City Scoops - » Gwen Orel

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band at B.B. King’s

Gwen Orel — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 06:19:28 +0000

“Are they still around?”

That was the response I got from at least three people when I told them I was seeing Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. It was always said with real enthusiasm and longing.

YES, they’re still around, and they’ve just released Speed of Life, their first CD in five years– and it’s very very good. You can come to it fresh, without knowing any of their hit songs from the 60s and later, or you can come to it with appreciation for how the so-called “jug band” (pop bluegrass, more like) has continued to grow in musicality and strength. The core group of Jeff Hanna, Jimmie Fadden, Bob Carpenter and John McEuen are together again (there has been some mobility over the years, and originally, Jackson Browne was in the band) and sound great.

A lot of tribute bands play at B.B. King’s, but despite a few cracks about the past from multi-musicianist John MCEuen, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band honored the past without living in it. So they’ve been around since 1966 and have hugely influenced younger commercial bluegrass pop rock players– who cares about that when watching McEuen go from fiddle to banjo to dobro, or Jimmie Fadden play drums and harmonica at once? Jeff Hanna’s singing is as strong as ever, and his low-key, friendly vibe to the audience has real warmth and Bob Carpenter’s keyboards decorate and fill out the music. Sure, bearded McEuen has a kind of hippie look if you squint– although he kind of reminded me of one of my grad school profs in the theatre department (I know, same difference).

The crowd at B.B. King’s included a lot of Boomers and middle-aged types but also had a fair amount of younger folk, including two tables of shrieking what-sounded-like sorority girls and their boy toys, who shouted out requests, sang out of key, and in a truly surreal moment yelled “he’s sitting on my tits” in the middle of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken.”

But here’s the thing. Their tight harmonies, strong musicianship, and kind of laidback version of sizzle feels really good right now. Soothing, yet challenging and provoking too. The new CD is full of strong songs, a few of which they played tonight.

Photo: Jim McGuire

Jeff Hanna does most of the talking, and he was confident, relaxed and sure (later I asked him who the screaming folks were and he hadn’t heard them, saying he wears earplugs in his ears. That explains the zen above-it-all posture I guess!). One of the first songs they did was “The Resurrection,” from the new CD. It’s a song about a town struggling to survive, but its refrain “dreams die hard around here,” particularly when combined with Fadden’s harmonica, sounds just a little Springsteen-esque to this Jersey girl (and that’s a good thing).

I appreciated that they played, as Hanna put it, “songs from the catalogue” as well as newer songs. Overall, the non-hit songs from the catalogue pleased me the most and seemed to showcase their chops the best. ”Dance Little Jean,” a hit in 1983, is a little sentimental in a country vein, but McEuen’s banjo on a number Hanna says they learned from “a little rootsy band called the Grateful Dead,” also originally a jug band, “Some Dark Hollar,” had a nice bite. On the new CD is a great track called “Jimmy Martin,” but instead of that, the band played a cut from their first “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” album, recorded in 1971- a song that “bluegrass king” Jimmy Martin loved, McEuen explained, called “My Walkin’ Shoes.” His picking on this track was really outstanding. I love that this band never belts as the number gets more exciting– the close harmonies and relaxed delivery don’t take away from the excitement but contain it. This number was a real knockout. The “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” albums brought together the best of bluegrass and old-timey musicians, including Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson and Mother Maybelle Carter. It was recorded in Nashville, and they credit it as the song that got them out of Long Beach, California– funny to think of California as a place that grew these musicians, but hey, banjo virtuoso Alison Brown (founder and co-president of Compass Records) also grew up in California, though originally from Connecticut. You don’t have to be a front-porch picker to play.

NGDB’s version of the Beatles’ “Get Back” was a nice punchline to the banjo jokes the band was throwing around. The title song to the new CD, “The Speed of Life,” written by Gary Scruggs (Earl’s son), expresses a wistful quality about looking at life as it hurtles by. Carpenter’s keyboards sounded particularly nice on this track. Fadden’s hit 1987 song “Workin’ Man (Nowhere to Go)” was greeted with more shrieks. A few weeks ago I wrote about Andy Irvine’s tribute to Woody Guthrie, “Never Tire of the Road.” Fadden alludes to him too, with lyrics that say he’s “Singing a song about Woody Guthrie– this land is your land, it ain’t my land– I’m a working man, nowhere to go.” I know it was the Reagan era, but that’s a bit dark for Woody. Song is tuneful though.

“Mr. Bojangles,” which Hanna described as “the tune that got us out of Long Beach– our band started in ‘66, 1866,” sounded really great (this was a real Dorian Gray moment for Hanna, where I just looked at him going really? you were singing this forty years ago? Huh). Jeff Hanna’s “Bless the Broeken Road,” a love song recorded by Rascal Flats, was performed with just Bob Carpenter singing, Fadden on harmonica and Hanna on guitar. The simplicity of this arrangement of a song about finding love at last really sent home the song’s beauty and power.

McEuen then returned and riffed, alone on stage, making banjo jokes. Speaking of banjo, in East Durham, up in the Catskills, this weekend (Oct. 9-12) it’s Banjo Burke Festival– a weekend of Irish music, workshops and concerts honoring the late Joe “Banjo” Burke. Check it out. Also speaking of banjo and fiddle, I’d love to see McEuen (now resident in New York) join at one of the NY Irish sessions. He’s played with Mary Black, so maybe it’s not out of the question…he was telling me after the concert how Irish musicians don’t jam, they play the same tune (but they vary the ornaments, I said). of course, these days, lots and lots of Irish trad musicians play old-timey and bluegrass too.

But I digress. His solo was a familiar song in fact–he got the crowd to shout the words of the Beverly Hillbillys (the song is “The Ballad of Jed Clampett,” if you want to be all technical about it). ”You don’t know the words to the National anthem, but you know that,” he said. True. I remember singing the Gilligan’s Island themesong around the campfire. These are American folksongs, after all. The transition to the hit “Fishing in the Dark” was clever: it went from Fadden’s solo harmonica train number, to Hanna joining in, before becoming the 1987 pop song about seeing Jamaica in a neon sign. Enthusiastic shrieks were heard again. While it’s a nice song, I think I may have heard it once too many times in waiting rooms to appreciate it now, and at this point Hanna’s egging on the crowd to clap began to tilt into the cheesy.

But all came right again with their final number “Bayou Jubilee,” with McEuen wailing on the fiddle, and their encore, consisting of “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” interrupted by the Band’s “The Weight” and concluding with the old gospel hymn again, was outstanding.

NGDB really straddle the line between pop music and bluegrass and maybe fans in both worlds don’t get them enough. That’s a mistake. They’ve come back around. If you missed them before, don’t miss them now. John McEuen is playing City Winery on Nov. 16th– he’s a New Yorker now.

Don’t Miss: Irish legend Andy Irvine with rising star Irish guitarist John Doyle at the Irish Arts Center, Sept. 9-13

Gwen Orel — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 02:48:59 +0000

Next week brings a musical event that is special on a lot of levels– great artists working together and performing, concerts you don’t want to miss, and an example of an arts organization really fostering the tradition and art that it presents.

The Irish Arts Center’s program “Masters in Collaboration” brings together two masters at what they do, in residence, collaborating for a week. There are no strings, no promises the artists have to make to write or do anything new, no encumbrances. This organization, on west 51st between 10th and 11th, is one of my favorites– they produce excellent theatre, have terrific music classes, and overall are one of the real treasures of New York organizations, with the open-minded and forward-looking guidance of Executive Director Aidan Connolly. Irvine and Doyle will perform together– three full concerts, 9/11, 9/12, and 9/13, with an interview on Wednesday, 9/9, midway through their process. The interview will be moderated by Mick Moloney, who came up with the idea for Masters in Collaboration, which debuted last year with songwriters Paul Brady and Sarah Suskind. That program was meant to be a one-off but it did so well that it’s evolved into an ongoing series. Rumor has it that we might hear some Moloney songs at some of the concerts, too. Mick Moloney, one of New York’s treasures, a folklorist, singer and prof at NYU (who spends a great deal of time in Thailand these days working on humanitarian projects, and whose own CD “If It Weren’t for the Irish and the Jews” launches this month, to be performed by Mick at Symphony Space in October).

Theatre companies and writers have had residencies for years, many with no strings (see the article I wrote on playwright residencies for the New York Times here) but it’s rare in roots and Celtic music to give artists time to work together with that work together being the point– not the byproduct.

This year’s collaboration brings together two Irish singer-songwriters and guitar players so good they literally raise goosebumps. Even if you don’t think you like Irish music, I dare you not to like Andy Irvine or John Doyle. If you like acoustic songs and guitar at all, you will like this. And of course, if you already like Irish music, you will adore this. It is the type of event that back when I lived in Alabama I would make heroic efforts to see. I d flew to New York to see Johnny and Phil Cunningham play together at Symphony Space (I had the tickets before I had the job in Alabama, and I was going with a group of Rovers, who are diehard Silly Wizard fan; you can join the Rover discussion group here). It’s just unmissable.

Does Al Stewart think we’re too stupid for historical folk rock? (catch him at the Rubin’s Naked Soul Series, 8/21)

Gwen Orel — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 06:09:37 +0000

Al Stewart—yes, the “Year of the Cat” dude, as someone asked me (watch him perform it here)—speaks fast and uses his own lyrics for illustration. Now a resident of California, he began his career in swinging London—his press bio explains how he knew Yoko Ono until she found someone “with a bigger tape recorder”—as well as Andy Summers, Paul Simon, Ian Anderson. He has been writing storytelling, evocative lyrics for more than forty years. Sparks of Ancient Light came out in 2008, and this September, he’ll be releasing a new live CD.

And that’s the tip of the iceberg—as he explained to me, despite his emphasis on lyrics, he writes the music first, and most of the songs have several sets of lyrics to them. If we’re lucky, he might find the alternate lyrics to “Year of the Cat” and sing them—one version of it was about British comedian Tony Hancock.

He’s touring right now and plays New York city tonight, 8/21, at the Rubin museum’s Naked Soul series at 7 p.m.—completely acoustic. Details of his tour are below.

His intelligent, often yearning and moody lyrics conjured in my mind an image of a sweet troubador—but his cleverness has barbs. His assumptions about the South (he used the phrase “the great unwashed” at one point), the differences between American and English tastes, and his own unqiueness—would be hilariously irritating if he himself weren’t so funny. And when he says “Sleepwalking,” a song from Sparks of Ancient Light that references a swindler from the “east 60s” and Florida, was not about Bernie Madoff but just prescient—it’s hard to disagree.

This summer is the 40-year anniversary of Woodstock, and there is (as there always is, let’s face it) a lot of nostalgia for the 60s floating about. What does it mean for you?

I didn’t think Woodstock was as important as everyone else seems to think. Woodstock was a lot of noise in the field. In retrospect it was not very revolutionary nor in line with what interested me. Joni Mitchell watched it on television. Leonard Cohen was doing whatever he did; he wasn’t there. It was people playing guitars mouthing inanities and rolling around in the mud. It had very little to do with what I’m interested in.

I was part of the London folk scene. America got all our rock bands, but none of our folk singers…it’s a strange thing… Bert Jansch didn’t translate at all. He should have been a major figure on the American folk scene. Richard Thompson… would probably not go on Jay Leno. Americans did very well in England, but English folk singers didn’t do as well correspondingly. It’s probably true that there’s a bigger folk reception in England in general.

Do you still see yourself as a folk musician?

I never did really. I came out of rock and roll. There’s a subtle word play there. I didn’t say I was a folk singer… I said I came out of the English folk scene. What was nice about that scene was that it was a very big tent. It included people who were unaccompanied singing, Norfolk farm hands, the Incredible String Band, psychedelic music… the English folk scene encompassed all of that and more. I’m a lyricist really. I puddle about and play guitar and sing; I’m basically a lyric writer.

Do you write poetry too?

I do but don’t bother to read it. I’m obsessed with the nonsense poets… more in the style of Edward Lear or Lewis Carroll. I’m not sure that goes over well here.

You seem to have some issues with Americans and their tastes.

I live in L.A. and like it. In terms of what’s accepted, some things just don’t translate. In America you have this huge monolithic thing called Country and Western, which is completely unintelligible to me. It has no meaning whatsoever in England. Country and Western it’s so big it’s blotted out what singer-songwriters do… it’s similar and yet the subjects are different. Country singers do story songs, which is what I do. Mine might be on the Russian front and World War II, theirs might be set in the local bar. It’s hard for singer-songwriters to prevail. American singer-songwriters do better in the Northeast.

I did a Southern tour; everyone told me not to. I thought there must be some people who read books in the South. I went all these places—Greenville… the Carolinas…deep in the South, Civil War turf. I sang a series of songs about American presidential history. I got absolutely nobody, and played to rows of empty seats. Although if I’d worn a hat and played a country song….

[here is where I mentioned the less densely populated nature of the South, the way promoters and concert series boil down to one or two people, how I myself ran a music series in the South. Just so you know. I'm a Jersey girl, but was an Alabamian for four years.]

When I knew I was going to interview you, I got two kinds of responses: enthusiasm and excitement from people in their late 40s and older (my brother’s been emailing me with thoughts, questions fotr the interview and links, for days) and “the Year of the Cat dude!” Do you have different fan sets?

Yes. I call them the fans and the tourists. The tourists are the ones who heard “Year of the Cat” and made out in the back of a show to it. They know it as well as they know “Ring My Bell” or “Kung Fu Fighting” or “Disco Duck.” None of these people come to my shows; they’re just dimly aware of “Year of the Cat.”

People who come to the shows are people who know all of the songs. They don’t even want to hear “Year of the Cat.” “Roads to Moscow” is what they ask for—that’s a different thing.

So does that mean you won’t play “Year of the Cat?”

I probably will, but it’s candy fluff. It wasn’t even my favorite album.

What is your favorite album?

Past Present and Future is a much better album, it’s better written. What I do and what I’ve always done are these historical songs. I thought forty years ago, I looked around, if you look at the history of all the artistic endeavors of the human race, most of them, history is a dominant feature. Literature, movies— like The Titanic—all the greatest paintings are historical, sculpture, art—in ever form of art that I could find, the dominent content was historical. I thought if I applied to popular music, I would be Elvis Presley.

Now I have to admit defeat.

I chose the only medium that I could where history was not the dominant factor, and in fact something people didn’t want to hear about. There’s a crazed hardcore who like me think that historical songs are the bees knees. It’s a tiny minority—I expected it to be a huge majority. It would have changed my life if I’d been right. I thought it was a slam dunk.

I thought after “Roads to Moscow” all these historical songs would be in the top ten, but I can’t even get them played on the radio. You talk to a disc jockey and say “I’ve written a song about the fall of Constantinople” and their eyes glaze over.

If I made a movie about the fall of Constantinople and put stupid Brad Pitt in it, it would be a hit. It’s only in popular music that it’s not taken off. This means one of two things, either I am right except I’m ahead of my time, and somebody will do this in fifty years time and they will be the next Elvis, or I’m completely wrong, or, there’s a third possibility, I’m right but just not doing it well enough. At this point I’ll accept any of those possibilities. The premise made so much sense to me, but something in the execution didn’t follow through. I don’t even think it has to do with the population base.

You hit bottlenecks where you have to funnel through the media. I think there is an audience outside of the basic, everyday human concerns that will look at a larger picture of how we got here and why. It’s a hard sell, an impossible sell in Alabama.

For me, the songs that become my favorite songs have a lot of emotion in them that I can relate to. They don’t have to be personal songs, but they have to have an emotion in them that I can latch onto. That’s what I require.

That’s what everybody requires. That I think is the problem. I tend to… not erase emotion in songs, but it’s an entirely overdone thing. The saber-toothed tiger was a very emotional creature; it was also stupid and died out. I would prefer something to be cleverer, less aggressive… I like my music like that. I understand that Metallica are terrific at what they do but it’s not what I want to listen to.

Is there no middle ground between you and Metallica?

Oh, sure there is. I’m fairly broad-minded in my tastes.

For example, on your latest CD I like the song “Football Hero,” but I don’t care about the person in the song or about football, but I can relate to the emotion and the frustration.

I don’t care about football either, in fact I’m astonished I wrote that song because I care zero about football.

That is my response to most story songs in general. The story can be really fascinating but if I can’t find a way to apply it to some emotion that I have or will have, I probably won’t listen to it very often.

I think that you’re in the majority. I don’t think it affects me in that way. I’m always looking at cross-connections that are under the surface. There is an emotion, I’m not denying the emotion, but there has to be an intellectuality at work as well as the emotion. If I read a book about Rupert Brooke for example, he’s a poet, it’s emotional because he dies in 1915 on his way to the Dardanelles campaign, OK, we know he’s going to die, we know he’s having an unrequited with Violet Asquith at the time, so you’re set up for an emotional payoff on that. But when I put them into my song “Somewhere in England 1915″ the song is not about them, they’re merely transient characters wandering through one verse, they’re used as the set up for the mood of the song, and not for the emotional payoff.

If I was writing the song for you, I wouldn’t go anywhere else in the song, I’d just concentrate on Rupert Brooke and Violet Asquith and make it as emotional as all get go. But to me that’s not terribly interesting. Does that make any sense to you?

I’m not sure I see the distinction between emotion and mood. There are—not many, I agree with you—but there are some songs that are story based or historically based that have been successful.

“American Pie,” for example, lots of people love that who weren’t alive when Buddy Holly died, but you get the feeling of yearning in it, the mood of it comes across.

I don’t think it should be completely unemotional, I just don’t think it should be tawdry. Some emotions are terribly cheap, and what you’re doing is manipulating an audience in a way. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen any Charles Bronson movies—you know the baddie is going to get shot in the end, you sit there for 90 minutes—you’re just being manipulated. What I’m trying to do is write non-manipulative songs. If there’s an emotional pull, it should come from the gravitas of the situation, rather than some false juggling going on on the part of the writer.

Would you say that your earlier songs were more personal?

My first four albums were just love songs, they’re neither here nor there, I was just trying to learn the trade.

What accounted for the evolution?

Well, I wrote love songs. Once you’ve done it, you’ve done it. Everyone else has done it. One was 18 minutes long! I did it, enough! My personal credo is play like Eddie Cochran, write like Barbara Tuchman [the popular historian who wrote, among other things, A Distant Mirror]

I always want to write about something no one else has written about. It’s the first requirement of a song to me. If someone has written about the ceiling in my hotel room, I won’t do it. Secondly, I want to use some language in every song that’s not in every other song. There are 87,000 words in the English language, use them.

No one uses antidisestablishmentarianism in a song, and they should.

Have you?

No, I may do, I’ve used pterodactyls and cormorants and amenuenses and all kinds of things.

Imagine you’re a pop singer and you open your front door and all the words ever in the English language are gathered on the lawn outside your door. Big vocal ones right at the front called “love” and “baby” and “ooh” and “you” and “I” and these are the big loud ones standing right in front of your face saying “pick me, pick me, pick me.” And antidisestablishmentarianism is this tiny little furry creature about 300 yards away, right at the back of the crowd, and in a squeaky little voice is saying “please pick me…”

You know what I mean?

You’re very silly.

Most pop singers just look at the ones at the front, and they’re very smartly dressed, and they’re hip, and they’ve got all the right hairstyles, and they say “sure you can join my group,” and they say to this little brown mouse at the back, “no we’re not having any part of you,” and they slam the door.

Awww.

That is how it works in the English language. These words need people to love them too, and I’m their person.

So with your attention to words, is it safe to say you write the lyrics first?

No, I don’t! I should do, shouldn’t I… but for very good reason, too…When a blues artist makes a record, say, they lay down the backing track… then the guitar player comes in, and plays 6-8-10 different solos and they take the best one. This is the art of improv.

What I do, I make the backing piece, then start improvising the lyrics. On “Year of the Cat” I recorded all the music before I even wrote a word of it. I took home all these backing tracks and sat around with them. I’d already spent all the money from the record companies and had not one damn word written. Then it’s what do all these things suggest to me. I wrote many different sets of lyrics.

This is me being a blues guitar player. “Elvis at the Wheel” [from Sparks of AncientLight] ended up being about Elvis Presley. It’s based on a true event in his life. Prior to that it was about the cinema on Hampstead Heath. Prior to that it was a nonsense poem experimenting with being about someone going to a foreign country.

All of the songs on Sparks of Ancient Light had different lyrics apart from “Shah of Shahs.” All the others underwent radical rewrites.

I could go out in an alternate universe go out and play the tunes that everyone knows with completely different lyrics.

Oh I hope you will.

But normally I pick the best ones… the reason I don’t pick the others is that they’re not very good.

So you don’t go in saying I know I want to write a song about Elvis seeing the face of Stalin, you don’t know that ahead of time?

I don’t know what I’m going to write. Some of them read better than they sing. I learned that you can write lyrics that look awfully good on paper but when you sing don’t scan very well, don’t fit the music. I’ve discarded some sets of lyrics that I liked a lot but were hard to sing. I’m a wordslinger, it’s what you do— this is my improv. Right now I could take “Year of the Cat” and turn it into a song about turnips if I wanted to.

I hope you will.

I could do. I also write parodies of my own songs and those of others. “Roads to Moscow,” a song I get asked for the most, it’s set in World War II, and very loosely based on a book by Solzhenitsyn [based on One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch], I wrote a parody called “Roads to Adelaide.” I sing it in a major key; it becomes totally ridiculous. It went”

They crossed over the border, the hour before dawn,

moving in lines through the day

most of our sheep are destroyed on the ground where they lay…

It completely cracked me up. You mentioned “American Pie,” I rewrote that into a nineteenth century history song called it “Ukranian Pie.” Amazingly, the Russian word for old peasant that is “musikh” and I couldn’t resist “the day the musikh died.” So I began with

Bye Bye Miss Ukranian Pie

Took my kettle to the shtetl but the shtetl was dry

Those bad old Cossacks drinking vodka and rye

Singing this will be the day that you die

Have you read the book of Lvov, and do you have faith in Romanov…

Do you get asked “what does this or that lyric mean,” and when you do, how do you respond?

People do ask, but in the same way, I don’t know what Dylan’s “Desolation Row” means…I know all the words…

Selling postcards at the hanging

Painting the passports brown

The beauty parlor’s full of sailors, the circus is in town

I don’t know what Dylan means by this but I get the general picture of what he’s saying.

What are you listening to? What’s on your ipod?

I don’t have an ipod. But Joanna Newsom, she’s the best, by a long way, I don’t think there’s anyone close. There are always up and coming people. Laura Marling is interesting. Elbow just won album of the year in England. But you know what, I listen to pop too, I like the Veronicas, what can I tell you.

So “Sleepwalking” references “talk among the moneymen in Miami Beach.” Is it a coincidence?

It wasn’t a coincidence. I think I’m prescient. It’s a song about a Madoff character that I wrote before Madoff. Every now and then these things happen. They fall into place. If you look at my song “On the Border,” largely set in Zimbabwe, it prophesies the decline and fall. Except it was written 36 years ago but it all came true. I did it hypothetically. Madoff came along and obliged me by turning it all into reality.

But you wouldn’t have written it after the fact?

That would be too obvious. I’m trying to write about things that are off the beaten track.

It’s like when I was doing American presidents, I wouldn’t write about Lincoln or Washington, the obvious people, it would be like writing about Napoleon. I would never do that. I would write about Chester Arthur. I like lifting rocks and looking at the dark places of history.

I’m always writing about human beings, using historical backgrounds. Actually what I’m doing is theater. When you look at my historical songs, it’s like the backdrop, the real action is taking place in front of the background. “Constantinople” [off the album 24 Carrots] is about the last seven thousand people who are left defending the Byzantine Empire long after it’s past its sell-by date. What are they doing there? It was a hundred years have gone by since the Byzantine Empire should have been erased from planet.

And there is a relevance to modern day history because As soon as any empire goes from offense to defense, their days are numbered. It’s happened in every single case from the Ancient Greeks to the Romans to I suppose the present day, which I suppose means we should be in Afghanistan, because if we were here building walls it would all be over.

How does it look for America?

America’s still on the offense, very much so…Read the news! I don’t see any particular decline and fall in am military power. There is an enormous exchange of international wealth going on under the surface. America may not… ever have 20% of all the money in the world again. Major changes are economic, but what that will mean in the next 20 or 30 years, I don’t know. One of the most fascinating things that could save America is that… there’s incalculable wealth to be had in arctic circle. Only 5 countries have any claim to the Arctic Circle, two of which are tiny powers, Denmark, Norway… one a medium power, Canada, and then Russia and the USA.

If that happens, it would probably be too obvious for Stewart to write about. But if historical songs include the history of the future, we might see a song about America in the Arctic circle sometime soon.

Gwen Orel writes about theater and music for many publications. Celtic music owns her, but they timeshare with folk, roots and world.

***

Al Stewart’s tour details:

FRI 8/21/09 New York, NY Rubin Museum of Art / Naked Soul Music Series

SAT 8/22/09 Norfolk, CT Infinity Hall

SUN 8/23/09 Saratoga Springs, NY Caffe Lena

FRI 10/30/09 & SAT 10/31/09 Steelville, MO Wildwood Springs Lodge

SUN 11/1/09 Kansas City, MO ?Knuckleheads Saloon

THU 11/5/09 Decatur, GA?Eddie’s Attic

FRI 11/6/09 York, SC?Sylvia Theatre

SAT 11/7/09 Holly Springs, NC Holly Springs Cultural Center

FRI 12/18/09 Denver, CO L2 Arts & Culture Center

SAT 12/19/09 Berkeley, CA Freight & Salvage??? 2010

THU 2/4/2010 Hillsboro, OR ?Walter’s Art Center

SAT 2/6/2010 Bremerton, WA? Admiral Theatre

THU 3/4/2010 Newberry, SC Newberry Opera House

SAT 3/6/2010 Chatham, NJ Sanctuary Concerts

Catch up with American troubador John Gorka at the Rubin, 8/7

Gwen Orel — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:18:25 +0000

The first time I heard “Chance of Rain,” on John Gorka’s 2006 CD, Writing in the Margins, I thought, “that’s pretty, I’ll play it again.” The second time I felt its yearning melody pull at me. As I kept playing it, first I felt a lump in my throat and by the end of the day just hearing its chords would send me off into a crying jag– one that I really needed.

“Forget pursuit of happiness

a little break is all I ask

each day is an act of faith

cause living things are never safe…”

You can watch Gorka sing it here.

Somehow these lyrics hit me harder than any on-the-nose words about death, loss, regret could have. Such is the power of a really terrific American folksong.

Gorka is associated with “The New Folk Movement,” and first began recording in the 80s. He’s admired by Nanci Griffith, who sings with him on Writing in the Margins, (as do Lucy Kaplansy and Alice Peacock) as well as Suzanne Vega, Christine Lavine, Shawn Colvin. Mary Chapin Carpenter, Maura O’Connell and Mary Black have recorded his songs. These observations and stories are often pensive, but occasionally upbeat and swingy too.

Friday, August 7, Gorka appears in NYC at the Rubin Museum as part of the series Naked Soul. This acoustic series in an intimate space always includes the artist choosing works from the Himalayan art museum to accompany their text. For a storyteller like Gorka, that should be very interesting indeed.It’s the music– naked. Admission always includes entrance to the galleries and a tour after. There’s a bar upstairs and you can bring your drinks in with you. I love going to the Rubin.

Gorka’s new CD So Dark You See comes out in September, and he will be playing songs from it tomorrow night. I’ve heard a few tracks already and it’s a return to traditional folk music– he was with Windham Hill, the “new age” acoustic label, for awhile– now he’s back with Red House Records, and the music reflects that return. He sings the Scottish poet Robert Burns’ “Ae Fond Kiss” in a country-folk style, and also includes two instrumental tunes– the first time Gorka has ever shown off his musical chops this way. “I Think of You” by Utah Phillips is introduced by the folk legend himself . ”Ignorance and Privilege” is a catchy, yet rueful look at how being born into safety and security is also being born into ignorance.

This is a songwriter whose artist site includes his family pierogi recipe on the front page… with a comment that “the dough is the tricky part for me.” Sure, there is CD info and bio and press stuff- but his family recipe and a random list of Top Ten from 2007 are at the front (although it’s a list with 36 things in it). That’s real honesty– and it shows in the music, too.

***

Gwen Orel writes about music, theatre and culture for many publications. She is a slave to Celtic music.

Q&A with Fiddling Groundbreaker Mark O’Connor

Gwen Orel — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 23:00:43 +0000

Mark O’Connor is a force in the fiddle world. He knows it. Not too many musicians will look you in the face and describe the “timeless pieces” they’ve written–but his works, including “Appalachian Journey” (with Yo-Yo Ma and Edgar Meyer) and “Folk Mass” really are timeless. It’s not hubris when you’ve got the chops to back it up. When I mentioned casually to people I knew that I was interviewing Mark O’Connor, I heard, “oh, I love his country records” and “I’ve seen him on PBS” and just “oooooh.” These responses were from a picture framer, my accountant, and a guitar player. Of course, my fiddle-playing friends were enthusiastic–and had their own questions to relate.

Photograph by Jim McGuire

He’s a two-time Grammy award winner; he has his own label–OMAC records (a combination of his and his mother’s name, MacDonald)–and in the nineties, was named Musician of the Year by the Country Music Association six times (1991-1996). He bridges musical worlds–that’s his mission in life–studying as a boy first with the great Texas fiddler Benny Thomasson, and then with the ground-breaking French jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli. He plays a kind of Texas Swing-gypsy jazz-classical-bluegrass-old timey style that he calls “American Classical music,” and this fall will release his new Method book of instruction that solidifies an approach to learning that uses the many sounds that pervade American strings. Some of the people he’s performed with are Rosanne Cash, Ida Kavafian, Nadja Solerno-Sonnenberg… for starters.

O’Connor is also a leader in the world of fiddle camps. Fiddle camp? Yes–every summer adult and youth players can find various “weeks” to attend to increase their skills in their chosen genre. The Swannanoa Gathering has Celtic Week, Fiddle Week, and Old-Timey Week (and other weeks not for fiddlers),the Augusta Heritage Center in Elkins, West Virginia, at Davis and Elkins College also has Irish Week, Bluegrass Week and Swing Week, and then, at the Catskills Irish Arts Week, there are fiddle classes galore.

Photograph by Forrest O'Connor

What makes O’Connor’s String Camp unique is that it is multi-disciplinary, by design. He’s been running these String Camps in Tennessee and in California for years, but 2009 marked the first time he brought the camp to his current residence, New York City. From July 27-31, 270 string players–mostly, but not all, fiddlers–descended on the Society for Ethical Culture, taking three classes a day, attending evening concerts by students and teachers (who included such greats as bluegrass fiddler Darol Anger and old-timey banjo/guitar/fiddler Bruce Molsky), and an interview series run by O’Connor with guests including Roberta Guaspari, founder of the Opus 118 Harlem School of Music (and subject of the film Music of the Heart), and Alex Miller, General Manager and Senior Vice President of Sony Masterworks. Interviews and concerts were free and open to the public.

I caught up with O’Connor on the second day of the camp. I was a little early, so sat on a bench for a few minutes, chatting with two middle-aged women who were attending the camp (I could tell by the “Mark O’Connor String Camp” tags they wore).

“There were only about seven people at the Indian class this morning,” one said, explaining how the classes work (a class taught by Mysore Manjunath called “Unique Playing Techniques in Indian Music”), “but Tracy Silverman’s “Blue Strings” was packed.”

Students self-select as either “intermediate” or “advanced” and every day decide which classes in their level to attend. Each slot has about five selections. It’s an incredible smorgasbord of offerings and incredibly appealing. I had just returned from Catskills Irish Arts Week myself, and was thinking longingly about investigating bluegrass and/or swing someday. At O’Connor’s weeks, you don’t have to choose. The logistics sound complicated, but it has a spirit of freedom that seems in keeping with someone who champions a quintessentially American sound.

With Earl and Randy Scruggs

***

So what took you so long to bring the camp here?

I’ve been running these camps for sixteen years. It’s taken me five years to bring this here. My first journey away from the hills of Tennessee was to bring it to my then-home of San Diego and try to interface what I experienced with my camp there into a more urban environment, namely a campus. There were a lot of people saying oh you can’t do that, or now that you’ve done that, you can’t do that on a campus–when we were able to do it on a campus and people loved that, then I’d get the same runaround trying to bring it to the Big Apple–it probably won’t work here, it sounds like something that’s very specialized in Tennessee… then I finally moved here four years ago. I had an artistic agenda in my move here. I wanted to meet string players to play in my groups, to compose my string quartets, my first symphony, and to bring my string camp to Manhattan. Four years, almost to the month, the camp is here.

There are a lot of camps with isolated weeks.

I wanted my camp to put forward a different model. I wanted to create a cross-pollinating environment.

It was very different when I was growing up–there wasn’t this respect for the old-time string culture. I wanted to create a Utopian String Universe, something that would be like a real democracy, artistically. I took my cues from my heroes–Benny Thomasson and Stéphane Grappelli were great cross-pollinators. They set the tone for me to take the paths I did.

Mark O'Connor with Stephane Grappelli

It sounds great, but how do you keep it all together when everyone chooses what they’d like to do?

Say you set a rule and make people sign up in advance, well, a lot of people don’t know that they would like to sign up for that class until you create the environment and create the culture. Once they are created then people might change their minds. The whole idea about the camp is to change minds. It’s not just to learn further your expertise. It’s actually to break down barriers and overcome hurdles. If people signed up for one track or teacher in advance, the entire week my staff and I would be bombarded with people saying “I made a mistake.” It would be a week full of negativity and no.

What kinds of people come to the camp?

This year the youngest is 8. We have students, literally, from 8 to 80.

When did you start playing music?

I was 11 when I started the fiddle. I started playing the guitar at 5.

Do you still play the guitar?

No. I studied with Benny for three years, and with Stéphane from 17-18. In between, I studied music theory, voice. I had a period where I didn’t play as much. I wanted to play the violin because I saw it as the window to my soul. I could communicate through it. It had such directness. I wanted to make people feel the music, whether it was happy or sad.

When did you start writing music?

I was 13. A little girl asked me that today! One my very first pieces, called “Mark’s waltz,” was recorded for a thirty-year retrospective.

The Applachian String Trio

When I knew I was going to interview you, I asked some fiddler friends what they would want to ask you! So here are some of the questions. What’s your practice regime like?

I practice about 45 minutes to an hour a day. There are two or three things I play routinely–a ragtime étude that I wrote–then caprices for technique, finger strength. I spend most of the day creating music and writing. When I have a concert coming, I spend a couple of days in prep. Most of my own pieces I know so well.

Here’s another from a fiddler. Did you ever get discouraged when you were learning?

At Age 13, for cover of "Pickin' in the Wind" album

When I was young, yes, a few times. I was considered a child prodigy. To make that transition from “freak show” to adult is hard for any child musician, and it was for me too. There were some years in my early 20s when I wondered if I wanted music as a career.

I was scrambling, and wondered if emotionally I could handle my talent. I thought it might be better to get a normal job. In music you lay it all out–you have very little privacy.

As a composer it’s natural for me to be private. I have to spend time in a cocoon. If your deadline is in two weeks, you can’t go out and party with friends. As a performer, you’re so public.

What kept you going?

I think the answer is you have to look for a break, and you have to be ready to receive it.

You have to put yourself in a position to succeed if the opportunity comes along. When I look back at my career, there were a series of those opportunities that came and I was able to snag them. I know friends who had opportunities that they missed–through overconfidence, thinking it will come again, some of them.

I got a letter from Chet Atkins when I was 18–he wanted me to come to Nashville and play guitar. I didn’t even know if I liked country music. I liked jazz. He asked me what I’d like to do–I said “be on television.” He arranged that! That was my first break in Nashville. (You can read more about this in an interview O’Connor did with Tom Redmond of Misterguitar.com here.) The ability to see outside your immediate circle is so important. You have to seize the moment, give yourself a chance, be ready.

Mark doing a PBS show with John Hartford in 1976

What do you love most about being a musician?

Fiddle culture has really changed. There’s probably no danger in traditional music dying out, but when I was a kid that was not the case. Fiddle contests were held to perpetuate old-time fiddling. There were almost no kids playing–I had a huge burden laid on me by older players.

I felt I was responsible for perpetuating fiddling, and getting more young people involved. They pressured my mother too, “he could do so much for our community.”Now look what I’m doing forty years later–the string camp perpetuates the idea of old-time music. I love that I can contribute to that.

What do you like the least?

It’s a fickle community in terms of keeping your career afloat. If you don’t do a recording in three or four years, it’s as if you’ve fallen off the face of the earth. If I did not perform, people would ask “where are you?” The constant feeling of letting people down if I don’t do enough. There are not enough hours in the day to keep up with the people I perform with and play with. I put on three camps this year, but I feel like it’s not enough.

Are you from a musical family?

No. I’m the one that developed the interest. It took me three years to beg mother and dad to play the fiddle, I begged from age 8 on. I heard Itzhak Perlman on PBS.

What are you listening to now?

In New York, I go to see music live. There was a show of Vivaldi at Carnegie Hall that I really enjoyed. You can go see music live every night here, people that don’t live here don’t have that opportunity. Even in San Diego, a town with three million people, there were times that I might not have a musical act to see for weeks at a time. I have a stack of CDs from colleagues that reach to the ceiling that I haven’t listened to yet. For me, music is research, study, something I’m critiquing for a friend.

What do you do to unwind?

I watch Comedy Central–I like Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report.

That’s only one hour.

I work all day and night. I couldn’t have done this in my 20s, I didn’t have the brain or emotional capacity. I’ve matured. I feel like there’s a lot behind me. I feel a sense of urgency that I didn’t have when I was 25, except, how was I going to pay for dinner.

What are you excited about right now?

My new method book–I’ve introduced a new method to 40 teachers this week (Teacher training was one of the tracks at the String Camp). I’ve had the idea for the last fifteen years, to create a sequence of American traditional tunes.

It’s how to learn to play the violin in an American style. I felt compelled. I see all the things not being done–like, why isn’t there a fiddle concerto–20 years ago I wrote one. I asked, why isn’t there cross-disciplinary training? So I created this method. There’s a Russian school, a German school, a French school–this is for the American school.

On stage in San Diego

Gwen Orel writes about music, theatre and culture for many outlets. She is a slave to Celtic music.

Inner Monologue: The Multi-tasked Critic in the basement, in the park, soaking up a slow drag on Tin Pan Alley (on Broadway) and passing for adolescent in the east village: four plays, four days

Gwen Orel — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:13:18 +0000

I’m multitasking from East Durham, New York—up in the Catskills for the Catskills Irish Arts Week! I will blog about that as well, with Q&As with musicians, concert reports and descriptions of the unique and beautiful scene here.

Runners carbo-load; I theatre-loaded last week knowing it would be all music this week.

Although I saw it mid-week, I’m putting my rave about The Tin Pan Alley Rag first, because I love the show and just opened. Read my feature in the Wall Street Journal Online here.

The Tin Pan Alley Rag

July 9th

Roundabout at Laura Pels Theatre

The Tin Pan Alley Rag runs through September 6.

I RECOMMEND THE PLAY.

Michael Boatman as Scott Joplin, Michael Therriault as Iriving Berlin. Photo Credit Joan Marcus

The first musical to be done in this space (maximum occupancy 350) isn’t exactly a musical nor “a play with music,” but a “naturalistic musical,” as director Stafford Arima explained to me when I interviewed him and playwright Mark Saltzman for the Wall Street Journal.

When I firstsaw it, the play was bookended by old Irving Berlin waiting to see something (gradually you realize as the play progresses that it’s the opera Scott Joplin pitched to him in 1915). The show depicts a young Irving Berlin meeting a kind of has-been Scott Jopin in 1915, and two composers compare notes all night long (notes, get it?).

Now, the play opens in the thick of the hustle and bustle of Tin Pan Alley I had to be won over to this new version, but I was. It was very moving when Berlin’s aging happens as characters from his past, alive again, come and hand him bits of old man gear. My mother cried.

I took my mother this time. That was part of my excuse for going again.

It’s a jukebox musical! From a time before jukeboxes! There’s something magical about being involved in a story that suddenly becomes a “greatest hits” of tunes you love. When Berlin went into “I Love a Piano” I looked around and the whole damn audience was grinning. Later on when he complained he hadn’t yet managed to figure out a Christmas song, there was a happy, knowing laugh (late, late in the show, you do hear notes of “may your days be merry and bright…”).

Egotists with chops are fun to watch. Berlin, irresistibly arrogant Michael Therriaul, and Joplin, proper and close to priggish Michael Boatman, have huge egos. Neither intimidates the other. It’s kind of great. You might not want to date them but they are fun to watch. Then again, you might. Both men loved their sweet young wives who drew them out of themselves, then suddenly died (the downside of this is the temptation to fantasize about being a sweet wife who dies suddenly. Maybe it’s worth it if someone wrote “Bethena” for you.) Berlin’s romance with his first wife, Dorothy Goetz, winningly played and gorgeously sung by adorable Jenny Fellner, hits the heart when she cheerfully vanishes into death during their honeymoon to the sound of Joplin’s melancholy, lovely “Solace.”

The Tin Pan Alley Rag offers the kind of smart musicology that the (now-closed) 33 Variations can only dream about. In the latter play, it’s hard not to think that Moises Kaufman had just read a book on Beethoven’s variations and how they work and couldn’t wait to spit that information out at you. In The Tin Pan Alley Rag, the characters describe how their music works because they need to tell someone else on stage. You learn what ragtime means (as Scott Joplin explains the difference between the marching left hand and the syncopated right hand to German conductor, maestro Alfred Ernst, played by James Judy), you learn how hit songs used to make their way to the public by watching scenes of “pluggers,” songwriters, singing a few bars to publishers, by watching Ted Snyder (Michael McCormick), Irving Berlin’s partner at the publishing house of Berlin and Snyder, make a deal with vaudevillian Mooney Mulligan (Mark Ledbetter), and you learn how songs were “broken” through a scene at Macy’s where Berlin and Snyder hawk the hit song Mulligan sang the night before. We first meet Mooney coming offstage in blackface—artfully highlighting the norms of the times.

There should be a Tony for Multiple role-playing actors. They are the essence of live performance. Forget the catch-all “character actor.” Ledbetter sings, dances as Mulligan, puts on an officious Southern accent for composer’s assistant “Thaddeus,” and has a comic turn as a “plugger.” Judy plays Southern publisher John Stark, as well as a German conductor, and others. Randy Aaron, Derrick Cobey, Rosena M. Hill, Erick Pinnick, Tia Speros and Idara Victor also take salamander turns.

Michael Therriault as Irving berlin with Mark Ledbetter as Mooney Mulligan. Photo Joan Marcus.

Usher Alert #1: Volunteer ushers may come cheap, but they come at a price. Mom and I entered the house and didn’t even realize a man standing gazing out into space a few rows ahead of us was an usher. We got our own playbills and were nearly at our seat when an usher nearer the front offered to help us. Ushers? Go up to the patron, don’t wait for them to fall across you.

Directors: Please let the audience in. I understand that Arima now thinks of the show as a “naturalistic musical,” and I understand that applause breaks the fourth wall. But dammit, we’re dying to clap. We laugh when Berlin explains “catchy don’t happen by accident,” and when he sees a young songwriter tapping his foot, tells him “that’s the money tap.” We’re not silent, we’re right there, we have a role to play. When we hear a song we love beautifully sung we want to share our approval—but the show moves on so fast we can’t clap. When Joplin plays the “Maple Leaf Rag” for white publisher John Stark, an amazingly fair white man who didn’t rip off his composers (whatever their color), and the tune gets its name, we’re just dying to clap.

Years ago I dramaturged the play Denial by Peter Sagal (yes, that Peter Sagal, now the host of NPR’s ROTFLOL radio news quiz show “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.” To me, he will always be playwright Peter Sagal). There’s a scene in which a character gives a dramatic exit speech and then exits. The audience applauded. Director Jed Harris grumbled, “I hate that.” He restaged it so the audience couldn’t clap.

OK, it can be distracting when an audience claps every time a famous actor enters or exits—as they do for Angela Lansbury in Blithe Spirit—but it’s also a bonding experience. It reminds us that we, the audience, matter. That the people onstage are there for us.

If the reviewers don’t love this, they’re in the wrong field. It’s just a fabulous theatrical entertainment, with a great imaginative story that could have happened, with beloved songs, great acting– it’s solid, happy, and very well done. When Joplin describes scenes from his opera Treemonisha, they are enacted before our eyes. From what we see, I’m not sure the world lost out by not seeing it sooner (his lyrics are iffy), but Idara Victor as Treemonisha has a truly glorious soprano. The piano playing is live, too (albeit not by the actors, but by Michael Patrick Walker, who also conducts, and Brian Cimmet, offstage). You can’t fake the sound of live piano.

Relatives come in handy to soften up interviewees. Mom, who went with me, was a pianist early in her life. Ihad mentioned her to Saltzman because he went to Cornell, and so did Mom, when she left her music major at the University of Michigan for the Cornell Hotel School. I passed him in the house (playwrights and directors are usually in the house during previews), and introduced my mother, and he said right away, “Hotel school!”

Critic person shout-out: bumped into critic Simon Saltzman (Outer Critics Circle, among others) at intermission. I spent happy hours at the ATCA (American Theatre Critics Association) conference in Sarasota, Florida with him and his wife Lucy-Ann this past April. He asked to meet the playwright not mention that he’s a critic—but Mark said right away, “oh, the writer!” Mark and Simon have the same last name, you see. Could they be related? Both families seem to have a music gene—Simon described someone (can’t remember if it was a father or uncle) who played on the Cunard line all during the depression (and never experienced the Great Depression).

Venue Comfort #1: the Laura Pels Theatre has a nice theatre bar, with tables and chairs, food and decent liquor too. I always forget it’s there. It makes a difference.

Program Propriety #1: Happy to report that the Literary Manager is where he/she should be in the Roundabout’s program: in the first group of “Artistic Staff, which is under the bolded big wigs at the theatre. Literary Manager is the fourth line down. Readers aren’t listed at all, but since they aren’t exactly staff, that seems fair to me.

Favorite lines and moments. Write if you have your own! (comments and emails earn a FP, famous person, shout-out in the next Inner Monologue):

Catchy don’t happen by accident.

That’s the money tap.

I’ve got one that’s Jewish and Irish!

You owe it to your talent to move beyond all this.

Money! Money! Money! –That’s the Tin Pan Alley Rag.

Getting the words so they don’t bump into each other—that took all night.

Europeans

Tuesday, July 7th

Potomac Theatre Project (ptp/nyc, as this branch is now known)

(in association with Middlebury College)

Atlantic Stage Two

Europeans runs through July 26th.

I RECOMMEND THE PLAY. THOUGH.

Famous Person Shout-Out: I was New York Times writer Neil Genzlinger’s guest. Press Agent David Gibbs recognized me and thoughtfully handed me a press pack too. ”That must have really confused him,” Neil said.Neil had seen and really liked their production of another Barker play, Scenes from an Execution, last summer. Barker is one of those great 80s-90s Brit playwrights, like Edward Bond, that just aren’t done a lot over here.

Howard Barker’s play Europeans is running in rep with Neal Bell’s adaptation of Emile Zola’s novel Therese Raquin, running at Atlantic Stage Two, produced by the Potomac Theatre Company/NY.

Rental Reps are Confusing. Especially when they run in a theatre’s second space which is not at the same space as its first (Atlantic is on 20th Street, Stage Two is on Sixteenth). You can get confused when you go to Theatermania to figure out what you’re seeing—if you plug in the wrong title you’ll think you have the wrong day. They weren’t on the Atlantic site, because, I guess, they are rentals.

Get Me to the Play on Time: Always have the cell phone of the person who invited you to the theatre. That’s another famous person shout-out if you’re paying attention.

Curtain Times Should Standardize. I hate 7:30 curtains. They make me nervous. They’ve become so popular that now when I am going to an 8 p.m. show I check and check and check on my calendar that I have it right. In William Inge’s play The Dark at the Top of the Stairs there’s a line about how theatre in New York starts at 8:30.That would give everyone a chance to eat before the show. Stomachs grumbling loudly all around you are distracting. Even when they’re not your own. I had two mini éclairs at La Bergamote (highly recommended) so I know it wasn’t me.

A Word About Rep. ”Rep” comes from “repertory.” A “repertory” or “repertoire” should be all the things in your bag of tricks that you can trot out. In the Czech Republic, companies really do run “in rep”—companies learn a show, then play it a few times a month, alternating with older shows in their repertoire, for years. There’s nothing like that here except, perhaps, in opera. Berkeley Repertory Theatre is not a repertory company. Seattle Repertory Company is not a repertory company.

So far as I know there is not a true rep company in the US. Do you know of one? Post if you do! There are economic reasons as well as pragmatic ones for this (Czech companies, for example, are on a payroll yearlong, like salaried folks).

Usher Alert #2. Like ticket pick-up lines and curtain times, the lack of norms is confusing and irritating. As a critic, I kind of like it when there’s a little flyer with my name on it on my seat, though it’s not necessary if seats are numbered. Atlantic (or were they Potomac?) had ushers do something new, though: they behaved like waiters.

“This young man will show you to your seat.”

“How many in your party?”

“Two.”

“What’s the name?”

“Genzlinger.”

“First name?’

Is there really likely to be more than one Genzlinger reviewing the show that night? Seriously.

The nice young man tried and failed to get us to our seats two or three times before he figured it out (we were on the aisle next to a pillar). Once there, he pulled up the flyer. This is the theatre usher equivalent, I guess, of a waiter putting your napkin on your lap for you.

Usher Alert #3. Yes, two for one show. The nice young man had his cell phone glued to his ear while he was seating us. Most likely it was being used as a walkie-talkie (remember those?) to communicate with the house manager but it looked bad. Neil suggested he was talking to his girlfriend and telling her he’d be done in fifteen minutes.

Back to the Play. It’s an epic—that’s the term the Brits use for plays with a lot of episodes instead of one big throughline. Barker’s 1990 play is set in Vienna in in the late 1600s after a ravaging invasion of the Turks. Its investigation of culture clash, despair and xenophobia feel fresh. In the program, critic George Hunka situates the play as an example of what Barker called “Theatre of Catastrophe,” which was an attempt toexamine the irrationality underlying human behavior that leads to war and destruction. But it’s also very funny. Epic dramas have large casts. They often have stylized languageViolence. Sex. Ptp/nyc’s cast is large and able, with striking costumes by Julie Emrson. The set, designed by Mark Evancho, who also did the subtle, not overwhelming projections, is a rare beast: evocative beams that really do lend themselves equally to multiple places (a palace, a church, a town square). Director Richard Romagnoli makes judicious use of underscoring too, sound design by Allison Rimmer, original music by Peter Hamlin.

I didn’t envy Neil’s task of getting a review of the two and a half hour, large cast play done in 300 words. Thankfully, since his review is up, I can just quote his review here:

In the play, written in 1990, Mr. Barker drops in on the aftermath of the siege of Vienna by the Turks in 1683. Leopold (Brent Langdon), the Holy Roman Emperor — here, a buffoon whose main interest is having his portrait painted — is ecstatic that the siege has been broken through the heroism of General Starhemberg (Robert Emmet Lunney).

Around these two real-life characters Mr. Barker interweaves fictional narratives involving a mutilated rape victim (Aidan Sullivan), her sex-hungry and just plain hungry sister (Megan Byrne), an exceedingly unobservant priest (Robert Zukerman, who is hilarious) and others.

Critic Person Shout-Out: Sam Thielman from Variety was sitting in front of us. Sam and I bonded a while back over our mutual dislike of Naomi Wallace’s anti-Semitic caricatures in The Fever Chart: Three Visions of the Middle East. I reviewed it for Back Stage.

Sam was there with his lovely wife Pamela, who is a script-reader at the Public Theatre, so she knows my friend the lovely and talented Liz Frankel, Literary Associate at the Public, who referred me to a job as a Story Editor a few years ago.

Sam wrote in his review:

It takes a certain amount of chutzpah to write a play this bleak and then call it “The Europeans.” But that’s Barker’s point: Destruction on a massive scale seems to be something of a human habit. When Starhemberg tells Leopold that he and the Viennese had been reduced to eating dogs, Leopold simply says, “Dogs, have you? And not the last time dogs will stand in for pastry.”

Act One is stronger than Act Two, and at times the sudden shift from a kind of verse to really prosaic language for humor is overplayed. Barker also likes anachronism—there’s a reference to jazz, there’s use of a flashlight—but it doesn’t really lead anywhere.

Megan Byrne as Susannah gives what a “brave” performance—”brave,” Neil and I have decided, is code for nudity, mimed sex, vomiting or other bodily functions enacted or revealed onstage. Byrne mimes having sex with Orphuls, the corrupr priest, and she masturbates (facing upstage) while eating one of his lovenotes. She’s the sister of the raped and maimed Katrin, bitterly comic Aidan Sullivan with whom General Starhemberg, forcefully enacted by Robert Emmet Lunney, falls in love (he seems to be dealing with post traumatic stress disorder, as well as generalized mommy issues).

Female bodies are seductive, even to straight women. That’s good and bad. As the play wears on, though, even I was distracted by Byrne’s cleavage. It’s to Byrne’s credit that one remembers her performance at all.

That everyone was somewhat crazy was fascinating but by the end of Act Two it also robbed events of any meaning. When Starhemberg hints that he’s going to give Concilia, the child of Katrin’s rape, back to the Turks, he could be taking a long view of global connections, succumbing to violence, or just acting randomly. This is a directorial problem, in the end.

But I’m still recommending it, unlike David Sheward of Back Stage (another Critic Person Shout-out! we bumped into him on the sidewalk). He wrote in his review:

The characters come across as symbols rather than flesh-and-blood people. Each has suffered at the hands of the oppressive Turks and cannot cope with the relative freedom offered by the conquering Austrian Empire. But because we don’t get to know them as individuals, their physical and mental pain has no resonance. We don’t identify with them, and their multiple miseries soon become tedious.

Sheward was talking more easily than we were, having ridden the elevator.

Venue Comfort #2. In the Basement. We walked up four flights of stairs, four flights of very industrial stairs, concrete and steel, rather than wait for the elevator. It extended the end-of-the-world grimness of the play (though I suspect Barker meant his ending to have a glimmer of hope about it) but trust me, wait for the elevator at Atlantic Stage Two.

Meta-theatrical Atmosphere Alert #1. Ever notice how the play you’ve just seen sometimes creeps into the atmosphere? Not only the stair-climbing but New York itself seemed eager to perform.

On this hot summer night, we passed The Bikini Bar—where a girl in a yellow bikini standing outside reassured a young man that yes, she spoke Russian, and then they carried on chatting.

At Penn Station on 31st and Eighth a man in a kilt played the bagpipes.

Many people were sitting on the steps of the Post Office. Why? I get that it’s a nice night and apartments get stuffy, but… the Post Office on eighth avenue is the best you can do on a balmy night?

Forget Vienna in the 17th Century, said the city. Look at me, look at me, look at me.

Twelfth Night

July 8th

The Public Theater Presents Shakespeare in the Park, The Delacorte, Central Park

Before I go into my rant about the Public, let me say straight up that it was great.

I RECOMMEND THE PLAY (it’s closed, but if you time-travel or have an opportunity to see it on video, do it).

I’ve seen Twelfth Night seven or eight times and is in the top two (the other is an “island” version American Conservatory Theatre did back in the 80s, when I lived in San Francisco). Anne Hathaway surprised me by having real Shakespearean chops, surprising for someone who has never performed Shakespeare professionally and who is known for ingénue film roles. Viola in Twelfth Night is an ingénue, but there’s verse and comic timing and vocal projections and all kinds of things I didn’t know she could pull off. She also sings like a bird. On top of that, she’s tall and narrow enough that she could actually pass as a boy. Eighteenth-century costumes by designer Jane Greenwood had grace and charm, and looked terrific on the pastoral set (literally, hills and trees onstage) by John Lee Beatty (Gwen shout-out: I wrote the entry on Beatty for the Oxford Encylopedia of Theatre and Performance).

Theatre Music Appreciation. There’s an Irish-y (not really Irish, but some jigs, and Swift’s session leader Chris Layer plays uillean pipes) band on stage for much of Act One. The band HEM wrote much of the music, and a recording is in the works. Let’s see more such recordings, please. When the play began my brother Stephen (I used to call him AOB for Adored Older Brother, but he didn’t like it really) could not stop humming “We Are the World” (the Michael Jackson death-a-thon was the day before). After the show ended, he could not stop humming the final tune.

The clowns—Andrew Aguecheek (Hamish Linklater) as a humble fop in particular—were the best I’ve ever seen. I never grew tired of their predictable gags. It didn’t hurt that comic chameleon David Pittu played Feste, Olivia’s fool, either, and that Jay O. Sanders played Sir Toby Belch. And Julie White as Maria displayed such fun feistiness that you could understand why Olivia keeps her around, even after her mean prank on pompous steward Malvolio (Michael Cumpsty). In addition, Raul Esparza’s lovesick Orsino had charm, Stark Sands gave Sebastian nobility, and Audra McDonald’s Olivia, for once, had sexual heat (often the role is played as just a besotted older woman) and dignity.

The fops!

Now for the rant.

Shakespeare in the Park is not free.

If you go to the Public’s site, you’ll see they now have a warning about using professional line-sitters.

Last year the New York Times had an article about people hiring line-sitters on Craig’s List (technically, not buying the tickets, which are free). The Public Theater’s Artistic Director Oskar Eustis told the Times that the line-sitting itself was a kind of communal experience:

“In our commodity-obsessed money culture, that’s a vital civic touchstone. Some things shouldn’t be measured in dollars.”

That’s all great, if you’re a student, or an artist, or unemployed, work flexible hours, and on live in Manhattan so you can be on line at 5 a.m. If not, these tickets are not only not free, they’re not accessible. Unless you’re a summer employee of a law firm that gives to the Public, or a sponsor, or…You get my drift. These tickets are not free, unless you’re Someone Who. At minimum wage, each ticket costs over $50. It’s easy for Eustis not to “measure in dollars” what other peoples’ time is worth.

Disclaimer: I took a class called “Dramaturgy for Playwrights” from Oskar Eustis at the (now defunct, fondly recalled) Eureka Theatre in San Francisco. His title was “dramaturg.” I learned to ask “what are you waiting to see happen?” and “what’s the story question?” Back then, Oskar referred to me as a “cute chick in a miniskirt,” teased me about having gone to Stanford (he’s an auto-didact, like Tom Stoppard and Irish Friend, i.e., IF), and called himself a “red diaper baby.” He had a mane of golden hair, a smart viking from Minnesota and I thought he was a god of the theatre.

Oskar, what the hell? How can it be a “civic touchstone” to exclude the working man?

I hired a line-sitter from Craig’s List. I can’t get to Central Park by 5 am from New Jersey without staying over somewhere, and Wednesday was the only day I had free to see the show, which was closing Sunday. My line-sitter flaked out on me. I posted an ad on Craig’s List and got very, very lucky.

Line-sitters are a sign that capitalism works. Line-sitters can make over $100 in a day. There’s nothing illegal about hiring someone to run an errand for you, and busy, working, elderly, infirm people can have a chance to see great theatre too. Since they aren’t going away, perhaps the Public should consider finding a way to regulate it.

My money was well-spent. IF (Irish Friend) waited in line for returns two nights in a row to take his theatre-loving teenage daughter and did not get in. This is Just Wrong.

Program Propriety #2. When Oskar was called Dramaturg, it was a pretty new profession in this country (OK, that dates me, but I got carded on Friday, so I’m down with it), and very prestigious. Morgan Jenness, Shelby Jiggetts, John Glore—these were powerful, important people. Dramaturg was someone who cared about the script, who worked with playwrights. Now, though, the Public lists its “literary associate” towards the end of its staff in the playbill. I don’t see anyone with the title “dramaturg.” Huh?

The Public Theater produces and develops new work—it even appointed its first “Master Writer,” Suzan-Lori Parks, whose name and title are in capital letters in “The Public Theater Staff” at the back of the Playbill. So why is the literary staff is on the second page, listed after the “director of information technology?” That’s after development, marketing, communications, capital pprojects and government relations, finance, director of Joe’s Pub, music theater initiative, Director of Shakespeare Intiative, Director of Production and facility management.

Program Propriety #3. Yes, twice for one show. There’s nothing about Shakespeare in the Playbill. Joe Papp created Shakespeare in the park for the people, but you won’t get info on him here. The synopsis gives no history of the play. The Playbill does include an essay by London-based critic Matt Wolf contextualizing this starry production with other Public productions, with quotes from Eustis. There are also inserts about upcoming Public productions. My brother asked me where the play falls in Shakespeare’s timeline (it’s 1601, so smack in the middle; you can read the entire play, since it’s in the Public Domain, here on Gutenberg) and I said, oh, it’s in the program I’m sure. It isn’t.

Outdoor Theatre Observation #1. Things fly overhead It was a lovely summer night—moths flying around in theatre lights posed as fireflies. Hawks and the occasional goose flew overheadalong with were very noisy planes—one that circled around in an alarming way – that all paused for intermission

Outdoor Theatre Observation #2. Audiences are different outside. I’m more tolerant. I like having my coke with me, for one. The woman next to me was texting someone during the show, and it was annoying rather than infuriating. She stopped for clown business. Ushers walked around telling people not to take pictures, even of one another (Union rules forbid it, but audience members don’t understand why their civic experience is curtailed that way).

Viola of course was written for a boy—in Shakespeare’s day women were not allowed to perform—so in the play we never do see her come out triumphantly as a girl at the end. I was happy that director Daniel Sullivan showed her, though. She couldn’t have looked more joyous in her white Jane Austen-ish gown as she flung her arms in the air and danced with her Orsino. That final dance was more infectious than any hippies from last summer beckoning to the audience. People hummed the tune.

Mother

July 10, 2009

The Wild Project (195 East 3rd Street)

I RECOMMEND THE PLAY. THOUGH.

Holland Taylor and Keith Randolph Smith. Photo Alison Cartwright.

Lisa Ebersole has an amazing ear for dialogue. She blew me away with her play Brother in 2005. I raved about it for Back Stage and when her play was published by Samuel French they quoted me in the cover.

“American theatre has found a rare new voice in Lisa Ebersole, who wrote, directed, and performs in the short, tense drama “Brother.” Every beat is fraught with interest and impact. Ebersole presents a world that is both recognizable and entirely her own.”

I have not met Lisa, except on Facebook, but shortly after my review came out she ran into my friend Natalie Picoe (she’s now a filmmaker finishing a fantastic film about her father, The Poker Detective.) and Natalie mentioned something about seeing the play after her friend Gwen recommended it (Lisa also acts in her plays, making her a very recognizable writer, though it also may contribute to the slow progress her writing career has been having) and Lisa said “you mean Gwen OREL? My parents LOVE her!”

Playwright-Critic Etiquette. Don’t send thank-you notes. Do accept friend requests. Do gush to mutual friends. Don’t twitter mean things about us like Alice Hoffman (Gawker link).

Mother stars Buck Henry and Holland Taylor—two well known heavy-hitting actors from film and television. Henry you may remember from appearances on Murphy Brown; he also wrote the screenplay to The Graduate. Taylor won an Emmy for her role on The Practice, and has done a lot of film and television too, as theatre.

Taylor was featured on Theatermania, in a piece written by editor Brian Scott Lipton:

“I don’t think they’re madly eccentric, just different in their own way,” says Taylor about the family in Mother. “But I also think they have the kind of family dynamic that exists in all families; there’s a certain kind of squabbling between the children and a certain kind of well-worn groove of bickering with the parents. Yet, there is unquestionably the bond of love that overrides everything in this family. I think the play shows how delicate the connecting lines are in a family — how easily they can be frayed — while there’s ultimately enough strands to weave the kind of web that holds a family together. It’s really wonderful writing.”

But my question is—why aren’t there stories about EBERSOLE HERSELF? I hope they’re coming! at least they’ll be one here on Cityscoops; I’m doing a Q&A with the playwright tomorrow.

In a period where the gender disparity between male and female playwrights made the news, after a Town Hall meeting featuring the year-long study of Princeton undergraduate star economist Emily Sands, which received a long article in the New York Times, and then a follow-up piece on women directors, why is this emerging female playwright less the story than the stars in her play?

“There is discrimination against female playwrights in the theater community,” said Emily Glassberg Sands, who conducted the research.

Because, folks, talk (and news talk) is cheap. At least the show is being reviewed, although not, at the Times, by Brantley or Isherwood. I just hope a female critic covers it too, for somebody. Because lack of female critics hurts female playwrights too. I don’t think only women should review plays by women. But I also don’t think only men should review plays by women. If this were a new play by a young man with two heavy-hitters in the roles, I’d bet dollars to doughnuts the writer would be part of the story.

Back to the Play. Though not quite as strong or as finished as Brother, it’s worth a trek downtown to see it. What Ebersole (yeah ok, I’m using her first name when I’m thinking about gender, and her last when thinking about her work, and what that says about me I am not sure) has is a voice that is striking and recognizable. Her storytelling and dramaturgy could use some work, and though she’s pretty and personable, I’m not convinced she’s the best actress for this piece—she seemed to be working in a different style than the others on stage.

Meta-theatrical Atmosphere Alert #2: I got carded at Croxley Ale! Ok, that’s just a gloat. As I wandered in and prepared to sit at a low table a young woman grabbed me by the arm and said EXCUSE ME CAN I SEE SOME ID! She made my day. The group of young women sitting near me were all trading happy stories about being beaten as children and how much good it did them. One woman described how her mother would say “go ahead, call 911, you’ll go to foster care and be with people who don’t love you.” Then she laughed. She turned out so much better who never got smacked. One woman was made to kneel on the reverse side of a bathmat before being hit with a belt. She laughed. Happily.

If I didn’t know better I’d suspect some kind of stealth marketing.

Venue Comfort #3: This is a really nice venue, and the first time I’d been there. Comfortable seats. The play is set in a dining room at a swanky hotel in West Virginia, between Christmas and New Year’s, as a family with two adult children tries to have a happy meal.

Getting Theatrical With It: Onstage seating put some audience members at restaurant tables too, drinking complimentary prosecco (which the family drink as well). The program is arranged like a menu, which is also a nice touch, though it was a teensy bit confusing. I’m a sucker for creative touches like this. Yes, put the audience on stage. Get creative with the program.

Usher Alert #4: no names on the seats, this time, but seat assignments written on the “menu”

Back to the Play. The play reveals itself slowly—you don’t realize at first that the young man and woman are siblings, not a couple, until they both refer to Mom and Dad. Mom comes to dinner without her shoes—both my brother Stephen (my plus one, and very appropriate for this) and I thought for a bit that the family lived there (no, they were just staying there). There are references to “the bunker”—Stephen told me there really is a hotel outside D.C. that has a bunker in case of nuclear alert, but it’s never explained in the play so there’s a period that goes on for awhile where we seem to be in a science fiction world. This feeling is heightened even more by a strange subplot in which Lisa has apparently been kidnapped by “The Wilsons,” a family they have known and had complex feelings of dislike, attraction and envy for, for many years. But the Wilson kidnapping gradually seems just an excuse for characters to leave the room so that we can have a series of two-person scenes.

Directors Notes: since the family are sitting at a table throughout, most of the movement onstage comes when characters re-enter a room and sit in a different chair. I have never seen people chair-hop at their own table. Maybe this family does, but it seemed forced to me.

Holland Taylor plays a difficult, dynamic woman who somehow centers the family—yet I still don’t know why the play is called “mother.” It could just as easily have been called Father. I’ll ask Ebersole when I talk to her.

Lisa Ebersole and Buck Henry, photo credit Alison Cartwright

There were a number of loose ends: why does the brother bring up this dinner to chide his father about never having talked to him about sex; what is the mother referring to when she apologizes to her adult daughter for leaving on a plane when the daughter was two? —with no clear “story question” we can’t help investing these conversational bits with weight.

Stephen asked me, “has she been listening in on our family dinners?” The family onstage was nothing like ours, and yet they seemed so recognizable too. That’s huge. That can’t even be taught.

Gender Disparity Alert #1: Female playwrights often write about families, and some writers suggest that that keeps their plays in the “small” vein. But men have families too. My brother chortled really loudly. Can we just dispel the notion that women are more interested in family than men? Where does that come from, anyway? Isn’t Death of a Salesman essentially a family drama? Yes, it;s about work, but it’s just as much about a father with sons and a wife who knows that Attention Must Be Paid.

Favorite moments:

Dad pauses in the middle of talking to say “Oh I love this song” about a muzak “Little drummer boy” playing in the restaurant.

When the brother reveals he’s dating a married woman, mom is upset, but dad says “I’m relieved it’s a woman.”

Late in the play (it’s only 75 minutes, but feels a bit longer due to its lack of real urgency)—we learn that dad has lost the family money. As Mom picks on him, daughter defends him and brother defends mom, the shifting loyalties, guilt and love hit close to home.

Gender Disparity Alert #2: With a talent so palpable, why isn’t Ebersole in the circuit of writers who are developed, commissioned, scouted—a talent this big should have had the opportunity to work with the best dramaturges in the best new play programs. Truthfully, this is a question that is larger than gender, it’s a question of class in theatre. It’s very very hard to “break in” if you don’t come from a writing program, if you don’t break in at the right age and with the right kind of work. But once you’re in, you’re in. Imperfect though the play is, it has more merit and weight than a lot of flashy, clever pieces I’ve seen by writers who go on to big careers writing for Showtime and HBO series to pay the rent.

It’s “who you know” in theatre too. It always will be– even with the best of intentions we can’t really develop or read blindly, at least not beyond one play. So there will always be some degree of sexism, racism, ageism.

But I can still bitch about it.

And maybe that will even do some good.

Inner Monologue: the Multitasked Critic on in your face marketing, incest in Bogland, musician’s greenroom spreads,and more

Gwen Orel — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 01:09:04 +0000

The Tony Awards are exhausting. Covering the Tony Awards for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (read my live blogging posts here.) drained me more than a normal all-nighter. It’s my excuse for losing most of June, and I’m sticking to it. That, and the endless rain. I read somewhere it was the rainiest June since 1905. I lost three umbrellas (including a little yellow one from Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon, where they expect rain a lot).

Here’s the last week—a couple of plays, a concert, tea with a treasure of a 93-year old painter, a session. It’s summer, and I’m multitasking all of the arts. The week before I even attended a taping of the Daily Show, but this post is long enough as it is…

The Full Monty

Paper Mill Playhouse, Millburn, NJ

Saturday, June 27, 2009

PHOTO 2 – The Full Monty at Paper Mill Playhouse, Photo by Kevin Sprague, from left to right: Milton Craig Nealy, Michael Rupert, Jason Babinsky, Elaine Stritch, Joe Coots, Wayne Wilcox and Allen E. Read

Disclaimer: during 2007-2008 I worked part-time at Paper Mill as a grantwriter.

Disclaimer: I grew up and live in Millburn, home of the Paper Mill Playhouse (as evidenced by the sign on Route 78, exit 50-B). I write articles for The Local, the Maplewood-Millburn-South Orange blog of the New York Times. Some of those aren’t even about culture but just about issues. Read my latest article here. It’s about the settlement of the lawsuit brought against Rabbi Bogomilsky by the Township and his countersuit, and deals with charges of running a synagogue out of his home. Feel free to weigh in!

I grew up in Millburn and got taken to plays there long ago, before it burned down (not telling you the date. Look it up yourself). I worked there as a production assistant (that’s a non-Equity stage management team member) on a show or two, back when I was a stage manager.

I got involved with Paper Mill this last time around after writing several highly critical letters to the then artistic director, Diane Claussen, when the theatre almost folded in the spring of 2007. I thought then, and sadly still do, that the theatre has lost a lot of its community goodwill.

I digress. Back to The Full Monty.

It’s a good show, one I never saw on Broadway, and really, it’s better than I thought it would be. The transfer from the 1997 movie’s setting of Sheffield, England to Buffalo, New York for the 2001 Broadway musical makes a lot of sense, and the music and songs are really catchy. Terrence McNally’s book is smart, and David Yazbek’s music and lyrics match it. There are one or two too many songs that stop the action, but that’s a minor quibble.

Note to Marketing Departments: Do not, do not, do NOT, tape a solicitation letter to the arm of a subscriber’s seat when you know she’s coming to the show. I can’t explain just why this letter to my mother seemed so much more intrusive and off-putting than emails, snailmails and phonecalls, but it is one of the tackiest things I’ve ever seen in the theatre, and I’ve been involved in theatre all of my adult life.

I was kind of hoping it would be an apology for Paper Mill’s canceling of a “Center Stage” dress rehearsal invite for donors—we didn’t find out it was off until we arrived at the theatre the week before, and Paper Mill’s apology was one of those “sorry IF” apologies (sorry IF we made a mistake, sorry IF I offended you, you know the sort).

Note to Any Organization with Subscribers: when a patron complains, just apologize. Don’t CYA. Mom isn’t going to give to Center Stage next year.

Elaine Stritch was really terrific as Jeanette Burmeister, a boozy older piano player who mysteriously shows up to accompany auditions for male strippers, and her character enters the show far into Act One when you’ve even forgotten she’s going to appear. She landed every wisecrack, sang well and looked great too. The plot of the play centers on Jerry Lukowski (played by an appealing, kinda hot Wayne Wilcox), who decides after seeing how enthusiastic the ladies are about Chippendales, that he and some out of work Union Steelworkers workers (including cuddly Dave Bukatinsky,played by Joe Coots and older-but-groovy Noah “Horse” T. Simmons, played by Milton Craig Nealy) can cash in too. Their gimmick, unlike the Chippendales, is that they wil go “the full Monty,” and leave nothing to the imagination.

The final moment of nudity though is not exactly the Full Monty for the house– the backlights are so bright you can only see silhouettes! right up until that moment, the show is a delight (it closes July 12). As always, Paper Mill’s pit band is top-notch. For my money, this was the best production of the year, even better than 1776. Mark S. Hoebee, the Artistic Director, shows his skills, and so does Denis Jones, the choreographer. I even forgive Hoebee for hiring David Schweizer, the director of the most godawful production of The Importance of Being Earnest this past season I’ve ever seen (my eyes still hurt remembering it). When Hoebee directs, he pulls it off, every time.

Reed in the Wind

The ETC Theatre Company, at the Producers Club

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Fraternal incest, rape, love, a corrupt priest, emotional blackmail, murder and madness. I wasn’t bored at Reed in the Wind, though occasionally baffled and fighting back giggling fits.

Press for this show described it as an unusual Irish love story, set in 1927. I’m a sucker for all things Irish (or Scottish or any kind of Celtic) so I wanted to see this. The show had only five performances. It was unusual, all right.

The Producers Club is a complex with several stages in it. It’s a bit hard to find, because it’s a door or two down from where you think it’s going to be on 44th street. It does have a bar up the first flight of stairs, inside of which several box office operations are going on. It’s confusing but festive. We like bars in theatres.

The Sonnet Theatre, the show’s venue, is teeny-tiny, just two rows in a u-shape, around the stage. Those in the first row were nearly onstage. The playwright was in the first row—I discovered this because I sat in back of him, and he and his companion were talking about a reading of Rasuputin, one of the credits in the playwright’s bio. The playwright, Joe McDonald, is apparently of Irish descent (other plays are set there too). He was middle-aged, so we can’t chalk the play’s faults up to youth.

Note to Playwrights and Directors: Don’t sit smack in the middle in the front row where the actors can’t miss you. Whether they love you or fear you, they can’t help but be aware of you, and it’s going to alter their performance.

Tip: Get someone from the ethnic group a play depicts to go with you, if it’s not your own. I tried, but all of my Irish friends were busy. The play is about a brother and sister living incestuously. One Irish friend I spoke to right after the play said, “well, that kind of thing happened.” He might have had some insight into the set with its odd oil paintings as well. Was that period, or just cheap props buying?

Doubt Irish Friend would have had any insight into the stage manager’s booth ONSTAGE facing the audience.

Yes. It was like a weird toll-booth with a phantom guy in a baseball cap half in, half out of the play. I don’t have another workable solution for this space (and the stage manager has to see the action so he can call or execute all of the lighting and sound cues), but this sure wasn’t it. You’d see his baseball cap move, and then the stage would grow darker, or brighter. I wouldn’t call it Brechtian, just weird– particularly in a naturalistic play.

Note to producers: know what is playing next to you before you book the space. The venue next door had hip-hop music booming so badly my chair shook. Every ten minutes someone would slip out and talk to them and return with the bass line turned down.

Back to the plot of this very odd play. Pig-farmer Michael and Kate Nolan, his sister, have been living incestuously since their parents died 15 years ago. Michael (Nic Tyler) has hurt his knee and is shortly to go into the hospital, so they’re looking around for a hired hand.

Plot Hole Alert! They’ve been screwing for 15 years and it’s Ireland in 1927. No kids? No babies buried in the well beyond the valley-o? It seems peculiar not to allude to the issue anyway. I linked to that song from Planxty to show yes, OK, obviously there was familial incest in Ireland (in the song, she’s buried tots from Dad, Uncle and brother, and she’s the one going to Hell. Hmmm.) Speaking of Planxty, Andy Irvine! Andy Irvine! will be in NY in September for “masters in collaboration” with John Doyle at the Irish Arts Center. Yay. Irvine is one of the most important people from the Irish Folk Revival of the 70s– ugh, I hate that term, but it’s the best I have right now.

Anyway, Kate (Heather Snow Clark) heard The Priest (Bob Adrian), sermonize about lust and now she has pangs of conscience.

Plot Hole Alert! It took 15 years for her to have a pang of conscience?

Even odder is the way they talk about it. It’s Dr. Phil in Bogland. Michael coaxes her into bed despite her troubled mind and the next day he complains she wasn’t “really there” with him. Her reply “weren’t you satisfied?” Did anyone talk this way in 1920? Did anyone talk this way in 1950? Hell, 1960? Later on she talks about their “relationship.” The weird effect of all of this, not helped by the fact that Tyler and Clark look nothing alike and don’t share the same accent, is to makeirascible brother coaxing his lover-sister “you’ll not be bringing guilt into this house” kinda sympathetic. He’s romantic, and has a clear objective. She smiles a lot and looks pretty, but her sudden foray into morality seems, um, fickle.

So is incest ok if it’s consensual? What if it stops being consensual? At the end of the Act we can stop wrestling with all of that anyway, because that’s where we get incest rape.

Costume designers (this means you, Costume Designer Casper de la Torre): even the poorest priest would have a collar that fits. The two or three inches between the collar and the poor actor’s neck were distracting.

Act II goes further into the dark waters of contrivance. But every now and then there’s a line that shows McDonald has an ear, after all, if he’d limit himself to it—Kate says to the priest, “there are times that Michael threads a needle cleanly. You can be a bit pompous, can’t you?” Nice turn of phrase.

The hired hand, Peter Mallon (fresh-faced Doublas B. Giorgis), conveniently comes from Heaven as a saint/hero. He doesn’t judge her when he sees her in the act with Michael. Again, have no idea whether this is really peculiar or normal for that place and time, but it sure is convenient to the plot. As is having the priest be a hypocrite (although it does seem that often the people shouting loudest about sexual sin are really just angry someone else is getting away with it, see Sanford, Ensign et al).

I have to admit it’s a little funny when Mallon taunts the priest that he overheard him in the act with the women who came to him for help—“Mary Magdalene couldn’t hold a candle to you” is now the phrase I hope to hear from my next Irish Catholic lover. Thanks, Mr. McDonald.

Note to directors (and that means you, Tom Holmes: if the climax of the play depends on a gunshot, make sure the person who’s supposed to have fired doesn’t have two empty hands visible to the audience. I wasn’t the only person who thought a bullet had just been fired by the lord above.

Missy Raines and the New Hip

Madison Square Park

Wednesday, July 1

I wrote up my Q&A with Missy for Cityscoopsny.com here.

Not a whole lot to add except that the ground sure does get hard after an hour or so. I mean really hard. I mean even on a blanket. It’s sawdust, not grass, and it hurt my butt, and my friend Kelly Glover’s. I suggest if you go to one of the Madison Square Park concerts that you bring a pillow as well as a blanket.

My friend Kelly, whom I know from my brief days at Law & Order, looked around to see if there were any other black people. There were a few, and more by the time Claire Lynch came on.One little girl was very, very, very into the music. She danced to every song and kept trying to get under the ropes and go onstage. Daddy had work to keep up with her. She really, really loved it when Mark Schatz did “hambone” (slapping the thighs and chest for rhythm) to accompany himself to “Get along home, Cindy Cindy” and when he went into clog-dance (not sure if that’s the right term because he didn’t have clogs) on a board, she was very happy.

Lynch’s music on the face of it is more traditional bluegrass than what Missy is doing, but there are signs that she’s bringing in other elements too. There was a great swing song (I will find the title!) in particular and am looking forward to the new CD coming this fall, which I am told heightens the eclecticism.

The line at the Shake Shack is as long as ever. There was also barbecue for sale, from Hill Country NY, but sadly, no fries. The barbecued beef was a bit on the sweet side for me.

We did the interview in the green room in the Met Life building across the street. Had to give our ids to be let in and the food backstage was impressive! When I used to present concerts I was careful to do everything called on the rider, which always pleased folk musicians. I mentioned to Missy how Liz Carroll and John Doyle’s rider stipulated “no lasagna” and she said that was common (I guess lazy presenters find casseroles easy to do and bring out). Missy’s table was a little swankier than the food for Claire, which she found funny.

Missy was driving to Tennessee the next day. I asked her if she had one of those fancy tour busses with a bathroom and she laughed for a minute or so. That’s a no, then.

Tea with Sylvia Sleigh Alloway

July 2, Chelsea home of the Painter

One of the things critics and culture writers often do is follow stories before they are stories. It’s working a pitch.

I met Paula Ewin after the reading of scenes from a play my friend T. Cat Ford is writing (it’s going to be terrific; an inside look at a trading firm, much like the one where she was the last temp standing, that is, Bear Stearns).

Paula is an assistant to 93-year old painter Slyvia Sleigh Alloway, and also produced and co-directed the documentary “Look Here!” (a portrait of Sylvia Sleigh, which you can purchase on Sylvia’s website). I was invited to her birthday party shortly before the Tony Awards and went, but there were too many people to have much of a conversation.

Last week, the ladies of “the Hive”– of which Ewin is the Artistic Director– met to have their photos taken. It’s a company of women from 29th Street Rep, which lost its space last year. I chatted with Sylvia while the photographer snapped away.

What a story she has! I hope to place an article or feature on her somewhere this fall. She’s famous for painting male nudes. It’s amazing how it still seems strange to see a painting of a male nude reclining, showing all he has, pubic hair and all. Why is that? There sure is a lingering bias in our culture.

This is a portrait of Paul Rosano, Reclining, 1974, Oil on Canvas. He was actually at the birthday party in June. His hair has tamed in the last thirty years, let’s say.

Sylvia also is famous for having a collection of the work of other female artists, which is about to be remounted at Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ this autumn (dates TBA). There was also a famous collaboration with other women painters called “The Sister Chapel.”

But I was just as fascinated with the snippets of her lifestory I got—this is all preliminary for a more organized interview and pitch somewhere down the road, but she was in art school when there were demonstrations about the Czechs—not in 69, but in 39. When she couldn’t get hired as a commercial artist, she became a dressmaker. She met her second husband, Lawrence Alloway, in a course about Impressionists. Although she was an artist and he was not, she took his advice about destroying some of her works, not participating in shows. She wasn’t bitter then, but she is now.

Take that, article about gender disparity in theatre. The fine arts have a lot to answer to as well.

Millburn Township Fourth of July

Saturday, July 4th, Taylor Park and Millburn High School Field

OK, strictly speaking, this is not an event for a multitasked critic, but I find it hard to turn the Inner Monologue off, what can I say?

The Taylor Park Festivities are enormous fun, if you’re a child. If you’re not, the main attraction is Revolutionary War reenactors describe the Battle of Hobart and Springfield, and fire off cannons on the hour.

I love this, and go every year. But I wish we had a bake-off or a dance or something for those of us who don’t have a grade-schooler in tow. Of course, had we been better organized, we could have attended with my cousins the Russells, who have a four year old. Maybe next year. I love that climbing into a firetruck is there as an attraction along with the bungie jumping ride and the water slides.

The fireworks are low key, on the Millburn High School field. The field opens a few hours before the fireworks themselves, and people go and run around, play, catch up. Are the fireworks spectacular? No, but they didn’t fizzle either—I missed the ground display (for years there was a sign of 1776 that sparkled briefly with flame), and you can also see the Springfield fireworks in the distance. It’s hometown, it’s lowkey, it’s the best.

The Landmark Tavern—Pitch meeting with Producer, Session

The Landmark Tavern

Monday, July 6

Again, meeting to look for story ideas. This is a big part of the work when you’re a freelancer. We have to get our inside information somewhere! There’s a session at the Landmark every Monday, which means Irish musicians playing tunes together. The Landmark Session is run by Don Meade, and has excellent players while still encouraging and welcoming to beginnerish folks like me. I’ve been taking fiddle classes at Irish Arts Center nearby for a bit, and was thrilled when over dinner I heard a few tunes I actually knew (Behind the Haystack!).

Naturally, nobody played any I knew once I went into the Session and took out the fiddle. Oh well. I could catch on to a few, and I met Andy Lamy, clarinet player with the New Jersey Symphony, who lives in Maplewood and drove the Multitasked critic home. And on the drive home, just talking, I heard a few possible story ideas. No wonder, no matter what I do, I always feel behind.

A few days ago I posted on my Facebook status that I’d had the dream where I’d forgotten to show up in a few classes in college, then halfway through remembered I had my diploma, so it was OK. Then I realized I hadn’t finished all my graduate classes, and it wasn’t until I woke up that I realized I had my diploma there too. Have you had this dream too? What’s your wrinkle?

Q&A with bass-playing band mistress Missy Raines

Gwen Orel — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:57:10 +0000

How many BASS PLAYERS become bandleaders? And how many of those are women?

Missy Raines slaps that bass!

On July 1, Missy Raines, of Missy Raines and the New Hip, played Madison Square Park, as part of the Madison Square Park Conservancy summer concert series. She opened for Claire Lynch, a terrific bluegrass player with a sweet Dolly Parton-like voice, whose band she used to be in.

Missy Raines’ debut CD as a bandleader, Inside Out (released in February) is on repeat on my ipod.

Missy Raines and the New Hip's New CD

Her double bass, taking center stage, really brings out the rhythm and groove in every track. Pretty much ever trad and folk and roots musician claims to have jazz influences in one way or another– but you can really hear it with Raines. This really is “newgrass,” for those who don’t even think they like the genre. For one thing there’s her instrumental line-up– not a banjo to be seen– and a drummer! Dobro, bass, guitar, mandolin and drums– yes, the emphasis sure is on rhythm. Her music has a groovy, jazzy, lunch-on-the-patio vibe.

Another real strength of the CD is Raines’ husky, soulful singing. She sang harmony for years with Lynch, and she toured with Lynch’s guitar player Jim Hurst and sang with him– but here her vocal skills really land. It’s just the kind of vocal sound that goes with the instruments– the CD really is seamless. ”Basket of Singing Birds” really sparkled live, but I love the song “Magnolia” even more– both are by songwriter Ed Snodderly, but Raines’ somehow sly delivery gives them an edgy grace.

I’d never seen them play– last night was their first New York gig, outside of APAP (Assocaition of Performing Arts Presenters) showcases — so she said this was the first time she’d performed for “real” people. I was at APAP this year, but I know what she means– those showcases are a cross between backers’ audition and house concert.

The weather held– somehow Missy knew it would, she told me on the phone– and the groove was phenomenal. Earlybirds like me and my friend Kelly Glover (fresh back from LA where she was working at Law & Order) were soon joined by those wandering in from the park, those looking over from the Shake Shack line, and people lingering on the corner of 23rd and Madison.

The International Bluegrass Music Association has called Missy the best bassist player EVER.. If you hear some David Grisman, you’re right— Raines cites him as an influence— then she also cites rocker Joe Jackson. The sound rests in between bluegrass and jazz. Even the CD title is a tribute to Miles Davis, and his 1950 album “Birth of the Cool” (it’s also referencing Raines’ actual new hip; she had hip replacement surgery in 2005).

The New Hip are composed of Ethan Ballinger on guitar, Michael Witcher on guitar and vocals. The band played “Victory Is Yours,” an original number off of Ballinger’s CD Wish Upon a Falling Star, and as soon as I get it, I promise to review it here– it had techno elements and was very interesting indeed!), Robert Crawford on drums (yes!!! drums!!) and Dominick Leslie on mandolin . It’s a slightly different line-up from the CD– Dillon Hodges is not there and Crawford and Leslie are– but what hasn’t changed is that her backup band are all virtuoso twenty-smething men (and some really, really look like boys!) Raines is a forty-something trad-jazz musician, leading a band of young male pluckers ranging in age from 19 to early thirties. All of her band are rising virtuoso–, 21-year old Ballinger uses mandolin in a jazzy feel and got raves from MandolinCafe.com, 27-year old Witcher has played with Sean and Sara Watkin, Dolly Parton, and Tony Rice, and Leslie, who grimaces as he plays and jerks around, is about to enter the Berklee School of Music– and will still tour. I chatted with Missy after the show.

Did you know what instruments you wanted and then you found the players?

Totally.I knew I wanted drums, because I wanted to explore all the options we’d have with drums. I knew I wanted dobro, because I just love the instrument. I didn’t want banjo, because I knew the music we were going after wouldn’t best fit that. Mandolin is absolutely essential to this kind of music partly because of the connection I feel deeply to Bill Monroe to and David Grisman and Sam Bush.

How long has the idea for the band been brewing?

Jim Hurst (guitar player with Claire Lynch) and I started a duo back in 1998. We sat down and did a five year plan and a ten year plan about what we wanted to do as a duo. One of the things on my wish list at that time was to start a band. It was during a stint with Claire Lynch in 2004 that I really got focused on this band.

How would you describe your music?

I’ve always been really interested in the contrast of acoustic instruments playing jazz music. One of the biggest things that changed my life was hearing David Grisman back in the ’70s and Tony Rice playing jazz-influenced music. But, I always wanted to play with a drummer. It is unusual in bluegrass—I don’t really think we’re playing bluegrass. We have elements of bluegrass and we come from bluegrass but I’m hoping we’re a shoot off of a tree. There’s so many great bands out there right now that are coming out of bluegrass—people like The Greencards and The Duhks (editor’s note: The Duhks play Madison Square Park this Wednesday, July 8th ) are taking an acoustic venue and stretching it out a little bit. To me it stems back to one my big heroes, Bill Monroe; he truly was the first innovator within bluegrass. He came in and took what everyone considered hillbilly music at the time and jazzed it up a little bit. He experimented with a lot of different things… early recordings will just demonstrate that. He had a lot of soul in his music.

To me, it’s funny when traditionalists kind of think oh, we have to keep bluegrass a certain thing. I think that bluegrass by definition is about growth and about exploration.

How did you happen to choose the bass?

That was complete happenstance—my father did play the bass, although my parents were enthusiasts, not musicians. He actually made a washtub bass for himself and then he got an actual bass. So the bass was in the house, and I picked it up, and the rest is history.

Were there people that didn’t take you seriously as a girl bass player?

If it was there I blotted it out. Sure, there were a few things here and there. There are jobs I know I didn’t get because I was a girl. I didn’t get any of that at home or from those closest to me, so I thought they were the oddballs.

Did you take lessons, or did you teach yourself to play?

That’s an interesting term– who does really teach themselves. I didn’t have any regular formal lessons, I watched a lot of people, I may have taken literally one or two lessons in my life, but mostly you watch people and play, play, play. I jammed for days and days and days when I was a young kid. I started into playing the bass when I was 12 years old. I played guitar and piano before that. Once I started playing bass, that was it, I didn’t want to play anything else.

What was it about the bass that appealed to you so much?

The support aspect—I love making music with people. Playing something and searching for that groove. And the groove happens when people are playing together with each other and listening to each other and playing off each other and if you’re lucky you find the groove.

Do you have a favorite song on the CD?

That would be hard—there’s a tune on there that I wrote for my dad which is a pretty personal favorite, The Ides of March.

Oh yes, that’s beautiful, and haunting. Did I read somewhere that “stop, drop and wiggle” is written for your cat?

He was the inspiration, Kitty Boy. We just lost him, from kidney failure. He was 16, I wanted him 16 more years. He was very vocal, he was very personable, he’d come right up to you and introduce himself, he was like, how are you? His favorite thing to do was running in front of you, meowing, and he would just literally drop, he’d do this kind of wiggle thing and move all of his feet like this. He’d do that constantly, and it would be dangerous because you’d fall over!

Do you mostly get inspiration from people and furry people that are close to you?

It could be anything. We’re very much an instrumental band as well as a vocal band… music that I’ve been affected by is instrumental music that evokes emotion in me. I want to create music that evokes emotion in someone else. I don’t have to dictate what that emotion is, that’s the beauty of it. It could be anything.

How does it feel to be the only girl in a band of boys?

Sometimes I’m ready to scream out for some estrogen! I have traveled with guys in my life but there’s been some women in the bands from time to time. They’re definitely mostly younger; I find it incredibly energetic. I love their energy cause I love challenge and I love the contrast of my life next to theirs.

What’s in your next five-year plan?

Make a couple more records and write a lot more music. I have spent a lot of time to get momentum going, get record contract which we did, from Compass, create a band with chemistry, which we have—now we can sit back and just start writing.

Ethan Ballinger, Missy Raines and Robert Crawford (Dominick Leslie and Michael Witcher just out of the picture!)

Listen to Raines’ tune for Kitty Boy here:

08-stop-drop-wiggle

Cool, no?

Gwen Orel writes about music, theatre, film and culture for a variety of folks, including the Wall Street Journal, the Jewish Daily Forward, Time Out New York, Back Stage and others.

Inner Monologue: the Multitasked Critic’s Meandering Thoughts on Billy Elliott, Shrek, picking up the check, hugging artistic directors and marginalizing tall people

Gwen Orel — Sat, 30 May 2009 19:28:14 +0000

I am way behind on this! Expect another Inner Monologue sooner than later because doing two weeks at once is too cumbersome. And I’m leaving out my meandering thoughts on the musical events, my own playreading, and the party at the new Forward building– at least for now– to focus on the plays themselves.

Billy Elliott

Friday, May 15

Tip: Don’t get to the theatre early. Unless you love big crowds of people, standing in the street, and being funneled in as if it’s the six-lanes-to-one on the New Jersey Turnpike. Pick up your tickets, if you don’t have them, the hour before, then come back at five to.

When is there going to be a separate section for tall people? Just as the show was about to start, two of the over-six-feet set came and sat in front of me and the petite-ish woman next to me. It was like sitting behind a pillar. With all the craning and side-to-side movements we could have been in a belly dance class.

It has the reverse of the movie’s problems. I was a little disappointed in the Billy in the film because his dancing was less than exhilarating, but it was hard to strain disbelief that 14-year old David Alvarez was just now learning to pirouette– particularly when he was doing fouettes by the end of the act. Great dancer, though.

Little David Bologna, who plays his young cross-dressing friend, has a face like a teensy Mick Jagger, and an almost frightening ability to work the crowd.

Lots and lots of people who attend musical theatre were not once hurting-inner-child homosexual little boys. The cross-dressing number goes on way too long. I know Ben Brantley (whom I heard opine that 9 to 5 is not gay enough) opened his review with “Your inner dancer is calling.” Huge, flashy oversized dancing dresses in little Michael’s song “Expressing Yourself” were just over the top.

I‘m with Terry Teachout of the Wall Street Journal:

In one of the fanciest numbers, a chorus of winsome miners’ children sings a festive holiday carol whose refrain goes like this: Merry Christmas Maggie Thatcher/We all celebrate today/Cause it’s one day closer to your death.

…out-of-work miners apparently quickly learn how to make Jim Henson-esque puppets of all sizes, right? Yeah, right. Production numbers should still be plausible.

Terry concludes:

I’ve seen my share of bad Broadway musicals, but I can’t recall one that was quite so vulgar and bogus as “Billy Elliot.”

I did love Gregory Jbarra as Dad’s maudlin faux folk song at the party (which at least made sense), and his journey from bull-headed dad into physically comic, pratfalling but supportive bear.

Ghost Moms. Yeah, Ok. The mom next to me wept when Billy said goodbye to Ghost Mommy. We also both got teary earlier when he read by heart the letter from Mom to his dance teacher, Mrs. Wilkinson, luminously jaded Haydn Gwnne. It may be a little cheap, but it works. Unlike the manipulative ghost son (THE SON IS DEAD! THE SON IS DEAD! See “To Spoil or Not to Spoil” blog post) in “Next to Normal.”

Famous person shout out: I met up with Richard Rauh, a theatre critic and sometime producer from Pittsburgh, at Cafe Un Deux Trois on 44th Street after the show. Janet McTeer, Harriet Walter and others from Mary Stuart sat at a round table in back of us. See them here:

Harriet in bun, sliver of Janet McTeer left of her, and Richard Rauh

At another table were much of the cast from Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, which is playing at the Belasco right next door to the restaurant. I bumped into Isiah Whitlock, Jr., who was in Romulus Linney’s “A Lesson Before Dying” at Alabama Shakespeare Festival when I first went there as Literary Manager in 2000. Small world. Pics below!

Personal meander and Manners tip: Pick up the check if it’s your invitation. Never ever say anything like, “oh, you expect me to get that.” I did expect my older, wealthier colleague to buy my drink and dessert– he’d been contacting me for upwards of a month to meet up when he was in town (generally, the older, wealthier, or more employed offers; or, it’s my round, your round, if you’re the same age). Of course, rather than being stunned at manners mishap I should have laughed and said of course I do.

There is some old-school male-female stuff informing this, admittedly, but not entirely– my female editors also usually buy if we have lunch, and when I interview a source, I buy– and I don’t even have an expense account! This goes back to the underlying principle of who’s inviting, and whose time is being “bestowed.” Now, famous male interviewees rarely let me buy, but at least I offer.

It never hurts to look old-school. Honestly, never.

***

Shrek

Saturday, May 16

I forgive DreamWorks and Disney. Staging hit children’s movies (or books) for Broadway has its origins in big extravagant spectacles earlier this century. Think The Wizard of Oz , which first appeared on Broadway in 1902 (that’s 37 years before the movie).

What an atmosphere of expectation. Kids like to hear stories over and over again.

The Broadway Theatre, between 51st and 52nd, is comfortable. Most aren’t. Great big lobby downstairs. Decent lobby upstairs. Couldn’t be more different from the Martin Beck, where the in-your-face-love-and-peace “Hair” is playing, where the crush is so bad by the time you make it out to the lobby at intermission, they’re flashing you back in.

Broadway-for-adults shout-outs are fun. Mama Bear echoes Mama Rose from Gypsy at one point.

Christopher Sieber on his knees, with fake legs making him look short, to play the evil Lord Farquad, lets the audience in on the joke– great bit of theatricality. I hope he has a good chiropractor, though. Very funny when the chorines “lift” him in a dance and he’s actually just half-standing up.

Kids love fart jokes. Elated giggles, especially when Sutton Foster makes them right back to Shrek.

Things that fall from the grid– snowflakes, petals, sparkles– cannot be contained. There will always be a few falling in the first act and at the wrong places. So the big surprise at the end of all of the sparkly things is less than it might be. But fun anyway.

Nobody markets like marketers for kids’ shows on Broadway. The store for Shrek is great. I bought Shrek ears headbands and use them to wash my face. Very tempted to wear them down the street in NY. Picture of me in them here:

Multitasked Critic in Shrek Ears

***

R eflections: One Acts by Resonance Theatre

Sunday, May 17

Read my review for Theatermania here.

Pair new works with classics at your peril. Classics are classics because something about them endures. Resonance’s mission is to pair new work with classic plays. This outing was particularly bad.

Don’t leave after your friend’s one-act. If you’re late, don’t sit on a chair that’s empty if it has a coat in it. People were coming and going (including one critic, who arrived at the end of the first one-act, without acknowledging that in his review, bad critic, bad critic– not me!) throughout.

Directors should not hover in the aisle near the audience. Particularly not when there are reviewers in the house. Tacky, tacky, tacky, Eric Parness.

Personal meander: Street fair on Ninth Avenue beforehand only made the dreary offerings seem that much drearier. But I have to say the 70s soul music playing from some of the booths was sounding particularly good. It’s time for a revival of 70s soul.

There should be a moratorium on all plays set in limbo in which characters take ages to figure out that they are dead. At least, nobody over the age of 14 should be allowed to write these plays.

***

33 Variations

Read my review in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette here.

When will Broadway standardize the pick-up-tickets advance-ticket lines? There were two windows, one line– an old woman went up to the one with nobody there and I went up behind her. At “Hair,” I waited for half an hour on the wrong line (advance ticket sales), and also at “West Side Story,” there was nobody at the pick-up line. Well, apparently, there was a sign– that only the people already in line could see, as it faced them– announcing that there was just one line.

Mood nearly spoiled going in by supercilious bitch who smiled smugly when the ticket-seller told us to get in the line, saying “it’s on the sign,” with fake helpfulness. Supercilious bitch sat next to me. Her companion, maybe a photographer (had a big camera), smiled at me apologetically. He hated her too!

Tip: Be nice to your fellow audience members. If you must correct someone, do so when it can help– not after the fact to embarrass them.

Tip for any older actresses: Know when to stop the plastic surgery. People who are 70 should not look 50. What I did not write, but will write here: Jane Fonda looks great. She also looks like somebody else. When did she get those protruding cheekbones, those slanted eyes? In contrast, Angela Lansbury in Blithe Spirit looks great– younger than 83, but still a senior citizen. The thing is, no matter how many lines are not there, 70 year old skin does not look like 50 year old skin, which does not look like 30 year old skin, which does not look 17. People end up just looking like mannequins.

Direct address works well as narration– less so as motivation. It’s fine when Dr. Brandt, the dying musicologist, addresses us as if she’s giving a speech, but when it’s just, well, an “inner monologue,” it’s boring.

Can playwrights stop with the cutesy stuff, already? Having the pilot of a plane announce that the plane is landing and then continue “if you’re reading a biography of Beethoven, put it down” gets a laugh– a cheap laugh.

Scenes about sex and older people get laughs and are nearly always cheap. Dr. Brandt’s daughter and German friend speculate about hiring her a gigolo, to the discomfort of the daughter’s boyfriend,. It has nothing to do with anything. If it doesn’t move the story forward, let it go.

Plays that take their shape from other genres are often arch. Here, the conceit is that the play is like the Beethoven variations the protagonist wants to investigate. That’s why it gets to tell its story through fugues that take place in two different times, why it sometimes folds in on itself, why it parallels scenes between Beethoven and Dr. Brandt just because it can. A comparison of genres is no excuse for a play that rambles, folds in on itself, and shows off rather than telling its story. I feel the same way about plays inspired by paintings, or books, or films.

***

The Rivalry at Irish Repertory Theatre

Famous Person shout-out: New York Times critic and overall cool person Neil Genzlinger and New York Times editorial staff Suzanne O’Conner were there as well. In fact, we had drinks afterwards. Drinks and carpaccio. My brother Stephen cited the movie “Wall Street” and the line “Bring on the carpaccio.”

Read my review of The Rivalry in Back Stage here.

Tip: Bring your lawyer friend to this show. Stephen likes theatre but he did particularly enjoy ruminating over when he studied this or that speech in Law School.

A show doesn’t need a great plot to be great. The enacted scenes primarily strained and I could have lived without the direct address by Douglas’ wife Adele (the show depicts the Lincoln-Douglas senatorial race debates of 1858, before the Civil War)– but the speeches have drama in them.

And I guess, great speeches imply great characters, even if we don’t dwell on the characters’ arcs. This is interesting and proves that it’s not just that 33 Variations has stock characters that the play is so forgettable.

Question: Why is someone always, always rustling something (a bag, wrapping paper, cellophane) for the first ten minutes of any show at Irish Rep?

Personal meander: Artistic Director Ciaran O’Reilly gave me a candy bar from Dublin, and I gave him a hug. I think that’s OK because this is a jobbed-in show, not one he personally was involved in artistically. The artistic directors of Irish Rep are always around on press nights– heck, Charlotte Moore was in the box office (she liked my ring). Many critics are chummy with press agents (I tend to be cordial and task-oriented).

Critics are part of the theatrical world. I defend my decision to have playwrights and other critics and actors as Facebook Friends. My music editor at Time Out, Steve Smith, feels differently, but at least looking at the FB friends of fellow critics, he’s in the minority.

My definition: if I only see them when interviewing, reviewing or building a story, or if we bump into each other at events, we are cordial colleagues– not friends (even if we like each other a lot). Not, “did I ever see them socially– five, six, seven years ago.” Not “did I ever do a show with this person” (if it’s more than three years). If all of our emails are show-related and they’ve never heard me mope about my romantic life, they aren’t friends.

This only applies to theatre people, not fellow critics, though– I rarely see critics when not reviewing because critics have so little life outside of reviewing. That doesn’t count.

***

Coming soon: what is theatrical genius? Reflections on Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, The Brother/Sister Plays, The Success of Failure

(Inner Monologue comments on attending these shows will be posted separately, and, I hope, briefly! Have a great weekend!)

To Spoil or Not to Spoil

Gwen Orel — Sat, 23 May 2009 03:31:32 +0000

I recently wrote a review of “Next to Normal” for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. You can read the entire review here.

My editor received two letters about it– a mother and daughter tag team insisted that I had spoiled the show by revealing a particular plot point. The exchange got me thinking. When is a “spoiler” necessary for the sake of coherence? When is a “spoiler” fair? And how much does revealing plot actually “spoil” anything?

So here it is, folks– stop reading now if you don’t want to be “spoiled:”

THE SON IS DEAD. THE SON IS DEAD. THE SON IS DEAD.

This is my original copy:

gorgeous- angry-and-figment-of-the-imagination-teenage-son Gabe (Aaron Tveit),

And this is what appears now:

gorgeous-angry (and more, but that’s enough said) teenage son Gabe (Aaron Tveit),

Gabe died as a baby, though we first encounter him as a teenager. He’s a delusion only visible to the bipolar Mom, and it’s one of the problems of the show (which has many, in my view) that the creators conflate extreme grief with mental illness.

My reasoning: This big reveal happens in the middle of Act One. It is not a twist at the end, like the reveal in the movie “The Sixth Sense.” It is not even a reveal at the top of Act Two. Grief and delusion drive much of Act Two’s action.

Not to reveal it led some reviewers into bizarre, coy constructions that don’t even make sense if you haven’t the show. And I like my writing to make sense.

Here’s Peter Marks from the Washington Post:

And so crucially, the extraordinary Aaron Tveit is once again playing the musical’s metaphysical fly in the ointment, the golden child who stirs up nothing so much as anguish.

Or Ben Brantley in the New York Times:

As the teenage son who is both angel and demon to his mother, Mr. Tveit is contrastingly (and necessarily) as charismatic and ineffable as a figure in a dream, the kind who seems to have the solution to everything until you wake up.

Necessarily? Would anybody who hasn’t seen it understand what he was on about? My personal favorite is Elisabeth Vincentelli at the New York Post:

Instead, the show focuses on the grief that played a central role in Diana’s collapse and continues to haunt her. When the subject of her sorrow delivers the song “I’m Alive,” the threat to her sanity is clear.

“The subject of her sorrow?” Really? In order not to “spoil” Vincentelli can’t even credit the actor. Not to get all AP English, but “when the subject of her sorrow” is a convoluted way of saying “when the dead guy…” It may keep the secret, but it’s not exactly sparkling prose.

I think clarity of communication to the reader matters more than misguided loyalty to producers (and fans of the show). My loyalty is to my readership, and I have to judge on a case-by-case basis how much plot to describe. Ultimately every plot point is a spoiler (if the play has any merit at all).

Jeremy Gerard at Bloomberg News explicitly described the big reveal in his opening paragraph:

The spirit haunting Broadway’s newest, and most brazen, musical is anything but blithe. His name is Gabe and if he were alive, he’d be 18 when “Next to Normal” begins. As it is, only his mother, Diana, can see him, and she’s nuts.

I have to ask myself, though, would I be more reluctant to “spoil” this secret if I liked the show more?

Some years ago, I reviewed Theresa Rebeck’s “The Water’s Edge,” which I loved. Now this show has a BIG reveal at the top of Act Two– Daddy is found slaughtered in the bathtub (which leads to another question, I suppose; at what point is a show spoiler-safe? Must it have closed, or just be safely open?). A number of reviewers spoiled this shocker flat out, some alluded to it by speaking of “The House of Atreus.” To me, revealing the top of Act Two shocker was unfair to the huge surprise that awaited the audience– at the end of Act One we saw the couple canoodling. Nothing suggested Daddy was a goner.

But in “Next to Normal,” learning the son is dead happens early and changes little. We already know Mom is crazy.

Where would you draw the line?