Double Feature -- Part 1

I had a very interesting experience at the theater over these past two evenings. I really don't bring any of this up by way of "review," as such. Many of you don't live in Denver, the shows I'm talking about both close tomorrow night, and they're sold out for their final performances in any case; it's not like anyone reading this would be able to attend, even if I recommended you should. Really, I just want to share the experience because it was really one of the stranger ones I've had attending the theater.

And to begin, I need a bit of background to place it all into full context. Here in Denver, the Denver Center Theatre Company runs the National Theatre Conservatory, an intense three-year Master of Fine Arts program in which just 10 students annually are given full scholarships to study acting with rigorous intensity. Lots of actors go on from this program to appear on Broadway, television, film... or even to remain here in Denver and become fixtures of the "parent" Company itself. But all that free schooling for the few lucky students ends up costing the Center just shy of $1 million a year, an expense they've decided they cannot continue. This year's freshman class will, in 2012, become the last class to graduate before they close the doors on the Conservatory.

But in the meantime, "the show must go on." It's graduating time for this year's senior class, and this year they're doing it by performing two different shows in daily rep: Molière's Tartuffe, and Shakespeare's Hamlet. I attended the former last night, and the latter tonight.

This was the first time I'd ever actually seen multiple shows being performed in rotation by the same group of actors. In the past, I've seen stage productions of both plays. (Even of this particular translation of Tartuffe from French to English.) As such, it afforded me the chance to really focus on the shows collectively, rather than each independently. How were the actors in their different roles? What sorts of triumphs and pitfalls could be attributed to the actors, and which to the directors (who were different for the two shows)?

First up was Tartuffe. For those unfamiliar with the play, the title character is a con man who has assumed the role of a most devout priest. His act has duped a wealthy man to invite the con artist into his home. The entire family, who has not been taken in, tries to make the man see the truth, but he stubbornly stands by the priest and favors him to the detriment of everyone. It's a comedy of a style common for the time in which it was written, and done in the playwright's customary technique of rhyming couplets.

The director of this particular version of Tartuffe left much to be desired. The play was poorly staged, with actors frequently obstructing and upstaging one another, giving key lines of dialogue with their backs to the audience, and otherwise awkwardly moving about.

But by far the worst aspect of this performance was Tartuffe himself. The actor playing the role sniveled and choked on his own words like some sort of strange cross between Gollum and Truman Capote (sans lisp). Some of the audience laughed at the gimmick, but within three minutes, I'd come to find it intolerable. I suppose this was intended to show what a snake-oil salesman the man is, and to exhibit that he's not a very good one -- having fooled only the one man and not the rest of the family. Still, I feel this actor should have been encouraged by his director to find a "new choice."

There was another end of the spectrum, however. Two actors shone brilliantly in the cast. One played the wealthy man's maid, Dorine. Arguably the best written role in the show, she has a smart remark for every occasion, and generates the biggest laughs on the page. The actress portraying her (Kelli Crump) brought this to life with perfect sass, never missing a trick or an opportunity for a laugh.

More impressive still was the actor playing Cleante (Sean Lyons), the brother of the duped man. On the page, it's not an impressive part. He has only a few scenes, and his function in the play is to be primarily the mouthpiece of the playwright. To read it, it's just not a funny role. But this actor found jokes that weren't obvious, and carried them off without them ever seeming forced. Performances like this are why one goes to see a play they've seen before, to have an actor show you something in the play you never knew was there. Brilliant.

Residing off the spectrum in a peculiar category of its own was the character of Damis, the hotheaded son of the wealthy man. The Conservatory graduating class being what it is, comprised of the particular mix of genders (and ethnicities) it has, means that some roles must be filled unconventionally. There's nothing wrong -- or even necessarily unusual -- about that. In this production, Damis was played by a woman (and not the only part to be played by someone of the opposite sex; there were other women as men, and one man as a woman).

But as unfortunate circumstance would have it, this poor woman had completely lost her voice during this week of performances. Could not say one word. But it's her graduating performance. It's a public performance, yes, but it's also ultimately an educational exercise; there was no understudy. So, as one of the cast members explained to us before the play began, this actor would move about on stage and perform the "motions" of her part, while another person sat off stage and read the dialogue for her.

The result was odd, and quite took me out of the play. Oh, not necessarily for the most obvious reason; I actually found that within a minute or two, I just learned to accept lines coming in from offstage as this woman never opened her mouth. And the reader actually did give a performance, and not just a rote recitation of the dialogue. But they actually had a man read the dialogue for a woman playing a man's role, which made the whole thing a little too "meta" for me. Plus, the woman really seemed to be gesticulating and "face acting" wildly in her performance. Pulled out of the play, I had to wonder, is this how she'd be performing it if she could speak for herself? Is this wild behavior because the character is an aggressive hothead, or is it an actor overcompensating like a silent film star?

So, all told, the evening was a most thoroughly mixed bag. The bright spots were almost blindingly so, the rough spots abrasive indeed, and then there was just the weirdness too. I left simultaneously entertained, disappointed, and full of speculation about what I would see on the next night, with Hamlet.

Perhaps out of a sense for dramatic tension myself, or perhaps just in recognition that I've already droned on past the attention span of the average internet surfer, I think I'll pause this tale for now and say "to be continued." Tomorrow, I'll regale you with my night of Hamlet, and the comparisons it brought.