Remember last semester when I said I was going to review "Belleville" and didn't? Well I did, I just never posted it. Because I'm addle-brained. So now I'll take a few moments to tell you about it.
"Belleville" is a new play, that was very recently born here in Connecticut. It is set in Belleville, Paris, which is a shadier part of the city. A young couple lives there, and another couple are their upstairs landlords. The first couple have moved here for Zack's job as a doctor,while Abby stays at home and works on her art and fixes up the house.
At first, they appear to be happy and comfortable, definitely in love. But as the play goes on, the audience sees that Abby has some mental disorders to work through. Her mother has died a few years ago, and she has drawn obsessively close to her family. This unhealthy behavior has been emphasized by her sister's pregnancy. Zack, wanting to spend time with her and help her out of a depression-rife rut, continually tries to take the phone from her. Actually, he is constantly taking care of her. Abby acts much like a child, and Zack pays the price with heavy drug addiction.
But Zack isn't perfect either. It is revealed that he dropped out of med school and never had a job in Paris. Abby's discovery that they are actually living on zero revenue combined with her excessive paranoia and depression push her too far. She tries to commit suicide with a knife in the bathtub, under the guise of "washing off." Before Zack figures it out, he asks her if she ever regrets asking him to marry her, or wishes that he'd said no. She says "yes," she does wish that, but doesn't respond to a barrage of questions following. Zack panics, kicks down the door, and saves her life.
The couple seems to have a breakthrough, with Zack telling Abby how much he loves and cares for her, his wife. Abby reacts lovingly for the first time in the entire show... and then the phone rings. Zack answers it, talks to Abby's father for a few minutes, and then hands the phone over to Abby.
While talking, she goes and gets dressed in the far room, closing the door behind her. Zack looks out the window into the beautiful sunrise for a few hopeful moments, and then picks up the knife Abby tried to kill herself with and hovers outside her door, before retreating into the bathroom and locking the door. The sound of running water is heard. When Abby exits her room, there is a rising white noise, and a blinding spotlight is set on her. She looks at the bathroom door for a moment, and then leaves the apartment.
Overall, I thought “Belleville” was disappointing. I went into the theatre with high hopes for a fabulous show that would amaze me just as much as “Three Sisters” did. This isn’t to say that “Belleville” was bad. In fact, it was quite a remarkable script with some fabulous acting and a stunning set. However, there were some things (which I will go into more detail about) that made me feel uncomfortable, and not in the way that was intended.
First thing’s first: the acting. I thought that all of the dramatic acting was stellar, especially from the female lead, but the same actress’ dialogue at the beginning of the play set me on edge. It’s possible that she was trying to show early on that there was something wrong mentally with her character, but when she was speaking to Alioune (her landlord), or even her husband, the way she spoke seemed like she was “acting” instead of empathizing and being realistic. For such a visceral and realistic play, I think it was a bit jarring that her tone was so showy during the exposition.
Her dramatic acting, as I mentioned before, was beautiful, though. When she was cutting her toenail off, I felt sympathy pains because of her intensity, and her attempted suicide was breathtaking in its realism. I believe that the actor who played Zack did the best job overall, however. He was always believable and knew how to be obvious without being overt about his drug addiction and other personal problems. Subtlety is essential for those kinds of issues.
Another thing that set me off was the ending. Near the end of the play when Zack and Abby were kneeling in front of each other and he answered the phone instead of her, I took it as a moment of symbolism; Abby was going to let Zack back into her heart and Zack was going to stop being antagonistic about her obsessive behaviors with her family. This made the role-reversal, Zack’s suicide, and Abby’s abandonment of her husband that much more heart-wrenching, and not in a way that I though was beneficial. It made me walk out of the theatre intensely disheartened and angry. Why can’t “good plays” end happily? But that’s a rant for another time.
Another scripting issue I had was the very end of the play. The large amount of French dialogue was quite upsetting. I could understand one or two minutes of silence interspersed with French, but five to ten is excessive. Never assume your audience can speak a foreign language, or will be okay with not understanding whole minutes of dialogue. It was very frustrating.
A praise I have is for the set and lighting. BRILLIANT. The set looked like a nice, if well-used, French apartment, complete with lovely artwork, small embellishments on the fireplace, and an outdoor neon sign and street that looked absolutely real. And let’s talk lights for a minute; how do you get lights to look like the morning sun? That’s pure genius. And not only did it look like sun, it like the sun. I was amazed.
All of this being said, I consider “Belleville” a good experience for myself mainly for setting and lighting purposes and some great dramatic acting. I may not have enjoyed all of the play, but it was definitely a good watch, and exceptionally well-done
That's about all I have to say today. I'll probably be doing a review of "Into The Woods" in the near future, because I'm a sucker for Sondheim. In the meantime, Stay classy, Planet Earth!
Love,
Caty
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