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Review: See Under: Love
March 15, 2006
By Robert Isenberg
For all its innovative staging, supple lighting, intense Holocaust themes, imaginative subplots, and bitter conclusion, Open Stage Theatre's See Under: Love, derived from David Grossman's novel, is another reminder that some things should never be adapted for the stage. Complex, convoluted, and ultimately just plain weird, See Under: Love is like a layer cake with too much cake and too little frosting.
Anshel Wasserman is a novelist living out his twilight years in a Nazi concentration camp. Morose and suicidal, he occupies himself by telling stories to the local SS commander, Herr Neigel. A stark, militant presence, Neigel melts before Wasserman's limitless imagination and soon demands a long "entertaining" story. It's in the tradition of another novelist, Milan Kundera, that the telling of these magical fables is really an intellectual battle -- in this case fought between the humanitarian Jew and the German automaton.
Open Stage dedicates great talent to this story, and at its core See Under: Love is risky and ambitious. David M. Maslow directs the work on a multitiered set of his own design that is a masterpiece, graced with the subtlest details and boasting a tremendous swastika. David Crawford plays a complex, venerable Wasserman, who tells stories with care and humility. Across the board, the performances are convincing and heartfelt.
The trouble is the play's many gimmicks -- either invented by playwright Corey Fischer or drawn from Grossman's novel. The story is narrated by Wasserman, interpreted decades later by his Israeli grandson, and embellished by four pantomiming chorus members. There is also a rapidly aging puppet, a Gypsy princess, a live violinist, a few mournful dance numbers, and (why not?) a time machine. Many sequences are surreal, others realistic, and their ordering feels forced and cluttered; with so many layers, we feel as if we're watching five Samuel Beckett plays simultaneously. There are few subjects in history as urgent and universal as the Holocaust, but See Under: Love is too contrived to be effective.
This production's most awkward element could also be its anchor. Jett Canary, who plays Neigel, has mastered the hypnotizing zeal of a Nazi officer, an intimidating task for any actor. His Neigel is savvy and sophisticated: He can goose-step and blow the heads off Ashkenazim with rigid cool; he also exhibits a childlike curiosity for Wasserman's tales. Canary's otherwise thoughtful performance is bogged down, however, by a cartoonish German accent, a dialect that sounds far too Hogan's Heroes to match the play's dark themes. We leave the theatre with a jumble of horrors and humor, feeling less concerned about the plight of 7 million Jews than with figuring out what just happened.
See Under: Love ran Feb. 24-March 12 at Open Stage Theatre, 2835 Smallman St., Pittsburgh. Website: www.openstagetheatrepittsburgh.org.
Backstage
Review: See Under: Love
March 15, 2006
By Robert Isenberg
For all its innovative staging, supple lighting, intense Holocaust themes, imaginative subplots, and bitter conclusion, Open Stage Theatre's See Under: Love, derived from David Grossman's novel, is another reminder that some things should never be adapted for the stage. Complex, convoluted, and ultimately just plain weird, See Under: Love is like a layer cake with too much cake and too little frosting.
Anshel Wasserman is a novelist living out his twilight years in a Nazi concentration camp. Morose and suicidal, he occupies himself by telling stories to the local SS commander, Herr Neigel. A stark, militant presence, Neigel melts before Wasserman's limitless imagination and soon demands a long "entertaining" story. It's in the tradition of another novelist, Milan Kundera, that the telling of these magical fables is really an intellectual battle -- in this case fought between the humanitarian Jew and the German automaton.
Open Stage dedicates great talent to this story, and at its core See Under: Love is risky and ambitious. David M. Maslow directs the work on a multitiered set of his own design that is a masterpiece, graced with the subtlest details and boasting a tremendous swastika. David Crawford plays a complex, venerable Wasserman, who tells stories with care and humility. Across the board, the performances are convincing and heartfelt.
The trouble is the play's many gimmicks -- either invented by playwright Corey Fischer or drawn from Grossman's novel. The story is narrated by Wasserman, interpreted decades later by his Israeli grandson, and embellished by four pantomiming chorus members. There is also a rapidly aging puppet, a Gypsy princess, a live violinist, a few mournful dance numbers, and (why not?) a time machine. Many sequences are surreal, others realistic, and their ordering feels forced and cluttered; with so many layers, we feel as if we're watching five Samuel Beckett plays simultaneously. There are few subjects in history as urgent and universal as the Holocaust, but See Under: Love is too contrived to be effective.
This production's most awkward element could also be its anchor. Jett Canary, who plays Neigel, has mastered the hypnotizing zeal of a Nazi officer, an intimidating task for any actor. His Neigel is savvy and sophisticated: He can goose-step and blow the heads off Ashkenazim with rigid cool; he also exhibits a childlike curiosity for Wasserman's tales. Canary's otherwise thoughtful performance is bogged down, however, by a cartoonish German accent, a dialect that sounds far too Hogan's Heroes to match the play's dark themes. We leave the theatre with a jumble of horrors and humor, feeling less concerned about the plight of 7 million Jews than with figuring out what just happened.
See Under: Love ran Feb. 24-March 12 at Open Stage Theatre, 2835 Smallman St., Pittsburgh. Website: www.openstagetheatrepittsburgh.org.