Sometimes the most interesting critical observations never make it into the reviews– those thoughts that are personal, off-topic, off-beat– how audiences behave, what signals are being sent. Critics are audience, too, and this is where I write about being there. Would love your comments and YOUR peripheral thoughts below!
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Right now, among review assignments and catching some great music, I’m filling in the Broadway shows I missed so I can feel like I know what I’m doing when I cover the Tony Awards for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
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Saturday, May 9
If there were a Tony for Best Dresser - those wardrobe attendants backstage who help performers make those lightning fast costume changes – then the team in this show would have to get it. Some of them were really unbelievable, like the one right before the “Snow White,” marijuana-inspired daydream for Allison Janney as overworked and underappreciated office manager Violet Newstead. Janney had another when she went from day-wear to a glamorous white tuxedo.
And Marc Kuditsch as despicable, sexist boss Frank Hart, Jr. has another incredible quickchange right before the curtain call– going from near-naked (he’s in the Congo!) to an office suit. Well done, dressers.
Personal Meander: Being a dresser was one of my first paid jobs in NYC, en route to becoming an Equity Stage Manager (before going to grad school, getting a PhD, dramaturgy, etc.). I can’t remember how I got this job at Ensemble Studio Theatre, but it was on a show called “Korea” by Bill Bozzone. I had to wash out all of the actors’ t-shirts (they played soldiers) and help the lovely leading lady with her quickchanges. I also had to iron the button-up shirts each night. There was little hot water in the building, and it was in the middle of winter! I had never sewn on a button in my life, nor ironed a shirt– my father had to show me how. He gave me his army-issue (WWII) little sewing kit for the job. I never had to use it, but I treasure that little kit now.
Also in 9 to 5: love the opening montage of people getting ready for work and a male walking by in his boxers with a big old woody. What a nice shout-out to realism.
At the start of Act II, when the orchestra was playing the title song, people in the house were clapping and singing along. Were they plants? I wondered. ”What a cynical New York thought,” said my editor from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Chris Rawson. ”They are tourists having fun.”
It really is a fun show. Dolly Parton can shape a melody and write clever lyrics with the best of them. If she wasn’t always able to make the songs move the action forward, well, she’s in fairly good company these days. At least her songs are hummable and catchy.
Because I was attending with Chris and his group from Pittsburgh (he leads a tour group to NYC every year), actors came out to do a talk-back. They do this on condition that a donation is made to “Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.”
Megan Hilty, who plays Doralee (the Dolly Parton character), is adorable and busty in real life-- and a Carnegie Mellon graduate, which explains the big hug Chris (Drama Desk for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) received. She began her Broadway career as an understudy for Kristin Chenoweth in Wicked. I realized I saw her go on! I saw the show in 2004 with a friend who was visiting from California. At the time I was disappointed not to see Chenoweth, but now I feel privileged to have seen Hilty knock the role out of the park.
She was born in 1981, which is only a year after the movie came out. The musical is set in 1979. You can tell by the earth tones, the hairstyles, the sideburns. There’s a lot of 70s nostalgia going on on Broadway right now. The Norman Conquests and The Philanthropist are also set in the 70s. I don’t know what this means, but it must be fun for the costume and props people.
We chatted briefly about the range of critical response– most critics liked it a lot, although notably, Ben Brantley of the New York Times trashed it. ”It wasn’t gay enough for him,” I said.
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Wednesday, May 13
Personal Meander: I’d been suffering from migraines since Sunday (which took some of the fun out of the Mother’s Day brunch with Mom and brother Stephen at the Hilton in Short Hills). The barometric pressure had been doing a number on me– Wednesday the CVS said they didn’t have enough Maxalt to go around because so many people were calling for prescriptions.
I was feeling kind of meh about seeing the show at all. I had not thought much of Arthur Laurents’ new play at George Street Playhouse, “New Year’s Eve” (you can read my review for Theatermania here). I had asked a bunch of people to come with me to the matinee and it seemed like everyone had a boyfriend in town or a great work gig.
Famous Person shout-0ut: So I was happy when playwright Jeff Sweet decided to take my other ticket. We’d been batting around thoughts about my blog post “Elizabeth and the Scarlet Hunter” on the discussion group “dramatists@yahoogroups.com.” I know his thoughts on the matter (he doesn’t think the adulterers in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing suffer enough), and we’ll never agree, but I like Jeff as a colleague. He’s full of entertaining stories about many, many famous people.
Why go: The music in this show is really, truly outstanding. Ever seen this show live with a top-notch, 28 piece orchestra (percussionists sitting in boxes high up facing the audience), and first-rate dancers? The movie is great, but it was built for the stage.
The Maxalt kicked in, fortunately, and my migraine dissipated. One of the side-effects is sleepiness, though, so I was unusually tolerant of the old lady on Jeff’s right who was reading her program with the help of a lighted pen. Jeff was visibly annoyed, shielding his face to block the light. Using a cellphone, lighted pen, or any other light-wielding tool in a dark house– just no. No, no, no.
Right after “Tonight,” the big production number where the Jets, Sharks, Anita and Maria anticipate the evening’s rumble, a third of the audience in the back got up and began talking. Jeff was annoyed at first but as the scenery shifted into the chain-link fence and the highway overpass for the Rumble, I told him, they were absolutely right. Lights went to black, following a full chorus number. Semiotically, they were being told, “hey, it’s intermission.” No, the Act Curtain hadn’t come down, but these days, a lot of shows change scenery onstage during intermission and the audience can see it. The show hadn’t done a bump to black before. They were absolutely right to think the act had ended, and only those who knew the show were certain that intermission followed the rumble. It’s a fault– and it’s Laurents’ fault, as director. He miscued the audience. They were not being silly tourists but fairly sophisticated theatregoers.
And as any woman knows, if you want to get in and out of the restroom during intermission, you have to book it immediately. You don’t linger politely when the lights come up for intermission, you run run run. As I entered the Ladies’ Room during the act break (I ran ran ran) I heard a woman coming out explain to her friend that she’d missed the end of the act because she’d gotten up too soon.
Laurents has the Puerto Rican characters speak Spanish– sometimes. It works when the two gangs are needling each other. It works less well when whole songs go by in Spanish. ”I Feel Pretty” becomes “Me Siento Hermosa.” There’s no doubt what’s going on, as the girls in Anita’s room tease her, but the actors are forced to mug and indicate. More problematic is “Un Hombre Asi” (”A Boy Like That”), sung by Anita to Maria after Tony has killed Bernardo.
You can tell Anita’s angry, but it would really help if a line or two of the song were in English. What happens instead is that Maria finally interrupts her in English with “You should know better. You’ve been in love, you should know better.” She reverts to English when she’s emotional? wha-? When you see Karen Olivo’s Anita crumble at the invincible logic of love, it breaks your heart.
This is where I realized that my eyes weren’t watering. I was crying, dammit.
The show’s final tableau is different from the classic too– but it does make sense to me. The stillness is less sentimental but just as meaningful.
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Thursday, May 14
I reviewed this show for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, but it isn’t up yet. My summary: great songs and performances, but it’s all very Lifetime Movie or Young-Adult-Novel-about-Bipolar-Mom meets rock musical.
However, there were sniffles and muffled cries heard all around the audience. The woman on my companion’s right was bawling. So if its aim is catharsis, that was achieved, and I have to acknowledge that.
Famous person shout-out: bumped into Sherry Eaker, Back Stage’s former editor-in-chief (whose father founded the paper). She now primarily covers Cabaret for the paper. I avoided discussing the show because I figured she probably liked it, but was happy to see her. I’m sentimental too– but I don’t like feeling manipulated. And the lack of real forward-moving structure to the show was really a problem for me.
Warning: this is a show that may be dangerous to dislike. Steven Dietz once famously described “Children of a Lesser God” as a show “you’re not allowed to hate.” “Next to Normal” probably is too.
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That’s it for now– coming soon, meandering thoughts on Billy Elliott and Shrek.
Last 5 posts by Gwen Orel
- Nitty Gritty Dirt Band at B.B. King's - October 7th, 2009
- Don't Miss: Irish legend Andy Irvine with rising star Irish guitarist John Doyle at the Irish Arts Center, Sept. 9-13 - September 8th, 2009
- Does Al Stewart think we're too stupid for historical folk rock? (catch him at the Rubin's Naked Soul Series, 8/21) - August 21st, 2009
- Catch up with American troubador John Gorka at the Rubin, 8/7 - August 6th, 2009
- Q&A with Fiddling Groundbreaker Mark O'Connor - August 4th, 2009
Actually, the offending penlight person sitting to my right at WEST SIDE STORY was a guy. Enjoyed much of 9-5, but I’ll disagree with you on Ms. Parton’s lyrics. The rhymes are frequently not rhymes, there is no subtext to most of it, and she falls back on a lot of easy catch phrases. The music is very enjoyable (if not particularly varied), but I wish she’d brought in a disciplined collaborator for the lyrics; they are mostly amateurish. Janney is the best thing in the show. She transcends its cheerful vulgarity with her usual classiness. Happy year that gives me the opportunity to watch both her and Sutton Foster sharing joy.
Playwright Steven Dietz’s remark about CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD being the show “you’re not allowed to hate” reminds me that one needn’t hate a show to trash it properly. Critic Michael Feingold once referred to CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD as BUTTERFLIES ARE DEAF. And I shall forever treasure his rebranding of the dreadful BREAKING THE CODE as THE SHROUD OF TURING.
[...] Vote Inner Monologue: Meandering Thoughts of a Multi-Tasked Critic [...]
Gwen,
You mentioned “West Side Story” as a movie designed for the stage. You forget it was first a play and was then successfully moved to celluloid while retaining as much of the structure, pacing and blocking of the play as possible.. Some of the numbers were moved around a bit for dramatic purposes but the essential play was retained.
No I didn’t, I said “the movie is great, but it was built for the stage.” That was my way of reminding readers that the play came first. I don’t see how my comment could be interpreted otherwise. Score by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, dance by Jerome Robbins.
Gwen,
Please forgive my misreading. Sadly, English as a first language sometimes evades me long enough to cause little stupidities I apologize profusely and with a vigor only reserved for intense groveling. I stand corrected in a prostrate position.
Hey Malette, I appreciate close readings– I overreacted to your comment because I’m such a fan of musical theatre and theatre history that I was stung. THANKS for keeping me on my toes and I’ll try to make my wording more clear in future. It is a great movie adaptation, yes? and it’s a lot of people’s “way in” to the show– so much so that they may not realize how beautifully it works in the medium for which it was conceived.
[...] boys. The cross-dressing number goes on way too long. I know Ben Brantley (of whom I opine that 9 to 5 is not gay enough) opened his review with “Your inner dancer is calling.” Huge, flashy oversized [...]