Rhythm, Pitch, And Pacing

Tonight HP and I went to see This Is Our Youth as Steppenwolf. It's been a show to see since it opened primarily because of the celebrity cast: Kieran Culkin, Michael Cera, and Tavi Gevinson. It was not a very good show.

I'm sure in the mid-nineties(when the play was written) the angsty teens and drug use was cutting edge but in 2014 it seems almost quaint. What struck me was not the content of the play but the performances more specifically the vocal performances.

Culkin was by far the easiest and most compelling to watch, granted the script gives him the most range within which to work, it was clear he has done live theater before. He was comfortable, he went on a journey, he made choices.

Gevinson either naturally has a bizarre voice or put on an ill-conceived affectation for the performance. The cadence and stresses were so distracting I didn't actually buy she was acting. Her limited on-camera experience and non-existent(at least from what I can find) stage experience makes it clear she's out of her depth.

Cera was the biggest disappointment, an element of which was certainly because I'm a fan of his work and my expectations were relatively high. The main problem with him was he delivered every line the same. Uniform inflection, uniform volume, uniform non-emotion. He did not go on a journey, he either talked normal or yelled. He, seemingly, made no character choices.

Cera, the lead, and Gevinson, the romantic interest, exhibited an extremely limited vocal range. Maybe because the two of them are use to camera work they were doing things to subtle to be picked up 8 rows back, maybe they were out of their depth, maybe the director was intimidated by their celebrity and didn't direct. Regardless they were boring. There is potential for musicality to the script, a potential for the monologues and dialogues to ebb and flow, to peak and valley, to intercut and overlap. But the potential wasn't realized and maybe in real life peoples speech patterns are pedantic and unchanging but the stage calls for something more animated. Something more inspired.

They didn't find the poetry elusive but inherent in all performance. People will go see the play because three famous people are in it. I just hope people don't mistake the excitement of being in a room with Michael Cera for good theater.