Leon Addison Brown and Ritchie Coster dig down deep in Athol Fugard’s THE TRAIN DRIVER (photo by Richard Termine)
The Pershing Square Signature Center
The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre
480 West 42nd St. between Tenth & Eleventh Aves.
Through Sunday, September 23, $25
212-244-7529
www.signaturetheatre.org
Athol Fugard’s year as the inaugural Residency One playwright at the new Signature Theatre concludes in triumphant fashion with the New York premiere of the subtly powerful The Train Driver, following previous productions of Blood Knot and My Children! My Africa! On a wide, shallow stage covered in sand, dirt, rocks, and garbage, Simon Hanabe (Leon Addison Brown), an old, slow-moving black man with a shovel, approaches the audience, explaining that he has a story to share. The play then shifts to a flashback as Simon, the caretaker who buries the men, women, and children with no names in this makeshift graveyard/junkyard, is approached by Roelf Visagie (Ritchie Coster), a destitute white man desperate to find the grave of a black woman and her baby, claiming that she ruined his life. As Roelf’s harrowing tale emerges in long soliloquies (wonderfully delivered by Coster), Simon (expertly played with understated simplicity by Brown) goes about his daily business, sweeping the sand, heating canned food over a candle in his dilapidated shack, and sleeping on a ratty reclining chair. He tells Roelf that they both will be in serious danger if the local band of tsotsi, murderous thugs, catches him there, where no white man is supposed to be, but Roelf doesn’t listen as he continues his search for the dead woman and child. Fugard also directs the ninety-minute show, maintaining a mood of quiet grace as day turns to night and back to day again. The relationship between the two men never falls into cliché as they drive the story to its relentless conclusion, brought together by death and white guilt. The Train Driver runs at the Signature through September 23; on September 24, the Signature will present a screening of Gavin Hood’s Oscar-winning film, Tsotsi, which is based on Fugard’s only novel.
Culinary documentarian Paul Lacoste details the handing over of a world-renowned restaurant business from father to son in the appetizing if not wholly satiating Step Up to the Plate. In 1999, Lacoste kicked off his “Inventing Cuisine” series with an inside look at gourmet chef Michel Bras, followed by episodes focusing on Pierre Gagnaire, Gérald Passédat, Michel Troisgros, Olivier Roellinger, Michel Guérard, Pascal Barbot, Alain Passard, and Nadia Santini. Ten years later, when he learned that Michel was retiring and his son, Sébastien, would be taking over, Lacoste asked if he could document the transition, resulting in the Bras family welcoming the director into their restaurants and homes, although the results are sometimes surprisingly distant and empty rather than intimate and revealing. Over the course of four seasons, Lacoste follows Michel and his wife, Ginette, and Sébastien and his wife, Véronique, and their two kids from their franchise three-Michelin-star restaurant in the Aubrac region in the south of France to the glorious, stunning Michel Bras Toya Japon situated atop a mountain in Japan. Much of the film focuses on Sébastien creating a new dish, a special request from the director; the deeply intent chef stares at the plate, knowing something is missing but not sure what it is, the camera lingering, a bit too long, on his consternation. When he ultimately brings the dish to his demanding father, Sébastien declares, “Stop looking, taste it! Food is for eating,” to which Michel responds, “But you look at it first, you know.” It is fascinating to watch just how central a role food as both reality and concept plays in this close family’s life, especially as they entertain thoughts of a fourth generation someday grabbing the reins. But while Step Up to the Plate will leave you hungry to eat at their restaurants, it will also leave you hungry for more from the film itself.
Christopher Nolan’s challenging, insightful murder mystery stars Guy Pearce (L.A. Coinfidential) as Leonard Shelby, a man with no short-term memory; to remember things, he takes Polaroids and has important information tattooed on his body. Joe Pantoliano (The Sopranos) and Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix) costar in this thriller with a twist — the story is essentially told in backward time. You’ll want to see it in the theater because there is a quick shot at the end that will have you debating with the other viewers around you what you just saw; the shot loses its charm when you’re watching it at home and can freeze-frame the action so you can see what really happened.
The first half of Christopher Nolan’s nearly successful remake of Erik Skjoldbjærg’s creepy psychological thriller does a good job of building the tension so prevalent in the original, following it nearly scene by scene, but with one major flaw — creating definitive motive where in the 1997 Norwegian film there was doubt and soul searching. Ultimately, indie god Nolan gets trapped in showcasing Hollywood acting — his cast includes Al Pacino, Robin Williams, and Hilary Swank — obvious plot twists, and easy resolutions that pale in comparison to the original, which starred Stellan Skarsgård, bringing the whole film down. But Warner Bros. knows that most people will never see the 1997 original; that’s why the only mention of Skjoldbjærg’s film comes after the final acting credits, when most filmgoers are already on their way out of the theater.
Christopher Nolan turns to the world of magic in The Prestige, but you’ll feel like you’ve seen this rabbit pulled out of a hat before — especially if you checked out two other 2006 films, The Illusionist, Neil Burger’s murder mystery about a magician, and Scoop, in which Woody Allen plays a magician who gets caught up in a murder mystery with his “daughter” (Scarlett Johansson) and the son of a powerful lord (Hugh Jackman). In The Prestige, dueling magicians Robert Angier (Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale) have a bitter relationship right out of Amadeus, with Angier being more the Salieri type and Borden the Mozart wunderkind. They each keep trying to up the ante with the constantly morphing trick called the Transported Man, eventually involving electricity expert and oddball Nikola Tesla (David Bowie) in the mix, as well as sexy magician’s assistant Olivia (Johansson). Parts of the film are indeed thrilling, and the ending packs a wallop, but much of the meat of the movie is far too repetitive and, ultimately, not quite believable.
Christopher Nolan’s follow-up to his 2005 hit Batman Begins is one of the most brilliant superhero films ever made. Christian Bale is back as billionaire bachelor Bruce Wayne, who spends his evenings fighting crime in Gotham City, which is under siege, victim to a brutal crime spree led by the vicious Joker (Heath Ledger in a massive, Oscar-winning performance). As the madman with the wild hair and evil clown face starts knocking off public officials, mob bosses, ordinary citizens, and even his own minions, Wayne is also beset by the blossoming relationship between Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhall), the woman he loves and who knows his secret, and the new DA, Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), who has come into his high-profile job with both arms swinging, determined to make Gotham City safe. The Bat Man is joined once again by his faithful butler, Alfred (Michael Caine), Wayne Industries exec Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), and police lieutenant Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman); the film also features Anthony Michael Hall as a television talk-show host who finds himself in danger, Eric Roberts as a smooth-talking gangster, and Cillian Murphy as Scarecrow in a brief cameo. The Dark Knight is a carefully constructed tale of good and evil, love and death, and everything in between, working as both a thrilling action movie as well as a psychoanalytic examination of what lurks deep in the soul. Although there are special effects aplenty, it is primarily a very intimate, personal film about one man’s tortured existence. In a summer of the high-octane superhero flick (Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Hellboy II, Hancock), The Dark Knight towers above them all.