Theatre Matters

Daring to Ask the Question

2006-03-18T10:26:00.000-08:00

Ben Cameron, head of Theatre Communications Group, the service organization for non-profit theatres and publisher of "American Theatre," asks theatres to ask the tough question in his short essay, "Is it time to stop?".

It's of course a strange query for a man in his position, but that's why I like it. It's not a call for the end of non-profit theatre -- don't be silly. It's a call for theatre companies to ask themselves: why are we doing this?

No, really, ask: why? What's the purpose, what's the mission. Has the mission been fulfilled? Is it time to end this one and start another? As I've noted many times before, regional theatre in America is in a state of transition, as the first generation founders of the regional wave hand over reigns to those who weren't born when the movement started. The question is important, right now.

Here's a quote from Cameron:

"Given our [the regional theatre's] relative youth, many of us are now confronting issues of succession and departure of leaders for the first time. Indeed, a quick snapshot of our membership in 2003 revealed that some 45 percent of us still had at least one founder at the helm. Not surprisingly, funders now increasingly press us about "succession plans," and consultants regularly urge boards to create such plans for the health of the organization.

"Hidden in these discussions is all too often an unexamined assumption that a theatre should continue. As a culture, we tend to prize most highly those organizations that have a long legacy....

"Well, let me be heretical for a moment: Is longevity everything it's cracked up to be...?

"Every succession moment asks that collective to assess, measure and project the future of that central artistic energy. When the generating artist leaves an organization, what will now be left behind? Do we understand not only the implications of our current values for making the choice of successor but that the new arriving artist will inherently bring a different vision? And, frankly, do we have the dedication to increase, in all probability, our dedications of time and energy and resources to this new work?

"Such understanding demands that we ask first those critical questions that are strikingly absent from many plans I've seen. Why do we need to continue to exist? What is the urgent, positive, galvanizing need we will fulfill—a need that will energize others and gather them to us? Is there a social need (e.g., to bring joy into children's lives), an artistic need (to see the creativity of specific artists reach its fullest potential)—a need that can be clearly defined, embraced and framed?"

It's seems so easy a question, doesn't it? But too many non-profits don't seem to ask it, or if they do, the answers are not really compelling. How many regional theatres are simply out there as a "platform" for more work -- not a particular type or style of work, but just more of it?

How many regional theatres have some type of voice that isn't being institutionalized?

I think the regional theatre movement in this country has been an enormous success; for decades, it has brought challenging, exciting theatre to parts of the country that would never have seen such quality otherwise. There are great, completely under-appreciated artists working outside of New York and L.A., and new leaders are emerging.

But that doesn't relieve them of asking the question: who are we, and what are we trying to accomplish?

Ladies and Gentleman: Frodo!

2006-03-17T17:02:00.000-08:00

The gargantuan production of "The Lord of the Rings" opens Thursday in Toronto. Responses to the previews have been mixed.

I await with enormous suspense the initial verdict.

Here's a preview piece from the LA Times.

A Great Conversation at Isaac's

2006-02-26T11:27:00.000-08:00

I am really, really impressed with the insightful conversation over on Isaac’s blog. Check out his entry on Charles Isherwood’s playful review of the play “Indoor/Outdoor,” but make sure to read the comments. It’s probably the smartest, most accurate discussion of reviewing theatre I’ve read.

I’ve just posted a long comment, so go check it out.

I’ve been neglecting my blog mostly because I’ve been reviewing so much. Here are links to some recent reviews of mine for “Variety.” Warning: It's been a tough few weeks for L.A. theatregoing....

Dr. Dolittle: Tommy Tune re-works a failed touring show.

Hitchcock Blonde: American premiere of an English play about the filmmaker's penchant for blondes

The Cherry Orchard: With Annette Bening and Alfred Molina.

The Times They Are A-Changin': Twyla Tharp's follow-up to "Movin' Out," to the music of Bob Dylan

Rock of Ages: a jukebox musical for those who adore 80s music

The Importance of Being Earnest: Sir Peter Hall directs Lynne Redgrave as Lady Bracknell

Lestat: More Blood Please

2006-01-28T06:52:00.000-08:00

I caught the new musical "Lestat" in its tryout run in San Francisco. Based on the Anne Rice vampire novels, this show has a lot going for it marketing-wise, with Elton John writing the music and his longtime collaborator, lyricist Bernie Taupin, making his first go at a stage show.

This is definitely a show in some trouble. The next few days will likely see announcements regarding a director change, and there are now rumors it may not even make it to NYC for its March launch.

I'm going to throw in my 2 cents about what this $12+ million production needs to do to improve, and fast. It's up to Warner Bros. Theatricals producer Gregg Maday to keep the focus where it needs to be.

The biggest problem with the show is that it's just plain tepid. From the opening number, everything feels incredibly flat. The songs mosly all sound the same, and don't give the actors a chance to show off vocal skills. The story's muddy. The set, while not dragging the show down, has projections that look like a weak web-site. In tone it feels like it's targeted to a family audience, which means it's not sexy, it's not thrilling, and it's not deep. We've already seen that bloodless vampire shows fail fast.

So, here's the path I'd lay out if I were Mr. Maday:

1. Hire a new director. This radical work requires that kind of break.

2. Get the whole team together to clarify Lestat's emotional through-line. I don't know these books well -- I read "Interview with a Vampire" years ago and saw the movie. But I just couldn't follow where Lestat was at regarding his moral dilemma -- the need to kill to survive. Sometimes he agonizes, sometimes he urges others (like Louis) to just get over it. I couldn't enter the character's mind. I don't necessarily agree with some reviews that there's "too much story." I just couldn't tell what the inner story was, and therefore his adventures had no drive to them and felt piled on. This is where it's more important to be simple than to be faithful to Rice's original.

All else follows from this single charge.

3. Once the story has been simplified and clarified, the director should make a list of at least 8 to 10 moments in the show that should thrill the audience with climactic emotion. So the main tack here is: clarify the story and then attack the bloodlessness of the current show.

4. Half of these miniature climaxes should be musical moments, so send John and Taupin off to work on rewriting at least 4 or 5 of the songs to achieve these. I don't recall the last time I saw an audience clap at the end of songs with such un-moved politeness. Right now, the only song that even registers as dramatic is "I Want More," sung by Lestat and Louis's daughter. The rest are all pop ballads sung pretty much at the same register. (Elton John reveals in his video interview at Playbill.com that he wrote the score in 11 days singing all the characters himself. On the down side, that explains why they all sound so similar. On the upside, it means he can re-write them fast.). Also charge them with making sure the actors get a chance to achieve real musical crescendoes.

5. Two or three thrilling moments should be scenic spectacles. The disintegration scenes as is, with a projected ribbon of flame, don't work. I don't think there's time to re-do the whole set design if you want to get to Broadway on time, so focus on improving/adding a few special effects.

6. Pump up the sexiness of Lestat's relationships, and face the fact that this story has loads of homo-eroticism. To work, Lestat must be a passionate figure and as is that essential element is undermined by a fear of expressing the obviously sexual undercurrents here. This is an area where the show could be MORE faithful to Rice. Lestat is NOT Ennis Del Mar!

Yes, this is a big risk, but now's the time for big risks. This show needs passion.

7. Achieving this passion may require re-casting some of the supporting roles; there are several fine singers with only mediocre acting skills.

That's plenty to focus on, but I also think it's do-able.

Everyone's a Critic

2006-01-14T08:57:00.000-08:00

Hey, anyone notice yet that the web is interactive?

Both the NY Times and the LA Times now allow readers to post brief critiques of shows, and this seems to be picking up some steam. I've been reading the postings of late, and once the number of reviews reaches a certain critical mass (maybe 5 or 6 of them), they give a great overall impression of the show. Some provide fine insights, some are just raw opinion (loved it, hated it).

I'm enormously entertained by them. And I'm hoping that some of the role of the newspaper critic -- the burden of telling people whether or not they should see it, depending on their tastes -- can be taken over by this ability to post a variety of perspectives. That would allow me to respond with greater depth to the work at hand.

Remembering

2006-01-03T17:00:00.000-08:00

Playbill.com has a stunningly comprehensive list of theatrical folks who passed away in 2005. Plenty of familiar names (I was surprised that some major publications failed to mention the deaths of Arthur Miller and August Wilson in their year-end coverage). But the list is worth looking at for the less familiar ones. I didn't know Peter Zeisler, longtime leader of Theatre Communications Group, had passed away.

Lewis and Clark and One Bad Play

2005-12-13T07:47:00.000-08:00

Here's my review of Robert Shenkkan's newest play, "Lewis and Clark Reach the Euphrates," which sends the explorers on a trip to Iraq.

Chita Rivera's Stage Memoir

2005-12-09T08:56:00.000-08:00

Chita Rivera's autobiographical musical memoir, "The Dancer's Life," opens on Broadway this Sunday.

I reviewed the San Diego tryout production for Variety. Read it here.

My prediction of its reception: somewhere in between highly respectful and rapturous.

Theatre, Community, and Community Theatre

2005-12-08T08:23:00.000-08:00

Steven Leigh Morris, theatre editor of the alternative LA Weekly, has written a provocative piece, called "Squinting into the Sun: How our Theatre Will Change in the Next Decade." It's about the future of theatre in Los Angeles (but also regional theatre generally). Fundamentally, he notes that economically theatre is simply going financially bankrupt -- subscription houses are unsustainable due to the fact that subscribers are literally dying off, and living wages for artists at small theatres are impossible.

It's perceptive, smart, and my God, I hope he's wrong. Maybe I'm just not ready to accept it.

The article is filled with a mixture of dour pessimism and old-fashioned utopianism. His prognosis involves theatre's return to what he sees as its truer purpose: fostering community.

"The most fundamental transformation throughout the country will be a growing shift in notion, from “theater as product” to “theater as a process”: theater in prisons and hospices, serving its original function of uniting and validating communities. It’s not that shows will no longer be produced just for the art, or the entertainment, but that theater’s larger purpose will have to be redefined, or it simply can’t compete in a laissez-faire economy. In the next decade, the term “community theater” may no longer be disparaged as representing something at the bottom of a hierarchy of which Broadway is the pinnacle. Rather, you’ll have to go to Broadway or Vegas to see Broadway shows — the national touring circuits are slowly dissolving — while “community theater” may come to represent a considerably more noble activity than before. Theater’s funders will consist of fewer private investors, governments and foundations, and more colleges, film producers and restaurants that hire the artists in order that they can afford to do theater they love. That theater may not offer a living, but it will provide a calling."

I'm going to absorb this for a little while longer and see if I have any further response to it, other than: Will I really have to sit through more of what I consider community theatre? That's a very unpleasant thought.

Steven does mention the Cornerstone Theatre as a model. For those who don't know, the Cornerstone is a very interesting company that takes professional artists and brings them together with a local community to develop a theatrical production; e.g. an adaptation of Aeschylus on a Native American reservation.

I love the Cornerstone, but, to be completely honest, a bit more for the idea of it than the actual productions.

I mention them also because they're in transition. Their founder and artistic director, Bill Rauch, has given up the reigns and the company has just announced a replacement, playwright/director Michael John Garces.

On Blogging, Theatre, and the Times

2005-12-04T20:35:00.000-08:00

Should I just stop pretending I blog and just end this thing?

I’m thinking about it, but I’m not ready. Eventually, I’ll find the rhythm. For now, I hope you’ll bear with me.

The primary reason I don’t blog often is actually because my spare time from the day job is now taken up with reviewing again. I’m back writing for Variety after a brief stint with the Los Angeles Times. The Times has finally hired a full-time theatre critic, Charles McNulty (a very fine critic and old grad-school mate of mine), who will arrive soon. Immediately after the announcement, Variety quickly and kindly pursued me to return as the lead L.A. critic, so rather than review who-knows-what for the Times I’m back home with Variety and I appreciate their support.

Recent reviews include this one on an intriguing English experimental troupe Forced Entertainment, one on the production of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" with John Goodman and Brenda Fricker as Big Daddy and Big Mama, and one on “The Drowsy Chaperone,” a new musical that I liked a lot.

I’ve been reading other theatre blogs even though I haven’t been posting myself. I must say there are more and more all the time and the conversations are getting quite good – and even better than that. People have congratulated George Hunka many times as the leader of the theatre bloggers, and he deserves that reputation for simple, straightforward, informative, and relish-able posts like this one about theatre books he’d like for Christmas.

Months ago, George and Isaac Butler posted some provocative pieces about theatre critics; it was just as I was moving and I never had an opportunity to engage. Here’s a link to George’s criticism category and also to the specific one that really jumped out at me for its focus on many of the core issues involved.

While I have no desire to become the voice of theatre critics (OK, maybe I’m lying about that), I think I can add some insight into the issues critics face. So if you’re interested, George and Isaac, I’m ready to give it a go.

I will, of course, start by being a bit contrary. I am a critic, after all. In a recent post, Isaac goes after the NY Times. Isaac and I both shared a disdain for an ignorant Times piece about La Jolla Playhouse; it was so erroneous the Times published a scathingly sweeping correction.

But then Isaac posted on Charles Isherwood in the New York Times, and I have to say I’m shocked.

There is no critic in the country I would rather read these days than Charles Isherwood. He’s droll as hell, but he’s passionate. I do know Charles a little; he was the lead Variety critic and he assigned me pieces on occasion, but this is not a personal defense. I will say that, unlike most New York critics, Charles very much recognizes the national theatre scene – as the editor of Weekly Variety theatre section, he constantly came after me to write more about what was happening around the country.

He’s just the best writer of the entire lot. He’s insanely smart, extremely well-read, and he can be funny. When he hates something, he tells you. Nothing could improve theatre coverage in the Times more than Ben Brantley's giving way to Charles as lead critic, not because Mr. Brantley isn’t good, but because Charles is great.

To suggest that he’s “unnecessarily mean and hateful,” as Isaac does, I think is unfair. Isaac was referring to this review of Itamar Moses’s play “Bach at Leipzieg,” which he called “career assassination.” It reads to me just like a scathingly negative review; Charles saw the play as pretentious, pure and simple, and he said so in eloquent terms. He hated it, and it’s his job to say so. He also said why he didn't like it, what he believed Moses was trying to do, and why he failed at it. What’s unnecessary about that? He wasn’t the only one, by the way. Other critics just didn’t say it as descriptively.

The comment about career assassination reminds me of a story once told to me by Richard Gilman (deservedly one of George’s favorite critics and among my mentors). He had given Lorraine Hansbury’s follow-up to “A Raisin in the Sun” a terrible review. When she died soon afterwards, Gilman got a call from someone saying, “Happy now?!??!”

You think George Bernard Shaw wasn’t unnecessarily mean and hateful? He’s the man who said a critic’s job was to “leave no turn unstoned.”

And we tend to look kindly on greats like Eric Bentley – and, indeed, there has never been anyone better – mostly because we read their books, which focus on the works they loved. He wrote plenty of scathing reviews himself.

You know, people think it’s fun for critics to pan people in print. It’s not – it’s a burden, one we take on and one we take responsibility for. And any critic worth his/her salt knows that we're parasites -- we don't exist without other's creative work. But to do less than give our genuine, passionate, honest reaction would be doing the theatre itself a horrendous disservice.

Isaac also commented on the fact that the Sunday Times is just a PR section. There’s definitely something to that, and it’s not just the Times. I really wish papers would get away from the preview puff pieces that they do (including, by the way, the career-creating one on Moses that the Times ran before his play opened). They’re just too predictable, and there's got to be a more imaginative way to do them. (Small papers that have one writer do both the preview and the review are treading on very iffy territory – it’s tough to do a puff piece interview and then have to respond honestly to a play. It feels very impolite.)

They need to do more commentary, previews with something to say, some critical sensibility. Like, for example, Charles Isherwood’s piece in today’s Sunday NY Times. (Which, I just discovered, Isaac himself has praised. Once again, we agree.)

So Condescending

2005-11-16T09:33:00.000-08:00

So the NY Times profiles Des McAnuff, artistic director of the La Jolla Playouse in Southern California. All fine. The occasion is the NY opening of the Four Seasons musical "Jersey Boys," which premiered at La Jolla.

But there's something noticeably condescending about this piece, particularly the headline: "A Tiny Theatre in San Diego and Its Director Supply a Steady Flow to Broadway."

Now, I have enough experience in this to know the writer, Heathcliff Rothman (first time I've encountered the name) did not write that headline, although it's based on this excerpt from the article:

La Jolla Playhouse, a tiny nonprofit theater now housed on the campus of the University of California, San Diego, has produced revivals of "The Who's Tommy," "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" and "Big River," and more recently, Tony winners like Billy Crystal's "700 Sundays," "Thoroughly Modern Millie" and "I Am My Own Wife" (which also won a Pulitzer).

First of all: exactly what qualifies La Jolla as "tiny?" That's just outrageously ignorant, so much so that it deserves a correction. It's a major American regional theatre; it has 2 spaces, neither of them "tiny" -- both have between 400 and 500 seats.

And McAnuff is a major director. The overall article has got that unfortunate take, that attitude of "isn't it amazing that a theatre in California sends shows to New York!!" It might, for example, have noted that a few miles away, at the Old Globe Theatre, "The Full Monty" was born under the direction of its artistic chief, Jack O'Brien, perhaps the hottest director in the country. And a little north of San Diego, in Orange County, is South Coast Rep, which has commissioned a few Pulitzers of its own.

Most of the article is fine, but it is extremely grating to have that attitude as its entry into the piece. It reeks of East Coast snobbery. Can you imagine Yale Rep or the A.R.T. at Harvard being called a tiny nonprofit housed on a university campus?

The Times theatre section isn't usually so condescending, so we'll chalk this up as a major mistake.

A Stake in the Rings

2005-10-15T08:15:00.000-07:00

It became apparent very early on that the gargantuan production of "Lord of the Rings" planned for Toronto -- discussed by me here and here and here -- was planned as a tourist attraction. Thus, it now makes sense that there is a unique funder of the show, the Ontario government itself. This from the NY Times:

"Ontario's officials - on behalf of their 12 million citizens - have signed on as investors for the show, which is expected to be one of the most expensive ever. Taking on a role traditionally played by impresarios, idealists and other theatrical gamblers, the provincial government will contribute some $2.5 million of the show's $23 million budget, betting that the production's global appeal will justify a unique, and risky, public-private partnership.

'We've never done anything like this,' said Sandra McInnis, the president and chief executive of the Ontario Tourism Marketing Partnership Corporation, which is the province's tourism agency. 'But this is one of the largest productions ever to come to Toronto, and we have a vested interest in seeing it's successful.'

While theatre as tourist attraction sounds like a wincing warning to those who love the theatre as an art form, it shouldn't... or, at least, we should withhold judgment. I find it very encouraging that Toronto wants to be known as a theatre city, a place where people come to see the show, or when people visit, they think of going to the theatre as a natural choice. They're certainly putting their money where their hopes are.

From the media coverage, the show seems to be progressing quite well, and certainly the fact that the government is coming up with cash strikes me as a hopeful sign. I'd certainly be a lot more likely to invest in this now then I would have back in March. The fact that future productions -- the NY Times piece mentions London -- is certainly encouraging.

We can expect saturation coverage of this in the theatrical press as the opening approaches, and I'm curious to see who'll review it for the big papers. Such a plush assignment, going to Toronto in February....

If you haven't seen the website for the show: www.lotr.com.

A Grand Day for Western Drama

2005-10-13T07:08:00.000-07:00

Harold Pinter has won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Three cheers! Bravo! Standing O! and all that.

The question of deservedness -- which did arise following Dario Fo's receipt of the prize some years ago -- will be raised by nobody on this selection. Pinter's talent is unquestioned, his influence undying. His best plays remain eery, disturbing, their power immune to easy interpretation. He puts his finger on the dark side of us, the unknowable, the unmentionable.

Here's the brief summation of achievement from the Nobel site: Pinter "in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms."

The Death of Playwright: August Wilson

2005-10-03T12:11:00.000-07:00

Sad news for the theatre. August Wilson passed away yesterday.

This was not unexpected, and because he'd announced his cancer a couple of months ago, the press has obviously been prepared for this event.

Charles Isherwood has a thorough, elegant obituary in the NY Times. The best, most comprehensive, quote comes from Tony Kushner, who really puts his finger on why, even for those who didn't passionately adore Wilson's writing, he meant a lot:

"He was a giant figure in American theater," the playwright Tony Kushner said yesterday. "Heroic is not a word one uses often without embarrassment to describe a writer or playwright, but the diligence and ferocity of effort behind the creation of his body of work is really an epic story.

"The playwright's voice in American culture is perceived as having been usurped by television and film, but he reasserted the power of drama to describe large social forces, to explore the meaning of an entire people's experience in American history. For all the magic in his plays, he was writing in the grand tradition of Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller, the politically engaged, direct, social realist drama. He was reclaiming ground for the theater that most people thought had been abandoned."

Peppermint Patty and the Supreme Court

2005-09-13T08:06:00.000-07:00

As the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to hold hearings on the nomination of Judge John Roberts to the Supreme Court, the primary shock so far stems from how little people actually know of the nominee’s personal beliefs.

Desperate to learn something about Judge Robert’s views on Roe v. Wade, gay rights issues, and other sensitive topics, senators and their aides are now diligently poring over all biographical tidbits available, attempting to take these crumbs and make meatloaf.

What we do know is that, while attending an all-boys high school, Judge Roberts performed in the musical, “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown.”

He portrayed Peppermint Patty.

I am a theatre critic, and not a political analyst or an attorney. But allow me to suggest the following line of questioning:

Judge Roberts, did you specifically audition for Peppermint Patty, or would you have preferred to play a male role?

Did you enjoy playing a girl?

In any other instances during your life, have you ever pretended to be female?

No reason for asking that, just curious whether this is something you did out of duty – because you were, say, “playing a role,” or, perhaps, representing a paying client – or whether this was a task you jumped into with relish. I’ll move on to a less personal subject.

Do you believe that Peppermint Patty is a lesbian?

You seem to be surprised by the question. Didn’t it ever occur to you that her tomboyish behavior could be construed as a manifestation of lesbianism?

I’m sorry if the question isn’t clear. Let me ask it another way: do you think Peppermint Patty wears a thong, boxers or briefs?

I understand your reluctance to answer, Judge Roberts. I’m wondering if it suggests you may believe comic strip characters have privacy rights embedded in the constitution. But let’s move on, and assume for now that Patty is a lesbian, even if she wasn’t when you played her.

If Peppermint Patty had sex with her friend Marcie (who, by the way, calls her “Sir”), do you think a state should be allowed to criminalize that behavior?

Do you believe, like Senator Santorum of Pennsylvania, that if Patty and Marcie are allowed to have sex legally, this would also make it legal for Lucy to have sex with Snoopy?

Speaking of Snoopy for a moment, if the state government condemned Snoopy’s doghouse to make way for a mall, do you think that would violate the Takings clause?

I didn’t realize that resembled a case the Supreme Court has seen recently. I didn’t think they ruled on doghouses. But I don’t mean to ask your actual opinion. Let’s get back to the character you know best: Peppermint Patty.

If Peppermint Patty and Marcie fell in love, and they decided to get married in Massachusetts, and they invited you, would you attend the wedding?

If Marcie cheated on Patty and got pregnant by Charlie Brown, do you think Marcie should have to tell Patty and/or “Chuck” before having an abortion?

If Marcie dumped Peppermint Patty, and Patty decided to join the military, do you think the military should accept her?

If, after being rejected by Marcie and the military, Peppermint Patty went to work for Lucy at the lemonade stand, and then Lucy failed to promote her and promoted Snoopy instead because they’d had a romantic relationship, should Patty be able to sue for sexual harassment?

Sir, clearly this is a question about a comic strip, not something that would ever come before the Supreme Court. Why won’t you answer?

The Cast of Lord of the Rings

2005-07-26T12:42:00.000-07:00

Well, I suppose if you can't get actual hobbits, Canadians will do. I hear they tend to be a friendly people.

Playbill.com has the announcement of casting for Toronto's $27 million production of Lord of the Rings. I've discussed it here and here. Did I mention it's costing $27 million to produce?

Director Matthew Warchus certainly sounds committed and enthused, saying all the right things about creativity and casting. I imagine he didn't have to turn anyone away cuz he couldn't afford 'em.

Vegas Victorious

2005-07-26T12:37:00.000-07:00

Another show follows "Avenue Q" to Vegas. This time it's "Spamalot." The LA Times has details, which include the fact that the show won't tour the western states and will sit down in at Steve Wynn's new casino (also soon-to-house "Q").

The ramifications of this are significant. It makes Broadway producers of the shows happy to have this alternative, and could easily become a big-time cash-cow if the show has staying power. But those who book the roadshows are starting to freak out. If the biggest shows go to Vegas, what will they put on?

A Jaw-Dropping $27 Million

2005-07-22T07:56:00.000-07:00

This article from Toronto's Globe and Mail provides an update on the progress of "The Lord of the Rings" -- the stage version, discussed originally here. With a $27 million budget -- my jaw dropped -- it's the "most ambitious and expensive musical production in theatre history." (OK, sorry for the snideness, but has there been a more expensive non-musical production?)

How awful would it be if this was... awful? This is the kind of event that puts faith in the theatre as an art form, and I really want it to succeed. If it doesn't, theatre loses more of its shrinking claim as a popular art form.

Another question popping up in my head: should I book a ticket to Toronto for the opening?

And, yet, one more question: Is anyone planning a Harry Potter musical?

Peppermint Patty?

2005-07-21T12:35:00.000-07:00

Amidst the cacophony of blognoise or blog-a-boo out there about Supreme Court nominee John Roberts, there appears to me to be only one genuinely interesting fact worthy as a subject for this blog. As reported in the NY Times:

"The school yearbook from 1972, his junior year, shows he played Peppermint Patty in the production of 'You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown.'"

Given the fact that our current Chief Justice wears a costume inspired by a Gilbert and Sullivan production (he added stripes to his robe after seeing one of their operettas), this seems to me of great significance.

"Purlie" in Pasadena

2005-07-07T16:44:00.000-07:00

Almost a month ago, I said I'd post when I saw something worthwhile in LA. Seen some decent things, but none worth writing home about, know what I mean?

Dry streaks tend to turn quickly, though. Saw 2 shows this week, both very good.

Two days later, I'm still finding it difficult to believe how much I enjoyed the revival of "Purlie" at the Pasadena Playhouse. Confession: I'd never heard of it before. It's based on a play by Ossie Davis and played Broadway for 700 shows in 1970.

This musical satire never gets revived, and given its blatant use of racial archetypes, it's easy to see why.

Turns out, the very thing that undoubtedly made nobody want to touch it makes it so strangely refreshing. You'll probably never see anything else quite like it.

You can read my Los Angeles Times review here.

Went from that to a French juggler artiste named Jerome Thomas. Very imaginative. I'll post the review when it runs.

A Personal Update

2005-06-11T14:42:00.000-07:00

Y'know, I really gotta stop thinking about my blog entries and just DO 'em.

I really wanted above all to respond to Isaac Butler's comments on theatre criticism, particularly with a long, thoughtful, undoubtedly insightful discussion of the impact of celebrity actors on an audience. Said entry remains firmly implanted in the recesses of my cerebellum, and perhaps someday will manifest itself.

So no blogs in 5 weeks. Which means, of course, that nothing has happened in that time. Well, let me see.... Ah, yes. we've moved. 2,300 miles and 107 boxes packed and (not yet) unpacked later, my partner Jason and I have left Philadelphia and are re-entrenching ourselves in Los Angeles.

So, of course, I've also been thinking, and thinking, and thinking, about a blog on Michael Ritchie's decision to ditch the institutionalized new play development processes and minority-oriented workshops that were part of Gordon Davidson's tenure at Center Theatre Group here. For background, first read my earlier blog here, then check out Steven Leigh Morris from the LA Weekly. Gotta at least give Ritchie credit for taking charge and not hesitating and what was obviously going to be a wildly controversial move.

Finally, I want to let all know about my new critical home. Rather than returning to Daily Variety here in L.A., I've been offered and accepted an opportunity to freelance regularly for the Los Angeles Times.

So while I haven't been blogging, I haven't been idle. Two reviews so far, a couple more coming in the next week. I'll link to 'em when I think there's something really worthwhile, although sadly the Times is a subscription website.

I did see "Stuff Happens" last night at the Taper, for "fun." That's the David Hare play about Bush, Blair and the march to war in Iraq. Had the highest of hopes -- dashed dammit! Terribly disappointing. Cartoonish, undramatic, uninteresting.

High School Theatre On Metaphorical Steroids

2005-05-08T02:27:00.000-07:00

I loved this article from Jesse Green in the NY Times, about a high school in the heartland that spends tens, even in one case over a hundred, thousand dollars on its musical productions.

Check it out, and read it all the way through. Green does a superb job balancing the potential positive and negative aspects of this bigger-is-better approach to theatre.

"If programs like New Albany's do sometimes seem to be learning the wrong lessons from Broadway, they have not lost the sweet, seat-of-the-pants quality that can make even the humblest high school production lastingly meaningful. In terms of pure devotion and uncritical support, the theatrical life never gets much better."

As a trend, and apparently it is one, what the headline calls the "supersizing of the school play" can be troublesome. Note this quote from the director: "What can the tech kids do in 'Our Town'? Polish the chairs and put ladders away?" It's a little worrying that shows would be chosen on the basis of having enough technical needs. Then again, it's a fair point, since school plays really are about involvement, and I wouldn't question any school director's search for a show with the right mix of male and female roles. Why is working towards acting involvement any more appropriate from an educational perspective than technical involvement? It's not. I'm just concerned that sound systems take precedence over simple theatricality.

So I have extremely mixed feelings. But we have to recognize that this is part of a cycle. The commercial musical theatre got bigger and bigger, more and more focused on spectacle, less on melody and narrative. For years, I've had conversations with people wondering what musicals high schools would produce once "Oklahoma" (my first school show, by the way) gave way to "Les Miz." The answer is now becoming clear: the school play would change and reflect the popular culture. They'd raise more money and go for broke.

Good luck with "The Lion King," boys and girls. You'll need to raise some serious cash. The $60-$100 "ticket and costume quota" the kids in the show commit to (if their families can) won't even pay for the antlers.

My favorite part of the article actually describes how the enthusiastic corps raises additional money for the show by soliciting personal notes for the programs.

"The largest source of income is tickets ($15 for adults; $12 for everyone else), followed by program sponsorship from merchants and concession sales. The company is continually harangued to solicit more of the $10 'costume ads' that fill pages and pages of the printed program. 'Clay, sorry we have to miss your show - Love Mamaw & Papaw.' 'Wesley - You always make me proud. Love you, A Very Lucky Dad.'"

Maybe Broadway can learn that lesson. In addition to buying a $100 ticket, we should be able to take out personal ads of encouragement: "Hey Christina Applegate, hope your foot's OK. Don't break another leg! Love, Your Podiatrist."

Dramatic Indigestion

2005-04-21T05:24:00.000-07:00

Interesting article in the NY Times about the various efforts to create films about the events of 9/11. I'm not quite sure it gets to the heart of what we may or may not "be ready for."

For more on the TV mini-series in development and my thoughts about them, you can check out an old post of mine here, where I note that one of the primary purposes of drama is to take us into the minds of those with perspectives very different from our own.

I do find producer Brian Grazer's comments about the piece intriguing and promising, and potentially provocative.

"Brian Grazer, co-chairman of Imagine Television, which is producing the NBC mini-series - and which has hired The Times as a consultant - said he hoped it would do for Muslims what Wolfgang Petersen's film 'Das Boot' did for World War II-era Germans.

'Every approach prior to that was, the Germans were horrible,' he said. 'He humanized them, because they are human. That's what I'm hoping we do, that we don't demonize, that we humanize all the different sides, and so we see the seeds, and we get an understanding from each culture's point of view as to how they got to such a horrible place.'"

I don't think that any films that "indirectly" take on 9/11 will cause significant cultural ripples; those, for example, that deal with handling grief. And the feature films discussed in the article seem to be focused on acts of courage, an effort to find a typically Hollywood through-line, to focus on the uplifting in the horror. Predictable commercial formula, neither good nor bad in itself, but open to charges of exploitation nonetheless.

But if the NBC mini-series is really willing to take on the charge of drama and humanize the villainous, then they're onto something both dramatically challenging and politically explosive.

Unlike the author of the Times article, I don't think the issue is whether we're "ready" to see a filmic depiction of the planes crashing into the towers (although that decision is a key artistic choice). I think the real question is whether we're ready to see a terrorist -- not a generic "terrorist" but a depiction of one of the actual 9/11 participants -- who loves his family and who has reasons, no matter how distorted, for what he's doing.

If you're not interested in how drama digests our great national trauma, then you're not interested in drama.

By the way, if you haven't seen it, I highly, highly recommend the PBS documentary "Telling Nicholas," which followed a family forced to inform a boy of the death of his mother at the World Trade Center. It becomes about much more than that, though. Great film. You can read my "Variety" review of it at the film's website.

Obsolete Yet Essential

2005-04-19T07:36:00.000-07:00

Terry Teachout, the drama critic for the Wall Street Journal and A+ blogger, intelligently ponders two fundamental truths: first, theatre is obsolete as an artistic technology; and second, that doesn't mean people shouldn't write plays.

To find the piece, go to his blog, scroll down under April 18th entries to the one entitled TT: Eternally Obsolete.

Greek Scholars -- Start Salivating!

2005-04-18T07:33:00.000-07:00

Looks like we may soon have some "new" ancient Greek plays to digest, including work by Sophocles and Euripides.

Read about it here.

Makes me wish I were still in academia: these kinds of discoveries don't come around too often.

Cleanliness is Next to Censorship

2005-04-18T06:02:00.000-07:00

An extremely informative and provocative article in today's Washington Post, dealing with the issue of "film sanitizers." These are folks who edit commercially released DVDs to remove the "objectionable" parts, things like nudity, sex (or the more amorphuous "sexual suggestiveness"), bad language, and the occasional SpongeBob character dancing in fishnet stockings (not kidding). Then they re-sell the DVD. They claim to avoid blatant copyright infringement under the fair use doctrine, and because they buy the original DVD, then create an altered version, selling the end consumer both. In other words, the studio doesn't lose money on the deal.

Film directors see it as a violation of their artistic rights, while film studios are working hard not to say anything at all.

It would be easy to say, "Oh, those right-wing prudes are at it again." Except... watch out for knee-jerk reactions. I understand the market for this. As the article notes, it started with "Titanic." The whole article made me remember my brother buying his young daughter the DVD as soon as it came out, then having to sit there to make sure she was distracted during the parts he didn't feel she was ready to see. He definitely would have spent an extra $7 to have an edited version. And the studios are already altering these films for airlines and broadcast TV, so nobody's pure here.

Just because I understand the market for this, though, doesn't make it right. There are clearly changes that alter a piece so greatly that they violate the artist's vision, fundamentally alter a work's "meaning," and should be seen as censorship, not fair use. The example in the article:

"Robert Rosen, dean of UCLA's film, theater and television school, points to a sanitized version of 'The Hurricane,' about African American boxer Rubin Carter, that eliminated racial epithets uttered by police officials investigating Carter. That, according to Rosen, undercut two of the movie's central themes, racism and police corruption."

I'm fascinated by this ever-colliding intersection of dramatic art, law, and politics.

If these are deemed legal, imagine the possibilites. You could buy the DVD and re-edit it at your will, then profit from the re-sale.

Think of the movies you'd like to get your hands on! While the current sanitizers are removing Schindler's extra-marital affairs, perhaps others could be adding some nude scenes to certain Disney flicks to make them more marketable to adults. Is adding something different than deleting?

The Whole of Humana

2005-04-07T06:05:00.000-07:00

Charles Isherwood has this excellent summation in the NY Times on the six full-lengths produced at this year's Humana Festival in Louisville:

"Accusations that the American theater has gently accepted its cultural irrelevance and withdrawn into an aesthetic neverland were once again belied by the raised voices on the stages of the Actors Theater of Louisville, the host of this efficiently run, always convivial festival.... But if the playwrights showing new works at the festival earned marks in the category of social significance, their grades in other, more artistically relevant subjects were middling at best. Admiration for their desire to inspire audience interest in tangled social and political issues mingled with disappointment at their inability to channel these concerns into potent theatrical forms."

There's definitely a critical consensus on this year's crop. Michael Phillips in The Chicago Tribune calls for wholesale change for the Festival.

"The festival, a venerable and well-known showcase for new work, needs reorganization, a fresh angle, a renewed reason for being in a theatrical world very different from the one in which it began.... Oddly, the 2005 slate was among the most politically despairing in recent years. Why odd? Because the despair came to such weak theatrical ends. Surely the excesses of the current administration deserve a better counterpunch."

The only piece with a real potential commercial future seems to be Carlyle Brown's "Pure Confidence," but it didn't inspire great affection.

New King of L.A.: A Monarch Massages the Media

2005-04-06T07:02:00.000-07:00

In recent posts, I've brought up the term watershed (in relation to August Wilson's completion of his 10-play cycle) and discussed theatre in L.A.

Well, there couldn't be a clearer watershed moment for L.A. theatre than now. Gordon Davidson, father of theatre in Los Angeles, has retired, and Michael Ritchie, formerly of the Williamstown Theatre Festival, has replaced him.

Davidson is a hard act to follow, and that cliche phrase seems like such an under-statement it's made me giggle. Davidson was -- is -- a decent director, but not an inspiring one. But he is -- well, I guess, was -- a great producer, someone who built multiple institutions and fostered many careers and projects (including a small one called "Angels in America"). I've said it before, many times, and I'll say it again -- our regional theatres are in the midst of a leadership transition, and nothing defines this as well as what's happening at L.A.'s Center Theatre Group, which controls 3 theatres, the large Ahmanson, the mid-size Mark Taper Forum, and the small (and new) Kirk Douglas Theatre.

Indeed, if there's an existing monarch in American regional theatrics, this position is it. Ritchie has been crowned the King of L.A. Theatre.

Gil Cates at the Geffen is cringing at that comment -- he's so connected (he produces the Oscars) he cringes even at things he doesn't hear. Cates has managed to build a second regional theatre in the city, and kudos to him for doing so. L.A. has proved plenty big enough to support it, and he too is trying to start a second stage. Still, I can't think of a city where so much theatrical power is concentrated in a single person's hands.

Ritchie has been busy this past week meeting with the media. He's got big interview/features in both the L.A. Times ( a subscription site) and the N.Y. Times. He's discussing his first selections for new seasons. You can see the picks for the Ahmanson here and the Taper here.

For the Taper, he's starting with Mamet's newest, "Romance." (For the very mixed reviews of this, check out the divergent opinions of Michael Feingold and Ben Brantley.) At the Ahmanson, he's doing a huge revival of the 1935 epic "Dead End" by Sidney Kingsley. OK, I'm intrigued. Bold choice, and yet, since Ritchie produced it before at Williamstown with the same director, it's also a safe choice, in the sense that he knows what he's getting. In fact, it's been used to launch a new artistic directorship before, when said helmer, Nicholas Martin, used it as the beginning of his tenure at Boston's Huntington. (See Boston Phoenix critic Carolyn Clay's glowing review here.)

Ritchie seems a man not afraid to follow as well as lead. When something works, he's gonna do it again. It's worth remembering that he's dealt with a big legacy before too. Williamstown was Nikos Psacharopolous's baby, built from scratch. Although there were other leaders in between Nikos's death and Ritchie's arrival, he was the first who managed to turn the corner into a new era for the theatre.

Ritchie's got a hard job -- it's not easy being King. Potential lines of criticism for his season selections are really obvious for anyone who knows Los Angeles: these lists are pretty white-bread. Only a new Culture Clash play -- they're a terrific Latino theatre comedy troupe -- represents the diversity of the city. I agree with Ritchie that art comes before politics -- he's blatantly apolitical -- but I assure you he'll be getting an earful about the unrepresented, including from his own staff. That said, he hasn't yet scheduled the Kirk Douglas season.

The dance of a new artistic director and a new audience is a fascinating, and under-explored, one. This one is even more fascinating than most.

Humana Rundown

2005-04-06T06:31:00.000-07:00

Hedy Weiss in the Chicago Sun-Times has this rundown of the new full-lengths at the Humana Festival.

Doesn't sound like there was a whole lot to get excited about. The biggest rave Weiss gives is for Carlyle Brown's African-American horse-racing tale, "Pure Confidence." The compliment: it could be a movie.

The Return of Harold Pinter!

2005-04-06T05:45:00.000-07:00

I swear: when I wrote this entry on Harold Pinter's "retirement" from playwriting, I hadn't seen this "clarification:"

“It was not a declaration of policy or intent, it was just a very practical matter. I haven’t written a play for six years, and I think it’s unlikely that I’ll write another one. My writing, such as it is, is going into other things, mainly poetry . . . I’m still a writer, and who knows? But I think I’ve come to the end of my play-writing life. One never knows, but I have written 29 damn plays, long and short, and I think that’s probably about it.”

One never knows. Pinter, after all, is a man known for long pauses.

Watershed

2005-04-05T07:33:00.000-07:00

From dictionary.com:

wa·ter·shed ( P ) Pronunciation Key (wôtr-shd, wtr-)n.
1. A ridge of high land dividing two areas that are drained by different river systems. Also called water parting.
2. The region draining into a river, river system, or other body of water.
3. A critical point that marks a division or a change of course; a turning point: “a watershed in modern American history, a time that... forever changed American social attitudes” (Robert Reinhold).
[Probably translation of German Wasserscheide : Wasser, water + Scheide, divide, parting.]

We can all pout over the difficulties August Wilson's "Gem of the Ocean" had getting to Broadway, where it had a run that certainly wasn't commercially successful. Cryin' shame! But it shouldn't stop us from recognizing that a watershed moment in mainstream American drama is upon us.

On April 22nd, Wilson's play "Radio Golf" will premiere at the Yale Repertory Theatre. It completes his 10-play cycle of works set in each decade of the 20th Century.

I remember seeing "Fences" on Broadway in the 80s, and I attended Yale School of Drama at a time when Wilson was a fairly regular presence. I was skeptical then of his plan to write the cycle. I thought he should allow himself to respond more directly to the moment, that he shouldn't lock himself into something that could tie up his artistic impulses for so long.

I was an idiot.

August Wilson had a vision, and he's on the verge of completing it. The fact that his plays have often struggled commercially, primarily due to the changing economics of Broadway, only makes his clarity of purpose more inspiring. He never wavered in the slightest; he has been the truest model of a playwright-as-artist we've seen. He has earned his place as one of the mainstream 20th century greats: Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, August Wilson, and I would add Edward Albee. You don't have to like everything they do -- by all means, don't -- but you can't question their prominence and their influence.

It's time to reflect on this achievement, and I'm sure major mainstream media will do so, if not all at once. The Boston Globe has a long, biographical feature on Wilson, including an astonishing fact that The Huntington in Boston had never produced the work of an African-American playwright until "Joe Turner." It will take time to absorb his cycle, now that it's complete. I'm looking forward to putting all the play texts in front of me, and going through them not in the order they were written, but starting with the earliest-set, "Gem," and continuing through to "Radio Golf," set in the 90s. I'm sure I'll have a very different impression of them than I have individually.

We're at a watershed moment in American theatre. Recognize it. Enjoy it.

Taking the Bait -- A Playwright Digresses

2005-04-04T19:06:00.000-07:00

OK, OK, I'll bite. During my weeks of respite from blogging, I missed the announcement on the BBC -- reported here and here -- that Harold Pinter no longer plans to write plays.

Isaac Butler has scolded me for it, and written some very smart things about Pinter in the meantime.

George Hunka has joined him in taking the lack of press response to said announcement as scandalous under-coverage, one more example of the neglect of the theatrical arts and the myopia of theatre critics.

Mac Rogers wrote a Pinter-esque scene as a tribute. Nicely done, by the way, although a pinch more clarity in the power struggle (especially in a workplace setting) in addition to the scatology would really give it that classic Pinter punch. Still, a particularly nice tribute to a writer whose first play was supposed to be a parody of Beckett but was so good it stood on its own.

So, here I am, taking the bait. A few scattered thoughts, mostly about over-reaction.

Calm down, gentlemen. He didn't die. All he said was, "I've stopped writing plays. I've written 29 plays. My energies are going in different directions. I'm certainly writing a lot of poetry, and I'm using a lot of energy, more specifically about political states of affairs, which I think are very, very worrying as things stand."

Remember, George, when you said you were going to stop blogging? How long did that last?

By the way, I agree with both you that Pinter is one of the great playwrights of the 20th century, but my first reaction to hearing this news was, didn't he already stop writing plays? When was the last time Pinter really, really inspired you with a work? Sure, I'll read or see anything he writes, but it wasn't as if he was in his playwriting prime. Maybe a rest from the form will do him good; maybe he'll return with a fresh look at the theatrical medium. Maybe the entire world will be better off because of this. Relax.

And people do retire, you know. I only wish more playwrights had the money to do so, could hang up their hats and turn in their pens and live off a well-earned 401(K) for their labors if their royalties for book, stage and film don't suffice. As far as I'm concerned, they don't even need to write poems -- Pinter's plan. Here's a fantasy: Pinter takes up golf and returns with a play about it, called "The Putter," involving some use of a 9-iron so unmentionable that the PGA lobbies to ban the play in America, whereupon it sets new records for Broadway and ushers in a new era of serious playwriting.

Don't be so despairing. I say he's just digressing.

Is there theatre in L.A.?

2005-04-04T06:23:00.000-07:00

Can't resist linking to this article from the L.A. Weekly, wherein playwright Luis Alfaro promotes the potential for theatre in Los Angeles.

First, some personal news: three years after leaving Los Angeles for Philadelphia, my partner and I are returning to the West Coast now that he is graduating from law school.

Mixed feelings abound about leaving Philly, a perfectly pleasant place to live, but one that in terms of its theatre offers, well... Let's just say it's an hour and a half from NYC, and therefore has a hard time generating any really exciting events. I haven't visited many of the theatres here, and I don't doubt they do noble work, but this just ain't a theatre town.

Los Angeles, believe it or not, is far more vibrant. But, wow, is it a strange town for theatre. The reasons are obvious. L.A. is the home of the film and television industry, the highly-related cousin of drama and the omnipresent uber-elephant in the room at all L.A. theatrical productions. If theatre in L.A. could ever really find a comfort level with its cousin, the family could flourish.

There's an enormous amount of theatre in Los Angeles -- I've been told, with no desire to research the truth, that more productions actually open in L.A. than in NYC. I believe it, but that's comparing apples and oranges. The "shows" that open in L.A. are often not done for the sake of theatre. They're showcases, usually for actors, who desperately need opportunities to court agents, casting directors and the rest of the film-TV crowd who can provide entree into the real money. It doesn't matter that these shows suck -- they're really auditions for commercials!

That said, there's a remarkable amount of serious theatre in the city at all levels of accomplishment. After all, there's no dearth of people seriously committed to acting, directing, design, etc. Plenty of them do theatre to keep their skills sharp between film and TV gigs, or just 'cause they really love it (see: Jason Alexander).

Let's face it: theatre in L.A. is first and foremost a feeder to the "big leagues." New plays are seen as potential fodder for HBO and Showtime movies (HBO sponsors lots of readings, and even full-fledged stage productions), if not independent films (a lesser animal, unsure of distribution).

More celebrities do theatre than you'd think. Actors who come off sit-coms or hour-long dramas will do plays in order to make casting directors -- and heck, directors -- see them in a different light. I've seen Tori Spelling do comedy, and Nora Dunn do tragedy. You won't get that in NY! Maybe in London, these days, but not NY.

Still, if a show isn't coming from or headed to NY, it's seen as a nice exercise but not a real step in a career, even if it's performed at one of the major regional theatres, the Taper or the Geffen.

There's lots more to talk about regarding L.A. theatre. For example, the article mentions the L.A. Theatre Center, which is filled with fantastic small theatres, and is falling apart.

But Luis Alfaro -- the nicest guy you'd ever want to meet, by the way -- is right in his optimism about L.A. theatre.

There's certainly no other town like it.

Lord of the Rings to the Rescue!

2005-03-18T02:03:00.000-08:00

The other day, in Toronto, a press conference was held to announce the upcoming, massive stage production of a wee book that's already been made into a wee film trilogy: "Lord of the Rings."

This article from The Toronto Globe & Mail heralds the hope that the show might single-handedly revive Toronto as a tourist destination. Just a bit riding on this one.

I'm probably not alone in feeling a mixture of curiosity, dubiousness, and hope. As a "Lion King" fan, I'm now convinced that staging something familiar to audiences from a different format actually provides a great opportunity to expose the potentials of theatricality. The very impossibility of interpreting the Tolkien classics the way the film did makes this interesting. It's GOT to be wildly theatrical, or it will be wildly awful. The article clearly states that the director, well-known stage helmer Matthew Warchus, knows this:

"With a cast of more than 65 actors, the production will include an assortment of elaborate costumes and actors on stilts, evoking some of Cirque du Soleil's aesthetic, as well as giant props. Shelob, the enormous spider that is central to The Lord of the Rings's final book and that nearly kills Frodo the hobbit, will stretch across the entire 40-foot stage.

The production's otherworldly set and costume design will rely on depicting characters such as the sinister Black Riders and the tree-like Ents, rather than trying to build gigantic Tolkienesque landscapes in the theatre.

As director Matthew Warchus suggested, the stage production will have to rely largely on the power of subtle suggestion in recreating such exotic scenes as the gleaming city of Minas Tirith and the dark land of Mordor.

For instance, opening yesterday's tightly choreographed press conference, which felt like a gala performance in its own right, a sinister Black Rider was a large construction of skeletal, wooden-like beams. It was lit as much to accentuate its shadows, as to show off its actual form.
The music, at least judging by the few songs previewed yesterday, is a combination of Nordic folk tunes (as composed by the Finish contemporary folk group Varttina) and lush, Eastern-influenced passages (by A. R. Rahman, a popular composer of Indian film soundtracks) devolving into catchy, Josh Groban-like balladry. The audience of journalists, tourism people and other guests applauded heartily."

I suppose the audience of invited guests applauding at the press conference is better than booing, but doesn't exactly mean a whole lot at this point. I had to search the article for my biggest question: how long will the show be? Answer, it's 3-hours total, with each book being dramatically summed up in an hour. In and of itself, that's neither good nor bad, but it raises the concern that, given how well people know the full story, the stage version will come like a Reader's Digest summation: souvenir theatre, piquing our memories of something we like rather than delivering an actual experience.

Gotta say: I can't wait to find out.

I'm back, I think

2005-03-17T05:56:00.000-08:00

Wow. It's so easy for weeks to go by without posting. Blogging is hard. I am gaining more and more respect for those who do it diligently... and intelligently.

Anyway, I'm back in more ways than one. Just returned from a vacation to Hong Kong, where I caught the world premiere of a play called "Amber," commissioned from the National Theatre Company of China for the Hong Kong Arts Festival. It's by a woman named Liao Yimei, although the advertising emphasized the director, Meng Jinghui, whom the program labeled "the most influential among the young vanguard of Chinese theatre and film directors since the 1980s...." The play was in Mandarin with English subtitles.

It was certainly extremely interesting to see contemporary Chinese theatre. The underlying plot line was a bit cliche -- after the sudden death of her lover, a "pure", "innocent" young woman pursues the man who received a heart transplant from the woman's deceased paramour. The guy is a bit of a hustler, but he falls for her purity.

The play, at least as directed, always remained more concerned with the metaphor than with the reality of this situation. It was about big things, and sentimental things, and was ripe with all sort of literary allusions, both western and eastern. Unlike American theatre, the show certainly wasn't afraid of being pretentious and overtly intellectual, although I suppose that's what gave it the label "avant-garde." There were two reference that came into my head during the show, although neither is a perfect comparison by any means. Baz Luhrmann was one, on the directing side. It didn't have Luhrmann's visual flair, but it definitely had the combination of his sentimentality combined with artistic ambition, as well as his sense of the contemporary. The other comparison is Jean Anouilh, the French writer of "Madwoman of Chaillot." I can't articulate exactly what made me think so much of Anouilh, but I think it's the sense of everything being real and metaphorical at once.

Anyway, an interesting theatrical experience as part of a very nice break from the western world.

A Must Read

2005-02-27T16:02:00.000-08:00

Charles Isherwood in The NY Times writes this terrific piece about British directors staging American classics.

For those who hadn't been reading Charles's writing in "Variety" prior to his moving to The Times, definitely pay attention. Professional friendship aside, I have to say that there's nobody better writing out there. He's a terrific critic -- smart, personal, always witty. OK, occasionally snide, but I love that. How many theatre critics can sometimes make you laugh out loud? Charles sure can.

Now, that comment refers specifically to his reviews, and the one downside of his move to The Times is that he's not covering some of the big stuff. Instead, he's writing "think pieces" and features. To this point, most of these have been OK but a little forced. But, boy, is he getting better fast with this feature. Note the ability to make a point -- British directors are prepared to directed classics in a way Americans aren't; then contradict it: there are certainly American directors out there who can do it too (regional theatre folks, natch!); and then bring it together to give a clear-sighted view of some of the biggest issues confronting the culture of American theatre -- the inability to provide big opportunities to young talented directors.

Odds and Ends

2005-02-15T07:20:00.000-08:00

Odds:
Been taking a respite, while some good theatre-related articles have gone unnoticed.

There's this piece from The Guardian, which makes the keen observation that plenty of classic plays contain material so shocking they'd likely never see the light of day in the current artistic/political climate. Key graph is a quote from playwright Philip Ridley, whose play "Mercury Fur" can't even find a publisher:

Ridley is prepared for the fact that some people will be shocked by Mercury Fur, but he is also keen to pose a question: "Why is it that it is fine for the classic plays to discuss - even show - these things, but people are outraged when contemporary playwrights do it? If you go to see King Lear, you see a man having his eyes pulled out; in Medea, a woman slaughters her own children. The recent revival of Iphigenia at the National was acclaimed for its relevance. But when you try to write about the world around us, people get upset. If I'd wrapped Mercury Fur up as a recently rediscovered Greek tragedy it would be seen as an interesting moral debate like Iphigenia, but because it is set on an east-London housing estate it is seen as being too dangerous to talk about. What does that say about the world we live in? What does it say about theatre today?"

Then there's this fun profile in the Los Angeles Times (a subscription site) by Rachel Shteir. She meets with Miles Kreuger, the eccentric owner-curator of a museum-worthy collection, which he calls an "institute," of musical theatre artifacts. Only in Los Angeles!

From the outside, the institute resembles the house in the TV series "The Munsters." A giant rubber tree obscures the façade. Plywood covers a small window near the door. Inside, laser discs cover tables. Wood cabinets bulge with phonograph records. The few gaps between towering bookshelves are filled with photographs and lithographs and posters from plays. It smells like musty dog because, Kreuger says, Molly needs a bath.

Ends
Bill Rauch, as stated in the LA Times, has announced his exit from Cornerstone, the theatre company he founded 20 years ago. Cornerstone specializes in going into communities and adapting classics pertinent to local concerns, then stages them with a mixed cast of professionals and community members.

Here's a prediction for you. I predict that Bill Rauch will become the next artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. He's been directing shows there the last few years -- he's currently staging a newly commissioned work by "Kentucky Cycle" playwright Robert Shenkkan. They love him there, and Libby Appel will be retiring soon. I don't claim to be a scooping-type journalist, but you heard it here first!

And, of course, there's the big end, the death of Arthur Miller. Been thinking about writing more about this but haven't had the time to process the various feelings. My thoughts about Miller have changed significantly over time, tracking the birth, adolescence, and (I hope) maturity of my own theatrical tastes and tolerances. I revered him when I first discovered reading plays as a teenager, disdained him as I went to grad school and became a completely snotty snob hating all things realism and lacking in lingual poetry, and then learned to respect his best work for the sheer passion and the combination of sentiment and intellect.

I wish the death of a playwright always brought so much attention.

Why I'm Sometimes Embarrassed to Be a Critic

2005-01-31T07:01:00.000-08:00

This kind of piece, found in Backstage, makes me cringe.

I had high hopes upon starting it. I thought it was going to be about how critics perceive theatre differently because they go so often. It's a worthy topic, and one I'll ponder in writing at some future time. I'm in a somewhat interesting position because I'm a binge theatre-goer. For certain years of my life, I'll go to the theatre hundreds of times, while when I'm off making some cash instead, I'll attend maybe a dozen shows in a year. My expectations and perceptions -- in fact, my very theatre-going experience -- changes.

But this piece quickly deteriorates into the petty gripes of Los Angeles theatre critics, which include friends of the actors hanging out in lobbies before a show and laughing too loud during it; bad phone rings; shopping bags that don't coordinate with the appropriate geographic grocery stores for the setting, etc.

Yes, sadly, this really is what local theatre critics in Los Angeles talk about when they get together.

I should note that I have read, and in some cases, met and talked to, some of the critics mentioned in this piece (as far as I can recall, I don't know the author, Wenzel Jones). And at least a couple of them are actually very competent critics. To them, these items are undoubtedly merely distractions -- they're annoying because they take focus away from what's really important in a play, such as the quality of the writing, the acting, the sense of narrative drive, etc. Not to mention the passion, the sense of purpose, the style of theatricality, the feeling evoked, the tension created, and more etc.

There are critics though -- plenty of them -- who think that reviewing a show really is about assessing the quality of the phone ring or the label of the shopping bag. And articles that present critics this way, or, as this piece does, put the emphasis on these small items rather than what really matters, do a disservice to both critics and the theatre itself.

It's enough to give critics a bad name!

Ah, the Appeal of the Unappealing

2005-01-24T08:23:00.000-08:00

Good article from Peter Marks in The Washington Post about reviving "lost" plays.

I used to thrill at the idea of someone taking a "forgotten" play, a work that has sat on dusty shelves for centuries, and giving it new life. To this day, however, I've yet to see the lost play that really, truly deserved to be found.

That day will come.

The Blame

2005-01-17T19:01:00.000-08:00

More on the important events in England regarding the play Bhezti. Those who read the previous postings on this know that "Bhezti" is the play commissioned by Birmingham Rep in England by Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, a Sikh woman playwright. The production was cancelled due to violence at the theatre from a group of Sikhs offended by the play's portrayal of a sexual act in a holy place.

I received a note and a link from a reader named Michael Ladenson. Here's the link. It takes you to an essay in "City Journal," which lays at least some of the blame for the Bhezti affair at the hands of the playwright:

"[I]t does not follow from the fact that the mob was reprehensible and the
reaction of officialdom was cowardly that the theater and the playwright were
blameless. Sikh leaders had warned both of them before the play’s opening that
trouble would result if they did not amend the play slightly. They asked that
the offending scene take place in a Sikh community center rather than in a
temple: in other words, they were not denying that Sikhs could behave in a
degrading way toward women. The scene’s essential point could be preserved
without causing unnecessary offence.

"The playwright and the theater refused to countenance the requested
change, asserting an absolute right to say anything they pleased. The idea that,
in a civilized society, one should be willing to cause offence only in
proportion to the intellectual and moral importance of the point one is
attempting to make was too subtle for them. But only egotists, with little
sympathy for the feelings of others, claim the right to cause offense
gratuitously."

As I wrote in response to Michael's email:

"I actually take issue with the article you linked to. I don't know the play, and I'd have to read it to know, but I think the difference between sex in a mosque and sex in a community center is quite vast in terms of its potential dramatic impact. I will say that I stand by the protestors right to criticize the play. But the answer to offensive speech is not less speech but more of it. By actual and threatened violence, they have done a disservice to all. Any effort to put the "blame" on the playwright is missplaced."

Since then, I discovered this article on the matter, which clarifies the theatre's position during the discussions with Sikhs who were offended:

"The decision of one group of Sikhs to lobby for changes to a play written
and performed by members of their own community in their town is one thing.
Their refusal to rule out violence and consequently force its closure is quite
another. This censorship of Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s black comedy Behzti
should not be allowed to stand.

"The cheering thing about the debate that preceded the opening of
Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s black comedy Behzti at Birmingham Rep theatre,
was that it was held at all. Both sides – theatre and Sikh community – met to
make their points before the show opened.

"Significant concessions were made by the theatre. A statement from the
local Sikh community would be distributed at the venue; peaceful public protest
would not be opposed; the programme would include positive messages about the
Sikh faith. But throughout it was understood that the play could not be
censored, let alone banned. Until the weekend’s violent events and the change to
the Sikh community's agenda that followed.

"Under pressure from their own mob, Birmingham’s Sikhs abandoned
negotiation. Refusing to guarantee that there would be no more attacks on the
theatre, they stood back and let the men of violence take over. "

As is usually true in these situations, media descriptions of the events are unreliable, and I'd certainly be interested in knowing more.

But I stand firmly by my statement: the answer to offensive speech is more speech, not less. The theatre was right to seek a way to help the protestors express their perspective peacefully, and right to shut down the production rather than compromise the play.

The Royal Court -- one of London's most respected theatrical institutions -- is considering producing the play.

The Sadness

2005-01-13T13:17:00.000-08:00

Thanks to George Hunka at Superfluities for drawing my attention to two articles from the U.K. paper The Guardian (and, while I'm at it, thanks to Arts Journal for everything I've linked to from there). They deal with the censorship issues discussed in this previous post of mine, which I called "The Ugliness."

First, there's a passionate statement from Sikh playwright Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, whose play Bhezti has been cancelled due to threats of violence.

Second, there's an essay about the BBC's airing of Jerry Springer, the Opera.

Maybe I shouldn't be calling this "The Sadness." Maybe it should be "The Anger."

Music, Theatre, and the Continuing Debate

2005-01-13T08:33:00.000-08:00

A.C. Douglas has engaged! He's begged for more! So don't blame me for what happens now!

Narrative thinker that I am, I feel like we've got to reproduce the sequence of events here to make the appropriate points.

As you'll undoubtedly recall, ACD started it. He asked George Hunka: "Why should live theater survive as an art form today when film seems better able to do a play justice?".

He then got myriad responses, which, in his inimitably voluble, and somewhat aggressive, writing style, he took to task for failing to answer his question, because instead of discussing what he called the "artwork" itself, the play text, the responders pondered the interpretative aspects of live performance versus film. To Mr. Douglas, this was irrelevant, even -- get ready to cringe in pity at his cruelty -- "humanist."

After insulting him for failing to engage with those who'd attempted to address the issue by disagreeing with its premise, I asked Mr. Douglas a question: "Do you go to see live music, even though the studio can do it 'better'? If so, why?"

He sent me an email with a link to an article he posted last August, which I then claimed answered his original question as well as anyone else had.

But Mr. Douglas will not be satisfied with his own genius, and he posted his response.

There are now two, inter-connected discussions going on. One has to do with the comparison of music versus theatre, and their similarities and differences. The other has to do with the comparison of theatre versus film, specifically as it relates to plays being done as films. The two strains are highly related to each other because I, and others, argue that the recording of classical music and the filming of theatre are similar. Mr. Douglas disagrees.

"I suggest to Mr. Oxman that he apply consistently his own formula in my above quoted graf. If he does, just how will he make the appropriate theatrical substitution for "music" in, say, the sentence that reads: "One hears music differently in a live performance, and that hearing simply cannot be experienced via a reproduction no matter how good the reproduction may be...."? Would he then say, "One hears the text differently in a live performance, and that hearing simply cannot be experienced via a reproduction no matter how good the reproduction may be...."?"

Yes, I would say that. How? I would say "one experiences drama differently in a live performance... no matter how good the filming may be...." Give me a moment. I'll expand on that in a bit.

Mr. Douglas then separates music from theatre by saying that theatre is made up of text, and therefore the two forms speak to different parts of the brain.

"When heard recorded versus live, a certain portion of the music's fundamental sense as music (as opposed to nuances and subtleties of interpretation) is in some degree altered, or even lost.... With a play, however, its fundamental sense determined as it is by a series of ordered words, which is to say, it's text [sic], the fundamental sense of that text remains precisely the same whether heard live in the theater or recorded in a film, and the words and sentences retain their exact same fundamental sense and meaning as language in both mediums. The fundamental sense and meaning of the word-order 'To be or not to be' is precisely the same whether spoken live on stage or reproduced in film (or read on the page, for that matter).

"Although music is commonly referred to metaphorically as a language, it's a language of a unique sort that by its very nature bypasses the intellectual processing centers of our brains, and speaks directly to our centers of feeling where the gestalt of its fundamental sense and meaning as music (again, as opposed to nuances and subtleties of performance and interpretation) is first 'understood,' instantly and all at once."

You're a quibbler, Mr. D., and I'm concerned to take this on too much. First, because I am not a music expert. More importantly, because I think you'll take the opportunity to make the argument about the metaphor rather than the real subject, the fact that theatre is not so easily transported to celluloid.

That said, I still don't see the difference. You say that theatre can be recorded without changing the artwork because "To be or not to be" will still be the same words and in the same order -- therefore, the "artwork" isn't changed. But isn't that also true of music? The notes will still be the same, and in the same order. The experience of the listener is different, but the underlying "artwork" -- the notes themselves -- is unchanged.

I'll return to the subject, because this goes to the heart of what I see as your misunderstanding of theatre, but please allow me a digression. Thank you for your patience.

This is not an easy conversation to have, in part because we theatre-lovers are a defensive lot, betrothed to a form that reigned in a previous era but which now faces the constant accusation of irrelevancy when compared to mass media, and, even worse, an economic reality that means the form itself is reduced so often to one-person bio-confessionals (Oy, could I make a list!) and two-person formula plays that really would be better off as Hallmark TV movies but aren't good enough (a gay man gets community service for a driving violation and is forced to care for an elderly Jewish man -- that's the set-up of a play called "Visiting Mr. Green," and it's all-too-typical).

It's also hard because the topic is simply too big, demanding answers to questions like: what is theatre? how does it differ from film? what's the "artwork," the play text or the performance or some imagined performance in the head of the playwright who writes the text? Now, I appreciate the ambition of all this, and am willing to tackle it a bit, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking we're going to solve the perennial puzzle that has been left unsolved despite the best efforts of people far more insightful than myself. Like, say, Antonin Artaud.

It's hard to describe why theatre matters to people, what makes it such a special art form, particularly when there are other thriving, far more popular forms -- film and TV -- that can deal in similar narrative structure. But those who love theatre know that it starts with the basic premise that it is different. We've experienced its difference, felt it in our bodies and known it in our minds, even though we often have difficulty articulating it (I'm not saying we shouldn't try to, just that it's tough.)

Before Mr. Douglas accuses me of sentimentality and, heaven forfend, humanism, by saying that we feel the difference, let me point out that Mr. Douglas seems to have just as much difficulty describing why classical music can only fully be appreciated live.

From his piece last August:

"[A] recorded performance is a musical experience quite different from the musical experience of a live concert."

"I mean the two experiences are two different musical experiences. One hears music differently in a live performance, and that hearing simply cannot be experienced via a reproduction no matter how good the reproduction may be in both recording and playback."

"I'll not pretend to know why it is that one hears and experiences music differently live versus recorded, or in what, precisely, in physical and psychological terms, the difference consists. I know only that the difference exists, and that it's meaningful musically. "

And from his most recent response to me:

"For when I said in my above quoted graf that one hears (classical) music differently in a live versus recorded performance, I meant one hears the music differently qua music. When heard recorded versus live, a certain portion of the music's fundamental sense as music (as opposed to nuances and subtleties of interpretation) is in some degree altered, or even lost...."

I've been searching for a more lucid explanation, but instead all I find is his passionate belief that this is so. By the way, I believe him, I just think that he has yet to express this difference in words, and was particularly unfair to those who tried to express similar passionate beliefs about the theatre. When theatre is filmed it is no longer theatre, a play loses its fundamental sense as theatre. It may still work as "narrative," and depending on the play and how the film was directed, it may on occasion even be "better," but the "artwork" itself is different.

I have a practical musical question for you, A.C. When a recording is made of, say, a string quartet, do the musicians play the music in the studio the same way they would in a live concert? At the same volume? Do they have to completely re-interpret the music to adjust? If they do, I'm sure you would say that matters "musically," correct, not just as a "nuance" of interpretation?

Well, in the adaptation of theatre to film, the adjustment is drastic. The pitch of the dialogue must be reduced significantly: the volume with which actors speak must be totally recalibrated.

But even that doesn't begin to touch on the more meaningful differences.

First and foremost, Mr. Douglas's view of theatre is myopic. He has now taken opera and removed it from the equation because it contains classical music and therefore isn't as good recorded as live. So opera doesn't count, and I suppose any theatre that contains music could thus also be removed.

His argument also doesn't apply at all to theatre that is not based on text or contains any elements of improvisation. Cirque du Soleil is a type of theatre -- probably the most popular theatre in today's world (I've blogged on it before, and have been meaning to do so again for months). There's no text, and it's not a "play," but it is theatre. And the video version of the Cirque shows -- blech! they're terrible! they don't capture any of the environmental mood that's so essential.

Now, before Mr. Douglas simply dismisses those by saying, in essence, that he was talking about plays and not musicals or circuses or non-textual theatre, I believe even text-based theatre -- and I have to qualify this and say quality text-based theatre, not the "Visiting Mr. Green"s of the world -- has its own musicality and creates its own environment.

The basic point here is that Mr. Douglas's idea of theatre as a compilation of dialogue that speaks solely to the intellectual processing portion of our brains displays a fundamental ignorance of the art form. What's often important in a play is what is "written" in the silences, what the playwright has designed to be "happening" between the characters and the emotional impact the events are designed to have on the audience. To completely separate out the "experience" from the "artwork,", as Mr. Douglas has attempted to do, is impossible, because it's one way in which a playwright structures the art to begin with, thinking about how it builds, how it creates suspense, releases tension, etc. These things aren't written in the dialogue or stage directions, but they're there. And doing these things in the theatre is often extremely different than doing them on film.

Finally, while theatre might have "less" to work with than film, the limitations are part of what makes imagination emerge. Compare the stampede in the film of "The Lion King" and the stampede as created by director Julie Taymor onstage, and you can see how a less "realistic," more "theatrical" approach can be better.

So as not to rely on a musical as compared to an animated film, I'll also suggest something more obscure as an example. In 1987, those old enough will likely recall the film "Wall Street." There was also that same year a play by the great Caryl Churchill, called "Serious Money," set in the London equivalent of Wall Street. You've never heard of it because when they replaced the London cast (which originally included Gary Oldman and Alfred Molina) with Americans, the production apparently didn't work in New York and bombed. I saw it in London and it was spectacular. It couldn't possibly be put on film, because it was so stylized. But it captured the frenzied feeling of being on the trading floor way better than "Wall Street" did. Could the text be recaptured on film? Sure. But the "play" couldn't be. The artwork was designed to create an environment -- a sensation. Film can show you the reality better, but done well, theatre can give you the greater truth. Provide that particular play with an actual on-site location, instead of just a bare space with chairs and tables, and you've ruined it. Record it and watch it on video, and I assure you it won't even resemble what it was like to see it performed.

By the way, it was in verse. And it spoke to more than the rational part of my brain.

It was theatre. And it was beautiful.

Correction on the Filming of "Film"

2005-01-12T13:33:00.000-08:00

I'm sure this will be the first of many. I mentioned as part of my ongoing discussion with A.C. Douglas that Samuel Beckett wrote and directed a film called Film. I've now received email from two readers noting my sloppy error. Beckett did not direct the film. That task fell to Beckett's frequent collaborator, Alan Schneider.

The Ugliness

2005-01-10T00:05:00.000-08:00

The protests over the BBC airing of "Jerry Springer, the Opera" are getting ugly. First, see my previous posting on the irony of these protests to begin with. Then check out this news story. Key quote:

"'BBC staff and their families have received a significant number of abusive and threatening telephone calls, some of which have been reported to the police as criminal matters,' the spokesman said.

Christian protestors had demonstrated peacefully outside the BBC's London offices before and during the broadcast on Saturday night, condemning the show's profane language and portrayal of Jesus as a fat man wearing a diaper.

But the campaign of abusive phone calls, many answered in daytime by the executives' young children, had taken the protest to an unacceptable level, a BBC source told Reuters.

'These staff have been harassed and bullied way beyond what is acceptable in a free and democratic society,' the source said."

(By the way, as I recall, Jesus is not portrayed as a fat man in a diaper. He's played by the same actor who also, in Act I, portrays a different character who's in a diaper. Is it, therefore, because Jesus is portrayed as fat?)

Perhaps these protesters were inspired by the successful protests of some Sikhs, whose threats of violence managed to stop production of a play by a Sikh writer because the black comedy portrayed sex in a mosque. Read about it here.

Of course, there's no way such censorship could happen in America. We're not afraid of free expression, even if we find it offensive.

Are we?

The Answer to the Question

2005-01-09T18:18:00.000-08:00

So the winner for best answer to A.C. Douglas's question -- "Why should live theater survive as an art form today when film seems better able to do a play justice?" -- comes from... A.C. Douglas.

In my previous posting, I asked him: "Do you go to see live music, even though the studio can do it 'better'? If so, why?"

He sent me an email with a quick statement and a link to a post of his from last August:

"[N]o, with classical music (the only music I involve myself with) the studio*cannot* 'do it better.' For an explanation why, see:http://www.soundsandfury.com/soundsandfury/2004/08/the_live_classi.html "

The post is long, so let me excerpt the most pertinent parts:

"[R]ecorded performance is a musical experience quite different from the musical experience of a live concert. And by that, I don't mean merely that playing back a recorded performance in a home environment can't equal the acoustic experience of a performance in a concert hall, even given a superbly recorded performance, superb reproduction equipment, and the most elaborately and carefully prepared listening environment. I mean the two experiences are two different musical experiences. One hears music differently in a live performance, and that hearing simply cannot be experienced via a reproduction no matter how good the reproduction may be in both recording and playback....

"I'll not pretend to know why it is that one hears and experiences music differently live versus recorded, or in what, precisely, in physical and psychological terms, the difference consists. I know only that the difference exists, and that it's meaningful musically. And, pace Glenn Gould, it's well to remember that the experience of classical music live, whether in the chamber or the concert hall, is the way all classical music was intended to be heard and experienced by its composers, past and present. From music's very beginnings the live music experience has been sine qua non for the development of refined musical discernment and tastes, and so, I'm convinced, it shall remain."

Seriously, replace the "musical experience" with "theatrical experience," and nobody responding to Mr. Douglas's query has said it better. Now, I suppose he thinks these are fundamentally different, but I really don't see how. Perhaps the answer to the question all along was as simple as his statement to me: Film can't serve a play better than a theatrical production.

ACD took up this subject when George Hunka suggested the parallel to music previously. That ACD post is here, but I'll excerpt the key analogy:

"A film of, say, Beckett's Godot (i.e., made as a film, not a filmed record of the stage play) is potentially, inherently and in itself, capable of producing a more convincing aesthetic product in terms of the play itself than the play presented live on stage...."

This is just not true at all. I consider myself a Beckett aficionado -- he changed the way I see the world. But Beckett's plays are pure "plays," and even the effort to film them -- PBS did a whole series of his works for television -- are distant and ineffectual, the equivalent of a catalogue reproduction of a masterpiece painting as compared to a viewing of the canvas itself -- useful, but not a substitution for experiencing the real thing. In all his plays, Beckett explored the very essence of theatricality, the passage of time itself. Put Beckett's play Play on film, and you are not getting the play. I should note that Beckett did write and direct a film. It was called, of course, Film, and starred Buster Keaton late in his life. Beckett explored his typical obsessions with consciousness, but did so in a different way, since it was written as a film.

To return to the basic premise: Sure, there are plays that make good films, and are even better as films than they were on stage. (And similarly, ACD recognizes that his discussion doesn't necessarily apply beyond classical music-- there could well be music that is "better" recorded than live.) But plays with even an ounce of theatricality are intended to be seen in the theatre; one cannot fully appreciate the artwork (and I'm using ACD's interpretation that the written script is the artwork, a controversial claim in and of itself) without seeing it in its intended medium.

What is theatricality? That's for another day, or year. And just because a play makes a very good film, doesn't mean it wasn't theatrical. Two very recent examples: "Chicago" and "Angels in America." Actually, those who see those shows in the theatre gain not just a greater respect for the plays, but also a greater appreciation for the clever ways they were adapted for the different medium. The artwork was changed to accommodate the filming.

OK, I'll stop. Unless you beg for more!

Theatre, Film, and the Great Blogger Debate

2005-01-07T08:39:00.000-08:00

A nice number of very intelligent arts bloggers are discussing a question that goes to the heart of this blog's subject. So it's time for me to join in the conversation -- just as everyone else is probably getting tired of it.

It began by A.C. Douglas asking George Hunka why he should bother going to the theatre when film can do better. ACD's own summation of his question: "Why should live theater survive as an art form today when film seems better able to do a play justice?"

George (my savior -- see previous posting) responded thoughtfully. Read here.

Isaac Butler at Parabasis chimed in. His first posting on the issue is here.

I've also been enjoying uTopian TurtleTop on the matter, particularly for his sharing of moments he's experienced in the theatre that were un-filmic.

First, I'm starting to understand the blogosphere a bit better. When an argument like this starts, you can't miss a day or so much has been argued that it'll take a week to catch up. Some of it's good and provocative; some of it's not-so-good and provocative. If the episode was intended to help A.C. Douglas understand the aesthetics of theatre any better, it's obviously been a miserable failure. He still doesn't get it and won't. (At the risk of offending him and maybe others, there's something about his writing that I find masturbatory -- others' arguments are valuable only for self-indulgent titillation and abuse, not for him to engage with. If he'd like to respond and prove me wrong, might I ask him: do you go to see live music, even though the studio can do it "better"? If so, why?)

No matter what, his challenge has been helpful in forcing others to articulate their love of the theatre.

I spent too much time churning my mind on the theoretical arguments and how I could contribute, but enough has been said. Too much philosophizing on the theatre makes me mad at myself. I'd like to say something a little different.

What would happen if theatre stopped existing?

OK, the world wouldn't change. It's important to say that and others have kept this perspective too.

But the film world would surely be the worse for it. Someone (sorry, don't have the patience to re-find and source) mentioned the concern that theatre is often considered the minor leagues, simply a farm team for the film world. In an economic sense, it is, and we shouldn't try to fight it, cuz we'll lose.

Sam Mendes was able to make a first film of significant depth ("American Beauty") because he understood how to work with actors from his years as a stage director. There's something so much fuller in the film work of actors and directors who've gone through the rigors of developing a part for the stage and finding a way to re-create it each and every performance. Sure, plenty of pure film stars are extremely effective, but it's performance that's all inspiration and little craft. The best has both.

Paul Giamatti's performance in "Sideways" is a good example. He was trained for the stage, and his craft is obvious. It's not easy to make yourself quite so vulnerable, or to build up a head of sincere steam for a line like, "If anyone orders Merlot, I'm leaving!"

I wish that more film directors and actors would recognize the power of seeing a sustained performance. I want longer takes, and shots that keep one actor on screen continuously so we can see the emotional movement happen and not have the result suddenly present in the next close-up. Yes, film reels can only go so long, and that has long limited any take to 16 minutes at most. But all that is potentially changing with digital technology, and 16 minutes is a long time anyway.

Film can do a lot of what theatre can do, and can often do it better. But film can learn lessons from theatre that it too often ignores.

Jerry Springer and the BBC

2005-01-07T06:36:00.000-08:00

I don’t know how I missed this. This weekend, the BBC will air its taped version of the London stage show, “Jerry Springer, the Opera.” The protests have been unprecedented. An article is here.

I saw the show in London and it’s one of my favorite theatrical experiences of the last several years. And I’m someone who just can’t watch the TV show – I cringe in disgust and turn away (yes, really, I turn the channel).

But “Jerry Springer, The Opera” is something wholly different.

The first act is an operatic depiction of a typical Springer TV episode, replete with its stock characters (e.g. the “chick with a dick”). But the characters express themselves in operatic terms. Well, maybe “operatic terms” isn’t the right phrase, given that their terms include “I’ve Been Seeing Someone Else.” But at least they express themselves in operatic style and music. At the end of the first act, Jerry gets shot, and the second act takes him to Hell, where he’s forced to moderate a Springer-style confrontation between God and the Devil.

Who could possibly be offended? And why wasn’t PBS the first to pounce? (Heh, heh, heh)

Really, though, think about this: This show examines a “low” cultural phenomenon – and you can’t deny the Springer show is a phenomenon – and creates “high” art with it. It takes something ugly and uses it to make something worthwhile (should “worthwhile” also be in quotes?). I still can’t and won’t watch the TV show, but the Opera has made me understand its appeal a whole lot better: people crave something larger than life, even if it reaches for the dirt rather than the heavens.

So here’s where we are. The disgusting but popular work -- the TV show -- gets canonized in the popular consciousness. The revelatory contemplation of that show’s “meaning” gets massive protests? Anyone see anything wrong here?

Oh My God You're Actually READING This?

2005-01-06T19:29:00.000-08:00

I suppose there's a first for every blogger.

I've been away for awhile, in Atlanta and then Los Angeles. Didn't much think about theatre, except for sadly not having a chance to see the Mark Taper's production of "The School for Scandal."

Then I got back, thought about blogging, and a mild sense of dread came over me. What if I have nothing to say? Maybe I should drop it.

Two things have happened since. First, I read John Lahr's profile of Tony Kushner in a recent "New Yorker." A truly wonderful portrait of one of our only significant playwright-intellectuals, the article captures Kushner at his most insecure. If he can do it, then maybe I can find an iota of inspiration in my own doubt that I have much to contribute.

The second event is more of a blogging rite-of-passage. Somebody e-mailed me about the blog! And, unlike the only other e-mails I've received, I hadn't e-mailed him first.

So, thank you, George Hunka of the blog Superfluities (http://www.ghunka.com) Since you're actually reading this, I guess I've got to keep adding to the fucking thing!

Sheridan Serendipity

2004-12-21T13:40:00.000-08:00

Why does it always happen that theatres produce similar plays around the same time? A couple of years ago, everyone was doing the Greeks. That was followed by articles about how Greek tragedies reflected on something very post-9/11. OK, maybe that's true.

So how to explain the sudden serendipity of Richard Brinsley Sheridan revivals on both coasts? "The Rivals" has just opened at Lincoln Center in NY, directed by former Hartford Stage artistic director Mark Lamos, while at the Mark Taper in Los Angeles, Brian Bedford stages "The School for Scandal." That latter is getting better reviews, but I must admit to great fondness for "The Rivals" having played a small role in a college production many moons ago.

Sheridan wrote in the last quarter of the 18th Century, and his plays fall directly in between the Restoration comedies of manners from folks like William Congreve (a hundred years earlier) and the Victorian comedies of manners from Oscar Wilde (a hundred years later).

They're wonderful plays, and aside from some dusty language, they're really quite contemporary in tone. I've always thought today's Americans could recognize themselves more in Sheridan than in Moliere.

Still, it would be completely pretentious to suggest that I have any insight into why, or whether, now is a particularly Sheridanian moment. Let's just chalk it up to coincidence, enjoy, and hope we don't have to wait too long for some more.

The Role Theatre Plays

2004-12-21T13:08:00.000-08:00

Playbill has an article about a panel discussion with big-name playwrights on the topic of race and politics in the theatre. Not the most interesting piece in the world, but it stirs my mind on the subject.

As a minority art form -- in the sense that in our society it is a tiny dramatic form compared to the popularity of film and television -- theatre has taken on an essential role in providing a place for minority artists. Since so much of it is subsidized, often with public money, it has taken its responsibility seriously to serve the under-served (I suppose here that I really mean under-served actors as opposed to audiences).

But there's another reason. Unlike the great mass of mass entertainment, theatre is local. And urban. Looking for an outlet, the talented African American and Latino and now Arab and Persian artists can't really look to Hollywood for a whole lot. There just aren't anywhere near the jobs available as there are for white actors. And, boy, are there some talented folks in these communities. Look at any cast for an August Wilson play, and how easily these plays are re-cast, and you get a sense of the depth of the African American acting pool. (The NY Times had an article about this group of actors -- you can read it here.)

Many of these actors have turned to playwriting when they weren't finding roles they wanted to play. Just as an aside, Eugene Lee, in a supporting role on Broadway in "Gem of the Ocean," has written at least one good play (I worked with him on his first television movie script, too, although it didn't get produced).

Point, while everyone may simply consider this diversity "political correctness," it really is true that theatre can and must give voice to those who are not given voice by mass media. It's an area where theatre CAN do better than film.

Termination in Tacoma

2004-12-20T08:45:00.000-08:00

Did you know Tacoma, WA had a professional theatre? I didn't either. Alas, had is the operative word. Article here.

What Happened in 2004

2004-12-20T06:44:00.000-08:00

Playbill On-line has selected its top theatre news stories of 2004, and the article is a pretty good summary of the commercial theatrical year.

My own quick rundown of their rundown:

1. Playwrights on politics -- the electorate was engaged, as were playwrights. I still can't wait to see (or heck, even read) Tony Kushner's play featuring Laura Bush.

2. Avenue Q's campaigning -- successfully -- for the Best Musical Tony Award. My question: is it that they campaigned -- which every show does to some degree -- or that they did it so darn well? More imortant long term, and a point which the article mentions, is Q's decision to head to Vegas rather than going on the road. Also not mentioned, the NY Times Ombudsman's tirade against the Tonys, a stinging, and I thought thoughtful, rebuke about these awards; its sting though was made quite harmless by the claim that, since the Tonys were controlled by the road producers, there was no way anything but "Wicked" would win.

3. The continued reign of the Jukebox Musical -- great term for the shows that are more excuses for the soundtrack than anything else. I didn't know about all of these:

"In the works are projects built on the greatest hits of John Lennon (Lennon), Bob Dylan (a new venture by director choreographer Twyla Tharp), Chicago (a book musical called Colour My World) Pink Floyd's Roger Waters (a stage version of the concept album The Wall) and Earth, Wind & Fire (Hott Feett)."

4. The continued reign of the one-person show.

5. The selection of Oskar Eustis to head the public. I've said it before -- there's a transition going on, folks, and the new generation of artistic leadership is coming mostly from outside NYC.

6. Changes in theatre coverage at the NY Times.

7. The impending return to Broadway of Cameron Mackintosh and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

8. The "banner year" for artists Sondheim, John Patrick Shanley, Craig Lucas, and director Doug Hughes. More interesting topic: Next year, who will it be? (Last year the star was Richard Greenberg.)

9. The rising importance of Vegas as a theatrical city. See: Avenue Q.

10. The new contract between road producers and Equity. Most useful summary:

"Bottom line, actors on the road will probably make less money more often. But then, producers, now compelled to use union actors, will also probably make less money more often."

11. The death of Cy Coleman and Fred Ebb.

As I said, it's a pretty good list, but I'm shocked that the "Gem of the Ocean" melodrama didn't get a mention.

More on the Puniness of Plays

2004-12-14T18:16:00.000-08:00

Jesse McKinley, who exposed the unprofitability of plays in last week's NY Times, had an article this past Sunday in the Times' Week in Review that returned to the subject.

"As the fall Broadway season comes to an end this week - with the opening of a 229-year-old comedy, "The Rivals," on Thursday - it is a good time to consider all the new, culturally significant American drama produced there this year.

Anyone? Don't hold back. Just shout out a title. Any title will do.

If nothing jumped to mind, you shouldn't think you're a philistine. The original American Broadway play has long been consigned to second-class status in an industry dominated by musicals, but this fall it reached a low-water mark. Other than one-person shows, only one new American play - comedy or drama - made it to the stage, August Wilson's 'Gem of the Ocean,' which opened Monday. And the producers and Mr. Wilson, the nation's premier African-American playwright, had to beg, plead and call in a favor ($1 million worth) from a wealthy producer in San Francisco."

He then laments the fact that plays simply can't generate the kind of buzz -- let alone the audience -- that movies and TV shows can.

He asks the essential question. Does theatre still matter, at least as more than an incubator of television writing talent? The analysis he provides, though, is pure cliche:

"'I suppose TV and a movie can get there, but when a play is working, that communion is different,' said Warren Leight, a Broadway playwright ('Side Man') and a 'Law and Order' producer. 'An audience moved by a play is moved in a different way. It lingers longer.'"

Theatre is not superior to film or television. It's just different. If we can't understand and articulate that difference, then we're doomed to pale imitation of media with far greater means and popular support.

I agree, though, with the fundamental proposition of the article: even if Broadway is not, and need not, be the artistic mountaintop for non-musical theatre in America, theatre still needs to find a way to tap the zeitgeist. The article assumes that's about subject matter alone, which I'm unsure of. We need some genuinely imaginitive playwriting, and we need it soon.

Plays of Humana-ty

2004-12-14T18:03:00.000-08:00

Louisville's Humana Festival of new American plays has announced its core productions for 2005. They include plays by John Bellusso, Kathleen Tolan, Carlyle Brown, Kia Corthron, Adam Bock, and Allison Moore.

I've never been to Humana, but it's a festival I've always wanted to attend. For a bit of time each year, Kentucky becomes the center of the American theatrical scene.

Warms Your Heart

2004-12-09T12:53:00.000-08:00

Another article in The Denver Post about Kent Thompson's becoming artistic director of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

There really is something exciting about fresh starts, and Thompson's un-jaded optimism warms your heart in the interview, which includes lots of talk aboutnew play development at DCPA. Looks like Bruce Sevey's appointment as his associate (see my previous post) is not yet a done deal.

"Lone Star Love" review

2004-12-09T08:01:00.000-08:00

My "Variety" review of "Lone Star Love," an off-Broadway musical adapted from "Merry Wives of Windsor," is here.

New Denver Directors

2004-12-08T00:31:00.000-08:00

And now for the feel-good story of the year.

In 2001, in the midst of seeing its budget slashed, The Denver Center for the Performing Arts did what all theatres do in that situation: they cut their literary office. It's an understandable choice, but one that basically strips a theatre of its ability to discover new work that it might want to produce.

Several years later, the person who headed the office at the time, Bruce Sevey, is returning to the institution, this time as the new associate artistic director. He's accompanying his boss at Alabama Shakespeare, Kent Thompson, who will be the Denver Center's new leader. He's only the 3rd artistic director in the company's history, yet another example of the transitional phase I genuinely believe our regional theatre is in.

I know next-to-nothing about them, but they say all the right things in this Denver Post article.

The Cat Is Out of the Bag, and Maybe Dead

2004-12-07T23:49:00.000-08:00

Strangely enough, I haven't been reading the NY Times while I've been in New York the last few days. Too busy. But several people told me I had to read this article from Monday's paper.

It reports that in the last 2 years, only one commercially produced play in New York has turned a profit. This does not include one-person plays. The lone re-couper was a surprise to me -- Yasmina Reza's "Life X 3," which did not get stellar notices but did star big names (Helen Hunt, John Turturro).

New business model, anyone? Or is non-musical theatre really only feasible as a subsidized form?

Souvenir review

2004-12-07T06:29:00.000-08:00

I've been in New York since this past Friday. Saw the play "Souvenir" Saturday night to review for "Variety." It was actually a tough review to write, since it had serious extremes of strengths and weaknesses. Judy Kaye plays Florence Foster Jenkins, the worst singer in history -- it's based on the true story of her strange stardom. Kaye is wonderful, but the other actor in the two-person play, Jack Lee, is a musician and not an actor. Seeing a brilliant performance next to a terrible one is a rather strange experience.

Anyway, you can read the review here.

Profiles of the Theatrical Future?

2004-12-02T07:14:00.000-08:00

American Theatre writes up 12 theatre companies to watch:

Bedlam Theatre in Minneapolis
Black Dahlia in Los Angeles
BlueForms Theatre Group in Columbus, Ohio
Charter Theatre in Washington, D.C.
The Civilians in New York City
Defunkt in Portland, Ore.
The Dirigo Group in Austin
Flaneur Productions in Minneapolis
Mad Dog in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Out of Hand Theatre in Atlanta
Silk Road Theatre Project in Chicago
Son of Semele Ensemble in Los Angeles

Censorship and A Sense of Humor

2004-12-02T05:34:00.000-08:00

We seem quite plainly to be in the midst of a fit of Victorian prudishness, which as a country we tend to engage in on occasion. It all got a nice little push at the Super Bowl by Janet Jackson baring her breast -- or, worse, having it bared -- in a truly tacky halftime show. Congress increased significantly the maximum fine the FCC could levy against broadcasters, and the regulator, lead by Colin's son Michael Powell, has zealously embraced its new power with multi-million dollar fines, including some for small, suggestive bits on shows long cancelled.

Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine, one of three or four blogs I read with regularity, has been documenting the furor with a nice dose of fury. Particularly entertaining was his blog on how complaining has become a virtual industry, so that the complaints of one or two pissed-off prisses can be magnified by a politically-driven, letter-writing machine. If interested, check his archives for his November 15th entry on his Freedom of Information request regarding a fine against Fox.

Since bloggers -- I guess that's me, huh? -- are supposed to have opinions, I'll shock you with mine: I'm against censorship. I think it's bad.

Then why am I amused by all this? Plenty of contemporary politics really pisses me off, but this I mostly just find silly. Does the FCC really think they can distinguish between artistic smut and non-artistic smut? Their betters have tried before and failed.

Of course, it's not happy funny, but stupid funny, depressing funny, "they're not really doing this, are they?" funny. I thought affiliate stations that decided not to air "Saving Private Ryan" for fear of fines were just doing so to make a point. (They fucking curse in that war movie and contractually, they couldn't edit it.) It turns out the FCC may decide to give them a minimal fine. If they allowed cursing for good movies, they'd have to allow it for bad movies too. (And by the way, let's not forget that Oklahoma just elected Tom Coburn to the Senate; as a Congressman, he railed against the airing of "Schindler's List" as a disgusting display of gratuitious nudity.)

Anyway, I'm sure we'll return to the subject, but I wanted to draw your attention to a timely publication for a bit of context, and perspective, on the issue. It's a book called "Lord Chamberlain regrets..." by the English English Professor Dominic Shellard. It chronicles the sordid history of the chief censor of the British Stage. Read a news story on the book here. My favorite quote from the article deals with one of my favorite plays, and nicely sums up the silliness:

"Samuel Beckett's 'Waiting for Godot' was labeled 'an interminable verbal labyrinth' by censors who demanded that the Nobel prizewinning playwright replace one 'fart' with a 'belch.'"

I think Michael Powell would be well advised to read this book. I plan to. I also think it might inspire quite a good television movie. Of course, it would have to be on cable.

Chitty Chitty Boring Boring

2004-11-29T07:31:00.000-08:00

Tickets are now on sale for the Broadway version of "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang." I caught it in London.

Recommendation number 1: Skip it and say no more.

If you have fond memories of the film from your childhood, and you want your kids to experience similar pleasures, then I offer recommendation number 2: rent the movie. You will likely be disappointed -- it's not as good as my childhood nostalgia thought it.

If you've already shown them the film, and they're desperate to see the show, I offer recommendation number 3: surreptitiously arrange for a return trip to "The Lion King" in order to assure the child that theatrical adaptations of famous film titles can actually be imaginative and entertaining.

If compelled to go, I offer a final fail-safe: Take a comfy pillow with you for napping, and arrange for your theatregoing companion, or a kind, willing stranger, to nudge you awake whenever the raison d'etre of the show -- the flying car -- appears. Then back to sleep.

Theatre and Money

2004-11-22T07:34:00.000-08:00

I'm surprised at how much I've been drawn to articles about theatre management issues as opposed to artistic issues alone. One reason for this involves trying to take a national view and see a bigger picture for theatre than a single show. Economic issues facing theatre obviously affect the artistic trends; how they do so is most definitely a subject for this blog.

Still, though, there's something that simply goes unsaid too much, because it really is the fundamentally biggest issue facing theatre as a popular art form.

It's too expensive to do and costs too much to go.

There. I said it. I would love to take 2 young cousins to see "Big River," currently on tour. But at $75 a ticket??? That's more than it would have cost on Broadway, given the fact that tickets could have been found half-price at TKTS. Philadelphia, while apparently having experimented with something similar in the past, simply doesn't have the structure to support a half-price system. Instead, theatres rely on rush tickets, and inexpensive subscriptions for students.

The National Theatre in London, under the new artistic direction of Nicholas Hytner, found great success by offering 10 pound tickets this past season. It's obviously a model that may not work here, but I'm not asking for 10 pound tickets anyway. There's a big difference between 10 pounds (about $16) and $30 and $75.

Hytner succeeded by offering great work in a theatrical capital. But what he did on price can't be ignored. This from the Guardian's March assessment of Hytner's ultra-successful tenure so far.

"By universal consent, the £10 season in the Olivier, the largest (1,160 seats), most intractable of the National's three spaces, is Hytner's greatest achievement. For six months last year, ticket prices were slashed: top price tickets, charged for just one third of the auditorium, tumbled from £38/£33 to £25; the other two-thirds of the seats to a mere £10 - fractionally more than the price of a West End cinema ticket. "

How could he do it?

"Financially he was able to do this thanks to a combination of private sponsorship (£1m over three years from Travelex), canny application of a £14.8m Arts Council grant and stringent budgeting in the production/design department. But it was still a considerable gamble, requiring at least 75% capacity (Hytner hinted as much as 100% in an interview with the Guardian last year) over the difficult summer months to be viable."

Again, the model is tough and there's a huge Catch 22, with an extra caveat: it can only cut prices if it brings in audience, and it can only bring in audiences if it cuts prices AND produces great, popularly appealing theatre.

But maybe it's time for a huge push from both government and private sponsors to focus on grants and programs that cut prices. What's the point of doing good work if people can't afford to see it even if they want to?

For additional reading, there's a good summary of why making theatre's so expensive and other issues in this Cleveland Plain Dealer piece.

And news from Hartford that arts groups are teaming to offer inexpensive subscriptions. I still think subscription cuts are not enough; to build a theatre habit, we need to make theatre affordable as an impulse choice.

The Poetics of Plagiarism

2004-11-18T06:05:00.000-08:00

Malcolm Gladwell has a wonderful article in "The New Yorker" this week. It's about the plagiarism accusations surrounding Byrony Lavery's serial-killer play, "Frozen."

Lavery has been accused of "stealing" material from Gladwell's "New Yorker" profile on therapist Dorothy Lewis, who's suing Lavery. After a clear contemplation on copyright law in general, the piece moves into a meeting between Gladwell and Lavery, where Lavery apologizes and then discusses all the different fact-based inspirations for her play. It's an insightful look at the creative playwriting process itself, and it certainly counter-acts previous articles about Lewis's lawsuit.

What goes unsaid is that Gladwell has borrowed a bit from the structure of "Frozen," which also climaxes with a scene between a victim and perpertrator. It's a great essay: personal, thoughtful, and moving.

The Not-so-odd Couple

2004-11-17T19:48:00.000-08:00

News has arrived that Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick will re-team for a revival of "The Odd Couple."

I'll see Lane in anything; he's one of those very special performers who plays 2 or 3 different emotions or reactions all at the same time, and makes it absolutely effortless.

So no offense is intended when I ask: aren't they both Felixes?

Raised Elsewhere

2004-11-17T06:44:00.000-08:00

The Public Theatre is set to announce that Oskar Eustis will replace George Wolfe as the institution's next artistic director. Eustis is a much-admired figure in the regional theatre, having lead the development of "Angels in America" while he was at the Eureka in CA, and having successfully rescued Trinity Rep in Providence, RI after its painful mismatch with Anne Bogart.

I've noted earlier that our theatre nationally is at a point of transition, and new leaders are beginning to be identified. Gordon Davidson, the father of theatre in Los Angeles, is retiring, to be replaced by Williamstown's Michael Ritchie. James Bundy, formerly of the Great Lakes Theatre Festival, is now heading Yale School of Drama/Yale Rep. Doug Hughes, formerly of the Long Wharf in New Haven, was mentioned positively for the Public job and seems to have declined it due to a busy directing schedule.

What's my point? Notice that all those I've named are people who have grown up, artistically anyway, in the regional theatres outside New York. Sure, there are leaders in NY, too: James Nicola of New York Theatre Workshop and Moises Kaufman were also mentioned for the Public job, and there's Todd Haimes at the Roundabout and Lynn Meadows at Manhattan Theatre Club. But the regional theatres are the ones breeding the next generation of artistic manager/leaders.

Also note that this doesn't seem to bother New Yorkers a bit. I haven't seen a peep of provincialism in any news story yet. I'll keep an eye out for it.

A Praiseworthy "Pericles"

2004-11-16T18:06:00.000-08:00

Peter Marks in The Washington Post loves the new production of "Pericles" at D.C.'s Shakespeare Theatre, directed by Mary Zimmerman. Like many others, I was a fan of Zimmerman's "Metamorphoses," although more the direction than the adaptation of Ovid's tales. I've been hoping she'd apply her creativity to classics, and this sure sounds exciting:

"Zimmerman, a Chicago-based director who won a Tony for her shimmering adaptation of Ovid's 'Metamorphoses,' has talked of being drawn to the works of Shakespeare and others that are considered lesser achievements. Like some sort of faith healer, she is liberated, it appears, by the challenge of making the theatrically lame walk again. Her imaginative fingerprints are all over this staging, and not in the smudgy way that some directors like to add gratuitous sight gags and self-conscious pop-cultural references.

No, what Zimmerman discovers is a real beating heart for 'Pericles,' and a smart and fluid new way to tell a bumpy story....

The director, making her Shakespeare Theatre debut, builds up to the beauty of this storybook ending with a child's plaything of a 'Pericles,' coated from start to finish in warm colors and beguiling images. [Daniel] Ostling's superb set puts 'Pericles' in a towering room with a massive vertical window; all during the play, faces and model ships and goddesses peer in and sail by and fly through the window. Adding to the sense of a magical playroom is a wall of drawers and cabinets, out of which cast members pull props and bits of scenery, such as the fabrics used to suggest stormy ocean swells and virginal bridal beds."

I've seen a couple of decent productions of "Pericles," but never a great one. This is one I'd like to see.

Something to Say

2004-11-16T07:05:00.000-08:00

I was struck by Mark Swed's opening paragraphs in his LA Times review of "Caroline, or Change," the Tony Kushner-Jeanine Tesori musical that has managed to travel, at least to the west coast, despite an unsuccessful Broadway run. The show has garnered very mixed reviews, with a general sense that it's lacking in entertainment value, but has something profound to say. Swed hits that latter point hard:

"At last, a musical, a big ticket musical, a big ticket Broadway musical not by Sondheim, a big ticket Broadway musical not by Sondheim at the Ahmanson Theatre that means something, that's important, that demands attention, that says, yes, the musical is not dead, has not been entirely consumed by a bloated, creativity-smothering, Disney-occupied, tourist-coddling culture of a no-longer-great Great White Way.

'Caroline, or Change' is that important, big, meaningful musical not by Sondheim that demands your attention.

And it isn't even based upon a trite movie."

Swed is the classical music and opera critic at the LA Times. The paper hasn't had a lead theatre critic since Michael Phillips left for the Chicago Tribune 3 years ago. (Full disclosure: I was a "finalist" for the job before I moved to Philadelphia -- I'm not sure what it means when you're a finalist for about 6 months for a job that never gets filled.) The overwhelming majority of the Times' theatre reviews, written by a group of staffers and freelancers, are utter milquetoast. They should give Swed the job for good. He might be a little over-the-top (what about The Lion King, which certainly wasn't 'creativity-smothering'?), but the biggest paper in the second biggest city needs to have a real voice on theatre -- and not a bland committee.

"Highest Yellow" Highs and Lows

2004-11-15T19:23:00.000-08:00

Peter Marks in The Washington Post reviews Michael John LaChiusa's new musical about Vincent Van Gogh. It reads like a classic fair-minded assessment, with a thoughtful consideration on what keeps the show from taking off:

"The excitement [Marc] Kudisch [as Van Gogh] generates in the part is a valuable commodity, because little else in this noble effort musters anything like it. LaChiusa -- creator of such art-house musicals as "Marie Christine," a modernized "Medea" and "The Wild Party," which sets to music the Jazz Age poem of the same title -- does not have a problem conveying emotion in his compositions; although often written in tight rhymes, they express feeling in a cascading, stream-of-consciousness sort of way. The difficulty arises in the undifferentiated manner in which the characters sing to themselves and to one another. In 'The Highest Yellow,' the sense of a cast of seven performing in one voice traps the enterprise in an all-too-uniform emotional orbit. "

Die, Reality TV, Die!!

2004-11-15T08:40:00.000-08:00

Could it finally be happening? I know it's inevitable, but it has taken forever. Could Reality TV finally be dying? From the Los Angeles Times:

"Back for another round of stage-whispered cattiness and 'final rose' ceremonies with new contestants this fall, 'The Bachelor' has lost a third of its audience compared with last season, averaging just 8.3-million viewers — fewer than the number who tune in to the Wednesday version of the CBS newsmagazine "60 Minutes."

It's just one more bit of tarnish on TV's once-gilded reality boom, which has produced such monster hits as CBS' 'Survivor' and Fox's 'American Idol.' Two other unscripted staples, NBC's 'Apprentice 2' with Donald Trump and the gross-out contest 'Fear Factor,' have likewise suffered double-digit declines this fall, although both still perform respectably in their time slots."

While I get as much guilty pleasure from "Survivor" and "American Idol" as the next guy, this fad has been truly dreadful for television as a dramatic art. Clearly reality TV won't completely disappear, but may its decline be hasty and permanent!

The Boston Binge

2004-11-15T07:36:00.000-08:00

Very interesting article from the Boston Globe about the city's recent surge in new theatrical spaces, and concerns about whether people will fill the seats.

This is soon going to become a national concern. During the 90s, many regional theatres and arts organizations were flush with cash and started a building binge: new theatres replacing old ones (the Guthrie, for example); second spaces for established theatres (the Kirk Douglas in L.A., an extension of Center Theatre Group); and big new multi-purpose art houses (Houston's Hobby Center -- an awful monstrosity, by the way).

This is one big reason that the ACT in Seattle almost collapsed financially -- they couldn't support the costs of their new space.

I believe strongly that we're in a very important transition period nationally. Theatres are experiencing growing pains, the artistic leadership is changing over to the next generation, philanthropy is under stress. I'm optimistic that creativity will prevail, but these are indeed interesting times.

"Gem" Watch II

2004-11-15T06:38:00.000-08:00

I've been traveling a lot lately, but have been trying to keep an eye out for news on "Gem of the Ocean," the August Wilson play that's in deep financial trouble before it's even opened. There was a real dearth of news, as producers scrambled for cash. They seem to have found some from Carole Shorenstein Hays in San Francisco. Story is here.

Before the apparent, daring rescue effort of Ms. Hays, Robert Hofler in Variety noted the following:

"Meanwhile, the Nov. 11 preem for 'Gem of the Ocean' came and went with no new August Wilson play on Broadway. While some proclaimed it the end of the straight play on Broadway, it actually looks more like the end of producing as a charitable activity."

More and more, it seems, how this drama plays out (double-entendre intended!) will have serious ripple effects.

"Gem" Watch

2004-11-03T06:10:00.000-08:00

The Broadway production of August Wilson's "Gem of the Ocean" remains in question. Previous post on the problem is here. Now previews have been delayed 2 weeks as new investors are sought. I hope they can pull this off. Here's the link for the latest Variety story.

It's a Hard Knock Life

2004-11-02T12:46:00.000-08:00

Nelson Pressley has a feature in The Washington Post on the long gestation of Michael John LaChiusa's new musical about Van Gogh, "The Highest Yellow," which is premiering at the Signature Theatre in D.C. The piece nicely sums up LaChiusa's career to this point.

On Election Day

2004-11-02T08:00:00.000-08:00

Today is election day, and I just voted. I'm a political junkie, but I've made a conscious (and difficult) decision not to turn this into a political blog. I'm too much of an amateur in that realm.

However, since today is all about politics and the voice of democracy, it's certainly appropriate to note the recent flood of political plays.

Now, I can hear my old criticism instructor, the great Richard Gilman, asking: "Do you mean politics in the theatre or politics of the theatre?" In other words, am I talking about plays that directly relate to partisan politics or deal directly with political issues, or those that take on politics in a less direct way (Brecht's plays for example, which are political in so many ways but are not necessarily issue-driven or partisan).

In this case, I mean politics in the theatre -- straight-on depictions of politicians and politically charged events.

The list is long, and I won't mention (OK, I will) Michael Frayn's "Democracy," which is about the former German chancellor Willy Brandt. It's quite a fine play, a hit in London and on its way to NYC. There's a nice little distance to it though. It's about politics, but isn't all that political.

But if you haven't been following this obvious trend, check out this list:

Tony Kushner has written a play with Laura Bush as the main character. It's called, "Only We Who Guard the Mystery Shall Be Unhappy." It received starry readings in NY. There's a great description in The Hartford Courant about a scene that depicts Laura Bush arguing with Kushner directly. Kushner really is our modern-day Shaw.

David Hare's play about Bush, Tony Blair, and the lead-up to the Iraqi war, called "Stuff Happens," has been a huge hit in London. Ben Brantley wrote about the recent trend in political plays in this past weekend's NY Times.

Sam Shepard has a new play (an event in itself) that he worked hard to get produced before the election -- it started previews on Halloween. According to the description at Theatremania.com, "the play follows the travails of a quiet Midwestern couple whose lives -- and cattle -- are sorely abused after the arrival of a nefarious government official." It's called "The God of Hell."

These are all major playwrights, taking on the big topics of the day, and that's exciting.

And, in case you were waiting for a play about Abu Ghraib, here's the first one I've heard of, a monologue written by Canadian Judith Thompson about Lynndie England, the woman at the center of the scandal.

There's many more, but that will suffice. The current politics have seriously engaged the electorate, and seriously engaged some serious theatre artists.

If theatre still matters, it's got to take on the issues that matter to people.

Broadway Idol-atry

2004-11-01T03:54:00.000-08:00

Variety's Robert Hofler has a piece on "American Idol" singers heading to Broadway, mentioning the tendency to compare "Brooklyn" to "Idol." Personally, whenver I see Clay Aiken, I think: why isn't he playing Seymour in "Little Shop of Horrors?"

9/11: The TV Movie

2004-10-30T09:10:00.000-07:00

While the news is dominated by the appearance of the Osama Bin Laden videotape that has emerged pre-election, my eyes (and imagination) have been captured by this announcement that ABC and NBC are developing TV versions of 9/11, based on the 9/11 Commission Report.

The creative force behind the NBC version is Graham Yost, a versatile figure who's been involved with series TV ("Boomtown"), film ("Speed"), and high quality minis ("From the Earth to the Moon," "Band of Brothers"). No news yet on who will take on the ABC project.

Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine.com sees horror:

"Please, no.

There are so many reasons not to:

It's too soon.

It's exploitive.

It's another effort to enshrine the 9/11 Commission report as gospel. It isn't.

There hasn't been a decent miniseries in decades and the thought of turning this national tragedy into network kitsch is unbearable."

I can't argue with Jarvis's fear of kitsch. He's making an assumption it will be done badly.

I share the fear but also hold out some respectful hope.

Basically, as an initial reaction, I think a high-quality telefilm based on the 9/11 Commission report would be a potentially compelling, dramatic piece. There's no reason, based on the small-screen medium itself or the immediacy of the historical moment, why it can't be an artistic high-point in television. My sense is the public (I include myself) still really doesn't understand the 9/11 plot, and I think this could be eye-opening.

It could potentially play against the arch simplicity of politics -- the portrayal of the hijackers as simply inhuman barbarians with no motivation in life other than to sow death and destruction -- by forcing us into the minds, and potentially, the deeper motivations of the hijackers.

That doesn't mean I sympathize with the hijackers or their cause, or want to; it means that I believe we haven't come to terms with the fact that they were human beings, who for some reason that we seem unwilling to contemplate, offered to sacrifice their lives for a cause they deemed larger than themselves. Sure, some of these causes were probably individual and psychological, but the movie would have to take on some under-explored geo-politics.

It is one of the great purposes of the dramatic arts to get inside the heads of people we can't otherwise understand and help us see another point of view. NOT necessarily to sympathize with or, or identify with it, but to understand it so we can fight against it. It's worth remembering the oldest surviving play in the western canon, Aeschylus's "The Persians," is told from the point of view not of Aeschylus's Greeks, but from their enemy's.

That said, I'd feel a lot better if HBO were doing this than the networks. I'm deeply concerned about the commercial (advertiser) issues and how the networks will want to water down certain elements. Even more importantly, though, I've been thinking about the artistic/structural considerations of this for network TV. (I worked in television development, with an emphasis on network TV movies, for 5 years in the late 90s, before writing TV and theatre reviews for Variety.)

First, network TV movies are based on a 7-act structure -- that means they're divided into 7 narrative chunks broken up by commercial breaks. Each "act" should end with a "button," or a climactic, hopefully suspenseful moment that will bring people back after the break. The biggest "button" should come at the end of the 3rd act, which would usually happen at the half-way point -- the hour break. For mini-series, of course, there needs to be a big "button" at the end of each 2-hour episode (the typical length).

Along with the commercial necessity of avoiding controversy (or, at least, avoiding the wrong type of controversy, a la CBS's "Reagan" movie which the network had to shelve), this formulaic 7-act structure is what could force the story into simplistic beats, and bring Jarvis's fears of kitsch to fruition. I can imagine rather easily that the buttons will be based on moments that present a possible alternative reality -- in other words, moments that could have meant 9/11 never happened. If the potential political controversy of this makes it too hot to handle, then the writers will have to opt for more blatantly emotional "buttons," with the following of innocents going to work at the towers, saying goodbye to relatives they'll never see again, etc.

One of the main reasons HBO films are superior to network ones is because they don't have to be broken up into such frequent mini-climaxes. (I don't mean to diss Showtime, but they produce so many more original films than HBO, and typically spend so much less on creating them, that while some are good the quality of their product is generally inferior.) They can focus more on historical sweep, narratives that build more slowly, greater character development, etc. Certainly, there's the subscription audience issue, too, but the issues of craft are significant.

I'm sure that one of the conversations being had behind closed network doors is the portrayal of the Arabs in the film. They won't want the hijackers or Al Qaeda figures to be the only ones there -- they'll want a counter-balance to the depictions of Arabs and Muslims as killers. The question is whether this will come off as a token figure.

The first thing I'd like to hear from the networks is that they'll be having at least some of the picture happen in foreign languages, including Arabic, with subtitles. While this presents all sorts of issues in and of itself, at least it would signal that the networks are putting considerations of both craft and reality above purely commercial ones.

I'm also waiting to hear what the networks say the films will be "about." The thematic drive behind the films will be essential. For example, a movie about 9/11 that's "about" how it didn't have to happen and could have been prevented is one kind of movie. That story is certainly there, and would be fairly predictable. Or it could be "about" why some people hate America so much and how they've been deceived into doing so -- it could be "about" brainwashing and its causes and consequences. It could be "about" what Americans value and how that may have changed permanently during the events of 9/11. There are many more possible "abouts," and one of the first things the networks will need to do is determine which story they really want to tell.

Funding Fiasco?

2004-10-28T08:16:00.000-07:00

The funding problems bedeviling Broadway, mentioned in this post earlier, now threaten to bring down the much-anticipated opening of August Wilson's "Gem of the Ocean."

Apparently, over half of the $2.3 million capitalization has fallen out, although none of the articles mentions the specific investors.

Producer Ben Mordecai has agreed to step aside to seek help from some big-name competitors.

I'm a bit troubled by Michael Riedel's piece in The Post, which labels Mordecai as a producer "with a history of financial problems on Broadway."

Mordecai has certainly had his fair share of flops, including Wilson's last, "King Hedley II," and the re-written "Flower Drum Song." And I can't claim any knowledge of the current situation. But let's be very clear here: Ben Mordecai is a leading theatrical producer, and not some seedy Max Bialystock. Maybe Riedel didn't intend the innuendo, but it certainly comes through.

Mordecai for years has run the management program at Yale Drama School. I'm an alum and encounter Mordecai every once in a while. I don't know him well, but have never sniffed even a scent of scandal surrounding him. I feel very comfortable saying that, without further info, he deserves sympathy for the current situation, rather than Riedel's implications of fraud.

Bombs Thrown at "Brooklyn"

2004-10-28T07:45:00.000-07:00

Goodness.

You know a show is in for it when a review begins, "Oh dear."

I should have been more blatant in my predictions. I saw it coming, this plethora of painful ponderings on the overwhelming sentimentality of the show "Brooklyn: The Musical."

David Rooney in Variety:

"Oh dear. The caterwauling vocal calisthenics that are de rigueur among 'American Idol' contestants have planted their demon seed on Broadway in 'Brooklyn, The Musical,' a series of overwrought white-bread gospel ballads strung together in search of a book."

As predicted, Rooney was not the only critic to mention "American Idol" in discussing the show's tendency toward stop-the-story-and-belt-like-crazy pop songs. This is exacerbated since the show's story leads up to a sing-off at Madison Square Garden between the main character, the sweet, innocent Brooklyn (Eden Espinosa), and her nemesis Paradice (Ramona Keller).

Ben Brantley at The Times calls the show "loud and gooey," then puts it in context. I like his comparison to "Pippin;" I hadn't thought of it, and it's right on target:

"A tale told by street folk of 'family, fame, faith and fate,' as the script has it, 'Brooklyn' is in many ways a throwback to the quaint, simple and whimsy-laden little musicals that first blossomed Off Broadway and then sneaked into the mainstream in the late 1960's and the early 70's. Try to imagine 'Hair' without the dirty parts and with more goopy songs like 'Good Morning Starshine,' or a secular 'Godspell,' with a bittersweet sprinkling of Jacques Brel-esque romance.

"Now throw in a helping of funky disco à la LaBelle and a soupçon of Motown as it was reinterpreted in the 1981 musical 'Dreamgirls.' Filter the whole thing through the throat-stretching, note-holding, eardrum-testing vocal pyrotechnics of 'American Idol,' and you've got 'Brooklyn the Musical.' If the idea of such an amalgamation appeals to you, you're welcome to it. If not, you may find yourself feeling like a cranky commuter in a subway car, trapped with a perky team of harmonizers who say they just want to leave you with a smile on your face."

If it's possible, Eric Grode at Broadway.com is even less kind, expressing a certain embarrassment at having to sit through such an evening. Note again, another "Idol" reference.

"This misbegotten hybrid of Brecht, story theater, Amelie and American Idol fails so dismally on so many levels that the prevailing impulse is to look away from the stage."

Brantley is the only critic to dismiss Tobin Ost's costumes. He felt they were too much like Halloween costumes. Others found at least something of a saving grace in them. Here's Linda Winer in Newsday:

"The costumes, created from garbage by Tobin Ost, are a hoot, especially the diva's gown made of crime-scene tape."

Rooney liked them too:

"Urban refuse is used cleverly in the props department and even more so in the inventive costumes, the high point of the show's design. Tobin Ost's imaginative creations supply the only steady source of wit, most notably in Paradice's glamazon ensemble of trash bags, crime-scene tape and bubble wrap ('I call this Salvation Armani). "

Howard Kissell in The Daily News is even kind enough to lead with a comment on the costumes, although he gets in his overall negative appraisal in between the set-up for the compliment and the compliment itself.

"Four years have passed since "Cats" closed. For all those who yearn for another musical that takes place on a garbage-strewn set, there's now 'Brooklyn, the Musical.'

"In terms of book and score, both by Mark Schoenfeld and Barri McPherson, 'Brooklyn' is entirely synthetic, its plot a series of showbiz clichés, its music similarly generic.

"But in its use of garbage, 'Brooklyn' takes refuse to new levels, especially in its use of trash in costume design."

In Newsweek, Marc Peyser disses, then sums up what's to like:

"...'Brooklyn' is [not] without its charms. Eden Espinosa (Brooklyn) and Ramona Keller (Paradice) are rafter-shaking singers who, unlike so many belters in the 'Idol' era, know how to heat up a song slowly before letting it boil. They almost make you feel something for their cardboard characters. And their outfits are a hoot."

In case you're counting, that's 2 "hoots" for Ost.

Director Jeff Calhoun doesn't fare so well as the cast or the costumer, which is the one thing I found surprising. Despite being given sporadic credit for energizing the show, the critics mostly note he existed, then ignore him. Perhaps because they can't quite forgive him for shepherding the show in the first place.

There is, though, one exception to all this, a kinder, gentler critic, one who admits that he can't say he really liked the show, but thinks others will. He doesn't even deride its sappiness:

"A banner musical unites its audience; Brooklyn, I think, divides it. Those under 30 should groove on its pop accessibility, those over 60 be mostly left cold. Much will depend on the swing voters between those ages. I myself am left bemused by the show, but would hate to spoil the fun of the amused.

Brooklyn belongs to a genre characterized by less sophistication, less complex melody and harmony, more demotic language, looser rhyming, in-your-face attitudes, and rampant reiteration.... If you’re not very young, your choice is cooptation or resistance—having no pride, or getting no satisfaction. But let’s not be too judgmental: The ultimate verdict belongs to history."

Who is this non-judgmental theatre critic? None other than the notoriously negative John Simon in New York Magazine.

"Bare" Has Trouble Exposing Itself

2004-10-20T05:53:00.000-07:00

A bit of surprising news, and something of a disturbing trend. There seems to be real trouble with funding of some commercial shows: even when the money seems to be there, it isn't. Last week, there was an announcement that a group of Canadian investors in shows like "Brooklyn" couldn't come up with promised cash. Now, there's the apparently out-of-the-blue news of the cancellation of the off-Broadway show "Bare: A Pop Opera."

This is a show that premiered in L.A. and became a big small-theatre hit there. George Wolfe expressed interest in the show for the Public, but that didn't work out, and the show played at a tiny off-off-Broadway house and sold well. Dodger Theatricals picked it up for their new mid-town, mid-size space.

The show actually has quite a bit in common with "Brooklyn." It's another highly sentimental, sung-though show, but with a passionate score (and an amusingly informational subtitle). To be honest, I thought it was rather absurdly over-rated in Los Angeles, in part because of its tragic treatment of its gay subject matter -- it's a love story between two teenage boys at a Catholic school. As with "Brooklyn," though, my own sap-o-meter doesn't reflect general audience tastes, and it was clear the show really struck a chord with a young crowd. I also got to know the composer, Damon Intrabartolo, a little. I was clear about my reservations regarding the show (I told him that if I reviewed it, I would have lead with, "What hath Rent wrought?"), but also expressed honestly that the show demonstrated genuine talent. As with "Brooklyn," I was pulling for the show even if I thought it was going to face some serious obstacles.

Good luck to it. It's a real shame it's not getting a chance to be judged on its merits.

"Brooklyn" to Bow

2004-10-20T05:48:00.000-07:00

I've commented previously and at length on "Brooklyn: The Musical" below. Tomorrow, we'll see if my analysis of its reception is accurate, as the NY critics weigh in. This Denver Post story is worth reading, and I'm glad to hear Jeff Calhoun say that about a quarter of the book has been revised.

"'People loved the talent in the show, but there was some confusion in the storytelling, and we've addressed that,' said Calhoun. 'A lot of it has been establishing whose point of view this story is coming from. And just that has added such very serious overtones that you'll no longer feel it's been Disneyfied in any way. Some depth was missing in Denver, but it has become a complete story that really seems to be moving people.'"

I should note that the show moved people in Denver too, just a bit too sappily. Again, I'm very curious to see how hardened NY critics respond to the show's emotionality.

Cirque du Vegas, Part I

2004-10-16T13:43:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in a brief blog earlier, I've been spending a lot of time in Vegas, which is beginning to play a larger and larger role in the business of theatrical entertainment, particularly with the announcement that "Avenue Q" would bypass a road production and sit down in Steve Wynn's new casino. Vegas has historically been tough territory for traditional Broadway shows, although recently "Mamma Mia!" has managed to break through at Mandalay Bay, and, as the "Avenue Q" plan suggests, hotels are looking for more. A 90-minute version of "Phantom of the Opera," for example, is on its way to the Venetian.

But all of these shows need to contend with the dominant theatrical force in Vegas, Cirque du Soleil. I don't really think you can under-estimate the influence Cirque du Soleil has had on Las Vegas. Dishing out a series of sit-down shows for over a decade, Cirque now commands serious attention, and serious money, on the Strip, a place where something like 37 million people descend every year. The Mirage is planning to spend $100 million -- I didn't add any zeroes there! -- on a new Cirque show featuring music of The Beatles.

A brief history: Cirque du Soleil was there when Vegas tried to appeal to families during the late 80s and early 90s, with its first eponymous Vegas show and then "Mystere" at Treasure Island, and the shows' success maybe even spurred the trend. When Vegas discovered that the high arts co-existed with Sin City, Cirque delivered "O" at the Bellagio -- an Esther Williams meets Robert Wilson spectacular that remains the pinnacle of their achievements. When Vegas, in the last few years, went back to marketing itself as a haven of hedonism, Cirque followed suit with "Zumanity" at New York New York, although both artistically and commercially the show hasn't quite played as well as the others.

Why has Cirque been successful when so many other theatre shows have not? There are a number of reasons, but it ultimately boils down to the fact that Cirque and Vegas are a phenomenal fit.

Cirque du Soleil is not a niche show, but has as broad an appeal as any show I can think of. It's abstract and yet mainstream. It's about great acrobatics, and beautiful stage imagery. It requires NO knowledge of English -- until "Zumanity," it used created languages for its songs. (That really can't be under-estimated in a city that draws this number of international visitors.) It's for kids and adults and seniors (again, except "Zumanity," which is overtly sexual).

The shows are easily made to fit the needs of its hosts: a Broadway theatre wants an intermission so it can sell concessions; A Vegas theatre wants no intermission, wants people in and out in no more than 90 minutes so they can go back to the slot machines and game tables. That's why "The Phantom of the Opera" will be cut down. (I should also note, however, that "Mamma Mia!" is a big hit at its regular 2.5 hours length with a break -- still, from the hotel's perspective, an hour less gambling time....)

The question now is, can Cirque keep delivering? Can it keep creating that signature blend of entertainment -- a wondrous mix of abstract high art and sheer mainstream entertainment -- without falling into predictable formula and losing its lustre?

More thoughts on the subject to come as Cirque turns to an offbeat theatre artist, a greater effort at narrative, and gets on the rock-and-roll nostalgia bandwagon.

Life Imitating Art

2004-10-15T19:44:00.000-07:00

OK, this is funny. Weird funny, but funny. It's a picture of NJ soon-to-be-ex Gov. Jim ("I'm a gay American") McGreevey with the puppet Rod from "Avenue Q". If you haven't seen the show, Rod (a take-off on Burt of Burt and Ernie) is a closet case who sings about his non-existent girlfriend in Canada.

Cirque du Sergeant Pepper?

2004-10-15T05:56:00.000-07:00

Cirque du Soleil will be creating a new show based on Beatles music for the Mirage in Las Vegas. Lots to talk about here, as I've been spending quite a bit of time in Vegas lately. More later.

Will "Brooklyn" Be Welcomed?

2004-10-14T07:27:00.000-07:00

I saw the workshop production of "Brooklyn: the Musical" (a title that still makes me giggle a little) in Denver last year, and reviewed it for Variety (this is a subscription site, but you can sign up for a free trial). I'm very curious to see how it will be received on Broadway.

I think it's fair to predict that the reviews will be mixed, but I'm curious how the critics will balance their evaluations. I know some work has been done on the show since Denver, but I still expect its pros and cons to be easily identifiable. The question is whether the positives will win over the writers, or whether the obvious flaws will overwhelm any enthusiasm.

The Pros:

1. Jeff Calhoun's direction. Calhoun is a choreographer-cum-director, and he's been finding great ways to energize a production with expressive movement (not dance). His deaf-theatre production of "Big River" was fantastic; signing was used in a way that made it seem people were singing even when they weren't. The production took what is really a mediocre musical and made it something unique and thoroughly enjoyable. (I had the pleasure of seeing his first experiment with this, a deaf-theatre production of "Oliver!", which was also excellent.) With "Brooklyn," there's no signing, but the show never stops moving, as a group of street performers "act out" a play-within-a-play. This set-up gives Calhoun the opportunity to use all sorts of found objects to create new spaces and settings. He really is an exciting director. Expressiveness is the key word -- he's always seeking new uses of physicality to impact the audience emotionally. If this show works, he's why.

2. Tobin Ost's costumes will win the Tony. Full stop. But that nod to an artistically questionable award does not do justice here. I gotta tell you, I can't think of another show where a year later, I still think about the costumes, two gowns in particular: one made of bubble wrap, the other of a garbage bag and "Caution" tape. I consider myself a constrained critic who tries fairly hard not to over-praise, although I've been guilty occasionally. I wasn't when I wrote: "It's the most inventive costume design I've ever seen or hope to see." Other critics will agree.

3. Eden Espinosa's singing and Ramona Keller's acting and singing. They both have booming voices; Keller has the much better role as a love-to-hate semi-villainess. I predict that, as I did in my review, at least one critic, and probably more, will mention "American Idol." The story-telling does come to a standstill for many of the songs, which have rather predictable but effective poppish crescendoes (more in a moment on the score). The singers really do get to command the stage and show off. In Denver, in a much smaller house, there was lots of applause in the middle of songs, and it did feel sometimes like Simon Callow's best-of Idol performances. That's good for the audiences, maybe not quite as good for the critics.

Pro/Con:

The Score. How the critics respond to Mark Schoenfeld and Barri McPherson's score will likely be the determining factor. It's got some catchy tunes, but at least in Denver certain melodic threads get repeated mercilessly. No question, some effective, and affecting, songs, and lots of pop passion, but as a whole I was definitely on-the-fence about the score and I'll be very curious to see other opinions. The best musicals have stories and music that advance one another; here the story is mostly an excuse to the set up the songs (see cons), which aren't narrative but descriptive. They express a characters' feelings, but don't advance the plot. Which brings us to...

Cons:

1. The story. The frame, the idea of street performers acting out a "sidewalk fairy tale," works, thanks to Calhoun. But the tale they tell was very raw in the workshop production, and I hope it has improved. It starts out OK, but gets rather silly and abstract towards the end. Throughout, it always exposes...

2. An unbridled sentimentality. This show will be more popular with audiences than with critics; there's really no question about that. This show is very emotional, which is good, but it's also gooey. Critics who don't get turned off by its thick servings of sauce, or at least don't get theatrical heartburn, will be far more likely to spin everything positively.

Bernal in "Blood Wedding"

2004-10-13T18:05:00.000-07:00

I don't plan for this blog to be a repository of casting info, but I was excited by the news that Gael Garcia Bernal, the very hot (choose the meaning you prefer) Latino movie star of "Y Tu Mama Tambien" fame, will star in a stage production of Lorca's "Blood Wedding" in London.

I'm a big Lorca fan, but his work is very hard to do well. "Blood Wedding" most of all needs to have real sexiness or it just doesn't work.

The deeper issue that I do plan to write about more is simply the power of celebrity, and how it can affect productions, both positively and negatively. Let me start with the simple statement that I think more movie stars should be doing theatre more regularly: it would be good for the theatre, and good for the film world too. One of the real inhibiting factors of our nation's theatre is that the film and television world is based 3,000 miles away from the theatre mecca of NYC.

"Blood Wedding" will happen in London, but no matter: I'm happy to see Bernal's name, his sex appeal, and his image as the actor with a poetic soul, adding excitement to a production of Lorca. Seems like a very good fit.

Is What You Get What You See?

2004-10-13T08:09:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed this piece in the Daily News evaluating the publicity posters for upcoming Broadway shows.

Miller Time

2004-10-12T21:21:00.000-07:00

There seems to be a fairly negative critical consensus on Arthur Miller's newest play, "Finishing the Picture," which recently opened at Chicago's Goodman Theatre, but the critics don't seem quite comfortable coming out and saying it in forthright fashion. Aside from Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal, who calls the play "horrible," the critics work hard to be respectful to Miller. Hedy Weiss in the Chicago Sun-Times sums up why:

"At 89, and with a golden legacy of plays behind him, Miller has the right to do pretty much anything he pleases and have it staged in splendor. "

And the draw of a new Miller play about Marilyn Monroe, with a cast that includes Matthew Modine (who gets hammered for being "wooden" in the reviews), Linda Lavin (becoming a genuine stage luminary) and Stacy Keach, has enough public appeal to have prompted a week's extension of its Goodman run. Chris Jones in Variety thinks the play's "voyeuristic, gossipy appeal" even gives it a chance for a Broadway transfer, although he carefully suggests that the play isn't ready artistically.

Although they have praise for director Robert Falls, the critics uniformly consider the play slow, using words like "static" and "draggy."

The play is clearly based on the troubled filming of the Miller-written "The Misfits," and Jones synopsizes the plot this way:

"This is a play about what happens when an important woman will not get out of bed. Pure and simple. All pass the [first] act asking the question 'Why won't she get up' time after time, except when they can be found asking the other question of the night: 'What can we do to make her get up?'

In the second act, we see [the Monroe character] Kitty naked in bed, maybe getting up, maybe not. "

For Jones, the ultimate success of this play rests on whether such a non-plot rises to the level of allegory. He and the other critics are dubious about that.

Kitty barely speaks, and the critics all seem to note that Miller's treatment of his former wife Monroe is typical rather than enlightening in any way. Ben Brantley, who, after Teachout, writes the most consistently negative notice in The New York Times, comments:

"This latest offering from America's most eminent living playwright for the most part floats passively in the usual mists of mythologies.... [T]heatergoers interested in gimlet-eyed looks at either Mr. Miller's relationship with Monroe or the making of a legendary flop would do better to consult film biographies. This play's window on the past is not clouded by prurience, but it does not provide much in the way of illumination either."

And Brantley wittily suggests that the Elton John/Bernie Taupin "Candle in the Wind" is superior to the plethora of clunky metaphors Miller puts in the mouths of his mouthpieces, who include satirical takes on Lee and Paula Strasberg, purveyors of the Method style of acting. Many of the critics refer to Miller's dialogue as "awkward" and rife with overblown metaphor -- more than one review specifically mentions the comparisons of Monroe to the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains as notable clunkers.

I did manage to catch Miller's last play, "Resurrection Blues," in its Minneapolis premiere a couple of years ago. It was an unsuccessful, if fitfully intriguing, mix of satire and earnestness, and based on reading these reviews, "Finishing the Picture" seems to suffer from the same competing impulses. Miller was never known for his humor, and a lot of the jokes in "Resurrection Blues" were barbs at easy targets. What surprised me about that play, and what seems somewhere buried in this work as well, was a gnawing doubt from the author, a sense that despite his willingness to dole out moral judgment, he wasn't quite as confident about what was right and wrong anymore.

With "Finishing the Picture," critics disagree on whether they prefer the earnest, contemplative, emotional Miller, digging for some elusive profundity (which seems to elude him here), or the Miller who lashes out.

Michael Phillips of The Chicago Tribune prefers the latter. Saying that the work is really three plays in one, "coexisting uneasily within the same frame," he counts the first two as the making (or unmaking) of "The Misfits"and the theme-heavy allegory on "the mystique of stardom."

"Then there's the third play, the one that works.... It's about the Strasbergs, here disguised as the Fassingers. Decked out in beautifully absurd flame-red cowboy boots..., [Stephen] Lang mixes it up to memorable results with Linda Lavin's Flora Fassinger, Kitty's coach and handler. Shrewdly written with equal parts admiration and contempt, ripely and wittily acted, these two take the stage clean away from Miller's other characters, who are given to unhealthy portions of what Flora calls 'caviar philosophy.'"

Weiss agrees:

"It is the blackly comic parade of self-satisfied and self-deluding characters of the play's first half that gives 'Finishing the Picture' whatever life it has."

On the other hand, Elysa Gardner in USA Today says the Strasberg characters "appear too cartoonish to have inspired anyone; they seem to have wandered in from a bad sitcom."

Jones appreciates the "anti-Method parody," but prefers the other Miller.

"[T]he real core of this play, ironically, lies in its most underwritten and underdirected sections: namely, the moments when the writer-husband [played by Modine] cannot save his wife because he cannot love her the way she needs. "

The critics want to like the play, and find nuggets to praise, but they all express a fundamental dissatisfaction.

Another Marquee with Meaning

2004-10-12T06:30:00.000-07:00

Following up on ideas for people to name theatres after, how about the Marlon Brando? It says, this is a theatre where great acting happens, where the experience is larger than life, and not always safe. And, yes, Brando is mostly known because of his films, but nobody did more to change acting than Brando did. The Schoenfeld title is all about competence; the Brando would be about inspiration.

All Hail the Theatre CEOs!

2004-10-11T18:50:00.000-07:00

The Shubert Organization has announced that they will name two Broadway houses after two of the Shubert's own executives, Gerald Shoenfeld and the late Bernard Jacobs. Now, I have no doubt whatsoever that these men have been fine executives, and that they've made an important contribution to the American theatre. But, naming theatres after them? It certainly says something about the current values of the Broadway theatre, that the people we honor most are not the artists but the property managers.

Charles Isherwood has it just right in the NY Times.

I don't mean to suggest that producers are not deserving of notice, or that business considerations shouldn't come into play -- maybe that's why the American Airlines Theatre made for a joke or two, but somehow didn't rise to the same level of puzzlement as the Shubert's navel-gazing decision.

I have to admit, I spent much of my teenage years going to Broadway shows, and I never did connect the names of the theatres to the theatres themselves. Tell me that a show is playing at the Royale, and I'd ask, "What played there last?" and "What street is that on?". The Playbill feature, "About This Theatre," has always been a fun pre-performance must, taking me back in time to previous experiences I'd had sitting in the same building. For long-time theatre nuts, going to a Broadway show is in part about such nostalgia.

It does seem like it would serve the Broadway theatre to brand their houses more effectively. I'd like to walk by a theatre and have its name bring back fond thoughts. Jacobs and Schoenfeld ain't gonna do it. Last year's name change at the Martin Beck, which became the Al Hirschfeld Theatre, was a smart move. Hirschfeld's name evokes a feeling, and a pleasant feeling at that.

I still haven't been to the Samuel Beckett, the mid-town off-Broadway theatre, but its very name makes me want to find a reason. OK, so Beckett's a bit rarefied -- and not exactly a Broadway stalwart -- but at least the name says, to the right crowd, that the theatre is aiming high. What does the Schoenfeld say? That you'll see a production that's been well planned, if not necessarily well-written, well-directed, or well-acted? With all due respect, impresarios they weren't.

So who would make exciting namesakes? Stephen Sondheim, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Julie Harris, Ethel Merman, Tony Randall (who tirelessly, but fruitlessly, pursued a national theatre) have all been mentioned. Many valid picks there, although for me Merman and Williams would evoke the most emotion.

In fact, think about the varied possibilities. How differently would you think of a theatre named after Edward Albee, author of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" and "The Goat," as opposed to one named for Jerry Herman, who composed "Hello Dolly" and "La Cage aux Folles"? A name can actually say something about the space, whether it's an intimate house for plays, or one built for old-fashioned, grand musicals.

If it's an in-between theatre, how about the Jonathan Larson, which would bring to mind the story of the struggling artist who wrote "Rent" and died just as he was seeing his dream come to fruition. Tragedy and triumph would suddenly attach themselves to the building.

And let's not fool ourselves that these names are permanent anyway. I've got to be honest: I don't know who Martin Beck was. If Larson and "Rent" are long forgotten in a decade or two, then fine. For now, a nod to Larson, who did in fact have a significant impact on Broadway, would be appropriate.

If one show does not a namesake make, how about the Michael Bennett, named for the director/choreographer/producer behind "A Chorus Line" and "Dreamgirls."

Heck, I'd settle for the Mel Brooks. At least I'd look at the sign and laugh a little.