A review of Opus

A Fleeting Memory

One of the things that I love about being in this theater class is that because I can see plays on a regular basis, I see a trend happening in on and off Broadway. There’s a certain amount of youthful energy in the plays I’ve seen, where gloominess and despair are eluded and forgotten about. Altar Boyz had a moment when a character had found out that his mother had died, but he persevered in the name of the Lord and dance. Spelling Bee had a dramatic moment when a little girl in the competition realized that her parents were never going to see her at the Bee because they could care less, or had their own problems to attend to. Yet, the play remained youthful and silly. Spring Awakening had a character commit suicide, and yet the more important topic at hand was birth control. It’s the youthful angst style of Spring Awakening (the OC motif) that helps give the energy for the play to move on briskly from a person’s death; almost as if the playwrights were saying that there are more serious issues that have to be attended to and that there is no time to dawdle. Besides, birth control applies to just about everyone, so everyone in the theatre can feel personally connected to the main theme. Who wants to worry about a little old death? The play Opus has a quality that’s entirely different from those plays.

Quite frankly, I felt that those plays were missing any signs of the characters experiencing regret, and I think I know why that particular feeling is omitted and why those particular plays are so popular. Forms of energy are so important to the musical genre, because that’s the foundation for dance. You can’t have a tired unenergetic dancer on the stage or else his movement would lack grace and motivation, as well as hinder the meanings that his dance is supposed to convey. Youth is the perfect failsafe for the musical to have rapt movement and efficiency, which are very essential to the mechanics of the work. That doesn’t mean that you can’t have an adult dance up there (there would be no Gene Kelley or Fred Astaire if they existed during this period of musicals). Even if the whole musical simply dealt with youth, couldn’t the young people in the work have some depth? Couldn’t they feel angst (and I’m not referring to the teen variety) or regret? I’ve seen the movie musical Pennies from Heaven, where the main character played by Steve Martin is flat broke during the Depression and becomes a very desperate person, and yet still retains energy during his dance numbers. What his character does in that amazing work is a form of singing in the rain; of retaining his energy and ardor during desperate times. That doesn’t mean he isn’t depressed.

Opus contains adults that are desperate and regretful, and I’m worried that it will become an unpopular play, but it does just what those musicals don’t do. It has adults that the audience doesn’t hold in contempt, and that’s what makes the play a beautifully melancholy work. You may at first feel the play is almost lilting while watching it and this is because the characters are very negligent about what they do for a living. However, the play becomes more intense and that’s because what we as an audience were experiencing was merely the first glance of this classical quartet. The playwright Michael Hollinger who wrote this play, has an acute awareness that anger and passion are never at first apparent but only emerge out of dedication to one’s ideals, because one was originally negligent. This is the right view of how a group of people who play classical music operate.

One of the reasons as to why many people will dislike this play is because it appears that not much happens. The plot revolves around a Classical quartet known as the Lazara Quartet which has been around for a number of years. One of the members of the group by the name of Dorian (Michael Laurence) the original violist is somewhat unstable and has left to pursue his own goals. The play begins with the quartet finding a new player to replace Dorian by the name of Grace (Mahira Kakkar) the violist. As soon as this young woman becomes a member of the quartet, the four players are invited to play at the White House. The piece that the quartet decides to play is Beethoven’s Opus 131 which many consider to be the hardest piece of classical music to play. It appears that everything is going well for the quartet, but that’s the basic bare bones plot. What Grace soon sees is that this is a group of incredibly dedicated difficult men that will never stop trying to attain their goal of artistic perfection; of getting the piece right. They never stop practicing or being fractious towards one another. At least one of the members of the group constitutes being difficult, and that’s Eliot (David Beach, the first violinist). He accuses one of the other members of the quartet, named Alan (Richard Topol) the second violinst, of having an affair with Grace. He feels that this will impair the artistic integrity of the group (the way Eliot phrases his accusations is not as kindly phrased as I have stated them). What makes this play not simply just a work about a classical quartet is because as the work transpires, the audience learns that everyone has their reasons. The reason why Eliot is so paranoid and suspicious of Alan is because he had a relationship with Dorian, and never told the quartet about it. It’s not merely artistic integrity that Eliot is worried about. However, he is a prudish artistic fanatic that will stop at nothing to achieve his goal, and his relationship with Dorian makes him more identifiable to the audience; we have empathy with him by the end of the play when all his hopes are ruined.

Dorian is not as empathetic because he is unmanageable and also because who in their life ever felt like an artistic savant, which is what he is, opposed to a person with their own hidden agenda? Eliot doesn’t want anyone to find Dorian for a reason. There is a difference between these two characteristics and the play exemplifies the tragic element of Dorian and Eliot’s relationship; they will never be together in the end not because of their sexual persuasion which they’ve continuously hid from the group, but because they are so very different. It’s this tragic element that is in the background of the play; the main theme is subtly hidden in the work. The moments between the two are seen as fleeting memories recounted by Eliot, and this whole moment from his past is his regret. He should have believed more in his relationship with Dorian than to his relationship with the group, and even if his sexuality were disclosed, that might not have necessarily compromised the group’s artistic integrity.

As I said earlier, Dorian’s despair is not as easily understood and that’s because he has a mental illness. That doesn’t mean we do not feel for him, but rather that we care about him because we do not understand and because he is so fragile. We do understand why he left the group; there is less and less freedom because of Eliot’s insecurity with everything (and who ever in their life hasn’t been insecure?). The reason why I mention all of this is because no one in this play, even the most hateful characters (Dorian does have that same characteristic of attaining for artistic perfection, just like his boyfriend) is looked down upon by the audience and this is because we see why they have done what they have done. We as an audience need to see these moments of bickering that lead to hate, or else we would simply be watching a quartet rehearsing and getting mad at each other. We would never know the instability of the group by simply watching them play their music. That’s why the criticism referring to the actors mimicking playing their instruments is so irrelevant. If anything, we get more of the characters feelings when the Beach Boys’ God Only Knows is played in the play rather than listening to Beethoven’s music. That song deals with acute pain and so does Opus.

Many of the other musicians have their own pain as well; it could almost be said that except for Grace, all the members of the group represent the different representations of regret. Carl (Douglas Rees) has cancer and just when he thinks he has it cured, it turns out it never really went away. He regrets that he has had to deal with the endless amount of practicing that Eliot has enforced upon the group, when instead he could have been with his family. Time is of the utmost importance to him while it isn’t to any of the other members. That’s why he yells at Eliot for accusing Alan of having a relationship with Grace; it’s all just a waste of time. There’s so much more that meets the eye with this quartet and the group at the White House will never know about any of the hardships that we as an audience have seen.

Even though this is a very stark play, there are very many instances of humor. It’s a testament to these actors that they can so deftly handle both wryness and sadness, sometimes at the same moment. The whole thing is so musically crafted and executed that an audience shouldn’t find the play negative in spirit. Also, even though the play really has nothing to do with the opus 131, the play does have a great extent to do with the classical music industry. I know this because my grandfather was a cellist, and I know the realism that’s in Opus. It’s in the moment when Grace meets the group right on time and sees Alain in his pajamas, and then he offers her a cup of coffee and says that the members of the group are always late. The negligence and carefree atmosphere is only the surface of this world. The reality is that there is great desperation to get the piece to be perfect. This casualness may be a way to prepare oneself for the hard dedication that is not really worth it in the end; to in a sense amend for the mistakes that one has made. It’s this certain quality that many classical players have that might have something to do with the profession itself. The play feels very personal and this may be because Michael Hollinger played in a quartet. It may also be because the direction by Terrence J. Nolen is so right on the nose and precise.

What’s ironic about the play is that Grace is the real villain of the piece, because she is the one that has intruded on the artistic perfection of the group. The quartet in a sense needs Dorian to return. Yet, she is the nicest person in the play and doesn’t really understand why this quartet is so upsetting in temperament and yet plays so well. Who understands why they put themselves in the traps that they put themselves in? The quartet continues to play after all of this; they persevere through everything, and yet there is a loss.

As I write this, the classical music industry is dwindling in the amount of audience that it has. This reflects the precarious tone of the work, and it’s this feeling which makes Opus truly moving. This is not an erudite play about classical music, but rather a work about desperate people clinging to what they have left. Who can blame classical musicians for being desperate? The quartet’s art, like Carl’s life, is so wavering that they have to be passionate about it. This passion is probably what scares off the average theatergoing crowd. After all, no one wants to see a play about survival.