{"id":5550,"date":"2013-04-04T19:46:13","date_gmt":"2013-04-05T02:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=5550"},"modified":"2013-04-04T19:55:58","modified_gmt":"2013-04-05T02:55:58","slug":"5550","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/5550\/","title":{"rendered":"Drama scrutinizes famed journalist\u2019s mind, spirit, vitriol"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Concetta Tomei (right, as Oriana Fallaci) and Marjan Neshat (as a journalist) star in \u201cFallaci\u201d at the Berkeley Rep. Photo, courtesy kevinberne.com.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cFallaci\u201d is \u2014 according to my personal stage evalu-ometer \u2014 85.3 percent brilliant, 14.7 percent boring or overly dense.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 82.2 percent sterling drama (with a tinge of comedy), 17.8 percent polemic.<\/p>\n

Despite its negligible drawbacks, I believe the drama\u2019s definitely worth experiencing.<\/p>\n

\u201cFallaci,\u201d at the Berkeley Rep through April 21, confronts myriad Big Issues \u2014 truth, women\u2019s freedom and power (and their nonexistence), domestic abuse, torture, tyranny, hatred, destiny, motherhood, father-daughter relationships, anti-Islamism, forgiveness.<\/p>\n

So many, in fact, it\u2019s easy to become inundated with the gravitas.<\/p>\n

Playwright Lawrence Wright probes the liberation of women through the famed, cynical eyes of inconsistent, caustic Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci, who insists that, always, \u201cyou have to find the lie\u201d underneath what interviewees offer as the truth.<\/p>\n

Contrasted and compared is the view of a young female writer, Maryam, who wavers between awe and distaste for the elder journalist\u2019s technique, mind and spirit but settles for empathy.<\/p>\n

Wright\u2019s skill at fictionally getting inside Fallaci\u2019s head at the tail of her life is complemented tidily by the unwavering direction of Oskar Eustis.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s noteworthy that these two talented men<\/em> are responsible for the onion-like peeling that occurs on stage to delineate each woman\u2019s self-deception and lies \u2014 a verbal scrutinizing that links the essences of the females.<\/p>\n

Wright, a writer for The New Yorker and author of eight books, including a Pulitzer Prize-winning volume on al-Qaeda and a headline-grabbing tome on Scientology, actually traces Fallaci\u2019s life all the way back to her childhood resistance against the Nazis.<\/p>\n

Concetta Tomei portrays the combative, opera-loving Fallaci with a comprehensive range of emotions and outbursts as omnipresent as the cigarette in her aging hand.<\/p>\n

Tomei, whose Broadway credits include stints with Kevin Kline and David Bowie, smoothly captures the polarized segments of Fallaci\u2019s life \u2014 after a tenure in Hollywood, she becomes the verbal darling of the left (when she mercilessly bludgeons the likes of Ayotollah Khomeini, Moammar Qaddafi, Yasser Arafat and Fidel Castro), then is adopted by the right after she attacks all of Islam in reaction to 9\/11.<\/p>\n

The actor\u2019s Italian accent and physicality are impeccable.<\/p>\n

Majan Neshat competently plays a \u201clowly\u201d obituary writer cum inquisitor \u2014 first with a coupling of reserve and youthful brashness, then with panache.<\/p>\n

She seamlessly integrates her Iranian background and position with The New York Times in a way that makes her believable, all the while running a heady gauntlet to unearth her own truth.<\/p>\n

The lone set by Robin Wagner, a three-time Tony Award-winner, represents Fallaci\u2019s obsession with words via a cavernous room that has books stacked on the floor, a table and ceiling-high shelves.<\/p>\n

The costumes (by designer Jess Goldstein, also a Tony winner) are drab, drabber and drabbest (perfectly in keeping with outer-appearances).<\/p>\n

Considering the fiery quality of Fallaci, one of the first rock stars of modern journalism, and some of the gut-wrenching topics it tackles, it\u2019s strange the highly intellectual play lacks much of a visceral punch.<\/p>\n

Intermittently, in fact, I now and then felt I was witnessing a tableaux of a corpse being autopsied, made even worse by a hokey ending.<\/p>\n

Wright, unfortunately, may have become too entangled in his theatrical conceit of a writer writing about two writers.<\/p>\n

Still, \u201cFallaci,\u201d which reveals how debilitating a diet of controversy, controversy and controversy ultimately can be on a journalist, can be riveting \u2014 especially whenever it pauses to let the audience\u2019s reactions catch up with the verbiage.<\/p>\n

That said, it should be noted that I often found Wright\u2019s weighty subject matter stunning (for instance, when a reflective Fallaci wistfully intones, \u201cThey say I lost the appetite for blood\u201d).<\/p>\n

Opening night, despite the 90-minute show being without intermission, not one soul left the theater before the play went dark.<\/p>\n

It may be ironic that the opening of this world premiere, which at one point deals with the rape of a condemned woman who can\u2019t be executed unless her virginity is taken, occurred on the same day as some fundamental Muslims ripped into a U.S. document on combatting violence against women.<\/p>\n

So it looks like \u201cFallaci\u201d is hardly just a story of yesterday.<\/p>\n

\u201cFallaci\u201d plays at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre\u2018s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St., Berkeley, through April 21. Night performances Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Wednesdays and Sundays, 7 p.m.; matinees, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, 2 p.m. Tickets: $14.50 to $89, subject to change, (510) 647-2949 or www.berkeleyrep.org.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cFallaci\u201d is \u2014 according to my personal stage evalu-ometer \u2014 85.3 percent brilliant, 14.7 percent boring or overly dense. It\u2019s 82.2 percent sterling drama (with a tinge of comedy), 17.8…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5550","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"