Scenes from a Marriage ***

A clever friend referred to Ivo van Hove as a “destination director.” When he directs a play, the main attraction for many people is to see what he has done with the material rather than to see the work itself. Although his relationship with New York Theatre Workshop goes back to 1996, I have thus far avoided seeing any of his productions. Perhaps I have an innate suspicion of directors who think they know better than playwrights or filmmakers. In any case, his adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s superb television series and theatrical film was on my NYTW subscription, so I attended today’s preview. Van Hove’s first directorial stroke was to assign the roles of Johan and Marianne to three different couples portraying them at different stages of their marriage — Alex Hurt and Susannah Flood at the 10-year mark, Dallas Roberts and Roslyn Ruff a few years later, and Arliss Howard and Tina Benko at the moment they separate. Act One consists of three scenes roughly corresponding to the first three chapters of the filmed version. The gimmick is that the three scenes are performed simultaneously in three different areas of the theater. The audience moves from area to area in the order prescribed by the color of the wristband received upon arrival. I was in the pink group and saw the scenes in 3-1-2 time sequence. This was unfortunate because each scene had less impact than the preceding one. Howard and Benko are by far the strongest couple and, I thought, Roberts and Ruff are the least effective and have the weakest scene. Since the partitions are not soundproof, the audience hears snippets of dialogue and slamming doors from the other two scenes. No doubt this was a directorial choice. After a 30-minute intermission, the entire audience returns to the full theater, now configured in the round. Act Two follows the course of their post-separation relationship. Van Hove’s next distraction is that the opening scene of Act Two is played with all three couples on stage, sometimes speaking in unison, sometimes fugally, and sometimes changing partners in mid-sentence. Tripling the roles did not serve any purpose to me other than to demonstrate the director’s cleverness. The final two scenes are much more conventional and even touched by tenderness. The question I was left with at play’s end was “Why?” The film is regarded by many as a masterpiece and the acting by Erland Josephson and Liv Ulmann was incredible. Although much of the acting here is fine and the production is never boring, nothing approaches the film’s level, so I must again ask “Why mess with success?” The only answer I can think of is that the director wanted to. Running time: 3 hours, 30 minutes including 30-minute intermission.

Through a Glass Darkly **

Jenny Worton's adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's shattering 1961 film is now at New York Theatre Workshop in an Atlantic Theater Company production starring the young British actress Carey Mulligan. Her riveting performance as Karin, an incurable schizophrenic who is trying to hold her family and herself together during a summer vacation on a remote island, is perhaps reason enough to see it. However, the very idea of turning Bergman's film into a play seems to me misguided. Without the stunning cinematography and its tight closeups, much is lost. I was also struck by strong resemblances to The Seagull. Both have mostly absent parents more interested in their artistic career than in their children, both have sons who have written a play that is treated dismissively by those parents and, in a stroke that could not be coincidental, both have Mulligan's character standing on a makeshift stage declaiming the son's play. Chekhov did it better. Ben Rosenfield is strong as Karin's younger brother with whom she is far too affectionate. Jason Butler Harner is earnest but a bit bland as Karin's long-suffering husband. Chris Sarandon seemed more distant than required as Karin's father. Karin's breakdown is extremely painful to sit through. There was palpable restlessness in the audience. Takeshi Kata's washed-out gray set reflects the play's bleakness, but doesn't capture the isolation of a remote island. David Levaux's direction seemed to lose clarity at times. Showing us Carey Mulligan's lovely breasts not once but twice was too much titillation. Running time: 90 minutes