THE LOWER DEPTHS
The subway was
the A.R.T.’s brilliant choice for Beckett’s ENDGAME some years ago, although
the playwright kicked up a fuss. George Bernard Shaw isn’t around to object to
Flat Earth’s subway setting for PYGMALION (slumming through Aug. 30th)
and indeed, I wouldn’t if it worked but it doesn’t.
Director Devon
Jones sends a passing parade of transit transients through the London tube in
his adaptation but they only serve to upstage (by rocking and mumbling to
themselves) the toffs who inexplicably prefer the stench of claustrophobic
tunnels to an aboveground carriage or hansom cab.
Every scene has
been transferred to a subway station. Henry Higgins’ mother now holds court
underground. So do the royals: Even the grand ball where Eliza passes for a
duchess is six feet under! Aside from the foolishness of the reset, there’s the
slap in the face to GBS. His whole point as a dramatist and social reformer is
the deleterious effect of class distinction. Put everyone in the subway, elbow
to elbow, and there isn’t any distinction.
Henry Higgins
might descend the depths for his research but his mum never would in a million
years, nor would the other upper crusters in the play. They would expire before
dressing themselves in public. Higgins is lucky no one pinched the rented
jewels he places around Eliza’s neck in King’s Cross station: He evidently
didn’t hear the loudspeaker warnings which pepper the play.
I tried to
suspend my disbelief but those announcements kept reminding me of the disastrous
setting. Even a knockout performance by Stephen Turner as Eliza’s father and
fine turns by Katie Bond (as Henry’s mother) and Tom Beyer (as Pickering) couldn’t bridge
that famous gap.
SMILE AND THE WORLD
SMILES WITH YOU
A much more
successful use of cross gender performance can be found in the NEW EXHIBITION
ROOM’s ironic SMILE (already closed). Half a dozen actresses portray both male
and female roles with gusto in this raucous and moving tale of feminist
empowerment. The young women have come together for a weekend of “defensive”
yoga to center themselves and unnerve the enemy. The “downward dog” now has a
nasty kick.
No longer do women
have to “smile” when a stranger commands it. “No” means “NO” after this
seminar. Pity is, it’s only fiction.
