The sold-out run of Far From Heaven at Playwrights Horizons promised a more epic experience that the one I actually had. It starred the magnificent Kelli O’Hara, was written by the musical team from Grey Gardens, was based on the 2002 Oscar-nominated movie starring Julianne Moore. I paid more than I ever have for a Broadway ticket, and I expected to be astonished. Aside from getting to listen to O’Hara’s beautiful voice live, I was actually disappointed.
The show put forth a solid effort, but it felt like a house constructed without a foundation. Considering how miraculously affecting much of the Grey Gardens music was, I expected at least one song to make me feel something. Instead, I felt less than I do while watching episodes from season 2 of New Girl. And that shouldn’t be close to the case for a show about a woman, mother, wife in the 1950s dealing with her homosexual, philandering husband and her own surprising romantic feelings for her black gardener. I know! It’s all there, waiting to be interpreted and transcended, and yet the opportunity was squandered. This show deals with pretty much the most serious dramatic ploys possible – all of them! – yet doesn’t deliver emotionally. There has to be a really big disconnect among the creators for something like that to happen.
The show put forth a solid effort, but it felt like a house constructed without a foundation. Considering how miraculously affecting much of the Grey Gardens music was, I expected at least one song to make me feel something. Instead, I felt less than I do while watching episodes from season 2 of New Girl. And that shouldn’t be close to the case for a show about a woman, mother, wife in the 1950s dealing with her homosexual, philandering husband and her own surprising romantic feelings for her black gardener. I know! It’s all there, waiting to be interpreted and transcended, and yet the opportunity was squandered. This show deals with pretty much the most serious dramatic ploys possible – all of them! – yet doesn’t deliver emotionally. There has to be a really big disconnect among the creators for something like that to happen.
I would love for this show to move to Broadway, but only if it undergoes serious reworking. Several new songs that better fit O’Hara’s talents are necessary. Although she always manages to be good, even in things like Nice Work If You Can Get It, her voice is not one that you let sit there on run-of-the-mill, generic, straightforward songs. Let her shine! Christine Ebersole’s performance of “Another Winter In A Summer Town”, from Grey Gardens, gives me chills just thinking about. O’Hara, just as capable of producing such a performance, was given no such opportunity.
The songs need to be rewritten, plain and simple. The book needs editing too, as I saw way too much of Cathy’s (O’Hara) husband’s office, and not enough of Cathy’s best friend’s seeming understanding yet complete and utter disapproval. I also didn’t understand the casting of Steve Pasquale as the husband. Maybe it was because I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Diction, people!
I didn’t actively dislike the show, but I didn’t actively feel anything, which is a huge problem. Plays happen up on that stage in order to make you, the audience, feel something, and I felt nothing. I just wanted to badly for it to be the event I was hoping for. With any luck, severe changes will be made and the show will be entirely transformed when (if) it goes to Broadway. I sincerely hope this happens, because everyone involved deserves better.
The songs need to be rewritten, plain and simple. The book needs editing too, as I saw way too much of Cathy’s (O’Hara) husband’s office, and not enough of Cathy’s best friend’s seeming understanding yet complete and utter disapproval. I also didn’t understand the casting of Steve Pasquale as the husband. Maybe it was because I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Diction, people!
I didn’t actively dislike the show, but I didn’t actively feel anything, which is a huge problem. Plays happen up on that stage in order to make you, the audience, feel something, and I felt nothing. I just wanted to badly for it to be the event I was hoping for. With any luck, severe changes will be made and the show will be entirely transformed when (if) it goes to Broadway. I sincerely hope this happens, because everyone involved deserves better.
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“Les Blancs” at the National Theatre: Am I Supposed to Feel This Horrible?
Did you see “The Book of Mormon”? (The musical, not the book.) (Although I’d be curious to know if anyone has seen the book in a better place than I have – on a guy’s bar in a flat I looked at, propped up between bottles of whiskey. That’s a pretty big middle finger.) (But no, the musical?) So great! So funny! It’s like super offensive but then also not at all. So the play “Les Blancs”, currently in London at the National Theatre? It’s the super serious, unfunny version of “The Book of Mormon”.
The 3-hour epic tale of white missionary settlers in Africa and the native people they live among and sometimes treat medically was written in the 1960s by the great playwright Lorraine Hansberry, author of “Raisin in the Sun”, and as such I always picture her as Phylicia Rashad even though she didn’t look like her. “Les Blancs” are The Whites, missionaries and doctors who set up camp decades ago to help the African community, although with what is unclear. Throughout the saga, we think they are benevolent helpers, we think they are selfless doctors, we think they might not understand their African neighbors or want to, we think they might be stereotypical colonizers who don’t actually want to help the people, we think they might actually be “Diables Blancs”.
When we join the characters, a white American journalist named Charlie Morris has just arrived in Africa (I don’t think they specify where) to do a profile on Madame and Reverend Neilson, a white European couple who set up the mission here many, many years ago. A mixed race boy named Eric is treated like a member of the Neilson family, so we assume the Reverend was his father. Psst: he’s not! The mission operates as a very outmoded medical clinic, with basic medical tools and no refrigeration. Two doctors, Marta Gotterling and Willy DeKoven, have also lived on the compound for many years. The worst Blanc is Major Rice, an English army officer stationed in the community who is mean, racist, and just really sucks. He seems to be leading the Unwanted Blanc Charge and so he orders everyone around a lot, as officers do.
Madame Neilson, a very old lady who has gone blind, is pretty awesome. She’s really tough and brave but has seen some shit and has empathy, so she is probably the most sympathetic character on stage. Vanessa Redgrave would play her in a movie. She tells of her deceased best friend, an African woman whom she bonded with years ago, who we learn was Eric’s mother, who died giving birth to him. So at least Madame can make the much beloved excuse to racism of ‘but I have black friends’. An African man named Tshembe Matoseh returns from his adult life in Europe to the village for his father’s funeral, where he encounters his brother Abioseh – now a Christian priest, enraging Tshembe – and his half-brother Eric! They’re brothers! But things get pretty unbrotherly real quick when they learn that their father was part of the terrorist rebellion, led now by Peter – the main servant in the Neilson household. Dum dum dummmm!
Yankee Doodle Charlie comes just in time to witness this terrorist uprising, of Africans sick of the colonial presence and ready to ‘fight’ against their oppressors. “Fight” in quotes because it’s not really fighting if you kill white children in their sleep. Dr. Marta seems great and nice but then it turns out she is pretty racist. She takes everything the Major says as law, and doesn’t doubt for a second that all the villagers could easily be terrorists and that a harsh response is necessary. Charlie tries repeatedly to have a real conversation about the issues with Tshembe, but Tshembe rightfully, if a little too angrily, says he doesn’t owe him a conversation just to assuage his white guilt &c. I’m not saying that the oppressed doesn’t have the right to be angry; I’m saying the actor’s anger level started high and had nowhere to build to, so in the character Tshembe’s very many ‘angry monologue’ moments, they all had the same level of anger. The very first and the very last were given at the same fever pitch, which is not so good. He was a great actor, but like, we need some journeying. On the seeeea.
As for Charlie. I’ve become much more forgiving of bad American accents lately, realizing that as long as the acting is getting the job done, it’s okay if the English-born person doesn’t say his r’s like an American would. Sadly, the actor playing Charlie (I don’t feel the need to look up names if I am criticizing) seemed too focused on saying his r’s to focus on the acting he needed to do. It’s like he read all my past reviews complaining about English people’s American accent and my repeated yelling of “Just say your r’s! That’s the most important part!” and listened too intently like I’m actually someone worth listening to about your acting. Ugh and Charlie is such a big, important role, so a lot of energy was expelled on his accent focus that should have been directed towards, ya know, saying important lines. Oh wells. At least he said his r’s, even though he sounded like a cartoon cat.
At least Charlie sort of seemed like a decent Blanc, trying to figure out what he could do to help this shitty situation, whereas Marta and the Major and the Reverend (in illuminating discussions about him; we never meet him because he was delayed on a business trip but then at the end we learn he was killed in a nearby village’s terrorist uprising) turned out to be not so open to helping the native culture blossom but more into controlling it and claiming to be just as much native to the village as the African people were, just as entitled to rule it. The blancs thus embodied the not-so-funny version of “The Book of Mormon” song “I am Africa”, when the white missionaries in that show sing: “I am Africa, I am the heartbeat of Africa…We are Africa, We are the deepest darkest Africa (So deep and dark!) ..We are the sunrise on the savannah, a monkey with a banana, a tribal woman who doesn’t wear a bra. Africans are African, but we are Africa!” No joke, exact parallel between these two groups of Blancs.
The show felt properly grand and impressive, not just because of the length (I mean it could have been 2 hours and 35 minutes, 40 even, instead of 2.50, come on now) but because, with few exceptions, it was treated so respectfully, with vital silent moments paced perfectly. For example, the recurring “Woman”, all impossibly long, gangly limbs, walking along the perimeter of the stage like a spirit (and she was!). At first I was like ‘who dat ninja’ but then it really worked to effect the right mood. She was captivating, and not just because her arms were as long as her legs and her legs were longer than I previously thought possible. Moments like this, and pacing that I’m sure is really difficult to nail, were directed so well that I didn’t even care how badly I had to pee. I tend not to really comment on direction but you could tell this was a triumph of that skill.
Another thing that they production tried using to effect the right mood but that miserably failed and might get me to sue (not really but I wish) (maybe if it were America)? The entire Olivier Theatre at London’s National, an enormous, cavernous space, was entirely clouded with the smoke from burning wood. When you entered, it hit you like a ton of bricks. A few old ladies behind me commented, oh wow it’s like we are at a bonfire! But when the incredibly strong stench only gets stronger as characters burn more wood on stage, it gets hard to breathe. People were coughing a lot, and I had to breathe through a paper towel for three hours. It was like sitting in a tiny 4×4 room that was 70% fireplace, burning at full capacity, where you had to share oxygen with 10 other people, except this was 100 times that. And breathing in the fumes of a fireplace is carcinogenic, so I’m pretty pissed. The actors having to deal with this 8 times a week better be getting trauma pay. I mean, three hours a day, some days 6 hours? That has to be like smoking several packs of cigarettes. Sue, actors! Sue!
Overall, the play was very well done but unbelievably difficult to swallow, which I’m sure is the point. But I found the message of “Les Blancs” to be much harder to grasp than that of “Raisin” and “Clybourne Park”, the spin-off of “Raisin” written by Bruce Norris. Maybe it’s a more sophisticated, abstract lesson in this play, which Hansberry considered her most important work and maybe intended to be as difficult to grapple with as the issues are in reality. Maybe it’s because of the smell. But I was left not knowing what to think except that racism/oppression/colonization really f-ing suck. This could very well have been her intended result, but damn it sucks to just feel powerless and overwhelmed with how shitty people can be on all sides. It raised tons of important issues about racism and cultural sovereignty, without answers because there really aren’t any. The problems in this play and in our world don’t really have solutions, obviously, but somehow “Clybourne Park” got through to me much more successfully; I really felt that I understood what it was trying to say about humanity and about various racial issues. “Clybourne Park” was also written by a white man, which might explain why I (a white person) connected with that play more, as maybe a white person’s perspective on these issues made it unknowingly easier for me to connect with. Though I would hate if that were the reason, we probably do comprehend subject matter more when put forth by people with similar experiences. Regardless of the author’s intended takeaway, “Les Blancs” is a very powerful play and the current production is well worth seeing, even though you will feel like absolute bullhonkey afterwards.
When we join the characters, a white American journalist named Charlie Morris has just arrived in Africa (I don’t think they specify where) to do a profile on Madame and Reverend Neilson, a white European couple who set up the mission here many, many years ago. A mixed race boy named Eric is treated like a member of the Neilson family, so we assume the Reverend was his father. Psst: he’s not! The mission operates as a very outmoded medical clinic, with basic medical tools and no refrigeration. Two doctors, Marta Gotterling and Willy DeKoven, have also lived on the compound for many years. The worst Blanc is Major Rice, an English army officer stationed in the community who is mean, racist, and just really sucks. He seems to be leading the Unwanted Blanc Charge and so he orders everyone around a lot, as officers do.
Madame Neilson, a very old lady who has gone blind, is pretty awesome. She’s really tough and brave but has seen some shit and has empathy, so she is probably the most sympathetic character on stage. Vanessa Redgrave would play her in a movie. She tells of her deceased best friend, an African woman whom she bonded with years ago, who we learn was Eric’s mother, who died giving birth to him. So at least Madame can make the much beloved excuse to racism of ‘but I have black friends’. An African man named Tshembe Matoseh returns from his adult life in Europe to the village for his father’s funeral, where he encounters his brother Abioseh – now a Christian priest, enraging Tshembe – and his half-brother Eric! They’re brothers! But things get pretty unbrotherly real quick when they learn that their father was part of the terrorist rebellion, led now by Peter – the main servant in the Neilson household. Dum dum dummmm!
Yankee Doodle Charlie comes just in time to witness this terrorist uprising, of Africans sick of the colonial presence and ready to ‘fight’ against their oppressors. “Fight” in quotes because it’s not really fighting if you kill white children in their sleep. Dr. Marta seems great and nice but then it turns out she is pretty racist. She takes everything the Major says as law, and doesn’t doubt for a second that all the villagers could easily be terrorists and that a harsh response is necessary. Charlie tries repeatedly to have a real conversation about the issues with Tshembe, but Tshembe rightfully, if a little too angrily, says he doesn’t owe him a conversation just to assuage his white guilt &c. I’m not saying that the oppressed doesn’t have the right to be angry; I’m saying the actor’s anger level started high and had nowhere to build to, so in the character Tshembe’s very many ‘angry monologue’ moments, they all had the same level of anger. The very first and the very last were given at the same fever pitch, which is not so good. He was a great actor, but like, we need some journeying. On the seeeea.
As for Charlie. I’ve become much more forgiving of bad American accents lately, realizing that as long as the acting is getting the job done, it’s okay if the English-born person doesn’t say his r’s like an American would. Sadly, the actor playing Charlie (I don’t feel the need to look up names if I am criticizing) seemed too focused on saying his r’s to focus on the acting he needed to do. It’s like he read all my past reviews complaining about English people’s American accent and my repeated yelling of “Just say your r’s! That’s the most important part!” and listened too intently like I’m actually someone worth listening to about your acting. Ugh and Charlie is such a big, important role, so a lot of energy was expelled on his accent focus that should have been directed towards, ya know, saying important lines. Oh wells. At least he said his r’s, even though he sounded like a cartoon cat.
At least Charlie sort of seemed like a decent Blanc, trying to figure out what he could do to help this shitty situation, whereas Marta and the Major and the Reverend (in illuminating discussions about him; we never meet him because he was delayed on a business trip but then at the end we learn he was killed in a nearby village’s terrorist uprising) turned out to be not so open to helping the native culture blossom but more into controlling it and claiming to be just as much native to the village as the African people were, just as entitled to rule it. The blancs thus embodied the not-so-funny version of “The Book of Mormon” song “I am Africa”, when the white missionaries in that show sing: “I am Africa, I am the heartbeat of Africa…We are Africa, We are the deepest darkest Africa (So deep and dark!) ..We are the sunrise on the savannah, a monkey with a banana, a tribal woman who doesn’t wear a bra. Africans are African, but we are Africa!” No joke, exact parallel between these two groups of Blancs.
The show felt properly grand and impressive, not just because of the length (I mean it could have been 2 hours and 35 minutes, 40 even, instead of 2.50, come on now) but because, with few exceptions, it was treated so respectfully, with vital silent moments paced perfectly. For example, the recurring “Woman”, all impossibly long, gangly limbs, walking along the perimeter of the stage like a spirit (and she was!). At first I was like ‘who dat ninja’ but then it really worked to effect the right mood. She was captivating, and not just because her arms were as long as her legs and her legs were longer than I previously thought possible. Moments like this, and pacing that I’m sure is really difficult to nail, were directed so well that I didn’t even care how badly I had to pee. I tend not to really comment on direction but you could tell this was a triumph of that skill.
Another thing that they production tried using to effect the right mood but that miserably failed and might get me to sue (not really but I wish) (maybe if it were America)? The entire Olivier Theatre at London’s National, an enormous, cavernous space, was entirely clouded with the smoke from burning wood. When you entered, it hit you like a ton of bricks. A few old ladies behind me commented, oh wow it’s like we are at a bonfire! But when the incredibly strong stench only gets stronger as characters burn more wood on stage, it gets hard to breathe. People were coughing a lot, and I had to breathe through a paper towel for three hours. It was like sitting in a tiny 4×4 room that was 70% fireplace, burning at full capacity, where you had to share oxygen with 10 other people, except this was 100 times that. And breathing in the fumes of a fireplace is carcinogenic, so I’m pretty pissed. The actors having to deal with this 8 times a week better be getting trauma pay. I mean, three hours a day, some days 6 hours? That has to be like smoking several packs of cigarettes. Sue, actors! Sue!
Overall, the play was very well done but unbelievably difficult to swallow, which I’m sure is the point. But I found the message of “Les Blancs” to be much harder to grasp than that of “Raisin” and “Clybourne Park”, the spin-off of “Raisin” written by Bruce Norris. Maybe it’s a more sophisticated, abstract lesson in this play, which Hansberry considered her most important work and maybe intended to be as difficult to grapple with as the issues are in reality. Maybe it’s because of the smell. But I was left not knowing what to think except that racism/oppression/colonization really f-ing suck. This could very well have been her intended result, but damn it sucks to just feel powerless and overwhelmed with how shitty people can be on all sides. It raised tons of important issues about racism and cultural sovereignty, without answers because there really aren’t any. The problems in this play and in our world don’t really have solutions, obviously, but somehow “Clybourne Park” got through to me much more successfully; I really felt that I understood what it was trying to say about humanity and about various racial issues. “Clybourne Park” was also written by a white man, which might explain why I (a white person) connected with that play more, as maybe a white person’s perspective on these issues made it unknowingly easier for me to connect with. Though I would hate if that were the reason, we probably do comprehend subject matter more when put forth by people with similar experiences. Regardless of the author’s intended takeaway, “Les Blancs” is a very powerful play and the current production is well worth seeing, even though you will feel like absolute bullhonkey afterwards.
AUDIENCE
I had low expectations for all the old biddies that normally fill matinee audiences, but I didn’t see one phone after each act began (well, with a minute or two grace period so people could shut their phones back off even though it should take 3 seconds). However, one super loud, super embarrassing ringtone went off in the orchestra/stalls during a very heavy scene, which was ridiculous. Like, even if you aren’t at the theatre, who keeps their ringer that loud? Crazy people. Some folks next to me liked to talk too much but other than that it was a fine audience.
“Les Blancs” is playing at London’s National Theatre until June 2. It is about 3 hours with interval, which is what English people call intermission.
Bring a surgical mask to breathe through.
An Incredible Oooooklahoma! Like You’ve Never Seen Before
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is the 2019 Broadway revival of Oklahoma!, which saddest of the sads will close this Sunday, January 19, because of injustice/small theatres/probably Scott Rudin.
You don’t really get many musical theatre fans putting Oklahoma! in their lists of all-time favorite shows. Sure it’s Rodgers & Hammerstein and it’s a classic, but it’s also old-fashioned and kind of meh, a story about farmers loving their corn and their hoedowns and going a-flirtin’ and a-courtin’ and a-bakin’ and all. Or is it? People tend to forget that Oklahoma features legitimate darkness, maybe because it’s usually still treated with a shiny happy gloss while you sing about the surrey with the fringe on top and the good ol’ boys of America. But the current Broadway revival of Oklahoma from director Daniel Fish breaks down the show to its dark, disturbing core, in a truly soul-rattling production that feels more poignant and relevant to modern America than anything written this year.
With the minimalist set design and style (and a lot of guns) and nothing to distract you, this revival of Oklahoma lets everything hang out for you to see in its starkest, realest form. The lines and the lyrics are the same, but how Fish presents it and how the perfect cast performs it manages to turn the show from something cheery and cheesy into something incredibly complex and dark, and even knowing the story and the lyrics, I was concentrating too hard to remember to breathe at times.
The love story at the center is more complicated than ever. The cheerful and fun-loving Curly, as played by the superb Damon Daunno, has an air of unpredictability hidden in his good-natured cheeriness, reflected also in his wandering voice, which can easily go from folksy and relaxed to as strong and moving as anything you hear on Broadway. When he opens the show with “Oh What a Beautiful Morning”, my first thought was that I wanted to wake up every day to this rendition, of a song I usually skip! His Curly is still playful, but he’s so clearly the popular kid, a lad in every sense, fun-loving and ‘nice’ but hiding an edge, untrustworthy at a party. The object of his affection, Laurey, is the great Rebecca Naomi Jones, whose flirting and joking around with Curly seems to be based in legitimate confusion about what she actually wants. Her relationship with Jud, the villain who is obsessed with her, is also much more complicated: it doesn’t seem as fully unrequited as it usually is said to be. It’s unclear whether she’s actually attracted to Jud too or whether she’s just terrified into being nice to him, or both, but either way it’s now fascinating instead of casually explained by his wickedness.
Jud, played by Patrick Vaill, is the part of this revival that haunts me. His performance is the toned down yet even more convincing version of Joaquin’s Joker origin story. Everything that makes Jud Fry the villain is done in a way that makes you simultaneously pity him, understand him, and fear him, and he could easily be any mediocre white guy yelling at the internet from his basement while living smaller than he wants to. The part of the show that I usually hate, “Poor Jud is Dead”, was made riveting and tense, as a live video camera projects just Jud’s face in night-vision as he listens to Curly pleasantly torment him. This scene was the most incredible Ivo Van Hove directing I’ve ever seen, much better than when Ivo tries it. Vaill’s subtle emotional reactions – all in his eyes – during this scene were stunning, and made everything about his story so upsetting and so relevant. The original ending, with Jud threatening the lives of Curly and Laurie and ending up, um, “falling on his knife”, now leaves nothing to the imagination about the chain of events but everything up for discussion regarding what’s right and wrong about it.
Laurey’s Aunt Eller, usually somewhat comic, is in Mary Testa’s hands funny but formidable, and her performance after the much-changed climax was as menacing as anything. The real comic relief comes from Ali Stroker’s Ado Annie, James Davis’s Will Parker, and Will Brill’s Ali Hakim, all wonderful, but it’s Ali Stroker who steals the show every time she’s onstage and more than earns last year’s Tony Award. Comparing her version of “I Cain’t Say No” to the movie version, it’s like two completely different songs. She’s worth the Broadway prices alone to see her own that stage.
Every second of this production is exquisite, every beat, every choice felt essential – except the Dream Ballet. I really wanted to like it since I’ve heard so many people have the same review, but I didn’t think it worked at all. It’s a good idea to modernize it as a classic ballet would have felt out of place in this raw production, but I didn’t feel it accomplished anything. The original Dream Ballet is famous for showing that dance can actually further the plot in musical theatre and help tell the story rather than simply be accompaniment, but I didn’t find that to be the case here. Maybe because it didn’t seem like it was actually ‘dancing’, it was like ‘purposeful walking around’.
But aside from that, this revival is perfection. They’ve managed to make something so familiar into something so new, significant, and so chilling. Oklahoma! might not be on my list of favorite shows, but this particular production is one of the most genius things I’ve ever seen.
INFORMATION
Oklahoma! ends its run at the Circle in the Square in NYC on Sunday, January 19.
There’s not a bad seat in the house (it’s in the round, with the back wall closed off). The CITS toilet situation is annoying – downstairs for everyone. They need a new water filling system; the elementary school style water fountain would require you to Andy Dwyer it to actually get anything out of it.
VEGAN ALERT: they serve vegan chili at intermission!!! I do not think the cornbread is vegan but CHILI, MY LITTLE CHILI BABIES! YOU PUT THE PEEPS IN THE CHILI POT AND EAT THEM BOTH UP YOU PUT THE PEEPS IN THE CHILI POT AND ADD THE M&MS! COME ON! DIP YOU PAWS IN MY CHILI! SCOOP YOUR LITTLE MITTENS RIGHT IN THE STEW!