Word: woyzeck
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...play's action traces the descent into madness and furtive attempts at self defense of the title character, a soldier with an unfaithful wife and illegitimate child. Woyzeck is beaten up, experimented on and tortured until he snaps back, turning on the one thing he loves, his wife. His progression of distrust and anger leads him not only to doubt, but also to succumb slowly and miserably under a tide of filth and oppression...
...even if Buchner's vignettes themselves are unconventional, director Marcus Stern refuses to leave them alone. Sped up to the pace of an action movie, Gideon Lester's new translation of Woyzeck is as beaten and pushed around as its title character. The ART warps and distorts any semblance of coherence within the play. The production races through over twenty-five scenes in under sixty minutes, scarcely allowing the audience to breathe, let alone to analyze or reflect. Woyzeck (Thomas Derrah) drops through trap-doors, dashes up ladders and circles the stage. Scene changes resemble film cuts; music clips...
...rapid-fire production makes impossible the emotional or psychological depth vital to such a piece. Shifting moods and genres so rapidly, Woyzeck leaves little with which to identify or empathize; it frustrates the audience more than it maintains their gaze...
...production leaves little room for talented acting. When Woyzeck cowers, wrings his hands and agonizes with incredible fervency, there is little opportunity to foster an emotional connection. Sharon Scruggs plays an impassioned and torn wife to Woyzeck, yet her languishing is overshadowed by the distracting fuschia and turquoise flood lights or the constant background music...
Other players serve more as bizarre scenery than as other personalities: a half-man, half-creature in a tavern, and a comrade of Woyzeck who ultimately serves as a straight man for comedic tangents in the performance. Finally, the Captain (Charles Levin), more obnoxious than oppressive, has too few lines and too little opportunity for expression to develop the force of his character...