When members of the Tate family stand in front of the open fridge – as happens quite a bit in the “curse of the hungry class” – it is with the disappointment of a gambler who is caught up in a seemingly endless streak.
Tates' fridges are almost always empty, and this inactive production of this 1977 Sam Shepherd Play's new group has a similar sense of vacancy in direction and performance.
Opening at Pershing Square Signature Center on Tuesday night, “The Curse of the Hungry Class” begins with Wesley Tate (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman's son Cooper Hoffman) and her mother Ella (Calista Flockhart) and around the wreckage area. Shuffle. It's vaguely similar to the kitchen. A messy counter, old, mismatched chairs, busted cabinet doors, shattered glass everywhere – it looks like it's been hit by a hurricane. (Scenic designs are by Arnulfo Maldonado.)
However, the cause was not a natural disaster in the traditional sense. It was Weston (Christian Slater), the patriarch of the Tate family, once again stinking the liquor “like some old animals of some rank” and smashing the door. Weston's intense drunkenness is the cause of the most severe disability, but confusion is the normal situation at Tate's home. The empty fridge is standard, and Ella insists with her daughter Emma (Stella Marcus) about whether they are part of the hungry class or whether it exists.
Tate barely passes, and each has his own solution on how to proceed. Ella plans to sell the house to the Skiveyland developer, unaware that Weston is planning. Sell your house too to clean up his debts. Wesley believes they should keep the house and fix it on their own. And Emma plans all the impending escape from her.
Like Shepherd's “The Buried Child” and “The True West,” the “The Curse of the Hungry Class” is an American tragedy, with a similar serious portrait and satire. It moves between realism and the stylized kind of theater, where logic is driven by lyricism and abstraction, rather than more traditional character arcs and plot progressions. You can challenge the director who has to ride the Shepherd Balance Board.
Scott Elliott's direction fails to fit all of the apparently different vocabulary of Shepherd's work into a consistent stage language. In the play, the characters randomly infiltrate monologues that appear to be taken from a clear dream state. Emma is confused about her imaginary future life in Mexico as an auto mechanic. Wesley recreates the sounds and emotions of the night when Weston gets drunk and crashes into the house. Even land developers have spoken about the power and ambitions of corporate America.
Instead of incorporating these moments into the play's easier events, Elliott further elevates them by setting the character with a prominent spotlight (lighting by Jeff Croiter). These speeches feel didactic in a way that Shepherd's script never gives.
As the typically passive Ella erupts into the rage that explosively explosive after the show, Weston calmly criticizes the inflection of words, saying, “Something is not true about it. Something deep in the voice. Something of things. At the heart. “It could easily be applied to acting, but this lacks intimacy and urgency. Flockhart's Ella and Hoffman's Wesley are more than just sober. They are a little dull. Slater does the best job in his take on Weston. Weston's violent explosion and wild movement movement provide some sparks to production.
That doesn't include Lois, a four-year-old California red sheep who belongs to the Tate family and almost steals the show as an animal suffering from nasty things. Truly, some of Lois' heartbeats fell completely at pace with the dialogue across from Slater and Flockhart. (Lois was a professional professional and a feature performer in the Living Nativity Section of “Radio City Christmas Spectacular.”) I have a face, but only a bit. The show was not intentional. When Vegetables jump into the open hand of members of the audience, or when Lois interrupts a tense discussion with some loud, enthusiastic “Baas” against the audience.
It tells you whether the gravity and humor of production comes primarily from livestock, especially when it is the staging of Sam Shepherd's play. “The Curse of the Hungry Class” is a work that deliberately disappoints the character, but you shouldn't do the same for your audience.
The Curse of the Hungry Class
Until April 6th at the Pershing Square Signature Center in Manhattan. thenewgroup.org. Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes.
