Theater Reviews of a Bright Room Called Day
By Christopher Caggiano
Tony Kushner attempts a rewrite of his first professional play. The results are decidedly mixed.
A Brilliant Room Called Day (Revisited) by Tony Kushner. Directed past Oskar Eustis. At the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, New York, NY., through December 15.
It'south rare that artists go a do-over in their careers. But that'southward exactly what Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Honor-winning playwright Tony Kushner is experiencing now at the Public Theater by manner of a revised version of his first professionally produced play, A Bright Room Chosen Day, here chosen A Brilliant Room Called Day (Revisited).
Kushner'south 1985 play is about the rising specter of fascism in 1930s Germany, although the script draws numerous parallels between the rise of the Nazi Party and the dawn of the Reagan Era. Critics at the time scoffed at what they saw as the drama's hyperbole. Given our electric current political climate, what once may have seemed alarmist now appears all too real. Trump'southward coming to ability must accept seemed to be the perfect fourth dimension to revisit the play to both Kushner and to director Oskar Eustis, who too directed the script's professional premiere in 1987.
Kushner'due south revisions come predominantly with respect to a character called Zillah, who is part of a meta-construction that regularly interrupts the activity of the play with commentary in social club to draw gimmicky parallels. For the latest version, Kushner has added some other meta-graphic symbol called Xillah, who is essentially a stand-in for the playwright himself.
The interactions betwixt Zillah (played by Crystal Lucas-Perry) and Xillah (a vibrant and frazzled Jonathan Hadary) provide much of the clarity in this revamped version of the script. The 1930s scenes tin can be oblique, poetic to the signal of opacity. Ironically, the meta interludes set into relief many of the play'due south flaws. Kushner appears to desire to use his new proxy character to address criticisms of the before version of the drama. But these protestations come off as diversionary excuses: snarky asides in lieu of really fixing the piece.
At 1 point in the revised version, Zillah proclaims,"Things are so bad people want to do this play." Only she immediately accedes that, even in this revised course, the play is unlikely to aid. Is Kushner conceding that the play is never going to work? Or is he lamenting the limited effect a play can take on its political environment? Either way, it feels like a cop-out. At another point, Kushner appears to be both throwing upwards his hands and settling an former score:
Xillah: "Just I didn't trust the play, the dramatic grade itself…to speak directly plenty…"
Zillah: "Which is why no one in your plays ever moves. They just sit and talk."
Xillah: "That's all anyone does in whatever play. Information technology'southward all plays are is talk. What else should they be doing, sword fighting?"
At its best, A Brilliant Room Called Day (Revisited) is a play to begrudgingly adore, if non wholeheartedly embrace. This is the theatrical equivalent of eating your vegetables. Kushner's writing hither in some ways reflects the lyricism and intellectual ambition of his Angels in America, only Bright Room exhibits precious picayune of the heart and sheer visceral impact of Kushner'southward magnum opus.
The first-charge per unit performers in the cast do what they can to inject passion and dimension into Kushner'south archetypal characters. Linda Emond is intensely real, equally always, as a affiche artist who helps spearhead the resistance to the Nazis. Nikki M. James feels miscast as Agnes, a movie actress who is forced to choose between leaving Federal republic of germany and remaining backside. James seems to lack sufficient gravitas for the role, although she partially acquits herself at the very finish.
Estelle Parsons is virtually unrecognizable every bit an inscrutably ominous elderly woman who haunts Agnes while Agnes dithers. Michael Urie is unique among the cast in making his grapheme, a gay human being working to promote sexual freedom, both palpable and sympathetic.
At the cadre of Bright Day is a debate well-nigh the applied uses of art to result change. In i scene, Xillah cries out in despair at the helplessness of the theater creative person: "The magic within this room, information technology isn't useless, it has some event, but…[w]hat result? On u.s. in here? Out there in the world? What powers of the air above or below the world do we conjure forth in here?"
At the cease of a somewhat rambling iii hours, Kushner apparently comes to a resolution. The Zillah character breaks though the fourth wall and speaks directly to Agnes in the hopes of saving the graphic symbol from her impending doom. Agnes instead turns the discussion around and insists that information technology is Zillah — and, by extension, the audience — who must have action: "And if they win, there will be no prophylactic anywhere, anywhere in this world…and there will be no future. We are in terrible danger. Save this world…Get out this room. Deed."
Powerful words, but coming as they do later on an attenuated three hours of dithering, they lose their power equally a rallying cry and become more of a shrill taunt.
Christopher Caggiano is a writer and teacher based in Boston. He serves as Associate Professor of Theater at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. His writing has appeared in American Theatre and Dramatics magazines, and on TheaterMania.com and ZEALnyc.com.
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Source: https://artsfuse.org/191688/theater-review-a-three-hour-bright-room-called-day-befuddles-at-the-public-theater/
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