Unwarranted Standing Ovations Here, Too, I Guess: NYC, 10/6/18, Day 1

At long last, I’ve returned to New York. Almost three years to the date, to be exact, since I was last here. I fell in love with this place then, and I fell in love with it all over this time. I managed to check out even more of the city this time (last time we were mainly in Manhattan with one side trip to Brooklyn), and in the process I’ve discovered a new found love for the outter boroughs. (More on that for my third entry.)

My first day here wasn’t a full day by any means. My flight arrived at LaGuardia at about 4:30pm. This left only three hours for me to check in at my AirBnB in Harlem and then make my way to Hunter College by 7:30 to attend my first night of theatre.

The last time I was in New York, I was surprised to feel those little pangs of culture shock. This city is so big, so fast, so busy, so noisy, so messy. It takes some getting used to. But, I seemed to adapt much more quickly this time around. Those pangs were still present, but they weren’t as strong, and they dissapated really quickly.

Before the show, I discovered a wonderful little French restaurant called Brasserie Cognac East located on Lexington and 70th. I only had time for two glasses of wine, sadly. I would love to return, as the aromas from the kitchen were lovely, and I have a feeling that I’d absolutely enjoy selections from the menu.

And then, just like that, having barely settled back in to the city, I was sitting down to Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, presented by Hunter Theatre Project and performed at Frederick Loewe Theater.

I feel I need to preface everything that follows with a disclaimer. First, I really want to like this production. And second, to my shame, I’m not terribly familiar with Chekhov’s work, so it’s entirely possible I’m missing something when it comes to certain historical traditions of how actors perform Chekhov. That said, I do have a pretty good grasp on what makes theatre good. And sadly, there were two artistic decisions that Richard Nelson made that impeded my ability to enjoy this show.

The first problem might seem minor, but it was significant enough that it detracted from the overall aesthetic of the work: the music was simply bad. It wasn’t even mediocre. It was bad. It was like listening to piano music for an elevator in a department store. But it was somehow worse than that. It was anemic, lacking in any emotional depth. But most of all, it was anachronistic. The whole production was so careful in its visual design to evoke a certain early 20th century, working class aesthetic (from the wardrobe to the props and so on), but the music (while only played between the four acts) was just present enough to be distracting.

The second problem (and this was the director’s fatal error; I can deal with a little bit of bad music), I could barely hear the actors. Even in this intimate space (the audience seated around the actors in a small black box affair), I was able to understand maybe 70% of the words, and in a play that requires an audience’s utmost attention to all the words, that’s a lot of missed words. I had a really hard time knowing what was going on, beyond a forced love interest between two of the characters on one hand and something about selling the house on the other. (There was much more going on than that.)

This all said, it probably would’ve been better had I had a firm understanding of the plot of this play going in. (It’s been around for well over 100 years, after all.) But it wasn’t that I couldn’t follow the plot or the relations and developing dynamics of the characters. The quiet, quiet delivery of the lines also caused the actors to deliver very understated performances. They were performances more suited to a very slowly moving and hushed independent film (a kind of film I really love, actually), but combine that style of performance with not being able to understand a lot of the words and not being able to zoom my eyes in on the actors to catch close up shots of their subtle facial expressions, and I lose lots of the intense drama that Chekhov’s words (well, Richard Nelson, Richard Pevear, and Larissa Volokhonsky‘s translated words) actually created.

This is all really too bad. Because everything else about this play is so, so good: the lighting, the costumes, the design, the props, the minimally dressed set. All the actors also performed exceptionally well. I can’t fault any of them. I found myself particularly drawn to Yvonne Woods’s performance of Sónya, and Jay O. Sanders‘s performance in the title role was especially memorable. It just wish I could’ve actually heard them.

Anyway, there it is. I’m glad to be back, it’s just such a shame that my first night of theatre was kinda rough. Even still, I’ll be here for a whole week, and I think it’s gonna be fantastic.

Stray Observations:

1. Quite by chance, I happened to choose the exact same flight as my friends Natalie, Timmy, and Kim. It was such an absurd coincidence. We had no idea until we bumped into each other at the airport. So, we’ll all be joining together in our advtures until Tuesday when they leave. On that very same Tuesday Amy and Aaron will be joining me to finish out the adventure. (Amy and Aaron joining me then was planned.)

2. I used to joke that Minneapolis theatre audiences are much too kind, jumping to standing ovations when the work doesn’t deserve it. They also have a tendency to laugh at moments that aren’t actually funny, but rather deeply unsettling. However, New York proved me wrong tonight when the audience did both. I can forgive the standing ovation, I suppose (I’m clearly in the minority on my opinion of this Hunter Theatre Project production), but laughing at moments that aren’t actually funny? I’m sorry, but please knock it off.

3. Before the show, staff offered headsets to help aid in hearing the performance. I thought the headsets were for those hard of hearing, but I think they might’ve been for everyone. But I’m sorry, I’m not gonna wear a headset at a play when I shouldn’t need one.