Time Stands Still: on Broadway

Broadway production reviewed

reviewed by Ron Singer while in New York

This is an extremely well-written, relevant and accessible drama for a Broadway audience. The play deals with reasonably mature contemporary topics, like motherhood vs. careers for women, older guys marrying younger women, are war correspondents/photographers really serving a positive purpose by photographing people dying rather than trying to help them, and will the photos and reports of atrocities really affect positive change, etc?

The four talented, relatively well- known lead actors, (Laura Linney, Brian d’Arcy James, Eric Bogosian, and Christina Ricci) are excellently cast.

Each of the characters is trying to find a comfort zone, how can they live with themself, as well as with a partner, given each individual’s emotional and physical needs. And by creating diametrically opposed individuals who all inhabit the stage at once, playwright Donald Margulies has set up the perfect theatrical equation for dramatic fireworks.

This is an excellent play for those of you who love theatre that provokes intelligent discussion.

The Andersen Project

Starring Yves Jacques, at Bluma Appel Theatre until October 30

Photo credit: Emmanuel Valette

French Canada’s prolific theatrical visionary and vunderkind, Robert Lepage has a new multimedia production that has just opened at the Canadian Stage’s Bluma Appel Theatre and it has a very limited run here in TO. The Andersen Project, based on the life of Hans Christian Andersen, is a sensitive poem, a corny soap opera, a fairy tale and a hard-core story of the real life struggles of several creative artists. Yes, it’s all of the above and more.

But first and foremost this production is a visual feast. Lepage has always been known to seduce his audiences with many special visual and technical effects that are accompanied by emotional affects and this play, very much like all of his other creations, goes that route once again.

Lepage chose to write this play, based on the life of Hans Christian Andersen, because he felt that his life parallels Andersen’s in many ways. In fact, both did from early childhood feel that they were different from others, Lepage as an Albino and Andersen as a social misfit. And these feelings and conditions led both of these artists to lives of isolation and suffering. Additionally, both are passionate story tellers, who use their stories as an opportunity to come out of isolation and try to gain acceptance/validation from the rest of the world. (Andersen’s The Ugly Duckling is only one example.)

And in this case, Lepage tells the modern day story of an Albino Quebecois songwriter, Frederic, who goes to Paris to work for the Paris Opera in order to write the libretto for a children’s opera based on a fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen.

Throughout the play, we move from location to location in Paris watching Frederic’s many struggles with work, day to day living and relationships, both as an artist and as a person. We follow him through Paris as he explores issues of sexual identity, unfulfilled fantasies and a thirst for recognition and fame that are drawn from real life as well as from the stories of Hans Christian Anderson.

Lepage draws vivid modern day analogies between porn booths and phone booths and he also manages to create a myriad of colourful characters, all brilliantly portrayed by one very versatile actor, Yves Jacques.

I would not classify this as one of Lepage’s better works, since I found it veering between trite to brilliant. But to Lepage’s credit, the thought-provoking, stimulating moments dominated this production and it actually held my attention throughout the entire intermissionless two hours.

Not for everyone, but most certainly something you’ll want to see before it ends on October 30th.

About Ron Singer: Artistic Director Emeritus of The Randolph Academy of the Performing Arts, former Chair of the Department of Theatre at York University, former entertainment critic (CFRB Radio and Standard Broadcast News), and former  arts and entertainment reporter (CBC Variety Tonight). We’re honoured to have Ron with us.