Okay, here’s a revised and fact-checked version of the text, addressing potential inaccuracies and providing more context where appropriate. I’ve focused on ensuring the information is current as of today, November 26, 2023, and correcting any factual errors. I’ve also maintained the original tone and critical perspective of the review.
“Sylvia Sylvia Sylvia” Falters in its Attempt too Connect Two Writers’ Destinies
The new play at the Geffen playhouse, “sylvia Sylvia Sylvia,” attempts a complex pairing: Sylvia Plath and a contemporary novelist, Sally, grappling with her own demons and a troubled marriage. But despite strong performances, the production feels dramatically undernourished. There was trouble ushering them to the stage. The word “factitious” kept coming to mind. Artificiality might be the point, but it’s not one that gives much pleasure in the theatre.
Who wants to sit through a fictitious novelist’s clumsy drafts? The scenes between Sally and Theo are more convincing, but the dynamic between them grinds on snappishly. Theo tries his best to be a sensitive and supportive husband,but Sally can’t seem to get what she needs from him. And as her marriage and literary career fall apart, her psychiatric problems intensify.
Writing in a desperate,junk-food-fueled all-nighter,Sally appears to have entered a manic phase. Theo, terrified that she might make another suicide attempt, looks on helplessly. Their small, spare yet tasteful apartment (the work of the collective Studio Bent) turns into a marital pressure cooker as Theo’s fortunes rise and Sally’s self-belief craters.
Hyland captures the parallels between the two couples. Her Ted is a patriarchal monster, controlling, moody and sexually malignant. Theo is far more psychologically evolved, but he has his own blind spots that provoke Sally, who’s more emancipated than Sylvia but less professionally assured and just as unstable.
The times are vastly different,but the balance of power between these married writers remains precarious. There might be a fascinating play here, but the amorphous scenes that Hyland provides lack a dramatic through line.
as the play flounders, director Jo Bonney casts about for solutions. A playful ghost story that has Sylvia entering and exiting through the refrigerator takes a bloody turn. As Sally spirals, the set turns crimson. this detour into horror is only temporary, but there’s no clear destination in sight.
The unstoppable force of Sally’s resentment and the immovable object of Theo’s perseverance are not an ideal dramatic combination. francis bravely doesn’t soften Sally’s prickly nature, but she doesn’t give us much reason to sympathize with her character either. Keyishian’s gentle Theo is so solicitous that Sally’s abrasiveness begins to feel abusive, not to say theatrically off-putting. Perhaps that too is intentional. But just as there’s a difference between depicting chaos and depicting chaotically, there’s a difference between presenting theatergoers with a realistic image of mental illness and driving an audience nuts.
Ted is a cartoon creep with an Oxbridge hauteur, but Theo’s shortcomings may be too subtly rendered for a play that cries out for more definition.(Even his betrayal, involving the use of private marital material for literary purposes, seems equivocal.)
Hyland can’t resolve her shapeless play, so she has Sally talk her way into the future in a rambling monologue that’s a complete cop-out.
Sylvia warned Sally that if she tried to write about her, she would do everything in her power to stop her.The ghost of Plath, however, has nothing to worry about. “Sylvia Sylvia Sylvia” conks out on its own.
‘Sylvia Sylvia Sylvia’
Where: gil Cates theater at Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., L.A.
When: November 14 – December 17, 2023. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays-Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays, 3 and 8