jürgen fauth’s muckworld

“It’s 1183 and we’re barbarians!” proclaims Eleanor of Aquitaine (Katharine Hepburn), and she’s got a point. The infighting between aging Henry II (Peter O’Toole), his jailed queen, and jealous sons vying for the crown (Anthony Hopkins, John Castle, Nigel Terry) is some of the ugliest — and most twisted — I’ve ever seen.

Based on a play by James Goldman, the dialogue reaches levels of viciousness usually reserved for Edward Albee, with many more quotable lines than you can digest on first viewing and acting that should never have lost an Oscar to Oliver! or Charly. Like The Ice Harvest, this movie belongs on our list of Top Ten Christmas Movies for Cynics. With Timothy Dalton as King Philip of France.

The Lion in Winter. Anthony Harvey, 1968. ****

Cute comedy about a plucky country ingénue (Cécile De France) who arrives in Paris and finds work at a cafe that serves an area of theaters, galleries, and concert halls. Three storylines develop: an actress (Valerie Lemercier) who wants to play Simone de Beauvoir, a concert pianist who’s had enough (Albert Dupontel), and an aging art collector (Claude Brasseur) who, much to the consternation of his son (Christopher Thompson), is selling off his collection to afford a young mistress (Annelise Hesme). In the process, they all find love and happiness, or something like it. As watchable as it is forgettable. Also with Suzanne Flon and Sidney Pollack.

Fauteuils d’orchestre. Danièle Thompson, 2006. ***

• Rotten Tomatoes: 75%
• The trailer

After Twitch City, another outstanding TV show from Canada. Set at a provincial theater, Slings & Arrows is populated with all the stock types: the borderline-mad artistic director, the sell-out manager, the nosy American board member eager to put on Mamma Mia!, the aging diva, the budding ingénue (Rachel McAdams). Don McKellar makes an appearance as a hilarious conceptual artiste. Imbued by a snappy script with growing complexity and a rich back story, the characters are both hilarious and lovable at the same time. The Hamlet theme is elegantly woven through the entire season–director Geoffrey Tenant (Paul Gross) regularly chats with his predecessor’s ghost–and by the time opening night rolls around, all the actor jokes are redeemed by an honest-to-god glimpse at the magic of making theater. Remarkable.

Slings and Arrows, Season 1. Peter Wellington, 2003. ****

YouTube has what looks like entire seasons, cut up into ten-minute pieces. Here’s the opening of episode one:

To me, Herzog’s Büchner adaptation smells of musty classrooms, but Klaus Kinski saves it with an incredible performance as the humiliated, schizophrenic private who can’t take it anymore. The murder at the climax is unbearably intense; the slow-motion take of Kinski with the knife might be one of the most gut-wrenchingly emotional single shots I have ever seen.

Woyzeck. Werner Herzog, 1979. ****

[tags]büchner, play, adaptation, theater, 4 stars, film, werner herzog, klaus kinski, eva mattes, german, murder[/tags]

Last night, I had the good luck to get invited to Julie Taymor’s The Magic Flute at the Met. I have no business reviewing opera, so I’ll just say that it was an amazing feast for the senses and leave the rest to the pros:

• Alex Ross
• The New York Times
• New York Magazine
• Playbill

[tags]music, opera, met, mozart, zauberflöte, julie taymor, theater, puppets, masks, nyc[/tags]

“Clean-cut, midwest farm boy type, almost insultingly good-looking in a typically American way. Good profile, straight nose, honest eyes, wonderful smile…”

That’s how the Young Man describes himself in Edward Albee’s The American Dream, in a role I played at Mainz University in 1992. The other cast members of The Day-Old Theater’s inaugural production were Kerry Vevers, Carsten Wilhelm, Claudia Saldi, Verena Blatz, and Claus Wolf, crew included Nadine Milde, John Morley, Heiko Stahl, Jasmin Stathi, Babak Yazdi, Luisa Yokochi, and Daniel J. Recktenwald directed. The poster was designed by my good friend Jochen Carbuhn.

I mention this because Mr. Albee’s voice woke me last weekend. I was asleep in his barn, where Marcy is currently at a residency, and I’ll always be a little sad that I didn’t jump up quicker, run downstairs, and recite his play to him in my underwear. Then again, I’m sure I wouldn’t have remembered my lines, and Mr. Albee was just delivering the mail.

Thanks to Jordan’s line on cheap tickets, we checked out the new Mamet play last night. “Romance” is a deliciously angry farce in which the all-male cast, largely confined to a court room, spews hatred at one another for long stretches of time, when they’re not busy cutting each other off, vintage Mamet-style. (”Sheeny kike Christkilling cocksucker” is one of the gentler insults. Retort: “Is little Tommy limping when he comes home from communion?”) Ostensibly, the play is about a — you know what, just read the review in the Guardian. And see this if you can: Mamet’s in fine form.

Mamet’s fictive courtroom owes a debt to Lewis Carroll and Kafka. A Jewish chiropractor is in the dock for some unspecified offence; as proceedings spiral out of control, private fears are publicly revealed. The judge is a nervous racist who at one point enquires if Shakespeare was a Jew. The prosecutor is an establishment pillar tormented by his gay lover. In the play’s most biliously comic scene, the defendant consults with his loathed Catholic attorney: “God forgive me, what have I done?” he asks. “I hired a Goy lawyer! It’s like going to a straight hairdresser.” To which his anti-semitic attorney responds: “You people can’t even order a cheese sandwich without mentioning the Holocaust.” That’s just for openers in a breathtaking catalogue of racist abuse.

Interview in New York
The NYT: “pushing an envelope that has already been through the shredder.”

Urinetown, The Musical! is about state oppression and man’s primal urges. Or something like that. Catchy tunes, self-aware jokes (the opening song is called “Too Much Exposition”), well worth getting up early to catch a half-price Wednesday matinee on a cold January afternoon. We paid for ‘balcony stools’ but said comfortably next to some ladies whose summary was: “We should have gone see The Producers instead.”

I really do like people break into song, and live theater is a pleasant change from all those movies. Urinetown is hereby recommended. Don’t be the bunny.