News Item:
Sunday, Apr. 13, 2008
I became obsessed with Beethoven's obsession'
'Smitten' by the 'Diabelli Variations,' Moisés Kaufman 'knew I wanted to write a play' (Guess what opens in La Jolla tonight?)
By Valerie Scher
UNION-TRIBUNE CLASSICAL MUSIC CRITIC
April 13, 2008
After attending a play one night, the prominent playwright-director Moisés Kaufman visited a Manhattan record store, looking for a CD to add to his extensive classical music collection.
The clerk suggested Beethoven's “Diabelli Variations,” a masterwork Kaufman knew little about. So the clerk explained how Beethoven became obsessed with an insignificant little waltz by the music publisher Anton Diabelli. And after initially refusing to compose a variation, as Diabelli had requested, Beethoven changed his mind and composed what turned out to be one of the greatest sets of variations ever written.
“As soon as he told me the story, I was smitten,” recalls Kaufman, who purchased Alfred Brendel's highly-regarded recording. “Why did Beethoven write the variations? That's the question that gnawed at me. I knew I wanted to write a play.”
DETAILS
"33 Variations"
La Jolla Playhouse
When: Today at 7 p.m.; through May 4
Where: Mandell Weiss Theatre at La Jolla Playhouse, 2910 La Jolla Village Drive, La Jolla
Tickets: $29 to $62; discounts for students, seniors and military
Phone: (858) 550-1010
Online: lajollaplayhouse.org
The result is “33 Variations,” which launches its first West Coast engagement tonight at La Jolla Playhouse. Blending mystery and musicology, “Variations” premiered last year at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. It recently received the 2008 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award, which included a $25,000 cash prize – the largest national playwriting award.
Kaufman is not alone in his fascination with Beethoven. Hershey Felder's “Beethoven, As I Knew Him” comes to the Old Globe next month and in June, the 2008 Mainly Mozart Festival opens with a program showcasing all five of the composer's piano concertos. The San Diego Symphony is also getting into the act, with a Beethoven Festival slated for next season.
“33 Variations” – which consists of 33 scenes – isn't meant to be a biography of the composer. Or an analysis of his score, which was completed in 1823.
Instead, it's a play with music. Pianist Diane Walsh will perform about two-thirds of the variations, with projections of Beethoven's manuscript serving as a backdrop.
Actress Jayne Atkinson portrays a musicologist in "33 Variations."
Though Beethoven and Diabelli are portrayed in the production, the lead character is fictional – a prominent musicologist named Katherine Brandt. She journeys to Beethoven's birthplace in Bonn to uncover the mystery surrounding the creation of the “Variations.” Complicating matters is that Brandt has been diagnosed with a devastating illness and has a troubled relationship with her daughter.
“I think the reason that Katherine is so attracted to the 'Variations' is that she wants to find out why Beethoven didn't give up,” says veteran actress Jayne Atkinson, who portrays Brandt. “She has an incurable disease. And Beethoven was completely deaf by the time he finished the 'Variations.'
“She's seeking an answer. And the answer comes in a place where she didn't expect to find it,” Atkinson adds.
Like Kaufman, she won't reveal the play's explanation for why Beethoven wrote the “Diabelli Variations” for fear of spoiling the ending for audiences.
But the actress is eager to share what being in the play means to her.
La Jolla Playhouse is producing Moises Kaufman's "33 Variations," inspired by Beethoven's "Diabelli Variations." Pianist Diane Walsh, who will perform about two-thirds of the variations during the play, has made a recording of the composition.
“I have to admit that I really don't know that much about classical music. So, I'm coming to know Beethoven in a way I never did before,” says Atkinson, who's taking piano lessons and hopes to one day play parts of the “Diabelli Variations.” “I feel like I'm getting an education. Beethoven's music has a lot to teach us. And I honestly think Beethoven came close to being a mystic.”
While researching and writing the play, Kaufman became fixated on his subject. As he puts it, “I became obsessed with Beethoven's obsession.”
He went to Bonn and studied Beethoven's musical sketches. He consulted Beethoven scholars, including Maynard Solomon, author of much-esteemed books about Beethoven, and William Kinderman, the foremost expert on the “Diabelli Variations,” who wrote an authoritative book about them.
The intensity of Kaufman's fixation didn't surprise him. He had undergone such all-consuming experiences with other projects.
“33 Variations” connects with his passion for music, which he discovered as a young boy in his native Venezuela. The eldest of three children reared in an Orthodox Jewish home in Caracas, he grew up hearing the classics. For several years, beginning when he was age 9, he took piano lessons and savored works by Beethoven and Chopin.
Kaufman found his theatrical calling in a more roundabout way. Because his family had an interest in business – his mother was an economist; his father (a Holocaust survivor) owned a grocery store – the then-17-year-old Kaufman thought he would study business administration at Caracas' Metropolitan University.
But his first accounting class wasn't exactly a success.
“I went into a panic and thought, 'I can't do this,' ” he remembers. “I took a theater class instead.”
That led to student performances in works by influential playwrights ranging from Moliere to Strindberg. After moving to New York in 1987, he studied at New York University and plunged into the heady world of experimental theater. In 1992, he helped found the innovative Tectonic Theater Project, which gained international attention through “Gross Indecency” and “The Laramie Project.”
Now, Kaufman is focusing on one of history's most celebrated composers. To him, Beethoven is much more than a genius who bridged the classical and romantic eras.
“He was someone in search of inspiration, a human being on a quest,” says Kaufman. “I think that there's something I understand about that search, that hunger.”
And in “33 Variations,” he's helping us understand it, too.
Valerie Scher: valerie.scher@uniontrib.com; (619) 293-1038
Sunday, Apr. 13, 2008
I became obsessed with Beethoven's obsession'
'Smitten' by the 'Diabelli Variations,' Moisés Kaufman 'knew I wanted to write a play' (Guess what opens in La Jolla tonight?)
By Valerie Scher
UNION-TRIBUNE CLASSICAL MUSIC CRITIC
April 13, 2008
After attending a play one night, the prominent playwright-director Moisés Kaufman visited a Manhattan record store, looking for a CD to add to his extensive classical music collection.
The clerk suggested Beethoven's “Diabelli Variations,” a masterwork Kaufman knew little about. So the clerk explained how Beethoven became obsessed with an insignificant little waltz by the music publisher Anton Diabelli. And after initially refusing to compose a variation, as Diabelli had requested, Beethoven changed his mind and composed what turned out to be one of the greatest sets of variations ever written.
“As soon as he told me the story, I was smitten,” recalls Kaufman, who purchased Alfred Brendel's highly-regarded recording. “Why did Beethoven write the variations? That's the question that gnawed at me. I knew I wanted to write a play.”
DETAILS
"33 Variations"
La Jolla Playhouse
When: Today at 7 p.m.; through May 4
Where: Mandell Weiss Theatre at La Jolla Playhouse, 2910 La Jolla Village Drive, La Jolla
Tickets: $29 to $62; discounts for students, seniors and military
Phone: (858) 550-1010
Online: lajollaplayhouse.org
The result is “33 Variations,” which launches its first West Coast engagement tonight at La Jolla Playhouse. Blending mystery and musicology, “Variations” premiered last year at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. It recently received the 2008 Harold and Mimi Steinberg/American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award, which included a $25,000 cash prize – the largest national playwriting award.
Kaufman is not alone in his fascination with Beethoven. Hershey Felder's “Beethoven, As I Knew Him” comes to the Old Globe next month and in June, the 2008 Mainly Mozart Festival opens with a program showcasing all five of the composer's piano concertos. The San Diego Symphony is also getting into the act, with a Beethoven Festival slated for next season.
“33 Variations” – which consists of 33 scenes – isn't meant to be a biography of the composer. Or an analysis of his score, which was completed in 1823.
Instead, it's a play with music. Pianist Diane Walsh will perform about two-thirds of the variations, with projections of Beethoven's manuscript serving as a backdrop.
Actress Jayne Atkinson portrays a musicologist in "33 Variations."
Though Beethoven and Diabelli are portrayed in the production, the lead character is fictional – a prominent musicologist named Katherine Brandt. She journeys to Beethoven's birthplace in Bonn to uncover the mystery surrounding the creation of the “Variations.” Complicating matters is that Brandt has been diagnosed with a devastating illness and has a troubled relationship with her daughter.
“I think the reason that Katherine is so attracted to the 'Variations' is that she wants to find out why Beethoven didn't give up,” says veteran actress Jayne Atkinson, who portrays Brandt. “She has an incurable disease. And Beethoven was completely deaf by the time he finished the 'Variations.'
“She's seeking an answer. And the answer comes in a place where she didn't expect to find it,” Atkinson adds.
Like Kaufman, she won't reveal the play's explanation for why Beethoven wrote the “Diabelli Variations” for fear of spoiling the ending for audiences.
But the actress is eager to share what being in the play means to her.
La Jolla Playhouse is producing Moises Kaufman's "33 Variations," inspired by Beethoven's "Diabelli Variations." Pianist Diane Walsh, who will perform about two-thirds of the variations during the play, has made a recording of the composition.
“I have to admit that I really don't know that much about classical music. So, I'm coming to know Beethoven in a way I never did before,” says Atkinson, who's taking piano lessons and hopes to one day play parts of the “Diabelli Variations.” “I feel like I'm getting an education. Beethoven's music has a lot to teach us. And I honestly think Beethoven came close to being a mystic.”
While researching and writing the play, Kaufman became fixated on his subject. As he puts it, “I became obsessed with Beethoven's obsession.”
He went to Bonn and studied Beethoven's musical sketches. He consulted Beethoven scholars, including Maynard Solomon, author of much-esteemed books about Beethoven, and William Kinderman, the foremost expert on the “Diabelli Variations,” who wrote an authoritative book about them.
The intensity of Kaufman's fixation didn't surprise him. He had undergone such all-consuming experiences with other projects.
“33 Variations” connects with his passion for music, which he discovered as a young boy in his native Venezuela. The eldest of three children reared in an Orthodox Jewish home in Caracas, he grew up hearing the classics. For several years, beginning when he was age 9, he took piano lessons and savored works by Beethoven and Chopin.
Kaufman found his theatrical calling in a more roundabout way. Because his family had an interest in business – his mother was an economist; his father (a Holocaust survivor) owned a grocery store – the then-17-year-old Kaufman thought he would study business administration at Caracas' Metropolitan University.
But his first accounting class wasn't exactly a success.
“I went into a panic and thought, 'I can't do this,' ” he remembers. “I took a theater class instead.”
That led to student performances in works by influential playwrights ranging from Moliere to Strindberg. After moving to New York in 1987, he studied at New York University and plunged into the heady world of experimental theater. In 1992, he helped found the innovative Tectonic Theater Project, which gained international attention through “Gross Indecency” and “The Laramie Project.”
Now, Kaufman is focusing on one of history's most celebrated composers. To him, Beethoven is much more than a genius who bridged the classical and romantic eras.
“He was someone in search of inspiration, a human being on a quest,” says Kaufman. “I think that there's something I understand about that search, that hunger.”
And in “33 Variations,” he's helping us understand it, too.
Valerie Scher: valerie.scher@uniontrib.com; (619) 293-1038
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