Jerusalem with Mark Rylance: Biggest of Star Turns in Pertinent AF Playby Randi / June 23, 2022It’s Theatre Thursday! We’re still doing those when we remember!
Okay yes The Minutes, Tracy Letts’ latest Broadway play, has recently closed, and I was just too busy to write about it in time for you to read the review and still be able to go ‘oh I want to see this, I will go to Telecharge.com right now and be able to magically use that shithole of a website from 1991 and actually successfully checkout before the show closes and/or I die from frustration.’ Sorry, but hey, what a weird show! If it was still open, I would have recommended checking it out but not paying too much.
The Minutes is a real-time-plus-flashback-also-in-real-time local council meeting (omg I’m forgetting what they are called in USA, what’s happened to me…borough meeting? it’s a small baby government of people who think they have a lot of power and honestly have more than they should) where the new guy is trying to play catch-up with WTAF is going on with this group. Noah Reid – Patrick from Schitt’s Creek – is beyond perfectly cast as the earnest newbie who you can tell makes dad jokes and is friendly, committed to doing his job well, and eager to correct people’s grammar (‘sometimes it’s who!!’).
Right from the start, you get a bad feeling about the council head Tracy Letts, who is just as incredible an actor as he is a writer. Even without the ominous thunderstorm, you’d know from his first scene where he’s kibbutzing politely over the refreshments with the new guy not to trust him, and when he asks the new guy what his baby daughter’s name is, you get the urge to yell “don’t tell him!!” It’s so subtle but he conveys that sinister sense that things aren’t what they seem.
Noah’s commitment to doing his job means not letting Tracy (we are screwing character names) and the rest of the council skirt past the whole ‘incident’ that happened the week before, the one that drove a fellow member to not show up tonight. Someone mentions it in passing, and Noah’s like ‘well what happened last week, remember, this is my first meeting?’ and everyone’s like ‘FORGET IT LA LA LA WE DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING’. So Noah has Jessie Mueller (NOT SINGING AT ALL) read the minutes (drink!) of the meeting from the week before, which is his right. She reads them and when it gets to the key part, apparently there’s a transcript she made that’s attached as an appendix. Guys, there’s a whole lot of talk about the technicalities of minutes and appendices and transcripts that the Tony-winner likes to do just for completeness sake, and it sounds like it would be a long sigh of a boring mess, but it’s actually gripping. You’re like YES READ THE F-ING TRANSCRIPT, THE APPENDIX IS PART OF THE MINUTES, OF COURSE IT’S PART OF IT!
What comes to light about the conflict the week before focuses on the man who isn’t at the present meeting, the council member with the conscience. Turns out he wanted the council to officially recognize the town’s terrible racist history, the truth that everyone ignores, that’s the opposite of what’s in the popular founding mythology and the town song. The real story is, as we guessed, full of slaughter of the Native population. All of this sounds very believable and without a doubt is the same story for many American towns. But taking this play’s treatment of this subject beyond the recognizable and into the symbolic is the strength of the connection this town, and this council, has to their fake history. Their unwillingness to give up their fake history is treated more like a necessity, a powerful all-encompassing metaphorical spirit that goes beyond what you’d expect in real life, but reflects the strength these false histories have over us. People like this cling to them when letting go would mean also losing a sense of balance in the world, the world they/we created where we benefit from the lies.
So they WILL NOT let them go! The play ends super weird, like war paint and hooting weird, and it’s a little unbelievable that Noah would fold so easily, but maybe I’m projecting. And sure it’s not (hopefully) representative of what happens at your average council meeting, but the sentiment at play is pretty much what’s going on in every town in America. We love a Tracy Letts joint to make us feel bad about the world!
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Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus is as Wacky and Gory as You’d Expect
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus, playing at Broadway’s Booth Theatre.
If you’re familiar with artist and playwright Taylor Mac, you’d know before going into one of his shows that it’ll be unique, to say the least. But you don’t even need to know Mac’s provocative past works (like his A 24-Decade History of Popular Music) to know that something billing itself as a sequel to Shakespeare’s most violent, disgustingly gory play, Titus Andronicus, will be eeeeenteresting. And gory. And weird af. And it is!
But Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus, starring the great Nathan Lane, is more than just fart jokes and blood (although there’s a lot of scatological humor, which is the fancy way of saying you see a lot of actual, um, emptying of intestines. Of corpses). As you’d expect from Mac, Gary also manages to say some noble things about class, injustice, and modern society. It’s just simultaneously squirting blood out of stabbed necks and accidentally ingesting corpse feces.
As you may know, Titus Andronicus (not to be confused with the superior Titus – Andromedon) is a revenge tragedy, in which the bloodthirsty Roman general kills the Queen of the Goths’ son for killing all his sons (not to be confused with All My Sons) and then the Goth Queen has her other sons rape Titus’s daughter AND CUT OFF HER HANDS, so then Titus kills those sons and bakes them into a pie and serves it to the Goth Queen…and this isn’t even all of it. It’s beyond gory and disturbing, and there’s a huuuge body count by the end. You really only need to know this last bit going into Gary, in which Mac asks the question, at the end of this epic, insane massacre, who cleans it all up?
And his answer, for our amusement, is Gary. In Titus, there’s an unnamed clown who is sent off to be hanged. Mac has saved him from the hanging and called him Gary, played by the great Nathan Lane as no one else could play this character. By volunteering for cleanup, Gary escapes death and gets a promotion, what a big day for him, to maid. With the help of the equally-anachronistically-named maid Janice (Kristine Nielsen), the two of them attempt to sort through the massive pile of corpses, emptying their intestines of all gases and substances for reasons unconvincing for the work required, honestly. While they work, they wax philosophically – in iambic pentameter most of the time – about privilege, class, and politics. And feces.
They also meet Carol (Julie White), the former midwife bleeding out various wounds in her neck, who is dealing with the turmoil and guilt of not having done enough to save her former charge, which all sounds quite depressing but like I said, she’s bleeding out her neck and she’s Julie White, so it’s rather hilarious. One of the most remarkable details of this play is that Julie White, cast so perfectly, wasn’t supposed to be in it: absolute ledge Andrea Martin was originally playing Janice, and Kristine Nielsen was Carol. But Martin was injured days before previews began and had to leave the show, bumping Nielsen up to the lead role of Janice and bringing White in as a last minute addition. For this extreme change, everyone involved deserves kudos for making it work.
Although all three actors (mostly the women) try too hard too often to milk all the obvious humor from their characters, to the point where sometimes they go too far and it becomes unfunny, they succeed often enough to make it an amusing, enjoyable show, even though because it is so insane I have no idea whether I actually recommend it, or who exactly I would recommend it to.
Some of the philosophical statements the comic trio share are striking and powerful, especially when they are relevant to the current political crises (and especially when they are in rhyming couplets, I mean damn). The setup overall, with the help left with the responsibility of cleaning up the mess of the rich and powerful, already says a lot about power structures and who pays the greatest price. But amid Gary’s attempt to create a new genre, a ‘fooling’, to better express his political views, and amid Janice’s continued efforts to drain all the corpses, the play somewhat loses its focus. While trying to provide political commentary and outright humor, it somehow manages to deny a little too much of both.
INFORMATION
Gary is playing at the Booth Theatre until August 4.
“Hamilton” on the West End, Revisited
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today we’re taking another look at the West End production of “Hamilton: An American Musical”, currently playing in London until probably the end of time.
Last week, I got to see “Hamilton” again. I’m very lucky to have seen it multiple times because, well first of all because it’s the best, but secondly, and more importantly for our purposes here, there’s not much that reviews coming out at this point can say about this show so it’s great to talk instead about how this production is evolving. If I read one more London critic reviewing it anew now and making a “I got to be in the room where it happened’ joke I will vomit. Well first I’d find out where he got his morning coffee and I’d throw it in his face (not when it’s too hot of course I’m not a monster) and I’d be like DID YOU THINK YOU WERE BEING ORIGINAL??? And then I’d vomit. Luckily we don’t have to get into all the details about what this show is about or the basics of the elements because I’m prettayyy prettayyy sure you know already, and if you don’t you can read past reviews here and here. So we get to talk about the London production and how it has improved, or worsened, since it was in previews.
It goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway, that “Hamilton” is beyond incredible, with a mind-boggling, flawless score and a captivating book. There’s nothing else like it. Whatever problems there are with certain production-specific aspects, it’s hard to do anything to the show that actually hurts it. It’s strong enough to withstand some issues here and there and still be among the most astonishing theatrical experiences you’ve ever had. So in my nitpicking, remember that I’m nitpicking; I’m still talking about a superb show.
Let’s start with the good. Several things have improved since my last viewing, I’m happy to say. One improvement for me was with our main man, Jamael Westman. His Alexander Hamilton is still reserved and less energetic than Lin’s, but whereas last time it made me mad (I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and be like WOULD YOU JUST PLEASE…give me the recipe! (‘Friends’ joke! I didn’t want a recipe I wanted him to show some enthusiasm but I had to finish the quote)), this time I understood it a little more. I still prefer the energy of more dynamic, vivacious Hams but I get what he’s doing. I do have to clarify, though, that while I’m praising his overall interpretation as having improved, his performance this night did have a few bad moments where the lack of energy wasn’t an acting choice but was a failing. Sometimes his words weren’t even audible. If the audience didn’t know the words, we wouldn’t have known that he had said anything at certain moments. Either he was miked poorly or he was just exhausted.
Probably the biggest standout for me was Cleve September’s Laurens/Phillip. Before, I thought he was fine, and I thought Obioma Ugoala’s Washington was the standout of the supporting men. But now, I’ve jumped clear on over to the Cleve train. It’s not that he’s better than Broadway’s Anthony Ramos (and who can compare performances like that anyway) (I mean I can) (but I won’t), it’s just that it’s easier to stand out when there’s no Daveed Diggs or Chris Jackson to combat with, and he really takes that opportunity and runs with it. His Laurens is at times moving and hilarious, and his Phillip was wonderful. The aforementioned Ugoala and Jason Pennycooke as Lafayette/Jefferson are giving wonderful performances (especially the latter) but they are pretty much the same as last time, so Cleve’s growing, improved performance shines all the more brightly.
I also wasn’t bothered by Rachelle Ann Go’s accent as much, even though my husband thinks it has actually gotten harder to understand. I think that now that I knew about the accent hurdles, I was prepared and could focus more on her performance. She plays a truly sweet Eliza that you don’t want to be sad, so when she’s sad for like the whole second act, you feel for her like you’re supposed to. There’s not much to her performance but she does the necessary job. And her superb “Burn” is still one of the most heartbreaking, gorgeous moments.
Lastly, I have to applaud Sifiso Mazibuko, the principle male standby of the show who was on as Burr at this performance. It was a real disappointment not to see how Giles Terrera has progressed in his terrific performance, but Sifiso was fantastic. Despite not giving as much nuance to his character, he did a wonderful job.
Continuing with the ‘bad’, although it’s not actively bad, just disappointing. As I mentioned above, Jamael had some bits where his energy was not just lowered but was nonexistent, and the worst offender was honestly ALL of “Say No To This”. While I love how much Christine Allado does with how little Peggy has, her Maria leaves me wanting so much more. I was underwhelmed with this number last time, and it has only gotten colder. This song is supposed to be hot and fiery and full of tumultuous emotions and I found myself trying to learn the footwork of background ensemble members to keep my interest up. There’s just zero chemistry between the actors and zero energy in this number. It was a real letdown.
I also was upset that Michael Jibson was out and an understudy was on for the King. The understudy was fine – and with that role it’s impossible not to get all the laughs anyway. It’s kind of like Ogie in “Waitress” and honestly Lola in “Kinky Boots” in that even if the actors are not amazing, they will still kill it. But I really like Jibson’s hilarious performance and it would have been nice to have another chance to determine whether he deserved to Judi Dench the Oliviers.
Now to the ugly. I hate, with full force of that word, that the biggest problem I had with this production since previews has not been addressed in the least, and the theatre shows no sign of dealing with it. You’ll notice that in the previous paragraph I referred to the King’s ‘understudy’ and not to an actor by name, which is shameful. Well, I don’t know his name. Whereas on Broadway, theatres operate by the 2/3 rule (understudies are announced in 2 of 3 ways: a cast list in the entrance, a slip in the Playbill, and/or an announcement over the loudspeaker right before the curtain rises), the West End has no such policies and so understudies don’t have to be, and often aren’t, recognized. I asked the staff at the theatre where the understudies for that night were announced, if anywhere, and was told that the tiny little electronic display on one side of the lobby (across from the cloakroom), near nothing that anyone would go looking for unless they knew to go over there, had that evening’s actors on it. Like, a constantly changing display was it. I can’t even believe this. This is so unacceptable it’s offensive to the actors. I doubt many people asked about it and I doubt many even knew that understudies were on and that swings had been swung into the holes in the ensemble. I can’t think of one actually decent reason for hiding this fact from the audience, but I can think of tons of ways it sucks. The most important reason why this is a bullshit stance is that it is a disservice to the actors who have worked their whole lives and careers to be on this stage, and they deserve to get their due. Yet instead, when they go on they don’t get to be recognized for their talents. That is inexcusable. I’m shocked that a theatre group like Delfont Mackintosh isn’t doing better to change this system.
Let’s start with the good. Several things have improved since my last viewing, I’m happy to say. One improvement for me was with our main man, Jamael Westman. His Alexander Hamilton is still reserved and less energetic than Lin’s, but whereas last time it made me mad (I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and be like WOULD YOU JUST PLEASE…give me the recipe! (‘Friends’ joke! I didn’t want a recipe I wanted him to show some enthusiasm but I had to finish the quote)), this time I understood it a little more. I still prefer the energy of more dynamic, vivacious Hams but I get what he’s doing. I do have to clarify, though, that while I’m praising his overall interpretation as having improved, his performance this night did have a few bad moments where the lack of energy wasn’t an acting choice but was a failing. Sometimes his words weren’t even audible. If the audience didn’t know the words, we wouldn’t have known that he had said anything at certain moments. Either he was miked poorly or he was just exhausted.
Probably the biggest standout for me was Cleve September’s Laurens/Phillip. Before, I thought he was fine, and I thought Obioma Ugoala’s Washington was the standout of the supporting men. But now, I’ve jumped clear on over to the Cleve train. It’s not that he’s better than Broadway’s Anthony Ramos (and who can compare performances like that anyway) (I mean I can) (but I won’t), it’s just that it’s easier to stand out when there’s no Daveed Diggs or Chris Jackson to combat with, and he really takes that opportunity and runs with it. His Laurens is at times moving and hilarious, and his Phillip was wonderful. The aforementioned Ugoala and Jason Pennycooke as Lafayette/Jefferson are giving wonderful performances (especially the latter) but they are pretty much the same as last time, so Cleve’s growing, improved performance shines all the more brightly.
I also wasn’t bothered by Rachelle Ann Go’s accent as much, even though my husband thinks it has actually gotten harder to understand. I think that now that I knew about the accent hurdles, I was prepared and could focus more on her performance. She plays a truly sweet Eliza that you don’t want to be sad, so when she’s sad for like the whole second act, you feel for her like you’re supposed to. There’s not much to her performance but she does the necessary job. And her superb “Burn” is still one of the most heartbreaking, gorgeous moments.
Lastly, I have to applaud Sifiso Mazibuko, the principle male standby of the show who was on as Burr at this performance. It was a real disappointment not to see how Giles Terrera has progressed in his terrific performance, but Sifiso was fantastic. Despite not giving as much nuance to his character, he did a wonderful job.
Continuing with the ‘bad’, although it’s not actively bad, just disappointing. As I mentioned above, Jamael had some bits where his energy was not just lowered but was nonexistent, and the worst offender was honestly ALL of “Say No To This”. While I love how much Christine Allado does with how little Peggy has, her Maria leaves me wanting so much more. I was underwhelmed with this number last time, and it has only gotten colder. This song is supposed to be hot and fiery and full of tumultuous emotions and I found myself trying to learn the footwork of background ensemble members to keep my interest up. There’s just zero chemistry between the actors and zero energy in this number. It was a real letdown.
I also was upset that Michael Jibson was out and an understudy was on for the King. The understudy was fine – and with that role it’s impossible not to get all the laughs anyway. It’s kind of like Ogie in “Waitress” and honestly Lola in “Kinky Boots” in that even if the actors are not amazing, they will still kill it. But I really like Jibson’s hilarious performance and it would have been nice to have another chance to determine whether he deserved to Judi Dench the Oliviers.
Now to the ugly. I hate, with full force of that word, that the biggest problem I had with this production since previews has not been addressed in the least, and the theatre shows no sign of dealing with it. You’ll notice that in the previous paragraph I referred to the King’s ‘understudy’ and not to an actor by name, which is shameful. Well, I don’t know his name. Whereas on Broadway, theatres operate by the 2/3 rule (understudies are announced in 2 of 3 ways: a cast list in the entrance, a slip in the Playbill, and/or an announcement over the loudspeaker right before the curtain rises), the West End has no such policies and so understudies don’t have to be, and often aren’t, recognized. I asked the staff at the theatre where the understudies for that night were announced, if anywhere, and was told that the tiny little electronic display on one side of the lobby (across from the cloakroom), near nothing that anyone would go looking for unless they knew to go over there, had that evening’s actors on it. Like, a constantly changing display was it. I can’t even believe this. This is so unacceptable it’s offensive to the actors. I doubt many people asked about it and I doubt many even knew that understudies were on and that swings had been swung into the holes in the ensemble. I can’t think of one actually decent reason for hiding this fact from the audience, but I can think of tons of ways it sucks. The most important reason why this is a bullshit stance is that it is a disservice to the actors who have worked their whole lives and careers to be on this stage, and they deserve to get their due. Yet instead, when they go on they don’t get to be recognized for their talents. That is inexcusable. I’m shocked that a theatre group like Delfont Mackintosh isn’t doing better to change this system.
Also, audiences are getting worse and worse (is humanity worth saving? discuss) but we aren’t going to talk about that today.
Aside from all the rage I have bubbling up right now for whoever is in charge of the understudy announcement decisions (I wish I knew; see coffee-based revenge fantasy, supra) and for people who exhibit boorish behavior at the opera (now that’s a ‘The Good Place’ reference (people said they never get my pop culture references (or never realize that I’m making them literally every sentence) so here I’m trying to help ok)), I enjoyed “Hamilton” a lot this last time. It’s a fine production of the greatest show, and it adds a great deal of artistry to the lackluster West End musical theatre scene.
AUDIENCE
I said we’re not going to talk about it.
STAGE DOOR
It seems that a line-against-the-side-wall situation has developed for people to join, ostensibly a smart way to remove the crowd from the main sidewalk, BUT there is no security guard present. I mean. I get that stage-dooring isn’t a huge thing in London but it for sure is for this show! Get a flipping security guard there for this cast! Fans are rabid! Also if there isn’t anyone in charge to tell me (my mom) that we have to get in the line, we are (my mom is) going to line-jump. (This is where I would put that shruggie emoji. To quote Eliza in ‘That Would Be Enough’, “iiiiiiii’m not sorry.”)
