Allegiance with George Takei Comes to Londonby Randi / January 26, 2023It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is the premiere of A Mother’s Song: A New Folk Musical, which just played the Macrobert Arts Centre at University of Stirling last week.
I am realizing that I’m as close to a groupie as one can be for a relatively new Scottish musical theatre composer. Cool! After falling truly madly deeply in love with Finn Anderson’s Islander a few years ago, we had to go to Stirling to see the premiere of this New Folk Musical, A Mother’s Song. A Mother’s Song has promise and could be great. It’s a fully fleshed out full-length musical with some real moments of gloriousness that gave me chills. Anderson has collaborated with director Tania Azevedo to create this show about motherhood throughout many, many generations of one family line, from long-ago Scotland to present day Brooklyn via West Virginia (for once the American accents were Southern for a reason!). They tell the generation-weaving story with music that blends traditional folk songs with modern takes on them, plus some plain old modern songs.
Anderson has his own sound, that folksy sea-shanty-loving if-you-close-your-eyes-you-can-see-the-Highland-coos-in-the-foggy-fields sound with its tight, sometimes spellbinding multi-part harmonies. This score had several moments where I was like ‘yes! this is it! the Finn sound!’, and if he finds and adds some more of that, this would be a score you could compare more to Islander. That show’s amazing use of overlapping percussion to aid in storytelling is largely missing here, and would really serve this show well (also it’s just an awesome element to his sound that I missed). The great moments happen mainly in the first act, especially when the use of traditional Scottish folk songs blend seamlessly with his new songs. When our oldest ancestor Cait (Kirsty Findlay, also in Islander) sings the traditional The Four Marys and it goes right into An Unwelcome Visitor (the visitor in question being a bebe, damn), WHEW but that was pure fire! It helps that Findlay is one of the strongest performers I’ve seen in years, so keyed into nuance and able to harness the power of her voice in precise little acrobatics that serve as a masterclass in how to act through singing (none of that ‘I’m going to speak a few words for emphasis even though that’s never really effective’ stuff from her). She was so incredible in Islander and here she proves again she’s in a class of her own.
Cait’s storyline, of a minister’s wife who is unwillingly pregnant, weaves with her descendant Jean’s storyline, of a 16-year-old girl who gets pregnant, is not really fussed about it!, and runs away to have the bebe in the new world. Blythe Jandoo’s Jean is as likeable as her real name is baller, with maybe the most enjoyable story of the bunch since at least (compared to Cait’s) you know you aren’t going to have to think about the precursor to wire hangers. These two stories (and these two performers) rise above the more modern ones and are moving, powerful, compelling.
As for the modern story, we have Bethany Tennick (the performer and one of the writers of Land, from last year’s Fringe, and one of the two Islanders) as Sarah, a PhD candidate but also a professor (once again I am begging British playwrights to let me just have a once-over on an scripts that take place in America just to find inconsistencies like this) living in Brooklyn in an apartment she just bought with her newly qualified lawyer girlfriend (I repeat what I just parenthesized) (in the USA no one is described as newly qualified or fully qualified like in the UK, you’ve either passed the Bar or not yet) (also no way this new lawyer is a human rights lawyer in a firm, no). She is holding onto a box from her deceased Aunt Betty from West Virginia, full of cassette tapes of Betty’s research into the folk songs that shape their history. Which is a nice framing device, but in practice Betty’s scenes work kind of like a lecture and weren’t as enjoyable as the historical scenes. I did find the info she shares interesting, but I like school (we were in a university after all, I’ll give you that).
One thing I truly loved though was the use of Scots language! LOVES IT. I went home and immediately read some Rabbie Burns. Okay no I didn’t but I meant to. It was so well done, and yes there were two screens with captions (very helpful and only blocked my view a handful of times!) but I think it was clear what was being said without relying on reading. Kirsty in particular did such a good job expressing the musicality of the language I was like fully ready to add another language to my Duolingo to forget about in a week.
So as the stories weave and build, the show is intriguing and can be moving, but there are a few spots that need work. Specifically, the cut from one of the greatest songs, Cait singing about the rage inside of her, that goes right to the modern song about the modern couple’s karaoke nights?? It was a harsh juxtaposition, and it felt completely incongruous, able to be lifted right out of the show (and maybe should be). It also showed how much more compelling the historical stories are than the modern one.
Generally, I think the second act needs work. The show goes from 3-4 stories woven fairly nicely together in the first act, to being almost just one straightforward regular one-plot play in the second. Mainly, it’s a bit tedious, weaker than the first because it’s entirely about the modern storyline, and how their relationship ends because the aunt’s tapes made Sarah realize she wants kids? It’s all a little ‘wait what? listening to some tapes made you change your mind about a huge life decision?’ (It’s also peculiar that it’s been two years since aunt’s death. Maybe if it just happened (maybe even suddenly) then Bethany’s huge change of heart would be in part explained due to grief and guilt.)) But even if that was all substantiated, it’s just that no one cares as much about the modern storyline or this relationship as we do about the other two storylines. So having so little from the other two and instead having the whole act about this decoupling that we kind of are like ‘okay, whatever, you do you’ about, is a let down. And we lost the Finn sound. Needs more of those supertight multipart harmonies!
Also, the hardships compound so much that it feels a little like disaster porn, like everything that can go wrong or can be terrible will. At one point, the mood veers in a way that lets you see that a beloved character is deffo gonna die, and I said to myself, no, that’s too predictable, too overdone, too dire. And then of course she died like a second after I thought that. I understand the desire to show hardship – no one wants to see a story that pretends women had autonomy or all happy endings – but we’re getting a lotttt of sadness in this show. A spree of melancholy starts to feel a bit banal. You need to break up the tragedy with at least a drop of lightness.
However, I’m just sharing all these negative things because this show was overall really good and could be EXCELLENT with some of these changes, and obvs I want it to be EXCELLENT. You know I don’t go hoarse for a player with no potential! There’s a lot of brilliance already in it and sooo much more waiting to be revealed with just a little bit of digging.
Other thoughts: The old-timey costumes were well done. They seemed so elaborate and on point for such a short run. However, the modern clothes were wee headscratchers, namely the denim jumpsuit. I get how on paper that sounds right for a PhD candidate in Brooklyn but just take my word that Bethany deserves a cooler costume!
Lights: I remain convinced that lighting designers who enjoy adding in series of bright flashes of lights for ‘art’s sake’ have never sat in a seat to see how it actually plays. Luckily these artistic flashes were mainly at the start and finish, so it wasn’t too hard to cover my eyes, but it still was a rough go. I hope that this trend stops! Being temporarily blinded did not make me appreciate the dramaz any better!
INFORMATION
The show had a short run as its premiere last week, but given the people involved I’m sure we’ll be seeing future runs (hence why I’m writing all this).
Macrobert Arts Centre is REALLY HARD TO FIND AND TO FIND PARKING AT! It’s deep into the university campus and there are teeny little signs for finding it by walking and it was all very confusing and made me hearken back to trying to find an 8am lecture at college and not realizing it was a 70 minute walk to the top of campus! anxietyyyy!
The show ran about 2 1/2 hours with intermission (Act I ran 14:36 (at least that’s the last phone screen I saw) to 15:49, Act II ended at 17:06). The website said it ran 150 minutes so like, freaking bravo on that accuracy. The first act flewwww by, I guess because I loved it.
As I said there were two big screens on each side of the stage with captions, which are mostly helpful, although they kept saying its’ which is not a word. This was apparently one of only two special captioned performances, but if they shifted them a little so the screens don’t block the action for the first few rows, I don’t see why they can’t have these all the time (and like…for most shows! If someone needs them and they don’t hurt then…? yes I’ve started watching TV with subtitles what about it).
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The Wedding Singer & London Theatre’s Jewish Problem
London theatre has a Jewish problem. Whether the fault of creative teams, prejudice in the community and thus audiences, or a mix of both (it’s both), there’s an obvious ‘othering’ happening that feels offensive and demoralizing. Suffice it to say, I’m tired. Ain’t you tired Miss Hilly? I recently saw The Wedding Singer – a show I loved when I saw it on Broadway – and had to leave at the interval. I NEVER do that. (Okay, once.) (I mean one other time; this isn’t a Simpsons thing.) I felt ridiculed and ridiculous, with everyone around me in on a joke that is not funny. And I realized that this problem that I’ve been noticing in tiny bits and pieces is larger than I wanted to believe.
As we saw with last season’s Falsettos debacle, many productions fail to make a concerted effort to ensure that Jewish voices are involved with Jewish content. Not to start playing an unwinnable battle of the minorities, but you would never see a production of e.g. The Normal Heart without gay men involved, or The Inheritance. Or Falsettos! And this isn’t only about the acting talent, because yes, it’s the job of actors to play other identities, like Scarlett Johansson and her tree. It’s about having representation in the creative process, whether onstage or off, someone in the room to speak up, to ensure that representation onstage isn’t problematic or insulting. I didn’t support last season’s Falsettos by seeing it, but according to some people who did go, it was indeed insulting.
If it was anything like the Bar Mitzvah scene of The Wedding Singer, I’m glad I didn’t go. In this show, based on the great Adam Sandler movie, the lead needs a break from singing at weddings, and the scene changes to a Bar Mitzvah. It’s semi-funny in the movie because of Sandler and the content of the scene. But here, presenting the scene of a Bar Mitzvah was the joke in itself. As soon as men dressed in traditional Hasidic black suits and vests and hats come out, the audience roars. It doesn’t matter whether it’s funny that Robbie now has to change his act or do things he’s not used to doing – the joke was clearly Judaism. You could barely hear the lines or music because the audience was laughing at the pure visuals of Jewish men in their suits and payot (yes, they wore fake payot). That was the punch line. I felt my entire body burning with anger, as well as shame. And it got worse: the feature of this new act was Robbie’s queer keyboardist (I could write a whole nother piece on how offensively homophobic the direction around this character and everything else slightly queer was and how it was used for weird cheap laughs (and this was hundo p a right-wing crowd laughing at not with)) singing Hebrew prayers to the tune of an ’80s song.
I don’t remember whether this is done in the movie or the original production, but even if it was, it does not go over well here. Comedy has different effects on different crowds and communities, and you can tell when it’s good natured. Here, it is pure mockery of the sound of the Hebrew language and prayers, amid the sheer look of Jewish people as a punch line. In the movie, Sandler is a known Jewish performer whose comedy has the ability to poke good-natured fun at his culture. Here, it wasn’t good-natured, it was ridicule, and the laughter around me was based in contempt, which is why I left. (The production isn’t very good so I wasn’t heartbroken to leave – the pacing is about twice as slow as it should be, like the directorial metronome is broken, which makes all the actually good parts of the show fail.) Also, just because something plays appropriately in New York does not mean it will here. You have to be cognizant of the differences in the communities. In a Broadway theatre, you’re surrounded by Jews, and Jewishness is part of New York culture, especially in the theatre. In the UK, Jews are still considered rare, outsiders, and blamed for all sorts of things (like Labour losing). And there aren’t that many. In London, I was for sure the only Jewish person in the audience at my performance of Wedding Singer, and I wasn’t even surprised. Productions have to be aware of how something will play in different places and think about whether it works or not.
Falsettos wasn’t the start to the problem, and clearly not the end. I’ve noticed this in many shows over the past few years, and I’m new. The last production of Caroline, or Change was my first shocking moment. There’s a line in the show where Caroline says to her young Jewish charge that his people burn in hell. On Broadway, this line was met with a kind of hushed “oh shit” reaction, like wow that was dark, and cruel. In London, it was met with a hearty chuckle. Not a nervous laugh, a real laugh. If that doesn’t show how differently the same thing can play in the two cities and how important it is to make sure you have someone in the room (Caroline had no Jews) to account for potential offensive representation, then I don’t know what to tell you.
Recent (and great) productions like Rags at the Park Theatre and Leopoldstadt (review next week) at Wyndham’s are promising in their inclusivity and representation, although the latter still had a few very strange moments of laughter when I saw it. I am still continually surprised at what London audiences will laugh at. And yesI have a different sense of humor as an American, but sometimes it’s not that. Sometimes the laughter is quite troubling (like in Caroline and parts of Appropriate). We know that anti-Semitism is just as strong as ever in this country (and around the world), and that’s something to be aware of when you are creating art that involved Jews or Jewishness. My horror at The Wedding Singer may seem misplaced or overblown to you, but that show’s missteps are symptoms of a much larger problem in British theatre and the country itself.
I Can’t Even Deal With: “Garage Sale Mystery” on TV
I can’t really express the fluctuating emotions I am feeling now that I know this exists:
So, this is actually happening
No no don’t touch that…dollhouse furniture?
I’m glad Aunt Becky is working since getting off that soft-core porn from the CW, the 90210 reboot. But did she had to pick the TV movie with the most hilariously awful title and premise in recent history for her comeback?
Hallmark Channel’s new movie, “Garage Sale Mystery”, is already poised to be the network’s greatest achievement this century. It’s about a woman (Lori Loughlin/Rebecca Donaldson/Aunt Becky Katsopolis) who is really good at antiquing and buying other people’s crap when they throw this crap on the front lawns of their houses and expect passersby to pay them money in exchange for said crap, which the passersby then pick up with their hands and carry into their own houses. Or, what we Americans call ‘garage sales’.
Hallmark Channel’s new movie, “Garage Sale Mystery”, is already poised to be the network’s greatest achievement this century. It’s about a woman (Lori Loughlin/Rebecca Donaldson/Aunt Becky Katsopolis) who is really good at antiquing and buying other people’s crap when they throw this crap on the front lawns of their houses and expect passersby to pay them money in exchange for said crap, which the passersby then pick up with their hands and carry into their own houses. Or, what we Americans call ‘garage sales’.
So, Aunt Becky, in her antiquing glory, becomes Detective Aunt Becky when a string of burglaries occur in a neighborhood that really loves the aforementioned good-natured exchange of crap. She somehow puts her skills at buying crap to use in detectiving who the burglar is. This is from the official website’s description of the movie:
“As she gets closer to the truth, Jennifer learns that crime solving can be far more dangerous than any garage sale.”
HAHAH. I mean, it doesn’t really get any better than that. Because we all know garage sales are extreeeemely dangerous. That’s what town curfews are really for – to stop people from the danger of meeting their neighbors and effectively digging through their trash. Gotta protect people’s secrets, you know! I wonder if that’s the message Hallmark has been going for all these years, with their impressive litany of made-for-mockery titles. Maybe all Hallmark movies form one sophisticated case for strengthened privacy laws.
“As she gets closer to the truth, Jennifer learns that crime solving can be far more dangerous than any garage sale.”
HAHAH. I mean, it doesn’t really get any better than that. Because we all know garage sales are extreeeemely dangerous. That’s what town curfews are really for – to stop people from the danger of meeting their neighbors and effectively digging through their trash. Gotta protect people’s secrets, you know! I wonder if that’s the message Hallmark has been going for all these years, with their impressive litany of made-for-mockery titles. Maybe all Hallmark movies form one sophisticated case for strengthened privacy laws.
“As she gets closer to the truth, Jennifer learns that crime solving can be far more dangerous than any garage sale.”
She’s so happy and blurry
It is accurate, I guess. Solving crime can be more dangerous than a garage sale; it’s just not guaranteed to be. We all know garage sales are up there with walking on beds of nails and eating raw produce in Asia. Hiiiighway toooo the danger zone.
Anyway, I cannot wait to see this movie, and I’m sure you feel the same way. I hope it’s good, for Aunt Becky’s sake. Just look at how happy and optimistic she looks at left! But she doesn’t even realize it’s all gonna come crashing down. I have a feeling this film is going to epic. Stay tuned; we are totally going to live-blog this. Oh crap, it’s airing on Yom Kippur. Ok, someone remind me to DVR this anti-Semitic piece of wonderment.
Anyway, I cannot wait to see this movie, and I’m sure you feel the same way. I hope it’s good, for Aunt Becky’s sake. Just look at how happy and optimistic she looks at left! But she doesn’t even realize it’s all gonna come crashing down. I have a feeling this film is going to epic. Stay tuned; we are totally going to live-blog this. Oh crap, it’s airing on Yom Kippur. Ok, someone remind me to DVR this anti-Semitic piece of wonderment.
