The Coast of Utopia

In New York the past couple of days to see some friends, sign a petition to graduate (MFA! hoo-aw), borrow some books, so on and so forth. And, the climax of my two day city-stay was to see the last part of Tom Stoppard's Russian epic trilogy "The Coast of Utopia" at Lincoln Center.

Let's be frank: I'm not a huge Stoppard fan. To my mind the best working playwright alive is Martin McDonagh, period. No one else can hold a candle. And as much as I loved "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead," none of the rest of his plays have rediscovered that magic as far as I am concerned. My criticism must, of course, be limited by the fact that I've only read, besides the plays mentioned here, "Arcadia" and "Jumpers," the latter of which I saw in London and, which, despite a great cast and set, simply couldn't clear the hurdles of the playwright's conflated storytelling. Still, "Jumpers," as a one night only spectacular, was far from dull.

"The Coast of Utopia's" biggest problem is that Stoppard gets lost in his own grand scheme. The first part, "Voyage," had the good sense to follow the stories of many characters -- Mikhail Bakunin, played by Ethan Hawke, and his large, gregarious family; Vissarion Belinsky, embodied brilliantly by the chameleonic Billy Crudup, and a grand assortment of other Russian thinkers and, soon, exiles. The cracks begin to show in the second part, "Shipwreck," when Belinsky dies, Bakunin becomes a backstage character, and Herzen, played by the ubiquitous Bryan F. O'Byrne, takes over. With a voice made for silent film, O'Byrne's Herzen does is mull, argue with his fellows about whether revolution should come from above or below, and dream weird dreams about Marx. Oh, and struggle painfully (not touchingly, just painfully) with an increasingly bizarre homelife -- in all the plays the actresses are interchangeable and their characters might as well be for nearly all of them are moody hysterics who dote on their men and are doomed to be loved less than the sound of the men's own voices spouting quick-change political philosophy. Something has made many of the actors' voices shrill and/or strained, but one puts up with it as long as there are charming moments, which there are, particularly from David Harbour, as George Herwegh, and Jason Butler Harner, as Ivan Turgenev (odd and annoying in the first play, his presence becomes a relief in the last two parts). But finally in "Salvage," there seem to be few pieces left for us to pick up. Bakunin's character has become little more than a running gag, and the play proves little more than a rehashing of things we saw in the first two parts, with only the presence of Josh Hamilton's Ogarev to keep us from falling asleep. During the play last night, after intermission, an (extremely) elderly foursome nearly caused a brawl when the old man kept piping up, "Will it never end?," much to the rage of those around them. It's not that we didn't agree -- it's simply that the interruptions weren't exactly making it go faster, and one always imagines old people with act more decorum. I had felt bored when reading the plays... and a tad concerned that O'Byrne would take over, but since part 2 had been tolerable, I hadn't expected the 3 hours of suffering that were "Salvage," with an odd musical sequence and other bizarre moments of direction that don't take away from the interminable dullness and the amateurish and confusing pastiche of political mutterings with family melodrama. Really, I missed Billy Crudup.

Anyhow. Apparently I picked a good time to leave CT as our heat has been down for the last few days and has only been fixed in the minutes since I got home. Bully for me.

Just finished the book, Under the Tuscan Sun. Nothing like the movie but quite a good "travel" book, though it's really more an indulgent piece of Italy food and flora-worship, which I'm more than fine with. Francis Mayes has a splendid prose style, though I don't recommend her poetry.