Vegan in Jamaica? Yah Mon!by Randi / February 26, 2020It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Leopoldstadt, playing at London’s Wyndham’s Theatre in an open-ended run.
I mean, man alive. If you want to feel like you’ve been punched in the gut but are really grateful for it, then you are ready for Tom Stoppard’s new, and possibly his last, play Leopoldstadt. Following an extended Jewish family from 1899 in Vienna until, well, later, the play is a heavy exploration of how this family’s fortunes changed from one generation to the next and how their country treated them over time. The giant cast and the constantly changing ages of the characters prevent real attachment to any individual – or real grasping of who’s who – but the details are less important than the serious emotional pull created in this powerful work.
And that emotional heft is considerable. Despite not fully understanding how each relative was connected (there’s a family tree in the programme, but good luck keeping it all straight (you won’t!)), those particulars weren’t necessary to understand who these people were and to care in general about what was going to happen as we get further into the 20th century. The play achieves an almost immediate sense of intimacy with this family, helped by little glimpses of how all the members interact, throwing us right into their gatherings and conversations without wasting time explaining. The visuals help as well, with the lush Christmas celebration at the start and the same room slowly changing, and dwindling, scene by scene.
The family quickly feels familiar, even though with each scene change and time jump you have new faces to put to somewhat-old names as well as new names and faces to try to connect to those old names you sort of remember. (Don’t think about it too hard, too too hard.) When the names do stick, the payoff is remarkable (especially when you think e.g. ‘oh that little tot Heini is supes adorbs’ and then at the last part of the show you squeaky cry remembering who he is). We follow the family through a changing Vienna and a changing Leopoldstadt, the Jewish quarter, as they go from well-to-do members of the business community, to people forbidden from working, owning property, being citizens of their own land. You know what’s coming, but it never feels predictable, only powerful.
I’m fascinated by how a master playwright can take aspects of a show that would otherwise be somewhat trying and make it wonderful. The broken cup coming on the night of broken glass felt poetic and not at all transparent. There’s a lot of speechifying in this show, the sort where I’d often be like ‘ALRIGHT WRAP IT UP CUBA’ and think about how much more effective and efficient it would have been to express those ideas shared through dialogue or action. But the long monologues, especially between the two brothers in the first scene on what it means to be Jewish and never be able to stop being it, I found riveting. Despite several long speeches, breadth of characters instead of depth, and the overall feeling of impending doom, I never felt antsy (nor did I consider how I would fix this show, which as you know is one of my main hobbies).
As usual with plays of this subject matter, the relevance for society today is pretty overwhelming. It’s an important, powerful play that’s aware of its importance without being obvious about it. There’s so much for audiences to learn from it, especially London audiences (including one lesson from Fritz, an asshole for sure, as I wish more anti-Semites would take their lead from him and refuse to fight Jews. I mean that would help a lot of American rallies for one thing.)
All my belly-aching about how Jews and Jewishness are treated (spoiler: badly) in London theatre, and Stoppard comes along with a play doing everything right. Patrick Marber’s direction is great (jew!), Tom’s son Ed is acting in it (jew!), and not to assume things but at least some of the many Jewish-sounding names in the cast have to pan out (jews!). Aside from sobbing at the end so hard that I had literally yoga breathe to not make squeaky noises in the silent theatre, I left feeling pleased with what this powerful show does to improve London’s track record in this regard.
INFORMATION
The show is 2 ½ hours. Act I ended at 20:30 on the dot, so it’s a rare occurrence of a second act being longer but the play still being good.
We sat for the first time at Wyndham’s in the stalls boxes – it’s a private box but instead of up the sides of the theatre, it’s behind the last row of the stalls at ground level. None of the ushers seemed to know how to get to it (it has its own door from outside!) but luckily the house manager who took care of us was amazing. Weird, but we kind of loved it! There’s no one whispering behind you! No one around you bothering the everloving fork out of you! No one in front who you can see trying and failing to sneakily use their phones on their laps (although the people in front of us were full on Seinfeld-at-Schindler’s-Listing, which is forking nonsense. you’re at a HOLOCAUST SHOW. have some g-d DECENCY). Anyway would sit again.
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Audra McDonald in “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill”: A Once In A Lifetime Performance
The minute the unmatched Audra McDonald opens her mouth onstage, you are transported back 50 years. You’re no longer watching the greatest living musical talent of our time but the great pioneering musician of the past, Billie Holiday. You’re in Emerson’s Bar & Grill, one of Billie’s favorite places to perform in Philadelphia, recreated on Broadway in an intimate space in the Circle in the Square theatre. And everyone around is gasping.
This isn’t an imitation happening onstage, but a full transformation and embodiment of Lady Day, from the mannerisms to the stance to the way she moves her eyes. It’s magic happening in front of you as Audra channels Billie Holiday. Seriously, everyone was gasping and pretty much didn’t stop (at least the people next to me didn’t stop, despite my repeatedly throwing shade).
This isn’t an imitation happening onstage, but a full transformation and embodiment of Lady Day, from the mannerisms to the stance to the way she moves her eyes. It’s magic happening in front of you as Audra channels Billie Holiday. Seriously, everyone was gasping and pretty much didn’t stop (at least the people next to me didn’t stop, despite my repeatedly throwing shade).
Holy bald head Batman
If you’re a fan of Holiday (“Do you like Billie Holiday?” “I love him”), this show will astound you and leave you breathless. But even if you are unfamiliar with her wonderful catalogue (including such gems as “What A Little Moonlight Can Do”, “When A Woman Loves A Man”, “Tain’t Nobody’s Biz-ness”, and of course the unmatched and haunting “God Bless The Child” and “Strange Fruit”, all of which are performed to perfection here), you will leave the show wanting to become a Billie Holiday fan.
In between the many songs, which are so astonishing it’s like you could say you actually saw Billie Holiday in concert, Audra tells her concert audience (“my friends”, she calls us) little stories that illustrate her life. This is where the real magic happens, and this is where Audra wins her sixth Tony. Some stories are hilarious yet they all express the untold heartache she has had to experience. She speaks and stumbles and falls and it’s Billie Holiday. She drinks, smokes, walks through the table seating, wanders offstage for several minutes to retrieve her dog, who’s her best friend. She holds back tears, and the audience does too. It’s all Billie.
The stories she tells come up organically between songs and are perfect glimpses into Billie’s turbulent life. She looks back at her backup musicians and drifts off in thought about her old love, a musician who was a drug addict (she says “herwan” and it’s adorable). She tells how the man would say to her, “If you really loved me you’d try it too,” and despite her protests, he kept at it, making her feel unnecessarily guilty and terrible until she couldn’t argue anymore. Her stories are full of people she thought she loved weakening her and manipulating her until they hurt her and took advantage of her. Yet she was still strong. And despite Audra’s hunched posture, wild eyes, and frightening imbalance, she successfully conveyed this inner strength.
The stories about her mother were the most heartbreaking parts. Everyone called her tiny mother “The Duchess”, and Billie makes lots of jokes about how little the Duchess was and how big she herself was. The Duchess had Billie as a very young teenager and put her to work early in various kinds of houses they stayed in. Billie recounts ‘the first time’ she was raped as a young child in one of these houses, told in a tone so casual it showed how accustomed to trauma and tragedy she had become.
One of the most repeated thoughts she shares is that she always wanted a nice house and children, and how much she loved children. She never had any, or had any stability in her life. The beauty of the performance helps to balance just how sad everything is. It’s really a fool’s errand to try to describe how wonderful this show is. If you can get to New York before it closes in August, you absolutely must see this performance of a lifetime. If you can’t, watch the clip below. (Don’t watch it if there’s any chance you can see the show. You don’t want to be spoiled.)
And if somehow you’ve lived under a rock until today and you have never heard the magic that is Audra McDonald’s singing and you think the “Lady Day” producers just found a woman who sounded like Billie Holiday, here’s a video of her actual voice.
Jerusalem with Mark Rylance: Biggest of Star Turns in Pertinent AF Play
It’s Theatre Thursday! We haven’t done one of these in ages, oops! I saw this months ago but I forgot! Today’s show is Jerusalem, playing at London’s Apollo Theatre until August 7.
Earlier this year (whatever year this is), husbo said to me ‘oh hey, you saw Jerusalem on Broadway with Mark Rylance, right? Was it good? What was it about?’ and I replied ‘uh…I know for sure it was NOT about actual Jerusalem?’ I know I saw it because I had a stage door picture with Mackenzie Crook, who I only really appreciated back then because he was a Pirate ghost, but I couldn’t remember anything else. That we’re talking about a play I saw more than 10 years ago had nothing to do with my complete lack of memory about what the show was about; I just didn’t appreciate it back then (Schmidt voice: YOUTHS.), although of course I appreciated how incredible Rylance was. Now that I’m old? wise?…no, BRITISH and living in England, I get what all the fuss is about. Jerusalem is engaging and provocative, and Rylance is only getting better with age.
So what IS it about? I remembered enough to tell myself I shouldn’t be worried about Jew-hatred-fueled protests outside the theatre (my expectations for a certain other show coming in the fall is another story), since the Jerusalem of the title is more about William Blake’s fabled glory of a green and promised land, that being the old mythologized England past. We meet a man named ‘Rooster’ Johnny Byron (Rooster is his nickname but that’s the order he always gives his name in, Arifa) who is essentially a squatter living in an RV in the woods (IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER) and about to be evicted because well he’s not paying for those woods and they want him out so the yuppies in the new builds have a clean view. Rooster would be my absolute nightmare of a neighbor, literally the worst imaginable save for the teenagers partying with him all night, teens are worse (YOUTHS!). See they have parties in these woods, which fine you do you, but if I can hear your music at 2am I will curse your existence and wish for your name to be stricken from the book of life. I’m pretty sure I’m aligning myself with the gentrifying villains in the play but we’re all about honesty here hey.
Despite expectations, Rylance makes Rooster JB a sympathetic character, right from the start, (how much do I adore Rylance’s signature cute little whisper boy voice that he sometimes does, you know what I mean, it’s so good, let me count the ways). Here’s this middle-aged-if -we’re-being-generous man, all puffed-chest bravado and lack of showers, partying with teenagers and giving them whatever drugs they want. That last part is bad, yes, but we learn that he’s really just giving these kids a safe place to be that they aren’t finding elsewhere, not even (or in some cases, especially not even) at home. So even though it’s cringey and illegal it’s also nice and thoughtful! Is he a good witch or a bad witch? Audiences can surely interpret either way, but my view was very much ‘good witch except everything is coming across wrong’.
We see Rooster over the course of a day, St. George’s Day, where there’s a local festival. As we meet the local gang that hangs around him – we can’t really call them friends – it feels like real time, not just because it’s 3 hours long. The time flies by, like you’re at the party yourself, or if you’re me like you’re watching other people at the party you would never want to be at and that’s how you want it. It’s REALLY funny at times, especially in the first act, but as the drama builds, it gets legit harrowing too. You fear for RJB even as you make Chrissy-Tiegen-Golden-Globes-yikes-face at some of his choices.
As the story intensifies, the aura of the mythology and sense of old magic shows itself as an important part of the story. One I can’t explain or understand, really, except in that vague theatrical sense that makes you feel all you need to know, the way you know a play is achieving what it wanted. Rylance holds all the various aspects – the legends and lore, the sad sack bad father, the man trying to protect some poor kids, the insanely bad decisions – together in that compelling and heartfelt way of his. He’s a real Snape, where arguments about his true character run the gamut and people can disagree reasonably. I didn’t actually read the books.
Seeing it now that I can understand the problems with modern England and how it’s falling apart and how my electric bills are honestly criminal adds so much depth to the show. Before I thought it was a great look at class conflicts that seemed very universal, that could be picked up and set in any number of locales. And that’s still true, but the Englishness of it all makes it particularly sharp. That sense of mythology about what the country once was like is so layered, because you could just roll your eyes and say ‘it wasn’t ACTUALLY like that’ (I won’t say her name again), or you could realize the fact that no, the ‘good old days’ never really were how they’re remembered, is exactly the point. It says so much about humanity – do we ever really change, or grow, or improve our society by e.g. evicting the squatter in the woods giving drugs to kids? What if he’s the only one trying? Or something like that. Oh also ogres, real or not? What a great question for a play to leave you thinking about.
INFORMATION
Jerusalem is 3 hours, 2 acts. One regular 15-20 minute interval and then a 5 minute ‘pause’.
Best seat in the house is G1 in the stalls because it’s RIGHT on the aisle RIGHT next to the stairs leading up to the too-small women’s bathroom, yesss. Perfect for that second interval that isn’t truly an interval. (I overheard a man asking an usher, ‘hey, babes, why is this second interval just a baby baby pause, why not give us 10 minutes instead of 5 so we could all piss ourselves?’ and the usher was like ‘oh we tried having two regular intervals but it was just way too long, people were rioting’ and like, seriously, dears, 5 extra minutes is not gonna be a drop in this 3 hours bucket, and the people are rioting more about not having pissin time.
The only bad thing about sitting so close/in the stalls is that it is a verrrrrry smoky show. I had terrible contact lens headaches from my eyes breathing in all their smoke and was wrecked for a while after. I am going to renew my campaign for theatres to behave like the rest of polite society and stop allowing smoking, it makes no sense and is completely unnecessary. If you can’t show me you’re cool in another way then you aren’t cool! or whatever you’re going for.
