COMFORTS OF HOME THEATRE
Netflix, Crave can be a balm if you miss the stage
As we hunker down enduring a medieval-style quarantine, it’s at least something of a blessing that 21st-century technology means home entertainment has never been so ubiquitous. But if you’re one of those people whose life, living and mental well-being depends on live theatre, you’re perhaps starting to feel in need of a little spiritual succour after bingeing on all those series. Here, then, is a guide to what two of the main streaming services have to offer in the way of theatre-adjacent content.
NETFLIX
FROST/NIXON
Peter Morgan’s 2006 play was a fascinating portrayal of the almost gladiatorial clash between British TV personality David Frost and the disgraced, post-watergate Nixon. Ron Howard’s 2008 film version reunited the leads from the stage production, Michael Sheen playing Frost and Frank Langella as Nixon. It’s a valuable celluloid record of Langella’s superb, Tony Award-winning performance and a timely exploration of a morally bankrupt POTUS doing his dark damnedest to control the media narrative.
AMERICAN SON
Director Kenny Leon gathered together the cast from his Broadway
production of Christopher Demos-brown’s intense Black Lives Matter drama for this Netflix original. It’s about a couple stuck in a police station awaiting news of their missing mixed-race son, who may have been involved in an altercation with police during a routine traffic stop. The dialogue is overwrought and at times absurdly on-the-nose, as if cut-and-pasted from newspaper editorials on each side of the political divide. But it’s instructive of how Broadway sometimes engages with the burning issues of the day, and Kerry Washington certainly gives it her all as the anguished mother.
MAMMA MIA!
No need to feel guilty for craving frothy, feel-good entertainment right now, and it doesn’t come much frothier than this. Phyllida Lloyd’s screen adaptation of Catherine Johnson’s Broadway smash features scores of ABBA songs “sung” by the likes of Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan and Colin Firth. The sun-soaked scenery of its idyllic Greek island setting helps lift the mood, as long as you don’t spend too much time brooding over the contrast with your four walls. If you caught the live show at Place des Arts a few years back, or at Théâtre St-denis last summer, you’ll know that initial resistance to its weapons-grade optimism quickly proves futile.
UNA
David Harrower’s gruelling two-hander Blackbird is a kind of post-lolita morality play about a middle manager being confronted by the woman he abused
when she was a preteen. A big hit worldwide, it played in Montreal in a 2013 production at Espace 4001 directed by Harry Standjofski, and in a 2009 francophone production at Théâtre du Nouveau Monde. Harrower’s screenplay alters the title, opens up the story from its original setting in a drab factory office and adds a couple of subplots. The claustrophobic, ticking-time-bomb power of the original is thus dissipated, but this remains an effective, troubling story, thanks largely to performances from Rooney Mara and Ben Mendelsohn.
SHREK: THE MUSICAL
A slightly different offering in that this isn’t an adaptation of a film, but a filmed Broadway adaptation of a film. (Keeping up?) Brian d’arcy James, one of the crusading journalists in Spotlight, plays the bad-tempered ogre, but as fine as he is, the show is stolen by Christopher Sieber as the Napoleon-size Lord Farquaad. (Sieber plays the part on his knees, with pretend legs sewn onto his pants.) David Lindsay-abaire, the Pulitzer-winning writer behind Good People and Rabbit Hole, wrote the book and lyrics, while the score is from Jeanine Tesori, the Tony-winning composer of Fun Home (a production of which has unfortunately been cancelled by Théâtre Jean-duceppe).
CRAVE
THE NORMAL HEART
One of many 1980s dramas that directly addressed the growing AIDS crisis, Larry Kramer’s play was an unapologetically enraged condemnation of government inaction and homophobia, as well as a tragic and heartbreaking love story. This superbly acted 2014 television version features a powerhouse performance from Mark Ruffalo, no doubt channelling his own zeal for political activism. Worth watching as well is Mike Nichols’s similarly themed but stylistically different version of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, also available on Crave.
ROMEO
+ JULIET
There are surprisingly few Shakespeare adaptations available on the major streaming services, but the unfading popularity of Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film — not to mention the (in hindsight) prestige casting of Leonardo Dicaprio and Claire Danes — has earned it a slot on Crave. Repercussion Theatre’s 2018 production clearly owed a debt to Luhrmann’s fresh, sassy approach, as did Serge Denoncourt’s 2016 TNM production, with its drag diva-like Mercutio. If you’re in need of more Shakespeare, try Kenneth Branagh’s film of As You Like It, as well as his portrayal of the man himself in All Is True, both of which are available on Crave.
KILLER JOE
William Friedkin had already adapted Tracy Letts’s play Bug for the big screen before turning to the playwright’s blistering noir thriller Killer Joe in 2011. Aptly enough for the legendary director of The Exorcist, the title character is a demonic hit man, memorably played by Matthew Mcconaughey. It also features a terrific performance from the massively underrated Gina Gershon as the scheming stepmom who thinks she’s one step ahead of the game. Be warned: a climactic moment with a piece of fried chicken showed Friedkin had lost none of his power to shock, nor to disgust.
INCENDIES
Wajdi Mouawad’s remarkable modern Greek tragedy, which ranges from an unnamed Middle Eastern country to Montreal, made for a riveting cinematic treatment. This was surprising, given the distinctively theatrical nature of the original. Thankfully, Denis Villeneuve was at the helm — the 2010 adaptation hastened his development as a Hollywood heavy hitter — and the result is a powerful, visually striking film which just about retains the credibility of the play’s Oedipal twists and turns.
ANTIGONE
More Montreal-based Greek tragedy, from director Sophie Deraspe, with this persuasive 2019 updating of Sophocles’s play to the world of displaced refugees and student protests. Antigone, played by Nahéma Ricci, is a young immigrant whose brothers find themselves in a deadly confrontation with police. (Deliberate echoes of the Fredy Villanueva case here.) As in the play, family commitment clashes with unyielding civic law, with Deraspe using a range of stylistic and musical flourishes to blow the dust off the original and make it appealing for a new generation of viewers.