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A CurtainUp Review
Pentecost
David Edgar's Pentecost Launches the
Barrow Group's New Home
By Elyse
Sommer
So then you'll help me?. . .May I ask why?
---Gabrielle
Because of all that's been inflicted on you
through the centureies. And because. . .This is Illyria, lady.
---Oliver
Oksana Lada as art historian Gabrielle
Pecs
(Photo: Joan Marcus) | Laura
Hitchcock ably summed up Pentecost's the plot details and
strengths, as well as the flaws that are inevitable in a work of
this scale. I've therefore appended her review of the play when it
ran in Los Angeles and will confine myself to what makes this new
production by the Barrow Group special and highly recommended.
To begin, let's consider the playwright and director as a
team. What David Edgar and Seth Barrish, the artistic director of
the ten-year-old Barrow Group have in common is that both are daring
men.
At a time when plays with large casts are high risk
enterprises, usually difficult to get produced unless combined with
big box office names, Edgar wrote Pentecost, for more than
twenty speaking parts and very little opportunity for double role
playing. What's more it was big not only in terms of casting but
thematically. It required audiences with increasingly short
attention spans (to wit the many 60 to 90-minute plays) to commit to
a two hours and fity minute running time.
Seth Barrish's
daring is to take on Mr. Edgar's play even though his Barrow Group's
new home is a small 99-seat theatre and to invest more than the
usual amount of money spent off-off-Broadway in order to create the
sort of production this ambitious play deserves.
Though
Edgar's play had its world premiere half a dozen years ago in London
and has had some productions like the one our Los Angeles chief
critic Laura Hitchcock reviewed at a spacious venuet, it's as
challenging and absorbing as ever. Mr. Barrish, bless him, has
managed to convert his theater into an abandoned church in an
unnamed south-east European country-- complete with a gradually
revealed tile covered fresco that may or may not be a Giotto. He's
also assembled an outstanding cast for the artistic whodunit that
dominates the first act, and and the hostage thriller that turns the
church into a veritable tower of Babel during the second act. With
actors using the aisles and the entryway to the theater, the
intimate space makes the viewer feel as if they're part of the
drama, rather than just watching it.
The roles Laura singled
out in her review as being exceptionally well portrayed are played
with equal force and here: Oksana Lada shines as the passionate art
curator Gabriella Pecs; Marc Aden Gray as Oliver the art historian
who proves to be less stuffy than he seems; Stephen Singer as the
somewhat cynical American historian Leo Katz; Andre Petersen as the
cocky Minister of Culture;Jacob Garrett White as the Catholic
priest, Father Karolyi and Eliza Foss as Anna Jedilova, the
dissident now presiding magistrate at the trial within the play.
Set designer Markos Henry has transformed the stage as well
as the sides of the orchestra into the abandoned church, and the
fresco is used to stunning effect for the big-bang ending. Robert
Cangemi's lighting, Moe Schell's costumes and Stephen Zazzera's
sound design further enhance the coming together of ancient and
modern worlds.
While I can understand Laura's comparison of
George Bernard Shaw's and David Edgar's playwriting as a means of
contrasting social and cultural views, the other playwright
Pentecost most brings to my mind is Tony Kushner, especially
Homebody Kabul ( my review)
New Yorkers who have a bit of Mr. Edgar's and Mr. Barrish's
daring and went to see Pentecost without waiting for the
critics' opinion accompanying the official opening, were rewarded
with bargain-priced $15 preview tickets. Even at its current ticket
price, this is a not to be missed opportunity to seen a really full
bodied play -- full of good performance, full of ideas, full of
excitement.
PRODUCTION NOTES
PENTECOST
By David
Edgar
Directed by Seth Barrish
Cast:Gabriella Pecs (Oksana Lada), Oliver Davenport (Marc Aden
Gray), Father Bojovic (Peter Vouras), Father Karolyi (Jacob Garrett
White), Pusbas (Yuri Astakhov), Czaba, Minister of Culture (Andres
Petersen), Leo Katz (Stephen Singer), Anna Jedlikova, former
dissident (Eliza Foss), Toni Newsome (Katrin Redfern), Yasmin,
Palestinian Kuwaiti (Alysia Reiner), Raif, Azeri (Gene Farber),
Antonio, Mozambican (Patrick Ssenjovu), Amira, Bosnian (Melanie
Levitsky), Marina, Russian (Eliza Foss), Grigori, Ukrainian
(Yevgenly Dekhyar), Abdul, Afghan (Mousa Kraish), Tunu, Sri Lankan
(Anjali Bhimani), Nico, Bosnian Romani (Gregory Korostishevsky),
Cleopatra, his daughter (Jessica Avellone), Fatima, Kurd (Monique
Gabriela Curnen)
Sets: Markas Henry
Lighting: Robert Cangeml
Costumes: Moe
Scholl
Sound: Stefano Zazzera
Properties: Jessica
Parks
Running Time: 2 hours and 50 minutes, with 1
intermission
The Barrow Group, Arts Comples, 312 W. 36th St. (8/9
Aves) 212/868-4444
2/16/05 to 4/25/05; opening
2/28/05.
Wednesdays to Mondays at 8 PM and Saturday Matinees are
at 2 PM.
Tickets are $40. (previews were $15)
Reviewed by
Elyse Sommer based on February 26th matinee performance
|
-- Laura Hitchcock's review of
Pentecost at the Evidence Room in Los Angeles
Director Bart
DeLorenzo has given brilliant life to David Edgar's award-winning
Pentecost. The second of Edgar's trilogy of political plays set in
eastern Europe at the end of the Cold War, it was first produced in London
in 1994. Set in an eastern European church occupied by armed refugees,
this production gained an eerie timeliness from the recent stand-off at
the Church of the Nativity in Jerusalem. Pentecost, however, is
after bigger game than occupation and boundaries.
The play begins
with an excited local curator, Gabriella Pecs, from the country's national
museum literally forcing on British art historian Oliver Davenport her
discovery of an ancient fresco behind the brick wall of the old church. If
genuine, it could change the course of art history.
It doesn't
take long for the emerging fresco to become the bone in a dog fight
between Catholic and Orthodox priests; the leader of the Heritage
Nationalist Movement; the young Minister of Culture whose love of American
slang would be winning if it weren't so cynical; a brilliant American art
historian, who speaks softly but keeps his fingers firmly on the pulse of
all the contenders in his search for the Real Thing; and a presiding
magistrate who attempts to adjudicate. She also has a bone to pick with
the Catholic priest whose father was a refugee from their country about
those who leave and those who stay.
We follow these contentious
characters in their pursuit of the mystery until the end of Act I when the
church and our sensibilities are invaded by a group of multi-ethnic
refugees, headed by a searing Palestinian Kuwaiti woman named Yasmin. They
force the three art historians to change clothes with them and hunker down
for a long negotiation with the outside world for political asylum, using
the fresco as a bargaining chip.
During the long night of waiting,
the refugees pass the time with ethnic dances, songs and stories. Edgar
wanders off the narrative path here to paint a picture of the characters
and, at times, the path seems lost in the brushstrokes.
This is a
big play in terms of length, content, themes -- and didactic discourses
which could be pruned. It's stuffed with the ragged colorful clothes of
the various ethnicities who invade the church. It's stuffed with the
ragged colorful clothes of the various ethnicities who invade the church,
smoulders with the fumes wafting from their cooking pots, prickles with
the points of views of its mostly young characters. It finds its climax,
however, and ends not with a whimper, but a bang.moulders with the fumes
wafting from their cooking pots, prickles with the points of views of its
mostly young characters. It finds its climax, however, and ends not with a
whimper, but a bang..
DeLorenzo has pushed his audience bleachers
to the sides of the big Evidence Room space, leaving a long center playing
field for his cast. The fresco covers one wall and arched windows
overlooking the street the opposite. Jason Adams' set design, Barbara
Lempel's astutely hued costumes and John Zalewski's atonal sound design
are first class. Lap-Chi Chu's lighting design evokes the dim mysticism of
an old church without recourse to ostentatious shadows.
Of the
excellent cast, Leo Marks as American art historian Leo Katz is a special
satisfaction. One forgets he's acting and that's rare. On the other end of
the spectrum, Jeliaz Drent's deliberately crafted slang-spouting Minister
of Culture projects all the cocky cynical young charisma of an emerging
nation. Colleen Wainwright finds the passion in Gabriella Pecs; more
variation in her vocal tones would make her easier to understand. Don
Oscar Smith epitomizes the scruffy British art historian, Michael Louden
is brave and touching as the Catholic priest, Father Karolyi and Janellen
Steininger's briskness slips aside to reveal the long years of struggle
before she became Presiding Magistrate.
Edgar takes a leaf from the
many pages of George Bernard Shaw who loved to contrast social and
cultural views. His arguments are not as neat as Shaw's and, in his
eagerness to expound, his play loses personal dramatic and emotional
footing. Still a writer who takes on the big picture and is willing to
employ a big cast is a vibrant change Not the least of Pentecost's
values is that it throws into vivid relief the core purpose of art: to be
alpha and omega, the catalyst. It may not be a coincidence that the fresco
is placed over what once was an altar.
PENTECOST
Playwright: David
Edgar
Director: Bart DeLorenzo
Cast: Gabriella Pecs (Colleen Wainwright), Girl (Beata Swiderska),
Father Bojovic (Jay Harik), Father Karolyi (Michael Louden), Pusbas
(David Reynolds), Czaba, Minister of Culture (Jeliaz Drent),
Presiding Magistrate (Janellen Steininger), Oliver Davenport (Don
Oscar Smith), Leo Katz (Leo Marks), Toni Newsome (Dorie Barton),
Yasmin, Palestinian Kuwaiti (Lauren Campedelli), Rauf, Azeri (Valeri
Georgiev), Antonio, Mozambican (Jason Delane), Amira, Bosnian
(Alicia Adams), Marina, Russian (Galina Zaytseva), Grigori,
Ukrainian (Alexis Kozak), Abdul, Afghan (Monish Bakshi), Tunu, Sri
Lankan (Uma Nithipalan), Nico, Bosnian Romani (Guy Ale), Cleopatra,
his daughter (Beata Swiderska), Fatima, Kurd (Anna Khaja)
Set
Design: Jason Adams
Costume Design: Barbara Lempel
Lighting
Designer: Lap-Chi Chu
Sound Designer: John Zalewski
Running
Time: Two hours, 50 minutes, including one intermission
The
Evidence Room, 2220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, Ph: (213) 381-7118
May 25-July 7, 2002
Reviewed by Laura Hitchcock on June 1.
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