Fiddler on the Roof at the Menier Chocolate Factory: As Moving and Important as Everby Randi / February 28, 2019It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Waitress, which opens today in London.
I feel like I’ve been bemoaning the sad state of musical theatre on the West End for years now. We’re getting too few new British works and too many lackluster disappointments. And while that’s all still true, Waitress has arrived, so I’m done complaining until the smile leaves my face, if that ever happens. Even though it’s an American transfer, this show is so FORKING wonderful that it is elevating the entirety of the West End. The Sara Bareilles musical, which opens officially today at the Adelphi Theatre, is exactly the show London needs right now: funny, heartbreaking, movingly acted, perfectly sung, and with an incredible score. It’s strange for me to give unqualified raves, but here I go, here I go, here I go again girls what’s my weakness? Um, musicals! pie? Dr. Pomatter?
Waitress, the first Broadway musical with an all-female creative team (it premiered in 2016 and that’s a true thing, so forked), opened the same season as Hamilton (and also the best musical revival season anyone could ever dream of I mean it omg each of the four nominees was the best thing ever le sigh and this year we don’t even have enough for a Tony award??? anyway) and so, while everyone enjoyed it, it didn’t get the acclaim or attention it deserved. Luckily, London’s musical theatre scene is, shall we say, not 2016 Broadway so fingers crossed that it gets the proper amount of love, because it’s a pretty goshdarn flawless show. Based on the 2007 Adrienne Shelly movie starring Keri Russell, Waitress the musical tells that story of how a small-town pie-making waitress in an abusive marriage gets pregnant and falls for her new ob/gyn. I remember the movie being pretty depressing but the show – though still rife with sad moments – is funnier and overall uplifting and heartwarming. With a sensational score from Sara Bareilles in her first musical theatre venture (and hopefully not last) and superb direction from Diane Paulus, the musical takes us intimately into the life of Jenna Hunterson and her friends. Her abusive husband, her inability to leave him, her feeling of not recognizing herself or knowing what to do, it all comes across realistically and believably while maintaining the entertaining, energetic thrill of classic musical theatre.
Even though I trust that you’ll see Waitress as soon as you can – whether on Broadway, in London, or on tour – I’ma tell you a little about it because it’s my new fave thing and I just simply can’t stop won’t stop talking about it (or singing it in the shower). So Jenna, as played by the remarkable Katharine McPhee, sings about her three favorite ingredients for pie baking – “sugar, butter, flour” – and making pies and how that helps her deal with her shirty life, working in a diner and having a shirty slob of a jerk husband who takes all the money she earns and is mean to her friends. And her friends, Dawn (Laura Baldwin, hilarious and adorable) and Becky (Marisha Wallace, the fire emoji), are wonderful so only a real jerk ass jackwagon would be mean to them. Jenna accidentally slept with her husband who she haaaates so Dawn and Becky are like ‘hey Jenna let’s all chill in the bathroom and watch you pee on a stick and we will SING ABOUT IT!!!’ and Jenna is like ‘ughhh I don’t wanna know if I’m pregnant I’d rather just ignore any alien growth and then in 9 months be like those people on the old show ‘I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant’ and be like ‘maaaa there’s a baby in the terlet!!!!’ so just let me be’ and they’re like ‘no we have fun lyrics about drinking enough to make sure you have to pee’ (and I’m like, do some people really not need to pee all the time?) so Jenna pees on the stick and is like SHIT and then sings the greatest song ever extolling the virtues of what baking can do as she hopes it can save her from her current messy sitch. Then she makes a great pie for her gynecologist who unknowingly retired and you’re like jfc how bad is the American healthcare system if when she called to make an appointment with Dr. Oldlady they didn’t tell her ‘oh she RETIRED’?? what a mess. Anyway her gyno is now this cute adorkable awkward lanky blond guy which is suuuupes awks in a gyno fyi anyway he doesn’t eat sugar and she’s like what kind of dork doesn’t eat sugar?? and he tries her pie (not a euph) and is like ‘OH DIP’ and she’s such a good baker that they fall in love and it’s AMAZING and SAD and she dreams of getting away from the jerky husband but he thwarts her plans and then she sings another BEST SONG EVER about what a mess her life is and McPhee is like ‘do you think you’ve heard anyone with better vocal control, because hear this, mufuckaaa’ and she should have awards thrown at her and you’re like TAYLOR HICKS, REALLY GUYS???
Meanwhile, the girls make our cute little Dawn try online dating because she is a sheltered lil bun who’s never dated and she matches on an app I’m assuming was Christian Mingle with a crazy guy in the form of JACK MCBRAYER, ladies and gentlemen, as Ogie and even though he sings a song that would be a giant red flag in real life about how he is virtually a stalker and even though Jack’s not the greatest singer and even though I wanted a friend of mine to get his part originally, Jack’s Ogie is REDONKULOUS AMAZING. His signature pure hearted dorky schtick is so perfect for Ogie and whoever thought to cast him deserves Olympic medals in casting. I honestly want to bake that person a pie. Jack makes every little movement and line of Ogie’s a laugh riot which is a phrase I don’t think I’ve ever used before but I need to use it now because it’s true and also dorky and pure enough of a phrase to fit this situation. The only thing I don’t get about this show is that Ogie gets the last named-character-bow when for male roles he really is second only to Dr. Pomatter and I don’t understand how he isn’t billed and bowed higher?? He gets more songs than almost anyone! Anyway it’s worth it to see him alone, yet everything else is just as great. Becky’s lil side story is amazingly moving too, as she’s in a difficult marriage for sad reasons and needs to get her groove back and does so with a SURPRISE man and she sings a fire emoji song about how ya know shit just happens sometimes and who are you to judge?? Her big song really was ugh so good. Even the old man diner owner gets amazing material that makes me cry, even though this actor wasn’t a great singer, because he gets my favorite poetic lyric at the end of his big song that just wrecks me and honestly everything in this show wrecks me so just forking see it so we can TALK ABOUT IT, okay?
The writing of this show, with a book from Jessie Nelson, is so strong that the show would be great still with just okay talent, so this stellar cast is lifting it to remarkable heights. Katharine McPhee’s Jenna is thoughtful and purposeful, finding the right line between vulnerability and inner strength. Fresh from the Broadway production, which was her first Broadway role, McPhee reminds you quickly of the douchebag director’s first words about her on “Smash”: “She may be green, but she’s certainly trained.” Her control over her voice is spell-binding, and her “She Used to be Mine” is the best vocal performance happening in London right now. David Hunter’s Pomatter is endearing and goofy yet also a believable leading man and a bit of a heartthrob. The scenes between the two of them feel like the end of the second season of a TV show when the two meant-for-each-other leads finally come to each other, and they accomplish that in less than an hour. It’s so important to get that emotional beat right, along with all the deeply personal revelations on display. Waitress is an unabashedly emotional show, the kind that could easily feel twee or seem amateur, but this show is anything but. The strong writing and the precisely directed performances keep it fresh and real. I fear that the old-white-male reviewers that make up London’s main critic pool will discount the female-centric story and emotional depth as cutesy or girly when really it’s surprisingly profound.
If nothing else, Bareilles has given us an extraordinary original score for the modern age, with nary a weak track in there, a rare accomplishment nowadays. With every other aspect of the show just as strong, with laugh out loud moments and truly wrenching emotion, the whole show is destined to be a favorite of many, if not a genuine classic.
INFORMATION
Waitress is playing at London’s Adelphi Theatre until at least the fall. They sell pie in the lobby and they pipe in freshly baked pie smell, which is lovely. They don’t have vegan pie though, which is b.s. The official merchandise stall in the lobby does not sell programmes – they are available from the podium by the entrance (so crowded, so dumb) and the pie man in the back. It’s a pretty terrible setup. The bathrooms are downstairs house right, so you have to like bolt out of the stalls to get all the way to the lobby and down. The staff left much to be desired. Also, during previews they had not yet set up barricades at stage door and it was a bonafide disaster of a mosh pit. According to my emails with the theatre, they’ve amended this situation, but I bet it is still a disaster. So the theatre staff and setup leaves much to be desired but the show is perfection.
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Broadway’s “Shuffle Along, Or the Longest and Most Unnecessary Title Since the Horrors of Birdman” Is Prettayy Good
Best show art of the season
In this Broadway season of beyond splendid revivals and nice enough new shows dwarfed by “Hamilton”, one important show is kind of a mix of the two. “Shuffle Along, or the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed” (I know) (whose idea right) (so ridic) (but it is accurate) actually petitioned to be considered a revival, because it uses the score of the original show “Shuffle Along” from 1921. But it was wisely considered a new show because this new Shuffle is telling the story of that 1921 show, how it was made, who was involved, and how it was received. And of course all that followed.
What makes the 1921 “Shuffle Along” worth discussing? It was a groundbreaking musical revue written by four African-American men – Noble Sissle, Eubie Blake, F.E. Miller, and Aubrey Lyles. Not only was it the first musical for all four writers, it was the first major production in a long time to be created and produced entirely by African-American, like at all. That it played in New York of all places, and that it had an incredibly successful run for its time, shows how important a cultural milestone it was.
Why was it groundbreaking? It convinced the theatre community (and white producers) that a ‘black show’ could be successful, and that people of all races would pay to see an exciting, quality show like this. The black community embraced it wholeheartedly for showing the world its exuberant singing and dancing styles, and the theatre community at large embraced it too, legitimizing these new-to-them styles for the uptight people of that world. “Shuffle Along” famously had to add a midnight showing (always sold out) so that other celebrities with similar schedules – fans like Fanny Brice and Al Jolson – could catch it regularly. And not only did the show introduce a new kind of theatre to the world, it also launched the careers of luminaries like Florence Mills, Gertrude Sanders, and Josephine Baker, while showcasing already-famous stars like Lottie Gee.
So the original “Shuffle Along” stands as a vital moment in theatre history, yet so few people know about it. George C. Wolfe, legendary Broadway director, decided to bring its story back to Broadway, but not the story the original told (some forced plot about a mayoral race that no one really cared about because the score and the dancing was really what they were after). Instead, he wanted to tell the story behind the mounting of that show and how it came to be and what happened to those four creators and all those stars they made after all the success of the musical sensation of 1921. Naturally, to tell this story, you hope to gather the most incredible African-American performers there are today. You hope to get Audra McDonald, queen of everything, to play the diva Lottie Gee. You hope that Brian Stokes Mitchell, Broadway’s longtime beloved leading man, will join you as one of the four creators, along with other Broadway stars Billy Porter, Joshua Henry, and Brandon Victor Dixon. You even have the pipe-dream that Savion Glover, the best tap dancer in the entire world, will choreograph the whole thing and attract the most incredible dancers to the ensemble. And then that all happens! And you get “Shuffle Along 2.0 or the Show That Could Have Been Amazing But Is Really Just Very Good”.
Yeah, not joking. All those amazing parts came together, but yet you are left feeling a little unsatisfied. You expect the show to really hit you and resonate with you, but it never fully makes that emotional connection. No matter how far I put out my feelers, the ones coming from their end never made contact. “Shuffle” is wonderfully exciting to watch for the most part, but it’s more like the original than it wanted to be: The score (the same score as the 1921 one) is great, the dancing is out of this world, but the book is a bit of a mess. Such a mess that, unlike most shows, “Shuffle” wisely took advantage of its preview period, making necessary changes night after night until the show was frozen. Unfortunately, this is one show that definitely could have benefited from an out-of-town tryout so it was in even better shape before the move to Broadway. Then it could have used previews to hone and tighten rather than reimagine and rewrite as much as it did. Because of the wattage of all the stars involved, an out-of-town tryout was nigh impossible, but I wonder what could have been possible if they made it happen. As it is now, “Shuffle” has a fine story in the first act, and you pull for them to make it to New York and have success and be able to buy train tickets and stuff. It is positively magical when Audra, one of the greatest divas of our time, sings as another great diva; when BSM sings because oh my god that voice (and they didn’t make nearly enough use of it); and when the ensemble dances to Savion’s insane choreography. I say insane both in the way I describe things that are amazing, and also in the way that means actually insane. Some of the dancing is almost manic, all maniacally energetic and so fast and disjointed and trippy that you can’t believe they aren’t falling down or convulsing but somehow they are still dancing. The ensemble really deserves as much credit for doing these moves as Savion deserves for making them do it.
But then much of it feels blank. My mind wandered a little in the first act and then a lot in the second, when they tell you how important everything that happened in the first act was and how monumental the original “Shuffle” was and how it affected all their lives, but they kind of just tell you. Repeatedly, yet nothing sticks. I know some people are still confused at what Joshua Henry’s Noble Sissle talks about in a monologue about how his former military officer was killed and made Noble promise to continue what he was doing by creating opportunities for black musicians…I think. It was obviously a really important moment, but it didn’t come across very strongly. There’s a lot of talk about how these men had such an important job to do and how meaningful what they did was, and it was of course, but this show didn’t do much to make you believe it and know it for yourself. Without any background about the original “Shuffle”, it’s not easy to jump in accepting how significant it really was. It’s a difficult task this show took on, and they do a good job, but not great.
The big dance numbers are the best parts of the show, by far. My favorite featured the ensemble split into two groups, facing each other, kind of having a dance-off but using crazy tap-as-weapons that looks like their feet are falling off. It was crazy fun. I wanted more of those kinds of numbers to fill the holes in the book. Luckily, the entire cast is terrific. Of course Audra and B(d)SM are phenomenal, and it’s really special, beyond special, to see them onstage together again after starring in “Ragtime” so many years ago. One of my favorite facts is that Brandon Victor Dixon, who plays Eubie Blake (one of the few creatives who had success after “Shuffle”), said his first Broadway show was “Ragtime”, starring his now his costars (and Audra plays his love interest). I love that! Hooray for this community! I also loved Billy Porter’s big number, “Broadway Blues” (I think). He gets a big bluesy number to bring the house down, and he does. It’s tailored to his talents – overdoing it, but in a fun way. It’s the perfect opportunity for him to let loose, because it works as this huge and exaggerated number, and it’s not bad if Billy overacts, which he sometimes does but we love him for it. And Adrienne Warren, Tony nominee for this show, was really fantastic pulling double-duty as Gertrude Sanders & Florence Mills. She really performed the two characters so distinctly and was truly lovely. Sadly, I don’t remember Joshua Henry getting to really shine on any song. He’s solidly good but has the smaller role of the four men, so his beautiful voice doesn’t get enough airtime. I loved loved the train station song that had Brian lifting the spirits of the ensemble, leading to some impeccable dancing, but I wanted Brian to sing more too. That voice is just velvet and I would have been happy if he (and Audra) just started singing the phone book (or “Ragtime”). I wish I could speak specifically on each song, but weirdly, there is no song list in the Playbill. This made sense during previews when the show was changing every night, but now it’s been frozen for a while so I don’t get it. I can say of course that “I’m Just Wild About Harry” was phenomenal, as sung by Audra, because that is the most famous song Sissle & Blake wrote so I’m pretty sure it was in there. RG.
The surprising thing to me, though, is that if “Hamilton” wasn’t around this season, “Shuffle” would be winning the Best New Musical Tony Award (it has already won the lead-up awards that Ham was eligible for last year). I’m kind of like whoa about it, because the book is a mess – which makes it all the more upsetting that some pundits think it should win the Best Book Tony over Hamilton just to spread the wealth. And, without this current cast, I have some doubts about how it will hold up. Audiences will get an answer to this sooner rather than later, as Audra’s preggernancy will bring in her replacement Rhiannon Giddens. I don’t know her, and I’m sure she is wicked talented, but a lot of the magic of this show came from knowing you were watching Audra, the greatest musical theatre actress maybe ever, play another famous singer. And a lot of the magic from watching the men’s scenes came from knowing you were watching a group of beloved Tony winners and nominees shine. Without a strong second act and with the importance of the original cast, it would be a winner on the weaker side. Still, as it is now, it’s a solid show with an all-star cast that I would jump at seeing onstage together again if I could. I am so lucky I saw it before Audra got preggers. She’s leaving soon, and I’ve heard reports that in the meantime she is sometimes a bit scaled back, probably because the alien inside her is making her nauseous. And it’s the best tap dancing you’ll see maybe ever. The story they are trying to tell is one of great importance, and I wish it was told a little more clearly, a little more cleanly. But you know, it did get me interested enough in the original “Shuffle” to do my own research into it. If other audience members do the same, and if a lot more people now know about the original show and what it did for African-Americans and for theatre, then that is a big success.
AUDIENCE
I think fine. One night when I didn’t have to yell at anyone! OH important note – this is a Scott Rudin production, and he famously does not allow late seating in his shows. If you miss the very start of the show, you don’t get to come in from the lobby until Act II, no joke. This is really great to stop all the shitheads who don’t think live theatre is important enough to stop them from hanging at the bar a little longer or stuff like that, but I do worry about the very few people who will be negatively affected who don’t deserve to be for reasons out of their control (read, I worry that one day I will be late). But for the most part it’s a good idea. I did hear from a few people that ushers at his shows don’t let you bring water bottles in, but that shit should be illegal and if anyone tried to take mine away I would have starting railing about all the amendments. ALL OF THEM.
STAGE DOOR
No one came out boooooo. I wanted to ask Brian to record my outgoing voicemail. Just kidding. Not really. #velvetteddybear
“The Autumn of My Springtime” at Tbilisi’s Marionette Theatre
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today we’re talking about “The Autumn of My Springtime”, at Tbilisi, Georgia’s famed Marionette Theatre.
Well, this is a first! Puppets scare me so I haven’t really sought out puppet shows – or as the fancy people call the fancier kind, ‘marionette theatre’. But a visit to the Rezo Gabriadze Theatre in Tbilisi, Georgia (not that Georgia) (unless you thought of the former-Soviet country (then you’d be right)) is one of the must-dos when visiting that city. I don’t know about you, but when I think marionette show, I think of John Cusack creepy AF in “Being John Malkovich”, a performance that still gives me nightmares because he made Malkovich’s entire life about creepy puppets?? Malko was in the og sunken place! So sad. Or I think of the ‘I got no strings to hold me down’ bit from Pinocchio and that’s equally terrifying so yeah, I’d usually say nah thanks to marionettes with their creepy faces and their creepy small but emotive hands. But now I will first think of Rezo Gabriadze’s surprisingly poignant show “The Autumn of My Springtime” and how wonderful it is. I’m not rushing out to see more scary puppets, but I fully insist that all Tbilisi visitors do.
The Gabriadze theatre performs their marionette shows in repertory, with current offerings including 4 well received plays written and directed by Rezo himself. Everyone (niche theatre reviewers) had been talking about one play in particular called “Stalingrad” which you can imagine is important in these parts so we were initially disappointed that a showing of that play didn’t line up with our free night in Tbilisi. But now I’m so glad that that show wasn’t on because the one we saw was fantastic. “The Autumn of My Springtime”, performed in Georgian with English supertitles, tells the story of an old Soviet couple, Valram and Domna, and their…pet? friend? confidante? bird named Boris. When the show begins with Boris the orange bird saying “Two things amaze me, morality and the stars”, you know shit’s gonna be interesting.
The show begins with old man Valram, a very old man indeed, talking to his bird-friend Boris about how tired his poor heart is. The puppeteers, five adults dressed in black, soon vanish into the background and you focus only on the intricate, perfectly tuned movements of the ancient doll. Anyone who has seen “Avenue Q” knows how easy it is to go from “How am I going to focus on the puppets and not stare at the human actors the entire time?” to “Omg I forgot these were puppets”. Valram’s hands lifting to gesture despite it taking all his energy was so realistic and moving that when he soon died (like five minutes in, so not a spoiler) (actually we’re going to be giving all the spoilers but odds are you aren’t seeing this so whatevs), it was quite sad.
So Boris takes it upon himself to look after Domna, the ancient wife of Valram, now that her husband is gone and she needs to pay the bills. Boris is often referred to endearingly (or maybe grammatically; it might just be a sentence structure thing but that’s less adorable) as Boria, and little Boria is all that Domna has now (though the relationship is still unclear) (as it is a bird). Domna’s mannerisms were like Valram’s, that precise articulation that makes you forget that they’re puppets. The work was so impressive. Boris the Bird’s puppeteer had a much less precise job, since the little orange shock of feathers really just had to keep fluttering the whole time, but he was onstage for most of the show and I assume that gets exhausting.
Boria sells all of Domna’s belongings to a moneylender friend to get her going, and I’m prettayyyyy sure the moneylender friend’s name was – I shit you not – SHALOM. At first I thought the dude riding the bicycle maniacally and singing about his life and money and biking was just repeatedly shouting Shalom so the audience knew he was a jew but I realized/husband told me that he was just shouting his name over and over, because that’s less weird, and that his name happened to be Shalom. Of course it was. And of course the moneylender was Jewish. Oh mild racism.
After the super random moneylender-on-a-giant-bicycle scene where I thought hmm this is kind of nutty, it went super off the rails nutty, to places I never could have imagined, yet remained, somehow, grounded in relatable humanity. The next scene featured little Boria going to the bank and talking to his friend…the statue on the door of the bank. The statue was named Dionidas, and he was in love with a girl who danced around nearby. Like a human girl, I think. He referred to her as his flora, his fauna, and Boris saw an opportunity in his friend’s love. Boris helps Dionidas the talking statue and the human lady reconcile, so the statue is supes happy and opens the doors (his torso?) and lets his birdfriend take some money from the bank. No big deal, easy as pie. The harder part is for Boria to find a way to give the money to Domna without her knowing that he robbed a bank. (Does it count as robbing if the guarding statue lets you take the money?) So he repeatedly just ‘happens’ to find oh a 25 ruble note here, a 25 ruble note there, for Domna’s benefit. When he tells her how he found each one, he begins by saying “Oh I laughed so hard, you wouldn’t believe how hard I laughed – I found this 25 ruble note in a tree/in a bucket/falling from an airplane/pinned to an accordionist’s face” (these are all real examples). Finally Domna is like “Stop lying to me ya damn bird! I know you didn’t just find this money!” but she does get all her possessions back from Shylock so she kind of doesn’t care?
There’s no time for figuring out Domna’s position on the matter though, because Boris is ready to parrrrtayyyyy. The bird (remember, this is a bird) goes to what looks like a British Christmas party with lots of drunk worker-looking men and lots of drunk women dressed like secretaries in a place that looks like a bowling alley. They forgo puppets for this scene and have mostly giant cardboard people bopping up and down. There’s a big toast Boris and the men give and this is literally what it was: “God bless Georgian heavy industry and its women with light morals!” Then Boris may have raped a woman but it was all very unclear considering that he is a bird and the woman was a gigantic cardboard cutout and before you can say ‘wait what the hell’ the cardboard cutouts of all the women lift up their skirts to show their underwear and I was like whaaaat isssss happpppening. This was by far the most random scene I’ve seen in pretty much anything ever. Also it was unnecessary; I don’t get why it was in this show, but I guess that toast was pretty good.
But things aren’t all fun and games for little Boria, because the cops may be on to him. He did rob a bank, remember? The cops – and one giant officer on a giant horse – barge into Domna’s house since she is his main known associate looking for the little ‘sky tramp’ as they amazingly call Boris. But Domna’s like ‘I haven’t seen him in a while but also I’m not his master or anything he is a wild bird who just happens to talk and do human stuff like rob banks and drink alcohol’ and the cops are like ‘well if you see him tell him he’s in big trouble mister because he robbed a bank and also he flew into a movie theatre and tried to kiss the projection of Vivian Leigh and ended up poking holes in the screen (this is a real thing they said) and also he is causing all kinds of problems and ruckus and the people are outraged because they hate sky tramps and we need to arrest him’ and despite Boris being the only friend she has in the world, Domna doesn’t really seem too broken up about it, but I guess that’s that Soviet external show of strength that babushkas pride themselves on.
Meanwhile, Boris is out flying by the window of a woman named Ninel, yes a human woman whom he is in love with. And she’s in love with him. We learn from their conversation that they fell in love in middle school (???) when she was trying to learn and he was flapping outside the window distracting her and now they can’t be together and they bemoan the fact by talking shit about Charles Darwin. I’m not kidding. Boria yells “Damn you Charles Darwin and your ape ancestors!” and Ninel cries “What did Charles Darwin ever know about love” and we were kicking each other so hard.
But unfortunately, the cops find Boris and trap him in a bucket (“anything but the bucket!” Boris screams) and he goes to jail, the awful kind where he has to wear black and white striped clothes on his tiny bird body and it’s kind of hilarious. Domna makes the arduous climb to visit him and despite her stern demeanor she shows how much she cares in their conversation about how he’s holding up. And in this exchange comes my favorite line in the whole thing that made me laugh so hard in a quiet theatre where no one else thought this was a particularly funny line but I was there CACKLING. Domna inquires about the conditions and, wanting to protect his health from the outside chill, she tells Boris: “Ask the other prisoners if you can change beds, farther from the window – tell them that you’re sick, say you’re a bird…” SAY YOU’RE A BIRD! HAHAHAHAH I was struggling not to scream-laugh. Like I’m p sure they’d know he was a bird from the start but I loveeee using that as an excuse.
Domna’s little peasant life is rocked quite a bit from the scandal, and she tries to avoid the prying eyes and unwelcome comments from nosy neighbors. But she can’t get away from one such neighbor, a very bad man who corners her and comments on Boris: “If he had raped someone, say a sparrow, or a pigeon, or a nightingale, I would have defended him, saying it was a crime of passion. But stealing money from the communal funds is unforgivable.” Man aliiive this is some commie bullshit! It reminded me of a North Korean movie I once saw that repeated lines like “all praise our great leader for allowing this” and “we are all important parts of the machine that makes our great country turn” or whatever crap like that from dictatorships. Yeesh.
Anyway, the day of Boris’s trial arrives, and since he’s hundo p guilty the big decision is whether Domna should be punished as an accomplice. Boria is adamant that his friend is innocent, even though she benefited from his crime, because she didn’t know and she’s just a poor old lady who will die soon anyway. The prosecutor is really mean and scary but luckily the judge – a GIGANTIC cardboard cutout of an old man in a double-breasted cardigan, because that’s what judges wear while sitting on the bench in any country – lets Domna go. Boris is sentenced to a life spent in a window display in a hunter’s shop, which is RULL disturbing but I guess better than the gulag? Boris asks for permission to give a speech before beginning his sentence and the judge allows it, and the speech he wanted to give was just to scream his lungs out at the mean prosecutor and it was SPELL-BINDING. The best part by far was when Boris A BIRD yells at him “I’LL SHIT ON YOUR FATHER’S GRAVE 23 TIMES YOU CROSS-EYED SCUM!” true story!
Okay I know I’ve shared all absolutely ridiculous or hilarious bits of this play and you’re probably thinking ‘um didn’t you say that this was moving and poignant” and it really was despite well everything I’ve been talking about. Through all the jokes and things I found to be funny even if they weren’t jokes, they were telling the story of a woman who had no hope in the world except this friend, who risked and gave up everything to help her survive. And to top that all off, he wasn’t human, yet he was the only one to show some humanity. And then he got kind of out of control and broke tons of laws but isn’t that the most human part of all? The ending packed a punch, with Boria in his shop window, passing his time, when the officer comes to visit and tells him to go mourn for Domna because no one else is. Yes, Domna has died, and Boris needs to pay his respects at her grave, which is next to Valram’s, where we began. Boris, however, is shot when he approaches – whether randomly, or by the hunter whose shop he sits in, or by the cops who may have set him up, it’s unclear (I’m going with the cops though) – and he struggles with all his might to make it atop his friends’ graves before his body gives out. It’s pretty dire, heartbreaking, as he makes it to his resting place with the people he cared about most. Boris says some deep stuff about humanity in his final moments as well as throughout the show, and despite being a bird, he nails the injustice and the sadness and the need for someone to care about you. And it’s quite lovely. AND he gives us incredible quotes that we’ve been shouting all week like SAY YOU’RE A BIRD! and “I’LL SHIT ON YOUR FATHER’S GRAVE 23 TIMES YOU CROSS-EYED SCUM!” Anyway, go see puppet shows if you are ever in Tbilisi. Amazing work, Rezo.
AUDIENCE
All Russian tourists who were pretty okay, although we prepped for it to be the worst audience ever since it was a tourist thing so anything better than that was a nice surprise.
THEATRE
The theatre is a semi-small single room upstairs from the nice wooden lobby. There are only two bathroom stalls but that wasn’t a problem for me because I had THE BEST SEAT and you need to get it if you go – B1. The second row, but the first seat on that aisle for some reason sticks much further out that all the other rows so I was closest to the door! Heyoooo! They also had this amazing No Cell Phone symbol in the corner of the ceiling, which I believe every single theatre should have.
Lobby
best seat ever
best sign ever
