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review How about some Afro-Strindberg? I knew you’d be up for it. And that’s what you get at the McCadden Place Theatre, in a potent and reverent production of "The Father" with an all African-American cast, presented in conjunction with the August Strindberg Society of Los Angeles. It might seem like a weird idea. It’s not. It’s a good idea, offering black actors the chance to perform a classic play colorblind. Make no mistake, this is "The Father" -– with Swedish names, with 19th century idioms, essentially as Strindberg wrote it. There’s no effort to make the story contemporary, or Afrocentric. You search for analogies, but none apply. Is this a bourgeois, post-Civil War black family? No. Are we gazing through some kind of historical lens to view society’s devaluation of African-American men? No. We’re just watching Strindberg. The script’s Swedish names are retained, its formality retained. Enjoy. At the heart of this play is a titanic role -– that of The Captain, the titular father. Here, Felton Perry throws himself into it with a mix of martial control and volcanic power. You wonder how he does it. It takes a valiant actress to match up with whomever plays The Captain, and Peggy Ann Blow ("900 Oneonta") comes through in a beautifully measured, classically informed portrayal of Laura, his wife and apparent rival. David Patch’s direction skillfully plays off the actors’ strengths -– Perry’s ferocity and Blow’s stoicism -– in both physical struggle and graceful tete-a-tete. Of course, the great debate here is whether The Captain really is insane, or the victim of evil and devious women. (Ah, Strindberg.) The more ambiguous the verdict, the more intriguing and powerful the story becomes. Patch, Blow and Perry have teamed to make it suitably ambiguous, revealing just how far ahead this work was in the hidebound theatre world of 1887. You get some nice supporting performances too -– Henry G. Sanders, whom you may recall from his six seasons on "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman", offers stoicism and very little sympathy as The Pastor -– he is, after all, The Captain’s brother-in-law. As the inquisitive Doctor Ostermark, asked to test The Captain’s will, Dig Wayne delivers a low-key performance that renders the audience guessing as to his true intentions. At the McCadden, "The Father" is performed without intermission; its three acts go by in about 105 minutes, as relentlessly as they should. In short, it’s a terrific show with some great classical acting. And it’s cool to see this varied audience watching: the house was at three-quarters strength for the Sunday night show I attended, and the audience was about half African-American, and half Anglo with a contingent of Scandanavians. One caveat: do not expect this staging to replicate "The Father" that went up two seasons ago at Geffen Playhouse. Frank Langella’s performance in that run was so desperate and terrifying that it took most audience members a couple of days to fully recover. This "Father" is sublime in a different way, and so is Perry in the title role. "The
Father", Th-Sun through July 16 Copyright © 2000 The Write Word, Inc. All rights reserved. |