People Are Talking: UMS presents Ryoji Ikeda’s...
Posted: 10/31/14
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PERFORMANCES & EVENTS
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All comments by Michael Betzold
People are Talking: UMS presents John Malkovich in The Infernal Comedy at Hill Auditorium [plus AUDIO]:
Sally, the audience also applauded the conductor when he came on stage. And the musicians. And the singers. So what was inappropriate about applauding the person who was the main reason many people came?
I would say that yes, Malkovich’s “celebrity status with a dark side” was perfect for the part. I believe that hooking in the audience and then offending it later was an integral part of the concept.
I found the production didn’t quite live up to my expectations, which were very, very high. I sensed Malkovich was holding back, as if afraid to thoroughly unleash his acting skills on the much less theatrically accomplished people sharing the stage with him. And the fact that he is such a name brand–which I expected would work for him–worked against him. I wonder how this would work better with another actor, or if it depends too much on casting a celebrity already well-associated with his dark side. And I was absolutely furious with the audience for applauding his first appearance on stage. Why does a famous person walking on stage unhinge people like this?
"by sally mitani
People are Talking: UMS presents John Malkovich in The Infernal Comedy at Hill Auditorium [plus AUDIO]:
Proving once again that Ann Arbor is at least in part a very provincial Midwestern town that prefers “safe” pseudo-experimentation yet somehow is convinced that it is the prestigious cultural equal of smug coastal snobbery. ..
From some of the better comments here, I now realized I didn’t even grasp the full scope of this satirical tour de force. I suspect what really appalled the mainstreamers was when Malkovich boldly went into the audience to criticize their sex lives–having failed to see that he was IN CHARACTER as a charming psychopath.
Killer stuff.
“We came up with the concept that this piece was a dare between two narcissists to see if an intellectual crowd could be fooled or proved to be pseudo.”
Oh now that’s original. And cynical.
I think Americans have lost the ability to know what black humor is. If you don’t like it, fine. But you shouldn’t turn around and use the stereotypical tactic of dumping on the “intellectual crowd.” What a tired gesture, blaming it on those intellectuals. There also is no such thing as an inappropriate laugh. It’s appropriate to someone, at a moment they deem appropriate. Black humor is a slippery beast that some get, and some don’t. It was clear to me that the creators were using Unterweger to explore that grey area between funny and not, true and false, refined and vulgar, structured and unstructured, scripted and improvised. If you look carefully, all the contrasts are in place.
I also believe that anyone who walks out of a performance forfeits the ability to critique the work as a whole.
"by Ryan Standfest
People are Talking: UMS presents John Malkovich in The Infernal Comedy at Hill Auditorium [plus AUDIO]:
As ignorant as I am about opera, it was Malkovich who drew me to the event, and I wasn’t disappointed; he was brilliant. The fact that his performance made some narrow-minded members of the audience uncomfortable shows how well he succeeded in oozing the psychopathic charm of a successful criminal. The concept of having the opera singers become actresses in his drama was compelling, but while I understand the artistic intent, what didn’t work for me was importing snatches of unrelated operas into Unterberger’s story. An original opera, or at least a few original pieces, would have made the production sparkle. Or were the selections fitting and trenchant? I would like to hear comments from others who know the operas. And who was responsible for the mangled English in the superscript translations — “across this waves I will encore his shade to the opposed shore”?