By Kevin Hylton
August 5, 2003
FLESH AND BLOOD: FRESH AND BOLD:
Martha Plimpton and Cherry Jones star in Peter Gaiten’s adaptation of Michael Cunningham’s novel FLESH AND BLOOD
I’d like to think that people are essentially good. This may be a naïve notion. But I’d like to believe it. I’d like to hope that love is at the center of much that goes on in this world. Naïve again? Ok, maybe. Fine, I’ll be a realist. Even if love is at the center of life and people are essentially good, good people hurt others whom they love. It’s inevitable that despite our good intentions pain is hiding, lurking around the door, waiting to work its way into an otherwise tolerable life. And though we can’t at times decipher why we hurt others and ourselves at the same time, we do it nonetheless. Sometimes it is for love, sometimes it’s out of hate, and sometimes it’s simply a product of our paths in life. Love, and relationships may end. Life will end. But if you ride life’s wave where it leads you, regardless of where you bail, there can be no true regrets.
So suggests the Manhattan Theater Workshop’s current production of, FLESH AND BLOOD. In 1995 Michael Cunningham released his book FLESH AND BLOOD. Unlike, his earlier work THE HOURS, which won an Academy Award last year and the Pulitzer Prize, FLESH AND BLOOD was not rewarded with such accolades. And yet Peter Gaitens’ theatrical adaptation of Cunningham’s book resonates on stage in similar ways to the manner that David Hare’s cinematic adaptation of THE HOURS thrived. The play follows the lives of The Stassos family over the course of one hundred years beginning with their arrival in New York in the 1930s. Gaiten’s adaptation is told essentially in chronological order and interweaves very neatly the lives of parents, children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren in an easy to follow and nicely flowing line. We begin with the marriage of Mary Stassos and her sweetheart Constantine Stassos and watch their family grow and contract as they age, live, and die. I have not read the novel FLESH AND BLOOD. Thus, I cannot comment on how much a fan of the book will appreciate Peter Gaitens’ adaptation. I can also tell you that for those who cannot sit still in a dramatic play for more than an hour and a half, you will have problems with this play. The drama runs a solid three hours and twenty minutes (including a fifteen intermission at the hour and a half mark).
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What I can unequivocally tell you is that the play and Peter Gaitens’ adaptation are exceptional. No doubt this play could have been shortened. It could have been cut down. And for any larger stage it would have to be. Sadly, there are not many Broadway stages that will play a three and a half hour play like Eugene O’Neill’s A LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT. And the only reason that LONG DAY’S got on Broadway again was due to its star-packed cast. There are far fewer theaters that would play FLESH AND BLOOD. And yet, I believe that this play is one of the most interesting productions I’ve seen in New York this year. FLESH AND BLOOD examines a very dysfunctional family whose characters are rich and beautifully drawn by Gaitens in his interpretation of Cunningham. The script provides moments of disgust and sadness, juxtaposed with periods of hilarity. The direction of Doug Hughes, who directed the heralded, Obie award winning production of THE GREY ZONE, incites performances from his talented cast that breath air into the characters on the page.
Peter Gaitens (the playwright) acts skillfully as BILLY, the gay, angry son of Constantine and Mary Stassos. In addition to writing this play, Gaitens co-adapted the play GIOVANNI’S ROOM for the stage and has worked in New York and London on the stage and on TV on several shows. Martha Plimpton, who recently performed in the Public Theatre’s production of David Mamet’s play BOSTON MARRIAGE and acted in many films including I SHOT ANDY WARHOL, PECKER, and RUNNING ON EMPTY, shows herself to be a very talented actress. Her performance as Billy’s sister, Zoe, displays her range as an actress and proves her growing resume of stage work to have been worthwhile. Cherry Jones, who plays Mary Stassos, is a veteran stage actress having worked in A MOON FOR THE MISBEGOTTEN with Gabriel Byrne and the recent Broadway play, IMAGINARY FRIENDS.
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Jones plays the role expertly exposing a woman who breaks and manages to fight and pull herself up from the bottom of a well. Perhaps the most enjoyable performance of the lot is presented by Jeff Weiss, who acts as the “fairy godmother” drag queen, Cassandra. Weiss’s comedic chords are only overshadowed by his subtle dramatic tones and in many ways he becomes the glue that binds both acts of this play and the Stassos family together. Weiss comes straight from the Paul Newman production of OUR TOWN and worked in the recent production of Tom Stoppard’ INVENTION OF LOVE and O’Neill’s THE ICEMAN COMETH. Although I will not isolate any of the other fine actors in this production let it suffice to say that the play breathes due to a brilliant ensemble performance.
Gaitens tells us in this play that people are not all good. They do not always do the best of things and in life many relationships end and all lives will die. Sometimes the reasons are clear for these endings. Sometimes these reasons are muddled on first inspection and may even seem insignificant initially. Much of the time things end because they must. Almost always, these endings as any death are sad and cause pain. Nevertheless, the playwright tells us that (and I am paraphrasing here) although this may appear to be an end, “This is not the end. It never is. It is the middle. It is the present. We all come in and have to leave at different times.” We leave because we have to. For if we don’t try and catch that intimidating, potentially dangerous wave and ride it till it crests and crumbles, we may be comfortable sitting on the shore or floating in the ocean, but we are still only watching the wave and life pass by.
For more information or tickets to FLESH AND BLOOD, 79 East Fourth Street (between Bowery and Second Ave.), call (212) 460-5475. Also visit the theater’s website at www.nytw.org. The play runs till August 24. Note that student tickets to this show are available for $15 dollars through the theater’s box office and tickets for the Sunday night performance can be purchased at a discounted rate of $20 per ticket through the box office. Normal ticket prices are $60 per seat.
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