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The Appeal
by Les Gutman
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Wordsworth: So you're saying, Coleridge, that the difficulties of asserting the existence of the necessity of being sober are not the same difficulties that you would have in asserting the necessary existence of, say, my body. Coleridge: Right! So for example, if I touch your arm, and I don't know whether I'm touching a "real" arm or just some kind of construct, that's a completely different set of issues from wondering whether you should try to stop drinking or not. Dorothy: I think I'm going deaf. |
M. Hoffman and J. Stanley
(Photo: David Gochfeld) |
Lee does not pretend to be historically accurate, so anyone seeking out a literary biography will do well to steer clear of this work. She occasionally throws in a few tidbits (the relationship of Wordsworth and Coleridge is indeed interrupted by a friendship-ending dispute, for example), and she flirts with a few ideas of the Romantics. But only superficially. Mostly, we find the men being silly and, more often than not, drunk.
It's not clear what Lee, who also directs, wants The Appeal to be. It is more of a "frolic" than a play: its scenes can be quite entertaining but don't lead much of anywhere. The style is an earnest cheekiness familiar in downtown theater, but the substance is neither sufficiently engaging nor funny enough to sustain itself even for a mere hour's duration. The language, notwithstanding Tara Webb's period costumes or the set of Eric Dyer (he ingeniously places the entire audience within a white room accented with dark mauve molding, which he then lights to particularly good effect), is a combination of 19th Century English into which contemporary word bombs are dropped.
The actors, all of whom bring downtown theater pedigrees to the effort, do fine work. The music supplied by the experimental duo Matmos is interesting, but its context is not always obvious. The appeal of The Appeal remains elusive.
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The Appeal Written and Directed by Young Jean Lee with Michael Portnoy, Pete Simpson, Maggie Hoffman and James Stanley Set and Lighting Design: Eric Dyer Costume Design: Tara Webb Sound Design: Yehuda Duenyas Music: Matmos Running time: 1 hour with no intermission Soho Rep, 46 Walker Street (Church/Broadway) Telephone (212) 868-4444 WED - SAT @7:30pm, additional performances 4/11, 4/19 (benefit $50), 4/27 and 5/2 @7:30, no performance 5/1; $15 Opening April 11, 2004, closes May 2, 2004 Reviewed by Les Gutman based on 4/10/04 performance |
Retold by Tina Packer of Shakespeare & Co.
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Mendes at the Donmar
Our Review
At This Theater
Leonard Maltin's 2003 Movie and Video Guide
Ridiculous!The Theatrical Life & Times of Charles Ludlam
6, 500 Comparative Phrases including 800 Shakespearean Metaphors by CurtainUp's editor.
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