Adapted
from Alexander Dumas fils'
"La
Dame aux Camelias"
Adapted and Directed by Sean Graney |
Familiar story becomes bold
experiment in passion
Hedy Weiss, Chicago Sun-Times
Call him a
neo-Romantic. Or a romantic Expressionist. Or a pop experimentalist
who wears his heart brightly emblazoned on his sleeve. Whatever
label you might choose to affix to youthful director, scenic
designer and playwright Sean Graney, the one thing you can't deny is
that his abiding subject is love and all its attendant calamities.
Emotion gone amok is his favorite storytelling line; just consider
his productions of "Blood Wedding" and "Machinal" for his company,
the Hypocrites, and his own play, "The 4th Graders Present an
Unnamed Love-Suicide."
Graney's latest project for The Hypocrites
is "Camille/La Traviata," his original adaptation of Alexander Dumas
fils' romantic tragedy La Dame aux Camelias ("The Lady of the
Camellias"), and Francesco Maria Plave's libretto for Verdi's hugely
popular opera "La Traviata."
Graney's version, created in collaboration
with composer Kevin O'Donnell (who has put his own modern twist on
excerpts from Verdi's score), is an attempt to conflate many of the
conventions, the grand passions and sophisticated design approach of
tragic opera with the more human-scale expression of straight drama.
Add a little Brechtian stylization by way of Peter Sellars, and some
vivid visual tricks in the fanciful manner of Baz Luhrmann (who
recently staged Puccini's "La Boheme" on Broadway), and you've got a
show that visibly bleeds red when love is in the air, and fades to
white as its heroine expires from consumption.
Graney's experiment is intriguing, even
provocative. But at this point the director is more skilled at
devising concepts than at working with his actors. Too often he has
allowed his cast to opt for vocal shrillness and a grating
screechiness rather than helping them find truly musical variations
in their expression.
The story is a familiar one. Camille
(Amanda Putman) is a young and reckless courtesan who defiantly
lives the high life even as she slowly wastes away from disease and
decadence. By the time we encounter her -- dressed in a ruby satin
gown and pursued by a slew of suitors who help pay her bills -- she
also has come to the conclusion that she is unable to truly love,
and that she is altogether temperamentally unfit to settle down.
Enter Armand (John Byrnes), a young man in
love with love, and devoted to her in a way no others ever have
been. She rejects him at first, then falls deeply in love with him
and heads off to her country estate to finally settle down. But
happiness is not Camille's destiny. Germont (Don Bender), Armand's
status-conscious father, pays her a visit and tells her that if she
truly loves his son she will abandon him rather than ruin the family
reputation. She reluctantly agrees, with the understanding that
Germont will reveal the truth to Armand upon her death. And that
death is not far off.
The women in the show's large cast move
well, including the tiny, dark-haired Putnam, Stacy Stoltz (as her
flamboyant acquaintance, Flora) and her little bikini-clad courtesan
friends. But the men, including the fervent Byrnes, tend to be
somewhat subtler actors, particularly Will Schutz (as Camille's
doctor) and George Ketsios (as a police inspector). Soprano Erin
Myers struggles through several arias from her balcony perch, where
she is accompanied by Kristina Lee on double bass and Rozalyn Torto
on viola, and where a video screen projects the lyrics or suggests
the pumping of blood to the heart.
Graney's evocative set, with its
bubble-like surfaces and the intermittent thumping of a human
heartbeat, makes you feel like you're inside the corridors of that
organ designated the center of passion. A neatly choreographed
bullfight interlude conjures sexual jealousy and looming death.
Allison Siple's fantastic costumes (exaggerated
red-and-black-striped suits for the men) are richly imaginative, and
Jaymi Lee Smith's masterful lighting washes the stage with scarlet.
Overall, an ambitious and intriguing
undertaking, if not a wholly successful one.
RECOMMENDED
Chris Jones, Chicago Tribune
"Graney, a dedicated, talented and
fearless young post-modernist with a penchant for mixing and
matching, wanted to interact both with Verdi and the conventions of
operatic passion. Somewhere deep in Graney's heart, he really wanted
to direct La Traviata... All in all, this is an uncommonly grand and
elegant production, with Graney himself contributing a terrific set
design ablaze with surreal romanticism and matched by gorgeous
ahistorical costumes from Allison Siple that perfectly capture the
tension between operatic parody and sexual tribute. And thanks to
splendid directorial pacing and inspired visual pictures, a
focused and very capable young company of 24 moves rapidly from one
orgiastic moment to the next. Lovers of any of this material might
be rendered angry or delighted, but it's hard to imagine anyone not
being intrigued."
For full review, go to
www.metromix.com
Jennifer Vanasco, Chicago Free Press
"Love - and love's loss - are at the center of this gorgeous,
intense
adaptation of "Camille," written and directed by Sean Graney.
Graney's original intention was to have the actors speak the "La
Traviata" libretto while Giuiseppe Verdi's heartrending music played
underneath. But Graney found the exposition in the libretto too
thin-so he turned also to Alexander Dumas' book "La Dame aux
Camelias" and combined the two. The result is a work that is
piercing
and beautiful.
Camille (Amanda Putman) is one of the most famous courtesans in
Paris. In Putnam's hands she is strong and glowing in her frantic
gaiety, doing her best to ignore the tuberculosis eating away her
insides. Many men profess to love Camille, but she laughs them
off-she has never loved, she says, and never will. But then she
meets
Armand (John Byrnes), a callow young man who has been intensely
devoted to her even before he is introduced. Whenever their eyes
meet, a caged heart hanging above Graney's set beats strongly.
Putman is less successful at convincing us that she is a woman
falling in love-she and Byrnes have little chemistry. But we are
convinced Camille is ferociously happy when she gives up
prostitution
to live with Armand out in the country, where they rack up debt-and
that she's wracked with grief when Armand's father convinces her to
leave her love for Armand's own good.
A chorus of prostitutes and male party-goers surround the lovers and
their friends, graphically illustrating what lust looks like. Above
all this drama, Erin Myers stands on a platform in a red dress
singing bits of the opera as it is adapted by composer Kevin
O'Donnell. She is accompanied by Kristina Lee on double bass and
Rozalyn Torto on viola. Right below Myers, a screen shows video
including men and women making love, with the words she is singing
superimposed above them. Myers is the voice of true love - a love so
intense that it is celebrated even after death.
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