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Went and saw Poor Little Lulu at CPT on Monday, and for the most part I enjoyed the play conceived and directed by Matthew Earnest, an adaptation of two Frank Wedekind plays as noted in the program, Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box.

I say “for the most part” because, as with many conceived pieces, the story really falls apart at the end. However, with that said, apparently both of the plays written by Wedekind are, generally, run together in one performance. The “running together” of the plays at CPT is no different: though, I wish in many ways it was. Simply, either the plays should not be run together in one evening, or sufficient time should be provided for them to properly develop and resolve themselves. As with other jointly conceived pieces I’ve seen it’s as if the steam (enthusiasm) just runs out—-or the time to prepare it does–and there is a push to just end the piece in whichever way is most expedient—-or no one working on the piece has the faintest idea how to end it, and so it lieu of letting it just sort of peter out some contrived ending is ratcheted on. This, however, was an adaptation, so there was not this particular problem, there was another, which I get to later.

What Earnest does with the play from a directorial and visual dimension is fantastic. The choices of costuming (nudity, cross-dressing, costume design), scene transition, the contrast of white and black and shadow play (noir) is stunning, etc. The performances from the cast are equally exceptional. The play, for the most part, is worth seeing for the visual effects, direction, sound design (James Kosmatka), video design (Earnest & Will Bezek), and staging alone. There is a constancy of energy and forward motion driving the piece, which helps when the story flags in Act 2. There are only a few instances in which the other flaw of devised pieces exhibits itself, which I’ll refer to as the onanistic tendency to indulge in superfluous goings on: characters (actors) sing for no reason (just because they can, I suppose) and for the same reason they engage in choreographed dancing. Don’t get me wrong, Lulu is supposed to be a dancer—so why not let her dance, right? Of course, she is supposed to be a prostitute, so why not let her…? The point is that seeing the dancing or fucking or whatever is not immediately relevant to the story. If it doesn’t materially function as an element of the story then cut it. If it has no story contribution (forward progression) then cut it. Katie Nabors (Lulu) is a dancer by the way and is clearly very talented and it was a joy to watch, even though it had no real purpose, or perhaps phrased differently, why was there no dancing and singing in Act 2? If you’re going to go whole hog, go whole hog.

Having worked on adaptations myself, and having read many books that touch on the subject, one of the rules that is always put forward is that the playwright, sorry, conceiver, should be faithful to the script (devised piece) he/she is writing/ conceiving, not to the original material—-even in cases when the original creator is still alive and you are beholden to that original work you should fight as much as possible for your own vision. That is, you should be as faithful as possible to your adaptation—-your interpretation of the story. So, for Earnest the question is, what was the story? His story? Because, I think, too faithful an adherence to Wedekind’s ponderous arc drove this piece to a forced progression of plot pegs. I can see and understand the imperative to present the “whole” story—-the complete character arc for Lulu: her rise and terrible fall—-but that is a different play from the emotional entanglements of Lulu and Schon (Mark Farr) which dominate the first act. Equally, I understand CPT’s mission and goal of presenting stories that cast light on social injustice and issues that still are prevalent in today’s society: including the slavery of women. These two plays by Wedekind certainly do this. But as presented in this adaptation the story fails in the second act completely—-the plot points are there and clearly apparent, but dramatic and emotional interest just vanishes. Having never read the original plays I am unsure how long a full production of both would be—-compared to this one at CPT. But, in the interest of finishing this adaptation much of Act 2 is clipped of meaningful dramatic content and all is presented as rough plot points and characters speaking their situations (telling): “Oh, I have no money,” etc. It is in this regard that I would rather have had only one play presented, or perhaps both at different times.

The story in the first act is quite compelling and engaging (i.e. the first play) and it is quickly and emotionally enthralling with regard to the relationship between Lulu and Dr. Ludwig Schon. Earnest, with the first play (act) creates a captivating story, in which the tension between Lulu and Schon is built and very productively dominant—-a tension that could have been sustained over the whole piece. Unfortunately, by being wholly true to the Wedekind original, this tension and emotionally dramatic force is cut short far too quickly with the marriage of Lulu and Schon and the subsequent murder of Schon by Lulu. This arc is fine for one play (Earth Spirit) but not fine for the two plays combined. The problem for the Earnest adaptation (wholly) is that the emotional attachment for the audience falls predominantly on these two characters (Lulu and Schon) and in the second act the audience is left with without them (hence no attachment–and virtually no interest in what transpires.) In fact, Lulu is in prison and absent from the first several minutes of the second act, so there are no characters that serve as an attachment at all—-and the characters that remain are debauched (as expected given the time period and location) but also two-dimensional, and thus cannot be emotionally engaging. Again, I don’t know if this is a problem for just this piece, or if it is common to the other adaptations of the “Lulu plays.” It is regrettable, because the first part of the piece is very alluring, but the second is just a series of rote events that wrap up the character arcs in a mechanical sort of way.

Went and saw Antebellum last night at CPT. I was interested in the play largely because I’m working on one right now that has two similar stories taking place in different time periods and I was interested in this element of the play.  To this end I have read and seen Thomas Gibbon’s House with No Walls, and plan on reading Time of My Life by Alan Ayckbourn and Leah’s Train by Karen Hartman.  If anyone else knows of plays with multiple time periods represented, let me know.

I think O’Hara handled Antebellum, structurally, well enough. Having just finished reading A House with No Walls, which I saw at Karamu several years ago, I don’t think O’Hara did as well as Gibbons in terms of stage pictures, pacing, and scene/inter-scene movement.  There was one very nice moment at the end of the play when Edna/Gabriel is leaving the concentration camp and there is an immediate transition to the next time period (three or so years later) when Edna/Gabriel is leaving the plantation.  It was a great transition.  Another was when Edna and Gabriel are looking at each other in the “mirror” or in the future/past; although, again, it was not as powerful a moment as that of Oney Judge and Cadence Lane in HWNW.

I was never really clear on the genre of the play—not that it matters so much, but when a play keeps skipping genres you expect a certain type of play—Eric Overmyer or Len Jenkins come to mind—but this one jumped unintentionally, I think.  If not, it was unclear how the genres were being used. I was strongly certain that it was a drama, at the outset, that was going to address serious issues in a dramatic form.  As time passed, I felt that I was getting clobbered over the head by something that was not remotely as engaging as Brecht—but I was definitely kept from empathizing. As it wore further on, it felt like a melodrama (too often)—and by the end, when the THIRD gun was shot I was expecting a maiden hogtied at a railroad crossing with Baron von Schleicher and his evil black moustache to pop out with a wicked laugh.  There were musical elements, and elements that surely would have done better as pure black comedy—the Scarlet O’Hara wanna-be (Sarah Roca—played very well, as always, by Laurel Hoffman) coming on with a shotgun at the end, for instance.

Does the play raise important questions?  Sure. With all the things going on in the play, how could it not?  For instance, I have to admit that I never gave much thought to the similarity between Nazi Germany and the American South—or maybe just America, as I’m sure some Black Americans would point out; or to pre-war Germany and pre-Civil War America. But what does it mean for us today?  Hmmmm.  I think, if my hand were forced, I’d have to draw the comparison between the modern American and the character of Sarah Roca.  This character is so excited about a world premiere movie and having her dress made up and put on that she overlooks the depravity of the whole event (a celebration of Antebellum America—slaves and all).  And given that this is the title of the play, I’d have to believe that this is the direction that O’Hara (Robert, not Scarlet) is pointing us.  That is, there are grand cultural illusions at play and they rely on the subjugation and abuse of others–take a look at Food, Inc., as I just did, to see this issue playing out in our society today. In the terms of the play, it’s sort of a Gone with the Wind meets The Wind Done Gone. Grand illusions come before the war: before the “blood hate.” Unfortunately, this message, if this is even the message, it is just lost in the jumbling of often two-dimensional characters whose situations devolve into an overly melodramatic story with people ranting at each other.

The set was great, but the sound in the space made it very difficult to hear what was being said at the end opposite me (toward Parish Hall).  The costumes and lights were great, too. The actors delivered admirable performances, especially given the Southern accents, German language, singing, and other demands of the script; and Beth Wood kept it all moving along over a solid two-hours and twenty-minute show.