Passing Strange

photo by Kevin Berne

The Public Theater

This was a tremendously professional performance experience. For what was essentially a modified, amplified night club act Passing Strange was tight, well-crafted, entertaining and innovative.

Sung and partly acted out autobiography (not a one-man show at all), Passing Strange is a coming-of-age story about a young man who journeys on a quest for “the real.” He searches for the real in geographical locations, the present (not the past or the future) and the then current European art scene. He attempts to inject what he finds into himself.

From the program it would seem that a great deal of the credit for the professionalism goes to the “movement coordinator,” Karole Armitage. The actors used every inch of the small stage. Every smile, stomp, wiggle, and kick felt crafted and choreographed in the best senses of those terms. The movements truly were coordinated and well-executed and perfectly adapted to the theater.

More kudos can be extended to the four person band and STEW, the narrator. STEW has a lovely voice and the band was excellent. The music showed about a million different influences and everything about it supported the story and the show. And, the acting was tremendous, but so good and consistent with all of the actors I might forget to mention it as it pointed to ideas and music, not to self-glorification of acting itself.

My gripe would have to be with the ending. It felt deeply unsatisfactory. Initially, I blamed myself, thinking I have just bought in too deeply to American consumerism as a culture. But, on thinking about it more, I thought it was unsatisfactory because this is a play about finding “the real” in life. Finding “the real” is a young person’s question and it doesn’t necessarily eventually result in an answer of mortgage payments and a zombie following of the crowd. But, it misses another question we must ask in life, “What here is important?”

At the end of the play, the young person loses his mother and has not been around to say good-bye. This isn’t necessarily, as far as I could tell, a turning point in his thought process. It only partially affirms his “seize the day” attitude about life with a hint of regret. If it didn’t do that, then I missed the point as it felt hastily done. An important aspect of life, other people and our relationships with them, was continuously pushed aside in the youth’s quest for the real. And, the impact of that never really worked its way into the piece. I would have hoped for more of an infusion of relationship rather than sheer self-examination. There’s a fine line, it seems between constant and unbending self-examination and pure narcissism. What saves us from narcissism and ourselves, ultimately, is value on relationship with others. I wouldn’t want the moral of the story to be self for self’s sake.

This is a complicated thought process I’ve just brought us through, but it’s a response to a complicated piece. Passing Strange is one of the best theater pieces out there right now. I would expect no less from The Public, at this point, honestly. However, even by Public standards this has a richness that is unique and certainly well worth the time. It’s been reviewed well consistently, but it’s hard to capture in words. There is an appeal to the rock sensibility in everyone, the reminiscence of youth, the feeling of youthful righteousness. But, more than that, I believe it is good thought, but it is excellent theater. It’s also not quiet. My ears ached a bit at the end. Use proper precautions if you need to. This might not be for the Frank Sinatra set.

American Fiesta

Vineyard Theater

American Fiesta, involving loads of dishware, a good host, tables and guests is akin to a great dinner party where you do not actually eat. Everything is set up, but there is no food. This is literally what this show felt like and metaphorically what I felt I was left with at the end.

American Fiesta is Steven Tomlinson's autobiographical account of starting an expensive, perfect vintage Fiestaware collection as he undergoes a major transition in his relationship with his partner and his parents. Fiestaware can metaphorically be linked to both the political United States and these relationships.

Steven Tomlinson is entertaining. The set was beautiful. The dishes were grand. But, this did fall short of excellent theater. I think this is because autobiographies are personal and this felt like an impersonal, somewhat private telling of a story. It also lacked great revelation. It contained, though, a loving story of a family that eventually finds a reasonable way to show love to their son and his husband.

In the show, Steven is getting married and his parents are rather unsupportive given that this is a gay marriage. They refuse to come to the wedding and they refuse to sign papers to give his partner/husband the rights that he needs to act like a proper husband. They are also generally unwelcoming when the two of them repeatedly come to visit.

Also, in the show, Steven is actively collecting expensive dishes (typically $500 each). He is picky and he seeks perfection in the old, in the past. This part is a nice juxtaposition where he is trying at some level to amend his memories of family and make them whole before moving on into his new family with his new husband. On this level, this show works. However, my biggest critique is that he meets many people while collecting the dishes and he consistently refuses to really hear their stories about their dishes and about their lives. This is about Steven's life and he doesn't really seem to let other people enrich him as they might. He wants perfect history, without story.

At the end of the show, as he is putting the bowls on a table, I would have liked to have related those bowls to people he had encountered and been changed by. It was very disappointing that they were basically just bowls. In a one man show about dishware, I would have liked the dishware to take on a bit more personality. It doesn't even make sense, but it is true.

The most rewarding moment in the show is when Steven's parents give him the gift of signed legal documents and an old, treasured Fiesta bowl to his husband. It reaffirms our faith in our families to come around and show love in the ways that we can hear it.

I would have liked more story, more history, though. I would have liked to have heard the history of his relationship with his husband. And, I would have liked more about the years he grew up in Oklahoma. I would not have minded a good coming out story. And, I certainly would not have minded hearing about the stories of the dishware. History, our histories, do more than exist. They have personality and depth. And, if we are going to collect history we have to be able to slowly open ourselves up to everything that is involved. Otherwise, we should just run by Macy's and pick up the new bowl instead of obsessively e-baying for the old. It would save a lot of money and we could deal exclusively in the future of the memories we will make with the new dishware in the new colors with the great, shiny sheen of possibility all over it.

Coram Boy

Photo by Joan Marcus

Imperial Theater

Not a musical. Not a play, by my standards. A spectacle? A not very spectacular spectacle, to be exact. This is Coram Boy which has somehow found a ship and sailed over from London to New York. And, I definitely did not like it. But, let me tell you why.

This is a story about the "Coram man" who takes babies away from mothers not yet ready to be mothers. Instead of bringing them to the Coram orphanage as he promised and collected a hefty sum of money to do, he murders them. Set against this are two young aspiring musicians from different lots in life, one on his way to becoming a great landowner, the other finding his way out of manual labor for the accomplished life of a musician. The great landowner unknowingly and unwittingly gets "into trouble" with a girl. And, when his father takes music away from him he leaves home never to be seen again...until Act II.

In Act II we find his semi-grown son magically brought to the orphanage by the Coram man's idiot son. A miracle of sorts occurs when the landowner's son is apprenticed to his unknown now musician father. And, the landowner's son's friend is apprenticed at the same time to the Coram man, now a wealthy man who sells the children into fates worse than death. At the end, all the right people find one another and the Coram man is exposed and will be put out of business.

It's a gruesome story. Watching the play is like walking through a terrible haunted house at Halloween where you are just watching what people have worked very hard to make look scary but comes off as just above camp. Never mind that the whole "play" is accompanied by tons and tons of music by none other than George Frideric Handel. Reading the press, you would think that the people who put this show on wrote the music themselves. Never mind that they didn't even take the time to research the fact that Messiah was never performed at Christmas until after Handel's death (which is where they place it) instead of at Easter which is the holiday that it was first associated with. Never mind that they cast someone as Handel and make it seem like he is already canonized in history, even though he is supposed to be current with the time of the play. He was well-known in his time, but not dead, gone and musically canonized.

Leaving the theater I got the sense I was alone in not liking this theater event. I was perplexed at what others saw and I missed. I think they saw a spectacle, expected a spectacle and felt satisfied with what they received. I feel that spectacles should be grounded in the spectacular, in real talent, in story, in amazing or daring acts. I felt cheated, not satisfied.

First, this event (sorry, I just can't call it a play) failed to pass two very basic tests that I run on Broadway shows. I ask whether this play could filter down to community or high school theater and still survive in tact, with less budget and I can only trust less talent. I do not think this passes the test. Any redemptive qualities were based on enormous budget. Without the fancy, awful sets and the relatively decent cast asked to do strange and weird things--without this production it does not survive. Next, I ask whether it would work on an off-Broadway stage where good things happen all the time in New York. No, it could not. Some movies are made for the small screen, some for the big. The same goes for theater. This was made with only one sized stage in mind. It was made for a spectacle-sized stage.

Why would it not survive if moved to another less wealthy venue? Well, first it depends to an extraordinary degree on decent musicians who can make it through all of the superfluous Handel. And, that could go terribly wrong--trust me. Additionally, the human element, the reason we go to the theater, was absent. We want to see hearts torn open, emotions exposed, not babies killed for money. Or, if they must be killed we want to see someone truly weep and make us weep. This lacked the human element and let me tell you why.

Almost all of the characters were complicit in some way in the baby killing. The rich were not sharing their wealth. The rich were producing the problems. The Coram man was obviously complicit. His idiot son was complicit. The maid was complicit. You get the point. But, not one of those characters had more than one side. Not one asked, "What have I done?" and became three-dimensional. The characters were all complicit, but they were quickly pegged as either good or bad and never became fully human. They never had a chance or a hope for change. They were simply cogs in the story, not real characters.

Now, let's talk about the sets for a moment. They were horrid. They were modern set against the Baroque era. Like the Handel and the Baroque and the church setting would not have flown without the MTV generation twist being thrown in there to boot. Handel goes modern goth. What a great idea! Kidding. The stage was meant to look like there was no off-stage. The weird extras changed in the corners into their next stage element or costume and all moved in a creepy way at the same time. The stage was dominated by a green wood turntable, set against darker reds and wood tones on the stage. The turntable spun at relentless speed from five minute plot segment to the next five minute plot segment, as if we could not take in a slow story line. Not to mention, and this was the most distracting bit of all, that every five minutes we had a stomp fest (without rhythm) as children who were in the play had been instructed to run around in chaotic patterns of blocking to get us from one plot segment to the next. It was chaotic, it moved both too slow and too fast and it was awfully loud hearing all the running on to the turntable and the stage and running off. If I had to change one thing (assuming it stays around two days past its opening) I would put some pads on those children's feet or take some of the sound from the wooden beams that keep getting stomped against.

Obviously, don't go. Even if you have free tickets, your time is still worth something. Trust me. If you loved LeStat and you were one of the lucky few to catch one of the few shows before it tanked, you will love this. If you love Handel and empty spectacle and Baroque goth, this one's for you. If you love theater, passionately, ardently and you love human drama and great, original music you have about ninety-nine better ways to spend your evening around town. Run for your life and save your time and/or your money.

Apostasy

photo by Pavel Antonov

Urban Stages
West 30th Street

Urban Stages’ production last night of Apostasy adequately showcased what can easily be deemed a complex and rich play about human need with some of the world’s greatest themes: faith, constancy, family, money, death, affection, love and human contact. If these themes seem overwhelming in quantity or quality, the framework of the play held them together tightly enough and lightly enough to ensure that the theatergoer did not leave the theater overburdened and hurting from too heavy a feast on the human condition.

As an audience member, the framework of the play was a series of ethical questions about human need and what the characters could and should offer one another. No one character could fulfill another completely leaving question after question about what is appropriate to ask of another human being. The play is full of moments when the face of the situation is absolute inappropriateness tinged with a question of: given the situation, is this actually appropriate? Or, better, does love and real human need trump lies, power plays, appropriateness and professionalism? See, what seemed boring thematically can actually be rather provocative.

Moreover, the play worked a bit like a card game. Each player only had so many cards to play based on their identity. They could use those in any way they pleased to hurt or help one another as the play wore on. The power plays were shrewd and surprising, in terms of what could be played to get another to do what one wants. The sick woman had: vulnerability, impending death and money to play with. The televangelist had: fame of a sort, certainty about life after death, charm and an able body. The daughter had shrewdness, her identity as a daughter and knowledge of her mother. It was only a matter of time before one person ultimately got what they wanted the most.

The acting was marvelous. Everything about the production only enhanced the play. It is a joy when you can see the play clearly through the production.

The only critique I had was a nagging question about the reality of what the televangelist had to offer. In the play he offers to take this woman back with him to his church and community as a lover and into the church. As a black televangelist, he would never be able to take a white, rich, unsaved Jewish woman as a lover (with no plans of marriage) in a church. The church would revolt. He would have problems with his authority. It’s just true and unrealistic that he could openly offer her a relationship outside of marriage and possibly even inside of marriage, given the nature of churches.

I do recommend this play. For a play about a televangelist and a Jewish woman who thinks she may want to convert, it is religion-light. It is more about common human need, the power of loneliness, our solo nature in the world when faced with death and the obligations that tie us down in life. Most of the needs in the play are either answered or addressed by religion, but that was not the task of this play—perhaps for another evening. This is a sterling production of a provocative (in the good way) play. It is also surprisingly not too heavy and not too light, perhaps for those who ask not for cream and not for milk, but 'half and half' in their coffee.

Special note: There were less seats than most off-Broadway productions. This would typically fall under off-off Broadway. But, I think it is officially sponsored by Equity pushing it up a notch. Just in case you are wondering. The ticket price to quality ratio is quite good. You will definitely get your money's worth. Additionally, one of the most disorganized experiences I've ever had at the front of the house before the play. Don't let that scare you. Just roll with the punches.

Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

I spent six hours at the Met on Tuesday night and thankfully I've almost forgotten it. I saw a great production of a rather dull opera. I have read that this is Wagner's only "comic opera" and that he wrote the libretto for this one on his own. And, yet, that it actually contained more Wagner actually made it less like the Wagner I know and love.

First, I want to say that I am an opera trooper. If it requires back pain I want to be there. I did the entire Ring Cycle in a week. I sat through both Parsifal and Lohengrin last season. So, I just want to make it clear that it was not the six hours I put into this that caused my discontent.

This is what I love about a Wagner opera: textured and layered music, psychological intrigue, malicious schemes, the theme of ambition, the idea of purity, and great orchestral music underneath challenging vocal parts. Meistersinger had next to none of that.

The musical highlight for me was the prelude before the third act. It was a hauntingly beautiful opening to hour four. James Morris was amazing as Hans Sachs. No quibbles can be made about this. He just seemed to get inside the skin of the character. Johan Botha played the young knight. I caught Botha in Don Carlo in December. He's certainly a capable singer, a very capable singer. But, the leap into magic, where the audience flies away with the singer, does not happen when he sings. To be dreadfully honest, because he is often regularly playing young, dashing characters losing 100-150 pounds would be great visually, probably wouldn't hurt his singing and might help everyone all around. Usually, I would never comment on weight, but it is distracting given the roles he is ready to sing. The third suitor Beckmesser provided welcome comic relief and had a great voice for the part. And, I want to give proper credit to the singer who sang the role of David.

So, everyone was great, good singing all around. I just did not love the story or the music. It had decent moments. But, in almost six hours we got only about twenty minutes of female voices. That is a lot of singing in the lower range.

I will not go into the story. You can read all about it on wikipedia, if you would like. The opera was built around a tremendous structure, the structure of a song. The libretto reads closer to Music Appreciation 101, rather than story line. I feel confident that if I did a dissertation on this opera it would yield great appreciation for the structural nuance and its marriage to libretto and the entire opera. But, a casual one-time listen does not yield this appreciation for me. And, absent going back to school this will probably be a one-time listen for me.

This was the only Wagner offering this season at the Met, after two great evenings last year. It was rather disappointing as the only offering. I'm already waiting anxiously for next year. You can not go see it, because it is not being offered again this season. But, I want to tell you if you happened to catch it, give Wagner another chance. This was not as good as it gets. This isn't even as good as it gets this season. We can hold off on another production of this opera for another five to ten years, and I would be thankful.

The Voysey Inheritance

Atlantic Theater Company

It was possible to sit there and imagine a thousand ways this play might have gone wrong. Several actors could have been terrible. The pacing could have been bad. Well, loads of things could have gone wrong, but did not. It seemed like a terribly hard play to pull off, but it worked well.

This is what I liked best about the play. I was rooting for the protagonist to do wrong. I was making moral justifications and rationalizations for him to do wrong the entire time. I thought things like, "Oh, come on, stop being such a stiff, no one will know" and "You don't really have to go to jail for this" and "At least be nice for your family and think of them." In the end the protagonist turned out being right after taking the moral high road.

This is the story of one moral hero against a whole system (in this case, his family) who is up to no good. It reminds me a bit of L.A. Confidential, except for this time it's a family, not a police force. It's very difficult to be the mole and the one who tells the truth. It certainly gains you few friends and pushes the question: which really is the better way to live? Is it better to be hated but right or popular and loved but wrong? For the average person, and I confess I am average, it is a hard question.

But, our protagonist is no average person. He is deeply unpopular, strict in his morals and ultimately pays for his convictions. Oh no, I've given it away. This is the story of a large family of siblings who are left with a problem when their beloved father dies. He has left them a firm with misappropriated funds that is actually bankrupt. The trick is that it seems that with the right management, or rather maneuvering, life could go on as it has been and no one would be the wiser. The only kink in this plan is the son who is left in charge of the business. The illegal and immoral aspect of what has been going on pushes him only to fix as best he can the damage that has been done and then later suffer the consequences, the self righteous p****.

Only, he's not self righteous. As an audience member, I really grow to like him even if I give him plenty of opportunity to do the wrong thing, opportunity to take the out. He sticks to his guns, in spite of all the opportunity and eventually pays the price, only winning the lady in the end.

The acting was quite good. Set was beautiful. Pacing was fine. Costumes were a bit over the top, but they were lovely in their own way.

I wanted to see this for months. Is it as good as I had hoped? It did not change my life. Some plays you don't actually enjoy until they over. This is the great paradox of being a theatergoer. And, this is one of those times where this is true. I left the theater with more than I realized, although I almost felt like I could have left at intermission. But, I stuck it out and I am glad I did. The characters became richer in the second act. The story more layered. And, I realized that the thoughts of the audience were part of the play. We were involved because we were rooting for the wrong side. I like it when a play gets the better of me. And, this one did. Should you go, I hope it gets the better of you and your morals, too.

Prelude to a Kiss

Even though I saw it in previews, this was an instance of a play being greater than its production, simply stated. I found it pushed me to think about marriage, the topic in the play. And, the bare bones of the play (in contrast to the movie with nice shots, multiple locations, good movie sex and super attractive stars) allowed the ideas being expressed to come out in much sharper relief and a bit more clearly than the movie by the same name.

Here is the basis of the play. Marriage is a commitment for life to one person. Once you make that commitment it is likely that your partner will change. What if they change so dramatically that you no longer recognize them? How do you honor a lifelong commitment in light of drastic change? Great questions, right? I love the topic and the treatment of it.

Okay, now about the production. It was lackluster at best. And, most of all, it's not everyday that you get to talk about sets that actually worked AGAINST the play. So, let's start with the sets. There was a strange lit marble-like cross beam going across the stage with a vertical column of the same off-center. Let's call this visual structure upscale 80s stage definition. Additionally, the back of the stage was lit in different colors throughout the production. Someone chose purple or blue or something really cold to enhance the time early in the couples' relationship where they were super-hot, on fire and passionately in love with one another. Interesting choice, let's say. And, then my favorite critique of the sets were that the couple should have had to contend with a couch/sofa in the apartment. I know it is cliche, but two chairs set rather far apart did not cut it. And, if done well it would have served the performance rather well. If there had been a sofa, the entire story of the play could have been told through the relationship of the actors to the sofa. This play is about lust, love, intimacy and commitment and two non-interesting chairs do not support those themes. Especially, if they are the only items (besides a bed) on the stage.

Acting-wise it was okay. Not great by any stretch of the imagination. I liked the supporting characters best: the mother and father of the bride. The bride was not bad. The groom could have been a million times stronger. And, the old man--the father from Frasier-well, he didn't bring it down. I read a user review on the New York Times website which showed great optimism and confidence that the acting was going to become tighter. The main problem was probably in the beginning. The beginning was not necessarily convincing enough that these two people were really into one another. It was supposed to be love at first sight, and it just wasn't. It looked like two people trying to escape a terribly awkward first encounter, and never fast enough.

If you have to pay to see this I would say skip it and wait for the next revival. That's pretty harsh, because the play itself is rather nice. And, I took away some nice things. But, the production was so distracting in so many ways that I just can not recommend it. With so many other great options going on all the time, I just can't say this is the best one. If you have absolutely nothing else to do on a Saturday afternoon and it's not too beautiful a day, stop by for a matinee, I guess.

A Very Common Procedure

Lucille Lortel Theatre

I feel this play is just not getting the love or respect it deserves. Or, maybe just not from Charles Isherwood from the New York Times. I love critics, I do. I have favorites. I respect them. I agree with them, I disagree with them. I am not reading another Charles Isherwood review before I go see a play for a long time. His review sat in my ear and I couldn't get it out, and at the end I thought it was unfair.

In short, A Very Common Procedure asks the audience to play the role of marriage counselor to a young couple that has recently lost a baby. The married couple is very likable and their love is almost tangible. The death of the baby has just devastated their marriage. In trying to come to terms with this death, the wife starts an affair with the doctor who did not save (and perhaps inadvertently killed) their baby.

The script was strong enough with one obvious central conflict and a couple of subplots or themes. Mainly, though, this was an acting vehicle. All three actors rose to the challenge. They had excellent pacing and great chemistry, very necessary for conveying intimacy, love and loss--all at the heart of this play. Unlike the disaster of acting romance in Prelude to a Kiss, I left the theater arguing with my friend about whether the stage couple was a real couple in real life. That's good acting. I was willing to allow that it was just good acting, nothing more. She still contends that they were a real couple. So be it, I'm happy to have had the argument.

This is the second play I have seen at the Lucille Lortel theater. It certainly will not be my last. Both dealt with changes in life, loss and how we move on from personal tragedy. In case you did not know, every single theater in this town has a special interest: British to America hits, old classics, comedies with well-known actors, etc. I am betting that this might be a Lortel favorite, the pitting of loss against the need to keep moving on in life. I could be a wrong, but I plan on seeing another play there in the near future to measure the theory.

I do recommend this. It is well done. It was thankfully not a personally relevant subject for me. But, it presented a nice outline of love in marriage. And, like Prelude to a Kiss, it tested the marriage against outside destructive forces to see where it stood at the end of the day. This is a great theater. Go. Enjoy. And, don't read an Isherwood review before you go, only after if you must.

Jenufa

The Metropolitan Opera

This was the sort of evening that makes you want to go to the opera every night of the week. Karita Mattila is an amazing soprano. Moreover, she is particularly well suited for Janacek. So long as she is willing to sing at the Met, something of a Janacek revival will be welcomed by all. I heard her sing in Janacek's Kata Kabanova a year or two ago and was simply stunned. And, then I heard her sing in Lohengrin and did not leave nearly as impressed. I do believe that she would make a stunning Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, a role she has sung before. Her voice is crystal clear, but rich. She is perfectly musical and just when you think the voice is contained in these tight, neat patterns she lets loose just enough to fill the role and the outer emotional moments that come up from time to time in the opera. She fills out the emotional moments, but does not let loose to the point of over doing it.

Notably, she was well supported by the two tenors of the evening: Jay Hunter Morris and Jorma Silvasti. The people went crazy over Anja Silja, but I imagine that was as much on memory as on her vocal performance that night.

Act I: Jenufa is about a woman who gets pregnant in a small village. She is very much in love with the father of the baby (Steva), but he has yet to experience true love with her. He is attracted to her, but does not love her. His brother (Laca), however, is in love with her. In a complicated story twist, Laca and Jenufa end up fighting and he mars her face with a knife. It sounds awful, sort of Jerry Springer, doesn't it?

Act II: Jenufa is understandably altered by the pregnancy. And, with her freshly marred face Steva is no longer attracted to her and does not want to marry her. Jenufa's stepmother hides her away for several months until the baby is born. When the baby is born and Steva won't marry Jenufa the stepmother becomes concerned that the baby will ruin Jenufa's chances for a happy life. Laca stops by and confesses that he does still love her. The stepmother, in order to not lose an opportunity of marrying Jenufa to a good man, reports that a baby had been born, but died during childbirth. Faced with the problem of the baby still being alive, she drugs Jenufa and kills the baby.

Act III: Laca and Jenufa are getting married. Steva and his new fiancee come to the wedding on Laca's invitation and have awkward conversation. While the ceremony is happening, the dead baby is found by villagers. Jenufa recognizes that it is her baby. And, the stepmother confesses to the killing. Jenufa recognizes that this was done out of love. And, finally, in a bittersweet ending Laca and Jenufa find that they have a relationship that will take them through the next phase of the journey of life.

Each of the acts were structured in a similar way. They began with Jenufa's relationship to family, with scenes with her grandmother or stepmother. Then, the act would report on the status of her relationship with Steva. And, then it would document the progression of the relationship with Laca. Very neat and tidy, eh?

The strongest moments, by far, were the duets with Jenufa and Laca, especially at the end of Act II and Act III. The strongest emotional moment came when Jenufa and Laca decide to get married in Act II and have a very honest "conversation" about what they are getting married for and what they bring to the table emotionally. In Act III, the ending is touching and true. While they will never have the giddy love of Steva and his new woman, they find a respect for one another. Jenufa becomes more than an object of affection to Laca and Laca finally becomes a good and respectable man for Jenufa. In Act II, the feeling was "you'll do." In Act III, there was gratitude for the other and a sense that they might, at the end of life, have found love after all.

Now, for the production--there were rocks, lots of rocks, in this production. I feel confident, that after pondering what they were doing in the sets for two and a half hours I came up with a plausible solution. Let me paint the picture for you. In the first act, we are in an old mill. It's a beautiful, bright day. There is beautiful barn wood. The set makes a symmetrical triangle of sorts. But, in the middle of the stage, coming up out of the mill's floor, is a rock. It would be easy to overlook if you weren't staring at a sparse set for an hour. At first I thought it was a statement on the topography of the setting. But, that didn't make sense. Even in Europe people still build over rocks, around rocks or move them. So, I let it go in my mind for a bit and just sat back and enjoyed.

In the second act the rock dominates the stage. Same triangle, although we are now supposed to be in the stepmother's and Jenufa's house. There is no chair, no table, no crib in the house. There is a huge, enormous rock in the house. So, this is a bit strange. They are touching the rock, interacting with the rock. This is also strange. Although, they don't sing about the rock, so it's not original to the opera. At this point, I realize that the rock certainly means something I just can't figure out what.

Intermission between Act II and Act III--I talk to my neighbor. He has noticed the rocks but does not know what the hell they mean either. I say, "I wonder what sort of rocks we will get in the next act." He says, "I don't think we'll get any more rocks." I quietly disagree.

Curtain comes up in the third act: This is the wedding scene. We are back in the old mill. There are many, many small rocks around. People are sitting on them. They are broken up and everywhere. I have been testing every word in the opera against the rocks, seeing if I can figure out what is up. And, fifteen to twenty minutes in I get it. The rocks are the baby. Well, hot damn. In the first act the rock/baby was barely showing but present. In the second act, it was unignorable, a huge problem, it could not be gotten around. In the third act, it was broken but present. I am right. It could only have been the baby. If it's not, if you find it in an interview, don't tell me. I must be right about this.

During the bows, I lean over and tell my neighbor it was the baby. He says, "You might be right. I think you might be right." I'm sure I'm right. Out of something over 3,000 people I was one of the few, very few, that walked out knowing what those damn rocks meant. I believe I may have been 1 of 10 people who even gave it some thought. So, I ask you--was it effective? I don't know. The moral of the story: pay attention to rocks at the Met. Ponder them. Run them through your mind until you are completely distracted with what is going on in the drama on stage, only to find out that they represent a little baby.

A Spanish Play

I read some dismal reviews right before I saw this which scared the heck out of me. I was prepared to walk out half-way, but it was (of course) a one-act. I believe one acts exist because directors and writers fear exactly that situation. Well, for the record, I would not have left given the opportunity.

The play was about the purpose of theater, or more precisely about the role of acting in theater. If you are going to do a play about theater, you may as well present it as cleverly as A Spanish Play: practicing a play within rehearsals of a play within yet another play. Clever and difficult to pull off (if self-absorbed), and yet this was effective.

Good plays don't give an audience answers all the time; sometimes they give questions. Here are some of the questions:

• Where does acting begin and the person end?
  
• What is the difference between movie acting and play acting?
• Is there a difference in the talent required between movies and plays?
• Is luck integral to that difference?
• Do more lines equal the greater part, actually?
• Why do we love it so much?
• How does the theater compare with real life, what is the relationship?

This was a complex play and this is only the tip of the iceberg. The directing probably simplified the play which gave me the patience to sit through it, but it may have put some others off if I read the reviews accurately. The acting was amazing, and I don't think anyone would argue with this cast. The space was pleasant, if a little bit awkward to navigate occasionally.

Here is the hard part, though. If a typical play or theater piece only marginally relates to real life, then this piece barely touches it. A play about plays and acting can only do so much for audiences who do not participate.

This play reminded me of something I noticed years ago while playing music. Some pieces feel great under the fingers, are truly magnificent fun to play, but sound horrid to an audience. Others are boring as hell, terribly awkward under the fingers, but sound marvelous to your audience. There are other permutations of this truth, but I'll leave it simple. This play may well have been the best part an actor could ever have, but it did make it through the fourth wall, no matter how many times the actors broke it. Marvelous to be the one on stage, not nearly so sitting on the sides.

I would not discourage anyone from seeing it, but I would not say you have to see it, either. I think you would find it brilliant if you act yourself. Also, if you want to see Zoe Caldwell--by all means, this is your chance. Also, it is regularly a chance to catch John Turturro in an audience/director seat a few rows away--as I think he believes this play one of the most exciting ever written, but he is an actor--so it all makes sense.

Howard Katz

This Job type story adds surprisingly little to the age-old story of a man who has it all and then loses everything, hits rock bottom, finds himself alone and discovers a relationship with God. The one, small hint of a new idea in this was that we should be thankful that there even is a rock bottom.

The acting was great. I saw this the first night it played, in previews. The pacing was already strong, possibly a product of well-used rehearsal time. I waited to write about it because I thought the strength of the play would slowly hit me.

When Anna Nicole Smith died this past week, the strength of the play finally did hit me. Or, at least some of its weaknesses did. Anna Nicole gave People magazine readers (uhm, not me at all) a day-by-day drama of someone looking for all that life had to offer, all its riches, in all the wrong places. Somewhere deep inside we were all rooting for her because at some level we thought the things she went after could make us happy if only we had them, instead of her: fame, marriage, extreme wealth (depending on the next rounds of court cases), a house in the Caribbean, etc. And, yet, she always seemed unhappy--and this made us happy because paradoxically most of us are actually able to tame our ambitions by acknowledging deep inside that these things will ultimately not make us happy in the end. Most of us don't have to go all the way down that tragic dead-end road to figure it out. We somehow balance our belief that riches, fame, work, sex and all the rest can give us happiness with an innate sense that they actually will not. It is the Howards and the Anna Nicoles that remind us about the things of this world and the necessity of practice for living a good life.

The comic drama of Howard Katz was not nearly as strong as the drama of Anna Nicole. And, this is why: I didn't believe that he believed that everything he had when times were good would actually make him happy. He had no clue what would make him happy or content, and he was only blindly following the rules of society without any engagement with them. When he lost everything there was little sadness. He hadn't appreciated everything or anything he had when he had it. With Anna Nicole, there was a sense that if she could just have a little more fame or a little more money or less legal battles, then she would finally be happy. With Howard Katz, I thought that he needed to sit down, think for a long time and then map out what he guessed would make him happy. It wasn't that he chose a fork in the road. He was on the wrong path simply by walking around without a map. That the next fork led to great loss was not an absolute consequence of bad decisions, only bad behavior. And, he was too likable a character to deserve bad things for bad behavior.

So, I've finally talked about it. And, I don't recommend. Save your precious money for something richer, something that will embolden you for your path in life.

Regrets Only

Manhattan Theatre Club
NY City Center Stage I

I saw Regrets Only last week as its run was extended and I finally had the opportunity. I have not pledged a pure, no-holds-barred love for the Manhattan Theatre Club, but they do always make a great effort. They put a lot of money behind all of their productions and they almost always use top-notch actors. They seem to be loving the imports in general right now, but Regrets Only was a little closer to American home.

Paul Rudnick was the playwright and I was only familiar with his work from his screen adaptation of the movie In & Out. If you have seen the movie, I think you can grasp the tone of the play. Lighthearted and seriously flirting with the issue of being gay in America and running up against the inability to marry and fully live out the picket fence American Dream. It's the contrast of a serious issue, earnestly posed, yet cloaked in a comedy with great actors that I think has rubbed some critics the wrong way. It's as if Mr. Rudnick believes that medicine can only be swallowed with a great spoonful of sugar, which in this case unfortunately leads to forgettable rather than provocative. My theater neighbor summed it up well when he said, "This is a great commercial production." The issue of gay marriage and a pending constitutional amendment is prettily packaged with just the slightest bit of product.

I liked the play. I thought it was funny. But, let me just mention the absurdity of the plot which revolved around a timely strike of all the gay people in the world on the day before a rich woman's wedding day. This would, of course, mean that all hair dressers, dress makers, flower arrangers, etc. were on strike at a very crucial moment. This all fed into one of the points of the play: that we rely on gay and lesbian individuals to fuel a wedding business that they can ironically not participate in. There was more to it than that, but that's a good first layer for this purpose.

And, I would, of course be remiss if I did not mention the joy of watching the great Christine Baranski deliver some of the best one-liners I have heard in awhile. She was complimented by a good cast. I stand alone, based on the audience behavior, but I found the role of the maid distracting and perhaps unnecessary. I also found her at odds with the rest of the show.

This is a commercial endeavor. You could bring anyone to this. No one should walk away bruised or provoked or with their politics in jeopardy of a real realignment. At least I don't think this would change anyone's mind on the issues of gay marriage, but what do I know?

Honorable mentions, certainly, go to Michael Yeargan for his very beautiful set. I also found Diane Davis strong and enjoyable as the young bride.

Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris

At The Zipper Theater

Jacques Brel may or may not have been depressed. He certainly had a grim (some would say realistic) view of life, namely that everything ends: love, peace, youth and life.

Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris is a tribute musical. In other words, this is one of those events where they string together a whole bunch of songs into some sort of semblance of a loose story and call it a whole piece. If you are over a certain age you may have heard of Jacques Brel, you may have even seen this when it was produced in New York before. Most people my age would have interesting stories from childhood if they remembered this songwriter. I apparently have no interesting stories as we only listened to the Beach Boys and Barbara Streisand. That said, tribute events are a great opportunity to meet someone, like a well-curated art exhibit. And, with four great voices the night I saw it (Robert Cuccioli, Constantine Maroulis, Gay Marshall and Jayne Patterson) it was a tremendous introduction indeed.

This production was certainly no slouch. The cast had great voices and substantive resumes. There seems to be a certain romantic love with The Zipper Theater that I can not quite endorse. One of the gimmicks of the place is that every seat is an old car seat. That's great if you are in the bucket seat of a sports car, but not so great if you are in the back of the bus, as I was. Also, the run-down setting neither enhanced nor detracted from the show. I could have lived with a little less run-down, I think. Throwing a lamp or two in and a scarf might not be enough to say there is both a set and costuming.

In terms of who I would recommend this to--I am definitely not sorry I saw this. It certainly gave me a new lease on life in the morning. I was glad to still be alive. Jacques Brel, as a songwriter, reminded me of the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible, both depressing and uplifting at the same time. So, if I could go back and do it again, I would bring that young person who just loves Goth and the dark side. I would bring an older person who had an old, sweet remembrance of Jacques and a flair for the international and interesting. I would bring someone who is a little bit patient and can wait to watch all of the songs unfold into a whole. Or, if the cast stays the same, I would bring a great fan of American Idol.

an oak tree

an oak tree, at the Barrow Street theater, was refreshing in its experimentation.

The basic story line of an oak tree is that a somewhat professional hypnotist has hit a young girl with his car and killed her. The father of the young girl shows up unexpectedly one evening at a pub where the hypnotist is performing his routine and ends up on stage for a low-key confrontation where both men reveal the ways the accident has changed their lives over the past year.

The play is based on the idea of self-actualization where if you tell yourself something enough you will actually begin to believe it as truth and to actualize it in life.

Now, for the gimmick: the part of the father is played by a different actor every night. The actor can be either female or male. And, they have not seen the play nor read the script. This also comes with the caveat that with these conditions, the part is not improvisational. The actor is given very specific prompts, cues, some script and instruction throughout the play. It sounds like improv, but it’s not? How strange, you say.

As a viewer, the gimmick works surprisingly well with the story line and the basis of the play. In this play about loss and grief, the inclusion of a hypnotist helps connect the dots between the two. The actor transforms in front of the audiences’ eyes from stranger to the father of a child who tragically died. In short, the actor becomes believable and actualizes the role through being told very specifically what to do.

I think whether the play is touching or not, moves you or not, depends to a great degree on the father actor each night. I attended when Alan Ruck (the eternally good-natured-no matter how hard he may try to shed the image-Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) played the father and he brought a gentle, good-natured element to the role, but not tragic.

an oak tree was intellectually satisfying. I think there is a chance it was smarter than the playwright because it worked on more levels than could have even been intended. I think it could be a study in free will vs. a directed, foretold fate, for instance. Also, the permutations the play was able to withstand at the hands of so many actors elevated it and attested to its structure and its intention. It would be interesting to see if any other actor could convincingly carry off the role of the hypnotist—as the hypnotist actor was also the playwright and had a firm idea of intention and exactly what direction he hoped the play would move in each night (in addition to a great amount of self-interest in seeing it carried off successfully).

Overall, I would recommend an oak tree.
I would recommend it to people who like experimental theater, who don’t mind dramas, and have the patience to watch this play unfold, because it did take patience. Anyone who gets lost watching flashbacks in a movie probably will not walk away happy at the end of the night.

The Little Dog Laughed

The Little Dog Laughed
Cort Theater

The Little Dog Laughed has a rather enigmatic title, whose meaning is only revealed in the final moments of the play. I will, in brief, spoil it for you. It should hopefully in no way spoil your experience of the play. The title comes from the nursery rhyme, “The Little Dog Laughed to see such sport, and the Dish ran away with the Spoon.”

The use of the nursery rhyme points to the early education of children that dishes run away with spoons, not other dishes. The implication is that heterosexual is set as the norm from the earliest moments of language. In the play, the excruciating choice is to sacrifice personal satisfaction to the cultural norm.

Now, that seems pretty serious, doesn’t it? It would be only fair to point out that the play actually utilizes fully another childhood saying, “a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.” This play is medicine disguised as sugar.

The Little Dog Laughed is a social statement coated in sugar. It is bitingly funny. It is a comedy. Julie White is comedic in the part of Diane. I laughed so hard that I didn’t notice until later how serious it had been.

In a nutshell, Diane is a Hollywood agent who has a long-term managing relationship with a rising star who is a closeted, not entirely self-aware, gay man. He calls up a, uhm… service provider, and is sent a young man. The young man and the movie star fall in love, of course, after a few more, uhm, dates (think Pretty Woman here for a minute). Only, there is a catch. The young male prostitute has been telling himself he is straight and has been regularly sleeping with a woman for some time. He has, come to find out, gotten her pregnant. Additional problems arise when a movie deal starts to fall through as the movie star starts to experiment with being gay in the press. All of a sudden everyone , the movie star, the callboy and the “girlfriend” have significant problems and the Hollywood agent (we could call her the ‘little dog’ except she creates and participates in the sport as much as watches it) is called in to solve the problems in a satisfactory matter for everyone. Needless to say, there is varied degree of loss and gain for all involved parties. Did I mention this is funny?

This is not an overly complicated story, but the tension that slowly builds is quite satisfactory even if the plausible resolution to the problems seems unnecessarily cruel or un-modern. Again, Julie White was amazing. And, I found Ari Graynor strong in the role of the girlfriend. The two male leads were strong enough, but it was not hard to walk away and think they could have probably been stronger. I would have liked to have taken a couple of pieces of furniture off of the set for home, so the sets were good enough. They transitioned well, but they weren’t Broadway blockbuster.

I have recommended this to nearly everyone I know.
I have especially recommended it to my gay/lesbian friends as they rarely get a romance they can fully relate to and, actually, I hope they can’t fully relate to this one. All the same, this is best for people who like more comedic social works (does that type exist?)—and if this is the one thing you are going to see while you are in town from Omaha I hope you just love politics and would prefer this sort of thing over a song and dance musical.

Translations

Brian Friel’s play Translations, in previews with Manhattan Theater Company, is like a glass of cognac. You sip it, roll it around in your mouth and enjoy the different tastes. Translations takes the idea of language and sips it and rolls it around and you might almost enjoy it, if you can pay attention long enough.

In a play about language and how easily we understand one another and misunderstand one another it is ironic that some American-type people (clearing of the throat: me) have to pay awfully close attention to understand what is being said on stage with heavy Irish brogues and what sounded like some English accents in the mix. My ear for accents is not always as good as my palette when it comes to cognac, I confess.

What struck me in the story line was a particular arch in thought about language. First, we get a glimpse of how difficult it is to speak and how much we take it for granted in the opening scene as a young woman manages to slowly speak her name after considerable effort. Then, we see a classroom of people attempting to master the precision of language, their own language and older languages like Greek and Latin, with the entrance of the old schoolmaster.

This production starts to look better with the entry of the prodigal-type son Owen. Owen returns home after several years, employed as a translator for the English as they rename and remap Ireland. He is almost callous, certainly careless, regarding his job and the precision necessary, but actually impossible, in translating from one language to another.

In the story line, we later find that language is altogether unnecessary in love when a local Irish woman falls in love with an English soldier. When the soldier goes missing, no amount of talking, no precision of language, can ease tensions between the British and the Irish as the British promise to decimate the area (towns now named with English names on an English map) if the solder does not turn up.

The set on this was far more interesting than Friel’s Faith Healer (in an entirely separate production) last summer. I confess, though, to liking Faith Healer better. This felt a little too much like a classroom experience, ironically set in a classroom, than entertainment. The irritation was not so much that it made me think; rather, it was that too many ideas about language were thrown about without an effective moral to the story. As I was distracted by the smoke machine and the very real looking fire progressing towards the schoolhouse in the last scene I think I may have missed words of real depth and moral meaning spoken by the schoolteacher in his last words of wisdom for the audience.

Absent of these words, I took away a sense that sometimes language works, sometimes it does not, and no matter how many languages you know there will always be many that you do not. Also, sadly, no attention or thought was given to either slang or dialect—two important aspects of inclusion and exclusion in language. For attempting to be a comprehensive thought on language, perhaps it was not comprehensive enough. Either way, it felt like an average day at the theater.

I would not recommend it. I would have possibly brought my Dad or a foreign friend to see this with me. As a side note, even though it was a Sunday matinee, I think I may have been one of the only people under 40 in the theater. I can not say how the over 55 crowd enjoyed the show. I thought the play was okay. And, I found the production okay with a couple of standouts in the cast, notably Owen and his brother Manus.