The Cast, I mean Coast of Utopia

Coastofutopia

After spending the last four months completely submerged in preparations for TED and building the new TED website (which launches this month), I am finally surfacing and reclaiming my life. What better way to jump back into New York culture than taking in the first (3-hour) installment of the new Tom Stoppard trilogy?

I've come to think of this 3-play cycle as the Cast, rather than the Coast of Utopia. Because the cast is just spectacular. Ethan Hawke: manic and memorable. Billy Crudup: Wow. I mean, wow. And then there's Brian F. O'Byrne, Amy Irving, Jennifer Ehle, Martha Plimpton.... Such a great line-up. Unfortunately, though, the women were nearly invisible. They were there on stage -- speaking lines, moving the plot along -- but they just had no presence. Now, perhaps that's the point: Women in 19th century Russia weren't exactly empowered... but it was a bit disappointing to see such phenomenal female actors recede into the background. I never got a full sense of who, exactly, their characters were.

Nonetheless, it was an impressive production. And I found myself looking around at the attentive sold-out crowd and the huge cast and the extraordinary sets (including, in one scene, ice skaters circling an enormous chandalier that looked like it had been carved out of ice, with Russian Orthodox spires on top and icicles at the bottom), and thinking, bemusedly, that we were all extravagantly indulging Tom Stoppard's whimsy. If Tom Stoppard wants to write a nine-hour, three-part trilogy about 19th century Russia. Well, by God, we'll watch. And so we did.

 I'll be back in a few weeks for Part Two ....