Revolutionary Acts
Tom
Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia 2002 trilogy of plays and Abel
Gance's 1927 biopic Napoleon have a great deal in common: They
both portray famous revolutionary European figures and explore
the sociological, political and personal factors that influenced
their actions, are meditations on humans' ability to create and
adapt to change, and are both rather long. The Coast of Utopia
consists of three, three-hour=long dramas; Napoleon is five and
a half hours long.
I caught the first part
of The Coast of Utopia, "Voyage," in an expert production
by Patrick Dooley for The Shotgun Players on Friday in Berkeley.
On Saturday, I spent most of the afternoon and evening in the
company of some 3,000 people at The Paramount Theatre in Oakland
for Kevin Brownlow's staggering restoration of Gance's masterpiece
with musical accompaniment provided by the Oakland East Bay Symphony
performing, exquisitely and with impressive stamina, a score created
and conducted by Carl Davis. The film, presented by the San Francisco
Silent Film Festival, represents the most complete restoration
of Napoleon ever witnessed in modern times.
Seeing both of these artistic
efforts in such proximity inevitably caused me to think about
the distance separating these artistic portrayals of revolutionary
activity in previous centuries and what revolution amounts to
in our own times. Both Stoppard and Gance create intensely human
stories out of historical figureheads. The likes of Napoleon,
Marat, Robespierre, Danton, Bakunin, Stankevich, Chaadaev and
Belinsky leap out of the history books with their sabers flashing
and their appetites growling.
The works I saw this weekend
both embody the spirit of the revolution in another way: Their
mere existence speaks to the passion, commitment and sheer hubris
that it takes to even create art on this scale.
For a small company like
Shotgun Players to pull off a feat like "Voyage" is
an act of defiance in itself. The piece employs 21 actors, who
all moved about Nina Ball's simple set composed of malleable partitions
with graceful fluidity. This is no mean feat considering the modest
proportions of The Ashby Stage where the run is taking place.
I felt like I was watching a world-class soccer team or a pack
of Navy seals execute a critical mission. The story-telling is
all strategy, just like a crack military operation.
As for Napoleon, the idea
that such film could have existed in the early days of cinema
beggars belief. The whole thing is shot on such an intimidatingly
large and lush scale that I am still reeling from the experience.
That the filmmaker cast himself in the cameo role of Saint-Just,
the French Revolution's most cold-blooded leader, is decidedly
un-just. Gance's achievement is nothing short of Napoleonic.
It's hard to imagine that
our contemporary world of Tahrir Squares and Occupy Movements
will provoke such memorable portrayals in art a hundred years
from now. But who knows.
