Review - The Human Scale: I Am A Camera

They say we've become a society anesthetized from violent images since the days when graphic television news footage from Vietnam helped spark the largest anti-war movement this country had seen up until that time. But the video clips from Gaza shown in Pulitzer-winning journalist Lawrence Wright's solo piece, The Human Scale, are enough to test any playgoer's stomach.

In one clip we see the bloodied, but still recognizable bodies of a family, including several young children, whose day at the shore was cut short by being gunned down. The camera then notices a frightened 12-year-old girl, who suddenly begins running toward a sand dune, only to collapse in hysterics when she sees her father's corpse leaning up against it.

In another, we see riot police under orders to "break their bones" holding a teenage rock-thrower down while another slams his arms with a hammer.

Later, there's an interview segment from a news program where two young children of a suicide bomber - one looks around 5, the other around 8 - seem very pleased that mommy is now in paradise.

Under Oscar Eustis' direction, Wright introduces and comments on these visuals with the even tone of a journalist in a soothingly soft voice that is calming in its emotional distance.

More of a multi-media lecture than a play, Wright's observations are triggered from a 2006 incident where 19-year-old Israeli Sergeant Gilad Shalit was captured by Hamas, who demanded 1,000 Palestinian prisoners (later upped to 1,400) for his safe return; prisoners who, no doubt, will simply rejoin the hostilities once freed. Thus The Human Scale not only analyses the historical, political, social and religious reasons for the centuries-long stalemate of violent exchanges, but places a good deal of blame for the helplessness of The Situation on the different interpretations the two cultures have in evaluating the worth of a Human life.

Though decidedly untheatrical, the presentation is always intriguing. A bit of comic relief is allowed when Wright uses clips from an old black and white Hollywood Biblical epic to explain ancient conflicts, but one moment which seems so absurd that you'd think it was just a bad SNL comedy sketch shows the, perhaps, 10-year-old hostess of children's television program telling viewers how her loveable bunny friend (an adult in a furry costume lying dead on a bed) was martyred in the struggle for freedom and that they should be willing to do the same whenever the moment arrives.

Photo of Lawrence Wright and Sergeant Gilad Shalit (on screens) by Joan Marcus.

Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter.

"Personally, coming out was one of the most important things I've ever done, lifting from my shoulders the millstone of lies that I hadn't even realized I was carrying."
-- Ian McKellen

The grosses are out for the week ending 10/10/2010 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.

Up for the week was: FELA! (17.9%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (14.3%), CHICAGO (13.3%), MARY POPPINS (12.7%), THE LION KING (11.8%), WEST SIDE STORY (10.6%), MEMPHIS (8.0%), ROCK OF AGES (7.7%), LOMBARDI (7.5%), A LIFE IN THE THEATRE (6.3%), BILLY ELLIOT: THE MUSICAL (5.8%), NEXT TO NORMAL (5.5%), MILLION DOLLAR QUARTET (5.4%), THE ADDAMS FAMILY (5.2%), PROMISES, PROMISES (4.5%), A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC (3.5%), IN THE HEIGHTS (2.7%), LA BETE (1.9%), MAMMA MIA! (1.2%), JERSEY BOYS (1.0%), BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON (0.6%),

Down for the week was: AMERICAN IDIOT (-37.8%), MRS. WARREN'S PROFESSION (-17.0%), THE PITMEN PAINTERS (-14.6%), BRIEF ENCOUNTER (-13.3%), LA CAGE AUX FOLLES (-1.5%), TIME STANDS STILL (-1.2%), WICKED (-0.6%),

For decades, the great and not-so-great vocal artists of cabarets and nightclubs have put their own personal spins on the songs of the sumptuous Noel Coward catalogue; changing a tempo here, adjusting a rhythm there. Similarly, adaptor/director Emma Rice makes a marvelous party out of her theatrical riff on Coward's bitter sweet one-act romance, Still Life, by way of the play's 1945 film version, Brief Encounter. The happy result is a stage play where characters occasionally dissolve into glorious black and white screen images or evolve into musicAl Hall entertainers singing commentary on the tense and understated love story.

Set primarily in and around a suburban train station café, Brief Encounter offers the tale of Laura, (Hannah Yelland), a bored wife and mother who, by chance, meets a handsome stranger in a trench coat (Tristan Sturrock), also married. Though they pretend to be simply striking up a friendship, emotions are swept away by a romance filled with crashing waves, chugging locomotives and fizzy champagne toasts (Simon Baker contributes the excellent and detailed sound design).

What gives the production its interesting kick is that Rice keeps the central characters in an intimate world where visuals speak louder than words (dialogue is at a minimum) while they're surrounded by broader characters played with spotlight-hogging pizzazz as they occasionally halt the proceedings to sing a ditty or two like "Mad About The Boy," "Any Little Fish" or "A Room With a View." With her hip-swiveling allure, Annette McLaughlin threatens to walk away with the show as the frisky manager of the café enjoying madcap hijinks with the genial stationmaster (Joseph Alessi), while the perky Dorothy Atkinson and the gangly Gabriel Ebert shyly experience youthful attraction.

Proving once more that Noel Coward wrote sexier scenes for clothed people that most playwrights could with naked ones, the evening's steamy highlight comes in a moment where Yelland and Sturrock, alone together at last, finally reach the "will we or won't we" point. With the company singing Stu Barker's soft ukulele arrangement of "Go Slow, Johnny" in the background, the tension is elegantly unbearable.

While morals of the day (at least in film entertainment) make the ending more than obvious (though no less enchanting in Rice's captivating staging) those who are wiping their tears by curtain call can have a good cheer-up from the company's rousing little post-show musical performance held across from the theatre's bar. Plan to stay an extra twenty minutes. You'll won't want to leave.

Photos by Joan Marcus: Top: Hannah Yelland and Tristan Sturrock; Bottom: Annette McLaughlin and Joseph Alessi.

Click here to follow Michael Dale on Twitter.