Reviewed by Claudia Perry
The
Philadelphia premiere of the 2008 Tony nominee for Best Play, "Rock 'n'
Roll" by
Academy Award-winner and four-time Tony Award-winner Tom Stoppard anoints the Wilma Theater's 30th Anniversary Season. The
play, which takes place half in Cambridge, England and half in Czechoslovakia,
resonates on a deeply personal level for director, Blanka Zizka. For Ms. Zizka and her husband,
co-artistic director, Jiri Zizka, immigrated to the United States from
Czechoslovakia in 1976 after the government closed down their theater.
Previously producing eight of Mr. Stoppard's plays, the Wilma has developed an
artistic relationship over the last decade with the Czech born Mr. Stoppard,
arguably one of our finest living playwrights.
Rock
'n' Roll takes place over the course of 22 years - from the Soviet invasion
into Czechoslovakia in 1968 until the Velvet Revolution in 1989 (the Fall of
the Iron Curtain), heralding the end of Communism in that country and the
democratic election of playwright/political activist, Vaclav Havel. Jan, a
Cambridge grad student, returns to his homeland armed only with his precious
rock and roll album collection, just as Soviet tanks roll into Prague. We are
at first puzzled by his return to such a closed off and rigid society. But it
appears that Jan, a philosophy student, has no interest in things political and
only wants to be left alone to enjoy his music. But that turns out to be not so
easy. Meanwhile, Jan's mentor, Max, a Professor of Marxist philosophy is caught
in a crisis as his idealistic vision of communism keeps being shattered by the
political cataclysms of the day.
Stoppard's
fascinating play, like life, is about a lot of things: politics, music, love,
time. The playwright asserts that we are more than what we appear to be. For
when political tyranny and rhetoric dry up and die off, humanity will still be
left behind to make love and music. In one of the most poignant moments, Max's
wife, Eleanor, who is racked with cancer, rolls on the floor. She pleads with
her husband to see her for who she really is -- a teacher, a mother, a wife, a
woman, a sentient being who is more than just her physically deteriorated human
detritis. She says, "I do not want your amazing biological machine. I want
what you love me with." And Max answers, "But that's what I love you
with. That's it. There is nothing else." However, as the evening
progresses you see that Stoppard does not agree with Max.
Barnaby
Carpenter is a
quietly compelling actor who gives Jan substance and sensitivity. His character
grows in our eyes from being an apathetic hippie into a man with solid
convictions about the world. David Chandler plays Max to the max, as a
pontificating curmudgeon whose world is viewed in black and white. As we know,
every play must have its villain or there won't be any conflict. Even so, I
would have appreciated more subtleties in his characterization, more chinks in
his armor, if you will. For at the end of the play when Max bestows an act of
kindness upon his former student, we want to buy into his redemption a whole
lot more.
Kate
Eastwood Norris
gives a tour de force performance as both the rigid, dying Eleanor and the
sympathetic, but lost daughter, Esme. When Eleanor rends her garments to reveal
her cancer ridden body it brought me to tears. This is in spite of the fact
that the bald cap she was wearing was too large, having to encapsulate all of
her lovely hair for when she plays the daughter. But it didn't matter. She got
Eleanor and she got me. Ryan Farley is very haunting as Jan's friend Ferdinand, who is the
first to go to jail for being a "chartist" (One who writes charters
protesting against the Communist government.)and Mary McCool does a good job as the
impetuous, Lenka.
The
rotating set by Matt Saunders is simple and effective with a pair of spare rooms in
Cambridge - a dining room and an outdoor patio on one side and Jan's small
apartment in Prague on the other. We are wonderfully distracted during the
revolving set changes by projections on double video screens hanging high
above. Director Zizka obviously did her research, as these are all authentic
photos from the period of "normalization" in Czechoslovakia, some of
them even of her and her husband. This along with the rock music which is scripted
into the piece itself adds a truthful dimension of time and place. The playlist
of rock recordings includes the Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Velvet Underground,
Pink Floyd and little known Czech band, The Plastic People of the Universe. Syd
Barrett, an original member of Pink Floyd is a recurring figure in the piece,
who (though we see him only once) like the other characters changes over time.
The
Plastic People of the Universe were outlawed by the Czech government in 1968
and went underground until 1976. In 1976 they were arrested and put on trial --
the result of which caused Vaclav Havel to help construct the document that
became known as Charter 77. Yes, a rock band helped to bring down a repressive
political regime in Eastern Europe - and you thought it was only rock and roll.