Promoting Black Voices and Stories in the Theatreby Randi / June 4, 2020Frens, as you know, the 2020 Tony Awards were supposed to be last night. Instead of this post-Tony Monday bringing you a list of my favorite moments, the best speeches, the performances that weren’t medleys (huzzah), the worst losses, and so on, I’m sharing some superlatives from Tony Awards past. All I have been doing* during quarantine, honestly, is watching old recordings of Tony broadcasts. I’ve watched like 40 years’ worth. You might be thinking that’s a weird preoccupation or even a waste of time but if you would say something that unbelievably stupid I bet you wouldn’t be reading this. Also old Tony broadcasts are the bee’s knees.
* well at least while cooking dinner, which honestly adds up for me time-wise because no matter what your 30-minute recipe! bullshit is about it will take me those 30 minutes just to chop my onions so back off
Before I get to the ridiculous categories I chose to honor, I have to mention how much the Tony Awards have changed even just since I’ve been alive. Watching old ones has been enlightening. First of all, in like the ’80s, they literally NEVER cut off long speeches! They were like you just won a Tony? Amazing job! Thank everyone you want this is important shit! You wanna pause when it seems like you’re finished but then keep going? That’s wonderful dear! I wish they were still like that. I despise cutting people off who just had their life’s work recognized. (Unless they’re reading their speech. No matter what else has changed – and everything has – prewritten speeches that winners reeeead off paperrr are THE WORRRST.) Ugh and it’s awful when the producers not only bring up the orchestra but also cut the mic. That’s just cruel, because a) it prevents any amazing Bette-style complete ignoring of the music where the winner continues to yell over it for just ever (which is usually soo fun) like ‘are you kidding me get OUT of here with that nonsense’ I adore that, and b) winners always, always save thanking their families for last. (Which is its own bullshit. Thank your fam bam before Scott Rudin you moron. If I ever won a Tony I would grab the mic and scream at the top of my lungs THANKS MOM WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING THIS IS AMAAAZING I DIDN’T KNOW YOU COULD WIN TONYS FOR PETTING DOGS!!!)
Also, the Best Revival categories were mixed! Plays and musicals together like the Wild West. I guess it makes sense, though; there were fewer properties to choose from back then.
Once you hit the 2000s, the award show gets obviously bigger, louder, more raucous. (Change approved.) In part thanks to Neil Patrick Harris and Hugh Jackman’s hosting abilities (how lucky we are to be alive for the 2013 opener), in part just due to times changing and people wanting more, it’s quite the contrast to watch the modern Tonys with jaw-dropping 10-minute musical number intros after you’ve seen the 1991 Tony Awards hosted by I shit you not Julie Andrews and Jeremy’s Iron, who began the show in fancy British accents and were like “Hello and welcome to the 45th Annual TOE-ny awaaaahds. What a time to celebrate being a pahht of the theatuhhhhh. Here’s the first awaaahd” and like that’s it. So calm. Adorable.
As for future Tony Awards, I hope we have them. All thanks to CBS for airing them at all (you better keep it up), but I hope in the future they realize who they’re for. They’re never going to attract new uninterested viewers, so just stop trying. Stop getting random movie stars to present awards and then billing their presence in all the commercials. Like, no non-theatre but pro-Marvel fan is going to tune in just to see one of the Chrises present Best Choreography. Have they not realized this yet? In the ’80s, all the presenters were stage luminaries and it was exciting to celebrate them in this, their one arena for that kind of acknowledgment. Let the Tonys be for actual theatre fans. Let the telecast go on as long as you can give them, and let theatre people be involved, no matter how famous they are. And have plays perform short scene! They used to do this and it WORKED! It was great! And present Book of a Musical as part of the live telecast and not just when you think Tina Fey is going to win! (Although that surprise was one of my absolute favorite things about the last decade, when the producers did decide to air Best Book on the telecast just because they thought Tina would win and then she lost to Itamar Moses omg it was so funny.)
On that note, let’s share some other memories. Some of the videos below are just the entire telecast recording so just like enjoy.
Most Fun Performance for Posterity
There’s no question about this one. What can I watch no matter how I’m feeling and just laugh my ass off? Patti LuPone singing Buenos Aires at the 1981 Tony Awards. Why? Oh my dear, because of these (fake but come on, real.) subtitles. Sure there are 100s of incredible, perfect, soaring performances I could actually have chosen for ‘best performance’, but nothing compares to this gem.
My god I just watched literally 15 seconds of this and I am screaming and shrieking from laughter. EBBA DO ME!
Best Treat that Might be Cooler than the Tony Award You Just Won
Ten years after Patti sang about the laddad rat hat, Baby Daisy Eagen won the Best Featured Actress in a Musical Tony forThe Secret Garden. Baby Daisy was only 11 years old! Obviously she was crying and overwhelmed, and presenter Audrey Hepburn came back over to her and kissed her head. It’s the sweetest little moment but I imagine it didn’t help her outsized emotions to realize that Audrey Hepburn just kissed her head. LOVES IT.
Biggest “We Should Have Known“
In 2009, Susan Sarandon presented both Best Director awards (for play and musical). We should have known she was about to come out as a piece of a nothing when, despite reading a teleprompter and you know being a professional word-sayer, she said Matthew Warchus’s name wrong like 3 times. When she announced his win it came out something like Tathy Martis. SHAME. SHAAAAME. Almost as much as the shame you should feel for being so g-d stupid about politics. Nothing bother me more for the purposes of this sentence than when people say ‘actors should stay out of politics’ – that’s just nonsense, everyone affected should have a say – but when it comes to Susan actors should stay out of politics.
Biggest “We Really Didn’t Need That But Thanks?”
In 2014, Emmy Rossum introduced the performance from Best Revival nominee Les Miserables because I guess one of the telecast producers mixed up two classics. She introduced the performance by unironically, completely sincerely describing the plot of Les Mis as if it were this new thing no one knew about, as if every fucker in that audience and at home didn’t know every single word of that show by heart since they were children. Lol I was HYSTERICAL.
Cutest Outdated Joke
In 1986, Rupert Holmes won Best Score (for Drood) and then 10 seconds later won Best Book of a Musical. In his second speech in two minutes, he quipped “Wow I hope my home VHS recording is working.” Man remember not having technology, woof. Anyway it was adorbs, and watching someone win Tonys back to back made my heart grow even bigger, another reason why they should air Best Book on the live show.
Best Slogan for Life Learned from a Speech
In 2005, the great Mike Nichols (RIP) won for directing Spamalot and in his speech he said to the losers, “Cheer up, life isn’t everything.”
Worst Change for Tony Performance But a Cute Little Coincidence Makes it Okay
One of my favorite productions ever was the 2005 The Light in the Piazza, introducing me to that gorgeous, soul-buoying score and to my queen Kelli O’Hara. But their Tony performance, hoo boy. For some reason, instead of just singing the beautiful opening song, they had Victoria Clark in character be like, ‘Hello, I’m Margaret Johnson, and this is my daughter Clara. It’s her first time in Italy!’ ahhh it was beyond cringe. But soon afterwards, Norbert Leo Butz won the Best Actor in a Musical Tony (for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) and in his speech he thanked his daughters Clara and Maggie – the names of the LITP characters! Cute!
Best Host Sentiment Continuity Decades Apart
In 1987, host/ledge Angela Lansbury talked in her opening monologue about how during an early pre-Broadway tryout (in Philly!), she was thinking about how she didn’t belong there and how she wanted to be home in California. Later in her career, in another leading performance on a Broadway stage, she realized that she was home. She said from everyone tonight who is coming home to Broadway to celebrate, welcome to the Tonys. It felt very much like the precursor to what would be the best opening of all time – Neil Patrick Harris’s 2013 song, in which he said, to the kid in the middle of nowhere, “So we might reassure that kid, and do something to spur that kid, ‘cause I promise you, all of us up here tonight, we were that kid.”
Best Sixth Win
My other queen Audra McDonald winning her sixth Tony Award, for Best Actress in a Play for Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, expressed more gratitude and humble appreciation and overwhelmed joy at belonging to this community than most first-time winners. What a ledge. The audience’s reaction was wonderful too. And yes, I agree that Lady Day was rightfully considered a play, as all the music was presented in a concert format.
Best Line From an Opening Number
As I’ve said, the greatest opening number of all time is NPH’s 2013 behemoth, never to be topped (it’s below ps like I’d ever write this sort of nonsense post of my thoughts and not share the vid). It continues to blow my mind every day, 7 years later, and I’m particularly OB. SESSED with this part:
Hats off to Berry Gordy
He runs Motown like a boss.
He dominates Top 40 and he banged Diana Ross!
He wrote his own libretto which is really kinda ballin’
He took every Motown classic and he said “Eh, put ’em all in!”
The audience’s shocked laughter at the Diana Ross line, my god it was AMAZING. And I just adore how Neil says “eh put all ’em all in!” It’s perfect, while also kind of a burn at how overstuffed Motown the Musical was!
A close, close second is this line later in the song, about all the children on Bway that season:
They barely come up to your knees
But God they’re singing like MVPs
And they’re the reason this whole season seems to look like Chuck E. Cheese!
If you didn’t know Lin-Manuel wrote that song, you did when you heard the assonance in that line.
Best Line from a Closing Number
Another NPH performance, this time from the end of the 2009 telecast, had the unforgettable line:
Chris Sieber! Please! Performing on your knees? Dude that only works to win Golden Globes.
Forking classic.
BEST ACCEPTANCE SPEECH NEVER TO BE TOPPED
Forget his official works, Lin-Manuel’s first ever Tony win, for the score of In the Heights, is responsible in itself for a new era in musical theatre. Reminding everyone that he’s just as talented freestyle-rapping as he is with the written word, his genuinely heartfelt speech managed to on-the-fly make an unforgettable proclamation to Chris Jackson’s talents as well as an incredible reference to Sondheim’s greatest work about making art. Perfection.
MOST.
Alright, it’s time to just share the best opening of all time, the best Tony Awards celebration of all time, the best just simply, best. The 2013 opening number. I’ve watched this at least twice a week every week since 2013, so, you know, a lot, and every time it still brings me to happy tears. ENJOY!
What did I miss? What are your favorite Tony moments?
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All About Eve: Fasten Your Seatbeats, It’s Going to be a Bumpy Night Because This Show is Terrible
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is All About Eve at London’s Noel Coward Theatre, playing until May 11. Watch the movie instead!
A few years ago, my family gathered together on Christmas morning to do one of our favorite things: watch a new Oscars screener. The movie was ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’, which would kickstart the career of the incredible Oscar Isaac. Because we are movie people – and because we are decent human beings who know how to behave – we watched in silence for about an hour. But at that point, my sister-in-law broke the silence and asked the room, to hilarious effect, “So, this is terrible, right?” It didn’t matter that some disagreed; for me that line was better than the movie and one of the funniest moments ever. If I were willing to talk in the theatre, I would have quoted her recently when I saw the new production of All About Eve at London’s Noel Coward Theatre. After the sheen of seeing its famous stars wore off, it was absolute torture to sit through, and it took all my might not to say to my husband, “So, this is terrible, right?
As you probably know, the movie “All About Eve” is a classic Best Picture winner about two headstrong actresses, one an established Broadway star and one yoot trying to take her place. It’s been a minute since I’ve seen the movie, but I remember that, although the two women were devious (one more than the other) and determined and like not great people, they weren’t fully out of their minds batshit crazy. ENTER: Ivo van Hove, London’s favorite theatre director who is known for his visually striking takes on reworking classics but who is arguably a misogynist. What a perfect show for Ivo to destroy so he can continue showing off his hatred of women while also displaying his love of stark staging and cold projections! Instead of the actresses being strong women, one of whom is determined to a fault and kind of scary, both are now outrageous lunatics who may as well be clawing at each other the entire time and screaming like babies and tearing each other’s hair out while Ivo sits in a chair offstage smoking a cigar and muttering ‘yes this is women.’
What makes it all worse is that it stars the great Gillian Anderson as Margo Channing, the big Broadway star, and the world’s new favorite blonde Lily James as Eve Harrington, the young upstart. These are two huge actresses right now and this classic work with the two of them? it should be EPIC in its greatness, not in its failure. To make matters worse, because this stars these two giant celebrities, tickets are astronomically expensive. So we paid more than we have paid for any other tickets in the past six or so months to see this steaming pile of dog shit, except worse than that because at least a pile of dog shit necessitates a doggo being nearby. There were no dogs!
So, let’s do a quick plot overview. Margo Channing (Anderson) is a Broadway star, currently in a play written by her friend Lloyd, who is married to her friend Karen, both of whom are cast so strangely that there is no forking way they would be married in real life. After the performance one evening, Karen brings a young woman, Eve (James), who was waiting for Margo at stage door into Margo’s dressing room. PROBLEM #1: Who in tarnation lets a random fan come backstage to meet the actress? As someone who stagedoored mm let’s just say a lot, I can tell you right now, that shit does not and SHOULD NOT happen. So, right off the bat we got some bullshit. To increase the crazy quotient, Margo hires Eve to work as her assistant, which also means living with her. Cool guys, yeah, this is a thing, I am also Lin-Manuel’s personal assistant and I live with Kelli O’Hara, this is the result of stagedooring.
So Eve ingratiates herself into Margo’s life but Margo starts to distrust her, which she should have done when she first met her, but she was too busy worrying about being old. Her main character trait is being insecure about her age because she is over 40 (gasp!) and her boyfriend, Bill, is younger, so to make her feel better, Bill says to Margo “You’re not old! You’re young! You’re six!” which is DISGUSTING ughhh men are gross. We see her birthday party happen pretty much in real time, and it’s a bad party, and everyone is in the kitchen, which is hidden from our view, so it’s worse than your average shitty party. I can’t believe this show. Eve weasels her way in more and more and somehow becomes Margo’s understudy in the current play, which is definitely what happens when you stage-door stalk celebrities, you get cast in the Broadway play mm hmm sure sure, I am a multi-Tony winner yes. And here is my biggest problem with this story: Everyone says that Eve is utterly fantastic at her first reading, so we know that she is actually a great actress. Meaning, she doesn’t have to scheme anymore. The most powerful people in the theatre now know that she is excellent and are ready to hire her…so…that’s that then, right guys? I don’t understand why there can’t be two great actresses in NYC in this universe. They know there are like, lots of them, right? WHY CAN’T THERE BE TWO? Everything after Eve gets hired has zero force because there’s literally zero reason for her to continue being a crazy beeyotch. Things are slow and boring for a while and then boom, out of nowhere the whole ending is so nonsensical it actually hurts. The playwright was going to leave his wife for Eve? Since when? Since they met like the day before and talked once? Eve was gonna just put up with Addison forever and let him blackmail her? She could have easily gotten her good review out of him and then told him to fork off. I don’t get her being submissive after all she has done. And the whole tidy wrap up with another girl in Eve’s room wanting to be like her to show that what, women operate in a cycle of trickery and dominance? Physical pain.
Is the writing or the direction worse? Ivo tried to be clever but everything looked messy and busy. It was like Ivo thought up a hundred new tricks and instead of picking one or two to focus on, he threw them all in and hoped for the best. There was creepy music vamping the entire time that became excessive and annoying. There were long pauses that were supposed to be dramatic but were mostly frustrating. If they cut half of those long pauses, it would have been a 90 minute show. Most of all, the whole movie-camera concept was ill-conceived. If we wanted to see this story presented more like a movie, we would have watched the damn movie, Ivo, and we would have loved it and we would have saved hundreds of dollars and we would not have gotten AGITA from all the ANGER. There were literally cameramen with working cameras following the actors around, and their filming was projected onto the back wall for us to watch live. Sometimes important action was happening out of our view, like in the kitchen (the birthday party scene) or the bathroom (literally the climax of the show) and the only way the audience saw this, this important action, was because the cameraman was filming and we watched the projection. WHO STAGES THE MOST CLIMACTIC SCENES OF A PLAY OFFSTAGE. I mean, I get that you are going for some sort of expose vibe but this isn’t a FORKING MOVIE, IVO. If you want to direct a movie I’m sure someone would hire you to do that, but don’t take a stage show and try to make it your next film. Ugh the cameras so often settled on empty glasses and dishes and projected those for us to stare at and it’s like, ‘ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY SOMETHING DEEP, BECAUSE WE ARE JUST LOOKING AT GLASSES.’
But then the writing was so cringeworthy that with literally every other line, my husband and I were kicking each other. They owe me new stockings because of how bad this writing was! Not one line of honest or realistic dialogue is in the whole thing. There was a line about how every ticket holder to a play would ask for refunds if an understudy was on – this in a city (London) where they famously DON’T GIVE REFUNDS IF AN UNDERSTUDY IS ON! Don’t get me started about how shitty a policy that bullshit is, especially for a show like this when there is a 1000% price increase for these big stars.
I wish I could say that if they had a different director take this in a different direction, it would have been good. But nothing happening on that stage was salvageable. Gillian, who is often superb onstage, is not superb here. She spoke in a low gravely monotone that seemed bored and kept us from connecting. At least she still has a strong stage presence and is usually great. Lily, on the other hand, should not be a stage actress. Her climactic screaming breakdown evoked no emotions other than fremdschamen. She is winning onscreen but is simply not meant for the stage.
There is one trick that Ivo employed that works: when Margo stares at herself in the mirror (projected to us, naturally) and slowly sees herself morph into an old lady. That was cool. You know what wasn’t cool? Having the cameraman film Margo throwing up in the bathroom after drinking too much. That was not cool. I am so tired of Ivo’s misogyny. He made these two women into painful caricatures where they were once interesting women, flawed but recognizable as humans. This is more like cartoon version of what MRA men like to joke about women being like.
To add insult to injury, it is two hours long – WITHOUT AN INTERVAL. Most normal shows do an hour for Act 1, 20 minute intermission, and an hour for Act 2, but this one just skips the interval. It could be to preserve this utterly silly movie vibe, but I would bet you a million dollars that they did it because they knew people would skip out on the second half. Halfway through, there is even a very clear change in vibe that screams out to be the act break, and would have been a good one, but they simply pause and then KEEP TORTURING YOU while you now also have to pee. FIE. FIE UPON HOVE (also the name of a town in England, I’m guessing).
INFORMATION
All About Eve is playing at the Noel Coward Theatre until May 11. Programmes were £4.50, 50p less than normal because I bet the programme sellers felt bad about all the money everyone’s spending to see this monstrosity. In contrast to my usual thinking, I recommend the dress circle in this theatre and not the stalls, because the stalls are below ground level and they don’t let you leave through the main doors at the end so you have to exit onto the street which is some bullshit.
I did not try to stage door – what was I gonna say, “hey you were really great in ‘Mamma Mia 2’ but not this”?? – so I can’t say if they come out or not but like do you care, don’t see this, it’s bad.
“Venus in Fur” on the West End: It’s Sexual and Violent (Like Game of Thrones!)
Wooot it’s Theatre Thursday y’all! Today’s review is of the new production of “Venus in Fur” in the West End, currently playing at the Theatre Royal Haymarket until December 9.
One of the Broadway shows I most regretted missing was the play “Venus in Fur”, for which the joyous and adorable Nina Arianda won a Tony in 2012 for being the literal opposite of joyous and adorable. David Ives’s play was generally referred to as a dark and twisted psychosexual…comedy? Drama? It is both, and it is neither. And that’s really all I knew about it until I finally saw it last weekend, in the form of the new West End production starring Natalie Dormer (Game of Thrones, Tudors, you all love her) and David Oakes (whom I last saw in Shakespeare in Love, the West End play, as Marlowe). It’s not the kind of show you enjoy while it’s happening, but the kind where you can’t stop trying to figure it out after the fact, which could be the more interesting option.
I love going in to shows (and movies) cold, which is harder and harder to do nowadays with every kind of spoiler and (illegal don’t do it) videos on the internet (and with my willpower to avoid such things being nonexistent). But going in to “Venus in Fur”, all I knew was the above – that it was sexual and violent. Husband and I joked about this literally every time we mentioned the play in the run up to it, because it’s one of the funniest parts of one of our favorite movies. Seriously every conversation: “What do we have next weekend?” “Venus in Fur. It’s sexual and violent.” Or “What time is the show tonight?” “7:30. It’s sexual and violent.”
I’m glad I didn’t know much more, because the twists and turns that the play takes you through are what it’s all about. They weren’t kidding about it being psychosexual – every word of it is carefully calculated to inform the psychology of dominance on display, with the roles of the powerful and weak, the dominant and the subordinate, the master and the slave, changing so often and so subtly and so swiftly that you could miss it if you aren’t fully attentive. The power dynamic between the two characters, the actress Vanda and the playwright Thomas Novachek, begins with the normal distance expected when an unaccomplished actress auditions for a role (the whole play is the one scene, Vanda’s arrival and audition). But that power differential shortens and shortens until the two have switched sides of the line, and lines of all sorts get crossed over and over as the audition gets going.
It begins in a New York loft on a stormy night, and there are claps of thunder and bolts of lightning. I thought that was a little unnecessary in the beginning but it totally works to accompany the f-ed up drama that gets going (and especially the twist ending). Thomas (Oakes), the playwright, is on the phone with his significant other, bemoaning (in a preeeetty okay American accent but you could tell it was forced and it made his voice tenor kind of annoying) that none of the actresses who auditioned for his new play were right. Enter Vanda (Dormer), carrying a broken wet umbrella and a HUGE duffel bag crammed full of who knows what and apologizing in a (very very terrible) New York accent for how late she is for her audition and that she was stuck on the subway and a guy was trying to harass her and she just talked and talked until Thomas was like, I don’t see your name, so she went on talking and talking complaining about her shitty agent and her shitty luck until he was like FINE audition just so you stop talking FFS! But the accent and the drawl and the nonstop talking continued as she offhandedly mentioned how she skimmed through the play on the subway and how it’s ‘totally S&M porn’. Thomas, the playwright, is aghast at such a statement, saying that the book it’s based on was high literature. Vanda points out that the book was written by the guy whose name is the root of ‘sado-masochism’ so it seems like she won that one. Between her horrendous accent and her sloppy attire and her nonstop unsophisticated talking, it’s clear that Thomas will never give her a chance to be in his play and that she probably is terrible anyway. She takes off her coat and under her clothes she is wearing a full leather and chain dominatrix outfit, which she explains because of the whole play-being-s&m-porn thing. He’s horrified and explains how the play takes place in like 18th century Germany or something like that between semi-aristocrats. Vanda excitedly rummages through her giant duffel and finds a cream-colored high-necked and full-skirted dress right out of the appropriate era and asks him to help her put it on.
Then she is finally about to read, and Thomas is obviously annoyed and eager to let her read a few lines then send her away. Vanda says she’ll try more of a continental accent, to which Thomas kind of scoffs, imagining it will be even worse than her regular voice. But then Dormer recites the lines in her regular perfect fancy English accent and it wouldn’t have been a surprise if Thomas dropped dead of shock. He, like the audience, was now riveted by this goddess who just a minute ago was this offensive slob. Throughout the whole first section, I was thinking ‘ohhh my god I can’t wait to complain about how they should have just had this based in London so these actors could speak in their regular accents and focus on the acting instead of these over-the-top New York fakings!’ Silly me, I had no idea how important the switching between the accents would be. And that kept repeating itself throughout this show – everything I questioned, every aspect I nitpicked, would prove to be a deliberate decision made to enhance the drama.
Throughout Vanda’s line reading, she would swiftly move in and out of her English to New York accents when she had commentary to make on the script. It was hysterical; she’d say something posh in her English voice and sit all poised and then without a beat say in the grating NYC voice ‘this is some bullshit right here Thomas’ or something like that. She kept breaking to mention how sexist this was and how a woman wouldn’t really act like that and whether this reflected Thomas’s own views and desires. As it progressed, it became clear that she had all of Vanda’s lines memorized. “I thought you said you skimmed through it once on the subway?” Thomas asked. Then Vanda’s commentary started to reference the original book the play was based on and parts of Greek & Roman mythology that inform the themes in that book. Thomas’s amazement and curiosity is echoed in the audience – how does she all of a sudden know everything about this topic and the literature behind it? Who is this person? And the answer to that question gets more and more unclear the more Vanda talks about herself and the more she develops her audition. Deeper into the play, Vanda seems to know an awful lot about Thomas and his personal life, and his significant other. But we have no idea whether any of the reasons she provides are true. And while we wonder along with Thomas about who this person is and how crazy or terrifying or dangerous she might prove to be, Vanda distracts everyone from that question by toying with Thomas with his own written words and then with her own, as they try improvising as the play’s characters way too successfully.
One of the most striking aspects of seeing this show at this present moment was how relevant it was to the stories in the news about Harvey Weinstein and other men in power taking advantage of women in subordinate roles. With all the discussion about the power dynamic between men running things and actresses especially, and all the awareness (and dumb jokes) about the ‘casting couch’, this play’s exploration of these issues felt extra timely. Thomas himself is in charge at first, displaying dominance over the uncouth (can anything be just couth) young actress who’s almost begging him for an audition. Then, Thomas’s characters in the play-within-the play, Keshemski and Vanda, display the same male-dominated relationship at times, especially at the end of their story. One of the questions is the extent to which Thomas’s characters reflect his own desires, and whether the resolution of his play is one that he approves, with a woman begging to be subordinated anew to the man she wants to call her master. It’s pretty misogynistic, and Vanda calls him out on that. Thomas refutes that it’s misogynistic since women do have power in the subordinate role, but despite his arguments seeming to have some truth as he tries to spin a psychological webs to defend himself, it’s pretty clear that he wrote what he knew, and he wrote what he wanted, and what he wanted looks an awful lot like misogyny.
The play is generally interesting and it holds your attention, but the last 15 or so minutes are really where it’s at. That’s when its drama and its revelations and the fear it instills are actually mesmerizing. The very end has a revelation that, like everything Vanda says, you don’t know if it’s true or not, but it sure seems like it could be despite the impossibility. It’s quite fascinating. And every success of this play relies on the actress playing Vanda, it was obvious. Natalie does a really impressive job, and while David kind of pales in comparison, his is a much less meaty role to work with. This is Vanda’s play. And though it’s a weird as ass play in general, the more I think about it the more I appreciate whatever the crap it was trying to do.
So do I regret still missing the Broadway production? I do, because while Dormer was great, the raves I heard about Arianda were unparalleled, calling it the best performance of that season and maybe beyond. I would have loved to have seen what she managed to accomplish with this crazy role in this crazy play. But I’m glad I saw this one, and while I still have no idea how to resolve the mysteries of the show in my head (not that I’m supposed to), I think it’s surely worth seeing. It’s awkward as ass watching it though so be warned and don’t go with…anyone. Well no don’t go alone that’s creeperish too (and I love going to the theatre alone but this would feel a little like you’re the man in a trench coat at an adult theatre). Go with someone you’d be comfortable watching “Eyes Wide Shut” with. Fun fact: an English teacher in high school made us watch parts of that. SUPER INAPPROPRIATE.
It begins in a New York loft on a stormy night, and there are claps of thunder and bolts of lightning. I thought that was a little unnecessary in the beginning but it totally works to accompany the f-ed up drama that gets going (and especially the twist ending). Thomas (Oakes), the playwright, is on the phone with his significant other, bemoaning (in a preeeetty okay American accent but you could tell it was forced and it made his voice tenor kind of annoying) that none of the actresses who auditioned for his new play were right. Enter Vanda (Dormer), carrying a broken wet umbrella and a HUGE duffel bag crammed full of who knows what and apologizing in a (very very terrible) New York accent for how late she is for her audition and that she was stuck on the subway and a guy was trying to harass her and she just talked and talked until Thomas was like, I don’t see your name, so she went on talking and talking complaining about her shitty agent and her shitty luck until he was like FINE audition just so you stop talking FFS! But the accent and the drawl and the nonstop talking continued as she offhandedly mentioned how she skimmed through the play on the subway and how it’s ‘totally S&M porn’. Thomas, the playwright, is aghast at such a statement, saying that the book it’s based on was high literature. Vanda points out that the book was written by the guy whose name is the root of ‘sado-masochism’ so it seems like she won that one. Between her horrendous accent and her sloppy attire and her nonstop unsophisticated talking, it’s clear that Thomas will never give her a chance to be in his play and that she probably is terrible anyway. She takes off her coat and under her clothes she is wearing a full leather and chain dominatrix outfit, which she explains because of the whole play-being-s&m-porn thing. He’s horrified and explains how the play takes place in like 18th century Germany or something like that between semi-aristocrats. Vanda excitedly rummages through her giant duffel and finds a cream-colored high-necked and full-skirted dress right out of the appropriate era and asks him to help her put it on.
Then she is finally about to read, and Thomas is obviously annoyed and eager to let her read a few lines then send her away. Vanda says she’ll try more of a continental accent, to which Thomas kind of scoffs, imagining it will be even worse than her regular voice. But then Dormer recites the lines in her regular perfect fancy English accent and it wouldn’t have been a surprise if Thomas dropped dead of shock. He, like the audience, was now riveted by this goddess who just a minute ago was this offensive slob. Throughout the whole first section, I was thinking ‘ohhh my god I can’t wait to complain about how they should have just had this based in London so these actors could speak in their regular accents and focus on the acting instead of these over-the-top New York fakings!’ Silly me, I had no idea how important the switching between the accents would be. And that kept repeating itself throughout this show – everything I questioned, every aspect I nitpicked, would prove to be a deliberate decision made to enhance the drama.
Throughout Vanda’s line reading, she would swiftly move in and out of her English to New York accents when she had commentary to make on the script. It was hysterical; she’d say something posh in her English voice and sit all poised and then without a beat say in the grating NYC voice ‘this is some bullshit right here Thomas’ or something like that. She kept breaking to mention how sexist this was and how a woman wouldn’t really act like that and whether this reflected Thomas’s own views and desires. As it progressed, it became clear that she had all of Vanda’s lines memorized. “I thought you said you skimmed through it once on the subway?” Thomas asked. Then Vanda’s commentary started to reference the original book the play was based on and parts of Greek & Roman mythology that inform the themes in that book. Thomas’s amazement and curiosity is echoed in the audience – how does she all of a sudden know everything about this topic and the literature behind it? Who is this person? And the answer to that question gets more and more unclear the more Vanda talks about herself and the more she develops her audition. Deeper into the play, Vanda seems to know an awful lot about Thomas and his personal life, and his significant other. But we have no idea whether any of the reasons she provides are true. And while we wonder along with Thomas about who this person is and how crazy or terrifying or dangerous she might prove to be, Vanda distracts everyone from that question by toying with Thomas with his own written words and then with her own, as they try improvising as the play’s characters way too successfully.
One of the most striking aspects of seeing this show at this present moment was how relevant it was to the stories in the news about Harvey Weinstein and other men in power taking advantage of women in subordinate roles. With all the discussion about the power dynamic between men running things and actresses especially, and all the awareness (and dumb jokes) about the ‘casting couch’, this play’s exploration of these issues felt extra timely. Thomas himself is in charge at first, displaying dominance over the uncouth (can anything be just couth) young actress who’s almost begging him for an audition. Then, Thomas’s characters in the play-within-the play, Keshemski and Vanda, display the same male-dominated relationship at times, especially at the end of their story. One of the questions is the extent to which Thomas’s characters reflect his own desires, and whether the resolution of his play is one that he approves, with a woman begging to be subordinated anew to the man she wants to call her master. It’s pretty misogynistic, and Vanda calls him out on that. Thomas refutes that it’s misogynistic since women do have power in the subordinate role, but despite his arguments seeming to have some truth as he tries to spin a psychological webs to defend himself, it’s pretty clear that he wrote what he knew, and he wrote what he wanted, and what he wanted looks an awful lot like misogyny.
The play is generally interesting and it holds your attention, but the last 15 or so minutes are really where it’s at. That’s when its drama and its revelations and the fear it instills are actually mesmerizing. The very end has a revelation that, like everything Vanda says, you don’t know if it’s true or not, but it sure seems like it could be despite the impossibility. It’s quite fascinating. And every success of this play relies on the actress playing Vanda, it was obvious. Natalie does a really impressive job, and while David kind of pales in comparison, his is a much less meaty role to work with. This is Vanda’s play. And though it’s a weird as ass play in general, the more I think about it the more I appreciate whatever the crap it was trying to do.
So do I regret still missing the Broadway production? I do, because while Dormer was great, the raves I heard about Arianda were unparalleled, calling it the best performance of that season and maybe beyond. I would have loved to have seen what she managed to accomplish with this crazy role in this crazy play. But I’m glad I saw this one, and while I still have no idea how to resolve the mysteries of the show in my head (not that I’m supposed to), I think it’s surely worth seeing. It’s awkward as ass watching it though so be warned and don’t go with…anyone. Well no don’t go alone that’s creeperish too (and I love going to the theatre alone but this would feel a little like you’re the man in a trench coat at an adult theatre). Go with someone you’d be comfortable watching “Eyes Wide Shut” with. Fun fact: an English teacher in high school made us watch parts of that. SUPER INAPPROPRIATE.
AUDIENCE
I didn’t see any phones! To continue the theme of sexism that this play presented, I’m going to say that’s because it’s usually men who I see on their phones during plays, but this one had Natalie Dormer half naked onstage the whole time, so they were preoccupied.
STAGE DOOR
Guys I tried! The Game of Thrones fandom is too much, I think! It was a huge line – seriously, a single file line down the sidewalk; they really need to figure out a better system because there’s no way the actors were going to walk down that line to sign programs. We waited about 20 minutes but then gave up. What do you say to actors after that kind of performance anyway??!! So awkward!
