An Electric, Exuberant Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Bridge Theatreby Randi / July 16, 2019It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Present Laughter at the Old Vic, playing until August 10.
Noel Coward is such a goofball, am I right?! In one of his classic plays, Present Laughter, he basically goes autobiographical and has a jolly old time caricaturing his own outsized persona. Representing Coward is the lead character Garry Essendine, a famous actor who has several romantic exploits and several exaggerated breakdowns over the course of the few days we see. More than anything, Present Laughter is a vehicle for a star to have the time of his life as Garry. Recently, Kevin Kline won a Tony for his portrayal, because he was probably perfect as always. The draw of this current Old Vic production is Andrew Scott, hot off his stint as the hot priest on the universally acclaimed Fleabag. The show is worth seeing for his fantastic performance, but the changes to the source material are less than ideal.
While the show starts out strong, with an impeccable, uproariously funny first act, it quickly turns maddening, as all farce and farce-adjacent work tends to do. Andrew’s Garry wakes the show by trying to usher out a flaky one-night-stand named Daphne Stillington (a very funny Kitty Archer; they could have swapped the real and character names for perhaps an improvement) amid the judgmental eyes of his household staff (all three the steady highlights of the show). With this material, Andrew gets to play so much, it’s amazing. He shines so bright, so pitch perfect and hilarious in this first act that it’s almost distasteful. He looks to be having the time of his life, relishing some of Coward’s funniest lines and his ability to turn the regular ones into the funniest lines.
But then, it starts farcing all over the place and it took all my might to not shout at everyone to just communicate better. Okay so in this 1940s play, they were obsessed with marital affairs to get their minds off war. Garry is dealing with an issue in his close-knit ‘family’ of people who work for him: his secretary Monica, his ex-wife Liz who is still pretty much his wife, his manager Morris, his producer Henry. Henry is married to Joanna, who is rumored to be having an affair with Morris. Monica has a serious conversation with Garry about finding out whether this is true about Morris and Joanna, and instead of Garry trying to put a stop to this lest it destroy their little family, Garry goes and shtupps Joanna himself. Bad call Gar! As people find out, things get SHOUTY, like MAN ALIVE SHOUTY, and Garry gets apoplectic a lot, like a LOT a lot, and Morris is like BUT I LOVE JOANNA, and Henry is like BUT SHE’S MY WIFE (and John Mulaney is like THAT’S MY WIFE) and Daphne for some reason comes back to audition for a theatre school?, and Liz is like I’m fine and calm because monayyyyy, and for some reason Garry’s staff KEEPS LETTING some random stranger INTO HIS HOUSE who is very clearly going to murder everyone in the sequel (Luke Thallon was so funny as Roland but OMG) and everyone’s like WHEEEE THIS IS CRAZY and I’m like MY BLOOD PRESSURE.
But in this production, because, I’m guessing, people realized that the whole idea of three rich men fighting over a married woman like she’s property is…kinda gross, they took a note from the recent success of the Company revival and had some fun with gender switches! In theory, I love this idea, because it would have been too outdated and frustrating to watch Joanna get treated simultaneously like a piece of meat and an uncontrollable hoo-er. So, in theory, they made the right call making Joanna now ‘Joe’, a man, married to the producer ‘Helen’, a woman. This change does several things. First, it makes literally everyone in the cast bisexual, which, okay fine, I’ll go along with that (“it’s 2018! More people should be bi! It’s like, get over yourselves!”). But it throws off the dynamic like hella hard, because the casting is not done well. There’s no way the couplings in the show would happen and I just couldn’t buy it. But most of all, worst of all, the actor playing Joe is miscast. Whereas Joanna is a flighty and glamorous young woman who seduces all these men but like is fun, Joe is a too-serious, gloomy, severe mufucka who brings the action to a screeching halt. It makes no sense that Garry would say anything to him when he comes a’knocking other than like “gtfo my house you’re in the wrong show, this is a fun one not an Italian murder mystery where you’re clearly the butler and you clearly did it.” With the wrong actor playing Joe, you’re just like, why.
The changes continue in the same direction the quality of play goes in after that first act. Most of all, I was disappointed in the ending. Through all of Garry’s breakdowns, all his mid-life crises and all his issues he’s clearly dealing with, it’s clear most of all he wants someone to love the real him and cure his loneliness. (Oh another burning question I had several times: why doesn’t this famous actor have a bodyguard or someone who actually sleeps at his house to prevent 100 of the annoying things that happen.) It’s obvious throughout the play that his ex-wife Liz is still this person, and at the end they reconcile. In this version, after Liz announces that she’s coming back to him, and you expect Garry to be like YES PLEASE THANK GOD I NEED YOU, he literally is silent, and walks over to the window while he has a drink, and I truly thought he was going to jump out the window. It was a weird vibe and did not work for me, and definitely not as an ending. It made the original ending of Pippin look like a Mamma Mia!-style dance party.
Regardless, it’s still overall a fun time, and it’s worth seeing Andrew shine in a role that seems tailor-made for him.
INFORMATION
Get ready for big bunches of small purple fruit as said by an Australian because I have me some gripes. First of all, yes the Old Vic is still under hella construction, which you can’t hold against them. But I am so over theatres not giving paper tickets at will call and telling you to just use your phone, and it was an especially bad move here: Given all the construction, the staff have to check your tickets frequently because to get to the temporary toilet area or the bar you have to leave the building entirely (toilets are outside only on one side! Don’t sit upstairs you’ll never get there!). But hi, hello, this is the theatre, where people should be TURNING THEIR PHONES OFF! Everyone stop with the e-tickets please and thank you. Any decent people have shut their phones off.
Secondly, speaking of phones, London theatres in general need to forking quit it with those little white NO PHONES signs that two ushers in dark corners of the theatre hold up like any forking person in the audience notices them. Make a GOTTAM preshow announcement that everyone must shut their phones off and not use them during the show like a GROWN ASS ADULT.
Third, there was a super frustrating technical problem that I’m not even sure the stage managers or lighting people realized: During most of the show, an amber light was reflected out of the mirror by Garry’s bar table, and it was blinding us from looking at the stage. INFURIATING. That’s the kind of technical thing you’d think would have been caught and handled by now. It was the worst in the 20-minute scene right before the interval and for most of Act II (so, just Act I was fine (maybe that’s why it was my favorite, because I was able to watch it without corneal damage)).
Lastly (lol am I ever done), I am sick and tired of plays trying to establish characterization with smoking. Literally, I am sick and tired from it, because it gives me breathing issues. If you can’t establish something without having an actor harm their own health with cigarettes, then you aren’t doing a good job.
Oh I thought of another: I am tired of the Old Vic’s boring af programmes and show art. For the love of god add an image. I’m not going to pay $5 for block letters and weird color schemes.
STAGE DOOR
This is the saddest part for me to recount, because I love(d) Andrew Scott. Who doesn’t adore the Hot Priest? I was excited to see that the stage door (wisely) had a barricade up and a security guard at the ready, telling everyone to line up in single file and that you could either get an autograph from OR a photo with Andrew. So with things progressing like that, with a security guard already taking care of business, with maybe 80 people already lined up?? all of that suggests that Andrew was coming out. Now, I’m the first person to state that actors have no obligation to come to the stage door (hell, they have no business doing it; why on earth would anyone want to greet a crazy mob) and that they should absolutely not face any scrutiny for not doing it. BUT, that’s a different situation from lining up your crowd in single file, making sure they know all your rules, &c…and then making them wait a frankly offensive amount of time. I’d be saying absolutely nothing except ‘good on you’ if he had decided not to stage door. But to make sure his crowd was organized to his requirements and then just not come out for hours is plain rude, showing zero respect for anyone’s time. That security and staff waiting outside (but hidden from our view after a while so they didn’t have to answer any questions) didn’t relay any message was bullshit. We left after about 50 minutes of waiting, but I was told on the socials that Andrew came out at about 11:40 – an hour after we left. That sucks. Just don’t come out if you don’t want to! But to make people wait and wait and not say anything is a weird kind of torture, and it sucks.
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It’s Tony Awards Weekend! Thoughts and Hopes and Prayers and Stuff
Woof. And I don’t mean in the adorable doggie way. What a season we’ve had on Broadway this year! To be clear, I’m mostly talking about the musicals; I haven’t seen many plays this year. (Which is a shame, because the plays are a lot better.) But I’ve seen a lot of musicals, and man alive. Only one new musical was actually of the high caliber we expect on Broadway. Sure the others were still better than a lot of musicals on the West End (I will not stop criticizing West End musicals until they learn to live up to their potential), but nowhere close to what we would expect from Broadway professionals who shouldn’t be rushing apparent first drafts of work to the stage. Yet a lot of what is now playing in NYC feels exactly like that: first drafts that no one had the balls to say ‘wait this needs more work’ about before letting it go live and risking millions and millions of dollars. The worst part is that there are no new stories being told: Although our hero of the year, “The Band’s Visit”, feels new and fresh, it is actually derived from an Israeli film. Which is fine and well and good, especially since it’s a little known film so the story isn’t overdone in the least. But its three major competitors are much more well known and the sort where for even one of them you’d be like, that’s a Broadway musical now? but when you have all three together you are the embodiment of the smack-my-head emoji all day err day.
I’m talking of course about “Mean Girls”, “Frozen”, and “Spongebob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical” (real title)(is this the first Broadway musical to put ‘Broadway musical’ in its title??), all of which come from uber familiar properties and capitalize on existing fan bases. Although “Spongebob” actually exceeds expectations (and actually by a lot), it is still essentially silly fun best for kids, and although it deserves its 12 Tony nominations, it doesn’t deserve to win Best Musical (or Book, or Score). “Mean Girls” and “Frozen”, on the other hand, based on the decent-to-great movies, have been bloated beyond necessity to necessitate an intermission. The former has an unremarkable, boring score (not exactly the thing you want in a musical) and a too-long and stuffed structure, while the latter has shoehorned in new, uninspired songs and played with the structure like it’s Play-Doh in order to make “Let It Go” the finale of Act I, even though it occurs early in the movie. I don’t need to say anything about the other new musicals of the season, like “Escape to Margaritaville” (jukebox show of Jimmy Buffett songs…whooooo exactly was crying out for this?), “Summer” (jukebox show of Donna Summer…again I ask…), and “Rocktopia” (a rock concert that mashes up rock & roll with classical music and doesn’t pay its performers Equity standard), except to say that y’all should be ashamed of yourselves. Where is all the deep consideration that makes musical theatre art? And I’m looking for a better answer than “over at ‘The Band’s Visit.’” We need fresh stories that reflect all sorts of human experiences now, especially now, and to think that the best vehicle for those – the Broadway musical – is failing us so miserably is heartbreaking for me.
Fortunately, the musical revivals were a whole lot better than the newbies, for the most part. All three of them. One wasn’t so good, as you saw yesterday, but the other two were SO good that it almost makes up not only for the musical revivals as a whole but for the entire musical theatre season. That’s pretty f-ing incredible, and they really are. The race is a toss-up right now between the two (I really truly hope just between the two, but you never know what kind of insane shit voters can pull) and honestly I don’t know where I would send my vote if I had one (and I should have one; have you seen how many Tony voters abstain from categories because they haven’t seen them all yet? YOU HAVE ONE JOB).
At least we’re still getting the gift of great performances, as the best of the best of Broadway and beyond (I told you the best of the UK always ends up in NYC) are (mostly) giving their all 8 (mostly) times a week. Consequently, the acting races are hard to call and pretty darn stacked, so despite the lackluster season, the actual Tony Awards promise to be more exciting than in recent years, when gigantic hits were guaranteed certain awards. Let’s talk it through, team! MY choices are bold; my predictions are in the text (I want the impossible sometimes so the two don’t match up.)
BEST MUSICAL
- The Band’s Visit
- Frozen
- Mean Girls
- Spongebob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical
Sure I haven’t published reviews for all of them yet but the only one you really need to read is “The Band’s Visit”. Even in a better year, it stands out as a very special show, a show that’s definitively for adults and doesn’t try to pad its story, instead believing that purity of emotion, honest experiences, and connections between regular people are enough. And the score is gorgeous, funny, moving, all the things you want in a musical, yet it also sounds new and different from anything we’ve heard before. It’s a master work and deserves to win big on Sunday.
The worst part about this awards season, though, is that everything is a matter of timing. Last season was absolutely overflowing with quality productions, and it was so full that great shows barely garnered any award nominations because there was simply no room, and then they barely won any awards against the “Dear Evan Hansen” behemoth. This year, with “The Band’s Visit” really the only great show in the mix, so many of last year’s incredible shows could have gotten the acclaim they deserve. I’m thinking of “Bandstand”, which in a less crowded year would have racked up deserved nominations in most categories; I’m thinking of “Groundhog Day” which could have finally won Andy Karl a Tony; and even my beloved “Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812”, which had so many nominations, could have won more in this weak season. Nevertheless, “The Band’s Visit” is winning Best Musical this year, and deservedly so. If anything else happens on Sunday, the entire audience should walk out in protest. Not that anyone should care about silly awards, but come on everyone does.
BEST REVIVAL OF A MUSICAL
- Carousel
- My Fair Lady
- Once on This Island
This is the hardest category for me to choose just one. As we’ve discussed, “Carousel” was disappointing, but the other two revivals this season were extraordinary. “My Fair Lady” and “Once on This Island” were both exquisite, magical productions that I feel lucky to have seen. Honestly they were two of the best productions I’ve seen, ever, in any season, and so it’s just too bad that only one can win the Tony. MFL was as great a production of the familiar, beloved property that anyone could wish for, with every inch of it lush and gorgeous and riveting. OOTI is a less well known show but this production makes it seem like one of the classics, with incredible music and a heart that thumps so loudly and vividly that you can almost see it. When two shows are this perfect (104% perfect, as is the limit), it’s hard to choose between them, but when forced I will choose the one that is perfect but also reinvents the show to such an extent as to make it seem new and more exciting than ever, and that is “Once on This Island“.
BEST SCORE
- Angels in America
- The Band’s Visit
- Frozen
- Mean Girls
- Spongebob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical
You always know something is wrong when a play sneaks into this category. Not to knock the ‘Angels’ score, but no matter how great a play’s music is, it’s still not part of the story like a musical’s is, so if there were good enough musicals this year, they would be in here for their score. It shows how weak this season’s musicals are. And in any other season (see above about last season), “Mean Girls” would not be in there, as its trite, stale score is universally considered its weakest aspect, and “Frozen” would barely be squeaking by since it has to be considered on the merits of its new material, and not just “Let it Go”. “Spongebob” does have some clever, fun songs, but overall it feels disjointed, more like single units instead of a whole, which makes complete sense considering different artists wrote each song – there’s no cohesion. (The incredibly long list of artists involved in the score and thus nominated for a Tony just feels wrong, too, but it will be fun to hear whoever’s presenting this category. They’ll need a glass of water to get through it.) Regardless, “The Band’s Visit” must win this one for its elegant, inventive, beautiful music, which plays with different cultural elements to create a score that will historically be considered one of the greats. If there was a Best Song category, it would be winning for the stunning “Omar Sharif”, but even without that epic number this score is still sensational.
BEST BOOK
- The Band’s Visit
- Frozen
- Mean Girls
- Spongebob Squarepants: The Broadway Musical
This category is giving me agita like I never had before. That’s not even a little bit true; I get it all the time because I feel so many things *shakes fist* but this is the most culpable Tony category. It’s a race between “Mean Girls” and “The Band’s Visit”, but it’s not even a race because there is no surer thing that Tina Fey’s imminent Tony win. People REALLY don’t understand what a musical’s book is. It’s everything – the words that aren’t sung, sure, but it’s the story, it’s the structure, it’s how the story is formed with the songs. That’s why “Hamilton” deservedly won best book even though the whole shebang is sung-through. Yet since “Mean Girls” delivers Fey’s undeniably amazing jokes, people think ‘oh I’m laughing I’m having fun this book must be amazing.’ But it’s not. Every critic complained about how bloated the show was – an hour too long at least, stretched beyond what it should have been and thus padded with too much unnecessary crap. That’s by definition a problem with the book (for one). On the other hand, “The Band’s Visit” is clean, concise, and graceful, with every moment supporting the central theme. Itamar Moses should win, but won’t. Tina Fey is going to be a Tony winner. I mean I love her, but come on.
BEST LEADING ACTRESS IN A MUSICAL
- Lauren Ambrose, “My Fair Lady”
- Hailey Kilgore, “Once on This Island”
- LaChanze, “Summer: The Donna Summer Musical”
- Katrina Lenk, “The Band’s Visit”
- Taylor Louderman, “Mean Girls”
- Jessie Mueller, “Carousel”
Look at this utter shitshow of a category. SIX NOMINEES?? In this season? Nnnnno. It’s the result of a near-tie occurring in the nominating process, but still, this is a joke, especially since the men have only four. The ones that matter (to me) are Ambrose, Kilgore, and Lenk. Kilgore gives a fantastic Broadway debut, but for me it’s between Ambrose and Lenk, giving two stunning, wildly different performances that are each so phenomenal, so worthy that honestly I don’t know who I would vote for. This is the one time where I really want a tie, and considering there was a tie in the nominating, maybe there will be a tie in the winning! Just kidding; there won’t be – this is Lenk’s, and I’m thrilled for her, but I wish Ambrose was being discussed as clearly the runner-up and none of this other nonsense. But I mean, Julie Andrews didn’t even win for Eliza, so I guess it’s not the saddest thing ever that Ambrose won’t have a Tony for her portrayal either. And there’s really no reason to be sad as long as the goddess Katrina Lenk does indeed become a Tony winner. She is magical in this role, mesmerizing, graceful, magical, and her performance in my view is the story of the season.
BEST LEADING ACTOR IN A MUSICAL
- Harry Hadden-Paton, “My Fair Lady”
- Joshua Henry, “Carousel”
- Ethan Slater, “Spongebob Squarepants”
- Tony Shalhoub, “The Band’s Visit”
This category is also ridiculous because of math – there are four nominees because there weren’t enough eligible performers to make it five. But even so, this category is the hardest to call because all four are deserving. Honestly I won’t be surprised nor unhappy with any of these men winning. I would be voting for Harry Hadden-Paton and I would make sure all my Tony voter friends did the smart thing and voted for him too. His Henry Higgins established a new benchmark for that celebrated role, just beyond anyone’s dreams of what this Broadway newbie would do. But I also loved Shalhoub, and even though he barely sings in the show, his acting is part of what elevates the story to such heights. He deserves it too. Although I wasn’t a fan of “Carousel” (to put it mildly) and I thought Henry was miscast as Billy Bigelow, his Soliloquy was irrefutably profound and fantastically sung, and it’s not hard to predict that many voters will be thinking of that scene when voting. Also, he’s a beloved long-time performer in the community who many believe is due for a Tony. And then there’s Spongebob himself, who is actually considered the frontrunner. Slater works incredibly hard for 2 ½ hours, belting his face off, jumping all around the sets, dancing, laughing, man it’s exhausting to watch how hard he works. It’s also his Broadway debut and people love to reward debuts like this. Anyone can win and it won’t be surprising, but I think it’s beyond Spongebob and Monk, and so I’ll be over here doing rain dances for HHP.
BEST FEATURED ACTRESS IN A MUSICAL
- Ariana DeBose, “Summer: The Donna Summer Musical”
- Renee Fleming, “Carousel”
- Lindsay Mendez, “Carousel”
- Ashley Park, “Mean Girls”
- Diana Rigg, “My Fair Lady”
This is another headscratcher of a category, considering nooooo one thought “Summer” was going to get any nominations, “Mean Girls” is brimming with worthy featured actress performances and Park’s was the one least predicted to get nominated, and Diana Rigg has like 5 lines in “My Fair Lady”. It’s a weird category. And the front-runner seems to be for the role and not the performer – that of Carrie Pipperidge in “Carousel”. The person in that part, Lindsay Mendez (who was out when I saw the show I’m not mad or anything), will probably win on Sunday. Even though I’m sure she’s amazing, her role was also predicted to win a Tony for the woman first cast in the role, Betsy Wolfe, as soon as she was announced (she had to leave the production for scheduling conflicts and so Mendez came in). I think Carrie is such a meaty, incredible role, especially compared to the smaller-than-you-recall ‘leading’ role of Julie, that it doesn’t matter who plays her, they will win a Tony. Betsy would have won, Audra won in the last revival, and Lindsay will win. As long as the actress does a good job, the role will seal a Tony deal. Of course, her competition is freaking Renee Fleming, who is fantastic in the role and performed in the performance I saw, so I’d vote for her. Loves me some Fleming! However, Ashley Park is having a banner year with her acclaimed role in off-Broadway’s K-POP, and she could ride that wave of good will to a win. My real choice here is the very much snubbed Kenita R. Miller from “Once on This Island”, who took a small, usually forgotten role and made it the beating heart and moving soul of a celebrated production.
BEST FEATURED ACTOR IN A MUSICAL
- Norbert Leo Butz, “My Fair Lady”
- Alexander Gemignani, “Carousel”
- Grey Henson, “Mean Girls”
- Gavin Lee, “Spongebob SquarePants”
- Ari’el Stachel, “The Band’s Visit”
This is another big toss-up category, as three of these nominees could win and it would be deserved and unsurprising – Norbs, Gavin, and Ari’el. Norbert is always wonderful, and his work in “My Fair Lady” is fantastic. He would be deserving of a third Tony win for his exuberant, pitch-perfect turn as Alfred Doolittle even though he is not much older than his stage daughter, Lauren Ambrose. But voters do like to spread the wealth, and Gavin Lee is the clear showstopper in “Spongebob”. Not only does he perform the whole show with four legs, but he is given the best scene in the entire show with his extravagant 4-legged tap dance number. (You don’t have Gavin in a show without an extravagant tap dance number.) But Ari’el is the one to beat for his charismatic, captivating debut as Haled in “The Band’s Visit”, where he loves Chet Baker and, well, love in general. I’d be thrilled for him to win.
As for the other two, the nomination is the honor for Grey, who gets to say the best line in “Mean Girls” (“Danny DeVito I love your work!”), and the super surprise honor for Gemignani, who was not predicted to be nominated for his small (but charming and well done) role in “Carousel”. But honestly, this category is the most messed up for how many deserving actors were squeezed out of this final list, especially Alex Newell, a showstopper in “Once on This Island” who was predicted to not only be nominated but to have a strong shot at a win. I also wanted his castmate Phillip Boykin to be nominated for his extraordinary work. Alas. After seeing “My Fair Lady”, I’m disappointed that Jordan Donica didn’t get a nomination for his beautiful, lovable turn as Freddy Eynsford-Hill, aka the man who sings “On the Street Where You Live” and gives one of the best versions I’ve heard. But the most upsetting exclusion from this list is the likely winner’s cast mate and the man who would have been my choice to win: John Cariani from “The Band’s Visit”, whose Itzik comes across as fun and silly at first but it hides a broken heart that will break yours by the end of the show. He’s fantastic in the show and his exclusion is the worst snub here.
BEST DIRECTOR
- Michael Arden, “Once on This Island”
- David Cromer, “The Band’s Visit”
- Tina Landau, “Spongebob SquarePants”
- Casey Nicholaw, “Mean Girls”
- Barlett Sher, “My Fair Lady”
This is another category where anyone (except Casey, sorries) would be a deserving winner. Bartlett Sher’s production is pitch perfect, like truly and absolutely flawless. Tina Landau does incredible things to make “Spongebob” pop to life and is a viable contender for the clever staging she produced. David Cromer would be a deserving winner for the faultless, tight-as-a-drum “The Band’s Visit”, where every moment is meaningful, no matter how small. But my vote would go to Michael Arden, who has transformed a show we thought we knew into something new and magical and unexpected. His revival is as perfect as Sher’s, but with the added element of reinvention of the known property, which should secure a win for him. However, I think voters may actually wish to reward “Spongebob” here.
As for plays, I only saw “Three Tall Women” and “Farinelli and the King”. The latter is a perfectly decent show, with a great performance by Mark Rylance, but it doesn’t stand a chance against the force of nature “Harry Potter” in the new play categories. As for the former, it’s one of the most incredible plays I’ve ever seen, with performances that keep me up at night for their majesty, from Glenda Jackson (who will best Best Actress in a Play) and Laurie Metcalf, whose Tony win last year I’ll pretend is for this year too. This play would also rightly win for Scenic Design if it wasn’t for Harry Potter, because what they did with that magic plexiglass/mirror contraption in Act II still takes my breath away to think about. It was a real feat of stage-making and I can’t wait to talk about it more soon in my review. For revivals, “Angels in America” will win whatever it can because who can say no to 8 hours about men dying from AIDS??? Their predicted sweep includes a Best Actor win for Andrew Garfield, which I’m happy about because Emma Stone won an Oscar and I felt a bit bad for him since their break-up.
So, to quote Forrest, that’s all I gotta say about that. Haha that’s the biggest lie I ever told; I could talk about this for WEEKS ON END but I think you’ve read enough. Make sure to watch the Tony Awards this Sunday on CBS! How can you not be counting down the minutes until MY BOY JOSHY G (Josh Groban of course) begins his host duties?! I’m so excited for him and Sara Bareilles and I hope they do well. Remember, we are all winners as long as no one does a medley. MEDLEYS NEVER WORK.
So, to quote Forrest, that’s all I gotta say about that. Haha that’s the biggest lie I ever told; I could talk about this for WEEKS ON END but I think you’ve read enough. Make sure to watch the Tony Awards this Sunday on CBS! How can you not be counting down the minutes until MY BOY JOSHY G (Josh Groban of course) begins his host duties?! I’m so excited for him and Sara Bareilles and I hope they do well. Remember, we are all winners as long as no one does a medley. MEDLEYS NEVER WORK.
Indecent at the Menier: A Glorious and Wrenching Jewish Triumph
It’s a special Theatre Tuesday! because last week’s Theatre Thursday was actually Yom Kippur so we were offline because as this show teaches you Judaism is important and deserves respect!
I’ve been complaining about how Jewishness is treated on London stages for as long as I can remember, and I know some of you are sick of it. Thankfully for you clowns, this week’s show, the new UK production of Paula Vogel’s Indecent at the Menier Chocolate Factory, tells its heart-breaking, full-bodied Jewish tale with respect for its subject matter and the people represented. Not that one show solves an endemic problem, but I cried through the whole thing and not just at the sad parts. At the fact that a Jewish story was being treated lovingly, and with actual Jewish people involved, onstage and offstage, (Joey Tribbiani voice:) IN LONDON! This beautiful production of the Tony-winning Broadway hit is nearly two hours long with no intermission — which as you know means I had to pee horribly for half the show (and true to form I got a UTI in post) — and I still loved it. That’s as much love I can send a show, truly.
Indecent treats a narrowly defined and unassuming subject — the lifespan of a Yiddish play from inception through celebration and on to suppression — on an epic scale. Sholem Asch’s God of Vengeance is the (real) work, and we see a troupe of actors (well, various troupes, in various plays-within-plays, don’t think about it too hard too too hard) tell the story of Asch’s writing of the play, the first reading of it, the first production, and onto worldwide fame…and then censorship of it on Broadway, of all places. Asch’s play tells of a young Jewish girl whose father runs a brothel, and the girl falls in love with one of the prostitutes, and the girls’ father gets like, so mad. Likewise, people in the real world were equally displeased, Jews and goys alike. Two women in love! Jewish people treated as complicated living breathing beings and not paragons of perfection! The horror!
God of Vengeance was ahead of its time, but luckily a few people believed in it, recognizing its art and beauty and how tenderly it treated the central love story, and they helped make it happen. (Believing in art is necessary!) People like my man Lemmel (Finbar Lynch), a man who was at the very first reading of the play in someone’s living room, and was with it all the way through its Euro tour, to NYC, and back to Europe just in time to perform it in a ghetto attic in hushed tones. Yeah, this play gets to the Holocaust, and you might be like ‘ugh we get it the Holocaust’ but the Holocaust was a really big deal (“remember that we suffered!”)! Going in, I was most excited to see American queen Alexandra Silber and Molly Osbourne (double Tzeitels!) playing various actresses playing the lovers, and they were as great as I expected, but Lemmel was the one who really grabbed our hearts and broke them. His love for God of Vengeance and for the love story in that play is the real heart of this play. Like I thought the love story in GOV might be the central emotional core of Indecent but it’s really Lemmel’s love for the GOV love story that was the real one all along. The real good place was the friends we made along the way. Finbar was so good, and not just because you know how I feel about small old Jewish men (I don’t think he is Jewish but he is now on the official list of goyim who are allowed to play Jews) who make me sad, like Eli Wallach in The Holiday, oh man. So good. Right at those heartstrings.
Several times during the show, I thought hmm maybe this bit isn’t totally necessary, maybe like 10-15 minutes could be cut, like the Berlin cabaret scene that makes you feel like when you watch R-rated movies with your parents. But this is hundo p one of those shows that upon reflection you realize were masterfully set. Rebecca Taichman’s compassionate and thoughtful direction treats the piece so kindly and with such care that that’s its own piece of art. (And I’m not just saying that because I especially enjoyed all the Yiddish projected on the backdrop, proving you can learn from using Duolingo (I was so proud of how much I could read and understand.)) All the moving parts, all the various characters the actors portray prove to be necessary to show GOV’s trajectory as a parallel to the history of Jews during this time period. They’re all the puzzle pieces necessary to put the story of this underlying play together, and you know like not all puzzle pieces are the dogs’ faces but you still need the ones that make the grass and trees and stuff to make it all complete. Yes I have done one puzzle in the past 20 years and it was of a dog. No I don’t enjoy puzzles.
From the Lodz section onwards, my crying was real bad. The audience was so quiet, and I was so nervous that I would do my choking-hiccupping crying loud enough to disrupt the theatre so I had to do the Joey-thinking-about-Chandler thing and distract myself a little bit and the only thing that I could think of (because it was still relevant subject matter, at least) was the Crazy Ex Girlfriend song I quoted above, ‘Remember that we Suffered”, so while I was crying outwardly at Lemmel my dude, in my head I was going “The sweet and the bitter/Remember that we suffered/Streisand and Hitler/Remember that we suffered/Spielberg and Hitler/Remember that we suffered/Have we mentioned Hitler? I’m just saying that we suffered!” It’s the best song. Anyway. The impact of seeing the words ‘an impossibly long line’ projected again towards the end broke me, absolutely broke me. It was brilliant and powerful writing and also so mean, because I was wearing two masks and it’s really hard to cry with two masks.
I knew from friends who had seen it on Bway that ‘the rain scene’, when you finally get to see what everyone had been talking about the whole time, was the most beautiful and emotional part, but I didn’t even imagine what the context would be. That aspect — who is imagining that scene and why — is something that I will both treasure and be haunted by.
Above all, it was glorious to see (during the high holidays no less) a play about Jewish people and Jewish subject matter actually performed and created by Jewish people. And in London! It’s a 5782 miracle! I hope it’s a sign of permanent change, although the fact that the Guardian review of this play felt it at all appropriate to say ‘hey you know who else is a Jew, Philip Roth!” as a way to shoehorn in yet another message about their view of the Israel conversation (that’s def what they were doing, btw) shows how much work this place still has to do.
But I digress, like the Guardian writer. This play will stick with me, and I’m sure many other audience members, as a paradigm of caring, protected, heartfelt, authentic theatre-making. I’m so grateful that this was well done, so grateful to the people involved for giving Jews one little corner of respite in a year filled with disrespect and other shit.
INFORMATION
Indecent plays at the Menier Chocolate Factory (not a chocolate factory) until November 27. I recommend you get tickets and if you’d like to get me one too I would go again (the NHS loves giving me antibx).
The Menier asks audience members to wear masks, but like every other theatre, it doesn’t have a mandate. So other people don’t have wear one and many won’t, although this crowd was better about it than at any other theatre we’ve been to recently.
Toilets are down the stairs in the restaurant part of the cafe, so if you will have to run at the end, you want to sit near the aisles, because the rows are suuuuper long, all the way across the theatre jawns.
I don’t know if any of the cast are stage-dooring because I didn’t try, because we are in a pandemic.
