Here's a textbook example of a "Why?" musical. Why turn this film into a Broadway musical. It's entertaining in parts, albeit a bit frantic. The leads are terrific, particularly Marin Mazzie and Nick Cordero. Zack Braff is charming and sings well, though I felt he was phoning in the performance I saw (Wednesday matinees tend to be the time when performers are most likely to phone in performances). William Ivey Long's costumes are absolutely gorgeous. There are some funny bits, though they seldom have anything to do with the musical numbers. It's a mindlessly entertaining way to spend a Wednesday afternoon, particularly at tdf prices -- I would be much more critical than I am about to be if I spent $137 to see it.
BUT
The first problem is the score. Instead of an original score, Allen has compiled a bunch of 1920s pop songs. Now this kind of jukebox musical can work if: 1.) the show is a tribute to a composer or group (e.g..: JERSEY BOYS), or 2) the show uses a bunch of songs in a particularly witty way that either manages to fit into the narrative or manages to self-consciously mock the very idea of a particular song appearing at a particular moment (MAMMA MIA), or 3) the show is a revue with no narrative coherence (AFTER MIDNIGHT). BULLETS OVER BROADWAY doesn't do any of these well. Once in a while a song seems to be appropriate to a character or situation, but usually they just seem pasted on. Why, for instance, should this particular story end with "Yes, We Have No Bananas"? Moreover, most of the songs are the same kind of jazzy "Up" tune. It all gets monotonous after a while.
This may not bother everybody, but why bother to have a live band if it's going to be invisible and be heard only through loud speakers? The arrangements (Doug Besterman) are, as far as I can tell, delightful, but why not let us hear it live? I love the sound of a good pit band and remember the thrill of hearing the overtures to great shows coming from the pit, not from speakers over the stage. I don't mind principals being miked, but why the orchestra? The sound designer has become unnecessarily important in the great scheme of things. This isn't a recording -- it's a live event. If it were a recording, I'd expect it to have better sound than the overloud, boomy sound I heard yesterday. Another peeve: Isn't it possible to make the sound more directional? Zack Braff may have been singing from way over on stage right, but I still heard his voice from overhead center. I thought the technology had improved some since the 1960s.
Now to Susan Stroman. This is her second flop of the 2013-14 season, which must be reducing her marketability somewhat. BIG FISH didn't work because she isn't much interested in narrative and character. She's interested in splashy effects. BULLETS OVER BROADWAY doesn't work because it's a case of overkill. The ensemble numbers are so loud and relentlessly energetic that they become exhausting to the audience. The audience loves Nick Cordero as Cheech, the gangster who turns out to be a born playwright, because he underplays. He draws the audience in. Marin Mazzie also knows the balance between the broadness of her libidinous diva character and drawing the audience to her. The old pros know how to play schtick properly, but in the many big numbers, the chorus just seems frantic.
It's so easy to see why this show doesn't work that it is surprising the producers didm't see it at the first preview or before. Ah, yes, but that's another problem with these shows -- too many producers with no one really in charge. The great producers of the past -- David Merrick, Cy Feuer and Ernest Martin, Hal Prince and associates, Kermit Bloomgarden -- had their share of flops, but there was always someone in charge, someone who really understood theatre at the helm. It's hit and miss now. Woody Allen has made some good moves (and some lemons), but he knows absolutely nothing about making a Broadway musical.
So, pretty to look at, some good performances, some laughs, but a bit of a mess.
BULLETS OVER BROADWAY. August 13, 2014.
Thursday, 14 August 2014
Wednesday, 13 August 2014
THE WAYSIDE MOTOR INN by A.R. Gurney at the Signature Theatre
A.R. Gurney has been one of our most prolific and celebrated playwrights for over half a century. He has never been a Broadway playwright (who is these days?), but his work has been a constant presence Off- and Off-off Broadway, most recently at the Flea Theatre. For the most part, Gurney writes about upper-class and uppper-middle-class people, the privileged, who feel lost in the new postwar America. His domestic dramas seldom have events that would seem momentous outside of the rooms in which they take place, but are momentous for the characters.
THE WAYSIDE MOTOR INN, one of Gurney's most formally interesting plays, was first produced in 1977. The critics didn't like it. Looking at it in this fine, perfectly cast, lovingly directed production, one can see the plays strengths. The Wayside Motor Inn is a motel outside of Boston. Gurney gives us the occupants of five rooms in this hotel on one afternoon and evening. We see the all the characters and their interactions in the same room. Gurney has said that he was intrigued by writing something like a 19th century Italian opera. In opera, a number of characters can express themselves simultaneously. THE WAYSIDE MOTOR INN is a complex concertate of overlapping conversations. An older couple has come to see their new grandchild. The husband knows he is dying of heart disease while his wife is more focussed on seeing the new child that has come into the world. A father has brought his son for a Harvard interview. The father, a self-made man, has dreamed of his son taking the next step into the upper-middle class. The son has other ideas and finally stands up to his father. A separated couple try to negotiate the breakup of their fourteen year marriage. A couple of college kids negotiate their first sexual experience. A married businessman attempts to bed the hotels's countercultural waitress. None of these stories is particularly original, but the tapestry Gurney weaves out of them is. Most of these characters hate being in this impersonal space, a nowhere. They feel unmoored there, uncomfortable, claustrophobic. Yet the space frees them to say things to the person they are with that they might not say in their home environment. We see the rifts between people who should be close: husband and wife, father and son. At the end, we're given a poetic theatrical image. A naked young couple is having their first sexual experience as a grandmother shows her new grandchild to her dying husband. The life cycle enacted before our eyes.
Gurney's language is appropriate to characters who aren't good at expressing their emotions. People talk to keep other people away as much as to bring them closer. Small symbolic gestures become important, like a father trying to mend his son's shirt after ripping it in an Oedipal spat.
As is usually the case at the Signature, the production, directed by Lila Neugebauer, is pitch-perfect. Designer Andrew Liebermann has given us a photo-realistic motel room in all it's bad taste (oh, that wallpaper!) and efficiency. This is a difficult play to direct, with sometimes eight characters sharing the same space, but supposedly the only people in that space. Neugebauer's production is superbly choreographed. More important, there's not a false moment in the acting. This is ensemble theatre at its best.
I look forward to the next two Gurney revivals at the Signature.
THE WAYSIDE MOTOR INN by A.R. Gurney. Signature Theatre Griffin Theatre. August 12, 2014.
THE WAYSIDE MOTOR INN, one of Gurney's most formally interesting plays, was first produced in 1977. The critics didn't like it. Looking at it in this fine, perfectly cast, lovingly directed production, one can see the plays strengths. The Wayside Motor Inn is a motel outside of Boston. Gurney gives us the occupants of five rooms in this hotel on one afternoon and evening. We see the all the characters and their interactions in the same room. Gurney has said that he was intrigued by writing something like a 19th century Italian opera. In opera, a number of characters can express themselves simultaneously. THE WAYSIDE MOTOR INN is a complex concertate of overlapping conversations. An older couple has come to see their new grandchild. The husband knows he is dying of heart disease while his wife is more focussed on seeing the new child that has come into the world. A father has brought his son for a Harvard interview. The father, a self-made man, has dreamed of his son taking the next step into the upper-middle class. The son has other ideas and finally stands up to his father. A separated couple try to negotiate the breakup of their fourteen year marriage. A couple of college kids negotiate their first sexual experience. A married businessman attempts to bed the hotels's countercultural waitress. None of these stories is particularly original, but the tapestry Gurney weaves out of them is. Most of these characters hate being in this impersonal space, a nowhere. They feel unmoored there, uncomfortable, claustrophobic. Yet the space frees them to say things to the person they are with that they might not say in their home environment. We see the rifts between people who should be close: husband and wife, father and son. At the end, we're given a poetic theatrical image. A naked young couple is having their first sexual experience as a grandmother shows her new grandchild to her dying husband. The life cycle enacted before our eyes.
Gurney's language is appropriate to characters who aren't good at expressing their emotions. People talk to keep other people away as much as to bring them closer. Small symbolic gestures become important, like a father trying to mend his son's shirt after ripping it in an Oedipal spat.
As is usually the case at the Signature, the production, directed by Lila Neugebauer, is pitch-perfect. Designer Andrew Liebermann has given us a photo-realistic motel room in all it's bad taste (oh, that wallpaper!) and efficiency. This is a difficult play to direct, with sometimes eight characters sharing the same space, but supposedly the only people in that space. Neugebauer's production is superbly choreographed. More important, there's not a false moment in the acting. This is ensemble theatre at its best.
I look forward to the next two Gurney revivals at the Signature.
THE WAYSIDE MOTOR INN by A.R. Gurney. Signature Theatre Griffin Theatre. August 12, 2014.
Monday, 11 August 2014
Cherry Jones in WHEN WE WERE YOUNG AND UNAFRAID by Sarah Treem at Manhattan Theatre Club
After seeing two very well written plays in two days, BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY and SEX WITH STRANGERS, this one on the third day is a bit of a letdown. Many of Sarah Treem's credits are for quality television series like HOMELAND. Unfortunately she writes like a television writer, not a playwright. The first act has too many short scenes rather that are more like blackout sketches than developed scenes. As a result the act has no narrative momentum, no rhythm. The second act demonstrates more playwriting skill, though no particular verbal felicity. Treem has a story to tell, but doesn't tell it particularly well.
WHEN WE ARE YOUNG AND UNAFRAID attempts to depict the lack of possibilities for women on the eve of the Roe vs. Wade decision. The play takes place in 1972 in the private area of a bed and breakfast on an island off of the coast of Seattle. Agnes (Cherry Jones, wonderful as always in an underwritten role) is the manager of the establishment that serves as a hideout for battered women. Agnes is raising Penny (Morgan Saylor), a sixteen-year-old girl who is going through the crisis of choosing between exercising her intelligence or nabbing a boyfriend (did every girl have to make that choice in 1972?). Also on the premises are a battered wife who still loves her abusive husband and still believes that women should sacrifice everything to get a man (Zoe Kazan, inaudible at times), a male boarder whose wife has gone countercultural and left him (Patch Darragh), and a young, militant Black lesbian (Cherise Boothe). Treem has given us a group of stereotypes rather than individual characters. The militant lesbian spouts slogans and is, of course, handy with tools. The battered wife offers the teenage girl the old-fashioned advice on how to nab a prize man (captain of the football team). The teenage girl doesn't believe she can be smart and attractive. The only male character seems sweet and vulnerable until he is sexually spurned. Treem's view of men -- manipulative, sentimental, sex-obsessed and violent -- is equally stereotypical. The only character with any substance is Agnes, and I wasn't sure whether that was the writing or Cherry Jones' particular brand of genius. Hilton Als, the NEW YORKER's drama critic and the best drama critic working today (not that he has much decent competition), calls her a "spiritual actress." She does have the ability to bring an inner life to even weakly drawn characters. Agnes is an independent woman. She can cook, nurse (she was a professional nurse), manage a business, and counsel the physically and emotionally damaged women who hide out in her establishment. She's more hungry for love than she will admit and knows enough to accept it when it comes.
Pam McKinnon has done what she can with the script. The play and production are very kitchen sink realism (a lot of muffin baking). We enjoyed the performance, mainly because Jones and Cherise Boothe were able to add depth to their characters, but the play is cliched even for television writing.
One other thing. The theater was absolutely freezing. It's a wonder we all don't have pneumonia!
WHEN WE WERE YOUNG AN UNAFRAID. Manhattan Theatre Club. August 10, 2014.
WHEN WE ARE YOUNG AND UNAFRAID attempts to depict the lack of possibilities for women on the eve of the Roe vs. Wade decision. The play takes place in 1972 in the private area of a bed and breakfast on an island off of the coast of Seattle. Agnes (Cherry Jones, wonderful as always in an underwritten role) is the manager of the establishment that serves as a hideout for battered women. Agnes is raising Penny (Morgan Saylor), a sixteen-year-old girl who is going through the crisis of choosing between exercising her intelligence or nabbing a boyfriend (did every girl have to make that choice in 1972?). Also on the premises are a battered wife who still loves her abusive husband and still believes that women should sacrifice everything to get a man (Zoe Kazan, inaudible at times), a male boarder whose wife has gone countercultural and left him (Patch Darragh), and a young, militant Black lesbian (Cherise Boothe). Treem has given us a group of stereotypes rather than individual characters. The militant lesbian spouts slogans and is, of course, handy with tools. The battered wife offers the teenage girl the old-fashioned advice on how to nab a prize man (captain of the football team). The teenage girl doesn't believe she can be smart and attractive. The only male character seems sweet and vulnerable until he is sexually spurned. Treem's view of men -- manipulative, sentimental, sex-obsessed and violent -- is equally stereotypical. The only character with any substance is Agnes, and I wasn't sure whether that was the writing or Cherry Jones' particular brand of genius. Hilton Als, the NEW YORKER's drama critic and the best drama critic working today (not that he has much decent competition), calls her a "spiritual actress." She does have the ability to bring an inner life to even weakly drawn characters. Agnes is an independent woman. She can cook, nurse (she was a professional nurse), manage a business, and counsel the physically and emotionally damaged women who hide out in her establishment. She's more hungry for love than she will admit and knows enough to accept it when it comes.
Pam McKinnon has done what she can with the script. The play and production are very kitchen sink realism (a lot of muffin baking). We enjoyed the performance, mainly because Jones and Cherise Boothe were able to add depth to their characters, but the play is cliched even for television writing.
One other thing. The theater was absolutely freezing. It's a wonder we all don't have pneumonia!
WHEN WE WERE YOUNG AN UNAFRAID. Manhattan Theatre Club. August 10, 2014.
Sunday, 10 August 2014
Anna Gunn & Billy Magnussen in Laura Eason's SEX WITH STRANGERS at Second Stage
SEX WITH STRANGERS, the title of Laura Eason's excellent serious comedy, has two meanings. It is, on one hand, the title of a best-selling quasi memoir by Ethan Crane, known to the blogosphere as Ethan Strange. Ethan's book, soon to be a movie, is based on his blog which chronicles his many one-night stands with women he has picked up the old-fashioned way -- in bars rather than online. To put it mildly, his blog and book aren't very respectful toward the women he has seduced. Ethan knows that "Ethan Strange" is "an asshole." But is that sexist creep who represents the worst sort of frat boy macho the real Ethan? Ethan isn't totally responsible for his notoriety. Women have filled the blogosphere with real and fictional accounts of their sexual encounters with Ethan -- he has given them their fifteen minutes of fame and that hasn't helped dispel his cynicism. SEX WITH STRANGERS has a deeper meaning. The play depicts a relationship that begins as just the sort of one-night stand Ethan is famous for, but this one sputters on beyond that encounter. Do twenty-eight year old Ethan and Olivia, a thirty-nine year old teacher and failed (commercially at least) novelist, ever really know or understand each other? Are they ever anything but strangers?
The first act takes place in a bed and breakfast in rural Michigan that has a reputation as a writer's retreat -- there's nothing else to do there. Olivia, the only resident, has been proofreading a second novel. She has lost confidence in her writing after a mixed critical reception and no commercial success from her first book. Olivia is attractive, talented but also sensitive, neurotic. Enter Ethan, who has aspirations to being a serious novelist and has come to the B&B to work on the screenplay for SEX WITH STRANGERS. Has Ethan also come to this Michigan retreat because Olivia will be there? Ethan's mentor is a former lover of Olivia's and he has read and loved her first novel. He knows she will be at this B&B. This is one of many questions about Ethan, the more interesting, complex charter in Eason's play. Ethan keeps insisting that he is not caddish "Ethan Strange", that "Ethan Strange" is just a persona. He wants Olivia to take him seriously as Ethan Crane, a nice guy and a fellow artist. Because of the storm, there's no internet, which throws Ethan into a total panic. What do you do if your cell phone doesn't link you to the outside world? You have sex with the only other occupant of this isolated retreat. In this case, by the second day Ethan, the king of the one-night stand, is talking about an ongoing relationship with Olivia. What connects them is their kinship as writers as well as sexual attraction, but Ethan, who can charm anyone into anything, takes control of Olivia's career. He gets her an agent and gets her first novel, now out of print, out on the internet where it gains a lot of attention. When Ethan betrays Olivia, it is not a sexual betrayal, but an artistic one.
Olivia never fully trusts Ethan and we never know for sure how much he can be trusted. Ethan loves Olivia, but also wants to be in control of her career, another form of sexism. Yet, above all, Ethan wants to be seen as a decent person. Actually he is more honest and open with Olivia than she is with him. Because Olivia is somewhat closed off, she is more a foil for Ethan than an equally fully formed character. Anna Gunn fills in the blanks effectively. We see that her feelings are all on the surface, that she is filled with fears and insecurities. A lot of the portrayal of Olivia has to be in silences, reactions. Gunn is a very physical actress and we get to know her character as much by how she physically reacts as by what she says. Billy Magnussen gives a brilliant, bravura performance as Ethan: charming, brash, physically dominating, irresistible, but also something of a question mark. Eventually we see that he is as sensitive as Olivia. Magnussen is a true stage animal. It's fascinating to watch his Ethan fill a room with his physical, sexual presence. But there's also an intellectual energy. David Schwimmer has staged the play effectively and helped his actors create fascinating, totally convincing characters.
SEX WITH STRANGERS is a more intelligent version of the two character romances that used to be a Broadway staple. Eason's play, however, asks a lot of questions about sex and love in the twenty-first century. It also says a lot about what it means to be a writer in the age of blogs and tweets. It's entertaining and stimulating. Did I forget to say that it's also very sexy? What more can one ask?
The first act takes place in a bed and breakfast in rural Michigan that has a reputation as a writer's retreat -- there's nothing else to do there. Olivia, the only resident, has been proofreading a second novel. She has lost confidence in her writing after a mixed critical reception and no commercial success from her first book. Olivia is attractive, talented but also sensitive, neurotic. Enter Ethan, who has aspirations to being a serious novelist and has come to the B&B to work on the screenplay for SEX WITH STRANGERS. Has Ethan also come to this Michigan retreat because Olivia will be there? Ethan's mentor is a former lover of Olivia's and he has read and loved her first novel. He knows she will be at this B&B. This is one of many questions about Ethan, the more interesting, complex charter in Eason's play. Ethan keeps insisting that he is not caddish "Ethan Strange", that "Ethan Strange" is just a persona. He wants Olivia to take him seriously as Ethan Crane, a nice guy and a fellow artist. Because of the storm, there's no internet, which throws Ethan into a total panic. What do you do if your cell phone doesn't link you to the outside world? You have sex with the only other occupant of this isolated retreat. In this case, by the second day Ethan, the king of the one-night stand, is talking about an ongoing relationship with Olivia. What connects them is their kinship as writers as well as sexual attraction, but Ethan, who can charm anyone into anything, takes control of Olivia's career. He gets her an agent and gets her first novel, now out of print, out on the internet where it gains a lot of attention. When Ethan betrays Olivia, it is not a sexual betrayal, but an artistic one.
Olivia never fully trusts Ethan and we never know for sure how much he can be trusted. Ethan loves Olivia, but also wants to be in control of her career, another form of sexism. Yet, above all, Ethan wants to be seen as a decent person. Actually he is more honest and open with Olivia than she is with him. Because Olivia is somewhat closed off, she is more a foil for Ethan than an equally fully formed character. Anna Gunn fills in the blanks effectively. We see that her feelings are all on the surface, that she is filled with fears and insecurities. A lot of the portrayal of Olivia has to be in silences, reactions. Gunn is a very physical actress and we get to know her character as much by how she physically reacts as by what she says. Billy Magnussen gives a brilliant, bravura performance as Ethan: charming, brash, physically dominating, irresistible, but also something of a question mark. Eventually we see that he is as sensitive as Olivia. Magnussen is a true stage animal. It's fascinating to watch his Ethan fill a room with his physical, sexual presence. But there's also an intellectual energy. David Schwimmer has staged the play effectively and helped his actors create fascinating, totally convincing characters.
SEX WITH STRANGERS is a more intelligent version of the two character romances that used to be a Broadway staple. Eason's play, however, asks a lot of questions about sex and love in the twenty-first century. It also says a lot about what it means to be a writer in the age of blogs and tweets. It's entertaining and stimulating. Did I forget to say that it's also very sexy? What more can one ask?
Saturday, 9 August 2014
BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY by Stephen Adley Guirgis at the Atlantic Theatre Company
The dwindling serious theatre audience goes to plays for something we can't get on television or from film -- a feast of language. Television is good for storytelling, but the dialogue is seldom interesting. American film once gave us crackling dialogue, but those days are long gone. Now we have plays for those who still care about articulacy, wit and poetry. Last night's audience for BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY was up on its feet cheering the verbal music of this fine play as much as the fine performances.
BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY is a twenty-first century take on American domestic drama. As with many of our classic playwrights, Guirgis's family situation is not what it seems to be. The matriarch died at Christmastime six months ago. The Christmas tree sits forlornly in the corner of the living room, a hollow symbol of family warmth where there hasn't been much. We begin with a breakfast scene. Walter Washington, know to the young denizens of this house as Pops sits in his deceased wife's wheelchair imbibing an alcoholic breakfast. In this Riverside Drive rent controlled apartment with him are his son, Junior, an ex-convict; Junior's young girlfriend Lula; and Junior's ex-con friend Oswaldo, who is a recovering alcoholic and addict. Pops sits imperious and judgmental in his wife's wheelchair as if it were King Lear's throne. His son craves his love but has never experienced it. Oswaldo's father has written him off. But Pops doesn't known how to be the father everyone wants him to be. He hated his own father and, like many troubled men, has tried to be the opposite of the man who never gave him love.
Pops was a policeman who was accidentally shot by a white rookie. Pops was drunk on the job, but got early retirement by falsely claiming that the rookie called him a "Nigger." Now his chickens are coming home to roost. He is about to be evicted and the police want him to sign off on on the settlement he has been dickering over for eight years.
Like the characters in Conor McPherson's brilliant play THE NIGHT ALIVE, which opened the Atlantic's season, BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY is a play about misfits -- alcoholics, addicts prostitutes, petty thieves. The characters try, fail, and try again to gain some control over their lives, to feel love for and from someone and to attain something close to grace in a fallen world. Pops' moment of grace comes from a church lady who tries to offer him communion, but Pops has spurned religion. The communion he finally receives from the church lady is more sexual that spiritual -- or maybe the spiritual can only come through the carnal. "You are free," the church lady who is really a former prostitute and a con artist, says as the old man has simultaneously an orgasm and a heart attack. The moment leads Pops to realize that he can be free. He can become a wandering man like his father and let his grown son find his own way. At the end, we're at breakfast again and the family configuration has both changed and stayed the same.
Every character in this play has a distinctive voice and his or her own form of poetry. They all want to be understood. Guirgis is one of the best of an exciting crop of contemporary American playwrights -- we're in a kind of dramatic Renaissance even as the audiences age and dwindle. Despite the inherent sadness of his characters, we come to love them and feel hope even in moments of hopelessness. Even some of the most serious moments aren't without humor.
BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY has received a pitch-perfect production. Stephen McKinley Henderson is a towering patriarch, sometimes physically vulnerable but always exerting power and judgment. Every one else in this ensemble is totally convincing, particularly Victor Almanzar as Oswaldo and Lisa Colon-Zayas as the church lady. Austin Pendleton has directed ably on an impressive revolving stage designed by Walt Spangler. The future of this apartment is at stake and we see all of it.
If I gave stars, BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY would get at least five.
BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY is a twenty-first century take on American domestic drama. As with many of our classic playwrights, Guirgis's family situation is not what it seems to be. The matriarch died at Christmastime six months ago. The Christmas tree sits forlornly in the corner of the living room, a hollow symbol of family warmth where there hasn't been much. We begin with a breakfast scene. Walter Washington, know to the young denizens of this house as Pops sits in his deceased wife's wheelchair imbibing an alcoholic breakfast. In this Riverside Drive rent controlled apartment with him are his son, Junior, an ex-convict; Junior's young girlfriend Lula; and Junior's ex-con friend Oswaldo, who is a recovering alcoholic and addict. Pops sits imperious and judgmental in his wife's wheelchair as if it were King Lear's throne. His son craves his love but has never experienced it. Oswaldo's father has written him off. But Pops doesn't known how to be the father everyone wants him to be. He hated his own father and, like many troubled men, has tried to be the opposite of the man who never gave him love.
Pops was a policeman who was accidentally shot by a white rookie. Pops was drunk on the job, but got early retirement by falsely claiming that the rookie called him a "Nigger." Now his chickens are coming home to roost. He is about to be evicted and the police want him to sign off on on the settlement he has been dickering over for eight years.
Like the characters in Conor McPherson's brilliant play THE NIGHT ALIVE, which opened the Atlantic's season, BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY is a play about misfits -- alcoholics, addicts prostitutes, petty thieves. The characters try, fail, and try again to gain some control over their lives, to feel love for and from someone and to attain something close to grace in a fallen world. Pops' moment of grace comes from a church lady who tries to offer him communion, but Pops has spurned religion. The communion he finally receives from the church lady is more sexual that spiritual -- or maybe the spiritual can only come through the carnal. "You are free," the church lady who is really a former prostitute and a con artist, says as the old man has simultaneously an orgasm and a heart attack. The moment leads Pops to realize that he can be free. He can become a wandering man like his father and let his grown son find his own way. At the end, we're at breakfast again and the family configuration has both changed and stayed the same.
Every character in this play has a distinctive voice and his or her own form of poetry. They all want to be understood. Guirgis is one of the best of an exciting crop of contemporary American playwrights -- we're in a kind of dramatic Renaissance even as the audiences age and dwindle. Despite the inherent sadness of his characters, we come to love them and feel hope even in moments of hopelessness. Even some of the most serious moments aren't without humor.
BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY has received a pitch-perfect production. Stephen McKinley Henderson is a towering patriarch, sometimes physically vulnerable but always exerting power and judgment. Every one else in this ensemble is totally convincing, particularly Victor Almanzar as Oswaldo and Lisa Colon-Zayas as the church lady. Austin Pendleton has directed ably on an impressive revolving stage designed by Walt Spangler. The future of this apartment is at stake and we see all of it.
If I gave stars, BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY would get at least five.
Saturday, 21 June 2014
Ayad Akhtar's THE WHO AND THE WHAT at Lincoln Center Theater's Claire Tow Theatre
After seeing Ayed Akhtar's thrilling play DISGRACED, which deservedly won the Pulitzer Prize, I was really looking forward to THE WHO AND THE WHAT. Alas, I found it repeated familiar tropes: the Muslim father dealing with progressive children, outrage at a book that could be construed as anti-Islamic, Muslim women rebelling against the religious and cultural codes imposed on them. Moreover, where DISGRACED had high dramatic stakes, THE WHO AND THE WHAT plays down the fallout from the characters' actions.
Afzal (Bernard White) is a Pakistani who has made a fortune in the taxicab business in car-dependent Atlanta. He is an example of the American dream, moving from taxi driver to entrepreneur. After his wife died of cancer, he had to take over the raising of his two daughters now in their twenties. Afzal has the old world idea that he has the right to run his daughters' lives, particularly their love lives. Zarina (Nadine Malouf), is exceptionally bright, a Harvard graduate, but she now lives at home and waits on her father after he broke off her relationship with an Irish-Catholic man. There's anger underneath the surface, but she keeps it in check. Mahwish (Tala Ashe), will marry the man she is supposed to marry, but she has kept him interested by offering him a form of sex that still manages to keep her virginity but certainly isn't good Islamic practice. Concerned that Zarina doesn't have a man, Afzal creates a profile for her on a Muslin dating site and interviews the candidates himself. His ideal candidate for her is Eli (Greg Keller), a white man who has converted to Islam and is Imam of a small mosque outside of Atlanta. Zarina dutifully dates Eli and eventually marries him.
The bombshell is that Zarina has spent the past four years writing a book about the Prophet Mohammed's love life that is certain to raise a scandal and perhaps violence. Eli who dotes on his wife wants to be supportive but knows the book will cause a violent backlash and that his own position as Iman will be endangered. Afzal pilfer's Eli's copy (Afzal knows no limits when it comes to searching other people's belongings), and goes ballistic.
Up to here I'm with the play -- with some reservations -- but Akhtar pulls his punches in the last half hour. There would be a far more violent response to Zarina's book than he gives us and the resolution seems unearned.
One problem with the play -- and I am surprised that some dramaturg hasn't pointed this out to the playwright -- is that he is focusing the play on Afzal, but Eli is the more interesting character. Why did he convert to Islam? How does his feminism fit in with his religion. There's a scene in which Afzal tells Eli to "break" his wife, essentially to bring her to heel in a traditionally Islamic way. Eli is shocked, but how does he connect his religion with his non-Islamic view of women? Why does he support his wife, when what she has written not only goes against his faith but will destroy his work? Is he really a sincere believer in Islam? We've seem versions of Afzal before -- perhaps not as charming, perhaps scarier -- but Eli could be an original, fully developed character.
The production looks great and all four actors are excellent. I hoped that Akhtar would be as daring as he was in DISGRACED. He is trying too much to please here.
THE WHO AND THE WHAT. Lincoln Center Theater Clair Tow Theatre. June 21, 2014.
Afzal (Bernard White) is a Pakistani who has made a fortune in the taxicab business in car-dependent Atlanta. He is an example of the American dream, moving from taxi driver to entrepreneur. After his wife died of cancer, he had to take over the raising of his two daughters now in their twenties. Afzal has the old world idea that he has the right to run his daughters' lives, particularly their love lives. Zarina (Nadine Malouf), is exceptionally bright, a Harvard graduate, but she now lives at home and waits on her father after he broke off her relationship with an Irish-Catholic man. There's anger underneath the surface, but she keeps it in check. Mahwish (Tala Ashe), will marry the man she is supposed to marry, but she has kept him interested by offering him a form of sex that still manages to keep her virginity but certainly isn't good Islamic practice. Concerned that Zarina doesn't have a man, Afzal creates a profile for her on a Muslin dating site and interviews the candidates himself. His ideal candidate for her is Eli (Greg Keller), a white man who has converted to Islam and is Imam of a small mosque outside of Atlanta. Zarina dutifully dates Eli and eventually marries him.
The bombshell is that Zarina has spent the past four years writing a book about the Prophet Mohammed's love life that is certain to raise a scandal and perhaps violence. Eli who dotes on his wife wants to be supportive but knows the book will cause a violent backlash and that his own position as Iman will be endangered. Afzal pilfer's Eli's copy (Afzal knows no limits when it comes to searching other people's belongings), and goes ballistic.
Up to here I'm with the play -- with some reservations -- but Akhtar pulls his punches in the last half hour. There would be a far more violent response to Zarina's book than he gives us and the resolution seems unearned.
One problem with the play -- and I am surprised that some dramaturg hasn't pointed this out to the playwright -- is that he is focusing the play on Afzal, but Eli is the more interesting character. Why did he convert to Islam? How does his feminism fit in with his religion. There's a scene in which Afzal tells Eli to "break" his wife, essentially to bring her to heel in a traditionally Islamic way. Eli is shocked, but how does he connect his religion with his non-Islamic view of women? Why does he support his wife, when what she has written not only goes against his faith but will destroy his work? Is he really a sincere believer in Islam? We've seem versions of Afzal before -- perhaps not as charming, perhaps scarier -- but Eli could be an original, fully developed character.
The production looks great and all four actors are excellent. I hoped that Akhtar would be as daring as he was in DISGRACED. He is trying too much to please here.
THE WHO AND THE WHAT. Lincoln Center Theater Clair Tow Theatre. June 21, 2014.
GERTRUDE STEIN'S SAINTS presented by Theatre Plastique at the Abrons Art Center
Theatre Plastique, founded and directed by Michelle Sutherland, is a group of Carnegie Mellon students who are collectively creating a trilogy of theater pieces "exploring what it means to be American." The first in the trilogy is a setting of works by Gertrude Stein. Sutherland created the script from FOUR SAINS IN THREE ACTS, SAINTS, and "The Gradual Making of THE MAKING OF AMERICANS." Sutherland then gave the script to a group of thirteen young musicians and performers who collectively created and masterfully perform an a cappella musical work out of the Stein fragments.
I have to admit that Stein isn't my favorite poet. I remember a two year period in which I was on dissertation committees for three Ph.D. students who were writing on Stein. It was harder work for me than it was for the students in question. Stein's operas, FOUR SAINTS IN THREE ACTS and THE MOTHER OF US ALL were given arid music by Virgil Thompson, not one of America's best composers. His spareness matches Stein in some basic ways, but one wishes she had worked with a more imaginative composer. Theatre Plastique gives Stein's words very contemporary musical settings. There is virtually no instrumentation other than an occasional guitar or a few chords from a keyboard. Yet the ensemble has used a wide panoply of pop genres -- hiphop, boy band, folk, blues, jazz, spiritual, Broadway anthem. It's hard to set free verse to fixed rhythms, but what these young composer-performers have created never seems to jar inappropriately with the language. The juxtaposition of Stein's cerebral poetry with pop musical forms is fascinating. The staging and choreography is equally inventive, and the pop arty scene design (Diego Montoya) constantly surprising and appropriate.
There's a kind of narrative arc to SAINTS. Saints are constantly involved in this pop heaven, but never appear. America, too, is invoked with conventional symbols of flag and fireworks, but remains vague. We end in darkness. What is clearly in focus is a celebration of community represented by the exuberant, exciting creative community onstage. Bravo to Sutherland and her talented, young fellow artists. I had just had lunch with one of my former star pupils who said that the best of his cohort were not so interested in conventional drama as in what might be called "performance." I'm still enough of a traditionalist to cherish a good play, but, despite my less than full appreciation of Stein, I found SAINTS to be thrilling theatre.
We had never been to the Abrons Art Center. It's a lovely traditional theatre on the Lower East Side. It was fun to walk back to the subway along bustling multi-cultural Grand Street. When we got to the subway platform, we had a conversation with two theatre folk who had just come from another production. We didn't know each other, but we knew each other by reputation. The evening was a reminder of how vibrant New York is and, within this metropolis, what a village the theatre community is.
GERTRUDE STEIN'S SAINTS, Abrons Arts Center, June 20, 2014.
I have to admit that Stein isn't my favorite poet. I remember a two year period in which I was on dissertation committees for three Ph.D. students who were writing on Stein. It was harder work for me than it was for the students in question. Stein's operas, FOUR SAINTS IN THREE ACTS and THE MOTHER OF US ALL were given arid music by Virgil Thompson, not one of America's best composers. His spareness matches Stein in some basic ways, but one wishes she had worked with a more imaginative composer. Theatre Plastique gives Stein's words very contemporary musical settings. There is virtually no instrumentation other than an occasional guitar or a few chords from a keyboard. Yet the ensemble has used a wide panoply of pop genres -- hiphop, boy band, folk, blues, jazz, spiritual, Broadway anthem. It's hard to set free verse to fixed rhythms, but what these young composer-performers have created never seems to jar inappropriately with the language. The juxtaposition of Stein's cerebral poetry with pop musical forms is fascinating. The staging and choreography is equally inventive, and the pop arty scene design (Diego Montoya) constantly surprising and appropriate.
There's a kind of narrative arc to SAINTS. Saints are constantly involved in this pop heaven, but never appear. America, too, is invoked with conventional symbols of flag and fireworks, but remains vague. We end in darkness. What is clearly in focus is a celebration of community represented by the exuberant, exciting creative community onstage. Bravo to Sutherland and her talented, young fellow artists. I had just had lunch with one of my former star pupils who said that the best of his cohort were not so interested in conventional drama as in what might be called "performance." I'm still enough of a traditionalist to cherish a good play, but, despite my less than full appreciation of Stein, I found SAINTS to be thrilling theatre.
We had never been to the Abrons Art Center. It's a lovely traditional theatre on the Lower East Side. It was fun to walk back to the subway along bustling multi-cultural Grand Street. When we got to the subway platform, we had a conversation with two theatre folk who had just come from another production. We didn't know each other, but we knew each other by reputation. The evening was a reminder of how vibrant New York is and, within this metropolis, what a village the theatre community is.
GERTRUDE STEIN'S SAINTS, Abrons Arts Center, June 20, 2014.
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