Previews and Openings

Fragments’ (opens on Sunday) C.I.C.T./Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord returns to New York with this acclaimed production from 2011: a setting of five short pieces by Samuel Beckett, directed with becoming simplicity by Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne, that showcase the writer’s peerless gift for theatrical economy, as well as the glinting comic light that shines from much of his work (1:00). Baryshnikov Arts Center, 450 West 37th Street, Clinton, (866) 811-4111, tfana.org. (Charles Isherwood)

“An ape headed from Africa to Europe on a steamer at the turn of the twentieth century seduces his captors by making a spectacle of drinking their booze, then teaches himself how to talk, walk, and think like a man. Or so he tells esteemed members of “the academy” years later, when, having almost fully morphed into a human being—bowler hat, tails, and all—he is giving a lecture on his profound transformation. It is shocking how completely the London-based actress Kathryn Hunter has managed to physically embody this ape turned man. Under the direction of Walter Meierjohann, Hunter also gets across the rage at the bestiality of mankind that Kafka captured in “A Report to an Academy,” the short story on which Colin Teevan’s delicious adaptation is based.”

Click here to read this review online.

Kathryn Hunter as Red Peter; Photo by Chang W. Lee for the New York Times

A Captive of Human Nature

BY CHARLES ISHERWOOD

“Movie stars like Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro are celebrated for their ability to transform into the characters they play on screen, so that their very voices seem to take on new sounds, and their bodies new shapes. But, to my knowledge, they have not ever attempted adding several inches to their arms to embody a character.

That’s the unsettling achievement of the extraordinary London-based actorKathryn Hunter — and it’s done live, folks! No digital trickery possible.”

To read Charles Isherwood’s full review, click here!

Theatre’s Primate Instinct

By ELISABETH VINCENTELLI

“This season, chimps are champs. In the recent dark comedy “Trevor,” a chimpanzee dreams of making it as an actor, while in David Ives’ newly revived “All in the Timing,” three primates armed with typewriters try to write “Hamlet.”

Now comes the most poignant entry of all: the monologue “Kafka’s Monkey,” imported from London’s Young Vic by Theatre for a New Audience.

Adapted from Franz Kafka’s 1917 story “A Report to an Academy” by Colin Teevan, the show is a monologue by an ape, who lectures a scientific panel about his journey to speak and act like a human.”

To read the full review, click here.

Photo by Keith Patison

Kafka’s Monkey

By David Cote

To say that humans are descended from apes is, taking the phrase literally, to imply that we have fallen from a higher state. In gaining speech, bigger brains and a will to shape the world, we’ve lost our purer, natural selves. This essentially Romantic notion gets a harsh, modernist spin in Franz Kafka’s 1917 story “A Report to an Academy,” in which the simian Red Peter—who has learned to speak and imitate the ways of Homo sapiens—recounts his transformation to a gathering of scientists. The remarkable English actor Kathryn Hunter takes on this bizarre role in Kafka’s Monkey, a blackly humorous monologue adapted by Colin Teevan.”

To read the rest of the review, click here.

Kathryn Hunter. Steve Forrest for The New York Times.

“LONDON — On a rainy afternoon, Kathryn Hunter rises from a table in an upstairs rehearsal room at the Young Vic Theater and begins an extraordinary transformation. Her knees bend and her pelvis lowers. Her toes twist inward and her elbows out. Her arms seem somehow to lengthen and her chest broadens. Her brow furrows and her cheeks round.”

“CAKE has been preparing to play Benedick in William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing since he was 9 years old. He even earned trophies for his performance.

‘I would compete against other snotty nosed young kids for trophies doing speeches of Shakespeare,’ says Cake, chatting before an evening performance at the Duke Theater, where Theatre for a New Audience’s “Much Ado About Nothing” is currently playing. “I won quite a lot, I have to say, which is a terrible grounding in acting. I had a whole side port full of acting cups. It’s just the worst way to try and figure out how to do some acting.’

Cake is winning again with his critically-lauded portrayal of Benedick opposite ‘Sons of Anarchy’ star Maggie Siff as Beatrice in the Bard’s famous battle of the wits. Cake was last seen on the New York stage in the Broadway revival of ‘The Philanthropist’ in 2009.’

‘It always feels very uncomfortable when I don’t do a play for a while,’ Cake says. ‘I just feel like something’s not right.’

What attracted you to this play?

Jonathan Cake: Shakespeare attracted me by writing this extraordinary play. Can you believe this play, really? There are so many aspects of it that are so extraordinary. I played the part in university when I was 20 years old, and I have some vague sort of completely self-deluded, youthful memory of loving it and having a rather good time and people saying they liked it. But there are aspects of the play that I never even noticed when I was 20 years old, of course. And now being safely ensconced in middle age it just feels like so much more of it is noticeable, at least to me.

Where did your love of Shakespeare come from?

Cake: I came from a family that wasn’t involved in the theater but was very involved in language and very involved in novels and plays. And I was exposed to Shakespeare from quite early on. And then the most wonderful thing happened to me. When I was 14, I auditioned for a company in London called the National Youth Theatre and inexplicably—because I’d done very little acting at that point—got in. And then spent every summer holiday from then on until I was 19 in London doing Shakespeare plays in these professional theaters with professional directors, being reviewed mercilessly by professional critics. And you know, playing these extraordinary parts. I played Falstaff when I was 17 terribly badly. ‘Wingeingly awful’ as ‘Time Out’ said.

You still remember the review!

Cake: It’s hard to forget ‘wingeingly awful’; that one has stuck with me. It didn’t quite kill me off so I suppose it did make me stronger…I had this fond idea that having this grounding in it, I would do them for the rest of my life and it’s really not been the case. I did Cymbeline at Lincoln Center. I did Coriolanus at the Globe in London, and before that, I did very little in a production of “As You Like It” in Stratford right after I got out of university, and those are the only Shakespeares I’ve ever done in my life. It’s a perpetual sadness to me and why I’m so overjoyed to have been able to do this.

To see the rest of this review, click here!