Thoughts on: Far From Heaven, Off-Broadwayby Randi / August 27, 2013
I have seen hundreds and hundreds of theatrical productions, and I can count the number of shows containing a plot twist that made me gasp on one hand. This was one of them.
Unbroken Circle tells the story of a Texan family in the recent past whose secrets come to light during the aftermath of the patriarch’s death. It seemed so simple, this premise, and not exactly groundbreaking, but it was so surprisingly well constructed that it seemed novel. The play offers complex ideas of family dynamics, the need to protect loved and not-so-loved ones, and the decision behind bringing secrets to light. I expected another interesting family drama about interesting but not surprising familial narratives, but instead got an intense look at sexual abuse, incest, and deciding what the best bad option might be.
Unbroken Circle tells the story of a Texan family in the recent past whose secrets come to light during the aftermath of the patriarch’s death. It seemed so simple, this premise, and not exactly groundbreaking, but it was so surprisingly well constructed that it seemed novel. The play offers complex ideas of family dynamics, the need to protect loved and not-so-loved ones, and the decision behind bringing secrets to light. I expected another interesting family drama about interesting but not surprising familial narratives, but instead got an intense look at sexual abuse, incest, and deciding what the best bad option might be.
Standouts in the all-around great cast include Anika Larsen, whose character I most identified with until a shocking realization towards the end. I realized that you can’t always judge others for how they deal with an awful situation if you haven’t been in their shoes. This show expertly thwarts one’s preconceptions about what you’d do in such situations, because you can’t know. And just because you disagree with how someone may handle it doesn’t mean they don’t have good reasons.
Another standout was Susanna Hay as the family matriarch, Ruby. She was so realistic I thought perhaps Seth Rudetsky stole her from a conversative Texan family and threw her on that stage. Such excellent acting. The Brady Bunch’s Eve Plumb plays Ruby’s super-super-Christian sister, getting the most laughs per line because who doesn’t love laughing at crazy right-wingers who are out of touch with reality? The whole cast was great, though. I didn’t realize until after the first act that the playwright, James Wesley, plays Bobby, a very main character, and that his daughter in the show was played by his daughter in real life, Juli! That is a freaking talented family! (Juli’s other father is the aforementioned Rudetsky, whom I adore. I wouldn’t hate spending holidays with that family.) The real-life connection added such intensity.
I hope this show gets extended as much as it can so more people can enjoy it. It was refreshing to see a play showcasing its intent clearly and candidly, not hiding anything in pretext or confusing theses or an unsaid something the audience is magically supposed to grasp. Yet it was an still impressively deep, and overall impressive, little show, a highlight of the current scene.
Another standout was Susanna Hay as the family matriarch, Ruby. She was so realistic I thought perhaps Seth Rudetsky stole her from a conversative Texan family and threw her on that stage. Such excellent acting. The Brady Bunch’s Eve Plumb plays Ruby’s super-super-Christian sister, getting the most laughs per line because who doesn’t love laughing at crazy right-wingers who are out of touch with reality? The whole cast was great, though. I didn’t realize until after the first act that the playwright, James Wesley, plays Bobby, a very main character, and that his daughter in the show was played by his daughter in real life, Juli! That is a freaking talented family! (Juli’s other father is the aforementioned Rudetsky, whom I adore. I wouldn’t hate spending holidays with that family.) The real-life connection added such intensity.
I hope this show gets extended as much as it can so more people can enjoy it. It was refreshing to see a play showcasing its intent clearly and candidly, not hiding anything in pretext or confusing theses or an unsaid something the audience is magically supposed to grasp. Yet it was an still impressively deep, and overall impressive, little show, a highlight of the current scene.
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New weekend theatre: An Elephant in the Garden
Today’s show is ‘An Elephant in the Garden’ presented by the Barn Theatre in association with Exeter Northcott Theatre. It streams from tonight until the 18th.
I found it kind of hilarious that I got the press night info for ‘An Elephant in the Garden’ on the same day as I discovered dozens upon dozens of Nazi apologists in a seemingly benign Reddit post. What a day for sympathizing with Germans during World War II! Of course regular German citizens were victims of their government and suffered terribly, but what fun timing. ‘An Elephant in the Garden’ is the stage version of Michael Mortugo’s book inspired by stories of zookeepers during the war, who tried to save animals destined for death in the event of bombings (they couldn’t have animals roaming the streets if their enclosures and caretakers were harmed – animals moving about freely, perish the thought). In this tale, teenage Lizzie and her mother flee on foot from Dresden after it’s destroyed, and they take Marlene, a baby elephant, with them.
Alison Reid in this two-hander (she has two hands) does a good job of keeping her energy up and keeping the story alive. Some cringey lines had us doing Chrissy Teigen’s Golden Globes face, but altogether it’s decent. The tone felt 60% for adults and 40% clearly for kids, so it’s a bit uneven. Reid’s handling of the handful of characters is nicely done. Yet the story as a whole felt a little unearned. Like the only thing I could say in response was “okay, and…” It feels like so much modern theatre and other art is focusing on Germans during the war in a purposeful attempt to not do more ‘obvious victim’ stories, but often without good reasons, trying to rely on the whole ‘we don’t think enough about these victims!’ idea but without sufficient justification for it being a play in the first place. Why am I supposed to care about this person, this family? I care about the elephant, for sure, but the reviews talking about how the elephant becomes the hero of the story, the main focus, are full of crap.
This play exists in a weird political limbo, alluding to bad German behavior but nothing tooo bad, never sharing any real political views and then all of a sudden calling Hitler an enemy towards the end just to make sure they made that clear in a CYA move that felt super obvious. There’s a bit with a horribly racist aunt and uncle, but their evilness is still kind of kid-friendly, as is the narrator’s happy obliviousness at the end, where she says ‘I like to believe my aunt and uncle changed for the good’ after the war. What, by staying silent about their bigotry? I do not like the implied message of this part. I feeeeel liiiiiike you should need to do more to prove goodness, especially if you wanted this war and loved ya boy Adolf. Do not like the message this sends to audiences, kids and the veryyyy problematic general British adult public alike. So, although this was fine, I’m a little peeved about its purpose in general.
Regardless of how much I would like a second, stronger draft that answers my questions, you have to hand it to the Barn Theatre for their content this year. They’ve been putting out so much theatre for home viewing, seemingly nonstop, and that is something to be commended. Also – they seem to acknowledge and respect that our attention spans are absolutely shot. The vast majority of their content has been around an hour – perfect for the home viewer who struggles to spend even thirty minutes watching something without simultaneously scrolling on their phone. I’m sure I could handle a longer thing – I have been watching serious movies and mostly concentrating, but it’s still a mental hurdle to even begin watching something when you know you have to concentrate for a long time. (It probably goes without saying that I am very very behind on work.) Anyway, thanks to the Barn, even though I didn’t love this one (but again, that could be in part because of all the Nazi sympathizers running rampant nowadays! Don’t let them get away with it!)
Photo credit: Farrows Creative
The Tony Awards are Sunday! Here’s What Should Happen
It’s the mooost wonderful tiiiime of the year! It’s Tony season! Well I guess it’s been Tony season; now it’s TONY WEEKEND! How pumped are you? How are you talking about anything else? The big Federer-Nadal match is over, no one is seeing Dark Phoenix, and the world is still going to shit so there is nothing more to do but sit back, relax, and let the joy of Tony Weekend wash all over you.
Until Monday morning, when we piss and moan about all the injustice of amazing performers losing arbitrary awards to equally amazing performers and all of them getting to do the best job on the planet, so unfair.
So what will I be pissing and moaning about in particular on Monday morning? A lot of things! Mainly, that here in the UK I can’t watch it live, but also that a few of my favorite performances probably won’t be rewarded; that Scott Rudin will add to his vast collection of trophies even though he’s a big dumb bully; and that Tony voters should have to see all the nominees in order to be Tony voters (you have one job; if you don’t want it, give it to me plz).
If Tony knows what’s good for her (yes, Tony is a girl!), she’ll do her level best to keep a few of those predicted complaints from happening, but most importantly she’ll put on one hell of a show and, with James Corden’s help, demonstrate to the Emmys, the Grammys, and the Oscars most years how to do awards shows right. Mostly, as long as Tony Toni Tone sticks to the whole underworld theme of the best shows this season (Hadestown is obvs about Hades and the underworld, and The Ferryman title refers to Hades’s ferryman Charon who rows the newly dead souls across the river Styx and into the underworld. POSS CROSSOVER EVENT?), things will be good.
I’ve already rambled on about the nominations and who should have been nominated (so read that post first if you haven’t already), so this one will be purely about the actual nominees.
Let’s start with the most important, since we all know these posts tend to go on and some of you never make it to the end. Yeah I see you! We’ll do all 3 big musical categories, the biggie plus score and book. Hadestown, as I’ve been saying since last year, is the best musical by far. It’s the only solidly great one, too, but even if it had great competition I can’t see anything surpassing it in terms of quality, uniqueness, and emotional depth. Most of its magic comes from Anais Mitchell’s incredible score, like nothing we’ve heard before, especially not on Broadway, which should absolutely win as well. A lot of voters want to award the good-hearted social message of The Prom for Best Musical, and while I understand that, there should be zero doubt about voting for Hadestown for Best Score.
And although it seems the vast majority of people still don’t understand what a book of a musical is, Mitchell’s flawless structure and creative twist on classic myths to tell this old-but-new kind of story should win Best Book as well. Tootsie will, because it has the most jokes, and that’s what people usually think of in terms of book: the script and how enjoyable it is. But it also has to do with the overall story and its structure and how it is told, and Hades tops the charts for all of that. Still, as long as Hadestown wins Best Musical and Score, all will be right.
While the current, feel-good-about-being-a-good-person musical The Prom is the closest competition, everyone absolute adores Ain’t Too Proud, which I can see being the real surprise, if such a surprise as Hadestown not winning Best Musical were to happen, but that would be some real bullshirt (it losing, not ATP winning). Oh and Beetlejuice isn’t winning shit; someone tell Warner Bros. they need a new head of their theatrical division (*cough* me *cough*).
Seriously watch this and tell me I’m wrong about this music. (And about the actors who should win.)
For those of us still salty over Chavkin’s loss for Great Comet, it’s not so much a wish that she wins now to make up for that as it is a wish that her directorial genius is finally rewarded for something equally astonishing. But the race is on between her and Daniel Fish, whose Oklahoma! is a complete and relevant reimagining of the dusty classic. But that one is divisive among all crowds, Tony voters included, and since it is going to win Best Revival of a Musical (a sure thing over the ya-basic Kiss Me, Kate), perhaps they will deem Fish’s (feeshees) work recognized enough with that. I hope so because I’d be front row center with a giant foam finger that says ‘CHAVKIN’ if I could.
Now that I’ve seen Gary, I have…still not seen all of them. But I can’t imagine anything taking this from the once-in-a-decade, sweeping, epic masterpiece The Ferryman. And nothing should. The Ferryman proves that it’s not about how long shows are (3+ hours); it’s about what you do with that time. I’ve seen other shows longer than 3 hours that barely accomplished anything and some 80-minute ones that were perfect. But this one, hoo boy, it told a full-blooded epic family and historical drama in one night and it was like reading a phenomenal book, so ingenious and well done.
This is Stephanie J. Block’s for shooo but I haven’t seen The Cher Show because the one weekend I had a free theatre slot, she was on vacation and I am not seeing that show without her. Anyway, I’m sure she’s amazing and I love her and all. It’s hard for me not to root for my queen (Kelli) but she is miscast in Kate. I’m personally still gutted by Eva’s performance (I told you I’d be raving about Hadestown this entire post/for my life, didn’t I? if I didn’t well I just did guys). But it’s the promenaders who pose the only real threat to SJB. Well one of them, Beth Leavel, who is also beloved in the community and has put in her time and is also giving a great performance. She is probably the #2 vote getter but if you ain’t first yer last, and SJB is first this season.
While I love all of the men on this list, this has to go to my OG (that stands for Original Greg), Santino. I guess it’s all down to whether he wants it or not, because we all know he could win one if he wanted to. (That’s a Crazy Ex-Girlfriend reference, for those of you still not living your best life.) Granted I am not seeing big ole Toots for two more weeks (don’t you DARE go on vacation OG) but it’s the kind of big, showy, entire-production-carrying role that does not leave its cross-dressing star empty-handed, especially when he does the impossible and stops audiences from comparing him to Dustin Hoffman. (The TBD star of the new Mrs. Doubtfire musical can only pray for the same result.) While all the nominees are such great ones, it seems Brooks Ashmanskas not only has the best name but also poses the biggest threat of an upset here, as the most likely win for The Prom (and, in my view, backpay for Martin Short’s 2006 Broadway variety show, still one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen). Although a huge part of me wants Lin-Manuel Miranda to one day be the presenter that awards Derrick Baskin his Tony, just so Derrick can reprise his greatest line of all time: “Well, well, well. If it isn’t Lin-Man-well, well, well”, this is almost surely Santino’s and it’s honestly the least Broadway could do for his returning to the Great White Way and thus incurring the wrath of Rachel Bloom.
What a terrible category for voters! All of these performances are truly deserving and would win in other years. Both Paddy and Bryan won Oliviers for these same roles, but Bryan will prevail here. He already won the best award of the year, the Drama League Distinguished Performance that goes to just one actor, across roles of all size and gender and musicality (as in, whether it has it or not) (I’m trying to say that plays and musicals are combined). It would be a shock if he doesn’t win this, but not like so sad because he is swimming in awards and we all like socialism now, right?
Six incredible actresses to choose from (and yet no Glenda Jackson, so weird right?) seems like a hard task but this is the biggest slam dunk of the night, the one with the most consensus – it’s Elaine May’s. She plays someone with Alzheimer’s which seems like this decade’s version of Ricky Gervais’s hundo p secret to winning an Oscar (doing a Holocaust movie), and so given that Ricky is the latest out-of-touch white man to be CANCELLED, it seems totes approps that that should change to this, especially given that May’s performance is what some Tony voters said (anonymously) was the best performance of any sort they’d literally ever seen.
This one is the one I am going to be most dismayed by, except not even ‘dismayed’ just like ‘oh that’s not who I would have voted for but still great, still great’ so…so that’s nothing, right. It’s neck and neck between Amber Gray and Ali Stroker, the two it should be neck and neck between. So they are both totally deserving but my vote would be for Amber because I am obbbbsesssssed with her Persephone and not just because my first acting gig was playing Persephone’s best friend who sees her get abducted by Hades (my big line: “Come ON, Persephone! We’ll never get to the beach if you stop to look at every flower!” and then Hades comes up from underground and snatches her away and I’m like “but the beach!” I was 8 years old I think.) So like Persephone is a part of me, you know??? And Amber is doing something so original (as she always does) and turning Persephone after many years of this nonsense into a quirky, sort of pissed off yet beloved queen and straight KILLIN it (as she always does) and her performance is so forking touching so I just really want her to win and also she is pumping during intermission every night because she has an infant and that is BALLER. But Ali is amazing and I’m so happy there is a place for her forever on Broadway now so like whatever they’re all great just everyone be happy and have fun I guess. I am going to the beach next week so that’s p cool.
THIS is the category that makes me happiest to not be a Tony voter this year, honestly, because I CANNOT choose between Andre and Patrick. It’s between the two Hadestown men, for sure, which scares me because a) they’re both so phenomental (that was a typo originally but I’m going to keep it because it is mental how phenomenal they are so yeah) and b) I’m nervous that the votes will cancel each other out and open the way for one of the others, which like fine they are all great and wonderful but it has to be Patrick or Andre. I think Andre gets it by the skin of his sweet potatoes, which sounds like a phrase that means something but I’m just remembering how at stage door he was eating sweet potatoes and we talked about healthy food and how important it is for him to nourish his body properly so it keeps functioning at peak human like it is in the show. Anyway, I love him and he’s my best good friend.
For the other categories: For featured actress in a play, Celia Keenan-Bolger is finally going to win the Tony everyone thought she was going to win for The Glass Menagerie, which is great because she is just the best. For featured actor, I’m rooting for Robin de Jesus because 1) he’s cool enough to make his twitter handle ‘Robin the Jesus’ which I laugh about at least once a week, and 2) I just love him and he’s SO good and should be in more stuff.
As for the show, I’m sure James Corden will do a nice job and do some big musical opener that lets him live all our dreams while he comes very close to tears and it will be big-hearted and joyous but not as shockingly impressive as NPH’s opening “Bigger” was because nothing could ever top that, ever. I’m sure some musical nominees will choose to do medleys, which like have you not learned how much medleys suck yet? I hope that Hadestown chooses to do “Why We Build a Wall” to make a killer political statement, but I don’t think it will, even though like, we have 30 years left tops, when if not now?
Most of all, I hope everyone reading this watches this year! They need to increase their ratings! Do your part and ensure that all the kids in podunk middles-of-nowhere see people like them exist! Enjoy!
