WOYZECK reviews

Review from Accessibly Live Off-line by Rich Borowy on Nov 7, 2008.

WOYZECK, Georg Buchner's play about am enlisted man and the situations he faces, both within his domestic life and his inner mind, opens at Burbank's Little Victory Theatre as a guest production presented by the Gangbusters Theatre Company.

Taking place near a military garrison in a locale that's neither near or far, Woyzeck (Christian Levatino) is a lowly soldier who is rather underpaid for his duties as a military man and regimental barber. Marie (Sierra Fisk) is his common-law spouse and the mother of their child-a baby boy. With his meaningless income, he must support his family. Along with doing small tasks for his Captain (Allen Andrews), he sets himself to a series of unusual medical observations that subjects him to a strange diet of peas that converts him into an odd trait of starvation and well as placing him into a demented state. From this point onward, Woyzeck's mental attitudes brings on to ruinous consequences, in addition to Marie's straying away from her "husband" to a fellow soldier, bringing upon to a downfall for everyone remotely involved.

This adaptation of Buchner's 1836 play was based upon an actual invent that involved an enlisted man in the military that subjected himself to a unique series of tests that drove him to murder his common law wife who bore his child. This version takes place in a surreal 21st century setting, though an actual real time and space is not acknowledged. This play was also part of early German Expressionism and "Theater of the Absurd", where harsh satire was created not for comedy relief, but to present a point. This stage piece is presented as a bit out of line, but not as anything weird. With its contemporary setting, it seems to be very real. Christian Levatino as the patsy Woyzeck performs as somebody who is calm one moment, and totally psycho the next. His character is in the service, but not for any specific nation or entirety. Perhaps this is the way that shows that his physical world is just as vast and empty as his mental firmament.

This production does boast a rather large ensemble cast of players, some performing multiple roles. Those players featured are Michael Laurie, Pilar Alvarez, Robert Mollohan, Ashley Woods, J. Teddy Garces, Stephen Gergely, Matthew Heron, Jacque Lynn Colton, Brighid Fleming, and Henry Hereford.

Directed by Bob McDonald, WOYZECK is an interesting curio and is a work that is suited from a time where this sort of theater is not as recognized as it should. In spite of its obscurity, it is as fresh as any current play of this variety. It may be a bit on the avant garde side, but that is what makes this work as one that will make the viewer think, providing one can read each stanza the way as intended. This presentation by this rather aggressive theater company is worth its own good look!

Review from NoHoArtsDistrict.com by Amy Lyons on Nov 14, 2008.

Though written in 1836, Georg Buchner’s “Woyzeck” still holds up. The distinctly German, avant-garde piece tracks an oppressed man’s journey toward brutality and skewers the oppressive powers that be. Gangbusters Theatre Company puts director Bob McDonald at the helm of a new adaptation of the classic, a production currently on stage at the Little Victory Theatre. The company handles the dark tale of human suffering with great care.

Friedrich Franz Woyzeck (Christian Levatino) is a rag-tag soldier with no money and a short supply of self-esteem. Though he suffers from a haunting brand of mental illness, Woyzeck labors to do right by his common-law wife, Marie (Sierra Fisk), and their newborn baby. He’s not happy, however, about Marie’s flirtatious ways. Nonetheless, this hard luck hero works to support his little family, serving as a barber and a human experiment subject for a crass doctor (Michael Laurie). He toils, sweats and strives, only to consistently come up short and be mocked by his superiors. As the pressure builds in his already off-kilter mind, Woyzeck becomes fatally violent and is punished for his criminal behavior in the worst way.

When he wrote the play, Buchner’s thesis was that classicism makes monsters of otherwise well-meaning men. Instead of attempting to understand the rage and fury of the poor, the script shows society ceasing on punishment, licking its chops at the mere mention of a warped brand of justice. The old ‘eye for an eye’ theory, suggests Buchner, leaves out some seriously pertinent details about the constitutions and capacities of individuals.

McDonald does a good job putting the script in modern-day context. He also, thankfully, stays true to the absurdist tradition in which the play was written, keeping all of the offbeat clowning and over-the-top speechifying this specific theatrical mode requires. The actors likewise do a spot-on job with this stylized piece, particularly Matthew Heron as a surreal carnival showman, who rouses the audience with his circus-like antics. Laurie also puts in an exceedingly energetic performance, making a deliberate mockery of the doctor. It’s an ensemble cast, where all actors are afforded shining moments no matter the size of their particular role.

“Woyzeck” is based on a true story and the truth, as we see here, is sometimes not all that pretty. Hopelessness prevails here and the creative team deserves applause for pulling no punches. Justice is a slippery subject and this show refuses to wrap things up with a neat little bow.

Review from LA TIMES by Charlotte Stoudt on November 21, 2008.

Long before David Fincher reminded us that dread is hard-wired into the soul, German playwright Georg Büchner wrote a few fevered dramas, then dropped dead of typhus at 23. Now Gangbusters Theatre Company presents Büchner's 1836 "Woyzeck," a true crime tale of a working-class soldier driven to violence by the vicious manipulation of his superiors.

In director Bob McDonald's visceral but uneven adaptation, army grunt Franz Woyzeck (Christian Levatino) is barely able to provide for his sensual common-law wife, Marie (Sierra Fisk), and newborn child. His desperation becomes fodder for a quack doctor (Michael Laurie) conducting dubious experiments and a hulking drum major (J. Teddy Garces) with an eye for Marie.

Büchner's fragment endures because of its fierce vision of a world where human life is mere fodder -- for profit, blind lust, war and worms. On a near bare stage, the nimble cast creates an atmosphere of indifferent brutality, enhanced by Adam Phalen's eerie sound design. If McDonald sometimes strains with the play's absurdist comedy, he zeros in on "Woyzeck's" helter-skelter meld of eroticism and violence.

Levatino gives the title character an arresting stillness, while Garces finds surprising layers in the drum major, suggesting his vulnerability to Marie's charms may be all too similar to Woyzeck's. And tiny Brighid Fleming tells the play's signature fable -- about a boy living in a dead world -- with disarming command. For classic theater lovers, Gangbuster's low-tech, high-impact approach is a strong introduction to this agitated, minor-key classic.

Review from The Tolucan Times by Pat Taylor on November 19, 2008.

Presented by the intensely innovative Gangbusters Theatre Co., in their usual chilling and controversial style, audience opinions on this one will likely vary greatly. A highly-committed troupe, their offerings are always ambitiously avante garde adventures. They just recently earned an ensemble production “Ovation Awards” nomination for their work in the hit Vietnam play, “Tracers,” (which was amazing!)

This time, in their final 2008 production, the vibe is once again darkly challenging. Written in German in 1836 by Georg Büchner at the age of 23, who died the following year… the script was discovered 60 years later in the form of unnumbered, loose-leaf pages. Its first full production was run in Munich in 1913.

Currently, Director Bob McDonald has adapted the bizarre true story, and “drives” his cast skillfully, inspiring strong performances all around. “Woyzeck” was a bleakly poor soldier/barber, with a beautiful common-law wife and baby to support (a sensually sensational Sierra Fisk.) Desperate for money, he diligently tends to his Captain’s every need (an imposing Allen Andrews), and subjects himself to drug-induced medical experiments by a leering doctor (a frightening Michael Laurie.) In a constant dazed state of malnutrition and “spaced out” regimentation, he “loses it” violently when he realizes his wife is unfaithfully “toying” with the Drum Major (a virile and intense J. Teddy Garces.) Matthew Heron is eerily playful as the “Showman,” as is nine-year old Brighid Fleming as an animated monkey. The rest of this dauntingly dynamic cast includes: Pilar Alvarez, Robert Mollohan, Ashley Woods, Stephen Gergely, Jacque Lynn Colton, and Henry Hereford.

Saving the most mind-blowingly mesmerizing performance for last… Christian Levatino in the spellbinding title role, is for me, undeniably one of the most gut-wrenchingly realistic and raw stage actors of his generation. No matter how “out there” his character is written… he always draws you in and never lets go! Last year, his chilling depiction of “Hamlet” as a mental patient in a severe Mohawk cut, was mad genius! Violent and cerebral, “Woyzeck” is heavy stuff, folks… not easy to follow at times, and certainly not for all audiences… but as usual, Levatino’s “other worldly” portrayal is worth the entire experience!

Review from LA WEEKLY by Tom Provenzano on November 26, 2008.

PICK OF THE WEEK - GO!

Nineteenth-century German playwright Georg Büchner’s, Woyzeck, an unfinished horror story of the common man crushed by military and medical machines, has been fodder for myriad adaptations throughout the last century, and there’s no sign of its relevance or resonance abating. Woyzeck (Christian Levatino) is a troubled soldier, barely able to support his unhappy and unfaithful lover, Marie (Sierra Fisk), and their infant son. To make ends meet, he volunteers to perform petty tasks for his captain (Allen Andrews) and submits to abasing medical tests, predicated on a diet of only dried peas. The more his body and mind deteriorate from this treatment, the more he is targeted for abuse from everyone around him. Director Bob McDonald places the action in a nebulous world of contemporary Western politics and military confusion. Despite his rapid pacing, he mines every powerful emotion and moments of ugliness and cruelty in stark detail. Areta Mackelvie’s outstanding light design is the more impressive in this small, spartan space, with its obviously limited supply of lighting instruments. Married to the fine lighting is a sharp and sometimes shocking sound design by Adam Phalen, which magnifies McDonald’s intensity. My only quibble comes with several comic interludes, which seem a bit forced, in the style of British music hall, taking it out of the present-day hell so vividly imagined by the creators.

Although Georg Büchner began this play before his death at age 23 in 1837, his unfinished manuscript has been repeatedly "completed" over the years by scholars of various generations and political affiliations. This is due to the universally controversial theme Büchner dared to explore, which still unfortunately defines who we are 172 years later: the perpetual dehumanization of the underprivileged classes by those in power who see their subordinates' social condition as weakness rather than circumstance. Jealousy, heartbreak, and loneliness are common elements throughout the history of drama, from the tragedies of Euripides to the plays of Arthur Miller, but the fragments Büchner left behind for others to interpret offer a pliant blank canvas beyond his unadorned fact-based tale of a provincial military barber driven to madness by superiors who treat him more as a commodity than as a man. Director Bob McDonald's adaptation and the austere straightforwardness of his visionary production bring it sharply into a netherworld of cultural timelessness, sometimes conjuring an impression of Büchner's original time frame, sometimes feeling as contemporary as anything created today. The production has a shadowy, Caligariesque minimalism perfect for showcasing Büchner's storytelling without the theatrical excess common to this play. Nowhere is this asceticism more evident than in the jarring performance in the title role by Christian Levatino, who creates an indelibly idiosyncratic portrait of a once-proud man stripped of his humanity by fat cats who see him as so bereft of morality he has become bowed by their avarice. "People like me, we don't have virtue," the shamed Woyzeck has been taught by his oppressors. "We only have what's natural." There is an exaggeratedly stylized component to Levatino's body language reminiscent of silent-screen protagonists with a touch of Dracula's pal Renfield thrown in, a tensely spread-fingered stalking quirkiness that works to the production's great advantage — and is something McDonald has wisely mined and extended to his other performers. Jacque Lynn Colton's basso-voiced top-of-the-show anti-fairy tale monologue about a child searching the world and the heavens for ethical evenhandedness in his impoverished existence is particularly disquieting, immediately encapsulating Büchner's fatalistic view of what he obviously saw as the inescapable destiny of mankind.

CLICK HERE to read the reviews from the Gangbuster's FringeNYC production of Woyzeck