Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals

Review - The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism With a Key to the Scriptures at the Public Theatre

Playwright Tony Kushner has been much in the news lately. A well-received revival of his award-winning Angels in America recently ended a much-extended run at the Signature Theatre Company in New York. And, more recently, there was the tempest in a teapot about awarding Kushner an honorary degree from John Jay College, part of the CUNY system. (Kushner was denied the degree, but the decision has since been reversed.)

Meanwhile, his latest play, The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures, recently made its New York City debut at The Public Theatre. I'm a huge admirer of Kushner, and of Angels in America in particular, so I was eagerly anticipating this play, although it received mixed notices in its out-of-town tryout at the Guthrie in Minneapolis.

At first glance, The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide (or iHo for short) would seem to bear little resemblance with its more well-known forbear except for its extreme length. At the performance I attended, iHo clocked in at about three hours and 35 minutes. (Mr. Kushner needs to acquaint himself with the delete key.) But iHo also shares with Angels an overarching passion for intellectual and political discourse, although the result here is far less satisfying.

For iHo, Kushner has amassed a set of intensely passionate characters, gathered together for a common cause: to discuss and perhaps prevent their aging father from committing suicide. Along the way, we endure a lot of intense and high-decibel discussions about socialism, theology, family dynamics, homosexuality, and prostitution. Kushner clearly hopes to create some meaningful connections among the various narrative threads and sociological theses, but the resulting play, while dense and ambitious, is emotionally and intellectually unfulfilling. Too often, the characters seem more like mouthpieces for Kushner's socio-political musings than real people unto themselves.

That said, the production is worth seeing, if only for its dynamite cast, including Linda Emond as Empty (an annoyingly unsubtle name, derived from the character's initials, M.T.), the daughter who strives the longest and hardest to persuade her father to live. Michael Cristofer, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning playwright of The Shadow Box, as the central father figure, reveals himself here as an actor of great depth and subtlety. Kushner regular Stephen Spinella plays the son with a passionate addiction to rent boy Michael Esper, the latter of whom shows that he's a much more layered and persuasive a performer than American Idiot gave him a chance to demonstrate.

Based on the mixed reception that greeted iHo's bow at the Public, I can't imagine the show will move to Broadway. But it would seem very likely that we'll start to see regional productions of the play at some of the more adventurous theater companies around the country.

The Second Annual Theater Blogger Awards

When I was a full-time business journalist, I would often marvel at the remarkably specific nature of the various trade associations that existed out there. There's a National Association of Left-Handed Golfers. There's also a Society of Plastic Engineers - Blow Molding Division. Heck, there's even an Association for Association Leadership.

Well, my esteemed blogger colleagues and I have added to the association madness by uniting to create the Independent Theater Bloggers Association (ITBA). The idea is that, as traditional critics find themselves fewer in number, due to the fragmentation of the established news media, theater bloggers will gain increasing readership and influence with the ticket-buying public. And, heck, we might as well get organized.

And what would a self-respecting theater-related organization be if it didn't add its own series of awards to the already dizzying and copious field, right? Below are the winners of the second annual Theater Blogger Awards. (The "Bloggies"?) I can't say that I agree with all of the winners, but that's the nature of the democratic process. I was part of the nominating committee, and I got to place my vote. So I guess I should be satisfied that I had a say in the process at all, right? 

Here's a video of the awards announcements, by Ann Harada, Susan Blackwell, and Jeannine Frumess, all currently appearing in The Kid at The New Group.

Congratulations to all of the winners. And best wishes for the rest of the zany, kooky, crazy award season.

OUTSTANDING NEW BROADWAY PLAY:
In The Next Room (or The Vibrator Play)
Next Fall
Red
Superior Donuts
Time Stands Still

OUTSTANDING BROADWAY PLAY REVIVAL:
Brighton Beach Memoirs
Fences
Lend Me a Tenor
Oleanna
A View From The Bridge

OUTSTANDING NEW BROADWAY MUSICAL:
American Idiot
Everyday Rapture
Fela!

OUTSTANDING BROADWAY MUSICAL REVIVAL:
Finian’s Rainbow
La Cage aux Folles
A Little Night Music
Ragtime

OUTSTANDING NEW OFF-BROADWAY PLAY:
Circle Mirror Transformation
Clybourne Park
The Orphans Home Cycle
The Temperamentals

OUTSTANDING NEW OFF-BROADWAY MUSICAL:
Bloodsong of Love
Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson
The Scottsboro Boys
YANK!

OUTSTANDING OFF-BROADWAY REVIVAL:
The Glass Menagerie
A Lie Of The Mind
Twelfth Night

OUTSTANDING OFF-OFF BROADWAY SHOW:
Alice In Slasherland
Girls In Trouble
In Fields Where They Lay
Lear
MilkMilkLemonade
Rescue Me
Samuel & Alasdair: A Personal History of the Robot War
The Soup Show
Viral

OUTSTANDING SOLO SHOW:
A Boy And His Soul
Zero Hour

OUTSTANDING ENSEMBLE PERFORMANCE:
Circle Mirror Transformation
A Lie Of The Mind
Twelfth Night

CITATIONS FOR EXCELLENCE BY INDIVIDUAL PERFORMERS:
Nina Arianda, Venus In Fur
Kate Baldwin, Finian's Rainbow
Desiree Burch, The Soup Show
Rebecca Comtois, Viral
Viola Davis, Fences
Jon Michael Hill, Superior Donuts
Douglas Hodge, La Cage Aux Folles
Sarah Lemp, The Pied Pipers of the Lower East Side & Happy In The Poorhouse
Laura Linney, Time Stands Still
Jan Maxwell, The Royal Family & Lend Me A Tenor
Bobby Steggert, Ragtime & Yank!
Amy Lynn Stewart, Viral

Review - Enron at the Broadhurst Theatre

Never doubt the power of the Tonys, at least when it comes to marketing a show. No sooner had the Tony nominations come out than the producers of the new play Enron announced that the struggling show, which opened April 27th to decidedly mixed reviews and weak grosses, would be closing Sunday, May 9th after only 12 days of regular performances. The producers were likely hoping for more than just the four nominations that the show received, but alas, the all-important nod for Best Play was not among the four.

I have to say that I'd feel a lot worse for the Enron folks if the play itself were any good. But, in my humble estimation, it is not. I saw the show last weekend, before the closure announcement, and it wasn't anywhere near the electrifying experience I had been led to expect.

Enron was the one play of the season that I was actively looking forward to. That's probably because I had heard that it was sort of a play/musical hybrid, with ample amounts of dance, music, and stylistic touches. Plus, I had heard that the cast would feature Broadway musical stalwarts Norbert Leo Butz and Marin Mazzie. The New York Times even referred to the show as a musical in one of its Arts, Briefly notes. (The Gray Lady later appended that article with a note that, despite the songs and dancing, author Lucy Prebble considers it a play.)

After the reviews for Enron came out, I heard some speculation that the New York production wasn't well received because Americans don't like to see themselves criticized. Sorry, I don't buy that. You'd be hard pressed to find an American who would defend Enron, or to take any attack on Enron personally. No, it comes down to the effectiveness of the play itself. Despite an acclaimed London run, Enron seems to have lost something in translation. Rumor has it that director Rupert Goold was only able to spend two weeks rehearsing with the cast because of his schedule. But it's not clear to me that more rehearsal would have made much difference. It wasn't the presentation that was lacking, but rather the substance of the play itself.

Enron is certainly well-presented, but the dramaturgy is pedestrian. I'll say one thing for Prebble: she made the abstruse financial machinations almost comprehensible. But the play has no point of view, other than "Gee, weren't these guys greedy and evil?" Theatre thrives on ambiguity and nuance, and there's precious little of either in Prebble's play. There were a few times when I thought I was getting a glimpse of the people behind the disaster, particularly in the final monologue of Jeff Skilling (played here with characteristic aplomb by Butz):

You wanna hold a mirror up to nature? [A projection reveals a graph of the Dow Jones Index over the last century.] There's your mirror. Every dip, every crash, every bubble that's burst, that's you...This one gave us the railroads. This one the Internet. This one the slave trade. And if you wanna do anything about saving the environment or getting to other worlds, you'll need a bubble for that, too.

That's a fairly interesting insight, but that's really all we get, and it comes after a lot of unconvincing drama and plodding dialog. In one of the first scenes, the Andy Fastow character (played rather broadly by Stephen Kunken) is at an Enron party, and says (to no one in particular) "Look, even Ken Lay is here." In a later scene, Fastow is being bullied by some of the energy traders, and says "I'll remember this when I'm CFO." That kind of ham-handed indication should have been edited out after the first draft.

Prebble also traffics in facile and obvious metaphors: the arcane financial instruments become corporeal "raptors," in a reference to "Jurassic Park." And the energy traders take on the countenance of Jedi knights, complete with a light-saber-laden dance number. Now it's entirely likely that Prebble took those cultural references directly from the Enron folk themselves, but accuracy doesn't necessarily translate into inspiration.

I will admit that it was illuminating to see the extent to which the Bush family, George W. in particular, was in bed with the Enron folk, and relied heavily on financial contributions from same. It was also eye-opening to see how soon-to-be governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger was involved, with particular regard to the disastrous deregulation of electricity in California, which led to the rolling blackouts in 2000 and 2001. The implication was that Enron helped get The Terminator into office, specifically with the goal of bringing about deregulation. But all that info is readily available elsewhere. If you're looking for some insight into the Enron fiasco, you're better off reading The Smartest Guys in the Room or renting the 2005 movie version.

Despite the play's flaws, it's possible that Enron could have found a receptive audience. I find it really hard to believe that, with this many producers (IBDB lists a whopping 34), there weren't sufficient cash reserves to allow the show time to catch on. But they probably saw the show's gross go down one week after the reviews came out and just panicked. (I'm sure there's an incisive parallel in there somewhere with the investor panic involved in the collapse of Enron, but I really can't be bothered.)

GRADE: B minus (Not nearly as insightful or thrilling as it thinks it ought to be) 

Review - A Behanding in Spokane

There are so many new musicals that I want to see this season, but when I was in New York last weekend, none of them had started previews yet. So, as I was headed down to see Yank (see my review below), I figured I'd take in that rarity of rarities in my theater-going career, a straight play.

So, I got a ticket to see A Behanding in Spokane. Because I'm a die-hard Martin McDonagh fan? Not really. Because I wanted to see one of the greatest actors of our time, Christopher Walken? Nope. Dear reader, I must confess that I wanted to see Behanding because for years I've had an enormous crush on Sam Rockwell.

It's sort of hard to explain. It's not that he's attractive. ("But, oh, my heart grew active...") He certainly is, although not in a conventional way. Ever since I saw him as the smarmy Guy Fleegman in a movie that has become one of my guiltiest of pleasures, "Galaxy Quest," there's just been something about Rockwell's presence, demeanor, and acting style that just makes my insides melt. So, like a great big fangirl, I giddily made my way to the Schoenfeld Theater to gawk in person and in public at my long-time cinematic crush. 

Of course, that meant I had to sit through A Behanding in Spokane. It's not that it's a bad play, it's just not the sort of thing I would normally gravitate toward if it didn't feature by celebrity boyfriend. (Oh, the things we do for love.) Behanding is a pointedly and self-consciously macabre affair involving an itinerant vengeful psychopath on the prowl for his missing left hand. Two small-time cons try to trick him into believing that they have his hand and try to collect the reward money. And havoc ensues.

I have to say, I was laughing pretty hard throughout the show. I'm not overly familiar with McDonagh's oeuvre, but based on Behanding, he would seem to have quite a way with a one-liner, if mostly of the sardonic sort. Christopher Walken gets most of the laughs, and deservedly so. The man is a marvel. I used to think that all those people who did Walken imitations were exaggerating, but based on Walken's line delivery in Behanding, they would actually seem to be toning his tics and mannerisms down. But somehow it works. Walken makes you believe that at any moment he could coolly pull out his gun and pop someone in the head, without the slightest provocation. And that characteristic alone imbues Behanding with an uneasy sense of suspense. 

As for my man Rockwell, he can certainly hold his own with Walken. Rockwell plays the hotel clerk at the seedy hotel where Walken's character is staying, and for me he was the most interesting character in the show. The two victims are played by Zoe Kazan and Anthony Mackie, and I've read in numerous places that they are among the most promising actors of their generation, and I guess I'll have to take other people's word for it. (I've only seen Kazan before, in the recent revival of The Seagull, and found her to be one-note whiny as Masha.) To be fair, McDonagh hasn't really given them believable characters to inhabit; they simply act as the unfortunate but underwritten foils for Walken's maleficence.

But Rockwell's character is much better realized, a puzzling mix of cluelessness, bravado, and seeming suicidal tendencies. He's really the only character for whom we get any back story, by way of an in-one, curtain monologue in which he talks about his love affair with a monkey at the local zoo. (But, you know, not in a gross way.) And Rockwell keeps you guessing beyond the final curtain as to whether this guy is warped, evil, or just plain stupid.

So I probably won't be rushing to see any more Martin McDonagh anytime soon. (I'm kind of a weenie when it comes to violence and cruelty, which is why I gave The Pillowman and The Lieutenant of Inishmore a pass.) But I'll continue to seek out Sam Rockwell, both on the stage and screen. If not [sigh] in life.