Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
MargoChanning
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/5/04
#1Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Posted: 12/21/06 at 7:05pm
Talkin Broadway is Positive:
"When last we left our intrepid voyagers drifting through the stormy, scintillating seas of The Coast of Utopia, it seemed they were youths becoming adults, unseasoned young men headed from obscurity to fame, even Russians setting off for Paris. But now that Shipwreck, Part Two of Tom Stoppard's monumental trilogy, has opened at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont, we can see just how right and wrong we were. They were sailing in all those directions, and may yet arrive at them, but it's now clear they were destined first to pass through a love story.
Granted, that tale is more Bermuda Triangle than Niagara Falls, but the heat and the heart are there just the same. How can this be? Why would Stoppard apply the brakes to the speeding automobile represented by the trilogy's first installment, Voyage, just when things started getting good? He hasn't. He's instead slammed on the gas, setting things hurtling forward faster than ever. It just so happens that the scenery gracing this leg of journey is of the distinctly human variety. And if anything, it's an even more dazzling sight than Voyage.
When this sprawling epic is viewed at point-blank range - as Stoppard does almost exclusively here - the broader picture emerges with even greater clarity. Whereas Voyage at times felt like a survey of great 19th century Russian thinkers and their timeless thoughts, Shipwreck spends the time necessary to explore them and their relationships in more exacting detail. The result is that you come to understand and even care about the revolutions (internal and external) on which the trilogy, like their lives, is constructed.
________________________________________________________________
The spell Stoppard and his co-wizard, director Jack O'Brien, have woven this time around is even more mesmerizing, with an increased urgency, emotional potency, and pervasive richness surpassing that of the affecting Voyage. Nothing - including the dreamlike sets by Bob Crowley and Scott Pask; Catherine Zuber's rippling costumes; Kenneth Posner's piercing lighting; and all the supporting performances, especially from the likes of Martha Plimpton as Natalie's friend, Patricia Conolly as Herzen's mother, and Jason Butler Harner as Ivan Turgenev - feels lacking, and the evolution of all these individual elements into a single sweeping landscape is a grand experience unrivaled in most other Broadway plays this year."
http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/UtopiaShipwreck.html
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
MargoChanning
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/5/04
#2re: Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Posted: 12/21/06 at 7:08pm
The AP is Positive:
"The image of a young boy spinning a top swirls throughout "Shipwreck," the thrilling second installment of Tom Stoppard's "The Coast of Utopia."
It's an apt visual metaphor for this heady chunk of Stoppard's gargantuan three-part, nine-hour drama that is unfolding — over several months — at Lincoln Center's Vivian Beaumont Theater.
"Shipwreck" finds Stoppard's assortment of Russian philosophers, poets, playwrights, critics and revolutionaries swept up in the tumultuous events of mid-19th century Europe, primarily in France.
The deeds are big. So are the discussions — dense, volatile and utterly theatrical thanks to Jack O'Brien's kinetic direction and a parade of amazing, agile actors who manage to create fascinating, full-bodied characters in the most fluid of circumstances.
________________________________________________________________
Stoppard's plays are sometimes tarred as chilly intellectual arguments awash in verbal gymnastics. And the talk here is certainly heady. But, more often than not, it has heart and a deep emotional underpinning.
Near the end of "Shipwreck," there is a speech by Herzen of such aching beauty that if you are not moved to tears, you must be made of stone.
"Life's bounty is in its flow. Where is the song when it's been sung? The dance when it's been danced? It's only we humans who want to own the future, too," he says in an impassioned plea to embrace the moment.
The moments in "Shipwreck" are quite extraordinary."
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/12/21/arts/NA_A-E_STG_US_Shipwreck.php
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
Smaxie
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/26/05
#2re: Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Posted: 12/21/06 at 8:43pmNice that the opening of a Stoppard play holds this board in such rapt attention.
Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop.
Yankeefan007
Broadway Legend Joined: 3/20/04
#3re: Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Posted: 12/21/06 at 8:49pmLooks like I shouldn't regret having tickets to both shows on Saturday.
Link Larkin Wanabe
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/1/04
#4re: Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Posted: 12/21/06 at 9:29pm
Ok...I need to see some good pictures of the set.
Akiva
#5re: Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Posted: 12/21/06 at 9:35pm
"Smart! And into all those exotic mystiques -- The Kama Sutra and Chinese techniques. I hear she knows more than seventy-five. Call me tomorrow if you're still alive!"
#6re: Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Posted: 12/21/06 at 9:42pmI saw Shipwreck last week, but I didn't really care for it. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for it on a Friday night after a long week. I really enjoyed Voyage...Shipwreck, not so much. I am still looking forward to Salvange and seeing how all of this ends, though not with the same excitement I had leaving the Beaumont in October.
But when did New Hampshire become--Such a backward wasteland of seatbelt hating crazies?...I mean, only 40 people actually live there. The others are just visitors who come for the tax-free liquor and three inches of novelty coastline. John Hodgeman on The Daily Show (1-30-07)
#7re: Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Posted: 12/22/06 at 1:14amI saw both of them and while I think Billy Crudup in Voyage was the best I've seen out of both plays, I really enjoyed Shipwreck too. I thought they were both beautifully staged and I love the music setting the mood. The only thing about it that I don't love is Ehle as Natalie in Shipwreck. I didn't really care for her and I felt like she was just doing a lot of yelling.
And hang on, when did you win the discus?
#8re: Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Posted: 12/22/06 at 1:18amAmy Irving's performance in "Shipwreck" is indeed sublime.
#9re: Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Posted: 12/22/06 at 1:25amI knew I forgot to mention something, I second Calvin!
And hang on, when did you win the discus?
queendork
Understudy Joined: 6/28/06
#10re: Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Posted: 12/22/06 at 1:30amI'm seeing it tomorrow - well, technically, tonight - and am so looking forward. From reading them, I think this is the most interesting of the three.
MargoChanning
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/5/04
#11re: Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Posted: 12/22/06 at 1:35am
Personally, I was a little disappointed by VOYAGE (it seemed little more than an exposition heavy, overly wordy prelude of things to come, than a full-fledged stand alone work), but I found SHIPWRECK to be emotionally compelling (more so than one normally expects from Stoppard) and absolutely sublime -- one of the best evenings I've had all year.
Some excerpts from Brantley:
"When momentous events happen in “Shipwreck,” whether national revolutions or personal betrayals, it’s not because a blueprint has been laid out in a book by Hegel, Marx or George Sand. “The names of things don’t come first,” says one character — Ivan Turgenev (Jason Butler Harner), as it happens. “Words stagger after, hopelessly trying to become the sensation.” History, Herzen later observes ruefully, “isn’t impressed by intellectuals.”
It is Mr. Stoppard’s acknowledgment of this principle, and Mr. O’Brien’s realization of it with his warmblooded cast and expert design team, that makes “The Coast of Utopia” so improbably entertaining. The thunderous vibrations that Kolya senses are the tremors of life asserting itself against those who would try to control it.
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Mr. Stoppard is always pulling the rug out from under the idealistic aspirations and postures in “Utopia,” including those of a playwright who dares to paint on such a broad historical canvas. Words, words, words are irresistible to Mr. Stoppard. And like his characters he probably uses too many of them, making the same point a few times too many, or parading in-joke cleverness for its own sake.
More notable for the velocity than for the depth of his thought, Mr. Stoppard isn’t delivering any intellectual aperçus here that couldn’t be picked up in a good university seminar about 19th-century Russian novelists. It’s the collision of thought with feeling, of tidy intellect with the chaos of life, that generates such blazing theatrical heat."
http://theater2.nytimes.com/2006/12/22/theater/reviews/22ship.html?em&ex=1166936400&en=52bcb007a882b5e2&ei=5087%0A
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
MargoChanning
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/5/04
#12re: Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Posted: 12/22/06 at 1:41am
Variety is Positive:
"All head, no heart is a common criticism of Tom Stoppard's work. But the most unexpected and enriching surprise of "Shipwreck," the second part of the playwright's epic trilogy "The Coast of Utopia," is that its intellectual vigor is equaled, perhaps even surpassed by its enormous emotional vitality. Jack O'Brien's mesmerizing production of part one, "Voyage," was a dazzling theatrical achievement. In this Euro-trotting second chapter, the political and personal passions of the play's dreamy-eyed 19th-century Russian revolutionaries ripen with age and experience, making it arguably even better.
_______________________________________________________________
This is a play of exile driven by the roller coaster of political hope and failure, and the philosophical discourse is perhaps more fully integrated into the dramatic fiber than in "Voyage." But it's Stoppard's ruminative exploration of messy, hurtful human relationships in act two that makes "Shipwreck" resonate so powerfully. The playwright makes Natalie such a formidable and passionate character, pursuing an ideal of love as elusive as the utopia her husband seeks, that when tragedy strikes directly at her heart, it's devastating.
In a play that shuffles chronology and includes scenes of simultaneous overlapping action, O'Brien shifts with masterful clarity between naturalistic presentation and stylized interludes from the imagination, between somberness and subtle humor with a deftly measured touch. Under the director's unfaltering command, the characters surge to the foreground and then recede gracefully to the margins with the majestic ebb and flow of great literature."
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117932354.html?categoryid=33&cs=1
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
Updated On: 12/22/06 at 01:41 AM
MargoChanning
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/5/04
#13re: Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Posted: 12/22/06 at 1:42am
Newsday is Positive:
"More to the point, Jack O'Brien's astonishing, visually stupendous production has further tightened its grip with ever more engrossing tales of the privileged young Russian thinkers who began the sweep of massive social change. They get giddy with the pan-European revolts of 1848 and get swept away by disillusionment.
The characters of "Shipwreck" are no longer the hot-headed, hot-blooded students who emerged in the first part, "Voyage." Thirteen years have passed since we last glimpsed these restless pre-revolutionaries, dropping names and arguing about humanist ideals without noticing the stooped serfs - called, without irony, "souls" - lined up in silent servitude to give their masters the luxury of philosophy.
We are relieved to find both continuity and new splendors in the masterly creative team - in sets by Bob Crowley and Scott Pask, costumes by Catherine Zuber and lights by Kenneth Posner. Again, the first sight is of the aging Alexander Herzen in a chair that hovers high above the dark silken ravages of the sea. The ice sculpture of Moscow was the wow-moment of "Voyage." Here it is the Place de la Concorde in Paris, before and after the bloody fires of revolt, with marble horses on either side of the wide boulevard that appears to stretch for miles."
http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/stage/ny-etutopia5023698dec22,0,5475355.story?coll=ny-theater-headlines
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
Updated On: 12/22/06 at 01:42 AM
WellIfYouInsist
Featured Actor Joined: 12/20/06
MargoChanning
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/5/04
#15re: Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Posted: 12/22/06 at 1:48am
Theatremania is Mixed-to-Negative:
"But extensive research, indelible tableaux, and scintillating lines backed by intellectual probing don't add up to a satisfying work. Continuing his fact-based fictional study of Herzen, Stoppard places him in the context of his motherly but flirtatious wife Natalie (Jennifer Ehle), and their sons Sasha (Beckett Melville) and Kolya (August Gladstone), who's deaf in part for metaphorical purposes. Among the Herzens' closest friends are German poet George Herwegh (David Harbour) and wife Emma (Bianca Amato). There's a messy love affair between Herwegh and Natalie as well as a less messy one between Natalie and gal pal Natasha Tuchkov (Martha Plimpton).
Yet, Stoppard isn't in control of the material. Commenting on the short-lasting effects of revolutions, near-revolutions and proposed revolutions, he seems to contend that revolutions fail because the people responsible for fomenting them are too callow to bring them off. But is that what he truly means to convey? Also, before Arcadia and The Invention of Love, the familiar charge against Stoppard was that his head overrules his heart. With The Coast of Utopia, the charge can be made anew.
To be sure, some of the novelistic script's deficiencies are compensated for by the eye-popping production. Set designers Bob Crowley and Scott Pask supply startling stage pictures that include an alley of Paris street lamps at the end of which stands a dazzling white obelisk. Hung over many of the Paris gabfests is a splendid chandelier that says plenty about the well-heeled intelligentsia ballyhooing revolutions. Costume designer Catherine Zuber adds to the ironic implications through the ladies' finery and the gentlemen's smoking jackets.
While these elements, enhanced by Kenneth Posner's lighting, treat the eye, the performances aren't a sufficient treat for the ear. Too many of the actors -- the cast includes Billy Crudup, David Harbour, Jason Butler Harner, and Josh Hamilton in other leading roles -- declaim their speeches as if fearful that Stoppard's important prose will be lost on the deep Vivian Beaumont stage. Certainly, some of the blame falls on director Jack O'Brien, who pays more attention to the big picture than the revelatory detail. It almost seems accidental that Richard Easton as an emissary, Amy Irving as a bohemian model, and David Pittu in two virtual walk-ons make more favorable impressions than the show's stars."
http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm/story/9712
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
#16re: Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Posted: 12/22/06 at 1:51am
AHAHAHA. oh Theatermania. you slay me.
I see Voyage soon! I'm so excited, it should be illegal
"Picture "The View," with the wisecracking, sympathetic sweethearts of that ABC television show replaced by a panel of embittered, suffering or enraged Arab women" -the Times review of Black Eyed
MargoChanning
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/5/04
#17re: Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Posted: 12/22/06 at 1:52am
USA Today gives it Three-and-a-half out of Four Stars:
"How do revolutionary thinkers keep themselves occupied when they're not forming complex, cogent theories on politics, culture and social oppression? Apparently they grapple with some of the same conundrums facing the rest of us.
Voyage, the first part of Tom Stoppard's historical drama The Coast of Utopia, traced the philosophical and romantic yearnings of young intellectuals frustrated with Czar Nicholas I's Russia. In Shipwreck (***½ out of four), the equally spellbinding second chapter, we get more insight into the life of one of them: Alexander Herzen, who between the 1830s and 1850s evolved from an anti-czarist exile into a celebrated writer, then back to an exile.
________________________________________________________________
Jack O'Brien's robust direction and Bob Crowley and Scott Pask's stunning set design serve everyone well. True, Stoppard's script would sound glorious if recited by students in a dingy classroom, but to see such style and substance merge with spectacle is a rare treat, on Broadway or anywhere."
http://www.usatoday.com/life/theater/reviews/2006-12-21-shipwreck_x.htm?POE=LIFISVA
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
MargoChanning
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/5/04
#18re: Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Posted: 12/22/06 at 1:58am
NY Sun is Mixed:
"Mr. Stoppard spends down some of the considerable theatrical capital he accumulated with "Voyage," the trilogy's masterful first entry. Too many arguments among Herzen and his philosophical brethren devolve into comic squabbles, and Mr. Stoppard falls prey to some uncharacteristically lumpy exposition: "Something's wrong this year," complains Herzen's wife, Natalie (Jennifer Ehle), "even though it's all the same people who were so happy together when we took the house last summer."
And Jack O'Brien's staging, so crisp in "Voyage," overcompensates here with a glut of visual pictures that are ravishing but of questionable import. Particularly in the first hour of "Shipwreck," the trilogy's projected ninehour running time feels less like a promise and more like a threat.
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This mania for emotional and logistical equilibrium offers an insightful glimpse into Mr. O'Byrne's performance, which somehow manages to be both compelling and bland. His Herzen is aflame with revolutionary conviction but resolutely placid in his personal dealings; his determination to comprehend the deepest tragedies from a purely philosophical stance can be maddening on an emotional level, but I believe it is appropriate both to the character and to Mr. Stoppard's wintry tone. Mr. O'Byrne is well matched in this regard by the ravishing Ms. Ehle, who nails the confusion and sensual hunger of Herzen's adored but unfulfilled wife.
_______________________________________________________________
"Life's beauty is in its flow," Herzen maintains when this tragedy finally strikes. "Later is too late." By this point, Mr. Stoppard has settled back into the flow of his epic, putting into motion a series of events that promise a formidable conclusion. Despite the predictable and, well, superfluous stretches in "Shipwreck," later can't come soon enough."
http://www.nysun.com/article/45645
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
MargoChanning
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/5/04
#19re: Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Posted: 12/22/06 at 2:21am
Newark Star-Ledger is Positive:
"Staged with energy, fluidity and more than 30 actors by Jack O'Brien, "Shipwreck" is not quite as visually spectacular as "Voyage." An exception is the Place de la Concorde in Paris as masterfully stylized in a forced perspective of monumental statuary. This view explodes later -- and literally -- amid roiling clouds of gun smoke during a vivid depiction of Paris in chaotic rebellion. Kenneth Posner's lighting design tends to be blatant in color, reflecting more furious times.
Led by Ehle's conflicted, deeply felt Natalie, women assume greater prominence in this segment of the trilogy, their influence lending some heart -- for good or ill -- to the relentlessly cerebral preoccupations of the menfolk.
"Shipwreck" concludes on a disconsolate note as Bakunin languishes in prison and Herzen ships off for England, their high hopes for the future smashed on the rocks of reality. The final play in the trilogy, "Salvage," covers the next dozen years of their lives. Let's look forward to seeing how Stoppard brings his characters' journeys to a satisfying destination."
http://www.nj.com/entertainment/ledger/index.ssf?/base/entertainment-1/1166766639195620.xml&coll=1
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
MargoChanning
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/5/04
#20re: Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Posted: 12/22/06 at 4:49am
NY Daily News is Positive:
""Shipwreck," which opened last night at the Vivian Beaumont, covers six years, beginning in 1846, and concentrates on writer Alexander Herzen (Brían F. O'Byrne) and his family. The tight focus makes for an accessible and engaging ride, as does the fact that love is as much a part of the story as philosophy and politics. After 12 years of being unable to leave Russia, Herzen and his wife, Natalie (Jennifer Ehle), are allowed go abroad for the sake of their deaf son, Kolya.
________________________________________________________________
The dynamic O'Byrne infuses Herzen with a potent mix of passion, eloquence and humanity. Ehle, as his wife, simmers with sensuality and intelligence. Hawke, Harner, Crudup and Josh Hamilton, who appears briefly as poet Nicholas Ogarev, use the full force of their magnetism. Amy Irving, as Maria Ogarev, and newcomer Bianca Amato, as Emma Herwegh, are vivid as wives - one estranged, one devoted.
The star of the show is the production itself. Director Jack O'Brien and his designers have made Stoppard's heady and sometimes windy drama a tour de force that is rich with unforgettable images: the Place de la Concorde before, during and after a revolt; a grand chandelier in a Paris flat that glows with excess; leafy trees quivering in unison, as if forecasting a storm.
On "Utopia's" glossy, jet-black stage, under Kenneth Posner's spellbinding lighting, images pop with astounding clarity. It struck me: I'm used to HDTV. O'Brien and company have crafted high-definition theater."
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/story/482132p-405803c.html
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
MargoChanning
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/5/04
#21re: Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Posted: 12/22/06 at 4:53am
Clive Barnes gives it Four out of Four Stars:
"Although the plays so far are generally well-acted, the production has yet to have the thrust and grandeur of the original production, though the richly imaginative scenery by Bob Crowley and Scott Pask makes up for much.
In the final count, the trilogy unfolding at Lincoln Center becomes unforgettable and unmissable, an experience of life as much as an experience of art."
http://www.nypost.com/seven/12222006/entertainment/theater/amazing_voyage_continues_with_shipwreck_theater_clive_barnes.htm
"What a story........ everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end." -- Birdie
[http://margochanning.broadwayworld.com/]
"The Devil Be Hittin' Me" -- Whitney
#22re: Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Posted: 12/22/06 at 8:06amBythesword, I also didn't care for Ehle at all. I thought she was way over the top, but figured it was just me. I read several pretty ravey reviews of her performance on talkinbroadway (particularly the big confrontation scene with O'Byrne, which I thought was kind of a screachy mess...and not in a good way).
But when did New Hampshire become--Such a backward wasteland of seatbelt hating crazies?...I mean, only 40 people actually live there. The others are just visitors who come for the tax-free liquor and three inches of novelty coastline. John Hodgeman on The Daily Show (1-30-07)
neddyfrank2
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/23/05
#23re: Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck Reviews
Posted: 12/31/06 at 4:03pmDid this show have another opening night party and everything like the first one? Or was that the big opening?
