A.R.T.’s ‘Paradise’ Feels More Like Hell

If Bertolt Brecht and Steve Jobs collaborated on a play about economic downturn, the end result might look something like the lifeless, sluggish production of Clifford Odets’s “Paradise Lost” currently running at the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.). Brecht would insist on calling attention to the show’s own theatricality, thereby distancing the audience and forcing them to separate their emotions from the action onstage in order to realize an important truth. Meanwhile, Jobs would persistently add more and more technology to the play, to no rational end. This is the feel of director Daniel Fish’s “Paradise Lost,” which runs through March 20: a muddled, pretentious mixture of inexplicable technology, estranging effects, and bizarre sermonizing that overshadows the fine actors and even the story itself.

Fish manages to remove any traces of life and energy from one of Odets’s best works, a tale about the survival of the human will in times of crisis. “Paradise” follows the Gordon family, who has lost their livelihood during economic decline. While originally set during the Great Depression, here the Gordons are re-envisioned as a contemporary family—one of Fish’s only directorial decisions that works, even if only in theory. Modernizing the Gordons and their neighbors would make their misfortune more relevant and immediate.

Yet any meaning Fish achieves with the present-day setting is negated by the baffling stark and technological aesthetic he forces on the show, which works against the script rather than with it. Videos projected onto a gigantic screen throughout the production are particularly off-putting. Even when the video works in a technical sense, it is distracting, unnecessary, and alienating. This is no fault of video designer Joshua Thorson, whose work is actually quite charming by itself. Rather, any video­—even as engaging as Thorson’s—simply makes no sense here, where it takes away from the onstage action and detracts from the play’s narrative.

The use of video is particularly unfortunate when three factory workers visit patriarch Leo Gordon (David Chandler) and his business partner Sam Katz (Jonathan Epstein) to complain about their conditions. The unseen workers lodge their complaints, speaking into off-stage microphones while the screen plays clips of silently talking everymen. The effect is sloppy and confusing. If Fish is trying to equate the three workers with modern employees and their struggles, he certainly does not succeed; it is barely discernable what is actually even happening in the scene.

This disorder carries through with the needless use of live feed video. Many of the instances utilizing live feed seem to be the consequence of ill-conceived staging, such as the conversation between Ben (Hale Appleman) and Kewpie (a moving Karl Bury) in which both actors are seated on the floor with their backs turned to the audience, with large furniture further blocking them from view.

As a result of the projections, and several odd moments during which characters speak into handheld microphones, the production comes off as cold, sterile, and preachy. The cavernous quality of the Loeb Mainstage only adds to this empty feeling. While the various scenic elements—designed by Andrew Lieberman—are visually striking throughout the three set changes, their scattered placement on the vast stage also underscores the emotional barrenness of the production.

Actors almost never connect or collaborate as they recite lines; instead, they always seem to be yelling across the stage at one another from atop these purposely unfinished set pieces. Their placement makes them feel even more removed from the audience. Consequently, emotional peaks in the script fall flat. Fish certainly seems more focused on his concept than the story itself.

Despite the mess around them, most of the actors still manage to deliver solid performances. Sally Wingert is natural and funny as matriarch Clara Gordon. Thomas Derrah as Gus Michaels and Epstein as Sam are both powerful and fiery. T. Ryder Smith shines above all as Julie, the younger of the Gordon sons, and Mr. May, a corrupt businessman who tries to enlist Leo.

Smith’s one scene as crooked Mr. May is the only instance of a rewarding use of video in the play. Finally, the video’s detached feel makes thematic sense when projecting May’s image—in negative—as he speaks. His black-and-white face effectively reflects both Smith’s doubled role and May’s unfeeling nature.

Unfortunately, this is one of the only successful moments of the production, which ends on a fittingly impassive note for a show that stresses electrical connections over personal ones. Leo Gordon’s final speech about his hope for the future of mankind should be a stirring conclusion, but his delivery into a microphone instead turns it into a lecture. While the Gordons are left with nothing but their own faith in man’s work, Fish’s production leaves a far less reassuring impression.

—Staff writer Ali R. Leskowitz can be reached at aleskow@fas.harvard.edu.