Young Vic's Streetcar...A Real Gem

Young Vic's Streetcar Named Desire...TRIUMPH. Smart, edgy, some new and bold choices. The standard lines that are normally delivered as oration rather than as contribution to real dialogue were almost underplayed, still important, but unlike many productions this show wasn't just an excuse to deliver the few famous one liners ("I shall die of eating an unwashed grape", "Whoever you are, I have always depended on the kindness of strangers", "Poor thing, the quinine did her no good", "I don't want realism; I want magic!", "Stella! Stella for star!", "The Tarantula Arms is where I took my victims", "Hydrotherapy they call it", "STELLAAAAAAAA!!!!!!", etc.).

The minimalist, modern staging (without changing dated lines referring to Western Union or a phone number that begins with "Magnolia") was interesting and not usually distracting, and the loud, disturbing scene change music enhanced the experience of Blanche's fragile mental state.

Gillian Anderson (Blanche) and Vanessa Kirby (Stella) gave the traditional, over the top Southern Belle accents, but as old southern aristrocrats from Mississippi, it kind of works. Ben Foster (Stanley) gave no contrived accent and Corey Johnson (a native of New Orleans) didn't over do the all too often cartoonish portrayal of a Southern dialect (without respect for specific regional particularities).

Ben Foster sometimes seemed not menacing enough (almost soft a time or two, despite his threatening rhetoric and physical bulk), but I appreciated that he relied on something other than raw and unrelenting rage to communicate his fearsomeness. His was a much more nuanced Stanley than is often presented.

But the most amazing performance was given by Gillian Anderson. No hint of Scully, no wink to the X-Files, and no repeat of other Blanches. Her Blanche was a real person who had experienced real pain and disappointment and who carried real regret and faint hope. Her descent into madness wasn't cartoonish, her alcoholism was believable, and her particular affectations and mannerisms were unique to this actor's performance of this character for this production. She was, in short, the best Blanche I've ever seen!

Blanche falls desperately in love with and marries a man who she learns is gay (and involved with an older lover), and that pain is exponentially increased when he discovers that she knows his secret and his response is to commit suicide (not an uncommon response to the life ruining experience of being outed in a time when same-sex love and attraction were not only taboo, but criminal). Beyond that, Blanche is the caregiver for a series of relatives who die leaving her no money, and she has to mortgage the family estate to care for her ill relations (and then bury them). When on a teacher's salary she can't pay her debts, she loses her family home and lives in a seedy hotel where she medicates her loneliness and supplements her income as an evening companion for men. Eventually, she seduces a high school student (a cry for help? a self-destructive symptom of depression? desperate loneliness? an attempt to recapture lost youth?) the consequence of which is the end of her teaching career. She then spends the summer with her sister who has married a brute. She stays with her only living realtive (1) to have a play to live and (2) to create a new narrative for her life in an attempt to sanitize her past. Still, her secrets are exposed and while she is crumbling under the weight of shame and fear, her plight is worsened when she is raped by her brother-in-law. Her sister can't let herself believe that her husband is a rapist, so she has her Blanche committed. And the show ends with Blanche, who for all her difficulties is "never deliberately cruel", finally receiving care and kindness, but not from a friend, lover, neighbor, or relative but from a psychiatrist (presumably from a state hospital).

Gillian Anderson played this complex character powerfully. Anderson's Blanche had a soul, an inner light, painful memories beautiful fantasies, a glimmer of hope, and fading resilience. She was, simply, marvelous!

Tennessee Williams' shows tend to deal with homosexuality by means of a tragic heroine (or anti-heroine), Southern families, mental illness, and nobility that has been tarnished or hidden by disappointment and heartbreak. His spirit was very much alive and powerfully present in this production.

When Broadway and London share their gems nationally/internationally on cinema screens, it is a great gift, and tonight's showing of Streetcar was particularly amazing. 

Book of Mormon (finally saw it)

Before i give my (spoiler alert: FAVORABLE) review of the show, let me say:

1. I know that faithful Mormons cherish their faith.
2. I know that AIDS has devastated many lives (and ended far too many).
3. I know that these areas are off limits as entertainment topics for some people.

Now ~ I also know that
1. The creators of South Park wrote BOM. So, you know, gas stations sell gas, bars sell booze...sometimes you just know what someone is peddling. It rings a little hollow to walk into a bar and feel victimized that they are selling an addictive substance.
2. Most religions have beautiful and empowering truths to share and can uplift people, AND, religion can be used to intimidate, exclude, marginalize, and infantalize people. So, those of us who wish to be religious should work to make our religions more relevant and healing and we ought to have a sense of humor about it all.
3. I am both a spiritual person and a person who has personally been affected by HIV. I take both seriously, and sometimes, I deal with both with laughter.

So, fully aware that BOM is NOT politically correct in the least, I must nevertheless admit to loving it!!!

There were some profound moments amongst the satire ("It's a metaphor" says a recent convert to another about a story that would be ridiculous if taken literally..."It's a metaphor", by the way, is a phrase that should be said repeatedly in ALL religious education classes!).

The show wasn't as harsh toward the LDS as I expected and even the gallows humor often made political points (including the not entirely unbelievable conspiracy theory that the US has the ability to cure HIV but is waiting to release the cure until a "latter day"); but mostly, it was the sort of ribald hilarity that isn't mean spirited if it is otherwise insensitive. It also showed in a light-hearted way how religion can both oppress and liberate and how innately, if not intentionally, racist and imperialist missiology is. But even with the serious and intelligent subtexts, what BOM is primarily (to my delight!) is fun music, good dancing, and sophomoric humor. So, you know, THUMBS UP!

Not All Solo Acts Are Created Equal

Guilt: A Love Story (a comedy of terrors)
The Parker Playhouse, Fort Lauderdale
May 19, 2012
 
This one is harder to write about because I didn’t especially enjoy it. But for its shortcomings, it might actually be as educational (or even more so) than the Lily Tomlin show or Old Jews Telling Jokes.

John Fugelsang bills himself as a political comedian. He is a radio personality (I was not aware of him before this show), a cabaret performer, comic, and actor in regional theatre. He is apparently a regular on cable news programs (MSNBC, FOX, CNN, HLN, etc.). So, he was in town, it was a one person show, I felt compelled to check him out.

Fugelsang opened (to about 200 people in a room that seats 1200) by saying that one person shows are difficult and often terrible because the performer has a political agenda and gets preachy or has a captive audience and uses them as group therapy to work out the performer’s own issues. He then (jokingly?) said, “Tonight’s show is all of that!” And, it was.

The rest of the show then was a personal story about his Catholic upbringing and his feelings about organized religion and his relationship with his mother and his relationship with his wife. For most of us, our introduction to this man was to hear his life story. Honestly, it wasn’t a great way to spend an hour and 45 minutes of non-intermission, rainy weather theatre on a Saturday night.

His anger at the Catholic church was justified, but not necessarily entertaining or even interesting. His story of how his parents met was compelling…his father was a Catholic Brother/history teacher and his mother a Catholic nun/nurse who met and it was love at first sight, but because of their vows they didn’t speak of it for 10 years. The dad finally revealed his feelings of unrequited love and they left their orders and got married and had children, John being the first. So, he was the first child born after they broke their promise to the God of their understanding to be celibate for the rest of their lives. Apparently, that bit of info was used in unhealthy ways against John in his upbringing.

He went on to tell of how his mother guilted him into marrying his lover of 11 years, how his father outlived a prognosis by 5 years because of an experimental procedure in Asia, a time he was nearly arrested for carrying drugs in the airport (marijuana for a sick friend), and about a time he debated racist David Duke on television.

It might have made a better essay or book than a performance. Or, if he had some relationship to the audience, his personal story might have been of more interest. If he was performing in a night club with regular customers, in a church where he had a relationship to the congregation, or if he was more famous (from being on a television sit-com perhaps) then the fictive relationship that exists between star and adoring public would have made his story more compelling, but as it was, it really did seem as if a few of us came out in the rain to hear a stranger tell about how the church had scarred him, how his mother used guilt as a weapon (how incredibly not unique!), and how he had survived some adventures with racists, airport security, and shot gun weddings.

I’ve seen autobiographical performances that were spell-binding, but again, that was because I felt I knew the performer in some way. S/he was part of my community speaking from as well as to the community, or s/he had a special interest in LBGT people or some group to which I claimed membership, or s/he had come into my living room time and again via television (or otherwise into my life through film, literature, radio, or theatre), and so an imaginary bond existed before the performance, or the story itself was at least partly fictional.

For example, when Phyllis Diller would tell stories about her fictive husband “Fang” that bit was often hilarious. But she created a world that invited the audience to be part of it, and as Fang was part of her regular shtick, to hear Diller perform (for many years at least) was to want to hear about Fang (Totie Fields did that with her real life husband who became part of her act, and Bette Midler did it with her “Soph” character based on the stage persona of Sophie Tucker, and Lily Tomlin did recently by weaving personal stories among the skits she created with fictional characters). To tell one’s own story, there must be a connection, I think, and if one does not exist, one must be made before the audience is likely to care about the performer’s plight.

In his book, Getting Your Solo Act Together[1], Michael Kearns gives some Dos and Don’ts of solo performance, and they include:

Don’t write a solo show based on your life as a model.

Do consider a dramaturg or a good writing class.
Do learn the art of self-editing.
Don’t stay on stage more than seventy minutes (pp. 66-67).

After seeing a 105 minute show completely about the life of a man I had never heard of before the show, I now see the wisdom of Kearns’ counsel!

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[1] Kearns, Michael. Getting Your Solo Act Together. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1997.

Old Jokes Are Sometimes the Best

Old Jews Telling Jokes

Westside Theatre, NYC
May 17, 2012

OJTJ was a real treat. I didn’t know what to expect, and what it turned out to be was something unique in its shameless lack of originality!

The cast of Old Jews…was made up of three people who looked to be in their 70s and 80s, and two people who looked to be about 27 and 35 respectively. So, “Old” Jews Telling Jokes consisted of a cast of people of various ages.

The Off-Broadway house was packed (I don’t think there was an empty seat). The house manager said they have been selling out consistently. There must be a “market” for this type of entertainment.

OJTJ doesn’t have a plot (though at times it can make you plotz from extreme laughter).

The cast members come out, sometimes as solo acts, sometimes as pairs or a trio, a couple of times (but only a couple) as the entire ensemble. And all they do is tell jokes…old jokes…sometimes very well known jokes…but in a particular context.

Each cast member has a single monologue different from the other shtick they perform. These monologues are personal, brief, autobiographical stories about why these old jokes are important to them. Other than these brief serious moments (which sometimes contain humor as well), the rest of the show is just the performance of these old jokes.

One actor (Bill Army) explained that these jokes are meaningful to him because they provided a shared experience of laughter between him and his father while his father was dying. His girlfriend at the time was horrified that they he would be telling his father jokes and laughing with him at such an “inappropriate” time. He said he learned from that experience that there is no inappropriate time to tap into joy.

Another actor (Lenny Wolpe) explained that his father had come to the US from Eastern Europe and wanted to assimilate completely into his new country and culture. So he stopped speaking Yiddish and never taught his children Yiddish. But the one thing he couldn’t give up was the old jokes he brought with him from Europe. They reminded him of his parents who had told them to him, and they not only made him laugh, they made him remember. And so, Lenny continues to cling to the old jokes to remember and honor his father.

Audrey Lynn Weston told of a relationship she had in college with a goy, whose parents found her Judaic background fascinating. They loved off-color jokes but had never heard some of the ones she knew, so she shared with them her old jokes and it was a bonding experience. Later, the boyfriend broke up with her and so she called his parents to tell them and basically to say goodbye; the mother’s response to her about her own son was, “I hope I’m using this word correctly, but if he dumped you he’s a schmuck.” She later married “a nice Jewish boy” and they have two children, a boy and a girl, who were named after the parents of the (Gentile) ex-boyfriend!

The other actors were Marilyn Sokol and Todd Susman.

I really was surprised at how well known some of the jokes were, but to know these jokes have a cultural and historic significance made them seem fresh, even if the punch-line was already known. And to see these actors perform the jokes as if they were original, and sometimes cracking up themselves as if they had never heard the joke they just told made it all very touching as well as amusing.

When I say “old” I mean some of these have to go back to Burlesque and Vaudeville (and the show itself had a vaudevillian quality to it…skits, monologues, jokes, songs…no acrobats or jugglers or dancers or animal tamers, but still, just one bit after another showcasing talent).

Some of the old standards included (and often with a thick Russian or German influenced accent):
A man walks in on his wife having sex with his business partner. He says to the partner, “Sal, I have to, but you?!”

and

A woman looks out the window of her apartment to see a man driving into the parking lot. He’s gorgeous so she calls him up to her apartment. She brazenly compliments him on his stunning good looks and asks him to remove his shirt so she can admire his physique. The man, flattered, complies. Next she asks him to reveal his “family jewels” as they must be as impressive as the rest of him. Again, he complies. She then takes the jewels in her hands and says (while slapping the tender parts), “Don’t ever park in my parking spot again!”

and

A man goes to see the doctor and the doctor says to him, “Sir, I’m afraid you are going to have to stop masturbating.” “Why” asks the patient.” “So I can examine you!”

and

A man is given bad news and worse news by his doctor. Bad news: he has 24 hours to live. Worse news: the doctor forgot to call yesterday to give him the news!
The man rushes home to tell his wife he has mere hours to live and he wants to spend his final moments making passionate love to her. She says, “I don’t think so darling. Unlike you, I have to get up in the morning.”

and
A man is stranded on a desert island with only a dog and a sheep. After a long period of time, the man gives in to desperate loneliness and decides to romance the sheep. But every time he tries, the dog comes up and bites him on the ankle, preventing intimacies from occurring. One day, a beautiful woman is floating aimlessly on a broken raft in the water, the man swims out, rescues the woman, brings her to the island, and helps her regain her strength. She is so grateful that she says she will do ANYTHING the man asks of her to show her appreciation. “Anything?” asks the man. “Anything!” So he says, “Thank God, here hold this damn dog so I can schtupp the sheep.”

The last one is particularly outrageous in our PC world, but it is also ridiculous, and that is what makes it funny.

The set is simple (actually a bare stage that is transformed from scene to scene as the actors, without benefit of blackout, move set pieces on and off the stage).

There are only a few songs, and they are original, written just for the show.

It was history. It was a nod to vaudeville and pre-television/radio/film entertainments. It was humor. It was communal. It was cultural. It was simple performance (and multi-media…the music was played live by a pianist and scenes were introduced with slides or videos). It showed how simple and how powerful simply communicating to an audience can be. Sometimes, it’s no more complicated than a few heart-felt stories and a series of time tested jokes.

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.

Seth Rudetsky’s Big Fat 70’s Show

Seth Rudetsky’s Big Fat 70’s Show
Amaturo Theatre, Broward Center for the Performing Arts
April 1, 2012

Review by Durrell Watkins

So tonight I went to see another one person performance: Seth Rudetsky’s Big Fat 70’s Show. I didn’t know exactly what to expect; I just knew that for years I have loved Seth’s radio show on Sirius XM radio (Seth Rudetsky’s Big Fat Broadway). He is a musical theatre historian and trivia expert. Well, by training (Oberlin) he’s a classical concert pianist. But prior to college he had been very active in school and summer camp theatre and so he soon returned to his first love, musical theatre.

According to his biographical monologue, he was the pianist in the orchestra of a few Broadway musicals, a comedy writer for the Rosie O’Donnell show, the musical director for various concerts, a composer, a stand-up comic, an author, an Off-off Broadway actor, a cabaret performer, and, of course, a satellite radio host. He was also a vocal coach on the MTV reality series, Legally Blonde the Musical: the Search of Elle Woods.

Seth’s radio program is fascinating because it includes interviews with working Broadway actors, songs from old and new, well known and obscure musicals (and sometimes, all the songs from an entire musical with commentary and synopsis thrown in), story-telling, and his natural, unforced brand of humor. So, I relished the chance to see his show live on stage.

Seth’s stage show is a self-described “deconstruction” of various performances. Apparently, his shows are often a deconstruction of Broadway shows or the careers of Broadway performers. But tonight’s show was very specialized. It was a deconstruction of one failed variety show from the 1970s!

The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, according to Seth, only lasted for 9 episodes and was born from a guest appearance the Brady Bunch cast had made on the Donnie & Marie show.

Seth’ set was super simple (and I always find that most effective). There was a piano (he played 4 measures each of 5 or 6 songs and that was all the piano was for…otherwise it was a prop…he never played a whole song, or more than a line of a song in the whole show). Other than the piano, there was a screen on which were played clips from the Brady Bunch Hour. Seth would set up each clip by giving some background (he apparently had done exhaustive research on this obscure failure from television history), playing the clip, commenting on the clip, and sometimes replaying the clip so that the audience could see more in/from it than they had originally.

Some of what Seth pointed out was the campiness of the show. A closeted gay man, Robert Reed, was in the cast, a flamboyant gay man, Bruce Villanch, was one of the writers, and the show was produced by Saturday morning children’s program producers Sid & Marty Kroft; this all made camp inevitable.

These were television actors (Florence Henderson had enjoyed a Broadway career before television), and most of them were child stars who never did much acting beyond their Brady Bunch series, so to throw them into a variety show format where they were expected to sing and dance throughout every show was obviously beyond their comfort zones if not their skill sets.

Then there was the premise. These actors were not doing the show as themselves, but as the characters from their canceled situation-comedy television series. But the characters (an architect, a house-wife, their children, and a housekeeper) are for some reason singing and dancing and telling bad jokes as part of a variety show! And the children are all adults now, and thrown in with this suburban American family who just happen to be singing disco versions of old songs and dancing badly to them are synchronized swimmers (without explanation as to why they are there).

Camp is the best the show could hope to be! But what made it tragic (well, other than the ridiculous premise, the bad singing, the bad dancing, the really bad jokes, and the gratuitous swimmers) was that it was not recorded in front of a life audience. Laughter and applause were all by pre-recorded tracks; so, what was aired was the final or best take of each scene. After who knows how much rehearsal and how many attempted takes, the best of what they could piece together to air was music where “Greg Brady” was often flat, where “Mike Brady” sounded like he was singing with a lozenge stuck in his throat, scenes were almost none of the male members of the cast showed any real capacity for dancing (and “Mike” was particularly awkward), and even one scene where a wayward background dancer crossed hurriedly behind the set from one side of the stage to the other for her next entrance . That the finished product was so shoddy (and surely much better than the many attempts leading up to the finished product) made a show that had little chance of being good into something that was actually horrifically bad.

However, the tragedy that was The Brady Bunch Variety Hour became comedic genius in the creative hands of Seth Rudetsky. He pointed out the flaws, made fun of them, mimicked some of them, and left us desperate to see the next terrible scene (one, or two, or three times!) just so we could explore with him (or follow his guidance to a predetermined discovery) the delightfully humorous failings of the short-lived variety show.

The final scene of the show was brilliantly interactive. He brought to the stage volunteers from the audience to re-enact a simple dance number from the variety show. He taught the steps (and chose the role of “Mike” for himself), and then led the dancers through a quick rehearsal and then finally the performance of the number (about 24 beats in all). He even had two volunteers shoot arcs of water from water pistols to create a special effect similar to the original variety show. The “dancers” were self-conscious and had a great time stumbling through the moves and playing with Seth on stage. And that frivolity ended the 90 minute performance.

Seth afterward very graciously posed for photos and signed autographs.

With virtually no set, and with no other performers (save a few volunteers from the audience at the very end), and with very little live music (though he is a musician), this Broadway expert spent 90 minutes showing clips from a television variety show that almost no one had seen, made fun of the scenes (without ever being cruel), shared a little bit of history about some of the cast members, and with that simple story-telling performance captivated an audience and made us love something that in 1977 absolutely flopped. It was genius. It was comedy. It was history. It was pop-culture. It was theatre. What could be better than that?

Loved Sandra Bernhard's "I Love Being Me, Don't You?"

I’m in San Diego this week for the MCC Men’s Conference and I’ve managed to work in some play time as well. The day before the conference began we (Robert and I with friends) went to the old Spanish Mission at San Juan Capistrano (our second time in 12 years to visit the historic site) and to Disneyland in Anaheim. We’ve dug up good restaurants and participated in the day to day activities of the conference in addition to taking the trip to the mission and to Anaheim. Souvenirs were purchased as well. So, what could make our little work with stolen moments of play get away any better? A show at the famous La Jolla Playhouse!

Tonight I was delighted by Sandra Bernhard’s one woman show, “I Love Being Me, Don’t You?” I had never seen Bernard live and didn’t have a great passion to see her now, but I did want to see “something” at the La Jolla Playhouse, and she was what they were offering and a few seats were still available. So, bending to the will of the Fates, we got the tickets and went to the show.

I have a special interest in solo performance (standup comedy, performance art, homiletics, one character plays, drag performance, etc.) and so I thought, “Even if the show isn’t that good, I’ll have something to reflect on for my on-going study of solo performance.” I was mistaken to underestimate the genius of Sandra Bernhard.

Her simple set did not distract from her presence and energy. It was tasteful, functional, but not at all garish. In fact, it was mostly the instruments for the musicians, a few microphone stands, and special lighting providing simple elegance that allowed her to shine on her own (which she did).

She came out singing, and her voice was brash and her dancing jerky and I didn’t know if she was a bad singer or if she was being comedic. It was an uncomfortable moment, but that moment was soon followed by almost two hours of a hilarious stream of consciousness that left me wanting more.

The show consisted of storytelling, riffing, improvisation, satire and music. One thing flowed, usually without any transition, into the next. She sang a few more songs throughout the show, and the songs were all performed much better than the first. Was the first just a little off, or was it a gag? I still don’t know.

Some of the songs were done seriously as any singer might perform, and one or two were done playfully as much for comedic effect as for musicality. Within a song her voice could go from soothing and sweet to steamroller powerful without warning.

But there was one song (accompanied by a personal story) that was particularly powerful because she made it seem personal to her. She talked about having always desired to be a musical theatre actor. She recently made a television appearance with a well known musical theatre actor who encouraged her to take a risk and sing songs from musical theatre in her act. She also recalled seeing Carol Channing on tour when she was a child. So, taking the advice to bring musical theatre to her cabaret act, Sandra sang “Before the Parade Passes By” from Hello Dolly! (the show for which Channing is most famous).

Bernhard really sold it! She sang the Jerry Herman number as if she was on the Broadway stage and Carol Channing, Pearl Bailey, and Ethel Merman (each of whom had played Dolly) miraculously entered the space (in my imagination anyway) to join her in singing the song. It was a delightful and powerful moment that seemed to communicate something spiritually true as much as something entertaining.

Speaking of spirituality, Bernard spoke of her Jewish tradition, her daughter’s interest in Wicca, her daughter’s enrollment in a Waldorf School (which promotes the philosophy of Anthroposophy), and the difference, in her view, between “good Christians” and “sneaky Christians.” And she launched an all out comedy assault on the “Rapture” teachings of certain fundamentalist Christians.

She also spoke openly about her lesbian relationship and her support of President Obama. She was confrontational with audience members who wanted to join in the act, and for all her talk of religion, politics, sexuality, and for her rough handling of those who dared to interrupt her monologue (she said, “This isn’t an invitation for a conversation”), she still never alienated the audience and from the laughter and applause (and one person shouting, “I love you”), the audience seemed to be 100% on her side throughout.

The final part of her act, after a quick a costume change, was singing a mash-up (the blending of a rock classic and a vintage R&B “one hit wonder”) with her three person (fabulous) band. The songs were fun, the blending of them brilliant, her voice was adequate, and her dancing enthusiastic, and while the musical aspect of the final number might not be Grammy worthy, the energy and pure joy of the performance was infectious.

The show had moments that challenged the audience to think, and more moments that dared the audience to laugh without being filtered by any notion of political correctness. But mostly, it was just high energy, super fun, originality and a great example of what solo performance can (and maybe should) be.

Amuse Me, Delight Me, Shock Me – By God!

What is worship? I mean, the gathering together of people to sing hymns, say prayers, hear the thoughts of a hopefully learned speaker, read texts (sacred or otherwise), and share rituals (whether as simple as the candle lighting ritual of the UUs or the shard silence of the Quakers, or as elaborate as the symbolic love feast that many Christians call the Eucharist or Holy Communion) – what is really the purpose of all that?

Is it to help us be moral or “good”? Not really. We learned some sense of right and wrong from our families and the code of conduct of our schools. There are laws to dissuade us from hurting one another, stealing from one another, damaging property, and so on. And anyway, most of us could figure out that unrestrained selfishness can have negative consequences so some standard of behavior would find its way into our lives. Besides, how many bigots, homophobes, misogynists, tax evaders, perpetrators of violence, slanderers, gossips, child abusers, unfit pet caregivers, and general scoundrels go to church every Sunday?! No, clearly we don’t need to go to church to be good, nor does going to church assure us that we will be well behaved.

Is worship, at the church, synagogue, mosque, sangha, or coven, if not to make us “good” then really to help us find God/dess (Spirit, Higher Power, insert meaningful symbol of ultimate reality here)? Maybe on some level for some of us, but why do we keep going once we find It? Cannot the spirit of life and hope and community be accessed in nature, in relationships, in private times of personal reflection, in 12 Step meetings, and so on? And anyway, if we believe in God, don’t we have some sense that It is a ubiquitous presence? How could we ever be separated from what is divine?

Is worship then an intellectual exercise? I mean, there are texts to reflect on, and a homily/sermon/message/lecture/lesson given in most cases. There are religious education classes and spiritual literature/brochures/booklets distributed. Maybe we just like learning. That would be true of the more curious among us, but libraries, universities, public lectures, public broadcasting, and book stores are also good venues for learning. Even without religion, we would find ways to engage our minds if we desired such stimulation.

Maybe worship leads to service and service leads to significance. In worship we are often encouraged to give charitably, to work for justice, to volunteer our time and talent, do something that might ease someone’s burdens in life. Service is valuable, but again, there are those who aren’t particularly religious but who give to charity, who volunteer time, who try to be a good friend to someone in need or who always seek to be a helpful neighbor.

Perhaps worship, then, is social. Maybe we just like to be around people. Maybe it feels good to sing together, to visit at the coffee hour, to shake hands (or hold hands if the liturgy allows), to make personal connections and to express care and concern when fellow worshipers are ill or otherwise struggling in their lives (and, similarly, it may feel good to be cared about during our difficult times). Celebrations of joy (weddings, baptisms) and cathartic/healing rituals (memorials/funerals) also bring us together to share our joys and concerns. Maybe religion is just a really good way to make friends and build community.

And of all the reasons explored so far, this is the one that may hold the most (holy) water! Religion (along with government, family, economy, and education) is one of the five basic social institutions. Maybe religion is very important for society, or for most of human history for our evolutionary good (religion brings us together, and together we are more likely to help one another, to not be as alone, and therefore to be better able to survive some of life’s hardships).

Yes, religion as a social institution and evolutionary aid (helping protect the species by bringing us together) is pretty important. But in a world of dating services, bowling leagues, book clubs, hospitals, nursing homes, support groups, and even the internet, maybe religion is now just one of several ways that we come together to help one another. For worship to be truly meaningful, it must be more than even socialization (which is, however, a good product of religion).

Remember, theatre came out of religious festivals. And people go to the theatre (and presumably the movies, the opera, concerts, pep rallies, etc.), according to playwright/director/social critic David Mamet, “to be delighted, amused, and shocked. To be brought to life, in short.”

That’s it! People come to worship for the same reason they go to worship’s love child – the theatre! People share the worship experience in hopes of experiencing both joy and scandal. People worship to be more fully alive!

Worship isn’t fire insurance to save us from an after-life booby trap.
Worship isn’t the road map to a God forever playing Hide-n-Seek.
Worship isn’t just an inexpensive way to learn myths, histories, rituals, and ancient opinions.
Worship isn’t something that makes us good.
Worship isn’t even primarily to inspire us to do good work (though it can, and that is wonderful).
Worship, in the end, must even be more than a social enterprise (though it is at least that).

No, worship is a shared attempt to live more abundantly.

Whether the music is from an organ, a guitar, or a capella singers, whether the homilist’s jokes are dry or a little naughty, whether the ritual is simple or complex, whether the story-telling is extemporaneous or read from a book, people come together for worship to share an experience of being delighted and shocked.

It’s shocking to hear about a virgin conceiving, and for those who literalize the story, it can be shocking to hear that it may be a story rather than a historical/biological fact.

On Good Friday, it is shocking to bring to mind the horrors of the torture called crucifixion, and to the humanist, it is shocking to hear that some people believe that God wanted such torture for Jesus; for fundamentalists, it might be shocking to hear Presbyterian theologian Delores Williams declare, “there is nothing of God in the blood of the cross.”

And to those who know that same-gender love and attraction are normal, have always existed in every society in every age, and that homosexuality exists in hundreds of species will be shocked to learn that some people hide behind religion to justify their homophobia; while those who always heard that God shared their prejudice against gays and lesbians will be shocked to hear that divine love does not exclude Queer people but indeed, being gay can be considered a special blessing from God!

Oh yes, we come to be delighted, to be amused, and to be shocked. And the more we get what we came for, the more we’ll return and spread the word to others that they need to try this experience.

At Sunshine Cathedral, we show film clips, we tell stories, we share rituals, we sing, we dance, we entertain (we know that’s one of the reasons people come to church, just as it is why they go to the movies, the cabaret, or a play). And, we don’t shy away from thoughts that might be shocking. We challenge oppressive theologies, and to challenge a theology one has held dear for decades can seem shocking, and liberating, and healing, and thrilling. We may be better, God may be bigger, and life may be open to more investigation than we were ever before led to believe. How thrilling that is to discover!

There may be many reasons to worship, but chiefly among them are the desires to be amused, delighted, and shocked. I honestly hope that at Sunshine Cathedral, we meet those needs in abundance week after week!

Happy Birthday to the Last of the Red Hot Mamas

If you've known me more than 20 minutes you know that i WORSHIP Sophie Tucker (whenever you say "thank God" it is Sophie who says, "You're welcome"). NOT the Soph character that Bette Midler does (though, Bette is also divine), but THE Sophie Tucker - the Last of the Red Hot Mamas! She died 9 months before I was born (draw your own conclusions), but she was born today in 1886. Happy Birthday dear Sophie.


born Jan. 13 - 1886
died Feb. 9 - 1966

Durrell born Nov. 15, 1966 (sometimes the life wheel spins around quickly, no?)

Sophie (a stage name) was born Sonya Kalish in Imperial Russia (actually the Ukraine). When she was a baby her family moved to the US (Connecticut) and opened a restaurant. Her career began singing for tips in the family restaurant. She married when she was 17 (Louis Tuck) and they had a son. The marriage did not last long. She would go on to marry twice again.

She went on to develop an act which she did in Vaudeville and Burlesque theatres. She sang risque songs and since she was a woman of some size, she even acknowledged this while affirming herself in the process (one of her great songs was "Nobody Loves a Fat Girl but Oh How a Fat Girl Can Love!").

She also became famous for songs such as "Last of the Red Mamas" and "Some of These Days" as well as for the mournful "My Yiddishe Mama".

Sophie was sensitive to the racism of the time because in a way she was victimized by it. Theatre managers, early in her career, told her she was too fat and too unattractive for theater audiences, so they would only allow her to perform in "black-face." She was such a dynamic performer she became popular enough to be able to ditch the minstrel style black face performances, but she continued to sing songs influenced by the African American blues and ragtime traditions. For a while, she was known as the Mary Garden of Ragtime (referring to a famous opera singer) of the era.

Sophie was also a union organizer and a supporter of Israel. Additionally, she endowed a theatre arts chair at Brandeis University.

In addition to Vaudeville and Burlesque, Sophie appeared in 4 Broadway shows, made supporting and cameo appearances in numerous films, had her own radio show for a year, and made many talk/variety TV show appearances toward the end of her life.
She is credited with influencing some of the "brassy" female comics and singers that followed her, such as Mae West, Mama Cass, and Joan Rivers. And of course, she is the inspiration for Bette Midlers' famous "Soph" character.

Dear Sophie - you are still in my heart the LAST of the Red Hot Mamas!

Relatively Speaking

Nov. 30 - Wed. Matinee
The final show of my 3 day entertainment marathon was so good (but honestly, not any better than The Devil's Music).

Relatively Speaking is at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre which is a lovely space on West 47th Street.
I was 3rd row orchestra (not first...why be greedy all the time?!), but still close enough to see everyone spit.

RS is made up of three one-act comedies: Talking Cure, George is Dead, and Honeymoon Motel.

Each has its own playwright and its own cast (though three or four actors wind up in two of the plays).

The entire show was directed by John Turturro (actor in such films as Jungle Fever, Do the Right Thing, Quiz Show, etc.) but is also a very accomplished film and theatre director. He's currently acting in The Cherry Orchard with Dianne Wiest (downtown, eastside).

RS is star studded (as Broadway has to be these days), but let me regale you with one one-act at a time.

Talking Cure:
A guy on lock down in a mental hospital is being treated by a psychiatrist. the patient, a postal worker (I know, right?!), apparently snapped one day when an elderly woman complained about the condition in which her package arrived. Mr Postal Worker responds by beating her down with a tape dispenser.
Most of this play takes place in a "cage" (which, those not very therapeutic, is where the therapy sessions are taking place...i suppose it was meant to show how "trapped" the patient felt not only in the hospital but also in life).

At the end of the play, we are given a flashback to the man's beginning...the day his mother goes into labor with him. His parents apparently loathe each other and are in a heated argument when she goes into labor. The dysfunctional family hostilities are meant to show us how the patient started life without much hope of sanity.

Predictably, the therapy sessions swing from rage to hilarity and back again. and while there is a breakthrough when the patient admits he has self-image/self-esteem and anger management problems, and why (the parents, of course), we never get to see the broken fragments of psyche reintegrated.

The patient, doctor, attendant (walk on part), mother and father are all the characters.
The patient was played by Danny Hoch....Danny is a playwright and an actor (not the playwright of this show, that would be Ethan Coen...he's done a million things, but is probably best known for his screen plays - Raising Arizona, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where Art Thou?, and for his adaptations of Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men and Charles Portis' True Grit).

Hoch gives a caricature more than a character. He is so preoccupied with clownish facial expressions, exaggerated hand movements, and perfecting a stereotypical Brooklyn Italian accent that there isn't much space left for developing a three dimensional human being for us to care about. Still, his gimmicks were funny enough and the writing was so good that it was still a worthwhile venture.

The mother, played by katherine Borowitz seemed familiar, but her career has consisted mostly of theatre (regional and off-broadway), and I don't think i've seen any of her films (Illuminata, Men of Respect, Internal Affairs, A Serious Man)...but maybe i've seen her in ads or previews for the flicks. Anyway, she was good, though her character isn't given a lot of time to show who she really is. the entire scene with the parents are the two of them arguing at dinner over petty annoyances (which have them at the point of violence) and then her going into labor. So all we see of her or her husband is a comical, petty bickering session.

Meanwhile, its Broadway Cares collection time again, and she was the actor who accepted my contribution at the door :-)

The doctor may be the most famous of the cast: Jason Kravits (you've seen him as an ADA on the Practice, a guest spot on everything, including the fabulous Grey's Anatomy, the final episode of friends, and various films. He not only was the biggest name for the opening act, but he was also the strongest actor with what seems to have been the best written part.

It was cute, funny, enjoyable...but no masterpiece.


George Is Dead:
This was the jewel of the show and should have been the final/anchor piece.
It was written by Elaine May, probably best known for her screen writing, (True Colors, Heaven Can Wait - for which she was nominated for an Oscar, and The Birdcage).

It starred Broadway biggie Lisa Emery, Grant Shaud (the cute producer, Miles, on Murphy Brown...PS - he's fat now), and super brilliant stage goddess Marlo Thomas. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE HER! If you only know her from That Girl (which was funny btw) and St Jude Hospital pitches, and her recurring role as an attorney on Law/Order:SVU (which she is fine in, but of course any capable actor could provide plausible cameo appearances as an attorney)...you might not know that she is GENIUS.
OMG, she was comedic like Bea Arthur and Carol Burnette and Phyllis Diller and Toti Fields and Betty White all rolled into one human...but she didn't camp it up or throw it away...she took her comedy very seriously and played a shallow, wealthy, and apparently friendless woman who receives a phone call in the middle of the night that her husband has died in a skiing accident.

She turns to the daughter (Doreen, a woman she hasn't seen in decades) of her childhood Nanny for comfort. Doreen takes her in and provides her support even while her own marriage is disintegrating in front of her. The old nanny eventually comes in to save the day, which is sweet and painful...sweet b/c she still cares about the child she raised professionally...painful b/c she never seemed to care that much about her own daughter.

There is pathos, and grief, and silliness, and intelligent humor, and amazing timing, and unhealed wounds, and helplessness, and strength all in the space of less than half an hour!
The men provide good support for the women (a funeral director, his assistant, and Doreen's unsympathetic husband played by Grant Shaud), but Marlo Thomas, Lisa Emery (Doreen), and Patricia O'Connell (the nanny/mother) make the show. It would almost have been as good if the men weren't ever seen (in fact, i think it would have worked just as well). and the giant of the cast was Marlo Thomas. The very next thing she does, I hope to see!

Honeymoon Motel:
Written by Woody Allen (and the real reason I went to the show)...best known for his quirky and smart comedic films, this was actually his fourth play to be produced. As far as laughs, it was a knee slapper. Lots of schtik, and good schtik, lots of "insider" Jewish and NYC jokes (very Allen), and a plot that was uncomfortably close to his real life (A woman leaves her fiancee at the altar and runs away with his still married to his mother step-dad)...funny and a little yucky too (but maybe less yucky if you didn't know Allen's T).

This had the largest cast with the most "names" -
Steve Guttenberg (remember super cute Steve Guttenberg? Well, he's aged badly and bears little resemblance to the 80s actor we couldn't wait to see shirtless); he's funny, but plays for laughs which makes his character seem a little less real and a little less likable.

His almost daughter-in-law turned paramour played by Ari Graynor (from Veronica Mars and The Sopranos) is very pretty and sexy and plays the pretty, sexy, husband steeling vamp as well as anyone could.

Grant Shaud is in this one act also, as a more likable character than in George Is Dead. But he's just the friend who supplies straight lines for Guttenberg and throws in a few obvious laugh lines himself.

Caroline Aaron, playing Guttenberg's wife, is a striking woman with a powerful presence and she's very funny (not Guttenberg, "look at me i used to be cute and i still try to exude boyish charm so please laugh at my silliness and tell me i matter" kind of funny, but really, strong, good comic timing, has a sense that the person she's playing is a person even if the emotions she is sharing are contrived for comic effect). You'd know her if you saw her - she's done everything...Sleepless in Seattle, Primary Colors, Crimes and Misdemeanors, Edward Scissorhands, etc. She was one of two great performers in the piece.

The other great performer was Julie Kavner (Marge Simpson, Rhoda's sister...THAT Julie Kavner) who was hilarious! Julie and Caroline should put together a two woman show and take it on the road! Julie played Graynor's mother.

There was a rabbi (Richard Libertini), and Danny Hock played the pizza boy (though his character was indistinguishable from the patient in Talk Therapy), and Jason Kravitz played a psychiatrist (not the same psychiatrist he played an hour earlier), and Mark Linn-Baker (Perfect STrangers) was Kavner's husband.

The tart who dumps her man for her man's step dad, the step dad, his buddy, his wife, the tart's parents (Kravner we learn has had two affairs during the course of their marriage...one with her boss, and one with the marriage counselor they were seeing because of it...funny b/c it is so preposterously unethical, and Linn-Baker retaliated by sleeping with her sister), the rabbi who was performing the ceremony, Guttenberg's therapist (?!), the step-son/dumped groom, and a pizza guy (Graynor is hungry for pizza and orders delivery) all wind up in a cheap motel room where Guttenberg and Graynor have taken refuge for their night of post-wedding disaster love-making. In the end, everyone leaves, relatively OK with life, and Guttenberg and Graynor kiss as the lights go down.

Allen, Turturro, Guttenberg, Shaud, Kavner, Graynor, Linn-Baker, Libertini...You'd think, wouldn't you? I mean, this has got to be 4th of July kind of fabulous. It was more like Presidents Day kind of acceptable. Big laughs. A couple of comic diva geniuses. But at no point did i ever care what happened to any of them, and was actually a little deflated when Graynor and Guttenberg wind up together in the end without any remorse for the lives and families they've destroyed. The pizza boy gives some home spun wisdom about a morally neutral universe (or, in his words, "there are no rules") and there are some very brief ponderings about metaphysics in general...but mostly, its "let's laugh at a lot of one liners, question the existence of a higher power as Allen so famously does, and, thumb our noses at any sense of caring for the feelings of others...break as many hearts as you can as long as you end up happy, or at least relatively pleased"...a decent sit-com for TV, but not especially good theatre.

If the decent first play (though one of its two prime characters was played in my opinion by a weak actor) was followed by the Allen amorality farce and then the Marlo Thomas piece had ended the show...it would have gone from strength to strength and would have made for a better theatrical experience. Almost any time spent in any NY theatre is worth the experiment, and this play as a whole has value for the laughs (however cheap some of them may be), but the bread slices that surrounded the Marlo Thomas meat were jsut that...something to hold up the tasty thing you really want to consume. Marlo's performance and the entire cast/performance/writing of "George is Dead" made what would have been an acceptable theatre outing into a true joy. But honestly, if they had simply done the one act with Marlo in some Off-broadway venue, it would have been a far better venture.

here endeth this NY excursion...

durrell

The Devil's Music

Nov. 29-"The Devil's Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith"
Best musical review EVER!

It was at the St Luke's Theatre (basement of St Luke Lutheran Church on 46th Street (between 8th & 9th Aves, closer to 8th). Even though it is off-broadway, it's just three blocks or so from Broadway theatres also on 46th. So, being all up in the theatre district but still having an off beat, slightly bohemian feel makes it a really good venue.
Not as glam as the Lortel...after all, it is subterranean (while LL is a stand alone building with the playwrights walk of fame in front)...St Luke's theatre only has about 100 seats (and while there isn't a bad seat in the house, i had the BEST seat in the house...front row center - i know, right, two nights in a row!).

Devil's Music is sort of one a woman show, but really there are 4 characters. Three are men who make up her band, and they are actually musicians (piano/bass/sax...sax player also plays clarinet for one number). One of the three guys has a few lines (and a character name, "Pickle"), but really, it's all about Bessie.

The title character is played by Miche Braden. I hadn't seen her before, but i hope to see her again. She sang her face off! The bluesy quality of her voice and the way she embodied the message of every song was in itself performance art.The show starts with a voice describing Bessie's funeral, then suddenly we fly backward in time 9 days to her last concert, and at that concert, she weaves her life-story around great old blues classics.

The audience learns so much about Bessie Smith...her being orphaned as a child, being married to someone who died shortly thereafter, and then being married again to an abusive ne'er do well, her active bisexuality, her adopting a son (and having that son taken away from her by the courts when her second husband reported her for being "unfit" - and what primarily made her "unfit" was her "carnal relations with women"), her sadness as Blues starts to be replaced by Swing in popularity, her success in spite of racism and the Great Depression.

We see (as she drinks almost every minute on stage) that she probably is a problem drinker if not an alcoholic, and while the play is intentionally very accurate about the details of Bessie's life, the playwright does add one bit of foreshadowing by having Bessie get a cold chill every time she mentions death.Finally, the show ends the way Bessie's life did...with a car accident (at only 43). Then, as an encore, the resurrected Bessie comes out and reprises the song she opened the show with.

In addition to her amazing singing voice, and the way Bessie's life is told by way of Bessie herself giving her last concert, there are two other things that really struck me about this play.1. Miche Braden, at least as Bessie Smith, is super sexy! Not beautiful. Not even pretty really. But so embodied, so alive, so confident and strong and still willing to risk vulnerability, so light on her feet (though in reality, about 200# are supported by those feet), so comfortable talking and singing about sex/uality...she was just very sexy.
2. Unlike charles busch, Miche B. does not resort to imitation/impersonation to create her character. She uses her voice (which is risky since BS was a recording artist and her voice is so well known); but much as Charles B. so thoroughly imagines himself to be the lady he is portraying that his/her femininity is the one thing the audience never questions, Miche B. so thoroughly WAS Bessie Smith, so completely believed that she was the incarnation of Bessie Smith, that she didn't need to imitate...she believed she was Bessie, and so we did too. He could have sounded like Kermit the Frog and looked like Lady Gaga, and i think we would have left saying, "that was the Bessie down to the last detail!"
side note - (isn't that what make believe is...when we make ourselves believe that the pretense is true?, and when we believe it, we make others believe it too...).

Where was I? Oh, yes...Devil's Music is FABULOUS!

What a treat it was to find this off-broadway treasure. Money and time very well spent!
Tomorrow (Wednesday matinee) - "Relatively Speaking."I'll tell you about it tomorrow (after I've worshiped once again in the Temple of Dionysus).

durrell

PS - to see all this NY theatre only one month after seeing Follies on Broadway is an embarrassment of riches. meanwhile, i'm happy as a pig in shit!

Saw Tea at Five in NYC

Monday, Nov. 28 -
Tea at Five...a staged reading at Lucille Lortel theatre on Christopher St.
LL is a great small theatre...about 200 seats on the floor and another 20 or so in the balcony.
The stage is about as deep as ours at Sunshine Cathedral, and about half the width.
Of course, Charles Busch was fabulous.

You know he has a theatre degree from Northwestern...he really is a good playwright and actor. But of course Tea at Five wasn't written by him...it was originally done on Broadway with kate Mulgrew.

Charles looked like KH (he's known for the best wigs in the world) and he had her mannerisms and voice down...he's made a career of imitating the screen legends of the days of yore, or their screen personas anyway (though usually as composite characters of his own creation). he is such a good female impersonator that it's never a distraction that he is actually male (in fact, he so believes that he is an actress/diva on the stage, that the audience soon believes it too).
It was a one night only production/benefit for an LBGT shelter in NYC.

I've seen CB's play "Tales of the Allergist's Wife" on Broadway, Psycho Beach Party (regional theatre/Dallas), and the film versions of PBP and Die Mommy Die (with Charles in them), and the documentary film about him, "The Lady in Question." I also saw his film, "A Very Serious Person."
In January I got to see him in his play, "The Divine Sister" at the SoHo Playhouse. And now this staged reading of "Tea of Five."

A few years ago he played Auntie Mame (in the play, "Auntie Mame" in a summer stock production in Maine), but sadly, I missed it :-(

I'm a huge Charles Busch fan, and last night's performance did NOT disappoint. AND, PS, I was front row center. thank you very much.