PHOTO FROM DARKO TRESNJAK’S 2007 PRODUCTION OF JOHN VAN DRUTEN’S PLAY BELL, BOOK AND CANDLE AT THE OLD GLOBE SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL THEATRE IN SAN DIEGO. PHOTO BY CRAIG SCHWARZ.
When announcing Long Wharf’s impending co-production of John Van Druten’s Bell, Book and Candle, that theater’s artistic director Gordon Edelstein mentioned that the deal was struck with the Long Wharf, Hartford Stage and director Darko Tresnjak well before Tresnjak was offered the gig as new artistic director of Hartford Stage—before he was even a candidate, apparently.
It was announced Sunday that Hartford Stage had signed Tresnjak to a five-year contract as successor to Michael Wilson, who held the post for 13 years. The longest reigning artistic director of Hartford Stage was Mark Lamos, back in the area now as art. dir. of the Westport Country Playhouse.
As when Lamos took over in Westport a couple years ago, Tresnjak begins work during the summertime, when most of what is technically “his” first season at the theater has already been planned and announced without him. To wit: Miller’s The Crucible, Quiara Alegria Hudes’ new Water by the Spoonful, the return of A Christmas Carol, the hotly revived ‘60s comedy Boeing Boeing, and the season-ending supernatural comedy Bell, Book and Candle.
So Tresnjak insinuated himself into the season even before he was hired to oversee it. That’s a real tribute to John Van Druten’s witchy play, which Tresnjak previously directed in 2007 for the Old Globe Shakespeare Festival in San Diego where he was Artistic Director from 2004-09.
Tresnjak’s also due to direct a revival of the Larry Gelbart/Cy Coleman/David Zippel musical City of Angels this season.
I’ve seen a bunch of stuff Tresnjak’s done at regional theaters over the years. My memories of his work tend to involve velvet curtains, a lush yet dark image reminiscent of David Lynch’s movie Blue Velvet. The lushness and class-based classicism totally worked for Tresnjak’s production of A Little Night Music at the Goodspeed Opera House. His productions, however, of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead at the Long Wharf (a remounting of his hit production for the Williamstown Theatre Festival) and Amphitryon at Boston’s Huntington Theater, both over a decade ago, I found insufferable. Both shows needlessly emphasized the darkest aspects (people die; gods can be cruel) of these largely lighthearted works. (It’s the same tirade I launched against Daniel Fish’s production of Tartuffe at Yale Rep; why is the director exposing the seamy underbelly of a play which the playwright has so deftly and intentionally sidestepped?)
Those shows were ages ago, in a different cultural era. In any case, I remember being so flummoxed and maddened by Michael Wilson’s over-the-top first Hartford Stage show, A Streetcar Named Desire in 1998, that I had to drink myself into a coma to deal with it. Wilson turned out great. Any apprehensions I have about Tresnjak on a show-by-show basis are washed away by the surprises and delights I expect to emerge from his fevered head now that he’s an artistic director.
I didn’t see Tresnjak’s production of Hay Fever at Westport Country Playhouse, but reviews by those I trust suggest that he nailed Noel Coward’s style and sassiness. I give him props for tackling Coward at all, and hope that he can do some of that hallowed writer’s work at Hartford. In general, this is a guy of taste and style whose choices as a freelance director have often been challenging and creative. I really look forward to what he can accomplish leading his own East Coast theater. When there are plays which genuinely do have warring dark and light sides and sinister subtexts, he’s definitely the guy for the job. I’m excited about him doing a film noir send-up like City of Angels at Goodspeed. And just as eager to see what he does with Bell, Book & Candle, which carries metaphors of civil rights, blacklisting, miscegnation and the historical subjugation of women
These seem like ideal projects for Darko Tresnjak, It’s a splendid way to mark his return to Connecticut, and the start of his tenure as head of Hartford Stage.