melding the pieces together

I remember watching Pinocchio when I was a child. He frightened me because he was wooden, but still acted like a human being.  These days I laugh whenever I recall being frightened by him. But this time when I recalled that memory I realized that he’s helping me.

After watching Ivo Van Hove’s adaptation of “The Little Foxes” by Lillian Hellman, I remembered Pinocchio because he helped me realize an important aspect. So let’s say Lillian Hellman is the puppet maker who designs the marionettes and Ivo Van Hove is the puppeteer who manipulates the marionettes. He is the person, after seeing the marionettes, who decides how to present them in a performance. If he wants to change their designs, he can’t because he isn’t a puppet maker. What Ivo Van Hove can do is have the marionettes move according to his directions, but at the same time he has to work with them or else the strings may tangle. He has to interpret the play differently.  In other words, the director is, first and foremost, a reader. He is a reader who peruses through the play and envisions it. What makes him different from any other readers, such as us? And what makes him a director? Well, I don’t exactly know, but I can attest to it.

This brings me back to the point of my first blog, “What makes a classic?” or rather, “What defines a classic?” In terms of theatre performance, I believe one characteristic to be the fact that the play can be manipulated from its original script and be reborn into a new generation. Ivo Van Hove did this. He took Lillian Hellman’s play that was set in the early 1900s and transformed it into a play that can relate to the current time period. Although he kept the actors’ lines the same (for the most part), there is a reason for it. We have to realize that language is powerful and packed. “Nigger” is one of those words that is jam-packed with history and emotions. The way that word is used in the play has a derogatory meaning. To put it in today’s standards would not be too difficult because depending on the context, tone, and situation the word could either be negative or positive, but it still has that lingering deprecating feel whenever it’s spoken.

Another thing that Ivo Van Hove does is “strip the play to its bare essentials,” as Professor Healey mentioned in class. He places the characters in a rectangular room lined with purple walls. There is no furniture set up, except for the staircase, an upright electrical piano to the left of the stage and a short, small table in the front of center stage. There was use for two chairs, a coffee set, and a few other items. That’s it. By keeping the set “clean,” the audience is exposed to all the details such as the actions and positions of the actors and actresses. We aren’t distracted by extravagant beauty as Peter Brook mentions in his book, The Empty Space. Did you notice how the actors and actresses circled the staircase at times? I did and I felt that they were vultures gliding through the air waiting for the moment to feast on another animal’s kill. The same happens in the play because Oscar, Ben, and Regina are focused on gaining money at the expense of the people. They will go out of their way just to exploit them. Horace does it in a different manner. He does it to try and ruin the sibling’s plan because he realizes that it’s cruel and unethical. In addition, Birdie’s dress and clothing were red. It clashed against the purple walls. The same goes with her personality because it was child-like and pastoral. Her views of living “the life” were more rural and less extravagant than those of the siblings.

One more important aspect was the interaction the actors and actresses had with the audience. It is the role of the director to help them grow and inspire us. That’s what Ivo Van Hove did. The tone of Horace’s voice was child-like at times. It felt that his eyes were opened after being up North for 5 months, but at the same time it had a serious aspect to it. Horace had a job to do: expose Alexandra to the truth. Also, Birdie’s interaction with the audience, to me, was the greatest. The way she acted with her laughter and sadness swayed me. I laughed when she laughed became hurt and sad when she did. Her presence wasn’t overwhelming at the same time. It worked with the others. No one person had full command of the audience, especially with the L.E.D. screen overhead.

All this work and detail shows Ivo Van Hove’s great insight towards the play in relation to today. He was able to help the cast move and affect the audience. This is what makes him standout as a reader and makes him a director. His interpretation was able to relate to present-day New Yorkers. He startled us. He made us think. He made us remember.  And personally, he made me remember my memory of Pinocchio.