Review and commentary on the newest version of the Ray Bradbury play F451 by Joyce Schwarz, blogging at www.hollywood2020.blogs.com:
“Welcome to Fahrenheit 452” says director Alan Hubbs as a prelude to the curtain rising on the newest adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s famous play. In the program under ‘director’s notes, Hubbs writes, “With recent major productions of F451 in New York City and Moscow, and the novel’s inclusion at the Library of Alexandria, it is perhaps the right time to answer an oft asked question: “What is F451 about? Answer: “It is about two hours plus intermission. (P.S. Regardless what you remember from the Cliff Notes, F451 is not about censorship!). Note: This new production produced by Ray Bradbury and Racquel Lehrman, Theatre Planners runs through June 28 at the Fremont Centre Theatre in South Pasadena
The time is the future, the place is a city like none we have ever known – or have we? Hubb’s version of this classic depicts a mediascape of sound, video and inner fury. The key F451 characters are present – Fireman Montag and Fire Chief Beatty and of course Mildred and Clarisse but this production evolves from an alternate universe where the Media portrays the protagonist. Pixilated shadows of what people once were, dot this inverse snow globe of a world gone so wrong. Center-stage David Polcyn as Montag is wound as tight as a videotape never played. During the production, he begins to unspool to become real, not reel!
As an audience member, part of me wanted Dave to break that fourth wall and yell “I’m Mad As Hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” but director Hubbs taut approach denies us that scream of consciousness and instead brilliantly ploys at us by gnawing at our own media addictions that frustrates and entices the audience into this fantastical screen-age.
Clarisse played by Jessica D. Stone is an errant fairy godchild to Montag and shares her wings of wonder to a world beyond, where books are read not burned. Her Tinkerbelle innocence is countered by the cunning of a cougar as she plays the maverick wild child whose house is full of lights not just neon reflections. Polcyn’s Montag is haunting with his steady rhythm of unrest. His loveless house and yearning for family of flesh and blood is too achingly familiar to many of us whose life is filled with cyber pals and Facebook friends we never see in person.
Chief Beatty portrayed by Michael Prichard could be the voice of reason but masterfully plays a rewind of ‘ the man’ we all cow-tow to sometime in our own lives before we find our way or veer back onto our own rightful paths. Beatty knows so much yet shares so little, he passive- aggressively demands us to ask how high as we jump, when we really want to leap past his static Pritchard skillfully uses subtle variations in his tones and gestures to hint at Beatty’s underbelly of fanaticism gone awry.
Meaghan Boeing’s Mildred says little, but strongly reflects the desire to be special that mesmorizes the masses into being best ‘pals’ with late night talk show hosts and share snacks with at 3 p.m. each day as Oprah arrives in our living rooms. When will your 15 minutes of fame finally arrive? Why can’t you be the star, not the audience? Hubbs “Family Theatre’ episodes projected on big screen augment a sparse but stunning set that upstages even Youtube ‘vidiots‘ by giving each Mildred and Tom and Dick and Mary a role to play that’s safe but all too dangerously same-old.
And the books, of course the books, isn’t that what we came to see walk among us—to be alive, to utter the words of wisdom we all yearn to remember, to know and to say...in this production they arrive so late we feel the media and the message have mashed us up to smithereens of what we once were or could have been. But they are there and so is Ray Bradbury with a Fahrenheit 451 that smolders rather than enflames. It left me, excuse the pun, bewitched, bothered and bewildered – but isn’t that what the theatre does best. And it made me proud that I’m writing a real hard cover book that will be out this fall; a book with pages that turn and paper you can feel
BUT ..It made more aware than ever about two inane cyber facts I came across recently-- copper melts at Fahrenheit 1981.4 and Amazon’s ebook reader is named Kindle. So which book do you want to be?
Joyce Schwarz is an author and new media strategist who has launched 75 venture funded companies with her consulting firm JCOM located in Marina Del Rey, She wrote or co-wrote and edited some of the earliest mass-market books on multimedia beginning in 1991 with the NAB Book "Multimedia 2000". She has written more than 200 articles on next-gen media and entertainment. And yes, she watches Oprah almost daily and has more than 600 friends on Facebook but she's also writing a real book for Harper Collins Publishing, Collins Design already up for pre-sale on Amazon.com for fall, 2008 publication. You can reach her via email (of course) via [email protected].
Comments