January 19, 2023
Sweet Charity at the Donmar: Can This Retroactively Win the Olivier?by Randi / May 16, 2019You tell me Sally Field is coming to London, I’m gonna be there front and center holding up a big sign with GO SALLY! WE LIKE YOU! written in bubble letters. Metaphorically speaking, of course; I’m not a monster. So the chance to see the absolute ledge, what a ledge, perform live is something I’m grateful for. I’m glad I got to see her. What a treat.
You can tell I’m trying to delay talking at all about the play, huh? Okay, well let’s just say it’s fitting that I saw All My Sons at the Old Vic theatre in London in the same week I finished reading Zadie Smith’s book Swing Time, as both were not unpleasant to experience, but ‘not unpleasant’ is literally all I can say about them. There was nothing gripping about either work. While I liked watching both Sally and Bill Pullman (seriously, Bill Pullman! ledge on ledge!), everyone else felt slightly (or heavily) miscast and misdirected. It felt like Arthur Miller’s classic play has aged out of relevance, and rather than feeling like a noteworthy period piece, it instead felt like a dusty relic.
Sally and Bill (I met them; we’re friends) play a married couple of an adult son. Just one son. They had another son but he died in the war (sad). Two sons is still not enough for an ‘all’, you’re correct – the title phrase reveal was one of the only creative turns of phrase in the whole script. Anyway, so the dead son (sorry) had a sweetheart when he went off to war (as they do, as they do). Ever since – three years now – the girl, Ann, has been corresponding with the other (living) (sorry) son, Chris, and THEY now want to get married. This play was written in a time when it was SUPER NORMAL for a girl whose sweetheart died in war to marry the guy’s brother instead, and that is WEIRD. Luckily, the family also thinks it’s weird, but not in a women-aren’t-property-to-be-inherited-when-a-family-member-dies-that’s-super-gross way, more in the they-don’t-actually-believe-their-son-died way.
Turns out, War Son was only reported ‘disappeared’ those three years ago, so even though all signs point to Dead, Sally (let’s just call her Sally) is making herself sick holding onto any thread of hope that her son is alive. Which you can’t really fault her for, it’s so sad. Poor sad Sally! But even WITHOUT the hope that the son is still alive, it’s still super weird to sign off on your other son marrying the fiancee. Oof.
Anyway, the girl, Ann, comes to visit the family so she and Chris can announce the engagement, and we learn about the friction between the two families that exists for reasons other than brother-swapping weirdness. Bill and Ann’s father worked together, and some shady shit went down, but only Ann’s father ended up in jail. Did her father do crimes? Or was Bill guilty but got away with it by throwing Mr. Ann under the bus? The problem with this being the main conflict is that no one cares.
The other main problem with the show is that Chris (Colin Morgan, Merlin) is miscast, and without a strong Chris to really nail all the nuance and emotional beats and relationships, it all falls apart. His choices felt off, like surprisingly off; I’m surprised at the director here. The only confident, successful directorial choice was the very opening moment, with the house moving upstage amid flashing Americana television screens. I’m disappointed that that new, confident display of this classic work wasn’t continued at any other moment.
In fact, the only emotional beat that rang true was an extraordinarily minor moment between Ann’s brother George and a super-minor-character-neighbor-lady when they acknowledged that they would have ended up together had George not gone off to army, mother. It’s like, literally the neighbor lady’s only scene, so great job making your mark, but the fact that nothing else in the entire show felt as authentic is a shame. Of course, London audiences being as insane as they are, they laughed when George declines meeting her kids, even though it’s a heartbreaking moment, but that’s CLA (crazy London audiences) for you.
While I’m sure this play was revelatory in its time, what being about the problems with profiting from war and all the emotional turmoil it causes in its wake, it felt irrelevant today. And some of the twists seemed nonsensical. When Bill Pullman yells at his son (living) in the climax, he all of a sudden asks, “Was the money the problem? You had too much money?” and I literally went, “um, weird flex”, because that was literally the most random reaction to the argument, coming out of nowhere and clearly not the issue. Everything sort of felt untethered like that, disjointed and random. Even the big reveals at the end, both about Bill’s true actions regarding the crime and the other son’s disappearance, feel incredibly unsatisfying. (They also don’t make a ton of sense on examination. If Larry (dead son) knew about the dad’s trial and potential crime, that means it was at least MONTHS since the incident/arrest, and he never once spoke to his family to hear their response or thoughts? He just assumed his father was guilty and then decided to do what he did? do not buy it.)
And yet, despite all this disappointment in the play, I think Sally (and Bill, really) did a nice job. Poor sad Sally was literally shaking the entire time, but you believed that she was a grieving mother with too many traumas to keep in their appropriate boxes, leaving everything threatening to unravel. I just didn’t think this production was strong enough for her talents.
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The Convert at the Young Vic: Help Me Baby Jesus
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is The Convert, which just ended its run at the Young Vic but will probably be seen again soon.
At the end of 2018, I read that Letitia Wright was the most bankable star of the year, based on her appearance in two of the biggest blockbusters – Black Panther and Avengers: Yet Another – as well as Ready Player One. I thought wow, that’s a pretty big accomplishment for this what, teenager? what a lucky break for her. But it’s not luck (and she’s not a teenager, just blessed). Letitia Wright is a forking marvel (see what I did there) and deserves to bring in all the box office dollars, for screen or stage. As the star of the new play The Convert, Wright showed that she can do a lot more than turn all of modern science on its head and cure all injuries with alien metal and make cars that are being driven by a remote computer program or whatever, I can’t even wrap my head around what she did in Black Panther. What she did in The Convert, though, was prove that she has the ability to lead an intense stage work and to improve whatever she’s in with her dynamic presence.
And her costar in those two big blockbusters, Danai Gurira, has shown that she can do more than lead entire armies and be generally the baddest ass in the world. She can also write interesting, compelling, original plays, and produce works that satisfy a need in today’s theatre. Those of you in the know will be like, she didn’t ‘just’ prove any of this; she’s an accomplished playwright. But see, until the current ad campaign for this production of The Convert that went on about how the two Black Panther stars were reuniting, I didn’t know that General Okoye was the same person that wrote In the Continuum and freaking Eclipsed. She has a Tony nom! I didn’t know when I saw Black Panther that this total boss was a multi-award-winning playwright. If I did I would have pegged her to win the battle from the start.
Well that’s enough raving about the playwright and the star considering I thought this play, written in 2012, was just okay. I know, plot twist. The Convert takes place in 1895 in a village in Africa that is in the midst of being colonized by Bad White People. A young girl named Jekesai (Wright) escapes from an arranged marriage with the help of her aunt (Pamela Nomvete), who works for a prominent black man named Chilford (Paapa Essiedu). Whereas Jekesai and her aunt come from a family of the native tribal people, Chilford is much more westernized. He wears suits in the sweltering heat, compared to their less modest, more weather appropriate clothes. He speaks the Queen’s English (different queen then, if you can imagine) while they speak an African tongue. Most important, he has found Jesus, and he’s even a pastor of some sort, set on converting as many ‘savages’ as he can away from their pagan traditions. He agrees to let Jekesai stay in his house if she changes her name to Ester and begins on a serious journey towards Christianity. What starts off rather humorously (Wright’s first attempt at crossing herself is hysterical) and lighthearted (her aunt getting confused by which name to call her niece) turns serious and rather grim as Jekesai fully accepts a new life as Ester and takes her new religion to its extreme. In her acceptance, she scorns nearly all of her past life, including family and traditions, in the name of Jesus. It’s not funny anymore when she blesses herself; it’s upsetting, because you want to remind her that things are more important than blind faith. Things like family, or a semblance of reason.
While Ester is becoming a superfriend to Big J and trying to convert her fair share of villagers, the native people are getting less and less pleased with the white colonizers taking over things. We hear of more and more problems between the groups, growing in severity and breadth. The angry villagers are no longer just targeting white people; they’re targeting black people who get too close, or act too much like, the white people. People like Chilford, and his friend Chancellor (these names) and his fiancée Prudence, similarly westernized but less tight with Jesus, at least in Chancellor’s case (he’s a bad man). Chancy, as they call him, wants a piece of Ester, and he doesn’t understand what she means by no, or what Jesus says about cheating on your fiancee. One problem I had with this show is that we’re supposed to feel something, probably, about what befalls Chancy, but I was like, okay, justice served.
So about that. Ester’s place in the middle of two worlds begins to take a toll on her, reaching its climax when her uncle and cousin, big on the whole ‘kill whoever is white or acting white’ thing, break into Chilford’s home when she is there with Chancy. The encounter escalates into violence, whether accidental or not, and Ester’s deciding whether to protect her relatives or not in the face of the law builds in a way you can’t see coming.
Although the story is interesting, I didn’t get enough about the why of it all, why the characters were acting like this, why Ester would so fully commit to her conversion and take it beyond what was expected and then why she would react so terribly to the climactic events. I didn’t get enough of why Prudence would go so quickly from wanting to kill Ester’s cousin to agreeing to advocate for him. Her change literally happens in the span of 2-3 lines, and there’s no real reason shoring up her behavior unless it’s simply that allegiance to your people and the need to fight together against your oppressors should overcome everything else, even love and justice. I mean it sounds right, difficult but right, but her change of heart happened so unexpectedly that it took me out of the play’s universe for a minute.
I also expected some slight recognition that the church maybe wasn’t the answer to everything. Ester’s actions at the end were shocking and awful, but the awfulness of them seemed to be brushed aside with her request for forgiveness from Jesus and from her spiritual leader, Chilford. I get that forgiveness is like Real Big in Christianity but I don’t think it should just be given away as a matter of procedure. It should be earned or deserved. And maybe in this situation, there’s nothing to be gained from having Chilford hold out on doling it out when it’s not his to give, and when it’s not deserved. However, the impression that she actually was forgiven bothered me. I guess Jesus will have the last say and everything but I really wanted to look around at the audience and just reassure myself by getting everyone to agree that what she did was wrong, right, y’all know that was wrong? I just wanted to be sure.
Apart from my feeling that there was a lack of apparent motivations, overall it was a compelling look into identity amid adversity and trauma. I’m still thinking about how I feel about certain aspects of it, which is the sign of a successful work. And despite my qualms, it’s definitely a worthwhile show, especially this production. The acting was mostly great, and I really liked how they made use of the in-the-round setting. It added tension to be so close to this distress, and it made everything more urgent and wrenching, adding layers of emotion to this show. Most of all, it was a showcase for Wright, who is a welcome addition to the London stage and will surely be considered one of the greats of her generation in no time.
Well that’s enough raving about the playwright and the star considering I thought this play, written in 2012, was just okay. I know, plot twist. The Convert takes place in 1895 in a village in Africa that is in the midst of being colonized by Bad White People. A young girl named Jekesai (Wright) escapes from an arranged marriage with the help of her aunt (Pamela Nomvete), who works for a prominent black man named Chilford (Paapa Essiedu). Whereas Jekesai and her aunt come from a family of the native tribal people, Chilford is much more westernized. He wears suits in the sweltering heat, compared to their less modest, more weather appropriate clothes. He speaks the Queen’s English (different queen then, if you can imagine) while they speak an African tongue. Most important, he has found Jesus, and he’s even a pastor of some sort, set on converting as many ‘savages’ as he can away from their pagan traditions. He agrees to let Jekesai stay in his house if she changes her name to Ester and begins on a serious journey towards Christianity. What starts off rather humorously (Wright’s first attempt at crossing herself is hysterical) and lighthearted (her aunt getting confused by which name to call her niece) turns serious and rather grim as Jekesai fully accepts a new life as Ester and takes her new religion to its extreme. In her acceptance, she scorns nearly all of her past life, including family and traditions, in the name of Jesus. It’s not funny anymore when she blesses herself; it’s upsetting, because you want to remind her that things are more important than blind faith. Things like family, or a semblance of reason.
While Ester is becoming a superfriend to Big J and trying to convert her fair share of villagers, the native people are getting less and less pleased with the white colonizers taking over things. We hear of more and more problems between the groups, growing in severity and breadth. The angry villagers are no longer just targeting white people; they’re targeting black people who get too close, or act too much like, the white people. People like Chilford, and his friend Chancellor (these names) and his fiancée Prudence, similarly westernized but less tight with Jesus, at least in Chancellor’s case (he’s a bad man). Chancy, as they call him, wants a piece of Ester, and he doesn’t understand what she means by no, or what Jesus says about cheating on your fiancee. One problem I had with this show is that we’re supposed to feel something, probably, about what befalls Chancy, but I was like, okay, justice served.
So about that. Ester’s place in the middle of two worlds begins to take a toll on her, reaching its climax when her uncle and cousin, big on the whole ‘kill whoever is white or acting white’ thing, break into Chilford’s home when she is there with Chancy. The encounter escalates into violence, whether accidental or not, and Ester’s deciding whether to protect her relatives or not in the face of the law builds in a way you can’t see coming.
Although the story is interesting, I didn’t get enough about the why of it all, why the characters were acting like this, why Ester would so fully commit to her conversion and take it beyond what was expected and then why she would react so terribly to the climactic events. I didn’t get enough of why Prudence would go so quickly from wanting to kill Ester’s cousin to agreeing to advocate for him. Her change literally happens in the span of 2-3 lines, and there’s no real reason shoring up her behavior unless it’s simply that allegiance to your people and the need to fight together against your oppressors should overcome everything else, even love and justice. I mean it sounds right, difficult but right, but her change of heart happened so unexpectedly that it took me out of the play’s universe for a minute.
I also expected some slight recognition that the church maybe wasn’t the answer to everything. Ester’s actions at the end were shocking and awful, but the awfulness of them seemed to be brushed aside with her request for forgiveness from Jesus and from her spiritual leader, Chilford. I get that forgiveness is like Real Big in Christianity but I don’t think it should just be given away as a matter of procedure. It should be earned or deserved. And maybe in this situation, there’s nothing to be gained from having Chilford hold out on doling it out when it’s not his to give, and when it’s not deserved. However, the impression that she actually was forgiven bothered me. I guess Jesus will have the last say and everything but I really wanted to look around at the audience and just reassure myself by getting everyone to agree that what she did was wrong, right, y’all know that was wrong? I just wanted to be sure.
Apart from my feeling that there was a lack of apparent motivations, overall it was a compelling look into identity amid adversity and trauma. I’m still thinking about how I feel about certain aspects of it, which is the sign of a successful work. And despite my qualms, it’s definitely a worthwhile show, especially this production. The acting was mostly great, and I really liked how they made use of the in-the-round setting. It added tension to be so close to this distress, and it made everything more urgent and wrenching, adding layers of emotion to this show. Most of all, it was a showcase for Wright, who is a welcome addition to the London stage and will surely be considered one of the greats of her generation in no time.
“Three Tall Women” on Broadway: A Magnificent Revival for the Ages
It’s…not Theatre Thursday, but this production closes on Broadway today and I didn’t realize.
Joe Mantello is a magician. Not a director, not an actor, a magician. Everything I’ve seen him do, whether it be acting or directing (okay, he is an actor and a director), is flawless, and his direction of the latest revival of “Three Tall Women” is that again, plus all the other superlatives you could think of. Of course, Joey M had the benefit of directing some of the best actresses of the modern age, as well as the rich source material of this challenging, thrilling play. I was unfamiliar with this particular Edward Albee classic, but I am happy to say that it continued the trend of my enjoying and appreciating Albee’s plays, which is a nice change of pace from my reactions to other playwright kings (*cough* Pinter *cough* Mamet*). I bought tickets to TTW superfast because Glenda Jackson, the closest you can get to royalty without being royal, was making her big return to Broadway after her amazing life of winning two Oscars, playing King Lear in London, and…serving in Parliament for more than twenty years. I had to go see the f-ing thing!
Joe Mantello is a magician. Not a director, not an actor, a magician. Everything I’ve seen him do, whether it be acting or directing (okay, he is an actor and a director), is flawless, and his direction of the latest revival of “Three Tall Women” is that again, plus all the other superlatives you could think of. Of course, Joey M had the benefit of directing some of the best actresses of the modern age, as well as the rich source material of this challenging, thrilling play. I was unfamiliar with this particular Edward Albee classic, but I am happy to say that it continued the trend of my enjoying and appreciating Albee’s plays, which is a nice change of pace from my reactions to other playwright kings (*cough* Pinter *cough* Mamet*). I bought tickets to TTW superfast because Glenda Jackson, the closest you can get to royalty without being royal, was making her big return to Broadway after her amazing life of winning two Oscars, playing King Lear in London, and…serving in Parliament for more than twenty years. I had to go see the f-ing thing!
The other Two Tall Women were played by Alison Pill, who I like, and Laurie Metcalf, who I would probably engage in sword fight to protect. I’ve been lucky enough to see her onstage several times and every time, she’s Streeping it up like nothing you ever imagined. Those Steppenwolf actors really know how to make characters come alive. She’s in her Tony-winning element here, hilarious in the first scene and given the meatiest dramatic monologues in the second, and although her Tony was an upset over Denise Gough in “Angels in America”, it was so deserved.
So, this play is Albee’s answer to the question of what goes through your mind when you face the moment of death, and it’s the most unique answer I’ve ever heard. It also deals with the inevitability of fate and how much it sucks to be old and how much you change as you grow old and how funny and heartbreaking Laurie Metcalf can be in the span of a few minutes. Well that last part’s not what the play is about but that’s what happens. The play is about a 92-year-old woman (played by Glenda) who is, well, 92. She old for the earth. But she’s hella fancy, and even though she’s ancient and frail, you can tell she’s rich and still able to exude a touch of the glamour she certainly had in spades years ago. She’s in her well-appointed bedroom with her strong, candid caretaker lady (Metcalf) who has the driest sense of humor and manages to make even her lines about how often the old lady pees the bed hilarious. She says that the lady’s daily doing-so is just her greeting to the day, and her delivery is, like gum, perfection.
These Two Tall Women have their regular routine disrupted by a young lawyer (Alison Pill) from the firm that handles the old lady’s finances. The youngen (the Third Tall Woman) is understandably frustrated, since the lady never returns the documents they send or keeps track of her paperwork. It’s a mess handling her money, and the lawyer grows ever more impatient with her task as the lady repeats hazy memories of her childhood in various ways instead of answering questions. The lawyer’s irritation is with the lady personally and with what happens to the mind of the elderly in general, and Metcalf’s caretaker is irritated by the lawyer’s irritation and she tries to get her to stop fighting them and accept that this is what happens when you get old. The three of them trade barbs amid Glenda’s stories, mainly about her sister and her mother, who, we are told repeatedly except when it is transferred to stories about her father, was ‘strict but fair.’
Glenda is a force in this role, which seems like it was written especially for her. Not only did she win the Tony, she won this year’s Distinguished Performance award from the Drama League, which is my favorite award of the year because only one performer gets it – no male/female, lead/supporting bullshit, ONE performance. And there was no question that she was winning it. Seeing her perform was an honor. Her rapport with Laurie’s straight-talking character is lovely in its candor and kindness, as Laurie helps steer her many stories forward but never by correcting her many mistakes. It’s clear Laurie has dealt with this for a long time and knows it’s best to let Glenda think she remembers her life accurately. The interaction between these two actors is that of masters, and Alison holds her on when thrown in there as well. You’ll notice I’m not using character names – they don’t have them. In the play, they’re listed simply as A, B, and C. Despite being specific women in this first scene, the nameless thing makes sense because they are such archetypes of their ages – the older lady who has been through it all, seen it all, and is getting it all kind of confused, and who demands to be placated by the younger women; the middle-aged woman steeped in the inevitability and effects of aging and thus resigned to the fact that we’re ‘dying from the day we’re born’; and the hotheaded, intolerant youth who thinks she knows more than everyone. In Scene 2 (the play is in two halves but I can’t say Act I or Act II because there’s no intermission, and I had to pee badly but it really was for the best, pacing-wise), the specific-yet-general form of their characters becomes even more meaningful, as they continue to fight about stages of life but with more emotional impact.
At the end of Scene 1, Glenda’s character has a heart attack or a stroke, some kind of serious incident, and the lights go out. After a pause, the lights rise, and Glenda is lying in the bed, which is now turned so her head is closest to us and the whole thing pushed farther away from us upstage, separated from the audience by a plexiglass/mirror barrier. Is she dead? Dying? Her hand flutters a bit, her head moves every now and then, so she’s not dead yet. But then all Three Tall Women – Glenda included – burst into the room. Our side of the room, which looks like it did before, only now we’re on this side of the transparent barrier, so we can all see Glenda, or whoever it is, lying in that bed like a one-sided reflection. They’re all dressed up like they just came from a fancy cocktail party, and much friendlier and more comfortable with each other than they were before. Who ARE these people, I wondered for a minute before it became clear.
Listen, I know I spoil pretty much everything I write about, but the moment in the beginning of Scene 2 when I realized what was happening, I gasped. I had no inkling what the central conceit was, or that there even was one. And I was not familiar with this play at all. Even though this production, this flawless, magical production, is closing today, it’s still a freaking Albee classic so there is a good chance you will get the chance to see it one day. And if you do, and you don’t already know what it’s about, I don’t want to spoil this realization for you because it was astounding. Everything made so much more sense and it was almost overwhelming how brilliantly it all played out. It’s absolute genius that struck me in a way few plays ever are able to.
Of course no set design this year can compare with the actual magic happening at the Harry Potter theatre, but part of me was wishing for this to win the Tony for set design, because that plexiglass barrier is so much more than meets the eye. The barrier between the two versions of that bedroom and what they, and the barrier itself, represent, was clever stage magic of the old school variety. How they managed to get certain things to reflect on themselves wherever the mirror was while others – namely, the three women – did not, I will never understand. And it’s ironic, because that’s all the three women do while in this antechamber version of the room: reflect on themselves. The only thing more astonishing that the central concept and how well it’s reinforced, and the incredibly nuanced expert acting, and the staging, and the directing, and everything, is the very last moment, which thank god is followed by the blackout because it rips you apart with its genius. Similar in nature to the final moment of “Hamilton”, it brings everything about the play together in one simple, sad, sweet act, and I gasped again so hard it was like a scream. So without saying anything more, we can simply say that this production forked me up big time. If I had one play-related wish to make, it would be that this was recorded for the Lincoln Center archives and that they decide to let PBS air it so everyone’s lives can be so enriched.
INFORMATION
I mean it’s closing today. If PBS doesn’t air it, get a NYC library card and then join the waitlist to watch it at Lincoln Center archives. Worth it.
STAGE DOOR
I saw a matinee so only Alison Pill came out. Honestly I don’t know what I’d think of the world if it was one where Glenda Jackson stage-doored.
So, this play is Albee’s answer to the question of what goes through your mind when you face the moment of death, and it’s the most unique answer I’ve ever heard. It also deals with the inevitability of fate and how much it sucks to be old and how much you change as you grow old and how funny and heartbreaking Laurie Metcalf can be in the span of a few minutes. Well that last part’s not what the play is about but that’s what happens. The play is about a 92-year-old woman (played by Glenda) who is, well, 92. She old for the earth. But she’s hella fancy, and even though she’s ancient and frail, you can tell she’s rich and still able to exude a touch of the glamour she certainly had in spades years ago. She’s in her well-appointed bedroom with her strong, candid caretaker lady (Metcalf) who has the driest sense of humor and manages to make even her lines about how often the old lady pees the bed hilarious. She says that the lady’s daily doing-so is just her greeting to the day, and her delivery is, like gum, perfection.
These Two Tall Women have their regular routine disrupted by a young lawyer (Alison Pill) from the firm that handles the old lady’s finances. The youngen (the Third Tall Woman) is understandably frustrated, since the lady never returns the documents they send or keeps track of her paperwork. It’s a mess handling her money, and the lawyer grows ever more impatient with her task as the lady repeats hazy memories of her childhood in various ways instead of answering questions. The lawyer’s irritation is with the lady personally and with what happens to the mind of the elderly in general, and Metcalf’s caretaker is irritated by the lawyer’s irritation and she tries to get her to stop fighting them and accept that this is what happens when you get old. The three of them trade barbs amid Glenda’s stories, mainly about her sister and her mother, who, we are told repeatedly except when it is transferred to stories about her father, was ‘strict but fair.’
Glenda is a force in this role, which seems like it was written especially for her. Not only did she win the Tony, she won this year’s Distinguished Performance award from the Drama League, which is my favorite award of the year because only one performer gets it – no male/female, lead/supporting bullshit, ONE performance. And there was no question that she was winning it. Seeing her perform was an honor. Her rapport with Laurie’s straight-talking character is lovely in its candor and kindness, as Laurie helps steer her many stories forward but never by correcting her many mistakes. It’s clear Laurie has dealt with this for a long time and knows it’s best to let Glenda think she remembers her life accurately. The interaction between these two actors is that of masters, and Alison holds her on when thrown in there as well. You’ll notice I’m not using character names – they don’t have them. In the play, they’re listed simply as A, B, and C. Despite being specific women in this first scene, the nameless thing makes sense because they are such archetypes of their ages – the older lady who has been through it all, seen it all, and is getting it all kind of confused, and who demands to be placated by the younger women; the middle-aged woman steeped in the inevitability and effects of aging and thus resigned to the fact that we’re ‘dying from the day we’re born’; and the hotheaded, intolerant youth who thinks she knows more than everyone. In Scene 2 (the play is in two halves but I can’t say Act I or Act II because there’s no intermission, and I had to pee badly but it really was for the best, pacing-wise), the specific-yet-general form of their characters becomes even more meaningful, as they continue to fight about stages of life but with more emotional impact.
At the end of Scene 1, Glenda’s character has a heart attack or a stroke, some kind of serious incident, and the lights go out. After a pause, the lights rise, and Glenda is lying in the bed, which is now turned so her head is closest to us and the whole thing pushed farther away from us upstage, separated from the audience by a plexiglass/mirror barrier. Is she dead? Dying? Her hand flutters a bit, her head moves every now and then, so she’s not dead yet. But then all Three Tall Women – Glenda included – burst into the room. Our side of the room, which looks like it did before, only now we’re on this side of the transparent barrier, so we can all see Glenda, or whoever it is, lying in that bed like a one-sided reflection. They’re all dressed up like they just came from a fancy cocktail party, and much friendlier and more comfortable with each other than they were before. Who ARE these people, I wondered for a minute before it became clear.
Listen, I know I spoil pretty much everything I write about, but the moment in the beginning of Scene 2 when I realized what was happening, I gasped. I had no inkling what the central conceit was, or that there even was one. And I was not familiar with this play at all. Even though this production, this flawless, magical production, is closing today, it’s still a freaking Albee classic so there is a good chance you will get the chance to see it one day. And if you do, and you don’t already know what it’s about, I don’t want to spoil this realization for you because it was astounding. Everything made so much more sense and it was almost overwhelming how brilliantly it all played out. It’s absolute genius that struck me in a way few plays ever are able to.
Of course no set design this year can compare with the actual magic happening at the Harry Potter theatre, but part of me was wishing for this to win the Tony for set design, because that plexiglass barrier is so much more than meets the eye. The barrier between the two versions of that bedroom and what they, and the barrier itself, represent, was clever stage magic of the old school variety. How they managed to get certain things to reflect on themselves wherever the mirror was while others – namely, the three women – did not, I will never understand. And it’s ironic, because that’s all the three women do while in this antechamber version of the room: reflect on themselves. The only thing more astonishing that the central concept and how well it’s reinforced, and the incredibly nuanced expert acting, and the staging, and the directing, and everything, is the very last moment, which thank god is followed by the blackout because it rips you apart with its genius. Similar in nature to the final moment of “Hamilton”, it brings everything about the play together in one simple, sad, sweet act, and I gasped again so hard it was like a scream. So without saying anything more, we can simply say that this production forked me up big time. If I had one play-related wish to make, it would be that this was recorded for the Lincoln Center archives and that they decide to let PBS air it so everyone’s lives can be so enriched.
INFORMATION
I mean it’s closing today. If PBS doesn’t air it, get a NYC library card and then join the waitlist to watch it at Lincoln Center archives. Worth it.
STAGE DOOR
I saw a matinee so only Alison Pill came out. Honestly I don’t know what I’d think of the world if it was one where Glenda Jackson stage-doored.
