How to Succeed...

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

Al Hirschfeld Theatre, NYC
May 16, 2012


My reason for seeing How to Succeed…was kind of silly. I had written  previously about Charles Nelson Reilly[1], and for some strange kind of sentimental purpose I decided I wanted to see a show that he had done early in his career.

For years I didn’t think I would like to see the show. I didn’t see it with Matthew Broderick in the 90s and I didn’t see the 2011 revival with Daniel Radcliffe (until 2012 when Nick Jonas had replaced him) even though I thought I would enjoy seeing Radcliffe perform live, but again, the musical didn’t seem to call out to me.

I had tried to watch the 1967 film version a couple of times and it never held my interest. I never watched more than 15 minutes or so of it before giving up on it (not every stage production translates well to the screen, maybe; or maybe I just didn’t give it a fair shot).

And now (feeling very smug and superior), I was finally going to make myself see it (for Charles!), but with sadness that it had to be with one of the Jonas Brothers (what am I? a Disney Channel watching 5^th grade girl?!), still, the show wouldn’t run forever and if I was going to see it I should just be done with it. But in arrogant protest, I bought a cheap seat!

Well, a Wednesday night toward the end of run doesn’t always pack a house, so the ushers told those of us in the cheap seats to move on down…anywhere there was an empty seat. I got a GREAT seat (only about 4 rows behind my favorite seat in the house which is first row, lower Mezzanine); well, at least I got a great seat and didn’t have to pay extra for it. So, let the show be musical Ambien (Zolpidem), I had already received my bit of good luck and was paying tribute to CNR. The evening would be enjoyable no matter what.

As often happens when expectations are low, mine were exceeded. The colors and angular designs of the 1960s were bright and brilliant. The sets and costumes were beautiful (I usually prefer simple, almost bare stages, but sometimes the designers really can enhance the experience and that is exactly what they did for How to Succeed…).

Of course Jonas makes his entrance to not only the music from the orchestra pit but to the screaming of teenage girls throughout the audience (there were about 4 rows of them who had come down from Canada just to see the show, or rather, to see him in the show). I can’t prove it, but I am certain my eyes rolled to express disdain.

But here’s the thing – I don’t believe I have actually ever listened to the Jonas Brothers or to Nick Jonas sing. They are famous as singers, so it should not have surprised me that Nick’s voice is beautiful! OK. Great set, fabulous costumes, and Nick has the voice of an angel. All this and a free upgrade on the seat? It’s a good evening no matter what else happens.

Jonas was the not strongest actor in the cast. In fact, his lines often fell flat, and even his beautiful voice lacked the “booming” quality that the seasoned Broadway pros had (even though as a child he had appeared in musical theatre and has been a concert singer and recording artist for years). But he exuded a charm that was not wasted even on me and he did have a few “stock” facial expressions he would use to good effect throughout the performance. He was adorable, and good enough, with a beautiful if not always well projected voice and he was clearly a draw for young girls. By the end, I was a Nick Jonas fan (more or less).

Beau Bridges was in the cast (having replaced John Laroquette who was doing another play which I also saw), but I’m not sure why. His singing was mediocre. His acting lacked comedic polish. His dancing was clunky (though they seemed to try to feature his stiffness as if that is just how his character would move). Other than bringing name recognition, Bridges did not add much to the overall quality of the production.

The rest of the cast seemed to be seasoned theatre people, some of whom had been in the production since last year. They were wonderful: great singing, great dancing, and believable portrayals with good comic timing. And the story is kind of in the tradition of “let’s tell a cute story with lots of funny lines and weave in some big song and dance numbers” musical theatre, complete with happy ending and heterosexual romance. Still, the dance numbers are amazing and the songs are hummable, especially the eleven o’clock number, “Brotherhood of Man.”

So, it may not have been great theatre, but it was great choreography and dancing, and it was good singing, and it was good sets and lights and costumes. You know what? I guess it was pretty good theatre after all! And, most importantly, I got to share an imaginary moment with Charles Nelson Reilly. Rest in peace, CNR.

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[1] CNR won the 1962 Tony Award for best featured actor in a musical http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Succeed_in_Business_Without_Really_Trying#Original_Broadway_production

The Lyons Roar on Broadway

The Lyons
Cort Theatre, NYC
May 16, 2012

The Lyons was another production that presented an ensemble cast but somehow featured each member of that cast in a way that allowed him or her to shine. The cast included long time theatre veteran Dick Latessa and well known comedic actor Linda Lavin.

The story is tragically comedic, or hilariously tragic. It’s about a dysfunctional family that comes together in the final days of the dying father’s life.

The elderly father has a terminal disease but he and his wife didn’t want to worry their adult children, so they decided to not tell them about it until he was in his final stages. They show up at the hospital knowing that their father is ill, but they discover once they get there that he only has days to live.

This lack of communication is the least of this family’s problems. The daughter is divorced from an abusive husband with whom she longs to reunite (but discovers that isn’t possible once she learns he is seeing someone new – she discovers this when he brings his new lover to her father’s funeral!), one of her children is developmentally delayed (though she is in denial about it), and she is an alcoholic. The parents blame her drinking on her ex-husband but she discloses that she has been a problem drinker since childhood.

The stress of her father’s illness (and soon to follow death) causes the daughter to relapse into drinking and as a result she loses her AA sponsor. She gets a new sponsor who runs away with her mother the day of her father’s funeral!

There is also an adult son who is a failed writer. He has also failed to ever have a real relationship. He has invented two lovers over time but finally has to admit that he has never had a lover and the two he has spoken of over the years are fictional. The second of his pretend lovers however is a real person, but not his real companion. He is simply his neighbor about whom he has fantasized for years. The neighbor is a realtor, so the son arranges to have the realtor show him an apartment and then reveals to him that he has actually been stalking him for years and has invented a relationship between them in his imagination. This so disturbs the realtor that he physically attacks the son leaving him with a ruptured spleen.

But the parents (Lavin and Latessa) have their own issues. The father fell in love with Lavin’s character and she felt “trapped” and couldn’t avoid the romance. She married him but never loved him and eventually she came to hate him. He in turn hated their gay son. The father and mother spend his final days arguing (as a symbol of immortality he wants her to promise to never change the living room furniture, but she has always hated the furniture and assures him there will be new furniture shortly after his demise…this causes him distress and they spend his final days arguing about it).

After his death, the father who had been afraid of “Hell” (though his wife chastises him for this fear – she says, “We’re Jews; Jews don’t believe in Hell!” He answers, “Some do.” And she responds, “We don’t.”) is shown in a brief solo scene in the afterlife. He is alone, but content…not in Hell, and in fact, comforted to have been greeted by someone he didn’t recognize by sight but who he knew by smell to be his father. And other than that strange moment of metaphysics, the father is never heard from again (as might be expected since he is now dead).

In the end, the sister refuses to comfort her injured brother, but does decide to try to attract a dying man in the hospital. The mother, as mentioned earlier, runs away with the daughter’s new AA sponsor, and in lonely desperation, the hospitalized son (recovering from his physical altercation with his pretend boyfriend) reaches out for warmth and compassion from a nurse, who finally, reluctantly, gives them to him. And in their moment of connection, the play ends.

What is genius about this production is that the characters, by description, are not terribly likeable. And yet, when played by these skillful actors, they become people the audience finds humorous, tragic, at times likable, at times pitiable, and at times repugnant.

The father finds some freedom and relief in his final days by swearing…a lot! Apparently swearing was never a habit of his, but in the end, he takes to swearing incessantly, and this bit is something the audience finds amusing.

Lavin’s character, though selfish and cold, is also charming and funny. She knows that her new lover (who is younger than she is) only wants her for her money, and she only wants him for the excitement of being with someone new and doing something impetuous. She has never been in love and even still has no hope of finding love, only escape. And somehow, despite the sadness of it all, I found myself thinking, “Good for you.” Lavin plays the character with such pathos that the viewer wants her to find some measure of happiness, if only from a loveless affair.

The children are just lonely, chronically miserable people who appear to be too broken to ever be whole. Honestly, I didn’t find them as compelling as their parents.

Anyway, Lavin and the rest of cast demonstrate that one has to approach a character without judgment. Lavin can’t judge her character to be cold and heartless; she would have too much contempt for the character to make her interesting to the audience. Latessa’s character has to long for his wife’s love without Latessa judging him to be a pathetic loser, or his swearing won’t be the charming affectation of a dying man but rather just the bitter ramblings of a tragically unhappy person. Lavin and Latessa show that the actor must see the character as fully human (not just villainous or virtuous or humorous or unkind or perpetually angry…the character must be a multi-faceted person with whom the actor can share the experience of humanity) so that s/he can play the character in ways that aren’t just funny or just tragic, but that are as complex as human lives really are.

It’s a dark comedy, but both the darkness and the humor come from truth. Anyone who has felt desperate, unloved, lonely, hopeless, or overwhelmed knows that pain and humor, fear and fantasy, love and hate can be very close companions. The reality of the emotions make the story both funny and sad just as it makes it seem, for at least some of us, hauntingly familiar.

The Best Man Really Is The BEST

Gore Vidal’s The Best Man
Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, NYC
May 15, 2012

A religious experience! It’s as if the Olympian gods said to one another, “Let’s put on a show!”

First of all: Gore Vidal.

Gore Vidal is the author of twenty-four novels, five plays, many screenplays, more than two hundred essays, and the critically lauded memoir, Palimpsest. Vidal’s United States (Essays 1952-92) won the 1993 National Book Award.[1]

Then, there is more than four centuries of combined theatrical experience on the stage of this production.

Thirdly, the cast is made up of legends: James Earl Jones (he was amazing!), Angela Lansbury (she was amazing, but I have adored her for so many years she could have been terrible and I would have buzzed with pure joy just to see her on the boards, but even so, she was flawless), John Larroquette (always good, maybe under-appreciated, at least by me, until now…he was brilliant), Candice Bergen (loved her for a long time and she did not disappoint in this production), and comedy legend Michael McKean (who gave a good performance too).

I didn’t recognize Kerry Butler, but her performance was strong. I was surprised by my dislike for the performance of Eric McCormack. McCormack’s character was indistinguishable from his “Will” of television’s Will & Grace except that his performance was further tainted by his inability to sustain some sort of dialect he was trying to achieve (he was playing the role of a senator from what we might now call a “red” state). His accent sounded like Canadian Eric McCormack playing New Yorker Will Truman playing, inconsistently, a “good old boy” from Oklahoma or Texas. His was the weakest performance on a stage that was otherwise the banquet hall of the gods. He was rather like the weakest of mortals stumbling into a den of Titans.

The play of course is well-known and shows the soul struggle of one who wants to be elected to public office but doesn’t want to compromise his integrity even as he is constantly advised to do whatever it takes to win office because only the strong deserve it and one can’t do much unless one has the position and authority to make things happen.

The characters are rich:

       The rural “hick” (Jones) who rose to become a popular and seemingly effective president who now, as a former president, is courted mostly for the power of his personal endorsement. He admits to not being disturbed by infidelity, cruelty, dishonesty, or scheming but is rather troubled by leaders who don’t understand people, who aren’t willing to enter into a political fight, and who appear to him to be “stupid.” He also admits (privately) to being an agnostic who has pretended to be a person of faith to win votes and the support of conservative areas of the country. By the end of the play, the former president dies.

       The party bureaucrat (Lansbury) who tries to use her influence with “women voters” to help shape the platform, message, and image of the candidates.

The philandering but civic minded, non-religious, highly principled (when it comes to public life), mostly honest candidate (Larroquette) who won’t stoop to character assassination even when the accusations would probably be true and could benefit his campaign. He is the party’s front runner. His chief aid is played by McKean.

His wife (Bergen) who is delaying divorcing him until after the campaign (and if it’s successful, until after his presidency). Her only stipulation for supporting him is that he cannot bring paramours into the white house nor ever be caught with a mistress. He agrees to her terms. By the end of the play, they have fallen in love with each other again and their relationship is renewed.

The front runner’s closest competition (McCormack). He claims to be religious and a devoted family man, however, he is plagued by rumors of a homosexual affair during his military service. He hopes to keep these rumors out of the public, and if they should be made known he hopes to discredit them; but even though there are skeletons in his closet, he is willing (and determined) to use his opponent’s previous bout with depression against him to prove he is too unstable to handle the high pressure presidency. His wife (Butler) is his accomplice and biggest supporter, though apparently because she wants the prestige of being first lady more than she believes in his vision or skills.

In the end, the former cabinet secretary/party front runner running against a mud-slinging Senator chooses to both undermine his opponent and stand by his principles by pulling out of the race and giving all his delegates to the number three person in the race for the party’s nomination. By staying true to his values and doing what he honestly believes is best for the party and country, at some personal cost to himself, the Secretary/presidential candidate has a moral victory and even saves his troubled marriage in the process.

Though the play was written in the 1960s, it remains as relevant and topical as if had been written in the 21^st century. And while it is obviously an ensemble piece, each character is so well written that the actors’ performance of those characters tend to stand out. And James Earl Jones and Angela Lansbury brought to the stage an energy, a gravitas, and a confidence that electrified the entire room. More than how they delivered lines, did “business” with props, or responded to other actors in dialogue, what they demonstrated most supremely was a comfort on the stage, a rapport with the audience, a complete identification with their character, and a belief in what the character was trying to accomplish. And those are lessons that can benefit the solo performer as much as the ensemble performer.

Still, for as good as the writing and the performances were, what was the most thrilling for me was seeing legends of the stage come together, work together, and make magic one more time. I hope I will see James Earl Jones or Angela Lansbury perform again, but as he is in his early 80s and she is in her late 80s, I can always treasure the experience of seeing them toward the end of their careers and of realizing that they were as good toward the end as they had ever been.

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[1] www.gorevidalnow.com/biography

Lily Tomlin's Still Got "It"

Lily Tomlin
Arscht Center, Miami
May 6, 2012

This was my first time to see Lily Tomlin live. She did not disappoint. The thing that struck me most is that this seventy-two year old woman moved with the agility of an athlete. She walked all over the stage, she stood, she sat, she kneeled, she jumped, reclined, she sat on the floor, she danced, she skipped, and she never stopped talking. A few times she would drop to one knee and raise her arms and bow her head in an exaggerated gesture to the audience (basically claiming success for some zinger she delivered). For over ninety minutes she performed at this pace, and the only sign of fatigue happened briefly when she had to break character to get a drink of water; she covered for it by saying in Edith Anne’s voice, “Forgive Lily; she’s old and can’t make saliva anymore.” Otherwise, she was energetic, nimble, and indefatigable. That alone was an inspiration.

The show was pieced together from several fragments, like an energetic, performance quilt. There was basic stand-up followed by some autobiographical narrative about her childhood (giving the audience a glimpse of her provincial upbringing and family life) followed by the resurrection of characters from her early days of comedic entertainment. One flowed seamlessly into the next and even though she brought characters from the past back to life she simultaneously updated them. For example, Edith Anne now has an iPod and Ernestine no longer works for the phone company but for an insurance company.

Tomlin moved from one character to the next (and from characters to herself, though even her “self” was obviously something of a stage persona) with no costume changes, no special make-up, only a few lighting changes, and almost no props. Her set was very simple, a living room set on stage right, open bare space center stage, and some steps leading to “nowhere” on stage left. Behind the living room set was a set of stairs that led to what was supposed to be Lily’s teenage bedroom.

On the back wall (upstage) there was a screen and on the screen short videos were played; sometimes a vintage video from her earlier work, sometimes a new video of one of her updated characters, sometimes a photograph of her family or of herself as a child or teenager. After a minute or two of a video clip (or a photo), she would launch right back into her live shtick, usually as a continuation of whatever the screen had introduced. Some of her “iconic” monologues were included while most of the performance was new material, or an update of older work.

In addition to comedy monologues, performed memoir, multi-media presentations, some of her classical characters such as Edith Anne, Ernestine, Mrs. Beasley, the Consumer Advocate, Tommy Velour (I love gender-bending performance!), and bits from The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, Tomlin also included at the end of her show a question and answer time. Before the show people could write questions on cards and at the end of the show she would read and answer some of them. The final question she read and answered was MINE. I have now been part of a Lily Tomlin performance! (So where’s my royalty check and name in the Playbill?). It was actually a personal thrill.

I was afraid my question was frivolous, silly, certainly “queer”, but she seemed to enjoy talking about it. Not only did she choose to read and answer it, but it may have been the longest time she spent on a question and it was the question that closed the show.

My question was what was it like to work with Dame Judi Dench, Dame Maggie Smith, and Lady Joan Plowright in Tea With Mussolini. Others had asked about her work in Nine to Five, her political views, etc., but she seemed to love having the chance to talk about working with deities of the British theatrical pantheon. She delighted in sharing how Dench and Smith are chain smokers who can’t stop smoking long enough to eat even. She mentioned how the English actors were polite to her (and to Cher, another American in the film), but how they were usually pretty cliquish among themselves. She mentioned Judi Dench’s fair complexion and how she was so taken with the English acting giants that she would walk around with an umbrella trying to shield Dame Judi from the Mediterranean sun. And she laughed that when one of the three members of the British acting triumvirate was unavailable for dinner, that she would be honored to be invited to substitute for the missing person. So if Lady Joan was absent, she might get to have dinner with the chain smoking Smith and Dench, and so on.

True stories, improvisation, skits and sketches in character, multi-media presentations, movement that would exhaust someone half her age, and even a chance to include the audience in the actual performance all made for a delightful evening of entertainment. And, more importantly, gave me many ideas of what to include and how to shape future performances of my own.

God Bless the NAACP

The NAACP Board of Directors has endorsed marriage equality. The Board vote was overwhelmingly affirmative: 62 - 2.

"The NAACP Constitution affirmatively states our objective to ensure the 'political, education, social and economic equality' of all people. Therefore, the NAACP has opposed and will continue to oppose any national, state, local policy or legislative initiative that seeks to codify discrimination or hatred into the law or to remove the Constitutional rights of LGBT citizens. We support marriage equality consistent with equal protection under the law provided under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Further, we strongly affirm the religious freedoms of all people as protected by the First Amendment."

We at Sunshine Cathedral hope for the day when religious and worshiping communities will no longer promote heterosexism and homophobia as religous values, but until that glorious day, we are even more committed to working toward the end of religious prejudices being codified in civil laws. Our prayer for our country is the same as our pledge to it, that there may be "liberty and justice for ALL."

The spiritual leaders of Sunshine Cathedral are proud of and thankful to the leadership of the NAACP for their historic vote on behalf of marriage equality.

Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the oldest and largest civil rights organization in the U.S. For more information about this amazing organziation, please visit www.NAACP.org.

God bless the NAACP!

In shared service,

Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins

Senior Minister

Sunshine Cathedral

Good News Follows Bad

Yesterday, I reflected on the disappointment of the passage of North Carolina's Amendment 1 on Tuesday.

Of course, there are states and countries and the District of Columbia that now offer same-sex marriage and more states and munincipalities that offer civil unions or domestic partnerships. It's not enough, but it's progress and it's against that progress that religious fundamentalists and right wing political activists are launching their assaults.

In the Fall, more states will consider marriage equality, and hopefully some of them will choose justice over homophobia. We continue to work for, pray for, and demand "liberty and justice for all."

Toward that noble goal, an amazing thing happened yesterday: for the first time in our nation's history, a sitting US President affirmed support for marriage equality. President Obama said:

What I've come to realize is that for loving, same-sex couples, the denial of marriage

equality means that, in their eyes and the eyes of their children, they are still considered

less than full citizens...So I decided it was time to affirm my personal belief that same-sex

couples should be allowed to marry.

His statement wasn't an executive order or a bill presented to Congress, but it was the power of the "bully pulpit" in action and it was a moral victory for same-gender loving people. His statement may or may not influence the outcome of events in state elections, but it was nevertheless courageous and it should encourage LBGT people and their allies to believe that positive change is still possible.

This is not an endorsement of a political party or a political candidate, but is an expression of gratitude that our president has made progressive movement on the issue and it is an affirmation of hope that more leaders will make similar gestures in support of justice and equality.

Blessings,

Rev. Durrell Watkins, D.Min.

Southerner's Response to Amendment 1

"On Tuesday, North Carolina voters passed a constitutional amendment that defines marriage exclusively between a man and a woman, making North Carolina the 30th state to pass such a ban same-sex marriage." The Huffington Post

I am a Southerner. There, I said it.

I was born to native Arkansan parents in Southwest Arkansas where I spent the first 7 years of my life. I then moved across a county line into East Texas where I remained until I was 18. Then back over the county line to Southwest Arkansas and then deeper into Arkansas to the Ouachita Mountains for college. After college I moved to Dallas for a long stretch, then to Maryland for a year (right at the Mason Dixon line!), then to New Jersey and then New York, and finally to Florida where I live now; but my self-identity has always been pretty firmly "Arkansan" and most of my 45 years have been undeniably "Southern."

Now, what does any of that matter? Because I speak from lived experience when I say that the North Carolina electorate has recently continued the Southern legacy of fearing and hating the "Other."

Delicious food, good music, beautiful geography, and fine universities such as Duke, Vanderbilt, LSU, William & Mary, and Ole Miss are all part of what the South has given us. The South has also provided us with several presidents such as Bill Clinton, Andrew Jackson, James Polk, Jimmy Carter, James Madison, Andrew Johnson, Thomas Jefferson, Woodrow Wilson, James Monroe, and George Washington (and that doesn't include those who came from Texas, Eisenhower and LBJ, or Kentucky, Abraham Lincoln). I'm a Southerner and proud of the good things the South has produced.

But there is another part of the Southern legacy, and that is fear and hatred of the "Other."

Of course not all people from "Dixie" are racist, sexist, homophobic, or intolerant of religious diversity; but sadly, many are and are very vocal about it. And against that backdrop, equality and justice suffered another defeat in the South yesterday.

Religion often provides the language and the platform for intolerance in the South. Slavery and Jim Crow were both accepted and promoted by "religious" people, and people continue to try to find their particular prejudice in ancient texts (the bible) and then use those texts as an excuse to not only cling to their hatreds but to act openly upon them. I say this not as a sociologist, political scientist, or historian but as a Southerner who heard the language, breathed the air, drank the water, and milled about in the community of intolerance. I know it not as an academic might, but as one who knows one's own heritage.

"Wait!" someone will call out to challenge me, "there is bigotry in the Northeast and in the West and all throughout the Midwest; the South doesn't hold a patent on prejudice." And that push back is fair enough, except I am speaking as a Southerner of a continuing Southern problem. I will let the natives of other areas speak to the social maladies of their regions. Yes, bigotry must be confronted all over; I'm starting with my "neck of the woods."

So, here I am a descendant of racists, misogynists, isolationists and fundamentalists. I am someone who experienced the heterosexism and homohatred of the rural South personally. I am a person who had to struggle against the prejudicial and anti-intellectual religious traditions of my family and geographic region to discover a more inclusive, compassionate, liberating, and justice seeking spirituality. And as such a person, I say that religiously accepted (and often promoted) intolerance of the "Other" is a long-standing problem in the South and we progressives from and in the South must continue to work for change.

Decency, justice, fairness, compassion, tolerance, and sanity all received a devastating blow yesterday. That same devastating blow has been delivered time and again in our history. James Adams said, "That the desires of the majority of the people are often for injustice and inhumanity against the minority, is demonstrated by every page of the history of the whole world." But I also hasten to add: bi-racial marriage was once illegal in many states...that is now behind us. "Sodomy" laws preventing consenting adults from sharing intimacy in the privacy of their own homes were once on the books of many states...that is now behind us. Women were once excluded from the voting booth, child labor was once permitted, there was a time when people could be denied employment or housing because they were Jewish, and people could once be denied service because of their skin color. These atrocities are all a shameful and painful part of our past, a past we now would never allow to be repeated. The "isms" have not all been healed, but we no longer allow them, for the most part, to be legislated or declared "righteous."

Same-gender loving people are the current demonized "Other" in a culture that has always seemed to need demonized "Others." But things do change. And so we keep waiting, and working, and speaking up and reaching out and hoping even when there seems little reason for hope. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.). Being Southern is not an excuse for perpetuating oppression. We pledge allegiance...to the republic...ONE nation...INDIVISBLE, with liberty and justice for ALL. Remember? Until we live out the promise of our pledge, we cannot, we must not, and we will not give up.