The Ugly One : Many obstacles seem to be in the way of this powerful play.

 

 

Marius von Mayenburg,  author of The Ugly One, representing the new young German Theatre, is performed here in the English translation by Maya Zade , the version used for the creation at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 2008 .  Mayenburg, as a translator himself, interested in the works of the  late Sarah Kane,  is in close contact with the similar world of the younger generation of British playwrights (Sarah Kane, Caryl Churchill, Martin Crimp, Mark Ravenhill) who all have had a strong influence on the Berliner Schaubühne thanks to artistic director Thomas Ostermeir’s interest in their work.  This play hides a deeper reflection on social interaction without delving into psychological  or  psychoanalytical study of character and that is no doubt the most difficult obstacle for a less experienced cast to overcome. .

Unfortunately, this new Plosive production of the Ugly One at the Gladstone lacked a director with a clear vision of staging  that might have given more strength to this  well constructed and powerful play, whose uncomfortable humour was at the basis of what began as a Hegelian parable ending in a tragi-comic caricature of universal values.

It all takes place on David Magladry’s minimalist set. There is a long table (that morphs into a surgeon’s table and various other  spaces ); there are chairs and  mirrors placed at different angles on the wall supposedly giving various perspectives of the stage.   David Magladry, the set and lighting designer,  created a background of emotional and evocative sounds but it lacked a creative use of lighting to highlight many of the  defining moments of the drama. That absence was sorely felt.

Young engineer Lette played by David Whiteley,  when he is suddenly confronted with the destructive gaze of his entourage in his workplace, is transformed into a man who had never noticed his own ugly face. When he learns his assistant Karlmann is going to present his recent scientific invention at an international conference because his own face is deemed  too ugly to convince anyone to buy his product.   His boss, (Sacha Dominique} tells him the truth point blank as though it were a clear fact, as does his wife (Julie Le Gal) in more gentle terms.  The result, his fate is sealed.

Lette and his wife go to a plastic surgeon who will rebuild the disturbing face(which was never intended to have any material presence on  stage).  After much horrid grinding and scraping and screetchingly inhuman but very limited use of sound and light,  a bandaged Lette stands before us like a robot, or the “invisible man”, straight out of the horror movies,  until the surgeon (also played by Sacha Dominique whose over the top style of joking and nervous hand waving suggested she was in a different play) removes the bandages and with a cry of disbelief, tells us that Lette has become a perfect male specimen whom all will want to possess and imitate. Of course, the actor’s faces remain the same, but the gaze of the others and the unfailing discourse of the observers make it all true.  This is about internalizing the gaze of others that creates one’s sense of identity and the notion to which Fanon speaks so eloquently (inspired by Sartre) in his essay Black skin White mask to explain the disturbing racial relations in the context of colonization.  As the play evolves, the principal character becomes more and more narcissistic as people desire to possess his beautifully reconstructed face

Form that moment on, the function of the director becomes absolutely central.  This face, seen as the height of beauty, becomes a new sign of economic and sexual success and the play moves to a new level in its evolution. The face becomes a highly desirable consumer-object, a cultural object commodified by  its market value and this now becomes a play about capitalism and its relationship with culture.   The Surgeon suddenly anxious to get into private business, is now  ready to operate on anyone  willing to pay her to reproduce Lette’s face.

Sexual pressures come into play.  Tarana Burke’s Me Too movement (much later  it became  #ME too) came into being in 2006  while The Ugly One appeared in 2007 one year later as  Lette is pursued by the new Administrator  of the firm, an extremely fit  70-year- old marvel whose body has been kept in shape by successive operations.  Lette who is rehired by the firm must now perform his new role as the lover of this woman and her own gay son who also overplays his role and turns it into a caricature. Julie Le Gal as Lette’s faithful wife Fanny,  also performs the 70-year-old-marvel but she too has trouble shifting from one role to the next and this whole source of binary tensionbetweem the roles signifying the shifting identities involves Andrew Hosale, Judi Le Gal and Sasha Dominique, becomes barely identifiable because they do not dominated the changes.

This is all  the more obvious the moment when consumerism gives way to the chilling metaphysical realization that the pleasure of being imitated has backfired and that Lette’s own sense of identity has become terribly fragile in this sea of sameness where difference is almost eliminated. How does he operate in this mass of interchangeable faces where everyone resembles everyone else. “me” and “I” and “you” cease to exist.

The solid dramaturgical construction of this piece was quickly obvious but what lacked was the vision of  a director who imposed a clear orchestration of the way the  actors’ used their bodies and the way they spoke. That was the main obstacle that ended in a play with no tension, no drama, no excitement. Nothing meshed . One almost felt that those in charge barely heard the dialogue.   Even the shifting voices of the actors who became protagonists in a binary relationship were barely identifiable.  It seemed as though the director did not try to impose a vocal (not musical) score that would have helped the actors reach new heights of performance, by going way beyond  the idea that these roles had something to do with a naturalistic acting style, linked to a former state of mind or past experience.    They  might have become  purely  obedient bodies, working with a director who helped them invent a completely new style of vocal score which gave examples of new inspiration for the spoken word. If this was done it was unfortunately not obvious and this wonderfully constructed play fizzled leaving us very disappointed.

This production continues at the Gladstone  from September 26 to October 5, 2019

The Ugly One, by Marius Von Mayenburg. Translated from the German by Maya Zade

Directed by Peter Haworth

Scenic and lighting design by David Magladry

 

CAST

Lette by David Whiteley

Fanny and Tracy by Julie Le Gal

Scheffler and the surgeon by Sasha Dominilosiveque

Karlmann and the son Jesse  by Andrew  Hosale