"The Essential Vegan Travel Guide" & Interview with the Author, The Vegan Word!by Randi / June 30, 2016
One time, in this screenwriting competition I entered, the judges said my characters were flames (that means good) but that there wasn’t really a plot driving their actions forward. If I could, I would go back in time and say to them, well, invariably white dudes, listen, August Wilson did it, so…
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is a play from 1982, not a new play as I must admit I thought because I never heard of it before it won the Olivier for Best Revival of a Play this year. That’s the Oliviers (West End), not the Tonys (Broadway), so just keep that in mind. (Actually it won the Tony for Best Play when it premiered!) And this is a good production, with some powerful performances and an excellent set, but goodness, I did not feel the material working. There is no plot. Nothing really happens, and yet so much feels about to happen that it’s almost disappointing.
Ma Rainey was the mother (get it, ma) of the blues, an incredible musical talent and mentor to other queens like Bessie Smith. In fact, my previous exposure to her was mostly due to Mo’Nique in the movie “Bessie” with Queen Latifah. She was so good, Latifs. They both were! I would have loved if the movie showed more of Ma and her relationship with Bessie, so I was so excited for a play that was all about her. Her life seemed beyond compelling. I was pumped!
I was also so psyched to hear her sing a lot, as I assumed she would. I mean, I knew it wasn’t produced as a musical, it was a play, but so was “Lady Day” and that was all music (2 hours with Billie Holiday – you’re gonna want it to be mostly music!). I figured it was technically a play because, while full of music, it wasn’t music that advanced the plot or composed part of the plot, as musicals are defined. (For laymen: “Pitch Perfect”, for example, isn’t a ‘musical’ despite being very musical, because the characters actively know they are singing and it’s not like they are living in song or singing their feelings instead of talking them. The music isn’t the plot.)
Well, surprise, Ma Rainey isn’t even that kind of play.
It’s mostly Ma’s band, four musicians with differing viewpoints on life and race, talking in the rehearsal room before Ma arrives to record a session, and then talking after Ma leaves the session. Ma is a featured character, if that. I’m sure if you know this in advance, you’re good to go, but I didn’t, so this was incredibly disappointing. Ma sang for about 20 seconds and it was RG because she was played by the great Sharon D. Clarke, but then it was all talk and no Ma.
So what is it about, this revered play from the esteemed August Wilson? It’s Chicago in the 1920s and the band is being taken advantage of by the white producers, of course, and arguing about race and their experience as black men at this time. They talk and argue and wait, along with the producers as they wait for Ma. And they wait some more. They’re being held in the basement rehearsal room in the recording studio, which we several parts of in this impressive set.
The four men are Cutler, Toledo, Slow Drag (I can’t, best name ever), and Levee. Toledo is wise and cautious. Levee is a live wire who is loud and reckless. He’s obsessed with how he presents himself to the world and thinks he’s entitled to a lot more than he gets in life, which is undoubtedly true given both his talent and the fact that he’s a black man, but his abrasive attitude is a turnoff to even the people who could be his friends. While they wait, the men argue about their position in the world, about their struggles and how to get on, while Levee shows off his new white shoes that he bought. He also gives some new songs he wrote to the white producers and is sure they are going to buy them. We hear really upsetting stories from all the men, especially Levee’s personal background is enough to make you feel sympathetic for anyone. Everything they say reinforces how unjust and unfair society was and still is. Their commentary on race is compelling and provocative – it just doesn’t make for the most gripping plot.
When Ma comes really late, she sings a tiny bit, and pisses off the white producers because of how late everything is and because she demands that her stuttering nephew do the intro to the title song, which takes a while, and everyone gets pissed off, and then Ma leaves. The entire part that was advertised was the tiniest part of the show. Sharon was really good too. Darn.
After the session, the men retreat to their basement cave and argue more. Why aren’t they going home? (It’s unclear that they are waiting to be paid, which I just looked up.) They finished the session. I was confused! And one of them was fired! I was like past Bunuel asking questions of future Bunuel’s art in “Midnight in Paris’ – “why don’t they just leave?” Somehow the little micro (or not so micro) aggressions build and build to a point that you can’t believe it reaches.
The play, depending on how it’s performed, can build to this climax in a way where even though it is a shock, it’s not a surprise that something catastrophic happened like this. But in this production, it was so unexpected and didn’t feel earned. Not like ooh that’s an intriguing surprise, more like, that’s action from a different play entirely. How it was directed and acted, no matter how good the individual parts were, it didn’t feel like they had a cohesive goal. I honestly don’t know what the play was trying to achieve. The tone was all over the place. Amid the harrowing stories, there would be this air of levity in the direction of the show, almost treating it like a comedy, and I couldn’t tell what it wanted to be.
Also, I get that most people probably are more familiar with this show, but I found the advertising misleading. The main show art is of Ma at a microphone. If you saw that, what would you think the show was about? Same as I did, right? I should have done research but most people don’t. Not since the advertising campaign for “The Scottsboro Boys” in London have I found marketing materials to be so misleading. Nonetheless, I have to applaud the acting across the board and the production values. A lot of the men’s long talks were provocative and challenging, and it really does say genuinely important things about injustice and race. As monologues, they are effective, but as a play it is stagnant.
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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!
Sugar, Butter, Fl-uck This Show is Amazing: Sara Bareilles Joins Waitress in London
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Waitress, again, because it’s the best but also because composer Sara Bareilles is playing Jenna until March 7! We went to her opening night and it’s time to rave.
OH, IT IS ON. One of the best musicals ever (I mean it; I know all the musicals and I will fight you on this) is now even more special. Grammy-winner (that’s right babies!) Sara Bareilles has joined the London production of Waitress, the musical she wrote, playing forlorn but super talented pie-making waitress Jenna, singing the songs how she meant them to be sung and being like ‘oh WHAT yeah that’s right’. And Sara, praise the lord, brought Broadway’s favorite boyfriend/lovable goof Gavin Creel over with her to play Jenna’s inappropes/super adorbs gynecologist Dr. Pomatter, to the delight of everyone who is conscious. Waitress is a strong show that’s absolute joyous heartbreaking and heartbuilding perfection no matter what, but having Bareilles herself play Jenna Hunterson is one of those Experiences that despite sky-high expectations more than lived up to them.
We’ve talked about Waitress before on this site, and if we know each other in real life you have definitely heard me preach about how wonderful this show is and how anyone who disagrees just like DOESN’T GET IT or DOESN’T HAVE THE RIGHT SET OF EMOTION RECEPTORS or WAS ON THEIR PHONE DESPITE SARA’S WONDERFUL PRE-SHOW SHUT-YOUR-PHONE-OFF SONG or anything else that lets me shout at people who disagree with me like a true g-d American. But to recap, Waitress is based on Adrienne Shelley’s 2007 movie about a Russian spy (no) who makes amazing pies but is les miserables. Jenna, our waitress, is stuck in a loveless and abusive marriage and then she gets pregnant and doesn’t want the baby and instead of calling me for help (just like last week’s show) she decides to begrudgingly have the baby and she has a pretty rocking affair with her super fantastic gyno and then she has the baby and it all works out (unlike last week’s show) and it’s beautiful and amazing and the score is sensational and the book (by Jessie Nelson) is hilarious and poignant and I LOVE IT.
We were front and center (well, side; aisles baby you know) for Sara’s official London debut, scared that her stans might be annoyingly vocal when they shouldn’t be but too excited to care much (and for the record the audience was surprisingly well behaved for London) (although I did tell one man to put his phone away when he was taking photos and he was like shocked that someone didn’t want a phone sticking up during a show, so). Every time this show begins and I hear the motif of ‘sugar, butter, flour’ start, I get chills. To hear it from SB herself made the chills more like convulsions. Her Jenna is everything you hope for. Her quiet moments in the gorgeous opener and in “Soft Place to Land” are moving and lovely, while the belted notes that everyone expects and discusses like it’s some kind of sport now were there and were incredible, but they were also there for a reason. You absolutely felt the emotion and meaning behind them. Her acting is pretty impressive too. In the first scene, there were a few moments that reminded you that she isn’t a trained actress, but as she got her footing she only improved, and there were even some line deliveries that absolutely slayed more than they have in the past (her perfectly timed ‘she could be gay’, omg).
And yes, there was an immediate standing ovation after her flawless “She Used to Be Mine”, that extraordinary song. Sometimes that sort of thing feels like pandering or like the standers just want to be able to say they were a part of that, and it’s not based in truth. But here, it felt like a show of hospitality and thanks, the perfect way to welcome Sara to the West End and recognize what she has created. If it happens every performance it might seem forced, but given how special and how rare it is to see a writer perform a role they composed, it’ll still be meaningful.
Now about that boy. Gavin Creel is one of the best, like ever, and he makes the not-too-big part of Dr. Pomatter feel like the meatiest musical theatre role. He is the reason for the word ‘adorkable’, not Zooey Deschanel, and his Pomatter was so goshdarn adorkable and charming that I felt like that gif of the little squeeing girl, you know with her little fists by her cheeks? That was me the whole time. He makes so much out of every moment and gesture and my god, it’s just a nonstop ball of endless awkwardness and goofiness and charm and that forking voice. I was nervous because Gavin and Sara are good friends and sometimes it’s hard for friends in real life to have romantic chemistry onstage (which I know because in a college show I had to pretend to be in love with my best friend’s boyfriend (now husband) and we were so uncomfortable that we won 3rd Most Awkward Onstage Couple that season) but they were quite convincing.
As for the rest of the cast, they were great. I believe this was also the first performance for Evelyn Hoskins’ Dawn, and she was super winning and the audience was fully behind her, and she will surely only grow and improve as she learns to control her projection while dealing with that adrenaline. Marisha Wallace is back in the production after a break from playing Becky, and thank goodness because her Becky, man, dayum. Her book scenes were much different this go round, much quieter and almost deadpan sometimes, which is not what you get from the usually ‘sassy’ Becky (it seemed like a purposeful approach to avoid that word). I don’t know if I like it better but it was interesting, and her “I Didn’t Plan It” was as mind-blowing as ever. I always get chills (I mean just the whole show, really) on the line “to open your eyes and look around/and seeee the skyyyy when you’re underground” and she forking nailed it.
The supporting men were great too. Joel Montague’s Ogie was new to me, and although he doesn’t have the comedic brilliance that Mr. Kenneth Ellen Parcell did last year, he has a much better voice (not hard to), and that part is so well written and constructed that I don’t think it’s possible to be performed poorly. And my goodness, I think Andrew Boyer’s Joe might be my favorite Joe yet, yeah even more than Headmaster Charleston (I know)! He was super grouchy but his grouchiness was so clearly underwritten with loneliness and heart that it really moved me. His crotchety interplay with Sara was so realistic and so spirited (they may have had the best acting chemistry on that stage) and their last moment shocked me with how striking and simple it was (more nuanced acting from Sara).
There were some noticeable differences with the show too. Earl (Tamlyn Henderson/Will Forte) seemed much more obviously abusive and horrible (though a good performance), almost like they are making it too easy to paint him as the villain. He’s definitely bad news but when he’s less physically abusive I think it makes for a more interesting dynamic and more educational for people who might not even realize how bad emotional abuse is. Also, everything felt slower than than before. This isn’t necessarily bad, since I love to be enveloped by the world of this show for as long as possible, but it was noticeably slower pacing. I also recognized the simple and lovely choreography more than usual and enjoyed it, especially the truly riveting moment where Jenna packs up a suitcase, puts her jacket on, and the cast takes her jacket off, all in the span of about 6 seconds of her imagining a new pie and running away. That was the most incredible moment of the night for me, proving that while brilliant star power and fabulous performances are welcome, this show is beautiful and strong no matter who’s in it.
INFORMATION
Sara and Gavin will be in the show until March 7.
After a 7:36 ish start, Act I ended at 8:45 and the show ended at 10:06. A few minutes longer than it should be, possibly due to the extended applause breaks and also the aforementioned pacing.
If you sit on house right/stage left, there’s a sign for LADIES at around row H or so, but that bathroom only has 3 stalls. It DOES NOT lead you to the giant main bathroom downstairs – for that, go past that Ladies sign and enter the house right doors that say BAR and then you’ll find it there and you’ll beat everyone else who exits the house and goes from the lobby YOU’RE WELCOME.
I did not even attempt stage dooring are you crazy I’m sure it’s a madhouse.
