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A Note on The Ugly One by Marus von Mayenburg Review by: Ali Pour Issa, Jul 1, 2008 |
Ali Pour Issa
The play shows capitalistic viewpoints of a society in which people should be more competitive, although we do not hear a lot about the financial matter. We come across the question of what the key to progress is for jobs. In the business world the salesmen are more important than the inventors. So, what is significant in this world? The answer is neither knowledge nor wealth but beautiful faces. Male bodies are the subject of ... read more this play. With hindsight, feminist film theory has emphasized the notion of "the gaze." According to this theory, the movie-going experience, and even the cinematic “apparatus,” is coded male. In both subject matter and techniques of filming, movies (generalised to plays and works of art) encapsulates the desire of men to look at women, however, in this play the role is vice versa. Moreover, this scopophilia is associated with the male body. At this time, the male body is the matter of selling the products of the company and men are worried about their bodies; on the contrary, women are more confident with their bodies, even the 73 year old lady is good looking. Although the male body is interestingly the target of criticism, there is no businesswoman in the company and we still see the traditional viewpoint of male bread winner in this society and women do not seem to be understanding human beings because after Lette and other men had surgery to have their faces changed into an Adonis like face, women cannot distinguish them and it does not matter for them who is who. Soon after the women were eager to have an affair with a man whom has that gorgeous face, although we know that they just changed their face neither their body, voice, nor their manner.
Gradually all men became to look like one another because the surgeon who introduced himself as an artist learned to create just this one particular face which is extraordinarily beautiful. The work of the surgeon in the play reminds me of the works of Andy Warhol which is referred as ready-made. Similarly, faces of Lette like in the play are comparable with the work of Andy Warhole, i.e. Marilin Monro. Obviously this copied face presents the master picture which has lost its authenticity. We witness how Lette and the gay man who changed their faces are losing their identity and consequently fell in love with their own self, like Narcissus.
The rhythm of play is excellent and director Ramin Gray achieves this effect through a pared down production in which actors instantaneously change character or switch location without even moving. Gray has chosen to stage it as if it is a rehearsal. The Cast and crew in their own casual rehearsal clothes are on stage playing with a shuttlecock and chatting as the house comes in, coming down to talk to friends in the audience until the play suddenly starts. The stage is divided into two parts, one part is surrounded by the drawn rectangular shape on the floor, which all actors play in this area, and the second part is the rest of the stage which is shows the backstage. Using the rectangular bare area and its minimalistic decoration, which consists purely of three benches, a swivel chair and a plastic bag, this is so clever and works extremely well with the dramaturgical side of the play because of the script’s dream-laden mood. However, the messy background, which consists of scaffolding in the back drop, etc and a bag in front of the stage, ruins the minimalistic stage and shows the stage as a kind of art installation; moreover, in much the same way the presence of the stage manager on the stage does not help the play neither functionally nor aesthetically. Lette is the only one who crosses the line and goes to the second part of the stage to drink water after his speech; otherwise, it would not be used at all. Yet I would like to suggest that we could have a better stage functionally and aesthetically if the rectangular part of the stage was shown solely.
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My recommendation:
Make an effort to see
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I saw this show with:
Alone
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Recommended for:
Anyone
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