Review: Tristan & Yseult @ Berkeley Rep

I've been wanting to write about this play for a while, and now that I've gone back to see it a second time, I think it's about time to put my love for it into words. It's a rare treat to see a live theater piece twice, and it usually requires repeating the experience pretty soon, before the show leaves town. But with Tristan & Yseult - or with any show by Kneehigh Theater, for that matter - there's so much richness to the production and so much happening on stage that the second time was as fresh as the first.

Actually, this particular play seems to invite you to return. It's based, after all, on a very old and very often retold story. The mythic, doomed love of the two main characters has been repeated in hundreds of different ways and forms, and Kneehigh's production acknowledges that while putting its own twist on the tale.

First, a little background: Kneehigh is a theater company based in Cornwall. Many of the actors have worked together for many years, and all of them are insanely talented. They sing, dance, play instruments, do acrobatics - oh, and act. During rehearsals, the entire company lives and works in a set of isolated barns in Cornwall, and their total unity and playfulness together onstage shows how important that practice is. Finally, they aim to tell stories from or about Cornwall itself, whether contemporary or ancient.

In the case of Tristan & Yseult, Kneehigh blends the old with the new. One character, King Mark, speaks in rhyming verse - a nod to the old tale - while the others speak normally. The production is suffused with music, including extracts from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, original music that hearkens back to medieval ballads, and pop hits about unrequited love from only a few decades ago.

Most of the songs are (flawlessly) delivered by a live band called the Club of the Unloved. The Unloved also become the chorus of the show, commenting on the action, and sometimes even stepping into the raised, circular platform in the middle of the stage to inform or encourage the central characters at crucial moments. The chorus could be a reference to another tradition of ancient storytelling - Greek drama - except that, over the course of the show, they become as sympathetic and individuated as the protagonists. With this modernist twist, Kneehigh's production turns our attention to the average, unremarkable characters. The Unloved, the show asserts, deserve to tell their story as much as the lovers Tristan and Yseult. Slowly, characters from the central story join the chorus - King Mark, who loves Yseult; the maid, Brangian, who loves King Mark; and others who reveal the tragic ripple effects of the central love story.

The production presents a very complex and sophisticated version of an old tale, but its style is often charmingly simple and transparent. There are no set changes, and the architecture of the set is plain to see: a central circle that draws our attention to the dichotomy between beloved heroes and unloved onlookers, a mast-like pole that evokes Tristan's sea voyage, a platform for the band, and a raised walkway for dramatic entrances and exits. In one scene, the chorus members transform the setting into a forest simply by donning some outrageous fern hats and manning a collection of dove hand puppets that flap around the stage.

Allowing us to see the mechanics of theatrical storytelling is one of Kneehigh's trademarks. Although the stage is constantly busy and the choreography complex, no element is extraneous. They never dumb things down or smooth things over for the audience. Instead, they present us with a delightful jumble of song, dance, and poetry, and of tragedy and comedy - just enough to spark our own imaginations - and allow us to fill in the rest. In this play in particular, which celebrates the average and the unloved, it is easy to slip completely into the world of the production, supplying emotions from our own experiences of love, or its lack. So, in substance and style, Tristan & Yseult is a remarkably accessible production for any kind of modern audience, though, at the same time, it recalls the particular history and heritage of Cornwall through an ancient tale.

May Things

Favorite food:

Summer fruit and vegetables! I've been stubbornly eating mediocre, early berries for months now, but just this week the blueberries acquired that shocking sweet kick that means summer is actually here. It feels so great to be eating more things raw, more cucumbers, fruit, bell peppers, lettuce. I even discovered a new kind of lettuce that I'd never had before (me, a Californian!) - lamb's lettuce, a really delicate little baby green.


Favorite book(s):

This month I've been re-reading all of David Mitchell's books and also discovering contemporary novels that are part of the same orbit. Books with multiple storylines, global awareness, and certain recurring themes, including Don DeLillo's Cosmopolis and Michael Cunningham's Specimen Days. Both were very interesting, although not some of my favorite novels. Most interesting has been to really dive into a pocket of contemporary literature and see novelists overlapping so much. You really can see that they're writing about the same world, breathing in the same air, as it were, but producing different words on the outbreath. The sense of cities as places where people and events collide like molecules (or is it atoms? I'm forgetting my science), the idea of non-corporeal life forms floating around us, the exploration of where our current, globalized, mechanized, capitalized world might take us in the future - all keep emerging from these different novels, so much that they're starting to blur in my mind. Suddenly reading novels seems less like an escape from the world and more like another, slant way into it.


Favorite movie:

 I actually haven't been watching much of anything, which is unusual for me. I've been so busy seeing shows at the local arts festival and so often arriving home just in time to collapse into bed, that I haven't even finished re-watching Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which I got half-way through about two weeks ago...
I did see Gatsby, which I may write a review of. We'll see. I enjoyed it, but it doesn't qualify as a favorite.


Favorite fashion:

I've tentatively decided to grow out my hair again, and I've been experimenting with braids as a way to keep slightly awkward-length hair out of my face. And I'm looking forward to the day when I can do fancy stuff with braids, like wrapping them around my head. It's nice to play with hair now that it's not tucked under a hat or scarf most of the time, although I have been thinking about making or finding a light, crocheted maybe, summery, slouchy hat. That would mean mastering the art of knitting hats.


Favorite music:

I discovered two new bands, who played a show during the festival I've been going to. They are Emily Portman, who plays traditional and original songs based on fairy tale and myth, and Sam Lee & Friends, who play traditional songs from the British Isles, but with very unique and exciting arrangements for an international assortment of instruments. They both played fantastic concerts in an beautiful old church, and their music just glowed (if that's the right word). It was such a treat to hear an old Scottish ballad, for example, sung to the accompaniment of a tabla, a violin, a cello, and a horn - who would've thunk? And the best part about it was seeing how old treasures like these songs or the myths Portman's songs are based on, can be turned to such new and wonderful forms without losing any of their original power.


Favorite experience:

The past two weeks have brought their fair share of memorable, magical experiences with all the circus and music shows I've seen. Impossible to put down in words, of course, but wonderful nonetheless. Great live performance can really transport you, and I love that. I'm grateful that festivals like this one make it possible to experience so much transportation and inspiration without traveling far or spending much. This definitely inspires me to pursue the idea of working for arts festivals, making them happen. They're such great experiences.

A sunny day in Oxford and reflections of the country and the city

 Hello again. It is now my 5th day in the UK, and today I come to you bearing pictures. The weather since I arrived has been absolutely glorious (although too hot if you go out past noon), but knowing it won't last, I decided to take my camera out with me today and capture the sunshine. 

I spent most of the morning at Christ Church Meadows, which is a beautiful expanse of lawns and meadows threaded through by the rivers Charwell and Isis (Charwell is pronounced Cherwell, unless it's actually called Cherwell and pronounced Charwell....I can't remember). I've gone walking there several mornings this week, and it's certainly one of my favorite bits of Oxford so far. There aren't too many people, especially if you go early. The tourists are all too busy lining up to take a tour of Christ Church college, so that leaves you with a few joggers, absorbed in their own exercise, the one homeless guy who stands at the same point of the river bank every morning with his radio and bids you a very polite "Good morning, miss," and a handful of fellow contemplators of nature. Oh, and the cows and the ducks. I ran across this little family sunning themselves on the bank this morning.

Most of the ducks are either adults or gangly adolescents at this stage, but these ones are still quite cute, I think.

Once you get down to the Isis, the larger river, there are swans, too.

 

This is how I spent my morning, then:

A book and a pastry by a beautiful river - I couldn't ask for more. I took refuge from the sun on a shady bench and read for an hour or so, until I got the urge to start walking again.

The more I travel, the more I think I'm a strange kind of country girl. I love so dearly some of the trappings of the city - theater and opera, nice clothes, gourmet food, good public transportation, beautiful architecture - and I'm very much a fan of creature comforts like running water and a comfy bed. I hate bugs and creepy-crawlies, and if I'm out in the sun too long my skin burns and my feet swell.

And yet, the contrast in my feelings between the moment I was hustling along the busy street on my way to Christ Church this morning and the moment I stepped off that street, through the college gates, and onto the path leading into the meadow was very strong and in favor of the meadow, not the street. There's a whole other side of the city that I dislike - the throngs of people, the constant humming and rumbling noises and the sharp sounds of cars backfiring or people yelling that always startle me out of my skin, the fumes and stinks, the never-ending barrage of obstacles, from street crossings to people begging you for money. The city, to me, is like an endless series of difficult choices: where should I step? With whom should I make eye-contact? On which side of the street should I walk? At which café should I buy my lunch? What should I buy for lunch? Is this a good neighborhood to be walking in? Is that car going to stop for me or not?

What I prefer is to be walking along a single dirt path, preferably even along a natural path, like the bank of a river, with my picnic already packed and only one book in my bag to read, with no need to talk to any one I meet unless I feel like bidding them good morning, and no buildings or traffic hemming me in and forcing me into somebody else's path. My mind roams so much more freely when my feet walk freely.

I'm not saying the country is a place of perfect peace. Actually, I found it harder to sit and read my book on my little shady bench today than I did a few days ago in the café at Blackwell's bookstore. There were little flies and bugs to be flicked off my arm or my foot and pigeons taking off suddenly, making the branches rattle overhead, and even the occasional walker going by. But the bugs were small and not very gross, the pigeons were pretty to see flying, and the walkers went calmly on their way without either of us disturbing the other.

The thing is that more and more, it seems, the things I like about the city - the food, the arts - are moving out to the country. In the UK, there's a whole slew of 'gastro-pubs,' where they serve haute cuisine in tiny little country towns. And traveling theater companies sometimes land in the darnedest of places. And the fact is that I don't take advantage of half the cultural offerings a given city has to offer, because more often than not the energy it would take to go out and take the harrowing journey to get where I'm going, outweighs the pleasure of the event itself.

When I was in Paris, I spent entire days cooped up in my tiny room because the thought of striking out on the streets was far too tiring. But of course I don't want to spend my life staying in. More and more, recently, I've been feeling a little stifled indoors. Maybe the last few years of small dorm rooms are finally catching up to me. Or maybe this summer, during which I got to visit Yosemite and camp along the north coast and hike in the local hills a fair amount, has rekindled an outdoorsy feeling in me.

I think what I'd really like is to have a grand country house with plenty of space indoors and outdoors and a driver to take me to the station when I wanted to go into town and enough room to host friends and invite musicians and writers and other interesting people to stay and a stage on the grounds where traveling theater companies could put on plays and a beautiful kitchen where I could cook up my own delicious dinners and a great big workshop space to accomplish all the creative projects that my daily walks around the countryside would inspire.

Alas, it's not that simple, is it?

Part of my admiration of nature today included this tree, which is in the part of the Christ Church gardens that's off limits to visitors, but which you can see through a little side gate. I'm not sure I've managed to convey it in this photo, but it's the most magnificent tree. It grows up as tall as the main building, which is pretty tall and impressive itself, and I wish I could have gone and stood under it to look up at its branches from below - I think it would have been beautiful.

I also noted this tree, which peeks over the wall of some college I don't know the name of, right near the Radcliffe Camera. I took a picture of it when I was last in Oxford, two years ago, which is below.

As you can see, it was a little less bright and sunny that day. I was there in October, so that's understandable. But I just love the gold-green tint of its leaves and the way it reaches up over the roof. Either it's planted on a raised terrace, or it's very very tall.








So, this has been quite a rambling post.

I did promise yesterday a bit about the play I saw last night, which was the Globe's touring production of Hamlet. To be brief, it was an excellent production, very clean and clear and engrossing. The group was small, and most actors played a few parts and did so very well. The Hamlet was actually a foreigner, possibly a true Dane, which added to his seeming an outsider and a loner. All the actors either played instruments or sang, and the show began and ended with rousing, period music which gave it all a very old-theater, carnavalesque feeling that I liked a lot. The play within a play was particularly well done, with some clever curtain movements and a really fantastic rendition of the prologue/dumb show. Here's a quick picture of the stage that I snapped today on my way past - can't see it very well, but my camera battery was dying and that's the best I could do.