Word: mayer
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...forbid Woyzeck should be Tim Mayer's last show at Harvard. Still, if it is, he's ended his extra-curricular career with a hit, and made the first season of the Harvard Summer School Players all the more memorable...
...Mayer's Woyzeck is a veritable diamond in the rough: the set looks unfinished, the lighting is often unfortunately absent, the stage hands scramble conspicuously for the props during scene transitions, sometimes the actors don't seem aware that other actors are on stage with them. But it doesn't matter. When all is said and done, Woyzeck is an exciting and a fascinating show, one which transcends its technical handicaps easily. The best in it is Mayer's best and that's saying plenty...
...interpretation of Woyzeck, all this is drastically oversimplified; I can hear Tim Mayer and his cast laughing already. However, the mood of the play is one of total futility of existence. And this Mayer has captured economically by using a revolving set (designed by Clayton Koelb) pushed by Woyzeck and other characters in changing from scene to scene. At worst, the unpolished mechanics of the revolve made for some visually awkward scene transitions in the first act. But most of the time, especially when Woyzeck did the pushing, the slow turning of the set neatly captured the hopelessness of Woyzeck...
Considering that Woyzeck was selected, cast, staged, and opened in something short of two weeks, Mayer has done an extraordinary job with the staging. Concentrating most of his efforts on the set-pieces (the long, crowded scenes in the tavern), he lets his talented cast fend for themselves in the shorter dialogue scenes with little blocking to guide them. The balance is really nice, particularly in the second half when Woyzeck becomes a blend of introspective horror, and Mayerian theatricality...
Peter Weil as the Drum Major and Carl Nagin as Woyzeck's friend Andres work in their parts more out of physical presence than anything else. Mayer has, on occasion, underdirected his actors: Nagin seems to be playing more to himself than to Babe, and James Shuman's monologue sounds more like an exercise in dialogue modulation than the barroom philosophy it should...