Three Pianos: A Contemporary Take on Franz Schubert

THREE PIANOS
Loeb Drama Center (American Repertory Theatre)
64 Brattle St., Cambridge, MA, 02138 (617-547-8300)
Writers: Rick Burkhardt, Alec Duffy, Dave Malloy
Director: Rachel Chavkin
Sets, Andrea Mincic; Lights, Austin R. Smith; Costumes, Jessica Pabst; Sound, Matt Hubbs; Video, Dave Malloy.
Tickets $25-$55 with discounts for WGBH and Mass Teacher Association membership
Through Jan. 8

There are some delightfully goofy scenes in the current American Repertory Theater production of "Three Pianos". I’m not saying it’s enough to make an evening of rewarding theater but it has its moments.

The play is based on a gathering of Franz Schubert's Viennese friends in which he presents them with his final work, “ Winterreise”   (Winter Journey), a cycle of 24 songs Schubert composed to the poems of Wilhelm Muller.

Franz Schubert led the charge of the Romantic Movement in early 1800s. He was at ease writing opera, symphonies, and sonatas but it was with lieders, songs he composed to contemporary poetry, that he outdistanced his peers. He is credited with elevating the idiom of song into a much more subjective and emotional genre and breaking traditional rules of form with abrupt changes in tempo and poignant melodies.

The Winterreise songs are about as bleak as one could expect from a young man dying of syphilis and a broken heart to boot. During this evening’s “ Schubertiade,” as the gatherings were called, history and fiction collide.

At this point, it’s hard to tell exactly what kind of play writers and arrangers Rick Burkhardt, Alec Duffy, and Dave Malloy (who also happen to play all the roles of Schubert and his loyal band of friends) want to create.

If the Marx Brothers were to write a play about Franz Schubert, this is sort of how it would turn out. Plenty of puns, running jokes (“Is there anything left to drink?”), a few sight gags and lots of non-sequiturs. 

It’s deliciously goofy when the actors refer to texting and youtube while giving us the picture of 1827 Vienna, with its strange combination of censorship from the King and serious partying by the intelligentsia. It’s hard to keep track of fact vs. fiction especially when the dialogue speeds up and has to be understood over the Schubert’s music in the surround sound theater system.

Then there’s the matter of the three pianos. During the one act 120-minute play, the three actors simulate playing Schubert’s lieders on the pianos that they keep do-si-do-ing around the stage. The dynamic is an effective counterpoint to the rapid fire dialogue.

Schubert, “The Wanderer” in the songs, is truly a bereft soul and embodies the despair in Muller’s poems.  The three actors sing a handful of Schubert’s Winterreise lieders. A huge LCD screen hanging over the set displays the song’s number in the cycle and translates the lyrics from German to English. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea but if you close your eyes, the impact of their voices and Schubert’s music still packs a punch.

After a while, the strategy of trying to lighten up the proceedings with broad humor describing the personalities of Schubert’s increasingly inebriated friends and a few minutes of straight biographical narrative feels like Sesame Street has gone high-brow and is trying its hand at music education.

For the life of me, I couldn’t find the core to the play. The joking around, imaginative set, and clever staging trumped an experience of Schubert’s struggle to survive and his compulsion to create. I could read the gloomy words of his songs on the LCD screen but by evening’s end, had no idea what drove him to write them.

Music and lyrics about love lost have never gone out of style but this play needs more than a score sheet to keep us interested for an evening in the theater.

Ryan Jensen photo courtesy of Boston Globe

Comments

[Lucia Sullivan]

We saw it. We fell asleep. But we were very tired and not Schubert connoisseurs.

[Paul Tamburello aka pt at large]

The show got out of the gate with good energy but there were stretches where I can understand why one's mind would wander. I think Schubert's Austrian songs (lieder) are a hard sell to today's audiences.

[Faith Moore]

I would say you absolutely nailed it. Goofy, disjointed, well-intentioned and occasionally poignant. Talented and serious musicians but as actors? Not so much. But you have to give them credit for dreaming it up, non? I gather one of the three is the son of a musicologist. Definitely totally original. I am very glad that I saw it and it has stuck with me.

[Paul A. Tamburello, Jr. aka pt at large]

When reviews of a play are boffo and my own take is tepid, I wonder what I might have missed. I've learned to write what I feel, even though I might sound like a contrarian.
And I certainly give them credit for thinking it up then figuring out a way to stage it. Thanks for the feedback.