Plastics
Do film hits ‘The Graduate’ and ‘Frost/Nixon’ work better on stage?
By Don Shirley
I’m a believer in the gospel that a live experience, happening before our eyes, is worth a pricier ticket than anything pre-recorded on film or video. But I wouldn’t choose Frost/Nixon as Exhibit A for that argument – especially if the stage version takes place in a theater as large as the Ahmanson.
Most Angelenos who might be drawn to the play’s subject – the David Frost interviews of the disgraced Richard Nixon – probably have seen the movie. In post-Oscar runs at cheap movie theaters, you could see it for two bucks. By contrast, tickets at the Ahmanson start at $20, with most of the best seats going for $80 (if you’re a single-ticket buyer, as opposed to a Center Theatre Group subscriber). In this recession, how many people are going to spring for the play when they could have seen the movie for as little as one-fortieth of the cost?
One of the main themes of Frost/Nixon is the power of the close-up screen image. It’s no surprise that this is a subject better suited to the screen than to the stage – or that it would be better suited to an intimate theater than it is to the Ahmanson Theatre.
Perhaps recognizing this, stage director Michael Grandage uses video imagery in the play. A big screen hovers over the stage, and it replicates what we’re seeing during the interview segments. It also offers glances of some of the surrounding scenery in other parts of the play.
Yet for some unfathomable reason, the on-stage screen is divided into 36 little squares by large black lines that criss-cross it, like a giant tic-tac-toe board. Even when close-ups finally appear on that screen during the play’s climactic interrogation, the images are fragments.
But surely aficionados will pay to see Alan Cox and Stacy Keach in the title roles, in addition to the movie’s (and Broadway’s) Michael Sheen and Frank Langella? Sorry, but Cox’s Frost is more lightweight and less compelling than Sheen’s. And while no one would ever call Keach a lightweight, his imposing presence doesn’t capture Nixon’s physical awkwardness nearly as well as Langella did.
Part of the problem is that Peter Morgan – who’s primarily a screenwriter, not a playwright – wrote both scripts. If someone else had brought a different voice to one of the scripts, the two projects might have been sufficiently different to justify seeing both of them – especially if the stage version were produced in a space that was designed to bring the audience closer to the action.
That is exactly what has happened in the West Coast Ensemble’s revival of The Graduate. Terry Johnson adapted his stage play from both the original novel by Charles Webb and the screenplay of the iconic 1967 movie by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry. Fans of the movie could easily spend at least an hour discussing how the play is not only different but in some ways, yes, better than the screenplay.
The character of Elaine Robinson – the young woman whom Benjamin pursues despite his cheerless affair with her mother – is much more substantial in the play than in the movie. Her thoughts and feelings are better articulated than her cinematic counterpart’s, and her final decision feels more justified, thanks to a nimble plot twist. At the same time, Benjamin and Elaine are not quite the same avatars of youthful rebellion that the movie made them. Their aimless confusion is better expressed.
A big-theater version of Johnson’s play drew harsh reviews a few years ago, including a tour that played the Wilshire Theatre in 2003. But the play is a comedy of manners, not an epic, and it snaps much more crisply in the tiny El Centro Theater, as staged by Jules Aaron. Ben Campbell, as a very callow Benjamin, makes the movie’s Dustin Hoffman look relatively mature. And Kelly Lloyd’s Mrs. Robinson is as utterly commanding as she is utterly nude.
Frost/Nixon, Ahmanson Theatre, Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. (213) 628-2772. CenterTheatreGroup.org. Tue.-Fri., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 and 8 p.m.; Sun., 1 and 6:30 p.m. Dark March 25 and 26. $20-$80. Closes March 29.
The Graduate, El Centro Theater, 800 N. El Centro Ave. Hollywood. (323) 460-4443. tix.com. Fri.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun. 3 p.m. $18-$20. Closes April 5.
Published: 03/18/2009
DIGG | del.icio.us | REDDIT
