Tings Dey Happen

Culture Project

I find that I was born with only one face--the same one I wake up to every morning in the mirror. Dan Hoyle has so many faces and portrays so many personalities in Tings Dey Happen that it is absolutely impossible to tell exactly what he looks like or what he is like in all of these Nigerian personalities. This is a one-man show about one man's experience in Nigeria a few years ago as a Fulbright scholar. The irony is that in this one-man show the man becomes invisible in encounters with many different people who answer his many questions about his practical, scholarly topic of oil and politics in Nigeria.

The dialect was overwhelming, thick and often difficult to understand, but Hoyle's mastery of the dialect served a point and helped take us on our journey into Nigeria. When I look back on this evening, I will remember the dialect, the big gestures, the malleable face and a look at this particular African country. I won't remember being entertained or a grand story. This is a show about experience, not about story. Had it been about story, it might have been great. Without an absolutely compelling story, it was average. Albeit, this was smart, honest and experiential.

We want to have emotional reactions to the characters on stage. We nearly got there in one man, a sniper, who is killing people for money so that he can one day go to university. He is hospitable to the narrator in a truly touching way. He is morally conflicted and introspective about what he does for a living. He has hope for the next generation, even as he reconciles himself with his reality at the end of the show. He is the most complex and fleshed out character of the evening, and it was a great disappointment that his story ended so quickly and that he did not manage to have the last word.

In addition to story, this may have lacked excellent questions and truly lacked answers. It was a topic more than it was an in-depth exploration of a country or a Nigerian identity. The topic, as stated above, was oil and politics in Nigeria. This was a grade B thesis of that topic.

I liked it, but would I recommend it? I can't think of anyone who needs to see it. I have friends who have spent a good deal of time in Africa. I don't know if this would be right for them. For my political friends, I don't think it is American enough. It plays to liberal guilt, but doesn't indict. Wait, I have it--this is for anyone who finds an evening where you want to go to a bar or party because you want to hear a stranger tell you something you haven't heard, about a place you've never been where you might never go, but that will educate you and interest you enough for a drink or two. So, if you find yourself without a bar or party one night, drop on by. More than anything, I kept thinking that I wanted to buy this guy a drink because I did want to keep him talking about his motivations and his experience in this country. At the very least, the show should whet your appetite for heavier Nigerian fare with a side of mosquito.

The Pirate Queen

The Hilton Theater

I expected dreadful for this. My expectations were dismally low and what I got was average, so I don’t know what all the fuss has been about, but I’ve given it some thought and I think I have a hunch why it’s been perceived as dreadful by some and a great gift to the Broadway theater world by others. Like I said, though, it’s average Broadway fare. There are a ton of shows currently playing that are better and most of the awful ones close fairly quickly (read Coram Boy here).

I think the negative reaction is partly in the timing of this opening. We seem to be at a crossroads with our musicals right now with shows like Spring Awakening and Passing Strange pushing ahead and the rest of the new releases borrowing very old musical tricks like The Drowsy Chaperone, Martin Short: Fame Becomes Me or even Hairspray. We are currently in a reaction phase against the big 80s/90s Broadway musical imported from Europe, except in cases where they never left like Phantom. Even Les Mis has been scaled back to a minimalism version of itself for its “revival” this season.

So, here we have this great big musical which borrows from a time that isn’t enough in the past to draw out the fond memories and isn’t forging ahead into new territory. This is certainly a fault of its creators—all artists should push ahead, grow and build on what they’ve done in the past, not recycle it.

However, except for the entire Irish folk dancing and all of the costumes for the lead actress being a proverbial green, which Michael Flatley (and, yes, I did see it live not on video) has pretty much eternally turned me off on, there isn’t a tremendous amount wrong with the skeleton of the show. The book is pretty good. The duets and solos are strong. The original cast recording won’t be making it into my library, but it will certainly be worth its price and repetitious listening for those interested in a decent Broadway musical.

The story line was not even half bad. It was about the nature of female leadership and a woman’s role in society, written by, from what I could tell, four men. And, four men did a pretty decent job jabbering at this subject. What they did especially well is juxtapose Queen Elizabeth (inherited rule) with the Pirate Queen (partially inherited, but fought for, rule), two women who were both leaders in their own way. And, even in 2007, there is a place for conversation about female leadership. This may not be that place, but it did not feel as trite or overworked as it could have.

The production had some issues. The sets were a little bit heavy on the flags and drapes. I hated the digital back drop. And, the costumes weren’t memorable, however probably appropriate. The Queen’s costumes were quite nice and pleasantly got larger as her power increased.

My advice would be to not seek the musical out, nor avoid it. It’s almost retro, but not quite. In 20 years no one will remember the time frame and it might be hip again, in a revival sort of way. It certainly might be good enough to revive from being released at the wrong time and in the wrong place.

Sessions

The Peter Jay Sharp Theater

My expectations were met for the new musical Sessions, which I caught in previews last week. Based on the official website, I expected good actors, a decent book, decent music and an entertaining story line.

I think it exceeded my expectations, actually, as I was only aiming for decent. What most impressed me was the thoughtfulness in the story of a psychologist who guides a group through their troubles, each person moving at their own pace. It was both light and heavy, very serious and playful. It walked the difficult line of the way therapy works for us in our lives. And, the questions it asked (and, almost all through song and dance) were good:

• What is the role of a therapist?
• When is therapy over?
• What is the patient supposed to bring to the table in order to be able to work?
• Can a therapist become personally involved with his/her patients?
• How does the rest of a therapist's life influence the way they treat people?
• What is good therapy?
  

There were some especially moving moments where everything worked. The first was late in the play when a woman explains why she can't leave her physically abusive husband. The song was definitely the best in the show. The second was when Leila, the true, sexy temptation the psychologist has to cross the line with a patient, is left in a restaurant when he decides to stay true to his marriage and his career.

The musical was missing that 11th hour song, the one you leave the theater singing. However, given the subject matter and the story line I think it would have been hard to work in. Additionally, this isn't a Broadway musical. It's perfectly suited for where it's at, at the upper end of the Off-Broadway world. It has resources, an intimate staging and an appropriate venue. It's too nuanced for a big stage production.

The casting was appropriate. I was relieved that everyone had as much experience as they did. I was a little disappointed in one or two of the actors. I thought the voices could have been a little bigger or they could have been a little more natural in their parts. I really enjoyed all of the female actors, though and most of the male actors.

The book was really nice. The scoring was a bit off. I love the french horn, but I don't think it was right for this. Or, the parts weren't quite right, at any rate. In general, the supporting orchestration for the words could have been stronger.

This was by no means a waste of time. And, it has commercial appeal especially in New York where not seeing a therapist just isn't normal. It is very palatable. I could think of bringing almost anyone I know to the show, which is perhaps why I liked it as much as I did. I wouldn't say it's the best thing I've seen lately, but I'm glad I saw it. And, I don't think anyone would be sorry they did.

As a side note, I've just noticed that they have made significant changes to their website. It now looks more professional, however the first one they went with was the most fun I've had on a website in awhile. I'm already missing it.

Beauty on the Vine

The Clurman Theater

As a main theme, Beauty on the Vine explored the theme of our extraordinary individuality as human beings. Secondarily, it explored parenthood, mixed ethnicity, plastic surgery, teen angst, marriage, love and political affiliations.

The play, while nuanced and enjoyable, felt a little bit like every last idea the playwright ever had on the subject of individual identity was thrown into the play. The problem, though, is that both the play and the theme were complex and when presenting complex ideas I find that it is best to do it simply with structure and clear lines. The lines of the play were muddled in Beauty on the Vine. The acting was loose in style and pacing, instead of tight and compact. The play suffered from too many ideas, a loose style, a lack of coherent or tight structure, and a little too much complexity within that framework.

This is a story of a man who loses his semi-famous wife in a murder that slowly gets explained as the show progresses. Oddly, his loss turns up a woman who has had plastic surgery in her late teens to make her look exactly like the wife he just lost. And, there is not just one of them out there in the world; there is at least one more. She underwent plastic surgery with a friend. So, here we are faced with many, many questions:

• How does looking like someone and mimicking them change the person who is doing the copy work?

• How individual are we?

• Can we be copied?

• Should we all try to be like one another?

• What is the pressure placed on girl teens to be a certain way?

These questions don’t even begin to bring in the many subplots, and there are many. There is the father of the woman who was shot and he knows she was an original, one-of-a-kind. There is the mother of one of the women who got plastic surgery and I don’t want to spoil her import to the entire drama. And, there is a friend of the young husband who represents ongoing support and acceptance, liberalism and wants to get pregnant via sperm donor. It gets even murkier from here, but I’ll stop.

The acting was good enough, but the chemistry between all of the actors felt off. The sets were extremely well done, and it would be remiss of me to not say so. I liked them in the beginning, but the set kept revealing itself as more and more versatile and useful to the story throughout the show. Except for the sets, the show did not feel clean or have great edges. I don’t know how else to explain it.

I don’t think I would go back for more, and it hasn’t stayed with me as I thought it might. If you love to rage on about how unfair it is to be a teenage girl in America and all the pressure that women feel over their looks, then this is definitely the play for you. If you love themes like individualism and identity, you should probably see this. I didn’t mind the subject matter; I just wish it had been more constructively presented.

Dixie's Tupperware Party

Ars Nova

This is a Tupperware party, make no mistake. Did I buy Tupperware? In words that Dixie Longate, the host might use, "You bet your ass I did."

Just when you thought the city that had everything, well, had everything--along comes Dixie Longate and her Alabama Tupperware and you realize that the City That Never Sleeps was missing something after all.

Oddly, I have seen two shows about reminiscent kitchen ware that comes in bright colors in the last couple of weeks. They had similarities. Both were performed by men, at least I think they were. Both were performed by men who like men, at least I think this is true, too. Both men found something in kitchen ware that they needed and were not expecting to find. Both men currently hail from the South, as far as I can tell. And, both men played on our memories of being young children in the kitchen, to some extent.

There are differences, though, too. Dixie's Tupperware Party is like a stand-up act with a product. American Fiesta was more of a drama with a couple of laughs. American Fiesta seemed mostly true. While it was hard to tell what was true and what was false at the Tupperware Party, including the hosts wonderful breasts, which turned out be (spoiler here), you guessed it, Tupperware.

In spite of being a good stand-up act with a very mixed audience the night I went (the old Tupperware lady crowd, young, hip gay men, date night for a few man/woman couples in the audience, old and young) the show had a story and a point and worked on many different levels.

It worked first and foremost by mixing our memories of something pure with irreverence and a pretty dirty mouth. This is a sure-fire shot at a good laugh, and it might not have worked for four hours, but certainly worked for the hour and a half we were there.

Secondly, it worked by blatantly being 'consumeristic.' It is almost reverse advertising when someone is tongue-in-cheek begging you to buy a product and telling you how rich it will make them. And, in an advertisement rich culture it is refreshing when someone is honest about their motives for selling a product, and when they themselves call it crap, "brand-name, high quality crap" I think was the line, but crap all the same. The honesty ironically works to make you want to buy more. There is delight in the honesty and in the pitch because it is surprising and it treats the consumer as savvy instead of gullible. This worked for me the night I saw this, and it has worked for me when I have seen it in advertising before. It's a gimmick, but it is one I like.

The host, Dixie Longate, certainly is entertaining. The set was wonderful. The carpet was the best, as it went up a little bit on two walls. It was almost an exact replica of what I have always imagined when I hear the words 'wall-to-wall' carpeting. The theater was a mere 10 blocks it seemed from almost any subway station, which made it feel like it was in the middle of absolutely Manhattan nowhere, which is unfortunate because it is a nice theater, just a bit harder to get to than normal.

I would recommend this. I would have been slightly embarrassed if I had been sitting next to my parents, though, and we are pretty open. Some of the material was a bit, uhm, graphic. However, if you are looking for something light-hearted and fun with a bar that is open during the entire show, go for it. I did, and now I am just waiting 7-10 days for my Tupperware. They take Visa, by the way. No cash necessary.

Talk Radio

Longacre Theater

I don't think I would recognize Liev Schreiber on the street, but he is easy to identify on the stage. He commands your attention, not obviously, but in the way he fully inhabits the character he is playing. He actually climbs into the skin of his character like an extraordinary chameleon.

In Talk Radio, the question that keeps coming up as an audience member is, "Why do these people keep calling into this radio show?" There is a good chance they will be cut off, yelled at, ridiculed or made a fool of. Years of listening to Barry Champlain (Schreiber) should have taught them this.

I don't think they call in to be the exception to the rule. The one person who will be loved and listened to by Champlain with respect and dignity. I think they call in because of the human need to confess. They not only confess--they usually go farther than they intended, revealing even deeper confessions while they are on the air. These people need to set free some dark parts of themselves into the greater world and Talk Radio is their router.

As the confession taker, Champlain is given only a limited side to humanity. He is almost a garbage dump for people to drive up to and let loose those things they no longer need or want to carry around with them. Eventually even a dump will overfill and so does Champlain. He overfills and melts down.

He doesn't lose his temper and rage about the stage. This is not an overworked meltdown and Schreiber brings you through a tempered meltdown on the air (where else?) where Barry ends up hating those he serves, finally crossing the line he has been toeing for so long, and really confessing his own failures on the air to his listeners. We are left to wonder if they will still call back after a final tirade at the end of his show. Sadly, something tells me that if he shows up the next night they might, too.

This is an excellent opportunity to see Liev Schreiber at what he does best. He does not take the opportunity to be better than the play, although he might be. He is like the last jigsaw puzzle piece, quietly and fittingly snapping into place on the stage, fully belonging and completing a picture. You can't go wrong if you want to see some great acting.

It did become claustrophobic, though. This aspect is enforced by the play being performed in one act, no set change and Marc Wendland's fitting gray set as far as the eye can see. In this setting, a slow intensity builds on the stage. A meltdown could have happened by anyone by the end. There is a degree of crazy in the setting. Bookended by two other talk radio show hosts, you realize that talk radio serves as more than a confessional and that shock radio isn't the only way to go. Imus nor Stern were not the first to go there. Pushing people on all of their limits and boundaries is an old art, indeed. However, in this play you begin to think that this show is the only thing going on in the world indeed.

Given the chance, go. If this fits into your budget and you like plays it's a professional experience that might stick with you longer than you expect. It won't change your life, but it will raise your standards for every actor and actress around town. I should also mention that it was surprisingly funny. It's not nearly as dire or intense as it sounds. Comic relief happened about once every two minutes. Go and enjoy!

Journey's End

Let's be honest. I felt terribly abused. I felt this was endless. I felt like I had been drafted and gone to war. Only, fortunately no one really got hurt because they were all there taking one of the best "bow scenes" I've ever seen at the end. And, I got to go home all in one piece. Fortunately and unfortunately, I can't forget that it ever happened.

Journey's End is about the destruction which is war. War destroys lives, minds, limbs, families, etc. This play is about the reality of war on the ground. It isn't about heroics. It's about how it takes normal people and puts them in a situation which is entirely not normal, and one where life is constantly on the line. And, yet, the soldier wants so desperately for the whole thing to be over that he/she will do almost anything to move it all along.

This production was the complete war time experience. I think the theater actually shook when the bombs went off. And, we felt like we were in the bunker. And, it was awful--just awful. Why were we in that bunker? Why was there war at all? The reason remains unclear, because after all soldiers--no matter how good, no matter how individual, no matter how loved--are all just pawns in the game. When you are a pawn, you are just a pawn. War certainly cheapens human life.

What this play is really about is a bunker where there is a temporary staff change, as the regular staff goes on a short leave. While the regular guys are on leave, we meet the temporary relief staff. And, we quickly come to love them. All of them, strengths and faults alike. It is rumored that there will be a serious attack while they are on this temporary duty. To find out more information, some of the men are pawned off on an information gathering spree, sacrificed for virtually nothing in a suicide mission. And, then the real attack does happen. And, it is serious and awful. That's pretty much it.

If I did not love theater, if I had only one choice of one play per year, I most certainly would NEVER have chosen Journey's End. I only got tickets because my brother was supposed to be in town and I thought he would have liked it. That said, this is the best play I have seen in a good long while. The entertainment value on this is next to nothing. So, why is this the best play I have seen in awhile? I guess it was because it was the complete package of an idea, dramatically enacted from head to toe, so to speak. It was a complete idea, effective, moving, gripping, scary and well done. The play was a perfect vehicle for what it was trying to do and the play and the production were of one cloth. That's good theater, even if the entertainment value is very, very low. It all worked together, except for one thing--

My theater companion remarked on this and I would have to say she was right. There was this damn candle which was completely distracting to everything that was going on. Your eyes could not tear away from it, and it was dark enough in the theater that it actually made my eyes tear up. It made everything very hard to see (we were only in the tenth row or something like that) and it was just damn distracting. If anything changes in this production, that candle should go instantly. I got my glasses out thinking my eyes were going, but it was a candle/lighting problem not an eye problem.

Do I recommend it? Yes. For everyone? Yes. Who is the intended real audience for this? God knows, even if I do not. Who is actually willing to buy tickets to this? I have no idea. It was only a fluke that I did. Who would willingly put themselves through something like that? Again, no idea. But, should you? By all means.

The Color Purple

The Broadway Theater

I can't say my expectations were terribly high for this musical. I was terribly misguided in my mind, because I honestly expected one long Gospel concert with a terrible reduction of what I had found to be a great book and a terrible movie (the movie won big awards, didn't it?--all the same I didn't like it, sorry). I was wrong. I was dead wrong. The Color Purple is a tremendous addition to the canon of American musical theater. It had definitive elements of the formula of a traditional Broadway musical: the big dance number after the opening of the second act, the comic relief song halfway through the second act, dance numbers appropriately placed in the first act, etc. It also had something which I have missed in musicals recently--heartfelt, heartbreaking human conflict and sorrow. It reminded me of some of the best moments in Oklahoma. Is that wrong? I even shed a tear or two at the end. The musical was effective, at the very least, and also a very reasonable piece of art.

So, let's talk about what worked. The book worked. The lyrics were great and well geared to the music. They also more than adequately appropriately continued to move the story along. The music was great. I believe I had a tune or two stuck in my head as I left the theater. Kudos to the casting company. The casting was brilliant. Having read and loved the book, I was offended by no one and readers like me tend to get whiny when they see words brought to life. The sets were Broadway quality.

It was a perfect time for me to see it because I had just been reading Jonathan Franzen's essays about writing novels where individual conflicts are set in a specific cultural setting, where they interact. The Color Purple is a perfect example of this. The first act was about the individual and the second set the individual in the social context. The individuals were trapped in cycles and systems that were dead set against them from the start. The second act helped you sympathize with all of the characters, even the antagonists.

Additionally, while reading the book--I had missed the way the main character gave up on God at the same time that she functioned as God in the world. The irony was rich and wonderful, and 15 years away from the book had allowed me to either forget that part or I just missed it when I was younger.

This is a rich musical. If you had limited time in the city or a limited budget, I would definitely put this at the top of your list of possibilities. If you can handle the subject matter, if you loved the book (or, I guess, the movie), heck if you even like Oprah, you will definitely walk away with a memorable evening and a high quality Broadway experience. I'll stop gushing, but this has some real bang for the buck.

The Drowsy Chaperone

Friday night found me with a nearly unprecedented amount of time to kill coupled with a real fatigue of dicey theater. In any theater on any given night, you have a 50/50 change that things are going to go well. I wanted increased odds, so I made it my mission to get into The Drowsy Chaperone on my limited budget and see something that had many Tony nominations to its credit and would perchance please my tired, theater heart.

First, I went to the Southstreet Seaport to see if I could get a discount seat of some sort. Fortunately, TKTS did not have any more tickets for Friday night left and I had to go up to Times Square earlier than expected. I stopped by the box office first and learned about the $25 lottery. The front row did not sound so enticing, but $25 sounded better than full price and other offers of standing room or back row. Last Friday I would guess that about half of the people who entered the lottery got in (including me), just in case someone else finds that bit of information pertinent to their own situation.

The Drowsy Chaperone was magnificent for what I was looking for. It was super-professional, funny, a true song-and-dance musical (I think the dance portion of musicals is becoming rare), well acted, had a strong ensemble cast and provided excellent entertainment value. In addition to being a theater fan I love opera, so I found the voices to not be precisely what I would have deemed magnificent, but I am guessing too much opera listening can do that. Five years ago I may have found the voices great, too.

In a nutshell, this is a narrator musical. In this case, the narrator is introducing the audience to an old musical through an old vinyl recording in his city apartment. Anyone who has ever loved a recording of any album and replayed it until it nearly broke can relate to the loving way the narrator presents the show. Aware of its faults, and still loving it, he takes the audience through the show, providing “background information” on the performers involved in the recording as it comes alive in that area of his apartment we will call his living room. The narrative device in this instance works. It works so well, that one can not decide if the narrator or the musical is the star of the show.

Okay, I do have one complaint about the show. This comment has to do with current Broadway musicals in general. The narrator in the show alerts us to the fact that the Broadway musical is a cliché in its form, in its narrative structure and in its components. It seems that many good writers seem to be hitting against the same thing. Martin Short used the same subject matter in his recent self-titled show. And, there have been others, too. We seem to all agree that the Broadway musical form established so many years ago is worn out. And, yet, I feel like no one is proposing something new. Apparently, the plan right now is that we will just kick the old format until it is dead and not one more single dollar can be wrung from it. And, then from the dead carcass of the ol’ Broadway musical will come…? I don’t know. I don’t have the solution. But, how tired the Broadway show is, its clichés, its forms will only be funny for a little bit longer. Then, we will all have to jump from the cliff and actually try some new things out for awhile. This will probably lower our odds on good theater for a time, but at some point it is going to have to be a risk we will have to take as we are going to be hitting the last laugh on what may be a dying art form as we know it.