Bizarre B'Day
Just when you think there's nothing new coming down the pike, there comes something to dismiss, jar, jolt and ratify our perceptions. Take this stage adaptation of the Dogme #1 film from the late '90s, Festen. In fact, that's how the movie-and now this Broadway production-begins: with Michael (Jeremy Sisto) driving down the well-worn country road with his wife (Carrie Preston) and daughter (Meredith Lipton, at this performance) to the home where he grew up.
He encounters his brother who has also arrived: "Jesus, my brother, I could fuck you." He takes him from behind and hurling his wife and daughter from the car to make room for Christian (Michael Hayden), who remains speechless and impassive throughout. These are the two polar opposite states in which the brothers remain as they check into the family home.
The occasion for the gathering is the 60th birthday of their father, Helga (Larry Bryggman), and the story is in keeping with the zeitgeist of laying bare the trauma resulting from severely dysfunctional families.
At its worst, Festen is a parody of plays like Doubt and other similar stories where pedophilia, once identified, is indicted, or not. But as directed here by Rufus Norris, it's astonishing and, as drama, rife with immediacy and reality.
In forcing the truth out of his characters, Norris proves himself an interesting executioner of the Dogme manifesto. With the accoutrements of staging torn down, only the characters and their emotional interactions now constitute the mise-en-scène. So, while Michael bellows at his wife for not packing his black shoes, Christian seduces the maid, Pia (Diane Davis), at the same time sister Helene (Julianna Margulies) stands on the bed and notices their recently deceased sister's suicide note lodged in the overhead light.
Of course, in the film Festen (translated as Celebration for its American release) each of these moments occurs concurrently, with a handheld camera wandering from one hotel room to the next. It's the simultaneous explosion of these interactions that is so vibrantly dramatic: with Michael topless and Pia nearly bottomless, Christian brooding and Helene now reaching into her sister's tragic predicament. The entire effect is far more unsettling than a bad boat trip a la Lars von Trier who, along with Festen creator Thomas Vinterberg, established this new wave in Danish cinema.
As stated, character is the issue and Ali MacGraw as Else is an exemplary study in the unveiling of a character that is naturally veiled. As Helga's constant wife, she is coldly regal and righteous; a woman we really don't like to look at for most of the play. She literally shrinks, choking as the news that she's known becomes impossible to hide. Even more exacting in his role is Michael Hayden, a brooding, shaken Christian, whose natural opacity contradicts his credibility. Clearly, Sisto is a demonstrative Michael, portraying his rage with gratuitous and narcissistic violence and, while less flamboyant, Julianna Margulies' Helene takes truth telling to heart. And what can one really say about Larry Bryggman, the Broadway stalwart as the pedophilic father?
But in spite of the brilliant staging and this remarkable ensemble of actors, one still can't fool the audience. These truths have been outed more than once before, and perhaps in even more provocative ways.