Everything I Know I Learned From Musicals

Review - Pins and Needles at The Foundry Theatre

Every once in a while, I see a production that reminds me of what theater can really be. I'm not talking about commercial theater. I'm talking about theater in its purest form, which, at least for me, is about connecting with people and their stories and about communicating important and challenging ideas.

But this past Saturday, I had the great pleasure of attending a show that accomplished both, putting forth a slate of real and courageous people and presenting a series of ideas that, while not new, are just as important now as they were when the show in question was first produced.

That show is Pins and Needles, a topical revue that first appeared in 1937, and which at one time was the longest-running show on Broadway (at 1,108 performances), until Oklahoma! came along and nearly doubled the record. This left-leaning satirical show featured music and lyrics by Harold Rome, and sketch material by Rome, Marc Blitzstein, John Latouche, and others. One remarkable thing about the show was that it was performed by theatrical amateurs, a rotating series of members of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. These days, the show is primarily remembered for its 25th anniversary cast recording featuring the vocal stylings of a young Barbra Streisand.

Otherwise, Pins and Needles has virtually disappeared from the theatrical landscape, apart from a few scattered productions by Off-Off-Broadway companies. I include Pins and Needles in my unit about the rise of the satirical musical show in the 1930s, but until now I've never had a chance to see it live. So, when I read a Playbill article about an upcoming production, I immediately bought a ticket. The article mentioned that the show would be performed at The Foundry, a theatrical collective in Brooklyn, and by an African-American group called FUREE (Families United for Racial and Economic Equality). The article also said that this production would comprise original material from the 1937 production, with additional material by Pulitzer-Prize winner Lynn Nottage, among others. Frankly, they had me at Pins and Needles, but the rest of the details only served to fuel my interest.

When the show started, I immediately sensed that something was amiss. The performers were...how can I put this...not polished. In fact, they were clearly rank amateurs. The production values were actually quite strong: the lighting, costumes, setting, and musicians were all thoroughly professional. But the cast was clearly not. The acting was a bit stiff, the diction was fuzzy, and some of the cast members could, frankly, barely hold a tune. At first I was confused, but then something funny started to happen. I got caught up in the raw but joyful enthusiasm of these wonderfully real people. I reminded myself that the original piece was performed by amateurs, and I found myself wondering whether the original cast was as endearing as these passionate people who proceeded to win me over and, eventually, blow me away.

Director Ken Rus Schmoll and dramaturg Melanie Joseph, the latter of whom is also the artistic producer of The Foundry Theater, have taken the original Pins and Needles and adapted it for an all-African-American ensemble. They've retained much of the original score, and a few of the sketches, and supplemented these with period songs and adapted scenes that illuminate the black experience, both of the 1930s and of today. Purists might balk at such liberal artistic license, but the original production of Pins and Needles was at all times a work in progress. Numbers came and went, as did scenes, based on topicality and the changing political landscape. So Rome, Blitzstein, Latouche and their collaborators would probably have been just fine with the idea of re-purposing their material for such a worthy effort. In fact, I think they would have been thrilled.

The whole piece came together for me during an entirely new scene toward the end of the show. Five of the performers perch themselves behind music stands and tell the stories about how they became activists. It could have been didactic and dull, but the stories, as adapted here by Sara Zatz, helped drive home the message that these weren't just performers. They were the actual people who were living out the stories that they were presenting. Apparently, FUREE started as a group of local activists from the projects around New York City, with the common goal of improving the living conditions in public housing, but the mission of the group has since expanded to include empowering the people of the projects to take ownership of their surroundings and of their lives. I found myself remarkably moved finding out about the real struggles of these enthusiastic performers. How often does theater afford you such an opportunity?

Beyond the performers, much of the material from the original Pins and Needles is just as relevant today as it was in the '30s and '40s, including sections about immigration, union busting, and Welfare. The last of these really hit home for me, as right before my New York trip, I had had a vivid discussion on the subject with my father. My dad, a staunch conservative, loves to collect and retell stories about Welfare cheats. Most recently, he told me about a woman who deliberately had an increasing number illegitimate children until she was getting $100,000 a year in public assistance. Of course, my father falls victim to the typical conservative ploy of taking one data point and making generalizations. I have no idea whether the story is true, but even if it is, every system has the potential for abuse. Does that mean we throw out the baby with the bathwater?

I really wish my father had been with me at Pins and Needles. Here were the stories of the people who don't want a handout. They want a chance. A chance to make a life of their own. As one song lyric from the show puts it, "I don't want your millions, mister. I just want my job back." Connecting with people and their stories. That's what theater is all about.

Pins and Needles has two more performances this Friday and Saturday at 7:30 PM. If you go, remember, these aren't AEA pros. These are real people, with a genuine and heartfelt connection to the material they so joyfully present. I hope you find it as transformative as I did.

FTC to Bloggers - No More Free Ride

Hey, guys and dolls. I betcha didn't know that bloggers are getting fat and rich from sponsor freebies and kickbacks. And with all the financial sturm und drang out there, there's no more effective way of shoring up the economy than to clamp down on this shameless blogger profligacy.

I jest, of course. But to hear the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) describe it, you'd think the blogger gravy train was right up there with, I don't know, creating fictitious investment opportunities, or selling criminally deceptive mortgages to unsuspecting (and mostly minority) home buyers. The FTC recently issued disclosure guidelines for bloggers: if you receive something free, and then write about it, you need to disclose that "material connection."

To be fair, I really don't think the FTC is going after people like me, but rather bloggers who enter into certain questionable sponsorship relationships, receiving actual cash payments to promote particular products. (See this recent article in the New York Times for some perspective on the complexity of the sponsorship issue.) Quite a few media outlets have decried this move by the FTC, calling it "unnecessary and unenforceable" (Silicon Valley Insider) and a "mad power grab" (Slate).

Full disclosure, dear reader: I get free stuff. It's mostly theater tickets, but I do also get some books and CDs, some of which I then review on my blog. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. Although I'm not paid for blogging, I do consider my self a critic, and critics have received free merchandise since the invention of professional criticism. I'd like to think that getting a free seat for a show wouldn't influence my judgment. My tickets to Tin Pan Alley Rag, Vanities, and Kristina were all free, and that certainly didn't stop me from writing rather negative reviews for all three. 

Starting in December, bloggers must disclose any financial consideration or free goods and services that they receive in connection with any reviews that they write. Fines for not doing so can reach as high as $11,000 per incident. So, yes, I will indeed comply with the new FTC guidelines, indicating at the end of any review for which I received a free ticket that I did indeed attend gratis. But, for me, I think the FTC has bigger fish to fry.

But, let me put it to you, dear reader. Would you second-guess the validity of a review if you knew that the reviewer had received a free ticket? Would you think of the write-up as somehow biased? If the answer is yes, then do you think about the free tickets that professional critics receive when they review shows? Do you honestly think that Ben Brantley and John Simon are pulling any punches because they nabbed a freebie? Somehow, I don't think so.

I do have to say that I sometimes worry if certain press agents will stop arranging free tickets for me if they get the sense that my reviews are always negative. I think that insecurity is a function of the fact that, as a blogger, I'm not very high in the critical pecking order. Also, as I get to know more people in the industry, and as show creators contact me after reading my reviews, I have run into some awkward moments in writing unflattering reviews for shows created by people with whom I'm, if not friends, then at least friendly. And now that I'm in my seventh year of teaching at the Boston Conservatory, more of my former students are starting to appear in the shows I'm reviewing. That hasn't presented any difficult situations as yet, but there's certainly the possibility.

But I think the larger and more difficult question is this: is complete objectivity even possible in a task that is, almost by definition, subjective? Or is it simply a theoretically worthy but, for practical purposes, unattainable goal?

Interview - Diane Paulus on Hair

I recently had a chance to speak with the delightful Diane Paulus, whom most of you probably know as the talented director of the current hit Broadway revival of Hair. Well, Paulus also recently took over as the artistic director of the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass., and I was interviewing her for an article that I was writing for artscope a local arts magazine.

That article is about the A.R.T.'s upcoming season, and Paulus's plans to shake up that 30-year-old institution, but I couldn't resist throwing in a few questions about Hair. The article comes out in September, but here are some musings from Paulus that didn't make it into the article.

EIKILFM: I have to say that you completely changed my opinion about Hair. I always thought it was this great score hampered by an overly fragmented libretto.

PAULUS: Well, we really did a lot of work on the book. We streamlined and focused it. During the Hair rehearsal process, I had this deep partnership with James Rado. [Rado was one of the original authors of Hair. His writing partner, Gerome Ragni, died in 1991.] I never talk about it as a revival, but as a re-imagining of the original work. Jim and I were joined at the hip, working on a way to craft a new version of the book. We built a very trusting relationship, and there was this incredible combination of Jim, who was there and lived it, and created the show, and me, coming in with a deep respect for the show, but also a fresh eye. Jim had every bit of information about the show, from when it was created to how it's been done for the past forty years.

EIKILFM: What's your personal connection to the show?

PAULUS: Well, I was born in 1966, so I wasn't really old enough to remember the 1960s. I always like to say that I missed my decade, because I really wish I had lived through the '60s. But I guess now I have the benefit of not having seen the original show and getting hung up in my head about it was supposed to be. When I got the call from the Public Theater, I had never seen a production of Hair or even read the script, just the liner notes from the album. So when I started to work on the show, I had this deep love of that wonderful music, and I had my fantasy about how the production would sound and what it would feel like, and how to revive the '60s from the inside out.

EIKILFM: The cast of Hair really seems like this cohesive unit. How did you achieve that tribal feel in rehearsal?

PAULUS: It actually started one step before the rehearsal process with casting. When I was asked to do the original concert version in 2007, I knew that we needed the right people, people who were going to invest themselves in the show not as actors but as human beings, fully relating to the issues. Of course, we needed people with great voices -- and great hair! --  but we really needed to know where their hearts and minds were. And that led to the rehearsal process, where it wasn't just a show but a cause, a mission, a communication that matters. And they took that process very seriously. And now, two years later, 23 of those original 26 people are still with the show. At first, a lot of them were daunted. They said, "Our generation isn't like this." But that was in 2007, pre-Obama, and I think now young people have realized that they can create change, and they're all like activists now. 

EIKILFM: For instance, the upcoming march on Washington.

PAULUS: That's right. We’re all going to Washington for a day. [Paulus refers to the National Equality March in support of gay-marriage rights. The producers of Hair have canceled the October 11th performance so that the cast can participate.] You can tell that the cast really take the show and its message seriously, and that's what people are responding to when they see the show. As we need to recast, there will be a weeding-out process as we try to find people who aren't just talented, but who also care passionately about the planet and gay rights, and other important issues. We just recast our first new Broadway cast member, and she’s all of like 20 something, and she said to me, "I am so honored to be part of this. It means so much to me to be a part of a show that I can really engage myself in." When you think about it, there really aren't that many opportunities like this, so I think we'll be able to find more people like her out there.

EIKILFM: What have you noticed about the audience response to Hair?

PAULUS: What makes me happier than anything is to see the young people, coming to Broadway and seeing and reacting to the show as if it were written yesterday. Because Hair really isn't a period piece. It's a show that says just as much about today as it does about the '60s. It says, "This is American history, but this is also what it means to be alive and a young person, even today." So you have these young people coming to the show, and they're owning it, and I just love that. 

EIKILFM: Hair features a lot of audience involvement, and seems to invite the audience to participate, sing along, even dance in the aisles. A number of recent newspaper articles in both New York and London have lamented the deterioration of theater behavior. It sounds as though you might have a different take on that.

PAULUS: Well, I think there are different kinds of theater. Historically, theater hasn't always been this quiet, sit-down affair. It certainly wasn't in Shakespeare's day. Theater is like sports, you have golf and tennis over here, and the whole audience gets quiet, and you don’t make a sound. At the other end, you have ice hockey and everybody's screaming. But we never mix up golf and hockey. I honestly believe there’s a spectrum, even in theater. Are you going to talk at a Peter Brook production of Hamlet? Or The Seagull? Of course not. You have certain types of behavior that work for different kinds of theater. But my gripe is that people tend to say, "Well, that’s the way theater is. You have to be quiet." Everything doesn't necessarily have to be like The Seagull. You can have Hair or The Donkey Show. [Paulus's first production at the A.R.T. is a re-staging of her New York hit, The Donkey Show, a raucous retelling of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream set in a 1970s disco club.] I think we have the possibility of letting other sorts of behavior be released, and enlivening what we think theater is and what it can do. 

EIKILFM: Hair recently recouped its initial investment. That must be gratifying, given the difficulty the show had actually making it to Broadway.

PAULUS: I love that those producers [Jeffrey Richards and Jerry Frankel] who stepped forward and helped us make it, that they got their money back, and that means that they'll take that risk again.

The Obamas Give the Queen Showtunes

As if I needed any more reason to love Barack and Michelle Obama, comes this news from Playbill.com:

The Sweetest Sounds: Obamas Present U.K. Monarch with iPod of Broadway Musicals

By Adam Hetrick
02 Apr 2009

The Queen of England was treated to the sound of music this week when U.S. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama presented the monarch with an iPod of Broadway show tunes.

President Obama, who is currently in London for the G-20 economic summit, met with Queen Elizabeth II in a private reception at Buckingham Palace on April 1. People Magazine reports that the President and First Lady presented the queen with an iPod loaded with the 40-song "Ultimate Broadway" album collection, representing hits from the Golden Age of Broadway musicals through "Rent."

Songs on Her Majesty's iPod include "Oklahoma!," "If I Loved You," "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend," "Maria," "Camelot," "People," "Aquarius," "Send in the Clowns," "All That Jazz," "And I'm Telling You I'm Not Going," "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" and "Seasons of Love." The popular digital gadget is also loaded with video footage and photographs from Queen Elizabeth's visits to the United States.

In addition to the iPod, the Obamas bestowed the Queen with a copy of a 1951 hard-bound printing of the 243-page "Rodgers and Hart Song Book," signed by the late Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Richard Rodgers.

I frickin' frickin' love it!

Frost/Nixon: The Movie

Lately, the movies have been helping me catch up on some of the dramas that I missed on Broadway. Doubt was one. I had never seen the play live, but I was thoroughly captivated by John Patrick Shanley's film adaptation. (See my review here.)

Another play I missed on stage was Frost/Nixon. But whereas I had been looking forward to the movie version of "Doubt," I was less eager about the film of "Frost/Nixon." The reason: director Ron Howard, who has never been my favorite. His "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" was an abomination before God and man, and "The Paper," "Cocoon," and "Backdraft" were also atrocious, IMHO.

In fairness, I hear good things about "A Beautiful Mind," but I have no intention of seeing it, mostly because Russell Crowe makes me peevish. And "Apollo 13" just never really appealed to me, although it's apparently a decent flick as well. The only Ron Howard movie I've enjoyed is "Parenthood," but even then it was only really for the terrific performances, particularly that of the wonderful Dianne Wiest.

So it was with great reservation that I took in "Frost/Nixon," but I'm happy to report that I genuinely enjoyed the movie. Howard seems to have developed as a filmmaker, although not quite to the point where I'd consider him a master, merely competent. For the most part, he eschews the hokey, Capraesque touches that mar much of his previous work, with a few groan-worthy exceptions. With the able assistance of Peter Morgan, who crafted the screenplay for "Frost/Nixon" from his original play, Howard creates here a terrific sense of time and place, providing just enough context to bring the drama alive.

There's been a lot of discussion as to the historical accuracy of the play and the movie. One major criticism has focused on the fictitious phone call the Richard Nixon makes to Frost shortly before the final TV interview. I really didn't have a problem with it. The call provides dramatic impetus for Frost to get off his ass and nail this mother to the wall. Perhaps because the events are relatively recent, people have more of a problem with this sort of dramatic device. But when you think of other historical plays -- A Man for All Seasons, say, or The Crucible -- there's even more artifice involved, since with "Frost/Nixon," we at least have the actual interviews and historical documents to compare it to, should anyone be so moved. 

The main attraction of "Frost/Nixon" ultimately lies in its two central performances. Of course, there's Frank Langella who friggin' knocks it out of the park as Nixon. The true wonder of Langella is that he handles dramatic and comedic roles with equal aplomb. I had the privilege of seeing Langella as Garry Essendine in the most recent revival of Noel Coward's Present Laughter, and it was an absolute tour de force. Langella brings dimension and credibility to the role of Nixon, shedding light on both the pathos and the bluster of this loathsome and enigmatic man.

But the real revelation for me was Michael Sheen as David Frost. With all due respect to Langella, Frost is the more challenging role here, because he starts out as such a superficial cypher. Sheen imbues the playboy character with great brio, then gradually reveals the layers and complexity behind a man who has just as much to win or lose from this battle of wills as Nixon does. Sheen clearly conveyed the sense that this guy starts out way over his head, only to segue into the requisite ferocity for taking this tarnished titan down.

So, overall, it's a great season for plays on screen, and I highly recommend both "Doubt" and "Frost/Nixon." And we also have the film adaptation of August: Osage County to look forward to, although it looks like we're going to have to wait until at least 2011 to see it.

Proposition 8 - The Musical

From composer Marc Shaiman and lyricist Scott Whitman comes this musical parody of the California gay marriage debacle, called Proposition 8 - The Musical.

Very funny stuff. The cast includes Margaret Cho, Barrett Foa, Andy Richter, Maya Rudolph, Nicole Parker, John C. Reilly, Allison Janney, Kathy Najimy, Sarah Chalke, Neil Patrick Harris, and Jack Black as Jesus Christ. Maya Rudolph, in particular, is a stitch.

Watch it. Forward it. Live it.

Christine Ebersole: Misinformed or Off Her Chump?

As if the meltdown in the economy weren't distressing enough, did I have to see one of my few remaining idols reveal herself to be (potentially and allegedly) just about as nutty as Little Edie herself? Or, if not nutty, harboring some views that put her at significant odds with many of her most ardent fans?

In a recent interview with Bloomberg.com, two-time Tony winner Christine Ebersole shared some views that seem to indicate that, although her talent is irreproachable, her views on the state of the world border on reprehensible. First off, Ebersole, according to Adam Feldman at Time Out New York, is "a registered republican who favors Ron Paul." Her reason: "everyone else is owned by the bankers."

Whah? Well, to understand what Ebersole means by that reference, take a look at the following interchange between her and Bloomberg writer Philip Boroff:

Boroff: Are you concerned about opening in a new show (Blithe Spirit) in this economy?

Ebersole: I've thought about that. We haven't seen the end of the story. It's unfolding minute by minute.

Boroff: What is the story?

Ebersole: You have to look at the agenda of 9/11 to see what's happening economically. You also have to go back to 1913, when the Federal Reserve was formed. To me it's a systematic collapsing of the economy in order to usher in the amero.

Boroff: The who?

Ebersole: That's the new currency. It's going to be introduced and we'll join with Mexico and Canada. We are moving to a one-world government. It's not some crazy conspiracy theory.

Boroff: Have you ever feared sharing your views would harm your career?

Ebersole: I've been told this will destroy me. This is my duty as an American citizen and a child of God, to speak truth to power. 

If you're not familiar with "the amero," it's basically part of a paranoid conspiracy theory (Sorry, Christine) that the U.S. is about to lose its independence, join up with Mexico and Canada to form the NAU (North American Union) and establish a common currency, to wit "the amero." You might, say, well that sounds harmless enough. The trouble is, this collective delusion is often associated with white supremacists. And Ebersole's reference to "bankers" owning politicians comes dangerously close to anti-Semitic speech. Time Out's Feldman explains:

To anyone familiar with the history of anti-Semitism, these quotes set alarm bells ringing furiously. Although Ebersole insists that her take on 9/11 and the amero is "not some crazy conspiracy theory," many of its most prominent proponents come from the darkest abysses of the Jew-hating radical fringe...Not so many degrees of ideology separate Ebersole from this ugly crowd. But this does not mean that she is an anti-Semite. It seems likely, in fact, that she is merely very gullible.

I find this profoundly disturbing and deeply disappointing, and I find myself wishing that the whole thing will turn out to be some terrible misunderstanding. But if it's true...oh sweet mother of Maude Adams, if it's true... Well, let's just say that Ebersole's next role after Blithe Spirit may as well be Letitia Primrose in On the 20th Century. ("It's a lie, it's a lie, she's as sane as you or I...")

California's Proposition 8 Hits Home

There's been a lot of blog chatter about California's odious Proposition 8, which rescinded the right for gays and lesbians to marry in that state. I haven't really posted anything about it, although I was greatly saddened by what transpired. But now the kerfuffle has entered the realm of musical theater, and I feel it would be perfectly appropriate for my blog to address this travesty.

Playbill.com reports that the artistic director of the California Music Theatre, one Scott Eckern, a Mormon, and graduate of Brigham Young University, contributed $1,000 in support of amending the California state constitution to specifically ban gays and lesbians from marrying. Such Broadway luminaries as composer Marc Shaiman, librettist Jeff Whitty, and actress Susan Egan have publicly denounced Eckern's move.

In response, Eckern issued the following apology:

"I understand that my choice of supporting Proposition 8 has been the cause of many hurt feelings maybe even betrayal. It was not my intent. I honestly had no idea that this would be the reaction. I chose to act upon my belief that the traditional definition of marriage should be preserved. I support each individual to have rights and access and I understood that in California domestic partnerships come with the same rights that come with marriage," Eckern said in a statement.

He continued, "I definitely do not support any message or treatment of others that is hateful or instills fear…I am deeply sorry for any harm or injury I have caused."

In other words, he's only sorry that he got caught. Based on the portions that I've underlined above, it seems that he still supports the ban, and still believes that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. He says that he supports domestic partnerships, but that's just "Separate But Equal" speak. To Eckern's credit, he has made a $1,000 donation to the Human Rights Campaign, but it's really seeming as thought he only did this to help quell the PR nightmare.

Sorry, Scott. Apology not accepted.

UPDATE: According to The Sacramento Bee, Scott Eckern has resigned from his position as head of the California Music Theater, after 25 years with the organization. While it saddens me that the CMT would lose someone who's been part of its inner workings for so long, it also puzzles me how someone who has worked for so long in a industry that has SOOOOOOO many gay people would say that he "honestly had no idea" that his contribution would create such a furor. Really, Scott? No idea? None whatsoever? That's either completely disingenuous or pretty frickin' clueless.

Yes We Did!

Speaking of Sarah Palin...

No sooner had I posted the photo below than I saw this poster on 8th Avenue. Ya gotta love New York.

Frightening, indeed.