Theatre of the Undead, and some Fresher (?) Fodder

I may be in the minority in this (wouldn't surprise me there), but when a writer dusts off a historic figure and plops him or her down onto the and has said historical figure just stand there and recite his or her life story, well I'm sorry, but I just find that incredibly lazy and boring. I mean what exactly is supposed to be interesting and theatrical about that? I would say 'if I was interested in this person I would have pick up a biography and read it,' but I'm aware enough to know that there are people who wouldn't think of reading a biography (which can take an investment in time of days or weeks) when a play will generally be over and done with in 90 minutes (if we're lucky). But you know, there are a lot more interesting ways to bring history to life than throwing an impersonator on stage and having go "and then I did this" for 90 to 120 minutes. You'll get the history buffs, and the people who were interested in the subject that the character is going to talk about - but what about the innocent bystanders who don't necessarily care about hearing a dry life story, but care more about seeing theatre first, educational content second. Not too too long ago (I think it was weeks, but it could have been months) I went to see a play called "The Paris Commune" about some obscure little revolution in Paris. And the creators of that show had a whole slew of actors on stage, and found an interesting way to present the story on stage through historical records and song and dance or the period, and I found myself surprisingly interested. I'm not saying all history needs to be presented as musical theatre (though that doesn't hurt), but dressing Laurence Fishburne or Mercedes Ruhl up in a period costumes, and having them recite a short biography of Thurgood Marshall or Louise Nevelson, well... unless the writer found a really interesting angle, or a really colorful way to tell the story (Doug Wright's version of the life of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf in "I Am My Own Wife" comes to mind an example of a well made solo bio play), well then you're just going to end up preaching to the choir and the rest of the audience will either be bored to tears or fall asleep, depending on the amount of caffeine in their systems.
As you may or may not have already figured out, over the past week (a week ago Friday and tonight) I went to see "Occupant" and "Thurgood." "Occupant," a rare misstep from my favorite playwright Edward Albee, is technically a two person play, about sculptor Louise Nevelson. My feeling on there being two characters in the play is that Albee couldn't figure out how to keep Nevelson on stage by herself because she (in his version) doesn't really want to tell her life story, so he plops a journalist down on stage next to her to prod her along and force her to stay on stage and feed us our history lesson. One wonders whether it would have been better if she had poisoned the journalist before the show started, so she could stay in peace in her grave and the audience could be spared her life story. I saw the play back when it premiered in I think 2002, and remember finding the first act to be almost unbearably boring, but the second act - with its big set reveal and when Nevelson finally got around to being famous - to be rather more compelling. I also remember that I considering leaving that production at intermission, but before the show I had read an interview with Albee and he mentioned something about how New Yorkers are good theatregoers and they won't abandon a play at intermission, and not wanting to disappoint him (I have a vague recollection that he was also sitting near me at the performance), I stuck around and was glad I did. Well, "Occupant" is back at the Signature, and though Mercedes Ruhl is now masterfully tackling the lead role of Nevelson (last time it was the understudy for Anne Bancroft, whose name I don't remember), and despite Ruhl's excellent performance, "The Lecture" (as the exciting monologue in the second act is referred to), remains really the only thing that interested me in the play. It happens to be a rather exciting moment, and almost actually made the play worth sitting through - but honestly, there was so much dry slog to sit through, I can't really say I would recommend it - master class in acting from Ruhl and all aside.
Possibly even more boring than "Occupant," probably because I find politics particularly boring, is "Thurgood." Laurence Fishburne stands on stage with the thin concept that he's delivering a speech to Howard College, where he went to school (the audience knows this mostly because there's a big seal for the school on the top of the proscenium - and I think it may be mentioned in one line or so), and recites his life story. I credit a grande iced coffee from Starbucks with keeping me awake. The only reason I didn't force myself to sleep is that I figured if I did indeed fall asleep I would surely miss "the good part." There's a somewhat interesting section, around an hour and fifteen minutes in, when we hear the closing arguments (both sides) in the "Brown v The Board of Education" case. Other than that though, I really couldn't have been less interested in his life story. It's basically blah blah blah racism blah blah blah segregation blah blah blah law school blah blah blah winning court cases blah blah blah why we should all be liberals. The end. Cue the standing ovation from everyone around me who thought this was the most brilliant thing ever. And cue me applauding the fact that it's finally over. This play, especially, reminded me of another play that I was alone hating in the theatre - the Golda Meir snooze-fest "Golda's Balcony." I take a lot for me to find a political figure standing on stage droning on ad nauseum interesting. I go. I believe the hype and get excited that this will finally be the show to break the tide and change my mind. And I inevitably sit there twiddling my thumbs and try to not be too obvious when checking my watch to see how much more of this I'm going to have to sit through.

On the fresher side of things (not necessarily good, just newer) we have "Saved" and "Body Awareness."

"Saved" is a new musical based on a movie I admit I've never seen and hadn't even heard of until the musical was announced. It's supposed to be a satire, I think, about a Catholic school where the jock is gay, and one of the goody goody Christian gets into a bit of a not so goody goody Christian trouble at the end of the first act. The first act was completely underwhelming. It just came across as a toothless satire, blandly told through pleasant but unmemorable songs, and attempts at jokes that I really didn't find funny. I guess with the theory that it would make the show hip, there's lot's of text messaging between characters, and references to Facebook pages and iPhones. This all seemed really forced and unnecessary, with all it really accomplishing was allowing the show to be dated faster than usual. Luckily, in the second act the attempts at humor are abandoned, and the story turns fairly serious - and actually finally interesting and moving. We get a really entertaining dream sequence/dance number there (which finally allows the wheelchair bound but insanely talented dancer Curtis Holbrook a chance to dance), and finally gives the uber-talented Julia Murney her big power ballad solo. This is one case where I'd say the many merits of the second act actually make up for the many missteps of the first. I hope the writers do some major rewriting on whatever post-Playwrights Horizons productions come its way, because there's definitely half a great show in there - now they've got to do something to pep up the rest of it.

Far less promising, and really lacking any sort of redeeming value was the interminable "Body Awareness." I went to the first preview, so I'll chalk up the fact that of the four actors, only JoBeth Williams was able to create a character that felt like more than a two-dimensional bore. In an interview with the playwright (Annie Baker) this week's issue of Time Out NY that just happened to come in my mailbox just hours before the show, and that I just happened to read, she mentions how unlike the other playwrights of her generation (Sarah Ruhl, Adam Bock) she doesn't write quirky witty plays. In fact she says she doesn't like wit, because she feels like the characters speak like they would if they had two days to think up the perfect response to each line. She wants to be more real - still quirky, but more real. That's all paraphrased, but that was the drift of the article anyway. Now despite that I've never seen an Adam Bock play I've liked, and Sarah Ruhl is two (good) out of three for me, I tend to like weird witty quirky plays. Still, I'm willing to see what a play would sound like if the characters were all more realistic. The result? If I'd thought to bring a hammer in my backpack, pulling it out and banging it against my skull for ninety minutes would have been more enjoyable. I'm not saying that characters HAVE to be weird quirky and witty - not everything has to be a zany comedy. But at least make the characters interesting. And give us some reason to care about them. And don't make them so whiny and unlikeable. And Baker may have been trying to give us real people in realistic situations, but honestly three out of the four characters felt like two-dimensional cliches (the bitchy lesbian professor, the mentally handicapped kid who does something bad because he can't control himself, and the artsy 'love your body' photographer) - granted the fourth character is a generic caring mother, but there was at least something warm and loveable about her, which was certainly not true about any of the other characters. It was the first preview of a world premiere play, so I suppose it's possible that the play may improve over the course of previews. Maybe the actors will find a way to make their characters interesting or believable as real human beings (not impossible, I guess), and maybe the playwright will just re-write the whole darn thing and turn it into something brilliant (I'm skeptical). Honestly, if she's going for real and interesting drama - I had lunch Bryant Park one day last month and eavesdropped on a conversation going on next to me where this guy was talking about how his marriage was on the rocks and he installed all of these spy programs on his wife's computer to find out who she's emailing, what her password are, and what she's doing, because he thought she was having an affair (and though probably it makes me sound really rude and creepy for listening in, but I was eating and my book wouldn't stay open and I had nothing else to divert my attention). Now THAT - that totally unscripted real life conversation - THAT was real and far more interesting than anything I saw onstage at "Body Awareness."

Oh... darn it... I meant to throw in something about "Top Girls" in here too. But I think I've just run out of steam. Suffice it to say I found it to be a creaky, dated old museum piece... the sort of piece that museums keep in the back in deep storage and pull out every now and then for special exhibitions because they're not actually interesting otherwise. I will say I read about half the script before seeing it live, and I found it much less irritating to read than to see live - once I got used to the overlapping dialogue anyway. A pretentious bore. And I kept thinking each act (there were three) would be better than the last. I was wrong. It just got worse and worse. I was mighty jealous of all the smart people who escaped at each intermission. Between "Top Girls" and "Drunk Enough To Say I Love You" - those comprising an early example and a current example of the plays of Caryl Churchill, I can honestly say she's shot right up there near the top of my list of awful overrated playwrights.

And now I'm officially finished.

Good night.

If Nautical Nonsense Be Something You Wish...

Well, the mainstream Broadway and off-Broadway venues may not be satisfying my craving for interesting new musicals, so thank goodness for kooky off-kilter theatres like the Kraine (home to "Hostage Song"), the Zipper Factory ("Inner Voices"), and now Ars Nova which is now home to "Jollyship The Whiz-Bang: A Pirate Puppet Rock Odyssey." Come to think of it, Ars Nova - which always seemed more like a venue for concerts than for theatre - has really been on a winning streak in my book, having also presented the extremely entertaining "Dixie's Tupperware Party" and "At Least It's Pink," as well as being a co-producer of "Form Up Here" (at MTC). I suppose I now should be kicking myself for not seeing "Boom" when it was there, because I probably would have liked it. Ah well. ANYWAY, I wasn't really sure whether I really wanted to see "Jollyship Whiz-Bang" - I listened to some of the music tracks on their myspace page, and sort of got the impression this wasn't going to be the show for me. But the allure of a pirate, puppet, rock musical was just too strong, and so I booked a ticket anyway. I can certainly understand that this show won't be to everyone's taste, but I have an extremely strange sense of humor, and this show was definitely right up my alley. I was trying to think of something to compare the show to, but I haven't been able to think of any one show that's similar - it has the rock band performs a musical sensibility of "Striking 12" (the Groovelily "Little Matchgirl" musical), the wacky humor of "The Forbidden Zone" (the bizarre Oingo Boingo movie musical, one of my favorite guilty pleasures), and the nautical nonsense of "Spongebob Squarepants." As far as the puppets go, they're more in the vein of something like Punch & Judy (though with mouths that open and close) than Sesame Street/Avenue Q. The story is basically that the completely insane Captain of Jollyship The Whiz-Bang (who reminded me a bit of the Flying Dutchman on "Spongebob") decides he is going to go find Party Island (where the booze is free, the girls are half price, and there are mountains of salt water taffy), and of course since no one actually knows where this place is, the journey doesn't go so well. There's of course many more silly details and goofy subplots, but that's the general idea. The music can probably best be described as loud. Some of the songs are sung by the puppets, but it seemed like more often the story would go aside and the band would just sing a song that I think was related to the story... it was sort of hard to tell because I had trouble understanding the lyrics. I, who know nothing about rock music, would found myself thinking it sounded like indie-rock, but I'm not sure why that term comes to mind because to be perfectly honest I have no idea what indie-rock is. But in the world in my head it sounds like the right term. I can't say there were really any melodies to be gleaned from the first hearing. But there was something sort of satisfying about earsplitting music that should probably one would probably be inclined to nod ones head rather than tap one's toes to, and those lyrics that I did make out were quite amusing. The whole thing runs something like two hours (including intermission), and I will say that I was a bit afraid that a show like this stretched out for so long might be a little too much of a good thing, and it might overstay its welcome. And indeed the second act did lag a little, though it did eventually recover and (no pun intended) smoothly sail to the end. This is really just a bizarre, scrappy little musical that fits perfectly into Ars Nova. I can't really imagine this working quite as well in a more formal venue - it's roughness was definitely part of the appeal... sort like that low-budget paper cut-out style of animation that "South Park" uses to such good effect.
There's really just something so inherently wonderful about the very idea of a puppet-pirate-rock musical. I mean, I like pirates, I like puppets, and I like (some) rock musicals. So how could they go wrong? Well... yes, there were many ways. So the fact that the show is just so damn entertaining made be a very happy boy.

Singing Heads

I went to see what I think is the second preview of "Inner Voices: Solo Musicals" tonight. And if this is a barometer for the 2008-09 season of new musicals, then we can all do a happy dance because the dry spell of exciting new musicals seems to have finally ended. "Inner Voices" is made up of three one-woman musicals, the concept apparently being that if Alan Bennett could make an evening of three separate monologues with "Talking Heads," why shouldn't musical theatre attempt the same thing. Instead of finding one composer to write a whole slew of solo musicals, we here have three different works from three different writing teams. The first, and probably the one that sounds the best on paper is "Tres Ninas" (there's a tilde over that second n, but I'm not going to go through the extra effort of putting one in), and it's composed by Michel John LaChiusa (with book by Ellen Fitzhugh) and stars Victoria Clark. With Victoria Clark performing this, there was really no way it could actually be bad. She one's of those singing actresses that is just spins everything she touches into musical theatrical gold. Which is not to say that LaChiusa and Fitzhugh have given her garbage to work with. I've had a bit of a love/hate relationship for LaChiusa's work - I'm a fan of his "Marie Christine" (though that featured another of those magical women, Audra McDonald), "The Wild Party," and "Hello Again" (the latter of which I only know from the cast recording), I like parts of "See What I Wanna See" and "First Lady Suite," and I intensely dislike his "Little Fish" and "Bernarda Alba." Lately I'd been finding that he'd sort of fallen into that trap where all of his music was just sounding the same. Thankfully here, if I hadn't known he'd composed "Tres Ninas" I would have never guessed it was him. I found the music to be extremely accessible and fresh sounding. I found the three stories that make up the musical (about three girls - which I think is what the title means in Spanish) all held be interest, and they definitely had me tearing up a bit. All three had somewhat odd endings that left me sort of scratching my head, but I can't say that really bothered me all that much. And of course Victoria Clark's performance in the three roles, wearing nothing but a slip, and with only a couch, an ashtray, and some lights on the otherwise bare stage, was as spectacular as one would expect.
The second musical, "Alice Unwrapped," was from a composer I thought I didn't know - Jenny Giering, but after reading her bio after the show, it turns out I saw her show "The Mistress Cycle" (at NYMF), and I seem to remember liking that. Her book writer was Laura Harrington, and starring in this musical was Jennifer Damiano. When I read about this show, I knew Victoria Clark and Barbara Walsh (who performs the last), but didn't think I knew Damiano. Well, from the minute she walked on stage, I knew I had seen her somewhere before. It took me a few minutes, but I finally remembered I had seen her in "Next to Normal" off-Broadway. I'm going back and forth as to whether "Alice Unwrapped" or "Tres Ninas" was my favorite of the three. "Alice Unwrapped," is about a teenage girl whose father is in Iraq, and who tries to hold her emotionally crumbling family together as best she can, even though she's not really doing so well herself. This one is also a tear jerker (even moreso than the first). Again, the music was melodic and accessible, and Damiano's performance was really very impressive, considering she's a junior in high school (or so her bio says). I was mighty impressed.
With the first two being so strong, I suppose it was inevitable that I would be let down by the third, "A Thousand Words Come To Mind," by Michele Lowe and Scott Davenport Richards, and starring the wonderful Barbara Walsh. It's not that it was bad, but I found it both with the story (a woman's dying mother claims she was the inspiration for characters in the novels of Philip Roth, John Irving, and others), and the music less easily accessible than the first two. Honestly, if I hadn't read my program first, I would have thought this was the LaChiusa musical, because this was the sort of musical I would have more expected from him... a bit more cold and intellectual, with less instantly pleasant melodies. I mean, this one was fine - it has a nice twist ending, and Barbara Walsh did a fine job, but especially after the first two, I just wasn't all that thrilled.
I noticed two people left after the first musical (I think they were just there because there were Victoria Clark fans), and one after the second (he seemed to be having problems with his hearing aid). I will say I felt a bit like the first musical was so fcomplete that if that had been the whole show, I would have been able to leave satisfied. I suppose I would have been happier if the order was shuffled, with my least favorite either first and second, I would have been able to leave a bit happier. That said, two out of three ain't bad - and especially at a second preview, meaning there's always room for the third to improve should the writers see fit - and I certainly happier sitting through this hour and forty-five minutes of musical theatre than most anything new and musical I saw on or off Broadway last season. This runs through May 30th at the Zipper Factory, and tickets are only twenty bucks, so I'd say these are well worth bothering with, should you have the time and/or interest.

And now I've gone on WAY longer than I intended to. So good night.

50(plus)th Post

Okay, this isn't technically my 50th post - it's my 52nd. But I told myself I'd give this blog a better name than "My Blog" if I got to 50 because that means I'm actually keeping up with updating it. So I'm re-naming it "Mostly Legit" ("legit" as in the 'the legimate theatre' - get it?) No, not the wittiest title, but a google blogsearch doesn't show anyone other blogs with that title, so that's what I'm using until I think of something better.

A Serious Case of the Sillies

I would strongly recommend taking full advantage of the newly renovated restrooms at the Longacre Theatre so as to avoid peeing in your pants from laughing at the onstage antics at "Boeing-Boeing." I'd seen (and loved) the Matthew Warchus-helmed revival when I was in London last year, and I was obviously nervous about how it would play over here with a mostly American cast (the wonderfully hilarious Mark Rylance was the only cast member to cross the pond with it to Broadway), having slept through so many imports that were supposedly great in London and ruined here. Well, I'm pleased to report that all is well, and it's just as deliriously silly and side-splittingly funny as it was over there. If I had one minor quibble, it's that Christine Baranski isn't quite as good as Frances de la Tour was, partly because she insists on using a French accent that takes some time to get used to, and partly because the idea of Frances de la Tour playing a maid was just so inherently ridiculous that it just added a whole other level of amusement. Still, I did eventually warm up to Baranski, and the rest of the new cast is all absolutely splendid. If you're in the mood for evening of turn you brain off, totally ridiculous and endlessly amusing farce, well you couldn't do better than "Boeing-Boeing."

Also rather high up there on the silly scale is the Met's current revival of "La Fille du Regiment." There are unfortunately only two performances of it left, both are sold out, and I just noticed the incomparable Juan Diego Florez isn't doing the one on Monday, which means there's only really one chance left, because you don't want to miss him. I honestly don't think I've ever heard a mid-opera ovation as long and impassioned as the one following Florez's big first act aria. Honestly, I think the audience would still be applauding now, a week later, if it wasn't so tiring to keep clapping for so long. Which is not to ignore the also brilliant comic performance of Natalie Dessay, who once again this season (the first time was in "Lucia"), has proved what a great singing actress she is. I usually find I don't much care for comic operas - if I'm going to the opera I want to see misery and death (expressed in glorious song) - but resistance was really futile here. At one point early on in the first act, while the soldiers were marching around singing some silly song or other, I couldn't help but think that if Monty Python were going to put on an opera, it would be very much like this. This production was recorded for those HD movie theatre broadcasts, so that probably means it'll end up on PBS sometime later this year. But there's really no substitute for live and in person opera, so if you can beg, borrow or steal a ticket (or grab a cancellation or standing room one), it's well worth heading over to the Met on Friday to see the final performance. And even on Monday, when Barry Banks (who?) takes of the Juan Diego Florez role, well you still have the likes of Natalie Dessay, Felicty Palmer, and Marian Seldes (yes, that Marian Seldes) to keep you in opera heaven, so that worth trying to score a ticket to too, I suppose.

On the unsilly front, I went to see "Substitution" on Wednesday mostly because there was really nothing else I wanted to see, and I hadn't seen anything on Saturday, Sunday, Monday or Tuesday and I was going through withdrawal. It stars Jan Maxwell, who as usual is the saving grace of a lousy show ("as usual," referring to "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and "Coram Boy"). The play is pretty dreary and unconvincing, but watching Jan Maxwell act is always such a treat that it was somewhat bearable. The story is basically that a mother lost her high school age son in a boat accident, and the boy's substitute teacher (who was somehow obsessed with this boy, even though he was just a substitute teacher...), falls in love with the mother. Then spliced in, there are snippets of a conversation between two students who are on the bus with the boy, and who were also involved in the boat accident. The student conversations seemed pointless and rather boring. The whole relationship between the mother and the substitute teacher was also not in the least bit convincing (they had absolutely no chemistry at all, and honestly their personalities were so different, the inevitable ending just seemed totally ridiculous). And then there's the fact that this guy was only a substitute teacher, which made his obsession with the dead boy ever so much more implausible. It was just overall a terribly unsatisfying play, with Jan Maxwell's devastating performance really its only saving grace. What I found particularly interesting about her performance, was that she starts out totally drained and emotionally raw, and get slowly happier (well, kind of) through the course of the play, which I imagine must be really hard to act. I don't want to think about how she prepares each night to bring herself to the point she's at when she first steps out on the stage. I guess one of these days Jan Maxwell will appear in a play equal to her talents. But when?