Posts Tagged ‘Beckett’
Showmen Showdown: The Controversy Over ‘The Lost Ones’
Thespians have a rich history of bickering. My favorite dramatic duel happened in 1830, at the opening night of Victor Hugo’s Hernani in Paris. Hugo, a romantic, had blatantly ignored a number of theretofore sacred theatrical conventions — a plot that takes place over the course of a single day, for example, and in a single location — things that those of the neoclassical persuasion held dear. So dear, in fact, that at the premiere a brawl erupted between the two theoretical camps, classicists hissing and spitting at romantics, bohemians bludgeoning the bourgeoisie with mockeries, food, even fists. The fighting went on for weeks, forcing Hugo to enlist volunteer bodyguards. If this is what you got after a few infractions of Aristotle’s rules, imagine what those classicists would’ve thought of, oh I don’t know, Bare Breasted Women Sword Fighting, or My Fabulous Sex Life?
I tell this anecdote to broach an unfortunate matter which warrants only brief mention on this blog — a percolating dispute between two Washington theater companies over a production of The Lost Ones that I reviewed (quite positively) this week.
The current production comes courtesy of Spooky Action Theater. Directed by Robert Richard Henrich, performed by Carter Jahncke, it’s an adaptation of a short story by Samuel Beckett called Le dépeupleur. Between 1999 and 2004, SCENA Theater mounted several productions of a similar piece, also called The Lost Ones‚ in D.C. and in Europe, directed by Robert McNamara, also starring Jahncke (and at one point showing in the same space it currently occupies, The Warehouse).
Hip Shot: ‘The Lost Ones’
The Lost Ones by Samuel Beckett
Warehouse – Next Door
Remaining Performances:
July 15 at 8 p.m.
July 19 at 1:30 p.m.
July 23 at 7:15 p.m.
July 24 at 11:45 p.m.
They say: “Closely held. A Beckett gem. Rarely permitted to be played. With scores of tiny puppets, actor Carter Jahncke enacts a mesmerizing text. Beckett’s haunting vision reaches out, enfolds us in a chamber far outside, and deep within the mind.”
Brian’s take: You may want to take a cab home from The Lost Ones, an extended soliloquy so intoxicating that Carter Jahncke, who as The Aged One is the stage’s only breathing player, has to literally shake the scraggly character out of his body before he’s able to bow. Even after the self-exorcism he still seems a tad afflicted — like a shaman returning from a vision quest, or a child who has just seen his grandpa’s ghost.
