Word: feingolds
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Earth Spirit and Pandora's Box, has been all but completely lost in Lee Breuer's production of Lulu at the Loeb. Lulu, the angelic witch who seduces men with her blend of whorishness and innocence in the Wedekind plays, has become the eponym for an adaptation by Michael Feingold. Feingold, and the company in rehearsal, have updated the play by translating it to a contemporary landscape. So we get references to the Dalai Lama, Lulu moves on roller skates, Schwartz the painter becomes Carbone the fashion photographer, Rodrigo the acrobat becomes Juan dos Tres the welterweight champ...
THANKS TO Michael Feingold's new translation and Epstein's careful attention to keeping the stage action intelligible, the upside-down Brechtian morality comes through without ever having to be explicitly stated. Given that most of the action is mimed or danced, and that the running commentary emerging from Anna 1 and the sisters' family chorus often states only obliquely just what the sisters are doing, that is a major accomplishment in the revival of this work...
Director Walton Jones milks every bit of humor from Michael Feingold's adaptation of the clever, pat script. He mocks the cliched plot, deliberately parodying the stylized, silent-movie romance/thriller. Curlicued subtitles announce songs and significant moments; when the gang rob the bank, the lights flash on and off, simulating the flickering early movies. A few touches are a bit cloying--the Fly as telephone operator, for example--but Happy End contains many slyly comic moments. Jones mounts a polished production; the actors sustain a rapid pace that admirably suits his comic intent. Uniformly excellent acting ensures the play...
...Happy End is not--and should not necessarily be--a Threepenny Opera, Brecht and Weill's songs suggest that Happy End could have another face. The gang's pettiness and cowardice, the naivete and condescension of the Salvation Army sermons, Bill's amorality, Lil's sexuality--these elements of Feingold's adaptation should have been emphasized in the production. The Brecht and Weill characters, as revealed in their songs, are not the cute bumblers of Jones' production. The two paint a much crueler, darker world, a world in which the little guys squander their energies fighting each other instead...