4/5
Darkness On The Edge Of Broadway.
Hark! Who goes there? Times Square. All of the lights. Here's what we know about this name written in them. Ethan Hawke first got our attention like "O Captain! O Captain!" as he got on the desk of 'Dead Poets Society' and got that of the late, great Robin Williams. But the 'Training Day' star and Denzel Washington's man (how nice is 'The Magnificent Seven' reunion for Antoine Fuqua?) is more than that, or even that rookie cop, ride along movie. The American actor, writer and director has been nominated for four Academy Awards (half of those for screenwriting) and a Tony. Getting behind the camera for three feature-films ('Chelsea Walls', 'The Hottest State' and 'Blaze'), three off-Broadway plays and a Toronto film festival favourite debuting documentary ('Seymour: An Introduction'). The 'Reality Bites' star is cult best known for his 'Before' trilogy of Sunrises, Sunsets and Midnight's with French megastar Julie Delpy and revolutionary director Richard Linklater ('Dazed and Confused', 'Everybody Wants Some') who also literally directed Hawke over time for the decade plus spanning 'Boyhood' experimental and epic family drama. Or he may be better known for once being married to 'Gattaca' co-star and 'Kill Bill' and 'Pulp Fiction' icon Uma Thurman. Now 'Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood' their daughter Maya Hawke is making her own name as the scene stealing Robin in 'Stranger Things' season 3, amongst forging herself a beautiful music career with her pops barn music video direction. AHOY! Not bad for a 50 year old from Austin, Texas who right now is filming the latest Marvel super-series alongside Oscar Isaac's (what a cast already), 'Moon Knight' were he plays the villain. Like he does here.
Blazing like saddles of late this man has been on even more of a trail. Critical acclaim came like it should have done with an award for his church chaplin character in Paul Schrader's 'First Reformed' in 2018, but before that he was already mounting up and riding. Donning a stetson twice in a year for something 'Magnificent' and the underrated 'In A Valley Of Violence' (think 'John Wick' in the Wild West...they even kill his dog), face offing opposite John Travolta. After some classic sci-fi cameos in Luc Besson's 'Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets' and a directors cut one in the 'Total Recall' remake opposite Colin Farrell, the renaissance man has been hitting his stride of American legends. Like country and Western singer 'Blaze', or the coil of Serbian-American inventor and engineer 'Tesla'. Playing Pat Garrett alongside 'Valerian' himself Dane DeHaan's Billy in Vincent D'Onofrio's underrated 'The Kid', you'd be forgiven for thinking the man who earned his spurs wanted to keep them. And why not? Who could blame him? His Showtime special on the "instrument of God" John Brown ('The Good Lord Bird') does nothing to abolish that...which you best believe is a good, no great thing. Ethan's first love, however was in theatre and the stage hawker who made his debut in '92 with' The Seagull' most recently retook to the Broadway stage with Paul Dano in 2019 for Sam Shepard's (rest peacefully) 'True West'...oh, another Western. So much in his saloon you'd be forgiven for thinking the man who has just released his fourth novel (his first three include 'Ash Wednesday', 'The Hottest State' and 2015's 'The Hottest State'. Not to mention the 'Indeh: A Story Of The Apache Wars' graphic novel) was releasing a prohibition era one with its burnt orange dust jacket by a struck match looking to set everything ablaze like moonshine. 'A Bright Ray Of Darkness' however sets alight the spotlights of theatre. Stage set, were Hawke's narrator is a movie actor on the ropes of life, dealing with divorce from a much more famous celebrity partner (a rock goddess) and being present with his kids whilst trying to maintain a Broadway run of 'Henry IV' under a media glare like Times Square. Wait a minute! Is he writing about himself? Is this semi-autobiographical? Meta? Surely not. This character is cloaked in so much narcissism, if it is him then this really would be dripping with a gratuitous greed of self-indulgence. We think instead this Hawkeye is just having his fun with us, all whilst taking some shots with the bow at his younger life. Playing Cupid to a Devils advocate. It's awfully stage left close though for a man that even once played Hotspur on Broadway with an off-contemporary twist. The New Yorker magazine calling it, "a compelling, ardent creation." How much more on the nose can you get? Well, the name of this character reciting Shakespeare? No, not Ethan (thank God), but William.
To preen, or not to preen. That is the new social media age old question. Now the legacy 'half' hour of time before an actor takes to the stage they are looking at their reflection not between illuminating flashbulbs, but the distortion of a black mirror. Compelling like his interview cadence or bar room keeping the first act of Aussie sci-fi 'Predestination' in perfect time. Well-written and heartbreaking honest and defiantly devote though in a time were we can curate our own online narratives with little thought spared for anyone else in this merciless purge, Hawke delivers us a nuanced one worthy of the bestsellers. Sure talking about a struggling male, white actor on Broadway in 2020 is seriously selfish. But without wearing a mask even on stage it is so much more self aware than critics will give credit for. Here's a man who in character takes ownership for his side of the street, but won't play into a "wrong side of the tracks" cliche when there's more reasons than the catalyst of cheating to why a marriage breaks down and rings are tore off fingers with no more death do us part. Sure the sex here (espeically in another made bed) is dirty but like Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals (how fitting) once said, "I remember when sex was dirty and the air was clean. And everything worth knowing was in a magazine". I don't know if that means much to this, but it's a hell of a line. Besides the bed side manner here is still written with a blue beauty Haruki Murakami signature with all the passion that comes with it. Playing out in the tabloid scripts, the real expose is the exploration of a man's mind when everything leaves him behind. Friends, family, the industry. The dream he had in his soul. Not the heart of one lost in the bight lights like the big city. It doesn't matter if he's in the Big Apple entertainment core of the world. He's lent up on a dumpster on a Times Square side-street in chain-mail and pigs blood, eating an ice cream sandwich so his voice doesn't pack its bags and leave a ring on the table too. He had the world. He gave it up for night. He thought the people loved him. He's about to hear what they really say behind his back cheered into the masses of a crowd at a safe distance like six social feet. This book is as blisteringly brutal as the bloodthirsty displays that used to play in The Globe. And even if this is theatrical Hawke doesn't escape all that is shed here in the name of his own life, he comes out swinging from the canvas of playwrights. Seconds out. Some may think showing that side isn't really bright (whiskey business). But when all our life is a stage, that's real darkness. And in lifting the curtain and showing us behind the scenes backstage, Ethan Green Hawke deserves his standing ovation. Take a bow. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
No comments:
Post a Comment