VANYA ON 42ND ST.
“So crumbling but it’s all so beautiful.”, says character Mrs. Chao, taking in the dilapidated grandeur of Time Square’s New Amsterdam Theater on 42nd St. circa 1993 – just pre to the old Ziegfeld palace’s big Disney makeover.
The film’s opening credit sequence is underscored by sax virtuoso Joshua Redman swinging his Quartet though “Chill” off of their 1994 Mood Swing album and the song title is an apt description for the feeling theatre director Andre Gregory and his ensemble of New York stage actors convey as they emerge from a rush hour crowded 42nd St. and greet each other on the way in to their run -through rehearsal of Anton Chekov’s UNCLE VANYA .
In this, his final film, legendary French director, Louis Malle (teaming again with his MY DINNER WITH ANDRE cast of Gregory and Wallace Shawn) captures what cast member Brooke Smith describes as the surprising “immediacy and intimacy” of the play in a translation adapted by David Mamet.
The great intimacy and naturalness the cast achieve together is the fruit of the extended, unpressured rehearsal process of the group, brought together and guided by Gregory on and off over a period of four years.
Intended only as an “exploration” of Chekov’s writing and not to be played in front of an audience, they eventually did hold limited private performances. These performances, however, were for only for a small number of invited friends and the play was never opened up to the public for a theatrical run.
Fortunately, then, we have Malle’s film to stand as testament to the work of the Vanya Company and their heartfelt commitment to the project Julianne Moore calls, “first and foremost the most important period of my acting life.”
THE SALESMAN
Iranian director Asghar Farhadi ascribes the creative beginnings of his Oscar winning film to making what he terms, “an emotional decision”, to step away from developing the script he was scheduled to shoot in Spain and remain instead in Iran to follow through with an idea he had been incubating for some time:
“ My idea was to make a film related to theatre. All the years I was away from theatre I always wanted to return to it and stage something. But I never got a chance to work in theatre again, so I thought about getting close to it through film.”
The result- A taut, unpredictable and superbly acted domestic drama whose story unfolds around a married couple, theatre actors, putting on a production of Arthur Miller’s, Death of A Salesman, in present day Tehran. Though the plot of the film is its own, a number of the play’s themes resonate strongly in the on and offstage lives of the central characters.
“I was hoping that this film could show us theatre in a way that blends the boundary between life and theatre”, Farhadi explains, “to the point that we ask ourselves, if what we are watching is real life or theatre…”.
THE SALESMAN is another tour de force offering by Farhadi whose blend of raw emotion and thought- provoking ideas continue to establish him as one of current cinema’s most compelling directors.
AFTER THE REHEARSAL
“A mean psychologist once told me the temperature of love is determined by the loneliness that precedes it.”
A director engages his ghosts…and Lena Olin…
Featuring Erland Josephson as late middle-age theatre director, HENRIK- sitting, reflecting alone on stage in the quiet empty theatre after a rehearsal of Strindberg’s, A DREAM PLAY. He is then confronted with both past and present in his encounter with ANNA (Lena Olin), a beautiful young actress, daughter of his former lover who has come back into the theatre to retrieve (so she says) a lost bracelet.
A thoughtful yet dynamic chamber piece- riffing Strindberg’s play while showcasing the brilliant performances of Josephson and Olin who would emerge as an international star two years later along with Daniel Day Lewis and Juliette Binoche in Philip Kaufman’s THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING.
