This has been the greatest disappointment of the year.
Harsh, I know, but true.
It's hard to leave expectations at the door, especially after seeing wonderful plays at the Getty Villa. Not only is the Villa my favorite place in Los Angeles, but I have also seen wonderful performances there: Agammemnon, Peace, Elektra, and The Trojan Women.
But Helen is an adaptation of Euripides' original that tries to do too much. In its overly ambitious effort to try to do too many things, it leaves excellent critiques and themes on the table.
One of the most wonderful notions of the play is how it imagines an "old" Helen, one who is still beautiful, but whose beauty has waned. This production depicts Helen as a Hollywood starlet, and there was so much potential with that: if your looks are all you have going for you, what happens when you lose them? How does that shape your identity?
This production, however, merely scratches the surface by having many characters make quips about how old she looks and having her do a ridiculous pose whenever someone realizes who she is. Very few of the quips are clever, namely the one where Menelaus mistakes her for Clytemnestra - a comical "blow" exploiting the tension between Helen and her sister, as Clytemnestra was not Zeus' daughter, according to the myth, and therefore "inferior" to Helen and her beauty. Then the joke gets old as the play continues.
There were moments for great political tension - and political tension is, after all, why Euripides was writing in the first place, sick of the Peloponnesian War. But instead of milking these moments for all their worth, the production seems to me more concerned with shoehorning in references to Hollywood moments and personas.
Harsh, I know, but true.
It's hard to leave expectations at the door, especially after seeing wonderful plays at the Getty Villa. Not only is the Villa my favorite place in Los Angeles, but I have also seen wonderful performances there: Agammemnon, Peace, Elektra, and The Trojan Women.
But Helen is an adaptation of Euripides' original that tries to do too much. In its overly ambitious effort to try to do too many things, it leaves excellent critiques and themes on the table.
One of the most wonderful notions of the play is how it imagines an "old" Helen, one who is still beautiful, but whose beauty has waned. This production depicts Helen as a Hollywood starlet, and there was so much potential with that: if your looks are all you have going for you, what happens when you lose them? How does that shape your identity?
This production, however, merely scratches the surface by having many characters make quips about how old she looks and having her do a ridiculous pose whenever someone realizes who she is. Very few of the quips are clever, namely the one where Menelaus mistakes her for Clytemnestra - a comical "blow" exploiting the tension between Helen and her sister, as Clytemnestra was not Zeus' daughter, according to the myth, and therefore "inferior" to Helen and her beauty. Then the joke gets old as the play continues.
There were moments for great political tension - and political tension is, after all, why Euripides was writing in the first place, sick of the Peloponnesian War. But instead of milking these moments for all their worth, the production seems to me more concerned with shoehorning in references to Hollywood moments and personas.
My goodness. Sitting in just over 2 hours of traffic to arrive late to the performance to then be so terribly let down by the script.
ReplyDeleteI read a review this morning that talked about all the things that disappointed us in the play. Then I got to the comment below. The guy wrote that he was so disappointed that he has now written off The Getty Villa as a source for playgoing, and that whoever approved this should be fired.
I wouldn't go that far because I am looking forward to seeing The Vesuvius Prophesies at The Getty Villa on November 3.
I was afraid people would react that way if that was their first show at the Villa. I know I would've been super disappointed if my favorite venue had put on a sub-par performance, but having seen four other productions there, I know this was just a bump in the road.
DeleteOh! And those were just the performances in the outside auditorium. In the inner auditorium, we've listened to an Orpheus & Eurydice opera, watched The Madness of Hercules, and attended a lecture on drinking in the Greek manner. The Villa puts on a variety of EXCELLENT events.
I can't wait for The Vesuvius Prophesies - not only because I'm excited to see another Tom Jacobson work, but also because I think it'll redeem the Villa theatre to those of us who were a little let down.