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Beate Hein Bennett
Herbert von Karajan (1908-1989) and Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) may be two of the most renowned conductors of the 20th century. Both certainly were the most visible in the classical orchestra world and perhaps the most controversial in terms of their personal style and reputation. In 1988 the two met accidentally in Vienna in the Blaue Bar [Blue Bar] of the Hotel Sacher before Karajan’s performance with the Berlin Philharmonic in Vienna and Bernstein receiving an award from the City of Vienna. That meeting proved to be their last. The playwright Peter Danish engages the two aged maestros in an agonistic verbal joust in which much about their artistic and personal lives and philosophies is revealed. In a Program Note, the playwright tells that he learnt about that meeting from the waiter at the Hotel Sacher who had served them, and as he “sat at their spot, opened his laptop, [he] imagined their conversation.” The playwright further mentions that the present production’s director Gil Mehmert “envisioned the play as an impressionist fantasy and proposed casting two female actors in the lead roles…and this vision unlocked the play’s emotional core… [as] the female actors’ performances offered a fresh, deeply nuanced perspective on the characters’ internal conflicts.“ Given the complicated personalities of von Karajan and Bernstein, this distancing effect enhanced the possibilities of exploring and revealing poetically the deeper layers of their psyches, of showing how public mask and private face exist in an interstitial space. The waiter Michael is the ultimate discreet but attentive professional waiter who adds the third voice to the duo; his periodic entrances break the tension and allow for a change of tone and topic. Music being the heartbeat of the script and the production—after all, music consumed the lives of the two conductors—it accompanies the ‘crescendo and decrescendo’ of their existence, the ‘allegro’ and ‘adagio’ of their youthful yearnings, and the ‘largo’ and ‘andante ma non troppo’ of their present age. The biographies of both musical geniuses are widely publicized in books, articles, and now, of course, on the internet. Many of their performances can be followed on Youtube. Therefore I focus here on the production and performance values of “Last Call.” Director Gil Mehmert together with scenic designer Chris Barreca, and lighting designer Michael Grundner have created on the wide stage space of New World Stages, Theatre 5 the somewhat otherworldly modern atmosphere of the Blaue Bar—there is none of the ornate traditional Hotel Sacher—it is a neutral open space where this imagined ‘agon’ duet can unfold, where the characters have enough space to engage in close and distant combat. Gil Mehmert’s spatially generous direction allows the actors to play the contrasts in personality and their different physical conditions to the fullest through movement, gesture, and vocal tone as the emotions, moods, and mental processes shift internally and externally. Lucca Züchner (Herbert von Karajan) is the first character on stage, seated at a small café table silently conducting while engrossed in the score of the (audible) Brahms First Symphony. Ms. Züchner’s Karajan can be instantly recognized, not only from the coiffed hairstyle and turtleneck sweater under the dark suit, but also from the forceful conducting—Ms. Züchner obviously studied the maestro’s style. Throughout her performance she displays with great gusto the magisterial qualities as well as his cutting humor with which Karajan fends off the personal attacks he received as a German suspected of Nazi collusion, or the rumor of being disliked by many orchestras he conducted. She does not impersonate but she embodies the complex psychic traumas that haunted this man and against which he presented the mask of the elegant hyper-disciplined artist. Helen Schneider, the renowned actor on both sides of the Atlantic, portrays Leonard Bernstein, the American Wunderkind. His musical career included conducting many of the top orchestras throughout the world and being the composer, not only of “Westside Story” but also of symphonic works. The question of what constitutes true creativity becomes at some point the subject of a contentious discussion: is it conducting, i.e. interpreting a score, or composing a score? When Leonard Bernstein enters the Blaue Bar, he is unpleasantly surprised to find Karajan there. However, Ms. Schneider’s Bernstein settles down on a barstool at the bar (on the other side of the stage) being served by the waiter Michael a large glass of Ballantine whisky and a cigarette. As Karajan and Bernstein acknowledge each other with mutual dismay, they begin darting barbs at each other, first bantering about annoying physical degradations but gradually probing deeper into each other, as they uncover the fissures in their respective shells. The contrast between Bernstein and Karajan is articulated by the two actors in sharply delineated physical portrayals with Schneider embodying Bernstein’s relaxed American expansive demeanor and softer vocal tone versus Züchner’s Karajan who suppresses his physical decrepitude with grand arm gestures and a sharp tone of voice—she often speaks in German. (English super titles are projected on the back wall.) Both actors sustain their personality contrast in tone and movement but with subtle gradations as they delve deeper under each protective mask. Victor Petersen plays the waiter Michael at the Blaue Bar. He embodies the Viennese “Ober” par excellence: discreet, obliging, efficient, friendly, familiar with regular guests but never overly so. He knows his place and his position but, being on the staff of the deluxe Hotel Sacher, he has met and served his share of celebrated artists. Michael is also a music lover—with actor Victor Petersen, he is more than just a music lover, he becomes part of the musical texture beyond what the playwright envisioned in the script. (I do not want to divulge a fantastic moment of transformation on stage.) Victor Petersen’s Michael becomes an integral functional character in the performance who transforms the space at given moments to attain an extended ambience of reality. He does this with efficiency and a superb sense of presence. As much of the present public and political discourse agonizes over gender identity, I have found this production profoundly moving in that it confirms what the ancient world knew, what Shakespeare’s world knew, and what modern biology knows: gender is not a fixed single characteristic, clearly delineated in a person, but ultimately it is a construct of x and y chromosomes that manifest in fluid physical and psychological configurations. The two conductors Leonard Bernstein and Herbert von Karajan themselves in their private lives were not exactly binary though in their public personas, they belonged to the male world of conductors given the artistic and social strictures of the time. “Last Call” demonstrates an artistically superb exposition of theatrical character “trans-gendering” that contributes a positive argument for exploring a subject that has become socially provocative and divisive. |
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