The Understudy: A Review Wednesday, Dec 23 2009

While we were in NYC last week, PJ and I saw one off-Broadway play, The Understudy, which was written by Theresa Rebeck and stars Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Justin Kirk, and Julie White. We saw White a couple of years ago in her Tony winning performance in The Little Dog Laughed, which was a great, devastatingly satiric play on Hollywood, and so we looked forward to seeing her again in this work, which, at least on paper, sounds a little like The Little Dog Laughed.

Kirk, who is perhaps best known for his work in Weeds and Angels in America, plays Harry, who has just been hired as the understudy for an action movie star, Jake, played by Gosselaar. Jake and another action star, Bruce, are starring in a hit Broadway play that is a recently discovered work by Kafka. The play-within-a-play more or less combines elements from Kafka’s The Trial with elements from The Castle. There are sixteen roles in the Kafka play, but Bruce plays fifteen of them and Jake plays one. Harry is Jake’s understudy, and Jake is Bruce’s understudy. The real-time action of The Understudy involves a rehearsal of the play so that Harry can learn Jake’s part.

White plays the stage manager, Roxanne. She’s trying to keep everything together despite several setbacks. She used to be an actress but had to give up that career when she fell apart after a breakup. She also has a complicated relationship with each of the other characters. And finally, her tech person, Laura, is too stoned to be entirely cooperative during the rehearsal.

Basically, on one level this play is about these characters’ relationships with one another; on another level it’s an exploration of the current economic realities of Broadway, the need to attract large audiences and the use of big name movie stars to do so. The play explores some of the complications this use of movie stars on Broadway entails.

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SotW: Old Devil Moon by Cheyenne Jackson Tuesday, Dec 22 2009

This week’s song of the week is “Old Devil Moon” by Cheyenne Jackson. Last week we saw him in Finian’s Rainbow, and I can’t get this song out of my head. Here’s a clip of him singing it from the show:

I was slightly familiar with the song, since it’s become an old pop standard, but it had never really stood out to me before. Now it’s one of my favorite songs. I love its old-fashioned romanticism, and Jackson does a great job singing it.

It is a great song, but the main reason it’s impressed me so much is that I thought Cheyenne Jackson was a revelation in Finian’s Rainbow. The moment he first walked out on stage I gasped out loud at his hunkiness. The phrase that keeps coming to mind is, “What a man, what a man, what a mighty fine man!” I had read about him on gay blogs before, and I have to say everything I’ve read about him is true: he’s a total hunk!

He really fills out a pair of jeans. I once read that his thighs are amazing, and they are. But what stood out to me was that he’s hunky without looking like a gym queen. Not only is he handsome with piercing blue eyes, but he comes across on stage as unselfconsciously butch. Kind of like he’s been raised on a farm rather than in a gym. In fact, on stage he looked a little closer to normal than to a beefy gym queen, which makes him even sexier.

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South Pacific: A Review Monday, Dec 21 2009

When PJ and I planned our trip to New York this year, there was one show I absolutely wanted to see: the revival of South Pacific. So, this was the only show for which we bought advance tickets. I’m glad we saw it — it’s a wonderful interpretation of the musical — but we clearly did not need advance tickets: we sat in the balcony with only about 20 other people. The theater was probably less than two-thirds full. I assume the production won’t be sticking around much longer (unless the weekends really bring in the crowds — we saw it on Wednesday night).

As I’m sure everyone knows, this 1949 musical is about the war in the South Pacific in the early 1940s. It tells the story of Ensign Nellie Forbush, a girl from Little Rock, who meets Emile de Becque while stationed on an island. The two instantly fall in love when they see each other across a crowded room; the play is about what happens when they begin to learn a little more about each other’s lives and beliefs. The secondary plot is about a hotshot lieutenant, Joe Cable, who sees an opportunity to turn the tide of the war. His plans are complicated by Nellie and Emile’s relationship and his own attraction for a native islander. Both couples have to confront the Americans’ racism to varying degrees of success. The play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1950.

I’d never seen a live production of the play before. I had seen the 1958 film, which I have mixed feelings about. I like the songs and message, but the movie’s direction is too much for its own good. In particular, the film is famous for its mood coloring, which never appealed to me.

My parents raised my sister and me on old movies, and this one was probably one of the racier ones that we were allowed to watch. I was totally crushing on John Kerr, and I loved the song “Bali Hai” beyond all reason. I now think it resonated with my adolescent queer yearning for love and unconscious knowledge that it would have to be found elsewhere than in my parents’ community.

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Finian’s Rainbow: A Review Monday, Dec 21 2009

Last week, PJ and I saw four plays while we were in New York City: Finian’s Rainbow, South Pacific, The Understudy, and God of Carnage. None of them knocked our socks off, but I enjoyed the musicals a lot and we were both pleasantly surprised by The Understudy.

We arrived in New York on Tuesday. We didn’t buy advance tickets in case our flight was delayed or something like that happened. SO, after we checked into our hotel we went to the TKTS booth for discount tickets. We did this last year and were really happy with the tickets we got for In the Heights.

Also like last year, we had nothing in mind for the Tuesday night show. We just knew we wanted to see a musical. If there had been tickets for it, we probably would have seen A Little Night Music starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury, but that wasn’t available. One of the options PJ suggested was Finian’s Rainbow, which we knew almost nothing about. The only thing we knew was, as PJ pointed out, Cheyenne Jackson was in it. That seemed more tempting to me than the other alternative PJ suggested, Hair. I intend to write more about Mr. Jackson in another blog later this week, so I’ll save some of my thoughts about him for that. For this post, I’ll just start by saying that this was our chance to see him in person, and I was going to take it unless PJ insisted on Hair. He didn’t.

So, we got out tickets for Finian’s Rainbow. Overall, it’s kind of lightweight even for a musical. It originally ran in 1947. The plot revolves around Finian, an Irishman who moves from Ireland to the mythical state of Missitucky with his daughter, Sharon. Sharon soon catches the eye of Woody, who is leading an effort to combat the racist policies of Senator Rawlins. We soon learn that Finian has stolen a pot of gold from a leprechaun, Og, who wants his gold back. Comic mayhem ensues.

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New York Theater 2008: Four Reviews Saturday, Dec 6 2008

While we were in New York City this week, PJ and I saw four plays: Mouth to Mouth, off-Broadway, and three Broadway shows, In the Heights, The Seagull, and Gypsy. These four plays were all at least as good as the plays we saw last year, which was a little surprising since we hadn’t really planned on seeing two of them.

We arrived in NYC a couple of hours later than we had planned — airport delays — on Monday. So, we rushed to check in and then walked over to the TKTS booth to see what we could find to see. Unlike past years, we decided this time to only buy tickets at the discount booth, which obviously meant that we didn’t necessarily have control over what we saw. Furthermore, Mondays are mostly dark, which means that few shows are actually playing.

We had looked on the Internet before arriving in NYC to see what was playing on Monday. One of the shows we thought might be interesting was Kevin Elyot’s Mouth to Mouth. We also liked that this play was being performed at the Acorn Theater. Last year we saw Things We Want at the Acorn, and the year before that we saw The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie there. So, it’s now a bit of a tradition for us to see a play at the Acorn each time we’re in New York.

Mouth to Mouth is about a man who’s HIV positive, Frank, played by David Cale, who is racked with guilt over a secret he’s keeping from his best friend, Laura, played by Lisa Emery. Over the course of the play we go back and forth between the present and the previous year as we learn what Frank’s secret is and how it affects him and the people around him.

One of these people is Laura’s son, Philip, played by Christopher Abbott. Philip makes quite an entrance: he arrives onstage wearing only jeans. While the part calls for Abbott to be sexy and alluring, he manages to bring more than just a great body to the role. Philip is a complicated character, one that remains elusive since the play is more or less told from Frank’s point of view.

This elusive quality is one of the complaints I have about the play. I think it would work better and be far more engaging if we knew more about Philips’ motivations, behaviors, and point of view. Elyot is trying to explore very complicated ground in this work — I don’t want to summarize it too fully since that would lessen the play’s impact for anyone who might see it — but this ground could be even more complex and interesting.

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Chicago: A Review Saturday, Sep 27 2008

Yesterday, PJ and I went to see Chicago, which came to Athens as part of the university’s performing arts series. Here’s a Youtube clip from when the Broadway production visited The Early Show. The touring company we saw was, of course, based on this production.

Until yesterday, almost my entire knowledge of this musical was from the 2002 movie version starring Richard Gere, Renée Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, John C. Reilly, and Queen Latifah. The only other thing I knew about the show was that Bebe Neuwirth had starred in it (and won a Tony) in the mid-90s. Here’s a clip of her as Velma Kelly performing during the Tony Award show:

I really only have two responses to the touring company version of the musical. On the one hand, this production suffers from the slightness of the musical’s book and the limits of being a touring company. But on the other hand, I finally learned why God created tight, low-rise pants for men!

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The Shaw Theatre Festival Saturday, Aug 2 2008

While on vacation last week, PJ and I saw two plays at the Shaw Theatre Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake. The Shaw Festival started in 1962 and is dedicated to staging the works of Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) and his contemporaries.

American audiences are probably most familiar with Shaw’s Pygmalion, since it was the basis of the musical My Fair Lady. (I read the play in high school.) But Shaw wrote a large number of plays, many of which are still part of the repertoire, including Man and Superman (1903), Major Barbara (1905), and Saint Joan (1923).

Neither PJ nor I have ever enjoyed Shaw’s plays all that much, so we didn’t have the highest expectations. We were pleasantly surprised by how much we enjoyed Niagara-on-the-Lake and the two plays we saw at the festival.

The first play we saw was Shaw’s Mrs. Warren’s Profession. The play centers on Vivie, played by Moya O’Connell. Vivie is a rather prudish, mannish kind of young woman who intends to become an actuary now that she has graduated from Cambridge. As the play begins, Vivie is joined in the country by her mother’s friend, Praed, played by David Jansen, and eventually by her mother, Mrs. Warren, played by Mary Haney. Over the first two acts, Vivie learns that her mother has supported her through prostitution (Vivie has been raised by surrogates while Mrs. Warren has lived on the continent). After hearing her mother describe her early life in poverty, Vivie initially forgives her for her choices, but when she learns in Act 3 that her mother’s extremely profitable business is still in operation (Mrs. Warren now serves as CEO of the company), she decides to repudiate her and swears never to see her again. In the meantime, other revelations about Mrs. Warren’s past doom Vivie’s relationship with her young man, Frank, played by Andrew Bunker.

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Stratford Shakespeare Festival Tuesday, Jul 29 2008

For the second leg of our vacation last week, PJ and I visited the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario. Until recently we thought that we wouldn’t be able to go on our annual trip to New York in December and we didn’t want to pay an arm and a leg for airfare to England, so we thought a drive to Stratford (and then to the Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake) would be a good alternative, which it was. (Right before leaving, we learned that we won’t be going to MLA this year, so we probably will be going to New York after all. Two theater trips in six months is great!)

We arrived in Stratford on Wednesday morning. We stayed at the Olde English Parlour Hotel, which is now the Parlour Historic Inn and Suites. It seems like a nice little hotel. Our room, or more precisely our suite, was really nice. We tend to travel as cheaply as possible, but this time we did a little better for ourselves — nothing outrageous, but better than the least expensive. Our suite had a living room with a couch, flat screen TV, and kitchenette. Then there was a separate bedroom, which also had a flat screen TV (I mention the televisions because, after spending three days in Pentwater without access to one, it felt great to be able to watch whatever was on.)

Our hotel was within walking distance of all of the three theaters we were going to as well as to the shops and restaurants in downtown Stratford. The downtown is really cute:

One of the first things we did on Thursday morning was find the Shakespearean Gardens, a beautiful garden along the Avon River that contains flowers and plants mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays.

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Local Theater: Two Reviews Sunday, May 18 2008

This week, PJ and I saw two productions at Ohio University, Knock Me a Kiss and The Compleat Female Stage Beauty. Knock Me a Kiss was written by Charles Smith, a professor of playwriting here in the School of Theater, and tells the fictionalized story of W.E.B. DuBois‘s daughter, Yolande, and her short-lived marriage to poet Countee Cullen. It was part of the School of Theater’s regular season. The Compleat Female Stage Beauty, by Jeffrey Hatcher, is about Edward Kynaston, the last actor famous for playing female roles in the Restoration. It was made into a feature film in 2004. I really enjoyed both productions.

Knock Me a Kiss is a really complex examination of race, gender, and sexuality during the Harlem Renaissance. The play revolves around Yolande’s struggling to decide whether she should marry for love or duty. She is in love with musician Jimmy Lunceford, but her father wants her to marry Cullen, a poet frequently featured in DuBois’s magazine, The Crisis. According to DuBois, his daughter’s marriage to Cullen will usher in a new age of racial equality, helping to liberate African Americans from discrimination. Once Yolande has married Cullen, however, she learns that he is more interested in “spending time with” his “friend,” Harold Jackman, than in being with her. Cullen ultimately confesses his homosexual leanings to his wife, causing her to divorce him.

I knew nothing about these figures before seeing the play. A little internet research and conversations with PJ have suggested that Smith has taken license with some of the historical details, but historical accuracy isn’t really the point of this play, it seems to me. Instead, I thought that the play used these events to explore issues of patriarchal power, masculine privilege, and double standards based on gender. Yolande is forced into making a decision she later regrets because her father is able to dominate her and convince her that marrying Cullen is for the greater good. Indeed, according to this play, women pay the greater price for men’s efforts at political change.

One of the things I liked most about the play was its depiction of Cullen’s sexuality. It would have been easy to make this character the villain, to portray him as malevolently using Yolande to hide his sexual orientation. I thought the production did a good job of showing Cullen’s own victimization. In order to receive a fellowship to write in Europe, he needs DuBois’s recommendation. DuBois makes this recommendation contingent on Cullen marrying well. Kevin Vaught does an excellent job of showing his character’s humanity — he’s a complicated character that is both likable and despicable.

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Favorite Plays of 2007 Sunday, Feb 10 2008

PJ and I saw some great productions this year. We saw plays here in Ohio, in New York City, and in London. Usually our London trip gives us the opportunity to see some great plays, but this year the works we saw there were rather weak on the whole. New York was much better. Ohio University’s School of Theater also regularly puts on interesting work.

So, here’s my annual list of favorite plays:

1. August: Osage County. I’ve already reviewed this production from our New York trip, but I’ll reiterate here how much I enjoyed this play. It borrows a lot from other great American plays, but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining. Indeed, part of the fun is listening for those echoes. I definitely want to plan a trip to Chicago sometime to see another production by the Steppenwolf Theatre Company. If August is any indication of the kind of work they do, it will definitely be worth the trip!
2. Betty’s Summer Vacation. I didn’t get a chance to blog about this OU School of Theater production of Christopher Durang’s satire on contemporary media. This website provides some interesting information about the play and Durang’s vision in writing it. I particularly liked the play’s comic satire. All of the performances in the local production were great, but one really stood out: Shelley Delaney, a faculty member in the School of Theater, starred as Mrs. Siezmagraff, the owner of the beach house that Betty and three other college-aged people rent for their vacation. Mrs. Siezmagraff is a rather off-beat character whose comic antics ultimately become kind of tragic, and Delaney played the part perfectly. It was an excellent production.
3. Spring Awakening. We also saw this musical in New York. This is a different kind of musical; it took me a little while to warm up to it. But ultimately, I’m a sucker for musicals so I did warm up to it. Here’s my review of the plays we saw on that trip.
4. The Seafarer. This is another play we saw in New York. I was expecting more of this play — I expected to like it even more than I did. I enjoyed it, but based on the reviews it was getting I thought it would really knock me out. It didn’t do that, but I liked it. Here’s my review of the plays we saw on that trip.
5. The Drowsy Chaperone. This was the only London production we saw last year that I liked. It’s more a traditional musical than Spring Awakening, and I enjoyed parts of it immensely. I can’t help but put it lower on my list than SA due to its lack of boldness in depicting gayness and gay men’s love of musicals. I’ve already reviewed it too.

While I like these plays, they’re not as strong as the ones on my list from 2006. We won’t be going to London this year, and we may not make it to New York either.  However, we do hope to make a trip to the Stratford, Ontario Shakespeare Festival this summer and there are always terrific local productions to see.  So I should have theater to write about this year.

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