From the other shore

The Outer Critics Circle awards have been announced: see Playbill. Eve Best won in Jennifer Ehle's category, but Coast of Utopia scored six gongs, the most for the season. Congrats!

[...] Among its honors are Outstanding New Broadway Play, Outstanding Director of a Play (Jack O'Brien), Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play (Martha Plimpton), Outstanding Lighting Design (Brian MacDevitt, Kenneth Posner and Natasha Katz), Outstanding Set Design (Bob Crowley and Scott Pask) and Outstanding Costume Design (Catherine Zuber). [...]

There are now some photos up from the Drama League awards at BroadwayWorld; Utopia was represented by Ethan Hawke, Brian F. O'Byrne and Billy Crudup. Here are the boys at the meet and greet. At Stage Notes, you can see a shot of some of Team Utopia from the Broadway Show League.

Tonys predictions are stepping up, with Utopia quite prominent. The Record's Robert Feldberg is tipping it for Best Play and Mr O'Byrne for Lead Actor; Jacques Le Sourd of the Journal News and Michael Kuchwara of AP more or less concur. Michael Riedel of the NY Post goes straight to the source, gauging Tonys temperature from some nominators; according to them, Utopia will be battling Frost/Nixon and Radio Golf for Best Play. Steve on Broadway's poll comes up with the same.

Bloggers are getting in on the predictions as well: Carajoy of Full Force Theater Musings considers Jennifer Ehle a lock in Featured (spin round, spit thrice!) along with some other Utopians in their categories, while Josh R at Edward Copeland on Film thinks Martha Plimpton is a chance:

[...] I'm starting to really like Martha Plimpton's chances for Featured Actress in Play - she was absolutely brilliant in Salvage, which was the last play in the Utopia cycle and consequently the last one voters will have seen (Ehle's triumph came in Part 2). Of course, I love Ehle, but actually, it's a close call for me - and of course, Jennifer has her Tony, so I won't be upset if Martha takes her out. [...]

Michael Baker of Lunar Gemini bats for a few Utopians too. Another blogger, mole_underfield, went to see Voyage especially for Ms Ehle. He missed her at the stage door but says nice things about her "intelligence and her compassionate persona" in Pride and Prejudice. Peter saw the last Salvage performance, enjoying the acting and production. Manderson at The Art of Possible posts this wrapup:

[...] Of everything this season, I only missed one show... nothing has been as amazing and overwhelming that is the journey with the cast of The Coast of Utopia.

The sets, the lights, the costumes, and the most remarkable cast of 44 actors make this an experience unlike any other. Guided by, I am going to say it - Theatrical Genius, Jack O'Brien, The Coast of Utopia takes the amazing words of the fabulous Tom Stoppard and turns them into the most captivating philosophical drama I have ever experienced. [...]

A wee description of Utopia I liked from Chris Jones' review of Arcadia in the Chicago Tribune:

[...] Stoppard’s “The Coast of Utopia,” which recently finished its run at New York City’s Lincoln Center, has that riveting, hopelessly impassioned quality. [...]

And possibly the highest praise one can give a writer chez Sacha:

[...] I'm over the moon. The actors in this ensemble are storytellers on an elite level, Stoppard is gutsy and unsparing and assumes his audiences' intelligence, the light designer painted with light, shade after shade drawing me in, and the music wrapped the whole passionate, noisy, glorious mess in an embrace. Jack O'Brian, the director, had a vision and it was one that as many people as possible should see, love it or hate it. The productions were more than worth every cent I spent, every minute spent on the cancellation line . . . what line? Any memory of that left as soon as my eyes met the stage. What a wonderful, miraculous thing this is, stories told on stage. The very best ones scoop you up, and take you into their world, forcing you to forsake the daily life you have just for a few hours. And when you come back, even the real world has changed as a result of seeing good, very good storytelling. If I ever got a chance to really meet Tom Stoppard, I'd tell him that. He altered the way I see people, my world, choices, and events and that I'm disturbed by this, and I'm glad. And I think he'd be one of those people who could take something like that as a compliment. [...]

Elsewhere in blogland, love for Utopia and funny comments at Allison Williams' LJ, plus some general "saw it, liked it" from Tom & Alissa and Sandy. On the forums there's a sweet "Farewell to Utopia" thread at BroadwayWorld about how it's inspired people, some discussion of accents at All That Chat and another thread where daveylow writes about the last Salvage performance:

[...] I also found Salvage much more involving today, much sadder. The whole cast was in tears this afternoon. I was in the second row center so I was thrilled to be there. [...]

Anthony Grafton reviews Utopia for the New York Review of Books. It begins with observations about some marathoner' reactions:

[...] The marathon version of Tom Stoppard's Russian trilogy is charged with excitement. When I saw the three plays in one day at the end of March, virtually the entire audience stayed until the end. Some of those present—who ranged from eager students to slippered pantaloons—clutched battered blue copies of Isaiah Berlin's Russian Thinkers. Others congratulated one another enthusiastically on seeing plays "that are so much more demanding than the usual." One young man who passed me during an interval on the plaza outside the Vivian Beaumont, talking and gesturing as wildly as the young Russian intellectuals in the first of Stoppard's plays, cried "Knowledge! I want more knowledge" as he went by, smiling seraphically.

When the audience gave the actors a standing ovation—something that happens more often than it should these days—the actors applauded the audience in their turn. Some of them even appeared in costume after the show and joined the ushers in handing out buttons that read "I ran the mara-thon." The ties of feeling that bound cast and audience were almost visible and broke slowly. An older man, behind whom I walked to the subway after the third play came to an end, used his cell phone to give a friend or loved one an urgent, detailed, scene-by-scene account of what we had just watched. [...]

In the "links that fit nowhere else" category, have a read of Aileen Kelly's introduction to Isaiah Berlin's Russian Thinkers, posted at Slow Muse. Also, Dying City playwright Christopher Shinn was asked his opinion on Utopia at one of the Platform Series sessions. Oh yeah Brits, tune your tellies to BBC2 this Monday at 11.50pm to see Bedrooms and Hallways.

Phew, that's the news done! Now for the navel-gazey bit....as of Sunday, the grand Utopian voyage has finally come to an end. There have been more than 200 performances of the show, which must add up to a hell of a lot of sacrifice, man hours and creative energies spent so that hundreds of thousands of spectators could experience this epic event. Congratulations to every single person in the Utopia family - cast, creative team, crew, admin. And thank you. I can't do justice to the scope of this momentous achievement; surely there will be an elegy for Utopia in the NY Times or something. We all need some closure!

On our part, we've been chronicling the show from June 2006 when it was announced that Jennifer Ehle was cast (see hysterical post). Since then, it became an almost daily part of our lives as we hunted down every snippet of Utopia news and opinion available online. It's been a joy watching it take flight.

A lesser milestone passed a couple of weeks ago, the blog's second anniversary. We made it! Hilarious, wristslitty, absurd, humbling, hectic, exhilarating...that hardly begins to describe the year. For me personally, this was the year that web fandom converged with real life as I had the privilege of seeing Utopia with some fellow fans. It was incredible. The report from this is criminally overdue but on the verge of completion.

Said report contains an announcement I've been meaning to make for some time now. The short version is that I am soon stepping down from blog management, passing the torch to Abi and Kate. Officially I'm staying until the Tonys, but impending exam madness means my departure will be a gradual decrescendo rather than an abrupt silence come June. Afterwards I will still be around to enjoy my successors' work and help with technical hitches if necessary, but the blog will be in Kate and Abi's capable hands.

There are many thanks due to everyone who's helped with the blog over the past couple of years, but I think I'll keep my list of specific acknowledgments til June to avoid repetition. For now, thanks to you, dear readers, for your silent support. The little numbers ticking over on our visitor counter has been great reassurance that we're not talking into a void.

PS. Sorry about the weird popup, not quite sure how to get rid of it.

Wunderbar!

• MissSummerLee was present on the 24th and is glad she 'devoted a whole day' to Utopia. She says:

[...] The plays are...very well written and funny with that biting bit of dry sarcastic British humor that I adore ... The design is beautiful. Simple and striking and very well done. It was such an amazing experience and I would totally do it all over again. ... I don't have words for how amazing this was to see! [...]

She also spotted Nathan Lane and Eric Stoltz in the audience, aside from Sir Tom and Mr.O'Brien.

• Echoing similar sentiments, marathon runner Johnna was at the same performance and 'loved every second of it'. Even a little mental drifting didn't lessen the impact:

[...] I admit there was approximately 20 to 40 minutes in the combined show running times of nearly 9 hours where the script was way more intelligent than I was and I couldn't follow the political discussions. But I filled the time with stuff more on my level (admiring the pretty costumes, ... looking for the ventilated wig fronts and microphones.) ... I amused myself even during the cerebral parts. ...

I could have come back two hours after the final curtain and watched another installment if they were willing to present a part four at 1 in the morning. [...]

She isn't the only one contemplating a sequel - Snarksmith nominates The Coast of Realism as a possible title for a part quatre.

Meanwhile:

• Martha Plimpton meets up with singer/songwriter Feist.
• The Guardian has an interesting (albeit loosely related) piece on the current pre-eminence of British playwrights at the expense of their American counterparts. Sir Tom is mentioned briefly with regard to Utopia and Rock'n'Roll.
• Pairs-of-eyes wise, Utopia took silver for the week ending April 29th. (Utopia: 90.2%, The Year of Magical Thinking: 94.6%). For a comprehensive breakdown of Utopia's progress over the last seven months, click here.
• Only 14 plays now remain....if you're in the vicinity, you know what to do. If you're stuck, eBay has a ticket for the penultimate Salvage and the final Voyage. If you buy the latter....I might see you there!

BelinskyBlog

Hap Erstein from the Palm Beach Post speaks of the rapturous standing ovation at the marathon he attended, and more:

[...] Standing ovations have become distressingly commonplace in the theater, devaluing their meaning, but after spending eight-and-a-half hours with pamphleteer Alexander Herzen, novelist-poet Ivan Turgenev, revolutionary hothead Michael Bakunin and Communist Manifesto writer Karl Marx, the sold-out Lincoln Center audience rose as one, in awe of the cast - which included the likes of Ethan Hawke, Billy Crudup, Amy Irving, Martha Plimpton and Tony winners Brian O’Byrne and Jennifer Ehle.

During the curtain call, someone had the good sense and chutzpah to yell out “Author!,” something you hear about, but I really can’t recall ever seeing done. Sure enough, the shaggy-headed Stoppard had been lurking about the theater all day and he came out onstage to the crowd’s delight.

The Coast of Utopia is the sort of play that you want to read and study to learn how much you missed in performance, so that is probably a failing, but it is breathtaking in its overload of ideas and wit. No matter what I see the rest of this week, there will surely be nothing to compare to it. [...]

Annie shares her marathon trick: caffeine. She also notes the "author" call:

[...] Before posting my comments, I have to say that Mr. Stoppard was in attendance at the shows. Word got around the audience, and after the curtain call (the company only does one at the very end on marathon days,) someone shouted 'author!' and the entire audience burst into applause once again. He had ducked out of the house, but the thunderous clapping was hopefully going to bring him back for acknowlegement... it went on and on, and no Tom. Suddenly, the focus shifted back to the stage, where some of the company had trickled back, and Mr. Stoppard and the director, Jack O'Brien, entered from the side of the house and took the stage. The impromptu recognition gave me chills - for, whatever one's opinion about the pieces, it is obvious that the work as a whole is a tremendously intense and brilliant undertaking. [...]

and I thought this praise of Billy Crudup was on the money:

[...] Mr. Crudup is always a joy to watch on stage, as he inhabits each character he portrays with individual humanity. As an actor, he raises the level of quality of those performing with him onstage. [...]

Jere of Jere-Rigged liveblogged from the same marathon - which he got rush tickets for! - during the breaks: lunch, dinner (he goes against the tide, preferring Voyage over Shipwreck) and post-show (he spotted actress Jane Krakowski in the audience).

At deliasherman's LJ, there's this on Voyage:

[...] The Coast of Utopia: Voyage doesn't threaten Arcadia's throne, but it shares some of the things I like best about it. It's intelligent (duh. It's Tom Stoppard); it has heart without being sentimental; parts of it are very funny at the same time they're harrowing; it demonstrates and makes comprehensible the glories and the horrors of intellectual passion.
....
I'll have to read the play to figure it all out, but the point was, last night, I didn't care. I was too busy mourning the death of the gently clueless Liubov, and the blindness (both moral and physical) of her father, who owned 500 souls yet called himself a liberal, and adoring the literary critic (Russian names skate right out of my mind--Vassarion, that was it) played by Billy Crudup as an earnest, passionate, clumsy, socially-challenged and still utterly charming and period-appropriate politics geek who, were he alive today, would have a huge and widely read political blog. [...]

And yet more love for Voyage and Billy Crudup from rm:

Amazing. More amazing than I was anticipating and in ways I didn't expect. The staging was both intelligent and innovative and really perfectly, perfectly executed -- certainly, I didn't expect the play to make me have directorial itchiness, but that was exactly what it provoked. Also, great use of music.

The performances were also astounding, with people in, what I thought, were somewhat unlikely roles. Or, perhaps I was just surprised by the nuance in the characters in a time and place and style of play that really could have easily chosen to forgone it and not received too much criticism for it. Billy Crudup plays this bumbling, unnattractive, nervous, lovesick, overwraught critic, and yet, we find out at the end of the play, he's the only guy getting laid, and suddenly we are aware of the character as more deeply human than than perhaps even his peers are. [...]

To the forums: some All That Chatter on marathon dining and similarities between Utopia's musical theme and a Hindemith concerto. At BroadwayWorld, nomdeplume is impressed by Billy Crudup and the production in Voyage, though finds the philosophy a bit much. Another poster shares his Tony predictions- there's much agreement that Utopia is a strong contender.

If reading Russian Thinkers, Romantic Exiles, My Past and Thoughts, etc etc wasn't enough for you, check out these further background reading recommendations from Ask Metafilter.

Keep an eye on the Ghostlight Records site, the company that is releasing the Coast of Utopia score. The CD isn't listed yet, but apparently they will ship free to the US. Thanks to Pinky for the tip.

Another date for your calendars is May 8th, when the 2007 Tonys site will be updated with new "Tony memories" daily from previous winners Jennifer Ehle, Richard Easton and Liev Schreiber amongst others, according to site manager Andrew McGibbon. Oh and the very last marathon ever is on this Saturday May 5th - don't miss out!

PS. She blogs! Ok not really. But cute.

Music IS a creative passion!

• Continuing the 'food for thought' theme of Mr. Hawke and bovines, 'don't-ask-don't-tell-vegetarian' Josh Hamilton documents everything he eats in six days for New York magazine.
• Pianist Dan Lipton explains all about his involvement in the show, not least how he has ended up on stage for half of Salvage:

[...] There are a few actors who play piano, but I would have had to spend a lot of time coaching them to play well, and Mark would have been limited in what he could write. So the wacky idea was floated that I should just be in the show, and then Mark could write whatever music he wanted. I'd be able to hold the singing cast of "non-singers" together each night instead of trusting them to lock into pre-recorded tracks. Jack simmered on this idea over Christmas, and consulted Stoppard and Lincoln Center, because they had to okay another salary. I found this prospect HIGHLY unlikely, but I was wrong. So on January 2, I reported to work not as an intern but as a new member of the company. I was told not to cut my hair. Gotta blend in with the rest of the Russians. So I grew out the sideburns too. I was now, somehow, making my Broadway debut, in a straight play, without even having to audition! [...]

He also gives another indication that backstage life is a ball:

[...] I'm in the male ensemble dressing room downstairs, 11 guys plus 2 dressers. This is the new experience for me, because musicians in the orchestra pit don't even have a room sometimes. ... So I love to hang with this motley crew of supporting actors, who understudy all the guys upstairs. The backstage vibe in general is very warm and great fun. You get the feeling that this really is a once in a lifetime experience, and the movie stars and veterans are enjoying the community of personalities as much as the young actors and the piano player. [...]

Specific mentions of a certain person are as follows:

[...] I taught Jennifer Ehle and David Harbour how to look like they are playing piano. ... Jennifer Ehle and I always exchange glances while I'm playing and she's putting a decoration on the piano. [...]

The whole article is worth reading however, giving a more serious insight into the musical aspects of the production. To find out more about Mr. Lipton himself, visit his official site.

• Playbill comment on the award situation. They say Utopia 'was bound to collect the lion's share of noms given the copious amount of personnel eligible for recognition'. Variety meanwhile, say Utopia's scale make it 'the one to beat'.
• Subscription-only America magazine gives a big thumbs up to Voyage and its opening sequence.
• The Hollywood Reporter mentions Mr O'Byrne's new television project.
• In terms of the present, I wonder how Sir Tom, Mr. O'Brien and Mr. Crowley are enjoying the penultimate marathon?

"Captivating study in contradictions"

• Listen to an interesting discussion about the thinkers in The Coast of Utopia at KCRW, featuring William Grimes of "The College Reading List of Utopia" fame and Keith Gessen who wrote the New Yorker feature on Herzen.
• Coming soon: Utopia the Rock Opera. Brendan Lemon reports at the LCT blog about the cabaret night when cast members showed off their musical chops.
  
• Love letter at Edward Copeland on film (part of a long and thoughtful review):

  [...] As impressive as everyone in the cast is, top acting honors must be conferred upon the luminous Ms. Ehle, who excels in three strikingly different roles. The tremulous delicacy that she brings to her performance in “Voyage” as the frail, gentle Liubuv, who finds bittersweet if fleeting happiness in the blush of first romance, exists in stark contrast to the firm-minded pragmatism of “Salvage’s” Malwida, the perspicacious German governess who exerts a steadying influence on the children of the Herzen household while keeping a wary eye fixed on the reckless behavior of its elders. It is in “Shipwreck,” however, that the actress is most prominently featured, and where she makes her most indelible impression. Far from the square-shouldered, sensible spinster of Part 3, or the pale, shy ingenue of Part I, Natalie Herzen is a rose in full bloom, a ravishing, vibrant romantic heroine who follows her heart into uncharted territory even as the ground beneath her feet begins to give way. The actress creates a captivating study in contradictions; winsome yet seductive, incisive yet wrong-headed, alternately reflective and impulsive, she provides the trilogy with its richest characterization, and its most lyrical.
  
  As evidenced by her brilliant, Tony-winning turn in The Real Thing, Ehle has an instinctive grasp of the nuances of Stoppard’s language; her delivery is so natural and assured that it doesn’t even sound scripted, but rather something being thought up freshly on the spot. This is something I haven’t observed with any other actor in a Stoppard play, or really with many stage actors in general (stage acting seemingly necessitates a certain degree of staginess). The actress’s proficiency with dialogue is made all the more remarkable by its artlessness; although her physical transformation from role to role is quite stunning, her command of the language allows her to thoroughly embody her characters to a point where the effort is no longer visible. [...]

• Ann Midgette of the NY Times interviews the tireless Jack O'Brien, who is directing Puccini's Il Trittico. He compares the two trilogies:

  [...] “ ‘The Coast of Utopia’ is very different,” he added. “The story is evolving in a historical perspective. The pieces of ‘Trittico’ are bound by Puccini’s own imagination and the sound of his music.”

  Another difference: “The incessant, extremely complex voice of Stoppard needed to be banged off surfaces,” he said. “I had to refresh you, not tire you. ‘Il Trittico’ has different problems, especially prejudices. This is not the first time you’ve seen these operas. Whereas with ‘Coast of Utopia,’ no one knew what the hell it was.” [...]

• Tom Bestor of Rational Feast reviews Salvage. Verdict:

  [...] Although I can see how some might be disappointed in this last installment (it's a bit clunkier than the first two), taken as a whole, the production of "The Coast of Utopia" trilogy is one of the most stunning works of theater I've ever seen. The scale of the sets and staging and effects and lighting that Lincoln Center can put on never ceases to amaze me. The cast is terrific, maintaining focus and energy throughout these long works. I can hardly imagine what they must look (and feel) like on the days they perform all three plays as a marathon. [...]

• Jesse Jarnow has a Thoughts from Utopia bit on his blog. He ponders:

  [...] For numerous reasons -- rhythm, dialogue, conceits -- it could never translate to film. Does the fact that it can't be mass entertainment make it pretentious? (It is, of course, but for other reasons, often indistinguishable from why it's so grand.) [...]

• At Pater Familias, Mr Schaefer has high praise for the show:

  [...] We have now watched all three parts of THE COAST OF UTOPIA. We watched all nine hours with continuous delight. We left the theater each night elated. I can’t imagine a better production of any play. The direction and production took full advantage of the resources of an enormous theater. The acting was terrific. I had thought after the first play that the production was lucky to have world class actors like Jennifer Ehle and Amy Irving in small but pivotal parts. The two later plays provided acting challenges worthy of them. I should comment that in an earlier post I said that I thought Ethan Hawke was a better movie actor than a stage actor, based on his Hotspur, which I had thought was good, but not great. I take it all back. Ethan Hawke was magnificent in COAST OF UTOPIA. [...]

  He also wonders whether Utopia would play well in the provinces. If you're a West Coaster you can see for yourself - there's an auction for a private reading of Coast of Utopia by the Shotgun Players at Berkeley.
• Elisabeth Vincentelli of The Determined Dilettante has this complaint about Salvage:

  [...] The other men are reduced to bellowing gasbags (particularly Ethan Hawke's Bakunin) and the women pretty much disappear—the etch-a-sketch treatment awarded to Malwida von Meysenbug, played with very dry humor by Jennifer Ehle, is particularly irritating. [...]

• Chris Riley of Suspended Conversation makes this unusual comparison from watching Voyage:

  [...] there was a very bizarre, disturbing character towards the end of the play - a six foot ginger cat, reminiscent of donnie darko's bunny rabbit, both in the style of its insertion into ordinary life and the sense of fate and doom that it conveyed within the story. [...]

• Star-spotting of sorts: NY Times Op-Eder Maureen Dowd is seen in the audience.
• A couple of Utopia-related conversations are going on at BroadwayWorld: on who of Jennifer Ehle, Amy Irving and Martha Plimpton might get a Featured nomination, and on which part of the trilogy to see if you can only make one (Shipwreck seems to be the favourite), and more predictions that Utopia will take out Best Play.
  
• Huzzah, a fan report from a marathon! This is from Ann, who went to the December meetup as well. Go to the forum to read it. By the way, we welcome any reports you have from the show. Email them in or post in the forum thread - no registration required.
  

Tonys betting etc

• Getty Images has a couple more photos of Billy Crudup, Jennifer Ehle and Brian F. O'Byrne from the Leonard Leopate interview. Search for "coast of utopia".
• Randy Gener of the Star-Ledger interviews some of the understudies from Utopia. Much interesting quotage, such as this from Scott Parkinson who went on for Billy Crudup:

  [...] "Understudying is licensed stealing," says Parkinson. "It's one of the positions in the arts where you're expected to copy someone else's work. The job is to faithfully and truthfully recreate the performance of the actors you're covering. It's a meta-version of acting. ... It's almost a purer kind of acting, one step removed from yourself." [...]

• Tom O'Neil of the LA Times says that Coast of Utopia is the front-runner in the Best Play race, although there are some contenders that haven't opened yet.
• Marathon runner timaroosky hearts the play:

  [...] This show was the most brilliant thing that I have EVER seen on stage. The production values were the highest I have ever seen, the effects, scene changes, lighting and sound design were flawless. The acting was brilliant and the play(s) were both interesting and informative. [...]

• Helen Lawson has more of a mixed reaction, agreeing with some of Charles Isherwood's criticisms, but nevertheless dug the production and most of the acting.

  [...] I thrilled to Jack O'Brien's brilliant stage pictures and fluid direction, keeping everything moving and crackling with all the wit and panache at his command. [...]

  And look, a convert:

  [...] I thought there was a lot of sensational acting -- Jennifer Ehle (not a favorite of mine ere now) in three sharply differentiated roles... [...]

• Michael gives a nice account of the Beaumont experience (squashy seats and all) at Voyage. Plus he gives this reassurance:

  [...] I wasn't expecting the play to be as funny as it was and the jokes ran the gamut from the esoteric to the near-vulgar, the wordplay was involved and entertaining, the whole audience laughed outloud quite a few times . . . the offputting notion in the beginning that the whole play is going to be about Russian politics and philosophy is misguided, I know absolutely nothing about either beyond the scantest basics and I was able to follow the action and discussions with little trouble, Stoppard keeps it fairly accessible, although the notes they give you in the beginning do help. [...]

• Lucy Komisar goes against the tide of "Stoppard is all head no heart" critique by complaining of the opposite. On the womenfolk:

  [...] And what about the women? Amy Irving, Jennifer Ehle, and Martha Plimpton in multiple roles, especially Irving as Maria Ogarev, estranged wife of Herzen’s hard-drinking friend Nicholas; Ehle as Herzen’s wife Natalie and then as his children’s governess; and Martha Plimpton as Natalie’s friend, the intense Natasha Tuchkov, offer excellent portrayals as the action turns to revolve around them.

  They play a major role, but not for the reasons one might expect in a political play. The female characters are mostly reasonably bright women who spend their free moments thinking about husbands. Bakunin argues for the education of women and for love matches. Did none of the women in that radical milieu ever challenge women’s role? Even the one woman who attends political meetings seems more interested in men than ideas. [...]

• At All That Chat, there's discussion about Jennifer Ehle's Tony category and more tipping that Utopia will win Best Play.
  
• Meanwhile, BroadwayWorld is talking about whether Utopia will be on Live from Lincoln Center (if only!) and there's advice on past-dating Utopia tickets and such. In another thread, one guy is batting hard for Ms Ehle in the Featured Actress category, though there's some debate. Potential competitors mentioned include Susan Lynch in Translations, Dana Ivey in Butley, Jan Maxwell in Coram Boy and Tonya Pinkins in Radio Golf.
  
• More star-spotting: Warren Beatty and Annette Bening were in the audience at a performance of Utopia. Just thought of something - given that there is a minute chance some audience members have discovered our humble blog, and given that Utopia audiences seems to be teeming with VIPs...hands up if you've won a Tony, Oscar, Pulitzer? Anyone? Ex-presidents?
  
• Sanford Marcus at Queersighted interviews Scott Pask, one of the genius designers on Utopia.
• Jason Grote reminds us that Utopia dramaturg Anne Cattaneo is going to be on CUNY's Women in Theatre program on April 27 and 29.
• One fan wrote to the LCT asking about when and where the Utopian Dozen calendar is being sold. Here's the reply she got. "This week" was a while ago, so it should be available now; also, note that while signed calendars are $50, plain unsigned ones are only $20.

  "The calendars will be sold as part of the Broadway Cares fundraising drive which will begin for us this week. We anticipate beginning fundraising following this Wednesday's performance and will sell signed COAST OF UTOPIA posters as well as signed and unsigned copies of the Utopia calendars. All proceeds from the sale of these items will go to Broadway Cares and are completely separate from the items regularly sold in the Beaumont lobby gift shop. As you mentioned, the calendars are also available for purchase from the Broadway Cares website."

thebell.blogspot.com

• Above title is inspired by the latest LCT blog offering, in which Brendan Lemon notes some of the funnies overheard in the Beaumont lobby during the intermissions at the marathons.
  
• Brian D. Johnson recounts his experience at the Utopia marathon last Saturday, the "ground zero of Stoppardia". On the cast:

  [...] Ethan Hawke has a great role, Bakunin, and he makes the most of it. Billy Crudup was Belinsky and beloved. He carried much of the weight for the required number of Stoppard Self-Referential Sermons (monologues) about Writing and Art. Jennifer Ehle was the love of my life and the fire of my etc. Brian F. O'Byne was brilliant as Herzen. [...]

  Speaking of Stoppardia, Michael Berry of Cheaper Ironies has a post on Sir Tom's political activities.
  
• David Clement wanted more Utopia after the 12-hour marathon day. That says it all. By the way, can anyone help him out?

  [...] The subject matter (19th century Russian intelligencia in exhile) is kinduh up my alley; like many suburban introvert kids of my generation, or maybe just one other person I hope to meet someday, I got overexcited when I saw Reds and started reading Russian writers from before the revolution. Tom Stoppard's play was like watching all those provocative, nebulous historical ideas take the form of attractive young actors. [...]

• Ditto on time flying while you're in Utopia (marathons), at The Laboratorium. Par contre, Jim Carlson couldn't make it through one part.
• At Broadway & Me, reflection on the audience's "armada of emotions" post-marathon, and some envy at the camaraderie between the actors displayed at the curtain call. Ethan Hawke's "uncontainable joy" is mentioned in particular.
• Has all this talk of marathons given you the itch? There's a question at All That Chat about whether you can get last-minute tickets - one person says that someone was selling discounted premium seats in the morning.
  
• Am, who watched Shipwreck, has an interesting take on the timefoolery element.
• Nice Belinsky quotage from Patrick Kanouse (try substituting "actor" for "poet", etc):

  “A poem can’t be written by an act of will. When the rest of us are trying our hardest to be present, a real poet goes absent. We can watch him in the moment of creation, there he sits with the pen in his hand, not moving. When it moves, we’ve missed it. Where did he go in that moment? The meaning of art lies in the answer to that question.”

• Stephen Smoliar talks about the analogy between the search for utopia (as conceived by Isaiah Berlin and Tom Stoppard) and the search for identity. Bit over my head, but that's not saying much.
• Mondschein of Third Row, Mezzanine makes the connection between the Bakunin sisters and Little Women after seeing Voyage. He enjoyed the performances and production, but was "a bit lost by the pace of the plot and the turnover of characters". And we can add another name to the list of illustrious Utopia attendees, Neil Simon.
• BroadwayWorld's MargoChanning is tipping Utopia as an almost dead-cert for the Best Play Tony. In another thread about the most hauntingly beautiful images on stage, the opening sequence of the plays as well as the end of Salvage are mentioned.
  
• Janmarie Anello is running a promo for her book Forever Yours, the prize for which is the US anniversary edition of Pride and Prejudice.
• QEIII saw The Philadelphia Story as a requirement for her course. Sadly, she was disappointed by it.
• Camille Hickman, a casting associate at the LCT who worked on Utopia, is hosting a free Q&A for aspiring actors on April 24.

Sorry again about the late and absent posts, dear readers. Thanks to Abi for keeping the ship afloat during my Easter trip to Chelsea's place in Brisbane, our first meeting after almost two years of blog-slogging together. A historic event!

"A visual and verbal feast"

At long last, some more theatre-goers have posted their opinions on Utopia in the NY Times Reader Review section.

The most laudatory of the two is from mapbrook, a marathon survivor, who describes the show as 'a visual and verbal feast':

I saw the trilogy all in one day, and I am still reeling with excitement. Don't fear the text, the wordiness or the history--it's great theater performed by an extraordinary cast, directed by a superb director and designed by a top-notch team of designers. It's easy to follow and understand. Theater events like this come around so rarely. Don't miss it. And don't eat or drink too much before the show. You'll want to hear and see everything this banquet offers.

Meanwhile, francisdyer went to the Saturday 21st matinee performance of Shipwreck. There is some negative discussion about Kolya, including a quite amusing vilification of his little spinning top. Overall though, this reviewer gives the show 4 out of 5 stars and implies that it clearly is great, even if he doesn't quite feel it.

This reviewer also wrote about Voyage for which there was a little more positivity but still an element of puzzlement and confusion.

Also, on this page of the NY Times reader reviews, I have just noticed a comment made by someone on November 30 2006. In response to previous reviews, this person used the title 'Ravishing' and wrote:

I just do not understand all the negative comments! The set design more than compensates for the actors expressing complex historical Russian experiences with their American acting idiom.

And what was the reviewer's name? Bruce Pask. Would that by any chance be Bruce Pask the set designer? Twin brother of Utopia set designer Scott Pask? I think it is a safe assumption! It goes to show that these reviews are read by at least some of the people involved! (And responded to - well done Mr Pask!)

There is also the odd Utopia fan spreading joy over at amazon.com. After describing the show as 'the most important theatrical event of the past 60 years', here is what else P. Bonoff "Yaleman" had to say earlier this month on the show and its legendary writer:

Stoppard's eloquence and wit are only the beginning. The subject is monumental and speaks to our times. Wisdom emerges at the perfect pace. Catharsis at the end. I have seen the trilogy and will see it twice more in marathon experiences. Reading the text beforehand enhances the understanding of the contest and of what takes place. If you don't recognize the importance of The Decembrists, please review some history before seeing and/or reading the trilogy. If you don't know at least a bit about Tsar Alexander, please look at wikipedia and go from there. Very timely and relevant and ominous. And if you read the inspiring text either before or after the experience, the catharsis will be even more powerful. If you haven't seen the epic, this is a must-read.

Thank you, Tom Stoppard (and ensemble) for a once-in-a-lifetime experience. "Rock & Roll" goes further. IMO, this is a transformational work which materially enhances Stoppard's prospects for already likely Nobel Prize. What next? What a genius. Unforgettable lessons to be learned dramatically.

But, there are two sides to every story, and E.Rabinovich posts the largely negative letter he/she sent to the New York Times in response to Ben Brantley's review.

Meanwhile, if you are not into online purchasing, Alexander Herzen's My Past and Thoughts is on sale in the New York Public Library bookshop should you happen to be in the vicinity without a lot to carry.
...
Lastly, if you fancy being talked to for half an hour, here is KCRW 's 'Politics of Culture' radio programme about Utopia and the subject matter behind it. It was recorded just after Voyage opened, and is hosted by Michael Silverblatt and Ruth Seymour. Largely elementary, but interesting nonetheless.

1 of 18

• In the Winston-Salem Journal, an article about the 35th anniversary of the Creative Learning Center for Very Young Children. There's mention of Ms Ehle as one of its first alumni.

  [...] Agnes David, a retired private kindergarten teacher who donated a watercolor painting to the silent auction, called the school "the best children's program around." The program started with [founder Othella] Johnson's own sons, Nathan and Matthew, actress Jennifer Ehle and two other children. Today about 45 children, ages 1 1/2 to 5, are enrolled, and five other teachers work with Johnson. [...]

• These BroadwayWorlders report from the latest marathon: an absolute ball by all accounts. Sez D2:

  This is why I prefer live theater above all other art forms. THE COAST OF UTOPIA, all twelve glorious hours of it, was one of the most thrilling theatrical events I've ever witnessed in over 30 years of theater-going - a true masterpiece where all the pieces come together into one seamless, enthralling whole. Everything about it, from the design, to the performances, to the direction and of course the writing, is exceptional, and it all adds up to one exhilarating experience that should not be missed by anyone who really cares about theater and the ideas and emotions it can inspire.

  Note this little exchange in the thread:
  

  jewishboy: D2- didn't you love Jennifer Ehle at curtain call?
  D2: She and Martha Plimpton were laughing hysterically throughout the curtain call tonight. Plimpton also tripped on the hem of her dress as she ran off.

  Among the marathon survivors were Meryl Streep, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Tony Roberts, Penny Fuller and Clare Danes, as spotted by D2.
• Eileen also loved the occasion as well, recounting how camaraderie grew among the audience members.
• Dafna's another happy Vegemite marathoner. Mention:
  

  [...] None of the women played roles that went through all three plays, but Jennifer Ehle (I've seen her in "The Real Thing" on stage since then, but she's still Elizabeth to Colin Firth's Darcy in my brain) was definitely the lead actress -- she played Herzen's wife in the second play and his nanny/housekeeper in the third and one of the key Bakunin sisters in the first. She was also great -- and as much fun as it is to see someone play the same character over time it's almost more fun to see them play different ones -- as the nanny in the third play, for example, even though most of her scenes were again with O'Byrne, she made you forget they'd been playing husband and wife just two hours before. [...]

• ThePowerThatIs also ran the marathon and recommends the show to everyone who isn't averse to Mr Hawke, or names ending in -sky or -ev.
• Can't please everyone- author Gwen Davis walked out midway through Shipwreck at the marathon. Before the best part!
  At Condition Critical is an audio review of Utopia by Bill Marx, mixed-to-negative.
• June Cohen saw Voyage and was disappointed about the lack of meatiness of the female roles, but was impressed by the production as a whole.
• Ethan Stanislawski saw the same play with his history professor dad. Verdict?

  [...] After the first act, my father stormed out of the theater—and went straight to the box office, to buy tickets to the two other plays in the trilogy. [...]

Goodies galore

Mark your diaries for Sunday April 22nd everyone, that's when the Working in the Theatre seminar is being first broadcast at 5pm on CUNY-TV. Guestlist:

Jennifer Ehle - Actor
Josh Hamilton - Actor
Ethan Hawke - Actor
Amy Irving - Actor
Theodore S. Chapin - Moderator
Sondra Gilman - Host
Douglas Leeds - Host

The show will be downloadable after the broadcast and will be replayed on TV later on as well. Check the schedule for dates. Also now up at ATW is a video of the seminar that includes Daniel Swee, casting director for Utopia.

Old Faithful has yet another feature on Utopia, this time about Mark Bennett's gorgeous incidental music. Good news: there are audio clips! We've mirrored them for posterity. All the below are mp3 files.

• Prologue
• Ginger cat waltz
• Déjeuner sur l'herbe
• Blackgange Chine
• Curtain call

[edit: here's the ATC thread Kate mentioned where someone says a Utopia soundtrack CD is in the works]

The recent Leonard Lopate radio interview made mention of others with Tom Stoppard and Jack O'Brien that I don't think we've posted before. There's another Stoppard one at Studio 360 as well. On the LCT blog Brendan Lemon interviews Josh Hamilton.

Blogs: a handy timeline of the French Revolution(s) at the girl works, another foodie-oriented review of the Utopia marathon at Give me food, a so-so Russian review of Voyage (Babel it), and Paul Broussard rates the marathon as "one of the all-time best theatrical experiences of my life". There's a tally borrowed from Variety at All That Chat for Salvage:

Cost of Utopia: Salvage
of 17 reviews:
11 pro:
Post, Times, Daily News, USA Today, Sun, AP, New York Mag, Newhouse, WSJ, NY1, Newsday
3 con:
Bergen Record, Gannett, Bloomberg
2 mixed:
Village Voice, New Yorker

More BroadwayWorld discussion of Tony categories, where MargoChanning says that Ms Ehle could go either featured or lead, but the former would be better. And things are looking good - at least one Tony voter enjoyed Utopia .

A fan just tipped me off to this: in Verve's production notes PDF for Alpha Male, there's mention of a film called Broken Thread in Jennifer Ehle's bio.

[...] Cinema roles followed, including Constance Lloyd in Wilde (1997), Kevin McKidd's girlfriend in Bedrooms & Hallways (1998), and a head-turning performance as the caustic, chain-smoking single mother in British comedy This Year's Love (1999). Recent films include Broken Thread, Michael Clayton with George Clooney and most recently Pride and Glory with Ed Norton and Colin Farrell. [...]

It's an India-UK co-production starring Linus Roache, which is curiously similar to Road to the Sky. Could be just a mix-up.

Finally, some left-field randomness. On YouTube, the global repository of wack, Utopia kids Kat Peters and Sophie Rudin do the opening monologue of Salvage. Also from the random corner is an interview with a vampire (oh alright, a novelist who writes about vampires) who enjoys the right version of Pride and Prejudice.

Anti-bacterial underwear recommended

• Michael Schulman of the New Yorker has a piece documenting the Feb 24th marathon (that explains this post's title).
• mandrakan also reports about a marathon, as does morigian.
• According to Playbill, Amy Irving's Downstage Center interview will be airing March 9 at 6 PM, March 10 at noon, March 11 at 7 PM and March 14 at midnight.
  
• Celia Wren of Commonweal reviews the Coast of Utopia trilogy.
• Michael Sommers of the Star-Ledger writes about curtain calls, with cool quotage from Martha Plimpton:

  [...] Even more striking is when the cycle is performed on a marathon day. No bows are taken after the first two plays. When the trilogy concludes, the original curtain call template is augmented by another downstage march in three rows. Then the company bends on one knee with heads lowered and a hand over their hearts.
  
  Plimpton notes several colleagues feared the gesture might seem "corny," but the results provoked "a massive emotional experience."
  
  "We could finally break the membrane between actors and audience and express our appreciation for going through this with us for nine hours," says Plimpton. "The roof came off the place. We wept." [...]

• NY Times' summary:

  Lincoln Center Theater’s brave, gorgeous, sprawling and ultimately exhilarating production of Tom Stoppard’s trilogy about intellectuals errant in 19th-century Russia. A testament to the seductive powers of narrative theater, directed with hot and cool canniness by Jack O’Brien and featuring a starry cast (Brian F. O’Byrne, Jennifer Ehle, Martha Plimpton, Josh Hamilton and Ethan Hawke, among others) in a tasty assortment of roles.

• Trivia: apparently a character from Lost is named for Bakunin. Neato.
• susabela of All That Chat saw Voyage and thought Ms Ehle's performance one of the standouts. Winnie So watched the same play and also dug it.
• David Pittu (the awesome singing servant) gets some love from Steve on Broadway. He's going to be in LoveMusik.
• The River King reviews in ingles and Spanish. The former is specifically unfavourable.
• Forgot to post this before. Ann, who attended both fanborees (December and February), kindly gave me permission to share her thoughts on Salvage:
  

  I saw all 3 parts of The Coast of Utopia last weekend. I loved it. While I think "Salvage" would be hard to see without seeing the first 2, when you see all three of them, you realize that you have just had an incredible theater experience. There was a standing ovation from a large part of the audience after "Salvage". It wasn't that it was the best, but it was a reaction to the entire production. I am really looking forward to seeing the marathon in April.
  
  Jennifer's role was much smaller in this one than her Shipwreck role, but she is there when it opens and for a good part of the first act. The fact that her character is so distinctly different from the ones she played before, demonstrates what a good actress she is.

• Spider-Man 3 preview on YouTube - there's a Rosemary Harris scene.
  

She plural

From Variety's report on the Salvage opening:

Any psychiatrist could tell you that playing three major roles throughout playwright Tom Stoppard's sprawling, eight-hour play about pre-Revolutionary Russia, "Coast of Utopia," could cause schizophrenia.

Luckily, star Jennifer Ehle diagnosed herself as having split personalities before she ever joined the "Coast" cast.

"I knew that a long time ago," she said at the Feb. 18 opening night party at Ruskie Restaurant Row haunt Firebird for "Coast's" third installment, "Salvage." "You have to be to get into this profession." [...]

Terry Teachout raves about Salvage for the Wall Street Journal (sadly not online). The most verdict-y bit:

[...] On the other hand, it could be that Mr. Stoppard has written an all-but-unstageable masterpiece that my generation of playgoers will not see again in our lifetimes -- and judging by a single viewing of the complete trilogy, I think "The Coast of Utopia" might well be a masterpiece.

To be sure, Mr. Stoppard's penchant for making his plays out of the ideas of other men has led some to wonder whether he might be less a playwright than a kind of journalist -- albeit one of genius. But "The Coast of Utopia" is far more than just a brilliantly pointed primer on the historical significance of Alexander Herzen and his contemporaries. By interweaving the revolutionary notions of his characters with the mad disorder of their private lives, Mr. Stoppard has contrived to give us that rarest of plays, a pageant that has real emotional depth. I confess to wondering whether I would have been quite so impressed with "The Coast of Utopia" had I first seen it in a less memorable production, and it may also be that I responded to it so strongly because I share its author's antiutopian vision of the tragedy of modernity. But countless other viewers who feel otherwise have been no less deeply moved, suggesting that Mr. Stoppard has succeeded in transfiguring the unpromising raw material of politics and turning it into high art. [...]

And what's this, more NY Times on Utopia? Indeed; Edward Rothstein weighs in this time.

Some survival stories from the first marathon are up at All That Chat. robert_j is mixed though considers the marathon format effective, while StageStruckLad, who had been considering leaving after Voyage, was glad to have stayed til the end. Both report that Richard Easton did not perform at the marathon. whyohwhyoh isn't happy with the cast except for Mr Easton and Ms Ehle.

In blogland, lizellis is in raptures over the show and spotted a coupla famous faces in the audience, The Playgoer saw Tom Stoppard at Wallace Shawn's The Fever and RS thought Voyage "good but not great". Unrelatedly, a reciprocal shout-out to us from Philip Shaefer.

We've posted these Broadway.com videos before, but thought it might be a good idea to gather them together. Here: Voyage, Shipwreck, Salvage.

Romantic exile on oil rig

AP's Mark Kennedy interviews David Harbour, Richard Easton and a certain person of interest. Was wondering how long the unscathed run would last.

[...] And since all three plays - "Voyage," "Shipwreck" and "Salvage" - are in constant rotation, rehearsal and tech periods often run between noon and 5 p.m. and then everyone must return to perform three hours later.

"My fears were that it would be like being on an offshore oil rig and it hasn't been quite like that," says Jennifer Ehle, a new mother who also has three roles. "Actually, it's like being on an offshore oil rig with my family stationed on a boat two leagues away and I have a row boat to get to them."

It promises to get even tougher: The cast and crew are to undertake all three plays in back-to-back-to-back marathons on Feb. 24, March 3, March 10, March 24, March 31, April 7, April 21, April 28 and May 5.

The sheer complexity of all the show's moving parts is made clear midway through an afternoon interview with Easton, Harbour and Ehle in Easton's tidy dressing room.

At one point, an intercom crackles to life: "Could I have everyone in the funeral on stage, please!" a voice pleads. "Everyone in the funeral on stage, please!"

Harbour, 31, and Ehle, 37, instantly look at each other, wracking their brains to remember if they're needed for this rehearsal scene of "Salvage." Easton, for his part, is calm _ and for a good reason.

"It's my funeral," he explains.

Since he's not needed, Easton has about an hour to kill until the end of the play. So what does the 79-year-old actor typically do while dead? He reads old detective novels or does crossword puzzles.

"Occasionally, people come in and talk to me, try to cheer me up," he says, laughing.

Unlike Harbour, Ehle and Easton, a few of their co-stars - Jason Butler Harner as Ivan Turgenev, Hawke as Michael Bakunin, and Brian F. O'Byrne as Alexander Herzen - keep their characters for the entire three-play run.

But don't call those guys fortunate.

"I don't think they're lucky," says Easton, who portrays Bakunin's father in the first play, a Russian diplomat in the second and a Polish nobleman in the third. "We're lucky."

"Absolutely," says Ehle, who plays, in succession, a sister of Bakunin, the wife of Herzen, and then the governess of Herzen's children.

"Three parts for the price of one," explains Easton.

The three actors insist that even though there's so much dense material - some of it overlapping in time and subject - they never get confused about which play they're in. [...]

To get into character, each actor did his or her own research. O'Byrne and Crudup read a lot of Turgenev and Herzen. Ehle read "The Romantic Exiles" by E.H. Carr. There was even a field trip to Russia undertaken by O'Byrne and other cast members. [...]

Other bits:

• A few photos from the Salvage opening are up at TheaterMania.
• John Simon of Bloomberg is negative on Salvage.
• Blogger Philip Shaefer enjoyed Voyage and comments on the Isherwood Issue.
• William Grimes has a piece on rediscovering Alexander Herzen in the International Herald Tribune.
  

Advance copy

This is in lieu of Wednesday's post - we're reshuffling the schedule at the mo. Voila leftovers from Salvage opening.

• Monsters and Critics, Popsurfing, NewYorkology and Steve on Broadway roundups.
• Wireimage shots from the afterparty (guess who's not there).
• Continued All That Chat discussion with several positive mentions - read the thread in flat mode.
• Old Voyage review by Gregory Kirschling at Entertainment Weekly.
• Christine of Reuters rounds up Salvage reviews. There's also some quotage from Richard Easton.
• Matt Windman of amNY reviews the show (audio).
• Jacques Le Sourd, Journal News.

  [...] Aside from this, there is much less star power in this section. Amy Irving, Jennifer Ehle and Billy Crudup do not appear. [...]

  Er.
  
• CultureGrrl critiques Ben Brantley's breakdown of the trilogy.
  

Salvage press reviews

Aw, the last first night. BroadwayWorld folks beat us to the roundup, but here's the relevant quotage. The photo above is from Playbill which has a handful - none of our frau. Watch this post: it'll be updated as more reviews come in. Newer stuff is up top.

• Michael Sommers, Star Ledger.

  [...] Ehle's stern yet loving governess is an oddly radiant figure. [...]
  

• Malcolm Johnson, Hartford Courant.

  [...] The most telling and watchable performance in "Salvage" comes from Jennifer Ehle as the tightlipped Malwida. Having played a girlish innocent in "Voyage," and an adoring but swept-away wife in "Shipwrecked," she now reveals an iron core as the strict governess who can only watch in horror as the feckless Natasha, so extravagantly costumed by Catherine Zuber, distributes presents to the Herzen children. [...]

• Joe Dziemianowicz, NY Daily News.

  [...] In one story strand, he strives to launch the Free Russian Press, to give radicals a voice. In another, he deals with a complicated home that includes his children, a stern German governess (Jennifer Ehle, fabulous and unrecognizable from Parts 1 and 2), revolutionary friends and a married lover. Sometimes it smacks of "One Radical Life to Live." [...]

• Ben Brantley, NY Times (discussed at All That Chat).
  

  [...] Nearly every scene is built on the impossibility of imposing order on the squirming mass of contradictions of human existence. The same evidence of dashed intentions comes across in matters domestic (in the chaotic rearing of Herzen’s children, despite a resolute German governess, played by the Jennifer Ehle) and epochal (the freeing of the serfs in Russia in 1861). [...]
  
  This production also lets us savor the actor’s tasty art of expert reincarnation, via performers who showed up in different roles in earlier installments. (Ms. Ehle’s obdurate governess and Richard Easton’s dying Polish count are especially memorable.) Fans of Ethan Hawke will be pleased to know that his character, the anarchist Bakunin, gets out of prison and is, if possible, even more obnoxious than before. (That’s meant as praise.) [...]

• Michael Kuchwara, Associated Press.

  [...] When Herzen isn't agitating for freeing the serfs, he is dealing with domestic duties, trying to make sense of his family life after the death of his wife and younger son. He still has three other children to care for and into their orbit comes a stern German governess, played with crisp, Teutonic authority by a marvelous Jennifer Ehle. [...]

• David Rooney, Variety.

  [...] O'Byrne's performance has steadily grown in stature and humanity through its accumulation of fine details, turning increasingly more introspective to shed light on the man and his alienation. As the strong-willed German governess to the widowed Herzen's children, Jennifer Ehle adds another flinty characterization to stand alongside her intelligent work as Liubov Bakunin in the first installment, "Voyage," and her luminous Natalie Herzen in "Shipwreck" -- three remarkably distinct women who share deep self-knowledge. [...]

• Clive Barnes, NY Post.

  [...] Nor can we forget the women - Martha Plimpton, Amy Irving (like Crudup, not in "Salvage") and the extraordinary Jennifer Ehle - who together with all the rest made up a cast that represented repertory acting at its finest. [...]

• David Finkle, TheaterMania.

  [...] The sad situation, however, is that Herzen is a plodding, dour character. In Salvage, he whiles away the latter part of his life attempting to establish a broadsheet called The Bell, while also trying to keep his children-overrun household in order. While Stoppard's idea is to show how often an influential person's private life is mundane in contrast to the public life, daily routine isn't the surefire stuff of compelling dramaturgy -- even if some of it is devoted to Herzen's passionate dalliance with Ogarev's wife Natasha (Martha Plimpton) and to spirited domestic exchanges with the children's German governess, Malwida von Meysenbug (Jennifer Ehle). [...]
  
  In Salvage though, Hawke finally gets away with his bellowing now that his Bukanin has turned Falstaffian, while Ehle, Harner, and especially Plimpton seem most at home in Stoppard's diffuse world. [...]

• Matthew Murray, Talkin' Broadway.

  [...] Inextricably bound to his plans for arousing Russian serfs’ ire through nonviolent means are his own relationships, with the paternal Polish émigré, Count Stanislaw Worcell (Richard Easton), through whom Herzen works to establish free Russian and Polish presses; with his son, Sasha (played at different ages by Evan Daves and Matt Dickson); with his longtime friends and one-time schoolmates Michael Bakunin (Ethan Hawke) and Nicholas Ogarev (Josh Hamilton); and with two devastating women, his German governess Malvida von Meysenbug (Jennifer Ehle) and Nicholas’s wife, Natasha (Martha Plimpton), with whom he creates some lives and destroys still others. [...]
  
  Other actors, however, do some of their best work of all three plays here. Easton’s Polish count is highly persuasive as a man who knows he’s outlived his own usefulness, but who becomes crucial in Herzen’s own development; Ehle finds layer after chilly layer in the dominating yet brittle Malvida. Plimpton’s Natasha is a gorgeous rendering, smoothly acidic and comic, devoted to Nicholas and yet longing for Herzen’s more understanding arms. Plimpton makes you feel every moment of confusion, every kickback from the wounds she inflicts in Nicholas, and you respect - as you might not expect to - the choices that lead to several global and personal downfalls. [...]

• Richard Ouzounian, Toronto Star (review of whole trilogy).

  [...] There's also astonishing work from Jennifer Ehle, who delivers three distinct and galvanizing performances, and Amy Irving, who portrays two diametrically different women. [...]

• Michael Giltz, NY Daily News. Interview with Jack O'Brien and Ethan Hawke.

And non-press reviews:

• Aaron Riccio has another Salvage review:
  

  [...] Along the way, Stoppard continues to introduce us to characters that all deserve their own plays. Billy Crudup might be missing from Salvage, but there are plenty of interesting characters to be found in Count Stanislaw Worcell (Richard Easton), the doddering but passionate voice of the past, Malwida von Meysenburg (Jennifer Ehle), the steely German governess, and once-peripheral but now-central characters like Nicholas Ogarev (Josh Hamilton), his second wife, Natasha (Martha Plimpton), and the famed writer Ivan Turgenev (Jason Butler Harner). Easton is, as always, a pleasure, and Hamilton and Harner are even more mellifluous now than they were previously. As for Ehle, playing a disciplinarian may prove to be the best move of her career. Aside from showing off her range, stripping her of her all-too-easy dramatics forces her to find a deeper strength, and the controlled chaos that she experiences in the Herzen household is wonderful to see. [...]

• Yankeefan007 at BroadwayWorld (with discussion):

  [...] Ethan Hawke is phenominal, again, as usual, as the flamboyant and now heavily bearded and fat Bakunin. Jennifer Ehle as Malwida is appropriately restrained (I enjoyed her more as Natalia). Also wonderful are Martha Plimpton and Josh Hamilton as the Ogarevs. [...]

  
  
• Voyage review at Where's Higgs.
• Negative Salvage review at Mokka mit Schlag.
  

Ctrl-V

• The Wall Street Journal has an interview with Jack O'Brien (subscribers only). Here's a taste:
  

  [...] Another with three roles to juggle is Richard Easton, a friend of Mr. O'Brien's for four decades and counting, who in 1969 took direction from Mr. O'Brien in "Cock-A-Doodle Dandy," his first full-fledged Broadway directing job. "Actors trust Jack. So do designers and other technical people. He's always practical. Whatever it is, he knows how to do it, but he doesn't want to do it himself. He's funny, so there's always lots of energy in the room. He's sentimental, and he cries a lot. He's thoughtful. When rehearsals start, he basically sits and listens and watches. He has the confidence that whatever happens, he can deal with it. He uses what you bring. He never thwarts you. He's not in competition with anyone he's working with -- which is more unusual than you think." [...]

• Theatreboy is anti-homework.
  
• Russian review of Voyage and one from Sharky with bonus Stoppard-fangirling in the comments. Patrick of Recursive Bee is critical, while despite misgivings Mike thought it a good play on balance.
• Blogger Jennifer Chang on Shipwreck (she too spotted Sally Field).
• On the LCT site the dramaturg's notes on Salvage are up.
  
• Note from an extra on Alpha Male.
  

Back-blog

Oops, Mon is me. Apologies.

• Martha Plimpton responds to the Isherwood thing, which also caused a kerfuffle on the NY Times' letter to the editor page. (NB. To read Martha Plimpton's blog, you must be a Myspace friend of hers)
  
• Famous names continue flocking to the show, according to Rachel Glickman and usher Jeff Goldstein. They spotted Sally Field, Kurt Russell, Goldie Hawn and Lauren Bacall.
  
• Broadway Beat has video on Coast of Utopia with clips from Shipwreck and interviewage from Voyage's opening night. Ta for the tip, Pinky & Kate.
• Reminder about the LCT Platform Series Q&A with Tom Stoppard on Feb 14th. Note that the time and date have apparently been changed.

  Lincoln Center Theater’s Platform Series continues its 2006-2007 season on Wednesday, February 14, from 5:00 to 6:15 pm at the Kaplan Penthouse (10th floor of the Rose Building, 165 West 65 Street) with a pre-performance talk with the Tony, Olivier and Oscar winning playwright, Tom Stoppard. Admission is free and open to all; however, seating is limited. Admission passes will be available on a first-come, first-served basis, beginning at 4:00 at the entrance to the Rose Building.
  

• Ricky Patterson has mixed views on Voyage.
  
• Mike at Lunar Gemini reports on the whole trilogy. Quoth he:

  [...] The cast is consistently strong. Not surprisingly, O'Byrne has the gravitas to carry the show, but I would have gladly watched a show that centered on any of the supporting characters as well. Hawke is the perfect blend of angst and obnoxiousness as the moody, pushy Bakunin. Jennifer Ehle creates three great characters but particularly shines as Herzen's wife Natalie in the second part, "Shipwreck." Amy Irving, Martha Plimpton, Richard Easton, Billy Crudup, Patricia Conolly...all superb. [...]

• Michael Giltz of Popsurfing seems to be interviewing some of the Utopians (Tom Stoppard, Ethan Hawke). Watch that space, I guess.
• Bob Martin relates the "censorship > free press" issue from Utopia to the free-for-all internets.
  
• Jesse21 from All That Chat makes mention of Jennifer Ehle in Salvage:

  Yeah, and was not Jennifer Ehle just great when she circled that big stage in Act 1 as her power was being usurped.

  sabra_n is critical but notes that she plays the part with a German accent. Other Utopia discussion at ATC includes some love for Josh Hamilton.
  
• NYCriticsCorner has reviews of all three parts: Voyage, Shipwreck and Salvage. Mentions from the latter two respectively:

  [...] It is Bryan F. O'Byrne & Jennifer Ehle (Design for Living, The Real Thing) who deserve all the glory for their performances here. Much like Billy Crudup's (who is completely underused in this second installment) tour de force in VOYAGE; O'Byrne navigates through Stoppard's words as if he just passed the S.A.T.'s with a perfect score and knows it! Matching him bit for bit is Tony winner Jennifer Ehle as Herzen's wife. Any actress who is comfortable being fully naked on stage for ten minutes, automatically scores points - but this one is breathtaking and beguiling! [...]

  [...] And Jennifer Ehle and Martha Plimpton never ever disappoint as the trilogies female standouts. [...]

• At BroadwayWorld Yankeefan007 agrees:

  [...] Glad you liked them. I concurr whole-heartedly about the 1st 2 parts (seeing the 3rd in a week). O'Byrne and Ehle are delivering tour-de-force performances, as are Crudup and Hawke. I wonder how the actors will be ruled at the Tony Awards. They all seem like sure-shots. [...]

• Lastly and randomly, shoutout to us from The Beef. Merci!
  

You may have noticed that "bi-daily" has been dropped from the sub-heading. With three of us now on the job, in theory there should be posts every day except Tues, but we get muddled. Expect more scheduling changes later.

PS. There are cheap ($40-65) Salvage tix at All That Chat's Shoppin' section for Feb 14, 16 and 22.