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A cinderblock warehouse in
the newly colonized section of downtown Brooklyn called DUMBO
(translates as Directly Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) is the
last place one would expect to see a masterpiece of 19th century
bourgeois theatre, and indeed it seemed at first that the production
would be an anti-illusionist Gegenst with every cable, pipe rail,
scaffold, and work light exposed to view. Then a jumble of flats lying
face down on the stage was hoisted vertical, and presto, the scene was
a brightly wallpapered 19th century parlor with windows, doors, and
period furnishings to the scale of "little persons" (the inclusive
term now for midgets, dwarfs, and the growth impaired). In short, the
play was set in a dollhouse; everything fit except the doll.
In three moves, before a line was uttered, Breuer had signaled a dense
theatricality: he would keep before our eyes the drawing-room play of
a century ago, shift its scale to frame it in a ferocious commentary,
yet remind us that behind the stage illusion (and its disillusion)
lies the impassive machinery of theatrical artifice. The layering of
meta-theatre is of course licensed in the text, whose centerpiece is
Nora's performance of the notorious Tarantella.
The debate that pursued the production throughout its run turned
principally on the casting of the male parts with little persons. The
shortest (Ricardo Gil as Dr. Rank) is barely over three feet tall,
Torvald (Mark Povinelli) only slightly taller, and Krogstadt (Kristopher
Medina) a leap up at 4'6". The women towered over the men, stooping to
enter through the door and crouching on the toy furniture, with Nora
often dropping to her knees to speak face to face with Helmer.
If the object was to literalize the power disparity between the sexes,
some audience members wondered, why not cast tall men and little
women? Was there a covert misogyny, others asked, in the image of
large women engulfing small men? A few left the theatre outraged:
Breuer was demeaning the little persons exactly as Torvald demeaned
Nora; the casting was not just a travesty on the play but an insult to
the actors. The enthusiasts, among whom this reviewer numbered herself
after the first (and before the final) skeptical moments, discovered
an inspired stage vocabulary that embodied the moral gulf between
power and merit.
To understand his rationale for casting dwarf actors opposite
statuesque actresses requires a few interpretive leaps. "Like I did in
Gospel at Colonus, where I cast black gospel singers in Sophocles'
tragedy, and in my cross-gendered Lear with Ruth Maleczech, I'm trying
to make a political statement without haranguing politics from the
stage," he explains. "The patriarchy is in reality three feet tall,
but has a voice that will dominate six-foot women. Male power isn't
dependent on physical size. At the same time we're exploring the
metaphor from the woman's point of view, the way maternal love is
lavished on these child-size men, which only infantilizes them
further."
- Elinor Fuchs
The production is shown as a tele-play, with
Lee Breuer the director, and Maude Mitchelle, discussing and
commenting on the various processes of the production, and its social
construct.
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