satisfiedLast night: I'm on an Ibsen/Pinter/Tennessee Williams kick, "collecting" their shows like one would Beanie Babies or BPAL imps, and last night was Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman. The language was thick, but the plot was crystal clear and the characters fantastic. I didn't know a thing about it (other than "financier's ruin causes long-lasting rifts within his family"), but as the various relationships of the characters - estranged twin sisters, one the wife of Borkman (who has not seen her husband in eight years, despite the fact he lives upstairs); the son; and the sexy widow next door. (An unseen other character is "the lawyer" next door who's having a party "the son" is invited to; he's the man who revealed JGB's malfeasance and, in essence, ruined him and his family.)
Kurt Vonnegut (RIP) once said (and
scarlettina reminded me) that "every character should want something," and, by God, these people did. Whether it was power, love, money, revenge, happiness, or freedom, they wanted it like fish want water and humans want air, with great, gasping breaths to suck it in. Their stiff, nineteenth century language (Victorian formality) was delivered as a package to the same, burning desires that animate people today - and I loved it all. It reminded me of the very unhappy version of The Voysey Inheritance, which is a look at the same kind of financial finaglings gone "right." In this play, you see exactly the kind of ruin Voysey Junior expects, and you understand why he is so very afraid of the consequences of his father's actions.Ibsen (thinking of Vonnegut again) rushed us straight to the non-stop action as the years of built-up frustration spilled out. What a great night of theater! I wasn't bored for a minute, and at the end, I wanted to thank each actor personally for delivering, at last, on the contract we made when I bought my ticket: that I would willingly suspend disbelief, and they would become, not actors on a stage, but people who had stories (and pasts) I cared about. Thanks for a great night, guys!
