2 x Huppert: Live in NYC

Isabelle Huppert loves to challenge herself. As I’ve noted several times before on this blog, her choice of film work has always involved her playing new types of characters while continuing her dual specialization of women on the brink of a breakdown and complex women who are often “closed off” emotionally with others (or downright brusque). She can, in effect, do no wrong onscreen. 

Onstage, she challenges herself by not only appearing in straightforward productions of classic works (none of which we see over here) but also starring in avant-garde productions and works by new playwrights. I have written about her last three appearances in plays in NYC here (The Maids), here (Phaedra(s)), and here (The Mother). In each case, as with this current item, her performances have been uniformly excellent while the material was flawed to one degree or another. 

Such was the case with her recent stint at NYU’s Skirball Hall doing a handful of performances of the high-energy, one-woman piece Mary Said What She Said — a play that is so rigidly (and familiarly) stylized that it seems like a parody of what some perceive “avant-garde theater” to be.

Mary is written by playwright Darryl Pinckney as a one-woman monologue delivered by Mary Stuart (1542-87), aka “Mary, Queen of Scots.” She moves through situations in her life (with the dialogue drawn from Mary’s own letters), providing a kind of emotional summing-up of her very active existence. One could do some research into her life before seeing the show and still be mystified, because we are given her POV on events, but they are shuffled throughout and what we mostly have are the traumatic highlights delivered in a cascade of verbiage.

The play is thus intended to just wash over the viewer, as Mary speaks very fast, then very slowly, then very fast again. She poses in tableau-like fashion on an empty but bright-white stage (later filled with fog that resembles clouds) and moves around in dance steps at other times. At points she speaks live onstage; at others we hear recordings of her voice (and recordings of a man and child, presumably her son, the future King James).

Perhaps Pinckney included some of the above in his script, but these stylistic inclusions would seem to be inspirations provided by the director, Robert Wilson is a Texan who made his name with Einstein on the Beach and has had his productions scored by cult rockers including Tom Waits and Lou Reed. (The score for Mary was written by Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi; his work was at its most memorable when it most resembled the work of Philip Glass.)

Mary was the fifth Wilson show I’ve seen (The Black Rider being the most memorable) and it’s best to come right out and say it: He’s a remarkably “familiar” director, meaning that his stylized sets, costumes, and behavioral tics for his actors seem fresh and new the first time you see them, but by the second time they lose their luster. By the third Wilson play you see, you begin to think you’re watching someone (as the Brits say) “taking the piss” out of the material by presenting some avant-garde techniques that he’s used several times before and others that were fashioned by others long before his career began.

So, with Mary we have a case where the stagecraft is a drawback, but the lead performer is exquisite. Huppert clearly loved Wilson and Pinckney’s “shifts” for her character, as she plays her at different ages and in different situations, all of it funneled through a continual recitation. She gives it her all and does a magnificent job of conveying Mary’s conflicting emotions and the many dangerous situations that her regal status has placed her in.

In the meantime, one thinks of Wilson’s preceding plays (“Yup, saw that in his Woyzeck adaptation.” “Oops, that’s on the verge of that kitsch insanity from POEtry.”) One also thinks of German Expressionist theater, just imbued with brighter primary colors. Here one thinks of the work that Beckett wrote for Billie Whitelaw, very specifically the monologue “Not I,” wherein Whitelaw had to deliver a text at top speed while the audience saw only her mouth. In other words, Mr. Wilson, (as friend Stephen puts it, per an old quip by Jerry Lewis), “we’ve seen the dress.”

One other difficulty plagued those who don’t know French (or, as in my case, can follow it when it’s spoken slowly): The surtitles provided at NYU’s Skirball Hall were in a gray type shown on a black background. (I was in a front upper balcony, center seat.) Given that the titles have to flash very quickly in the scenes where Mary is racing through a quick, frenzied torrent of words, one could only glaze over and just marvel at the brilliance that is Huppert, without giving a look at the dim, hard-to-read translations of what she was saying.

So, I’m still glad I saw the show despite the dreary repetition to be found in Wilson’s stagecraft (and the high price, given that the only lower-priced seats were “partial view” — lovely!), since every opportunity to see Huppert performing live should be pounced upon, as she is one of the finest actresses on the planet and is indeed eager to take on new challenges with every production.

*****

Huppert in basic black.
(Akin to her outfit at
L'Alliance; this photo
is available as a cardboard
standee (!) online.)

A quieter, calmer, less “produced” event featuring Huppert took place on March 3 at L’Alliance (formerly the French Institute Alliance Francaise). In this 90-minute presentation she read five stories by Guy de Maupassant. And again, it’s not like she needed to prove her bona fides as a hypnotic performer, but she was wonderful in a subdued set (a desk and chair combination, a music stand, and a chair and small side table). 

Here the words were everything and she did justice to them. (The readings were in French with very readable surtitles.) She read the stories directly from sheets of paper but was clearly familiar with them enough so that she could look up from the page at certain points, make gestures to underscore certain lines, act out unfinished exclamations, and at times sneak in a look at the audience to bring a certain point home.

The five stories she read were “The Confession,” “The Father,” “Simon’s Papa,” “The Jewels,” “The Necklace.” Maupassant was a master of the short story,  but the tales she read here did not all have twist endings of the sort that inspired later short story writers. In fact the first four stories were all slices of life that ended quite suddenly. It was only in “The Necklace” that the latter part of the story leads up to a very neat little twist at the end.

A 1974 telefilm
based on Maupassant
starring La Huppert.

This was certainly not a “show,” and it did not allow Huppert to show the range of her emotions in the way that Mary did. However, it was nice to see her in a more relaxed mood — even as she dazzled in Mary, it was still an exhausting piece to sit through. At the Maupassant reading, she was relaxed but still was able to draw the audience in through the tone of her voice and the above-mentioned gestures and movements. (She paced a bit back and forth between stories — perhaps excess energy left over from Mary?)

Whatever she is doing in the public eye, Huppert commits to at a very intense level. Thus, seeing her reading some classic fiction was a much simpler but very definite delight.

Note: All the Mary Said What She Said photos are © Lucie Jansch.