. His three-card monte skills are storied in the neighborhood, but he's determined to proceed down the straight and narrow. Lincoln's trajectory is the mirror image of Booth's, but eventually their paths tragically converge. The psychology, however, needs to be more boldly theatricalized, and for Parks that inevitably means verbalized. These characters are fluent in three-card monte rap, no cards required. The plot is motored by their deft, defiant mouths. But Daniel doesn't draw from these fine actors the scale of performance that Parks' drama demands. His restrained direction keeps the brothers in check and underpowered. Instead of a modern reworking of the Cain and Abel story, this revival offers something more subdued — a TV movie pleading for sympathy.
New York Times
25-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
At France's Oldest Theater, Things Change, but They Also Stay the Same
Later this year, the actor and director Clément Hervieu-Léger will assume one of the most influential positions in French theater: general administrator of the Comédie-Française, the country's oldest active company. France's culture ministry announced the appointment last week. For now, however, Hervieu-Léger, 47, remains a player in the company's acting ensemble, and through June 1, he is starring in a production of Chekhov's 'The Cherry Orchard' that he also directed. Onstage on Sunday, Hervieu-Léger blended in discreetly as Trofimov, an aging student who hovers around the play's central landowning family. (It took me a minute even to recognize him.) The venerable Comédie-Française was founded in 1680, when a troupe begun decades earlier by the playwright Molière merged with a rival institution. With Hervieu-Léger's appointment, it has opted — as so often — for continuity. Since 2001, every general administrator has come from the company's ranks. Éric Ruf, who holds the position until this summer, had over two decades of experience as a Comédie-Française actor before his appointment in 2014. His successor has followed a remarkably similar path. A lithe, elegant performer, Hervieu-Léger was hired by the troupe in 2005 and has since been seen in a vast repertoire of plays, including Molière comedies and Tony Kushner's 'Angels in America.' In 2018, he joined the ranks of the 'sociétaires,' or 'shareholders,' a core group of company members who own stakes in the Comédie-Française, make up the board and oversee the theater's operations. All must abide by the company's motto: 'Simul et singulis,' which means, 'Together and individual.' In the past, this ensemble-led system has made it difficult for outsiders to come in and manage the Comédie-Française effectively. Even former sociétaires have faced internal mutiny: Muriel Mayette-Holtz, the first female general administrator, was replaced by Ruf in 2014 after company members protested her tenure in a letter to the French culture minister. Still, the prestige of the position is such — the administrator is personally appointed by the French president — that Hervieu-Léger faced serious competition. According to the French newspaper Le Monde, two high-profile candidates had thrown their hats in the ring: Arthur Nauzyciel, who is currently at the helm of the National Theater of Brittany; and the film and stage director Christophe Honoré, known for movies including 'Love Songs' and 'Sorry Angel.' While Hervieu-Léger is less of a household name, he will be able to draw on his wide-ranging experience. Alongside his acting career, he has directed over a dozen productions across theater and opera, with a pronounced taste for classic plays: in addition to Chekhov and his countryman Ivan Turgenev, Hervieu-Léger has tackled Molière and the 18th-century comic playwrights Pierre de Marivaux and Carlo Goldoni. He has also overseen plenty of projects beyond the Comédie-Française. In 2010, he co-founded La Compagnie des Petits Champs, a theater company based in rural northern France. His affinity for ballet has also translated into a number of side gigs, including a position as drama teacher at the Paris Opera Ballet School. In early April, his hybrid dance-theater adaptation of 'They Shoot Horses, Don't They?,' a co-creation with the choreographer Bruno Bouché and the actor Daniel San Pedro for the Ballet du Rhin, will have its Paris premiere at the Théâtre de la Ville. As a director, Hervieu-Léger's style leans toward understated, period-appropriate sophistication; a history buff, he was elected president of the French Society of Theater History in 2021. His production of 'The Cherry Orchard' is a case in point. In Hervieu-Léger's interpretation, Chekhov's 1903 play unfolds on a wood-paneled stage decorated with refined paintings, evoking the country lifestyle of the aristocratic family; the minutely cut costumes are demure enough to suit early 20th-century characters. The craft of the Comédie-Française's famed in-house set and costume departments are evident in every scene, to a degree that outside directors don't always exploit. 'The Cherry Orchard' is also a showcase for Hervieu-Léger's colleagues, with smart casting across several generations of actors. Florence Viala, a company member since 1994, brings a flighty self-assurance to the central role of Lyubov. Loïc Corbery, often seen in romantic leading roles, is an unexpected choice as the coarse Lopakhin, yet he owns the role with mercurial energy. As Firs, the elderly butler, Hervieu-Léger brought back the retired sociétaire Michel Favory, who acts as an earnest, serious anchor throughout. Hervieu-Léger's intimate knowledge of the troupe will serve him well as the general administrator, and Ruf leaves behind an institution in good shape. Over his three terms, Ruf struck a balance between the house's traditions and a newfound openness. In addition to bringing in star directors like Thomas Ostermeier and Ivo van Hove, he worked quietly behind the scenes to increase diversity, hiring several Black actors and achieving gender parity among the directors he programed. The Comédie-Française said last week that Hervieu-Léger would unveil his plans this summer, though the company seems set to continue on its steady course. If it ain't broke, don't fix it: It's a view that the Comédie-Française is entitled, by nearly 350 years of history, to hold.
