by Nicholas Whittaker
‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ – Based on the novel by Margaret Atwood. Composed by Poul Ruders. Libretto by Paul Bentley. Conductor: David Angus. Stage Director: Anne Bogart. Movement Director: Shura Baryshnikov. Set and Costume Designer: James Schuette. Lighting Designer: Brian Scott. Sound Designer: J Jumbelic. Video Designer: Adam Thompson. Wig-Makeup Designer: Tom Watson. Presented by Boston Lyric Opera at the Ray Levietes Pavilion through May 12th
The operatic adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale raises eyebrows from the start, as does The Boston Opera Company decision to produce it in 2019. At this point, the 1985 novel has spawned a film adaptation, a Hulu television series (now three seasons in), two radio adaptations, a graphic novel, multiple stage plays, and a ballet. Atwood’s tale is arguably one of the most popular and revisited narratives in the modern canon. It is understandable, then, that one might want to tap into the zeitgeist and take advantage of this popularity by recycling the narrative in new forms. But each adaptation must justify its own existence, must explain why the story merits a retelling, what new work the ballet, play, film, and now opera does that the book (or one of the numerous other adaptations) did not. Such a task is lofty, but not impossible. Unfortunately, BLO’s Handmaid’s Tale fails to establish itself as a radical or exploratory addition to Atwood’s mythos, losing the most important pieces of the original text without compensating with substantial invention or imagination.
The Handmaid’s Tale, for those who have somehow missed the near-dozen opportunities to find out for themselves, is a dystopian imagination of America’s new future. The nation has been transformed into the theocratic country of Gilead, its new leaders enforcing Christian fundamentalist doctrine as the law of the land. This is most fiercely felt by the nation’s women, who have been forced into a twisted form of sex slavery in the wake of growing rates of human
infertility: the rich serve as housewives for Gilead’s elite, while the lower-class yet maternally-fit serve as ambulant wombs for the Wives, labelled Handmaids. This particular tale is told by Offred, a Handmaid who struggles to maintain a sense of subjectivity and isolation in a social order that only works by way of the utter erasure of its subject’s mental independence.
The loss of Offred is one of the most grievous missteps of the production. The character is present, of course, her plot completely intact. And Jennifer Johnson Cano, who leads the production as Offred, is a knockout, chewing up composer Poul Ruder’s jagged and fragmented melodies. Her stage presence is a masterful exercise in restrained power, keeping Offred’s frenetic energy bubbling just under the surface. Cano takes advantage of the uniqueness of the role – where else can one play a middle class, everyday woman in a bombastic opera? – to craft a stellar performance freed from rote mechanisms of operatic tropes.
But despite Cano’s best efforts, BLO’s Offred is doomed to lack something crucial. Atwood’s original rendition of the character is one of the greatest narrative voices in modern literature, an almost unprecedented study in the complex interplay of self-immolation and stubborn resistance that oppressed individuals embody. Her voice seeps into every moment and event in the novel, a radical resistance to Gilead’s attempt to stamp out her identity. While the production technically retains Offred as a narrator, gone are the snide remarks, the numb calculations, the assertion of her singularity. Her laments are strictly reserved to worrying about the whereabouts of friends and family, and most of her narrative work is to lay out characters or similar exposition. When Offred finally calls Serena Joy, the Wife she has been assigned to, a “bitch” in the second act, it is a relief, albeit far too late.
Opera works in broad strokes, which certainly requires some decomplication of source material. But opera also thrives on narrative and interpersonal two-sidedness. The loss of Offred’s voice is the loss of the possibility of the internal complexities that could have buoyed the production beyond its spectacle. Though spectacle is opera’s calling card, the weight of that spectacle depends on the dynamics of conflict, intra- and interpersonal. Offred spends so little of the production actually pushing her own emotions to the fore that the charged narrative, surprisingly minimalist without its narrator, fizzles.
Ruder attempts to compensate for this lack of narrative charge with the score. As far distanced from the lyrical ease and flowing arcs of traditional opera as possible, Ruder’s score is full of sharp edges, wheezes and gasps, stopping short and doubling back and erupting in fit bursts. The opening twenty minutes, in which Offred makes her way through the “Red Room,” a Gilead reeducation center that instructs women on their new roles as Handmaids, is particularly anxiety-inducing, a near-constant thrum of dread that never pulls back. One may worry that this is a bit one-note, exhausting audiences and keeping the particularly powerful moments from hitting. But this is undeniably the point: exhaustion seems the best description for the experience of living in Gilead, and Ruder, as well as conductor David Angus and the BLO orchestra, deserve praise for keeping it sustained over the production’s three hours. Their thunderous work provides some of the roiling emotion that Offred is disallowed.
The supporting cast likewise works hard, and it pays off. Caroline Worra’s Aunt Lydia is a clear highlight, portraying the character’s religious zeal with steady, almost rabid vigor. Offred’s masters, the Commander and Serena Joy, portrayed by David Cushing and Maria Zifchack, provide wonderfully complex villains, with Cushing’s staid baritone a particularly forceful presence. Even the smaller roles, notably Kathryn Skemp Moran’s Janine, Chelsea Basler’s Moria, and Dana Beth Miller as Offred’s Mother, and a stunningly emotive ensemble, fill out the stage wonderfully.
The creative team works hard to sell the spectacle. Choosing to stage the production in a basketball court, a nod to much of the novel’s setting, comes with its own benefits and sets of challenges. The staging and movement direction, by Anne Bogart and Shura Baryshnikov, is ingenious, at its best when it takes advantage of the unique set up, like when the Handmaids become a swirling web of red dresses, spreading out across the stage like a spreading drop of blood on fabric. With limited sound and light capabilities, J Jumbelic (sound designer) and Brian Scott (lighting designer) do the best they can, minimizing hiccups and succeeding at sneaking subtle touches to deepen the mise-en-scene. Perhaps the most intriguing set piece is the reimagining of the novel’s Wall, where the corpses of executed dissidents and criminals are hung by the state of Gilead. Two massive slabs of concrete on either end of the auditorium, these pieces are well used in the Red Center scenes. Massive images of modern women are projected upon them as the Aunts lament the decline of femininity, a powerful image of misogynistic shaming.
In an interview, Margaret Atwood admitted that she was worried about the outcome of the opera, nervously awaiting some campy, absurd spectacle of shrieking Handmaids and overdrawn laments. But perhaps that kind of energy is exactly what this production needed. In trying to capture the dour seriousness of the original novel without working to retain the mechanics of the novel that makes it work (something the television series has done particularly well) the production loses both the weight of its narrative and the vibrant kinetics of opera. It feels as though someone is trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. There exists in some possible future a stellar operatic adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, one that either embraces the medium’s spectacle or works to reimagine it around the original story’s nuance and complexity. Bogged down with an adaptation that fails to accomplish either, losing the best parts of its source and its medium, BLO’s production, despite a wealth of talent, smolders rather than sparks.
