Random thoughts on the Guthrie’s 07-08 season announcement: After seeing that so-so production of Peer Gynt at Orchestra Hall last weekend (thank God for the band and the St. Olaf Choir), I was quite interested to find that Minnesota’s own Robert Bly–famous for Iron John, the Men’s Movement, and other comments on wounded masculinity–will turn his pen to a Guthrie-commissioned adaptation of Peer Gynt, that boys-will-be-boys (or rapists, depending upon the adaptation) of a character.
They’re doing The Seagull, and God bless ’em for it. It’s a beautiful, beautiful play, and a particularly heart-wrenching one, in my humble perspective, and with all my baggage after having had many bad relationships with artists… Nina: “No, that’s not it” is my favorite moment, my favorite line. And I’ll never forget the exceptionally lovely (and tortured) Constantine I came across several moons ago. Only The Guthrie can draw popular audiences to such a downer, I suppose.
I noticed, happily, that Casey Stangl, formerly of the local and now defunct Eye of the Storm theater company, is returning to direct Third, a play I don’t know very well, by Wendy Wasserstein. And they’re lugging in a production of Beckett’s Happy Days (last staged around these parts at The Jungle in 2000) to the Dowling Studio, which means there’ll probably be shit load of dirt, mud, and a buried actress to go along with it. All in all, this strikes me as being a bit more adventurous than their 06-07 season.
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