Se as possíveis definições acadêmicas de arte variam de acordo com o contexto cultural e o momento histórico, o trabalho artístico, por outro lado, pode ter um caráter fora da lógica e torna-se, muitas vezes, universal e atemporal. Qual o segredo do artista capaz de capturar e encantar pessoas atravessando tempos? O psicanalista argentino J.-D. Nasio acredita que a obra de arte produz efeitos importantes: hipnotiza quem as contempla, ao mesmo tempo que suscita estado similar de paixão que levou o artista a concebê-la. Trata-se também de uma forma de comunicação e, assim, traz ao espectador a oportunidade de novas revelações. Por atingir cada um de forma singular, permite infinitas respostas diante de um mesmo estímulo. Também pode despertar diferentes motivações e sentimentos para o mesmo observador. “A obra de arte adormece a nossa consciência e permite o despertar de nossos impulsos criadores”, escreve. Segundo o autor, a arte seria uma projeção imperiosa de um sentimento, de uma ideia ou de uma imagem que, uma vez exteriorizados, se cristaliza numa forma perceptível e sugestiva, isto é, numa forma que faz fantasiar e vibrar quem a capta.
Em respeito a essa espécie de transgressão de uma linguagem meramente conceitual, o autor de 9 lições sobre arte e psicanálise evita um texto explicativo ao convidar o leitor a, previamente, pesquisar e apreciar na internet as obras a serem comentadas. Como livre-pensador faz considerações, hipóteses analíticas, associando o conteúdo das produções a algumas experiências particulares na história de cada artista citado. É esta livre-associação que tece o livro.
Para fundamentá-lo, Nasio articula as diferentes manifestações artísticas e seus autores, recorrendo a um importante mecanismo de defesa – apresentado por Freud e desenvolvido também por Lacan –, capaz de transformar em produção criativa as dores e sofrimentos humanos: a sublimação. Trata-se de uma ação psíquica frutífera, à medida que parte de uma busca narcísica em direção a uma solução capaz de estimular efeitos psíquicos saudáveis frente às angústias pessoais.
O destino de uma pulsão, quando sublimada, não tem finalidade utilitária ou decorativa e traz um impacto de caráter inédito e intrigante. Por essa razão, a ligação direta entre sublimação e transmissão é inevitável. Basta o observador se deixar penetrar e ser fecundado pela força que emana da obra.
Logo de início, Nasio faz referência a Maria Callas. Para ilustrar as reflexões, traz à luz a infância turbulenta da cantora de voz intensa e contagiante, fala da relação da artista com a mãe e levanta a questão sobre a importância da música e da expressão como a busca de uma solução para suas marcas e angústias. Mais feliz como cantora do que como mulher, Callas costumava dizer: “Tudo que é necessário saber sobre mim está na música”. O mistério de sua voz não estava tanto em sua fonte, mas na emoção que atingia a todos.
Ao transcrever uma palestra proferida sobre o pintor suíço Felix Valloton no Grand Palais, o autor propõe um mergulho imaginário em seu inconsciente para buscar entender sua doença, fonte de sua paixão criadora. Observa nos trabalhos a presença da amargura como a força de seu talento. Como se condenado à solidão, pinta nas telas o que não consegue realizar na vida.
Ao falar de Francis Bacon, lembra seu encantamento pelo trabalho de Diego Velasquez, especialmente por Retrato do Papa Inocêncio X. Numa espécie de fixação obstinada pelo ídolo, Bacon buscava copiar apaixonadamente sua perfeição. E foi esta a dinâmica que pôde tê-lo conduzido a se tornar um dos pintores originais e perturbadores da era moderna.
Sobre a dança, Nasio traz observações feitas num espetáculo de ballet. Relaciona os sacrifícios disciplinares que sobrecarregam o bailarino e acabam por transformar seu corpo em expressão artística pura. Um sofrimento que condensa o gesto sublime de seus movimentos.
Também se refere a Picasso, concentrando-se especialmente no quadro A menina com a pomba e traz um caso clínico, propondo um paralelo entre a dor expressa no olhar triste da menina do quadro e a melancolia de uma paciente que conviveu com a tela em sua casa de infância.
A respeito do prazer de observar imagens eróticas, apresenta o mundo mental como a zona erógena primordial que permite prolongar na imaginação a imagem que nos excita. Com um texto acessível e reflexões independentes, Nasio traz a aproximação entre a arte e a psicanálise, num diálogo que pode ser infinito. A linguagem artística manifesta e exterioriza o universo subjetivo, ânsias e conflitos de forma singular, num percurso de sutilezas psíquicas para os quais a lógica racional parece sempre.
9 lições sobre arte e psicanálise. J.-D. Nasio. Zahar, 2017. 160 págs. R$ 44,90.
ERANE PALADINO é psicóloga e psicanalista, mestre em psicologia clínica, professora do Instituto Sedes Sapientiae.
Esta matéria foi publicada originalmente na edição de julho de Mente e Cérebro, disponível em:
Minha principal impressão sobre "A Comédia Humana" de Balzac é que consiste em um belo e detalhado panorama da vida na sociedade francesa do século 19. Acho incrível a quantidade de livros que o autor escreveu, e a abrangência e a pormenorização das suas caracterizações de personagens, ambientes e conflitos. :-)
Volume 1: Estudos de costumes (cenas da vida privada) : Ao "Chat-Qui-Pelote", O Baile de Sceaux, Memórias de duas jovens esposas, A Bolsa, Modesta Mignon - Belo e detalhado panorama da vida na sociedade francesa do século 19.
Volume 2: Estudos de costumes (Cenas da vida privada) : Uma Estréia na vida, Alberto Savarus, A Vendeta - Uma Dupla família, A Paz conjugal - A Senhora Firmiani, Estudo de mulher, A Falsa amante, Uma Filha de Eva - "Uma Estreia na Vida" é um dos meus livros preferidos da vastíssima Comédia Humana de Balzac. Tem um humor elegante, e personagens encantadores. :)
Volume 3: Estudos de costumes (Cenas da vida privada) : A Mensagem, O Romeiral, A Mulher abandonada, Honorina, Beatriz, Gobseck, A Mulher de trinta anos - "Gobseck", o avarento, é um dos meus livros preferidos da vastíssima Comédia Humana de Balzac. A caracterização do personagem é encantadora do início ao fim da narrativa. O livro "A Mulher de Trinta Anos" talvez seja o mais conhecido de Balzac. Tem quatro partes. Gostei muito da segunda e da última. :)
Volume 4: Estudos de costumes (Cenas da vida privada) : O Pai Goriot, O Coronel Chabert, A Missa do Ateu, A Interdição, O Contrato de casamento, Outro estudo de mulher - "O Pai Goriot", o Rei Lear, é um dos grandes livros da vastíssima Comédia Humana de Balzac, e também um dos meus preferidos. Fiquei encantada com "O Coronel Chabert", que prende a atenção do início ao fim da narrativa. Muito bem construído "A Missa do Ateu", admirável.
Volume 5: Estudos de costumes (Cenas da vida provinciana) : Úrsula Mirouët, Eugênia Grandet, Os Celibatários, Pierrette, O Cura de Tours - "Eugênia Grandet" é uma das grandes obras da vastíssima Comédia Humana de Balzac. "O Cura de Tours" é um dos meus preferidos.
Volume 6: Estudos de costumes (Cenas da vida provinciana) : Um Conchego de solteirão, Os Parisienses na província (O Ilustre Gaudissart, A Musa do departamento), As Rivalidades (A Solteirona, O Gabinete das antiguidades) - "O Ilustre Gaudissart" é um dos meus livros preferidos da vastíssima Comédia Humana de Balzac. A caracterização das trapaças da sociedade burguesa e aristocrática chamam a atenção nos gêmeos "A Solteirona" e "O Gabinete das antiguidades".
Volume 7: Estudos e costumes (Cenas da vida provinciana) : Ilusões perdidas - "As Ilusões Perdidas" é um dos meus livros preferidos da vastíssima Comédia Humana de Balzac. Triste até não poder mais, parece mais realista do que romântico. Talvez seja autobiográfico.
Volume 8: Estudos de costumes (Cenas da vida parisiense) : História dos treze (I.Ferragus II.A Duquesa de Langeias III.Menina dos olhos de ouro) ; História da grandeza e da decadência de César Birotteau; A Casa de Nucingen - Gostei muito das aventuras de "Ferragus". A "História da grandeza e da decadência de César Birotteau" é um dos meus livros preferidos da vastíssima Comédia Humana de Balzac. http://www.recantodasletras.com.br/resenhasdelivros/4860796
Volume 9: Estudos de costumes (Cenas da vida parisiense) : Esplendores e misérias das cortesãs, Os Segredos da Princesa de Cadignan; Facino Cane; Sarrasine; Pedro Grassou - "Esplendores e Misérias das Cortesãs" é um dos meus livros preferidos da vastíssima Comédia Humana de Balzac. http://www.recantodasletras.com.br/resenhasdelivros/4881793 ;-)
Volume 10: Estudos de costumes (Cenas da vida parisiense) : Os Parentes pobres (A Prima Bette; O Primo Pons) - Gostei muito dos detalhes das tramoias dos parentes ambiciosos nas histórias dos primos pobres ("A Prima Bette" e "O Primo Pons"), os últimos escritos na vastíssima Comédia Humana de Balzac.
Volume 11: Estudos de costumes (Cenas da vida parisiense) : Um Homem de negócios; Um Príncipe da boêmia; Gaudissart II; Os Funcionários; Os Comediantes sem o saberem; Os Pequenos burgueses; O Avesso da história contemporânea - Gostei muito dos detalhes das tramoias dos invejosos em "Os Pequenos Burgueses" e "Um Homem de Negócios", temas frequentes na vastíssima Comédia Humana de Balzac.
Volume 12: Estudos de costumes (Cenas da vida política e militar) : Um Episódio do terror; Um Caso tenebroso; O Deputado de Arcis; Z. Marcas; A Bretanha em 1799; Uma Paixão no deserto - Gostei muito de "Uma Paixão no deserto", curto e intenso. Fiquei encantada com a surpresa no final de "Um Episódio do terror". Gostei também de "A Bretanha em 1799", a primeira obra de Balzac.
Volume 13: Estudos de costumes (Cenas da vida parisiense) : Os Camponeses; O Médico rural - "Os Camponeses" mostra uma sensibilidade incrível sobre a gritante desigualdade social da época. Muito atual. Já o encantador, e até romântico, "O Médico Rural" é um dos meus livros preferidos da vastíssima Comédia Humana de Balzac. ;-)
Volume 14: Estudos de costumes (Cenas da vida rural) : O Cura da aldeia; O Lírio do vale - "O Cura da Aldeia" e "O Lírio do Vale" são muito tocantes, emocionantes mesmo. A questão social é abordada por Balzac de modo delicado. O sofrimento da heroína é de chorar de verdade, especialmente nas últimas cenas.
Volume 15: Estudos filosóficos : A Pele de Onagro; Jesus Cristo em Flandres; Melmoth apaiguado; Massimilla Doni; A Obra-prima ignorada; Gambara; A Procura do absoluto - São chamados "Estudos filosóficos", por defenderem ideias na forma de literatura. Mas as tais ideias são místicas, religiosas, sobrenaturais. "Jesus Cristo em Flandres" é bem estranho. "A Pele de Onagro" é intenso, e prende a leitura do início ao fim. Alguns contos são esquisitos, como os musicais "Gambara" e "Massimila Doni". Outros de obsessão são muito interessantes, como "A Obra-prima Ignorada" e o também científico "À Procura do Absoluto", que achei tri! Adorei o "Melmoth apaziguado", o Fausto francês. ;-) Há espaço até para estas obras tão diferentes dentro da vastíssima Comédia Humana de Balzac!
Volume 16: Estudos filosóficos : O Filho maldito; Adeus; As Maranas, O Conscrito; El Verdugo; Um Drama a beira-mar; Mestre Cornélius; A Estalagem vermelha; Sobre Catarina de Médicis; O Elixir da longa vida; Os Proscritos - São chamados "Estudos filosóficos", por defenderem ideias na forma de literatura. Há uma biografia intensamente "chapa-branca" da polêmica personagem histórica "Sobre Catarina de Médicis". São muitos contos, e os dramas se unem ao suspense ("O Elixir da Longa Vida"), às histórias de guerras ("Os Proscritos", o intenso "El Verdugo"), aos chatos "O Conscrito" e "O Filho maldito"; ao misterioso "Adeus", à força de "As Maranas"; à intensidade de "Um Drama a beira-mar", e às pérolas de "Mestre Cornélius" e "A Estalagem vermelha". Neste volume, também se vê que há espaço para a diversidade na vastíssima Comédia Humana de Balzac!
Volume 17: Estudos filosóficos : Luís Lambert; Serafita - Estudos analíticos : Fisiologia do casamento; Pequenas misérias da vida conjugal -São chamados "Estudos filosóficos", por defenderem ideias na forma de literatura. Neste volume, as deliciosas "Fisiologia do Casamento" e "Pequenas misérias da vida conjugal", hilárias, nos divertem ao apresentar as mazelas dos matrimônios da sociedade da época. Há espaço para o humor, tanto o escrachado quanto o sofisticado, na vastíssima Comédia Humana de Balzac!
Aline Malanovicz
Enviado por Aline Malanovicz em 19/07/2017 Reeditado em 19/07/2017 Código do texto: T6059081 Classificação de conteúdo: seguro
Esta obra está licenciada sob uma Licença Creative Commons. Você pode copiar, distribuir, exibir, executar, desde que seja dado crédito ao autor original (MALANOVICZ, Aline Vieira. "Resenha impressionista para "A Comédia Humana" de Balzac". Porto Alegre, 25 dez. 2014. Disponível em: http://www.recantodasletras.com.br/resenhasdelivros/6059081). Você não pode fazer uso comercial desta obra. Você não pode criar obras derivadas.
Is it not enough that for nearly 30 years, this cinematic provocateur has used his movies to harangue us about gun control, the George W. Bush administration, single-payer health care and his myriad other bleeding-heart causes? Didn’t we just spend an election season enduring this man — a bold truth-teller to some, a tedious self-promoter to others — and his Cassandra-like warnings that President Trump was going to win?
Now Mr. Moore, this willfully disheveled, 63-year-old hybrid of Noam Chomsky and P. T. Barnum, expects theatergoers to pay Broadway ticket prices to watch him in a one-man show, “The Terms of My Surrender.”After his previous documentaries, books and television shows, does he have anything left to say, and does he really believe it will make a difference?
“I am not going to take up people’s time or this valuable space to lecture people,” Mr. Moore said, sitting in the orchestra level of the Belasco Theater. “I’m not coming to this stage every night to conduct a political rally.”
Instead, he said, he wants to tell stories that will make audiences feel better about this fractured nation, in a show from which they will emerge rejuvenated after a monthslong period of feeling beaten down.
“This is not a kumbaya piece of theater,” he said. “I’m not looking for everyone to hold hands. I want people to leave with a sense that they’ve been moved in a profound way.”
In some ways, his timing couldn’t be better. His show arrives amid a period of liberal soul searching, when any vaguely oppositional voice, whether a left-leaning columnist or late-night host, has gotten a second wind in the Trump era. Perhaps Mr. Moore, with his rumpled baseball hat and Midwestern bona fides, can offer some answers.
But why take his act to Broadway? If it’s true that he preaches to the choir — as his detractors on the right and the left say — speaking to a self-selected group of New York theatergoers seems to restrict his message to a rarefied bubble. What does Mr. Moore, who is known for a biting, sarcastic politics of outrage, think he can do differently, talking to about 1,000 people who have paid as much as $149 a seat?
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Mr. Moore, left, and the director Michael Mayer.CreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times
He has made big promises, but sometimes it’s hard to determine if he knows what he wants to do and just won’t reveal it in advance, or if he’s still figuring it out as he goes along.
On a recent Monday afternoon, Mr. Moore was admiring the set for his show, in previews here beginning Friday, July 28, and opening Thursday, Aug. 10.
The stage was dominated by a gigantic structure made to look like an American flag, painted white, á la Jasper Johns. At various moments, video from that day’s news, usually involving Mr. Trump, was projected on it.
Though he is known principally for his politically pointed nonfiction films, like “Bowling for Columbine,” his Academy Award-winning exploration into the 1999 high school shooting, and American gun culture, Mr. Moore has past experience with solo stage shows.
In 2002, he brought a cantankerous, post-9/11 monologue to London’s Roundhouse Theater. In October, he gave a more urgent performance at theaters in Ohio counties that were strongly pro-Trump.
That show, recorded in his documentary “Michael Moore in TrumpLand,”was not so much a screed against the Republican presidential nominee as Mr. Moore’s attempt at a positive argument for why voters should choose Hillary Clinton.
Despite the fact that he ended that show with a vow to hold Mrs. Clinton accountable if she did not fulfill her promises in the White House, Mr. Moore (who supported Senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary) said he always expected Mr. Trump to win the general election.
The “TrumpLand” film and show, he said, was his best effort at staving off what he believed was inevitable. “If you were in a leaking lifeboat and all you had was a Dixie cup, would you just sit there, or would you at least start bailing?” he asked.
After Mr. Trump won, Mr. Moore said he made two phone calls: one to the film producer Harvey Weinstein, to make another documentary; the other, to the director Michael Mayer, to get started on a Broadway show.
Mr. Mayer, a Tony Award-winner known for musicals like “Spring Awakening” and “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” said he and Mr. Moore had been discussing a collaboration for about three years but were unable to align their schedules.
Over the summer, the two have been shaping Mr. Moore’s material and anecdotes, trying to determine what belongs in the show and how to segue from segment to segment.
“Very little of it is written where it won’t change night to night,” said Mr. Mayer, who called Mr. Moore “a natural raconteur.”
“What he wants to say and the things he has witnessed are so familiar that he has 30 different ways of telling the chain of events and drawing conclusions from them,” Mr. Mayer said.
If Mr. Moore decides one morning that he wants to respond to news developments in his show that night, Mr. Mayer said, “We will do everything we can, with the handful of tools we have at our disposal, to be as responsive as possible.”
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Michael MooreCreditChad Batka for The New York Times
Mr. Mayer added, “It’s going to be a challenge.”
“The Terms of My Surrender” is one of a few post-Trump theater projects that have come to New York stages this year. There was the Public Theater’s controversial production of “Julius Caesar,” with a Trumplike title character, which conservatives condemned as a near-literal wish for the president’s assassination. Elsewhere, a Broadway adaptation of “1984” is doing modest business, while Robert Schenkkan’s “Building the Wall,” set in a time after Mr. Trump’s imagined impeachment, closed quickly Off Broadway.
It’s hard to gauge how much of Mr. Moore’s show will be on-the-nose Trump critique or address broader ideas. On a recent visit to his rehearsal space at the New 42nd Street Studios, he was sitting in a recliner in the center of the room. In a corner was a bulletin board with index cards bearing the brief, tantalizing titles of potential segments: “Dead Peasants”; “Soccer vs. Football”; “What I Got Past the T.S.A.”
He was working on a routine about Mel Gibson and a series of interactions they have had over the years, beginning when Mr. Gibson’s company withdrew from financing his film “Fahrenheit 9/11” and ending when Mr. Moore voted for Mr. Gibson for best director at this year’s Academy Awards. (Mr. Moore said he plans to project his Oscar ballot onscreen to prove he did it.)
Later, Mr. Moore practiced a bit in which he will invite a conservative theatergoer from each show onto the stage to talk with him, with Mr. Mayer standing in for the audience member. Speaking to Mr. Mayer in this capacity, Mr. Moore told him not to be afraid of liberals: “They wouldn’t even know how to hit you, if they could throw a punch.”
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Mr. Mayer gave Mr. Moore instructions on how to use his hand-held microphone. “Let him lean in if he has to,” he said. “You are in control of this.”
At the Belasco, Mr. Moore described his lifelong appreciation for the theater, going back to his upbringing in Flint, Mich., and his brief time as a student at its University of Michigan campus.
On summer trips to New York, Mr. Moore said he and his family often attended Broadway shows, including the original 1964 production of “Fiddler on the Roof,” and that he got mugged outside “No, No, Nanette” in the early 1970s.
In the same way he hopes viewers approach his films, Mr. Moore said that when he goes to the theater, “I want to go and be challenged. I want to leave better, smarter, angrier, happier than when I came in.”
But political conservatives have long argued that in his films and other media, Mr. Moore seems less interested in getting to the truth of a matter than inserting himself into the middle of it.
“His role is to scold and discipline,” said S. E. Cupp, the conservative commentator and HLN host. “If you were truly interested in any of the causes he supports, you could find truer heroes who are less self-absorbed and self-aggrandizing.”
Matt K. Lewis, a conservative columnist for The Daily Beast, said that while Mr. Moore was once a prominent lightning rod for hostility directed at the left, he has been eclipsed by figures like Mr. Sanders and Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, who wield actual political power.
“I think the truth is, the right doesn’t think of him,” Mr. Lewis said of Mr. Moore. “He’s a hard worker and an entrepreneur. I just don’t think persuasion is his game.”
Chris Lehmann, the editor in chief of The Baffler, a left-leaning publication, said that Mr. Moore had provided “a necessary voice” and credited him for being an early, prominent critic of the Iraq war.
Mr. Lehmann, who has known Mr. Moore since they worked together at Mother Jones in 1986, described him as “a person who, almost by virtue of his temperament, is a true outsider and can hold up a mirror to the powers that govern our world.”
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Mr. Moore, left, and Noah Racey, a movement director, at the Belasco Theater.CreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times
“The problem with being an outsider,” Mr. Lehmann added, “is you can sometimes confuse truth-telling with self-indulgence.”
Mr. Moore made no apologies for his subjective documentary style — “as a filmmaker, my first job is to make a great film,” he said — or for frustrating his opponents on either side of the aisle. “I don’t come from the Church of the Left,” he said. “I come from the Midwest.”
Though he splits his time between homes in New York and Traverse City, Mich., Mr. Moore said he still shared the values of the people he believes are his audience, and could be their avatar.
“I’ve been given a peek behind the curtain that I wasn’t supposed to have, whether that’s in Hollywood or in politics,” he said. “I want the average Joe and Jane to know I’m really just their stand-in and we’re all in this together.”
Mr. Moore would not disclose how much he is being compensated for “The Terms of My Surrender,” except to say, “I thought of taping off the 12 seats each night that are my pay.”
Asked whether he ran an ongoing risk of having his celebrity overshadow his message, Mr. Moore did not exactly plead humility.
“That’s a question you should ask Hamilton or Washington or Jefferson,” he answered. “As great and as smart as they were, they could only convince 25 percent of the colonists to support the revolution.” (Some sources put the number of pro-revolution colonists much higher, while others say the figure is essentially unmeasurable.)
So what is the aim of his show? If Mr. Moore believes he is calling for radical action in his own time, what does he want his audience members to do when they leave his show that they can’t do already?
“They will, I think, realize that they can do it and feel empowered to do it, and I will help create some pathways to that,” he said. “Not just with rhetoric.”
But what is it, exactly? Mr. Moore turned coy, saying that these elements were “part of the show” that he didn’t want to give away.
Mr. Mayer said there was a unifying theme to the segments in the show, “which is that one person can make a very big difference, by doing something that isn’t necessarily tremendous — small, individual actions can have very large reactions.”
After “The Terms of My Surrender” concludes its limited run, Mr. Moore has his new documentary film, which he is calling “Fahrenheit 11/9,” a reference to the day after the 2016 election. (He would not describe the film, except to say, “I don’t think the question of how did this happen has been answered yet.”) He is also preparing a new nonfiction television series for TNT this fall.
For all the opportunities that the new Trump era seems to have created for him, Mr. Moore said he would have much preferred an alternate scenario.
“If I could just sit in my La-Z-Boy and watch ESPN and not have to do any of this?” he said, incredulously. “Are you kidding me?”
Jack O’Connell and Sienna Miller as the tensely married Brick and Maggie in the new production of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” at the Apollo Theater in London.CreditJohan Persson
LONDON — Sun-starved souls seeking refuge from the untimely midsummer coolness that has enveloped this city needn’t book a flight to Ibiza. They only have to hurry to the Apollo Theater, where a big old bonfire is blazing under the title of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” which opened here on Monday night.
Directed by Benedict Andrews, this thrilling revival of Tennessee Williams’s 1955 Pulitzer Prize winner burns bright enough to scorch but also to illuminate. Starring a perfectly paired Jack O’Connell and Sienna Miller, this Young Vic production brings combustible conviction to a smoldering classic that has only rarely ignited in performance in recent years.
After the limp 2013 Broadway version, directed by Rob Ashford and most notable for the presence of a hyperventilating Scarlett Johansson, I was about ready to write off “Cat” as one of those searing “adult” dramas that seem increasingly quaint as the years go by. After the novelty has faded from its once daring premise — of a lusty wife whose (possibly gay) husband refuses to sleep with her — what’s left?
More and more, this play was looking like a lopsided melodrama about grotesque Southern schemers fighting for their slices of a dying patriarch’s estate, with an overextended father-and-son ontology lesson for a second act.
But as he demonstrated with his daringly unpoetic take on “A Streetcar Named Desire,” seen last year at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn with Gillian Anderson, Mr. Andrews understands the primal instincts that animate this great playwright’s work. Mr. Andrews’s “Cat” isn’t as radically rethought as his “Streetcar” was. (And I’m not sure “Cat,” a lesser work, could survive a similarly forceful assault.)
But Mr. Andrews has again stripped a Williams play down to its animal essence. And I’m not referring to its able-bodied stars’ appearances in states of unembarrassed nudity.
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Colm Meaney, left, and Jack O’Connell as father and son in “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.”CreditJohan Persson
The more compelling nakedness on display is that of people revealed in the altogether of their atavistic impulses: the will to keep living and the fear of dying. The characters may be motivated by the elements that keep prime-time soaps spinning season after season: power, sex and money. But this production insists that such desires, and their fancier manifestations, can be reduced to the all-consuming fight to stay alive.
As the play’s blunt philosopher in residence, the plantation owner Big Daddy Pollitt (a terrific Colm Meaney), puts it, “The human animal is a beast that dies, but the fact that he’s dying don’t give him pity for others.”
That makes life a mighty lonely business. And the production uses the expanse of the Apollo stage to define the unbridgeable distances among people. The setting is Big Daddy’s mansion — or to be specific, the bedroom of his alcoholic older son, Brick (Mr. O’Connell), and Brick’s wife, Maggie (Ms. Miller). It is Big Daddy’s 65th birthday, and though his family has yet to tell him, recent tests have revealed he has terminal cancer.
As designed by Magda Willi, this is no chintz-filled boudoir out of Southern Living. The two indispensable pieces of furniture — a bed and a vanity table (with a mirror) — are in place. And there’s an open shower, which Brick makes use of, clothed and unclothed, to drown out the din of family strife.
Otherwise, there’s nowhere to hide. The dwarfing metallic walls are the color of money — shades of copper and silver and gold, according to Jon Clark’s masterly lighting. (Alice Babidge’s glitzy “Dynasty”-style costumes carry out the theme.) It’s a bleak temple to materialism, a sort of modernist version of the death-denying pyramids of Egypt.
It is also as stark as a doctor’s examining room. And this production is always monitoring its characters’ vital signs. In the case of Ms. Miller’s Maggie, these are strong enough to make you think she must have considerably more than nine lives to trade on.
For years, I’ve admired Ms. Miller’s determination as a risk-taking actress onstage as well as onscreen. She seemed ill at ease in her Broadway debut, “After Miss Julie” (2009), but she was far better when she returned two years ago as Sally Bowles in the revival (of the revival) of “Cabaret.”
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With Maggie, the poor but shrewd debutante who has married into money, Ms. Miller at last has a stage role she was born for, and she owns it unconditionally. The play’s first act is largely hers, as Maggie tries tirelessly to talk her seemingly insensate husband (who’s broken his foot while drunkenly jumping hurdles) into behaving at Big Daddy’s birthday party and, more important, returning to their marital bed.
Vivacious doesn’t begin to describe this woman, as she struts, cajoles, clowns and vamps, while Brick keeps refilling his glass with whiskey. She’s tough, funny, smart, sexy and — in sudden, searing glimpses — desperate. Ms. Miller, a survivor of relentless tabloid scrutiny and a Hollywood that eats beautiful actresses for breakfast, channels her natural grit and gameness to dazzling effect.
Mr. O’Connell, who starred in the 2014 film “Unbroken,” gives a gorgeously anesthetized performance, a portrait of a man working hard to insulate himself from life’s pain and finally failing. For it’s not just Maggie who keeps poking at Brick’s sore spots, which include too tender memories of his dead best buddy, Skipper.
Big Daddy is also bent on rousing Brick from his boozy slumber. And Mr. Meaney is superb in finding the harsh love for his son that fuels the extended discursive dialogue of the second act.
This is no cracker-barrel caricature but a shaded portrait of someone who, for all his vulgarity and cruelty, compels admiration. Like Maggie, Big Daddy is a cleareyed pragmatist, willing to take on any truth except the fact of his imminent demise. And when that finally registers for him, it’s with an elephant’s bellow of defeat.
The ensemble is the best I’ve seen in “Cat.” Lisa Palfrey locates a heartbreaking dignity in the foolishness of Big Daddy’s doting wife. As Gooper and Mae — Brick’s slick brother and alarmingly fertile sister-in-law — Brian Gleeson and Hayley Squires persuasively ground their characters’ comic gold-digging in a fetid earthiness.
Like everyone else in the ensemble, they’re bigger than life, but they’re not cartoonish. Every performance looms large in ways that suggest how we all become exaggerated — and arguably truer — versions of ourselves when we feel our survival is threatened.
Mr. Andrews and his team remind us that there can be truth in melodrama. And that life never glows more fiercely than in the shadow of death.
