I rarely do it. Rarely report from the dark side. Sometimes I just need to: perhaps the most misguided production this side of the seventies is being perpetrated right now at the Public Theater. Julie Taymor's production of Anne Hathaway in the one-woman Grounded is only seventy minutes, but you will wish it was over by fifteen.
I understand Anne Hathaway wanting to do something to shake up all the haters, for sure; and she has theater chops. It's just that this is the kind of movie star self-indulgence passing as meaningful discourse that brings out the more legitimate kind of detractors. She does acquit herself well, back on the stage after some time. But this is the kind of play you just know would never see the light of day unless a star of Ms. Hathaway’s wattage were attached. Trite, heavy-handed, preachy, a pretender to meaning. Truly, sitting through a sort of sermon on the evils of fighting distant wars with joysticks and having one of those fighter pilots (a woman, no less...Anne Hathaway!) come to the realization that they are actually killing people would be hard to take at a regional showcase of undergraduate plays.
I'm not exactly sure what in the world has happened along the way to Julie Taymor, the amazing Julie Taymor. But it is not good. I guess it's hard to go from Off-Broadway genius to multi-million-dollar director (The Lion King) and stay grounded, taking Spiderman from the most expensive $20M musical of all time to a $65M juggernaut of self-will run riot. I was looking forward to Bono and Taymor and Spiderman. But it was bewilderingly devoid of storytelling and emotional connection. And now this? I'm trying to imagine what kind of politically correct self-righteous self-delusion would cause anyone to direct this play.
Playing right downstairs at the Newman, Hamilton may just be the best musical of all time (it is by any measure in the top three). I have to say, when I was in the lobby on the way out, hard by Hamilton playing at that very moment--it was almost thrilling to contemplate the contrast with this unequivocal failure.
Ron Gallen
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