His name is Earl
Hugh Bonneville, the star of Downton Abbey, excels in Berkeley Rep’s triumphant new production
Berkeley Rep is advertising its current production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya as a vehicle for the British actor Hugh Bonneville, who appears in the title role. You can’t really blame them. Who could resist the prospect of the Earl of Grantham himself (or Mr. Paddington, if you prefer) swanning around a rustic Russian estate in an advanced stage of self-loathing and rage? The only catch is that you might feel a twinge of shame for chasing too breathlessly after the presence of a Big Star. OK, you’ve seen him on the screen, so what. Is that really what live theater is about?
Well, yeah, sometimes. Vanya, which opened last week in an adaptation by Conor McPherson, is a triumph in every way. The ensemble cast, under the generous and inventive guidance of director Simon Godwin, wrings every ounce of humor and pathos and scorn out of Chekhov’s intimate masterpiece, making the piece feel entirely fresh without sacrificing any of its distinctive period atmosphere.
But Bonneville’s contributions are the axis on which the entire production turns. His charisma is incendiary, his line readings so richly naturalistic that he seems to be ad-libbing whole chunks of the script on the spot. You can’t take your eyes off him; wherever he happens to be standing at any given moment becomes, in that instant, center stage.
During the first half of the evening, when Vanya presents himself largely as a clown, Bonneville’s japery is irresistible — physically fluid and drenched in layers of dark irony. (It helps, oddly, that he maintains a sharp-edged middle-class English accent while the rest of the cast declaims in stately, theatrical Americanisms.) And after intermission, when he finally gives vent to the fury and self-disgust that all that irony has been assiduously cloaking, the shift in tone feels positively galvanic.
This description, though accurate, makes Vanya sound unbalanced. It’s not. It’s an impeccably shaped ensemble effort in which Bonneville, though undeniably the star, shares the stage with wonderful grace. And all of his colleagues fearlessly claim space for their own stories: John Benjamin Hickey as the rueful, dipsomaniacal Doctor Astrov, who somehow forgot to have a life; Tom Nelis as the pompous Professor Serebryakov, so infuriatingly self-satisfied that you can feel Vanya’s homicidal urges rising up in your own body; and above all Melanie Field, whose depiction of Vanya’s lovelorn and overlooked niece, Sonya, emerges as a beacon of tragic nobility.
Uncle Vanya: Berkeley Rep, through March 23. www.berkeleyrep.org.
Elsewhere:
Lily Janiak, San Francisco Chronicle: “Every moment in the show…has the complexity of fine wine: contrasts to parse, hidden notes to unearth.”
Chad Jones, TheaterDogs: “Ultimately, this is a cold, lonely story, but director Godwin finds warmth where he can, and his wonderful actors are more than up to the challenge of finding complications and connections in their characters.”
Jay Barmann, SFist: “No single performance outshines another, and what you have on stage is a four-act play, told in a modern way … that strikes at the essence of Chekhov's many themes, and takes the audience on a devastating yet life-affirming emotional ride.”
Black voices I
In the summer of 2020, the San Francisco Symphony and the San Francisco Conservatory of Music announced the Emerging Black Composers Project, a 10-year undertaking meant to support African American composers by commissioning a major orchestral work from one selected artist, and providing both workshopping and a premiere performance. At the time, the program was greeted as a much-needed corrective to the institutionalized racism of the classical music world, which doesn’t offer Black musicians the same opportunities as their white peers to develop the skills and experience required to compose for orchestra.
I trust the program is still regarded that way by those who matter. But we’ve now seen the accession of a political movement, bolstered by a dismayingly large swath of the American population, that views every achievement by anyone who’s not a straight white male as inherently suspect, and every effort to correct systemic injustices as outright criminal. When these fascists came to power in November, I expressed the hope that the world of classical music might at least wind up holding little interest for them, but recent events surrounding the Kennedy Center have demonstrated precisely the opposite. So I fully expect that the apparatchiks will be coming for the EBCP before long, because it’s exactly the kind of initiative they fear. Protecting it will be a test of the courage of Symphony leadership (he wrote, laying down an optimistic marker).
I’m indulging in this bit of soapboxing today because Thursday’s San Francisco Symphony concert, conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, featured the latest fruit of the EBCP, and it demonstrated exactly why such a program is so important. The premiere of Strange Beasts, a multimedia work by the young Los Angeles composer Xavier Muzik that combined photographs of and orchestral music, introduced a strong and original new voice.
Muzik’s photographs of urban scenes, projected right side up and upside-down with terrifying rapidity, added little to the experience. But his music proved to be full of engaging melodies, textures, and harmonic ideas. The theme of the piece, he told Saturday’s audience, was his penchant for catastrophic thinking as a way to deal with anxiety; the title refers to the mental bugaboos with which he keeps larger fears at bay. An ominous leitmotif begins the piece, and recurs thereafter, but usually subterraneously. For the most part, the piece’s 17 minutes are spent in a jaunty stroll through a variety of thematic sections — a suave little waltz, a dynamic final climax, and perhaps most alluringly, a crisp tick-tock from the woodblocks to accompany a dense, sweet-toned weave from the woodwinds. It would take another encounter or two, I think, to be clear how these episodes are meant to fit together; but they proved entirely engaging on first listening.
Muzik’s opus was the lone bright spot in an otherwise dreary program that also featured pianist Daniil Trifonov in a dour, characteristically humorless account of Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto (how do you play Prokofiev without apprehending or conveying any of the jokes?) and, after intermission, a flabby, soft-edged performance of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Ungenerously, I considered the possibility that this might be Salonen phoning it in during his final season. But it turns out I had the same reaction to his Rite the last time, so I guess this is just his chosen approach.
Elsewhere:
Lisa Hirsch, San Francisco Chronicle/SFCV: “This was only one of the riches on offer during the performance, which saw Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen leading his second go-round of the Rite at Davies — his first was in 2022 — and the playing crackled right from the start.”
Michael Strickland, Civic Center: “The music took a while to gain traction, but once it did, with a woodblock propulsively driving the huge orchestra along, it was intermittently engaging, and yes, anxious-making. From the looks of his website, this was Muzik's first big orchestra commission, and it was impressive how well he composed for the entire ensemble. I'd like to hear it again.”
Stephen Smoliar, The Rehearsal Studio: “It did not take long for the impression to form that Trifonov was using his fingers as sledge hammers. Mind you, Prokofiev was not shy about aggressive rhetoric; but Trifonov cranked that aggression up to eleven!”
Black voices II
Also on the subject of race, and this week’s Symphony program: At long last, Joshua Elmore has been officially named as the orchestra’s principal bassoonist, succeeding longtime principal Stephen Paulson. (Elmore leaked the news back in October, but evidently these things take time.) His appointment makes him the orchestra’s first Black principal since timpanist Elayne Jones’ brief and ill-starred tenure in the 1970s, and one of the only Black members of the orchestra at any level in all that time.
The Rite of Spring might as well have been programmed specifically for Elmore’s arrival in town, since the piece opens with one of the most famous bassoon solos in the orchestral repertoire — a high, plaintive lament, completely unaccompanied, that puts even the most skilled virtuoso to the test. On Saturday, Elmore rose beautifully to the challenge, shaping that melodic phrase with a combination of plangency and self-assurance. I’m delighted he’s here, and I can’t wait to hear more from him.
Hip Pocket
For music lovers of a certain demographic (to wit, mine; to wit, old), the shoebox productions of the late Donald Pippin and Pocket Opera, the company he founded and led for so long, remain a joyful memory. Happily, the company continues in the good hands of director Nicolas A. Garcia, and Pippin’s distinctively accessible English translations keep coming back to life through the efforts of generation upon generation of young singers.
The production of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro that opened the company’s new season over the weekend could not have driven the point home any more clearly. A lively, skilled cast, operating under the leadership of music director Marika Yasuda and stage director Sergey Khalikulov, brought out all the wit and romantic ardor of this jewel-like score, and the audience at the Berkeley Hillside Club on Sunday afternoon responded with suitable enthusiasm to every comic turn and vivid expression of emotion.
One makes allowances here and there, of course — accepting a scrawny-sounding chamber group in place of an orchestra, or overlooking the occasional glitch in Figaro’s elaborate stage clockwork. But the individual performers were excellent, with Morgan Balfour and Andrew Pardini as a charming and clever pair of newlyweds, Spencer Dodd and Julia Mulholland singing with robust clarity as the Count and Countess Almaviva, and Nina Jones leaving everyone in stitches as the hormonally addled pageboy Cherubino.
The Marriage of Figaro: Pocket Opera. March 2, Legion of Honor. www.pocketopera.org.
Cryptic clue of the week
From Out of Left Field #256 by Henri Picciotto and me, sent to subscribers last Thursday:
Like a cello or bass: outstanding (5)
Last week’s clue:
Berry and beef (5)
Solution: CHUCK
Berry: definition
Beef: second definition
Coming up
Tactus SF: When it comes to vocal polyphony, Renaissance-style, Palestrina has always been the guy to beat. Other 16th-century composers may have written with more expressivity or literary flair, but no one mastered the ins and outs of counterpoint more subtly. The Bay Area chorus Tactus SF, led by director Sven Edward Olbash, celebrates Palestrina’s 500th birthday with a program of his sacred and secular works. Feb. 27-28, locations in San Francisco and Berkeley. www.tactus-sf.org.
Don Giovanni: There are plenty of ambitious, small-scale musical organizations scattered throughout the Bay Area, but few can claim to be such reliable landmarks as the Livermore Valley Opera. Under the leadership of retired soprano Erie Mills, the company offers a mix of standard repertoire and more out-of-the-way fare, all done with sophistication and flair. This weekend sees the opening of a new production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, with baritone Titus Muzi III in the title role. March 1-9, Bankhead Theater, Livermore. www.livermorevalleyopera.com.
Yuja Wang and Víkingur Ólafsson: The two most exciting pianists to have visited Davies Symphony Hall in recent months are teaming up for what promises to be a thrilling duo recital presented by the San Francisco Symphony, with music ranging from Schubert and Rachmaninoff to John Adams and Arvo Pärt. If ever there was a time for skipping the Oscars, this is the year. March 2, Davies Symphony Hall. www.sfsymphony.org.
I saw it on opening night and was transfixed. I relished it for days and am grateful that I was there.
JK--Hope you'll spread some love for benefit concert for LA wildfire relief being put on by the musicians of the SF Symphony and Chorus March 8. Among other works Garrick Ohlsson plays the Rach 2. I know, I know, but it's all for a good cause. All ticket revenue to be split for the Entertainment Community Fund and Habitat for Humanity LA. Thanks!! Love your work.