Do you want to be mesmerized for
two-plus hours? Do you wish to forget who you are for a while and actually
believe you are an aspiring opera singer eager to learn about the profession
from one of the great divas? Would you like to see what might arguably be the
best performance by an actress in this Connecticut
theater season?
Well, if you
answered “Yes” to any of these questions, get yourself down to MTC Mainstage,
that intimate theater in Westport
that is currently presenting Terrence McNally’s “Master Class.” You won’t be
disappointed. It’s riveting, engaging, delightful theater, and if you have any
tweens or teens in the house considering a career on the stage bring them
along. If they are attentive they will learn more about the craft in these two
hours than in a semester at the Actors Studio.
What’s “Master
Class” about? It’s about Maria Callas, born Maria Kalogeropoulos in New York City on Dec. 3,
1923, a weight-challenged, awkward child who, with guts and determinations…and
a whole lot of suffering…became one of the greatest opera divas of the 20th
century…but at a cost, always at a cost. Her career was meteoric, and as with
all meteors, faded in a blaze of glory, smoke and fire. Her voice having given
out, Callas agreed to teach a series of master classes at Julliard in 1971-72,
23 two-hour sessions in which she worked with 25 students. The sessions were
recorded, and it is these recordings that playwright McNally used as the basis
for writing his deep-sea dive into the soul of a complex, conflicted, supremely
talented woman whose death in 1977 remains shrouded in mystery.
Bringing this
larger-then-life woman to life is a challenge, but MTC has been fortunate
enough to cast Irene Glezos in the role, and she is…well, spectacular. From the
moment she walks onto the stage clutching her handbag she owns the audience,
and she never lets go. Given the size of MTC – there may be 40 seats at most –
the actress has free rein to work the audience, which she does. Hence, you are
quickly drawn into the world of the operatic master class, you simply can’t
help yourself – Glezos/Callas won’t allow you to. She doesn’t simply demand
attention, she commands it.
For the
aforementioned tweens and teens with thespian dreams, they would do well to
watch how Glezos, under the insightful, sensitive direction of MTC’s executive
artistic director Kevin Connors, uses body language – in all of its nuances –
to create Callas. Watch her hands and fingers, watch her shoulders, watch how she
turns her head – it’s a study in how humans communicated before humans spoke
words.
This master class has obviously drawn
students, and there are three of them who, over the evening, will be placed
stage center to squirm under Callas’s acerbic scrutiny, all accompanied by
Manny (Kevin B. Winebold), a sympathetic pianist who is, himself, in awe of
Callas. MTC has cast three excellent actors to play off of and feed into Callas’s
need to always hear the applause as, at the same time, she strenuously demands
that there be no acclamations. After all, the class is not about her when, of
course, it’s all about her.
Charlotte Munson and Irene Glezos
First to appear and
undergo the Callas scalpel is Sophie (Charlotte Munson), an eager soprano
inappropriately dressed who is immediately overwhelmed by Callas’s presence.
She soon becomes nonplussed as Callas challenges her commitment to her art. She
begins to sing but is only allowed one syllable before Callas is offering what,
in the diva’s mind, is constructive criticism.
Irene Glezos and Emma Rosenthal.
Sophie is followed
by a second soprano, a steely-eyed Sharon (Emma Rosenthal) who appears,
initially, to be up to the task of withstanding the Callas treatment. However,
she soon cracks, failing to make an entrance. Rather, we learn later, she has
rushed to the bathroom where she proceeds to vomit. She will return, however,
and will create, with Callas, one of the most moving scenes in the show as the
diva elicits from her a performance she did not think she was capable of
giving.
Kevin B. Winebold and Andrew Ragone
The final student
is Tony (Andrew Ragone), a tall, handsome tenor who refuses to cave in to the
diva’s demands. She suggests he leave but he stands his ground and, under the
diva’s guidance, also learns what he is truly capable of.
The evening
consists of Callas’s interaction with these three students, her off-hand
comments to the audience (addressing the audience members as if they too are
students) about her life and her art, and two extended flashbacks that come
near the end of both acts. If I have any problems with this production, or with
the play itself, it is with these flashbacks, for though Glezos handles them
with skill and aplomb (shifting easily from the Callas character to a crude, garrulous,
larger-than-life Aristotle Onassis, to her needful first husband, a man much
older than she) they seem to go on for just a bit too long, their length
diminishing their power and impact.
That quibble
aside, “Master Class” is strong, compelling theater made more so by the fact
that, given the size of the venue, Glezos is often mere inches away from the
audience members sitting in the first row. The effect is palpable, for as she
mesmerizes them she also makes them squirm just as bit, as if they are
recalcitrant schoolchildren being taken to task by a stern teacher. It is, all
in all, a bravura performance that should not be missed.
“Master Class”
runs on weekends through Nov. 17. For tickets or more information call
203-454-3883 or go to www.musictheatreofct.com.
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