The play would benefit from judicious cutting. In that regard, fidelity proves to be no blessing. The revival is faithful to the script, even to the extent of including bad jokes Behan inserted for the New York audience. Maher also undertakes a leading role as the caretaker of Behan's disreputable Dublin lodging house, and it is his affectionate performance as a kind of master of ceremonies that gives the production its conviviality. The Long Wharf Theater production, directed by Joseph Maher, is hospitably situated on an open stage, an informal approach that is close to the long-running Off Broadway version of the play. To revive the play today one should be able to evoke the spirit of its time - the late 1950's - as well as the personality of its author, a doubly difficult assignment.
With Behan in the play, ''The Hostage'' was almost dangerously alive. His appearance on stage was both an enrichment and an intrusion. I remember seeing the play soon after its Broadway opening on one of the evenings that the author interrupted the action and became an uninvited member of his own cast.
In England and on Broadway, it was as much a public event as a work of theater, and, through the concerted efforts of the playwright, it also became a public spectacle. ''The Hostage'' was a collaboration between an intuitive dramatist, Brendan Behan, and an inspired director, Joan Littlewood.
0 kommentar(er)
