National Theatre’s Romeo & Juliet a Big Success Despite it Still Being So GD Stupid

It’s Theatre Thursday y’all! Today we are talking about Glengarry Glen Ross at London’s Playhouse Theatre, which runs until February 3. 
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I don’t really like David Mamet. Don’t get me wrong, I like him more than I like Pinter, but still, he’s not my cup of playwright tea. (I don’t really like any tea!). But I went to see the new London production of his eminent work “Glengarry Glen Ross” because Christian Slater was in it. I mean also because I like to see all the theatre but mainly because Christian Slater was in it and I thought if I got to meet him then I could be friends with Cher Horowitz in both of their primes. Also he’s a good actor. I am familiar with the movie, and I don’t love it but I understand that it’s important and worthy of others’ adoration. I was skeptical of how such an American play would do with British audiences, but fun fact, “Glengarry Glen Ross” (GGGR) had its world premiere in London! Who knew! (Another fun fact, Mamet dedicated the play to Pinter, because he helped make that OG production happen. What a small world of playwrights I don’t enjoy!)

If you haven’t seen the movie or weren’t in NYC in the ‘80s to see the Broadway production (which oddly won the Pulitzer Prize but lost the Tony Award, which happens a lot but still come on that’s like winning the Oscar and not winning the Golden Globe (I know I just compared my fave Tonys to the ridiculous Globes and that is heresy but even I can admit that awards mean nothing (except the Pulitzer, you want to believe that that means something))) (also omg the 1984 Tonys were LUDICROUS; GGGR lost Best Play to Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing, which I don’t know too well, but I’m sure it was deserved, but more importantly Ian McKellen was nominated for a show literally called “Ian McKellen Acting Shakespeare” which like okay I know I wasn’t born yet but how did I miss that?? and worst part omg Mandy Patinkin lost for Sunday in the Park with George, which Sondheim didn’t win best score for? how is that possible? I know “I Am What I Am” is a seminal wonderful song but so is “Finishing the Hat” and omg “Move On” come onnnn and it lost Best Musical to La Cage Aux Folles too and I don’t know how I feel about that because La Cage is a great show too and it was probably super meaningful at that time to honor a story about gay men and I really could talk about that for a while but I will try to get back on topic), GGGR is about desperate real estate men in Chicago who want so badly to sell shitty real estate to support their meaningless, humdrum lives that they are willing to do terrible things to make it happen. The ones who aren’t willing to burgle and steal are still willing to lie to and cheat buyers and commit all sorts of shenanigans that prove their lack of moral compass. So, none of them are very sympathetic characters, and it’s hard to connect fully when that’s the case, and it’s even harder when it’s yet another story about how hard regular men’s lives are in America I mean I know it’s from the ‘80s but I’m tired of it. Ain’t you tired Miss Hilly?
 
The play opens with two characters sitting in a Chinese restaurant. The whole first act (an incredibly short 35 minutes, I mean what) takes place in the Chinese restaurant, which really made me want fried tofu but I’m not sure if that was the intention. First we see poor sad sack Shelley Levine (Jack Lemmon in the movie, who really can’t be beat he was the best) begging the office manager John Williamson for better leads (the Glengarry leads) so he can actually make a good sale. He’s older than the other salesmen and past his prime and you do feel a bit bad for him. Williamson, on the other hand, is cold and unfeeling but as played by Kris Marshall, kind of bland instead. You’ll know Kris as the British idiot who went to America to find girls in “Love Actually” and sang ditties about his knob and somehow managed to find hot girls because of his accent. That accent is missing here as he tries to do an American accent, which is fine, but it seemed like all his focus was on the accent instead of acting so he was very stiff and wooden.
 
The focus on keeping up their fake American accents was apparent with the rest of the British cast too. Scene two of the Chinese restaurant duos featured Dave Moss, the brash and aggressive jerk who plans to rob the office of its best leads and sell them to a competitor. He tries to convince George Aaronow, the least memorable character in this production, to join him, and threatens to incriminate him if he doesn’t. Playing George, Don Warrington was fine but I don’t know if the accent was tripping him up or if he just wasn’t good with stuttered interjections. His character has a lot of repeated words like ‘I – I – I’ that get interrupted, but it was clear he was waiting to be interrupted and that threw everything off kilter a little. It always bothers me when actors don’t have more planned in case their costars wait a half second too long to interrupt. You gotta keep going or else it’s so obvious that the timing is off. I remember in “Once Upon a Mattress”, which we did in middle school and it was horrible because you need more sophisticated actors to make that show not terrible, there’s a line the princess says: “But that’s my huckle—“ and then the queen or something interrupts her. Okay people, it’s clear she’s going to say huckleberry so just make like you’re going to say huckleberry and let her actually interrupt you. Don’t say huckle and then let there be open air. You get what I’m saying. Don didn’t have his berry ready.
 
So all of this was kind of boring and hard to get into because most of the characters sucked so far, but then in Scene 3, Christian finally shows up, as Ricky Roma, and it’s the first (maybe only?) truly enjoyable, spirited bit of the play. Everyone perked up not just because he’s more electrifying to watch, but because his character is much more fun. An ass, but fun. He’s talking in the restaurant booth to maybe a good friend – you assume from the conversation –  and he’s just going on and on about his life and women and sex and it’s kind of wacky but entertaining, and then after this monologue he pauses, and asks his companion what his name is. It’s the one great laugh in the show and it really effectively establishes Roma’s character. Great scene, Mamet.
 
In Act two, we lose the Chinese restaurant for their burgled office, all grey and mediocre with crap and papers everywhere. A cop is there questioning everyone separately. This whole act mainly just featured a lot of yelling and cursing and I wasn’t really invested. Then our only likable character, Roma, proves that he is also a terrible lying liar when his new client from the night before comes by and says he has to cancel the deal, he can’t afford it. Roma tells him that his check hasn’t been sent to the bank yet so there is still time for him to think it over. But then the office manager comes out and says stiffly and woodenly that the check was deposited at the bank. He was misreading the conversation, but I hang on to the very improbably hope that maybe he was trying to help this poor sad sack cancel it with the authorities before the allotted time ran out and he lost all his money, so maybe there would be one decent person in this office, or at least one person who does one decent thing. Roma, clearly a dick, is so pissed that Williamson ruined his deal and, ya know, saved that poor man’s life with his accidental reveal, and you’re just like, dude, you are doing fine, you’re the best salesman in the office and pretty soon you will only have to share the business with one other guy, chill the f and realize how much of a dick you are to be mad that that guy won’t become destitute because of your lies!
 
This is the point at which I was checked out. Bunch of dicks on that stage trying to keep demonstrating how dickish they are or something? I understand that it’s like such an honest look at desperation in the middle class and men feeling bad about their small penii but I am so done with white male stories. I think we’ve passed this kind of thing as a society. At least I have. The acting, aside from the accent focus, was fine, and if you like the play and/or the movie it’s worth seeing. While it’s a decent play I guess, that is decently performed, it’s not very compelling, and I’ll admit that this is one case where the movie is just better. Also, I can’t help but think how much better it would be to have new exciting diverse stories being told in this theatre.
 
INFORMATION
The lobby at the Playhouse is the worst and you will be crammed in like sardines waiting for the house to open. I had to stand in front of a mirror and then I forgot and someone was looking in it and I was like DUDE what are you doing and she was like what, it’s a mirror.
 
AUDIENCE
I’m not going to talk specifics about what happened with our super awful audience, but I will implore you, everyone, to stop using your phone in the theatre. Even just to peek at. At the movie theatre too. Any dark space with other people, turn off your f-ing phone. There is no valid reason to use it in the theatre. Truly, there isn’t. I dare you to think of one. Please, by all means, comment below with anything you think is a valid reason and I will tell you why it’s not. If you are a doctor on call, you shouldn’t be at the theatre. If you have little kids and you don’t trust whoever is watching them, you should not be at the theatre and you should never leave children with people you don’t trust to take care of them I mean wtf is wrong with humans are we worth saving??
 
STAGE DOOR
This was THE BEST stage door experience ever. Every actor came out very quickly, like within minutes, and signed and took pictures if requested. It was so efficient and quick and lovely.
 
 

​When I told people I was seeing The Band’s Visit on Broadway, they asked what it’s about, and I’d say “remember that little Israeli film from like 9 years ago about a group of musicians that gets stuck in a nothing town in the middle of nowhere and then, like, they have to leave?” The answers would invariably be ‘no’ or ‘um…what, no’. Then they’d ask me what else happens in the movie, maybe to jog their memory, and I would say, ‘um…I don’t remember…I don’t think anything.” Having seen the final preview (the last performance before official opening night) of the new musical version of this work, I am pretty sure the same conversation will happen for it too. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, this show so unbelievably makes ‘pretty much nothing’ seem like the most beautiful thing about life that it’s going to win Best Musical this year. And so far, it should. The Band’s Visit can sometimes be a bit boring – some people near me were sleeping – but like, in a glorious, magical way.

Based on the 2007 Israeli movie of the same name, TBV is about Israelis and Egyptians with boring lives but it will resonate with most people today about their own lives and whether or not they are also boring. Even non-boring people with non-boring lives will have experienced at least some light anguish or fun-sized depression at some point, and so will connect with what’s happening on the stage. And what’s happening is a kind of special, fragile magic that is rare on Broadway. It’s about normal people in the 1990s, living quiet lives, just everyday people, no one special like in any other show. These everyday people are Israelis living in a little town, it’s a quiet village, called Beit Hatikva in the middle of the Negev desert. Beit Hatikva is not to be confused with Petah Tikva, a town with an Arab Cultural Center where a group of Egyptian military band musicians were supposed to perform, but, considering there’s no ‘p’ sound in Arabic and they naturally substitute the ‘b’, you can see how the musicians did indeed confuse the two and ended up getting bus tickets to Beit Hatikva by accident. In the middle of the dusty Negev, in a village with maybe dozens of people, instead of at an official performance, the musicians are stuck for the night until they can catch a rare bus out of town the next day. While there, they befriend the locals and connect deeply with some despite the hindrance of time.

We meet the Israelis, kind of dawdling through their long, humdrum days, when the sing the opener literally about how they are waiting, just waiting, whether for something new and strange (they all want some strange) to come along, or just for the sky to go about changing its color. About how they stare into the distance expecting what they see to change but knowing that it never will. Luckily, the something new they dream about does come around to jolt their routine, and they are happy to feed and house the lost Egyptian musicians in their homes. Were people still nice and hospitable in the ‘90s? Maybe Israelis were? This show is so good it will make everyone love Jews! Anyway the villagers sing a few funny-sad-sarcastic songs about how nothing happens there and how time just passes and isn’t that sooo great. I love the line “Sometimes time is an ocean/This sofa is my boat and I’m just drifting right along.” I mean sure this might be happening in the Negev but show me one person in America who hasn’t had that exact thought, albeit much less poetic I’m sure, at some point? That’s why this show is so good and so beloved already – it doesn’t matter that it’s about specific people in a specific place; it’s genuinely just reflecting basic humanity, as most theatre tries to do but rarely so poignantly.

And that basic humanity includes the yearning to connect with others, in any way – romantically, with friends, with family, as a parent, everything. The visitors want to find this connection, the villagers want to find this connection. John Cariani, that lovable nerd from Something Rotten, plays an unhappy husband and new father who wants his marriage to be happier so they can raise their child better. He is adorably goofy, like with his parts in “Welcome to Nowhere”, but also brings such sad hope in “Itzik’s Lullaby”. Adam Kantor plays a guy who literally spends the entire show standing at a payphone, pathetically and pitifully waiting for his girlfriend to call. He finally gets to show off with the closer “Answer Me”, which is one of the songs that will stay with you probably forever. I love both these guys and though they have a small amount to do (it’s a 90 minute show! and nothing happens!) they manage to do it so well it breaks your heart. So will Ari’el Stachel as one of the musicians, making friends with the yoots in the town and teaching one hapless one in particular, Papi (the adorbs Etai Benson), about love. His song “Haled’s Song About Love” had me absolutely riveted, because his voice is out of this world. (It’s unfortunate that his is the only song on the cast recording that doesn’t show just how wonderful he is, but he still sounds great.)

But no one will break your heart like Tony Shalhoub and Katrina Lenk. I know, SHALHOUB! Monk! He plays the king of the Egyptians, okay that’s not really a thing, he’s the band leader and a general I think but king of the Egyptians is a bonkers amazing title. His name is Tewfiq, which has replaced ‘toe-pick!’ as a fun thing my brother and I like to shout now. He’s polite enough, and reserved, which is hard to maintain when faced with the unabashed, relentless flowing energy of Katrina Lenk as the local café owner Dina. Lenk is spellbinding in this role, where she doesn’t have much to do in a traditional musical theatre sense but she makes every moment feel like it’s a universe condensed into a movement or a sound. One of the most mesmerizing performers in every aspect, she moves like a dancer while she sings, and sometimes you are more riveted by how she gestures with one graceful arm moving like a ribbon than by what she’s saying. But what she’s saying also feels like the most vital words ever put to music, like you need them in order to breathe. It’s a revelatory performance, completely mesmerizing. If you don’t believe me, go below and listen to ‘Omar Sharif’ and try not to repeat it 50 times in a row.

Dina and Tewfiq both recognize what the other presents – a complete stranger, sure, but someone they didn’t think they’d have the opportunity to meet. It’s not like it’s love at first sight or something, it’s literally just like ‘hey you are…of age…and seem nice…and I have zero options.’ But it’s a beautiful kind of forlorn hope you feel arise. Dina, the unstoppable energy force, takes Tewfiq out to dinner and they eat and then they sit in a park and that’s the extent of what they do for most of the show, just sit and talk and it’s not right how moving it is, it doesn’t make any sense that it can be so heartbreaking and exquisite but it is. They’re all trying to get through life, get through their day, and maybe find someone who cares that they’re getting through it. It’s all kind of sad and wonderful and at several points you’ll do what I did, which is look around and say, ‘this is happening on Broadway??!!’ Fragile magic.

Not just the short amount of time hinders the budding relationships – in friendships, mentorships, and maybe romantic ones – from flourishing. The reality that makes this show so special is also what hinders the characters from hoping for anything more than mediocre: they know that nothing really happens in life like you see in the movies. This is most evident in the song ‘Omar Sharif’, which will send chills down your spine the entire time Katrina sings it, or more accurately, the entire time the force of this music uses Lenk as a vessel to convey its message in an otherworldly sort of way. ‘Omar Sharif’ is an outstanding song and Katrina’s performance during it may win her the Tony, so far away but almost a certainty. She and Tewfiq create pure magic in the park with ‘Something Different’, and despite seeing this opportunity they’ve gotten, we all know and they know that nothing in their lives is really ever going to change. Katrina really steals the show, but it’s in this scene where Shalhoub shows you why he so famous. I really almost went onstage to give him a hug when he shared what keeps him from trying or hoping for anything great, and I didn’t even watch Monk.

I wanted more music, because what there is is truly wonderful and different – it is SO Israeli with that middle eastern rhythm and tones of klezmer music – but I realize that anything more would harm the delicate thing happening onstage. David Yazbek has created a masterpiece. And David Cromer’s masterful direction lets the play happen, seemingly on its own, unfolding so naturally that it feels like a giant body of water, moving ever so slowly with no way of stopping it, slowing it down, or speeding it up. It just happens. There’s so much restraint on everyone’s part to keep the show small and subtle and natural, and that’s what makes the result so special and somehow enormous. It’s like it’s happening in spite of itself, in spite of audience expectations, in spite of being in a Broadway theatre. (I bet this was even more magical when it was downtown in a small theatre, but apparently it still works.) That the unfolding of the action (what little there is) and the monotonous pace of these characters’ lives seems unfettered and unfussed and so natural is really a tribute to everyone involved, letting there be such a subtle result. Like they sing in the show, “nothing is as beautiful as something that you don’t expect.”

This show will stay with you after you’ve seen it, staking permanent space in your mind so you think about it constantly. There’s more silence happening on this stage than in any other theatrical experience I’ve ever seen or heard of. Pure silence. That’s weird right? An often silent, quiet and still show? And yet that silence is a revelation. It’s not the kind that’s filled with unease, that makes you think okay can someone just do something? No, you’re content to just sit with them in that silence, to let it wash over you so you enjoy it all together, and to think with them about their nothing town and their predictable lives, and just, be. Just be in that space with these characters. With such a realistic portrayal of regular people in an unspecial town, silence and boredom and nothing is required. Normal life has those moments, and since realism and honesty are honored here, the experience reflects real life.  And that never really gets to happen in musical theatre. I’ll admit at some of those moments I was itching for a song to begin, but that wouldn’t have had the same effect. The restraint evident here is part of why it works. It languishes, it flows like a lazy river, and to tamper with that would throw off the sense of realism, the sense that we are just getting a peek into actual people’s lives. And honestly I feel so lucky that I got to see into these people’s lives, and that this little show for grown-ups with absolutely zero commercial promise on paper is so wonderful.

STAGEDOOR
I went to the very last preview before opening night, so the cast may have just been extra excited to share the love, but everyone came out and took pictures and happily talked to everyone waiting. The crowd is different from usual, because it’s a lot of Israelis and Jews and Arabs who want to talk and it’s so freaking awesome. The title of this post has HABIBI!! in it because that’s the first thing I think of when I think about this show – the Israeli woman in the crowd at stagedoor who I think every time a cast member came out would scream HABIBI! in excitement. It was the best. It’s telling such an important story and it’s rare to get Middle Eastern people presented in a show where they are just average people with regular lives. So everyone is excited about that and you should be too.

INFORMATION
It’s a short 90 minutes with no intermission. If you’re like me and you already have to pee just reading that, don’t run to the toilets as soon as it ends because the musicians play a little amazing concert at curtain call.

The most important information? The cast recording is now finished, and it’s streaming on soundcloud. Entertainment Weekly has it here for you to listen to for free RIGHT NOW. Like I said above, try not to repeat “Omar Sharif” over and over and over and over…