Genius & Friends
From left, Marsha Mason, John Glover, Douglas Hodge and Marin Mazzie in "Fire and Air." Closing date: March 2, 2018.
LET'S CALL IT DIAGHILEV'S FAULT. If he’d just left some damned record of his greatest works -- like Nijinsky dancing "Afternoon of a Faun" in Paris in 1912 -- we’d have something to go by when telling his story. To be fair, though, no one knows why a sure thing like Terrence McNally's new drama, “Fire and Air,” went wrong. A few critics have some theories, though.
When the Classic Stage Company announced that it would present McNally's play about Sergei Diaghilev, Vaslav Nijinsky, art, money, sex, a revolution in dance and the thrill of change in the early years of a new century, the New York theater community took notice. A new work by the 78-year-old McNally ('Master Class," "Love! Valour! Compassion!," "Frankie and Johnny," "Lips Together, Teeth Apart," "Ragtime," four Tonys and a raft of other honors) is a major event.
The director was announced: John Doyle, who brought home a Tony for the 2005 "Sweeney Todd," gave us the innovative 2006 "Company" with cast members playing musical instruments and directed the Tony-winning revival of "The Color Purple" (2015) .
The cast was announced: Douglas Hodge (Tony winner, "La Cage aux Folles") as Diaghilev, with a supporting cast of John Glover (Tony winner, "Love! Valour! Compasion!"), Marin Mazzie (future Tony winner), Marsha Mason (four-time Oscar nominee) and two young male unknowns with dancers' bodies.
The plot had all the right elements: In the early years of the 20th century, a mad Russian genius changes the face of classical dance. "No more powdered wigs and tutus and ballets about sleeping beauties!" Diaghilev declares in Act I. The genius is an older gay man with ego issues ("Did you know I was a god, Dunya?"), chronic financial problems and an obsession with a teenage boy -- his protégé Vaslav Nijinsky, who makes a very upsetting decision just before intermission. As the summary on CSC's website said, "nudity and adult themes," intended for "a mature audience."
Expectations went high. The reviews went low.
Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter first described the production as lifeless, then suggested that it was “the sort of historical drama that makes one yearn for the vivid theatricality of a Wikipedia page.”
Other critics offered explanations and possible suggestions for future revisions.
Editor's Note: This is not a Press Nights review. I was away from New York for most of the run of "Fire and Air." This is a roundup of opinions, based primarily on the published comments of other theater critics....... AG
(1) NIJINSKY SHOULD HAVE DANCED
A dancer dances. But James Cusati-Moyers, who plays Vaslav Nijinsky (1889-1950), considered the greatest danseur of the early 20th century, never goes beyond first position.
“We’ve got to take the heart-stopping grace and virility of his actual dancing on faith .... After two hours of hearing about his character’s genius without getting to witness a performance of it, that faith is going to wear thin.” -- Sara Holdren, New York Magazine/Vulture
“The relationship is one-sided dramatically. Nijinsky is a dancer, not a wit, and since we don’t see him dance, we experience his scenes with Diaghilev as hopelessly unequal.” -- Jesse Green, The New York Times
(2) MORE SHOWING, LESS TELLING, PLEASE
"Very presentational ... Nijinsky doesn't go mad. He talks about going mad." -- Robert Hofler, The Wrap
(3) WAY TOO MANY PRONOUNCEMENTS!
"Losing money is a way of life." (Diaghilev) "Venice is a fairy tale with an unhappy ending." (Misia) "Anybody who becomes an artist to make money is an idiot." (Diaghilev) "This isn't forgiveness. This is art and good business." (Misia) "Love is more important than money. Art is more important than both." (Diaghilev) See? Three is great, four is too many, and five (plus) is just unfortunate.
"Starved of dramatic propulsion, the play devolves into a symposium on aesthetics ..." -- Jesse Green
(4) 'WHERE THE HELL ARE WE?'
Some critics kind of wished there had been supertitles.
"As the play frequently switches locale -- a Russian theater, a hotel in Paris, the beach in Venice -- lighting changes and sound effects aren't enough to make it clear where we are at any given moment, creating an overall sense of confusion" -- Barbara Schuler, Newsday
"... jumbles times together and hurries through familiar high points." -- Michael Feingold, The Village Voice
Well, frankly, it goes on and on. The Wall Street Journal called the production "flatfooted." Time Out New York went with "miscast and misguided" plus "airless and soporific." There were complaints that the script was diffuse, hasty, imprecise, thoroughly lacking in subtext and far too familiar from other works on the subject. That the play cared too much about the producer and not the product. That the play should have objected more to the abusive Diaghilev-Nijinsky relationship.
It happens sometimes. Great casts, directors, playwrights, composers, lyricists, choreographers and designers get together and create not-so-great productions. But in this case, the real question seems to be: What didn't go wrong with "Fire and Air"? In the publishing world, we sometime say an author has become too rich to edit. Has McNally become too important to be told his creation needs more work?
“McNally’s is the more heartfelt work, and it’s been given a burnished and beautiful production by John Doyle, his collaborator on The Visit, who has staged the play and designed yet another visually elegant production in the Classic Stage Company’s tiny East Village space.”
VULTURE/NY MAG (Sara Holdren): “A dashing, tempestuous Russian émigré constantly on the verge of bankruptcy,” Diaghilev. “He openly described himself as “someone afflicted with a complete lack of talent,” but he knew where his strengths lay. In McNally’s words, his artists were his talent.” So why is McNally’s Fire and Air such leaden drama?
The one-sided love affair: “The play does not seem to mind this abusive liaison, seeing it as just another excusable example of Diaghilev’s determination to foster greatness.”
“Mr. McNally, making a virtue of necessity, is more interested in the producer than in the product, and in the emotional cost of being a midwife to art instead of an actual artist.”
DEADLINE.COM (Jeremy Gerard): He liked it. A lot. “Heartbreaking also is an apt word for McNally’s obvious love for these complicated, characters whose ferocious self-regard is of a piece with their compulsion to produce art. It’s what links the artist and the impresario. It’s ultimately anti-romantic and perhaps lacking in conventionally dramatic narrative, because so much is hidden in the heart (not to mention the bedroom). Yet in McNally’s compassionate vision and Doyle’s exquisite evocation, it’s terribly human.”
“How can a writer humanize someone like Diaghilev — or Nijinsky, for that matter — while simultaneously conveying the myth? How can we retain connection onstage with a human being whose Wikipedia page might fascinate us, but whose appearance in the flesh struggles to transcend the hoariest clichés of Troubled Genius? Peter Shaffer got away with it in Amadeus, but he was wily: First, he tucked the eponymous genius away in a supporting role and smartly dedicated his play to a fictionalized exploration of the lesser composer Salieri’s jealousy. It’s easier for most of us to identify with a cancerous inferiority complex than with the men who bestride the world like colossi. Second, Shaffer let us hear Mozart’s music.” -- holdren
The one-sided love affair: “The play does not seem to mind this abusive liaison, seeing it as just another excusable example of Diaghilev’s determination to foster greatness.” gReen
“Mr. McNally, making a virtue of necessity, is more interested in the producer than in the product, and in the emotional cost of being a midwife to art instead of an actual artist.”
DEADLINE.COM (Jeremy Gerard): He liked it. A lot. “Heartbreaking also is an apt word for McNally’s obvious love for these complicated, characters whose ferocious self-regard is of a piece with their compulsion to produce art. It’s what links the artist and the impresario. It’s ultimately anti-romantic and perhaps lacking in conventionally dramatic narrative, because so much is hidden in the heart (not to mention the bedroom). Yet in McNally’s compassionate vision and Doyle’s exquisite evocation, it’s terribly human.”
“McNally’s is the more heartfelt work, and it’s been given a burnished and beautiful production by John Doyle, his collaborator on The Visit, who has staged the play and designed yet another visually elegant production in the Classic Stage Company’s tiny East Village space.”
VULTURE/NY MAG (Sara Holdren): “A dashing, tempestuous Russian émigré constantly on the verge of bankruptcy,” Diaghilev. “He openly described himself as “someone afflicted with a complete lack of talent,” but he knew where his strengths lay. In McNally’s words, his artists were his talent.” So why is McNally’s Fire and Air such leaden drama?
“How can a writer humanize someone like Diaghilev — or Nijinsky, for that matter — while simultaneously conveying the myth? How can we retain connection onstage with a human being whose Wikipedia page might fascinate us, but whose appearance in the flesh struggles to transcend the hoariest clichés of Troubled Genius? Peter Shaffer got away with it in Amadeus, but he was wily: First, he tucked the eponymous genius away in a supporting role and smartly dedicated his play to a fictionalized exploration of the lesser composer Salieri’s jealousy. It’s easier for most of us to identify with a cancerous inferiority complex than with the men who bestride the world like colossi. Second, Shaffer let us hear Mozart’s music.” holdren
