Edinburgh Fringe Part 2: The Stand-ups, the Two-Handers: Janeane Garofalo, Josie Long, Afghanistan is Not Funnyby Randi / August 24, 2022We’ve made it the final edition of our Edinburgh Fringe round-up! Like Vanessa Williams before she hammed it up on a telenovela and learned to say “Maaaaark” haughtily (I’m rewatching Ugly Betty), I’ve saved the best for last. I enjoyed all the shows I crammed into my Fringe weekend (which you can catch up on in Part 1 and Part 2 (despite all the cursing I did enjoy everything)), but three shows stood out. Not only were they the best of the fest, they were some of the most moving, most well done, and/or most fun shows I’ve seen in years. YEARS, MARK. These are the gems that stood out, the ones that I truly hope have a long, wide-reaching run once they leave Enbra. (Look at me I’m local now.)
Kathy and Stella Solve a Murder! by Jon Brittain and Matthew Floyd Jones
I am not a fan of true crime anything – not the documentaries, not the serial podcasts (or the Serial podcast), not even the satirical (is it?) comedy (IS IT) ‘Only Murders in the Building’. I don’t even watch the news because I just don’t want to HEAR about MURDER. That line that Baby Apatow says in ‘Knocked Up’ – “I googled murder!” – is the only enjoyable thing in this whole genre for me. That is, until this musical. “Kathy and Stella” tells of two best friends who have a middling true crime podcast (who doesn’t!), but when their favorite author gets murdered, they become embroiled in the case, trying to solve the mystery while also getting the chance to blow up to superstardom (at least as far as murder podcasts go).
Despite the subject matter that normally gives me the heebies and the willies, the entire crowd was laughing the entire time, and I was leading the charge. The show is sensational! (I just finished Mel Brooks’ autobio and I feel like I just quoted him.) The two stars playing Kathy and Stella are equally hilarious and talented, with great singing voices and even better comedic timing. Their every gesture and facial expression was exactly attuned to their characters. So many little lines and looks were somehow hysterical. The whole five person ensemble shines as well, with each person getting a chance to shine, and just when you think you have a favorite, someone else steps forward and does something hysterical/sings something amazing/tells the best joke and steals the crown. I can’t even begin to recount all the times I CACKLED laughing, though I do remember just dying when they were in the police station and Stella said something about them being pigs. The crowd loved that, obvs, we’re good people.
There are so many bops in the score too. Nothing stood out as the sort of thing to become a classic showtune, but all the music was fun and fresh and enjoyable. It was just a blast. There’s a little dip in the momentum just after the half-way mark, when you kind of don’t believe that Stella would fabricate evidence to share with their social media followers, but that might have been just my own frustration at someone f-ing with the chain of custody and lying to allege someone else’s guilt. But overall, it was the strongest musical of the fest, and I’ve rarely seen an audience have more fun. My face hurt from laughing so much, and though I wouldn’t rush to buy the score, it was perfect for the experience. I can see this having a sold-out run at the Southwark.
INFORMATION: The show is playing in a circus tent (Roundabout at Summerhall) so the nearest toilets are a bit hard to find, upstairs in the school building behind the tent. (Just ask the staff, they’re milling around.) There are outdoor bars just outside with water pitchers – the Fringe venues are pretty good about having water pitchers! The show went 18 minutes past scheduled end time. It’s okay, it’s a treat. You’d think being outside in a circus tent would mean more fresh air and air flow but you would be mistaken.
Bloody Elle, by Lauryn Redding
Literally the only disappointment I can share about this gorgeous, moving, brilliant one-woman show is that I’m now learning the writer and performer is named Lauryn, and not Elle, and so I am guessing that it was not as autobiographical as it seemed. Why am I so sad that this heartbreaking personal tale might not be true, why did I want this lovely young woman to have actually suffered so much in real life for our entertainment? BECAUSE IT WAS BRILLIANT.
“Bloody Elle” is an incredibly honest and beautiful telling of a young girls’ first love with another girl. Elle, our heroine, works at Chips & Dips and is muddling through life until a new girl, Eve, joins the staff and turns her world upside-down. Their budding romance is conveyed believably, feelingly, emotionally, and we are there for every single inch of the roller coaster. Elle shares the tale with her expert storytelling, her powerful singing, and her uncanny ability to imitate a whole cast of deeply drawn characters. (I say imitate like I actually heard the real people, and am realizing that’s just the strength of Lauryn’s abilities. Each Chips & Dips employee was ON THAT STAGE. ‘Our Jack’ is my fave, obvs, hope he’s real more than anything.)
Some lyrics were a little hackneyed, whenever she was trying for more ‘impressive’ figurative language instead of sticking to simple but honest lyrics. Simple and true is always better than trying to sound smart. But I noticed that kind of thing only a few times, and for the most part the music, and all the writing, was like an arrow shooting straight for your heart. It was raw, and heartfelt, and she is such a strong performer that you have no choice but to jump in and feel everything with her. We laughed, we sobbed, we laughed, we really truly cried with her and felt her pain, and then laughed some more, and then felt hope, and then cried more, and so on. This is one of those shows that make you believe in the power of art. Just an amazing gem.
INFORMATION: This is playing in the Traverse theatre, the more profesh of Fringe venues, so it’s a comfortable regular-ish theatre space with big toilets and a big bar with several water pitchers.
Learning to Fly, by James Rowland
Without a doubt, ‘Learning to Fly’ is my favorite thing I’ve seen not only of the festival, but in a looooong time. This one-man casually set talk in a small anatomy classroom was one of the most flawless pieces of theatrical storytelling I’ve ever seen. I can’t get over how good this was. I said good like a IDIOT; this shit is AMAZING. This is up there on my list of favorite things, full stop. James Rowland is a STORYTELLER for the GOTTAM AGES. There are few things I don’t have at least one or two bits of constructive criticism for (okay I like to think I’m constructive but I acknowledge that sometimes I am just a b word.) But this? This shit was SHEER PERFECTION.
I honestly don’t know how to say anything else except yell (can you hear me I bet you can because I’m loud) about how great this is.
James tells the very-true-seeming-I-hope-it’s-true-it-seems-true-I-mean-of-course-it-is-but-Lauryn’s-got-me-second-guessing-everything-now story of when he was a boy and was forced to spend time with his scary older lady neighbor, who he was convinced was a witch, as all kids are of their older lady neighbors. As expected, their ‘relationship’ is stilted from his trepidation, as he spends the hours watching TV and she stays in the other room. Everything changes with one of the most vividly drawn tales of a bathroom incident gone wrong, when they are forced to let down their guards, stand in the same room together (the bathroom), and finally become friends. All of this is told so well, conveying all the emotions and excitement and fears you could possibly imagine, and we were having a lovely time.
And then James gets his old lady neighbor some ecstasy to lift her spirits, and the show kicks into another gear you had no idea was coming, and it is f-ing hilarious.
James plays all of our emotions like a fiddle. Like a damn FIDDLE. We were laughing, we were weepy, we were struck dumb, we were laughing again, we were puppets attached to the strings he controlled. The twists and falls and emotional turns never stop coming – from the hijinks you expect from a teenage boy trying to buy drugs in high school, to him suggesting this plan to her, to his fakeout of her reaction, to her dying, to her NOT dying actually, to her dying again, to him trying to get a hold of his own life as an adult, it’s all told so expertly, so warmly and lovingly, that I think I will have a hard time listening to anyone else try to tell a story ever. Does it have drugs? Does it have classical music on drugs? Does it have poop floating in a flooded bathroom? Does it have a woman who comes back from the dead and is high as a kite drinking with EMTs? then KEEP IT.
If you have the chance to hear James tell this story this weekend, you simply must. Hopefully he will get to tell this story in a venue more worthy of this superb piece of theatre in the future.
INFORMATION: The show is in this tiny room, an anatomy lecture hall, at the Summerhall venue which is just mind-boggling to me, like the biggest inverse ratio of venue quality to performance quality you could imagine. There are single toilets out in the hall (I mean it’s a school!) and the bar/cafe has water pitchers AND tiny vegan Ben & Jerry’s, if you can believe it. (IF I can believe it? Watch this: I believe it!) The show went 14 minutes over, the one time you’re grateful for that.
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Audra McDonald at Madrid’s Teatro Real: She Ran Spain
A most unnecessary thing in this world is to ‘review’ anything Audra McDonald does. She’s the greatest singer in the world and one of the most effective actors. Any time she opens that goddamn fabulous trap of hers, it’s going to be the greatest sound you’ve ever heard. So, we’re not really going to review last weekend’s concert at Madrid’s Teatro Real; we are just going to gush about it. Because that’s all you can do when Audra performs.
I’ve had the ridiculous good fortune of being able to see Audra perform live every year since 2001, when I attended a master class for high school students that she held during the opening season of Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center. I remember she mentioned “my friend Julie Andrews” and I was like this is the coolest person ever. That night, we all got to attend her concert, and minds were blown like balloons. I remember hearing for the first time the incredibly fun songs “Bambalele” and “I Double Dare You” (both on her album “Happy Songs”). I’m pretty sure she sings the latter at every concert, and with dern good reason. It is SO FUN, and she clearly enjoys singing it. Also, it includes the lyric “You seem to think that half aloof is better than none”, which I adore.
I’ve had the ridiculous good fortune of being able to see Audra perform live every year since 2001, when I attended a master class for high school students that she held during the opening season of Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center. I remember she mentioned “my friend Julie Andrews” and I was like this is the coolest person ever. That night, we all got to attend her concert, and minds were blown like balloons. I remember hearing for the first time the incredibly fun songs “Bambalele” and “I Double Dare You” (both on her album “Happy Songs”). I’m pretty sure she sings the latter at every concert, and with dern good reason. It is SO FUN, and she clearly enjoys singing it. Also, it includes the lyric “You seem to think that half aloof is better than none”, which I adore.
When her 2015 tour was announced, only one European date was on the list – in Madrid. It’s a mystery to me how Madrid got sandwiched between Florida and North Carolina. Did the Teatro Real seek her out? Did she have private business already bringing her to Spain? Were there just good flight deals? It makes no sense! Since I’m in London, going to Madrid was easy enough and so worth it. In her Spanish debut, Audra may have given her best concert performance yet.
I assumed the concert would be sold out, because it’s Audra, until husband was like, “Um, we’re in Spain; do they know her??” and I got nervous. But that was dumb, because who doesn’t know Audra?? The 7 or so enormous levels in the Teatro were all very full, and I couldn’t see a single open seat in the orchestra. Duh.
She began, as she does, by walking out and immediately singing her first number, without addressing the audience. I love that she is so baller that way. She began with Kander & Ebb’s “Sing Happy”, from a show that is actually called “Flora, the Red Menace”, which sounds like a period piece. The other kind. It’s an okay song, extremely repetitive, but she made it great. Afterwards, she addressed the audience in hilariously bad Spanish, thanking everyone and saying how excited she was to be there. I got nervous that the whole show would be in broken Spanish. It was easily understandable basic Spanish; that’s not the point. But the best part of Audra concerts is her storytelling, so personal and touching and lovely. Luckily, her little speech ended with “well from now on I’ll be speaking in English the rest of the night, because Spanish for me is a disaster.” However you say that in Spanish. It was adorable. Her stories were noticeably abridged because she tried to speak in more basic English so more people could potentially understand. Nice of her!
The lineup that followed included a mix of Rodgers & Hammerstein, Sondheim, more Kander & Ebb, and lots of other legendary composers of Broadway classics. She of course sang “I Double Dare You”, continuing her streak, and another super old song called “My Buddy” that she does often. In her intro to “My Buddy”, she mentions how she came upon a war veteran singing this song outside her favorite restaurant in NYC. (She didn’t mention this time that that favorite restaurant is Chipotle; I guess she knew they don’t have them in Spain. I really wanted to shout to the whole theatre “She’s talking about Chipotle hahahah!”.) The sad story of another homeless war veteran, reinforcing how shittily the USA treats them, is lightened somewhat by her promise to sing the song in the same key the vet sang it in, leading you to expect her to sing it quite low, only to laugh when it’s super high. She does say doing it in the same key is “impressive, for one of us.” I love that.
I assumed the concert would be sold out, because it’s Audra, until husband was like, “Um, we’re in Spain; do they know her??” and I got nervous. But that was dumb, because who doesn’t know Audra?? The 7 or so enormous levels in the Teatro were all very full, and I couldn’t see a single open seat in the orchestra. Duh.
She began, as she does, by walking out and immediately singing her first number, without addressing the audience. I love that she is so baller that way. She began with Kander & Ebb’s “Sing Happy”, from a show that is actually called “Flora, the Red Menace”, which sounds like a period piece. The other kind. It’s an okay song, extremely repetitive, but she made it great. Afterwards, she addressed the audience in hilariously bad Spanish, thanking everyone and saying how excited she was to be there. I got nervous that the whole show would be in broken Spanish. It was easily understandable basic Spanish; that’s not the point. But the best part of Audra concerts is her storytelling, so personal and touching and lovely. Luckily, her little speech ended with “well from now on I’ll be speaking in English the rest of the night, because Spanish for me is a disaster.” However you say that in Spanish. It was adorable. Her stories were noticeably abridged because she tried to speak in more basic English so more people could potentially understand. Nice of her!
The lineup that followed included a mix of Rodgers & Hammerstein, Sondheim, more Kander & Ebb, and lots of other legendary composers of Broadway classics. She of course sang “I Double Dare You”, continuing her streak, and another super old song called “My Buddy” that she does often. In her intro to “My Buddy”, she mentions how she came upon a war veteran singing this song outside her favorite restaurant in NYC. (She didn’t mention this time that that favorite restaurant is Chipotle; I guess she knew they don’t have them in Spain. I really wanted to shout to the whole theatre “She’s talking about Chipotle hahahah!”.) The sad story of another homeless war veteran, reinforcing how shittily the USA treats them, is lightened somewhat by her promise to sing the song in the same key the vet sang it in, leading you to expect her to sing it quite low, only to laugh when it’s super high. She does say doing it in the same key is “impressive, for one of us.” I love that.
One of my favorite moments was when she sang “Stars and the Moon”, Jason Robert Brown’s song from “Songs for a New World”. Although I am the world’s biggest proponent of everyone shutting the f up during shows, I couldn’t help cheering when she talked a bit about Brown, one of my favorite composers. She mentioned that he won Tonys for last year’s “The Bridges of Madison County” and I kind of shrieked with glee. She also said he has a new show on Broadway now called “Honeymoon in Vegas” and it took all my strength ALL OF IT not to yell I KNOW AUDRA I SAW IT A FEW WEEKS AGO I’M SO COOL. I have to remember that her concerts are not opportunities for conversations. Anyway, “Stars and the Moon” was the first song I ever heard Audra sing, and so it has a very special place in my heart. I almost cried, I was so happy to hear it live. It’s a sad song about a woman who shuns love on multiple occasions in pursuit of more material gains, only to realize once she has all the material nonsense she wished for that she will never find real love again. What an idiot.
Thinking back on the playlist, I want to call every single number a highlight. Except for an almost boring lullaby here and there, there were no weak points. The absolute standout by far was that she shared her Tony-winning performance of “Summertime” from Gershwin’s “Porgy & Bess”. She sang without the microphone, as it was in a high enough operatic register for the audience to hear it well without the mic, and with only light piano accompaniment. It was pretty much the most astounding vocal performance you could ever hope to hear.
Here is a video of Pohgy’s Tony performance so you can hear a bit of Audra and then listen to Normy sing “I Got Plenty O’ Nothin’” because I love it. Also his voice breaks because you can’t warm up well before Tony performances and it’s adorable if unbelievably embarrassing for him.
Another highlight was Audra’s take on “Moments in the Woods” from Sondheim’s “Into the Woods”, and she mentioned several times that the movie starring Meryl Streep was now playing. The Baker’s Wife is notorious for being the most difficult and important role in “Into the Woods”, and this song of hers exemplifies that. It’s a delicate balance between humor and poignancy and regret, and Audra, even though this was just a concert, acted all of this perfectly. Just so impressive. Why is she never in Sondheim shows?
One song that she thankfully didn’t sing in character was “Maybe This Time” from “Cabaret”. Although Sally Bowles is pretty much the #1 role actresses want to play in their careers, her songs cannot be sung well in the play, because Sally is supposed to be a pretty crappy singer in the Kit Kat Klub. (You can currently see this being well played (terribly sung) by Emma Stone on Broadway.) It’s a shame, because Sally’s songs are so phenomenal, none more so than “Maybe This Time”. It’s her one moment of hope and resolve in the whole show, and the song is so powerful even though it’s not beautifully sung. Well, Audra gives all of musical theatre a huge gift by doing this song in concert, where she’s free to sing it out of character and thus beautifully. Just Jesus H it’s the best. I love how, in this video of her singing it a few years ago, the audience applauds when it recognizes the opening bars; everyone is that excited to hear this song sung as powerfully as it can be outside the confines of the character.
One song that she thankfully didn’t sing in character was “Maybe This Time” from “Cabaret”. Although Sally Bowles is pretty much the #1 role actresses want to play in their careers, her songs cannot be sung well in the play, because Sally is supposed to be a pretty crappy singer in the Kit Kat Klub. (You can currently see this being well played (terribly sung) by Emma Stone on Broadway.) It’s a shame, because Sally’s songs are so phenomenal, none more so than “Maybe This Time”. It’s her one moment of hope and resolve in the whole show, and the song is so powerful even though it’s not beautifully sung. Well, Audra gives all of musical theatre a huge gift by doing this song in concert, where she’s free to sing it out of character and thus beautifully. Just Jesus H it’s the best. I love how, in this video of her singing it a few years ago, the audience applauds when it recognizes the opening bars; everyone is that excited to hear this song sung as powerfully as it can be outside the confines of the character.
It’s no secret how much I love sing-along moments in fun songs – Berthe’s “No Time At All” in the recent “Pippin” revival, “Wig In A Box” in “Hedwig” – as long as they are kept brief, so I loved when Audra asked the audience to sing along with her in “I Could Have Danced All Night” and then after a few choruses said “Okay hush it’s my solo.” She is hilarious! She did mention Julie Andrews, of course, whose version is the most well known, but she didn’t call her “my friend Julie Andrews”, so that was a let-down. Maybe they aren’t friends anymore because of “The Princess Diaries” or something.
Proving how wonderful an actress she is, the most impressive parts of the concert were her most moving, emotional songs. Along with “Summertime”, a notable song in this category was “Go Back Home” from Kander & Ebb’s “The Scottsboro Boys”. We all know how I feel about that show and how depressing and necessary it is. “Go Back Home” is the most beautiful and notable song from the musical, and Audra made it lovelier than ever. More importantly, she talked about how she is so involved in the gay rights movement because her life was made possible by the civil rights movement, and how we all owe it to each other to try to make things better and fight for equality across the board. That’s when she mentioned that without the struggle of people in the civil rights movement, she wouldn’t have been able to marry her white husband, Will Swenson, who was SITTING IN THE FRONT ROW. I didn’t know that until that point. I was in the first balcony closest to the stage so I could have thrown something at him but you can’t throw a hug.
Proving how wonderful an actress she is, the most impressive parts of the concert were her most moving, emotional songs. Along with “Summertime”, a notable song in this category was “Go Back Home” from Kander & Ebb’s “The Scottsboro Boys”. We all know how I feel about that show and how depressing and necessary it is. “Go Back Home” is the most beautiful and notable song from the musical, and Audra made it lovelier than ever. More importantly, she talked about how she is so involved in the gay rights movement because her life was made possible by the civil rights movement, and how we all owe it to each other to try to make things better and fight for equality across the board. That’s when she mentioned that without the struggle of people in the civil rights movement, she wouldn’t have been able to marry her white husband, Will Swenson, who was SITTING IN THE FRONT ROW. I didn’t know that until that point. I was in the first balcony closest to the stage so I could have thrown something at him but you can’t throw a hug.
Her most upsetting song I knew was coming and yet I couldn’t do anything to stop the cryfest. I’ve heard her sing “I’ll Be Here” by Adam Gwon three times in concert now, and every time she intros the song by explaining how Gwon won the Fred Ebb award and how he’s one to watch. So I knew she was going to sing this unbelievably sad and moving and just absolutely perfect song about living during 9/11 and losing love and it still hit me and everyone else in the audience like a ton of bricks. Every time she sings this song, I think every single audience member sobs uncontrollably. Maybe less so here because of the language barrier, but there were still a good deal of sniffles.
Her last official song was the crowd-pleasing “Climb Ev’ry Mountain”, so she got to talk about everyone’s favorite thing, the Carrie Underwood-led “The Sound of Music Live!” She didn’t mention the exclamation point in the title but man alive can she sing this song. It was wonderful. So wonderful, that the audience simply could not stop applauding in its standing ovation. She came out a few minutes later for an encore of “When Did I Fall In Love”, which she often opens with. It’s a rousing, joyous song from the musical “Fiorello!” with another exclamation point. And yes, to husband’s disbelief, it is indeed a musical about NYC mayor Fiorello LaGuardia.
The audience couldn’t stop applauding again after this encore. It was so nuts that Audra was forced to come out again for a rare second encore. She and her long-time musical director and pianist Andy Einhorn looked through his music trying to find something to sing, and they settled on “Over The Rainbow”, complete with that incredible introduction that I love so much. I love how many people’s faces were like “Wait what song is this…?” during the intro and then when it resolves into the familiar “Somewhere over the rainbow” their faces showed their recognition. It was a perfect final song to an absolutely perfect concert. We tried waiting at stage door to meet Audra (and Will), but after 45 minutes in absolutely feet-numbing cold we had to call it. Even I have stage door limits. Also we had other shows to see (late night flamenco!). But that experience couldn’t at all tarnish this stunning evening by the world’s greatest singer. If you ever are near one of her concert stops, you have to go.
The audience couldn’t stop applauding again after this encore. It was so nuts that Audra was forced to come out again for a rare second encore. She and her long-time musical director and pianist Andy Einhorn looked through his music trying to find something to sing, and they settled on “Over The Rainbow”, complete with that incredible introduction that I love so much. I love how many people’s faces were like “Wait what song is this…?” during the intro and then when it resolves into the familiar “Somewhere over the rainbow” their faces showed their recognition. It was a perfect final song to an absolutely perfect concert. We tried waiting at stage door to meet Audra (and Will), but after 45 minutes in absolutely feet-numbing cold we had to call it. Even I have stage door limits. Also we had other shows to see (late night flamenco!). But that experience couldn’t at all tarnish this stunning evening by the world’s greatest singer. If you ever are near one of her concert stops, you have to go.
Yes You’ll ‘Sweat’ from All the Anxiety You’ll Feel While Viewing this Distressing Play
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is the play Sweat by Lynn Nottage, currently playing at London’s Gielgud Theatre until July 20.
You know how society as we know it is falling apart and there’s nothing we can really do about it, so decent (and not so decent, but no one deserves the crumbling of the world) people are suffering in poverty and drug addiction and racism and sexism and classism and overall misery, and we need governments to work together for the people in order to solve any of these societal problems but the people running things are too busy thinking about their own comforts instead of caring about anyone else, let alone all of society, so things are just falling apart for the regular person and it’s all incredibly depressing? Yeah, well, so, Sweat.
Lynn Notage’s highly distressing, highly moving play about Reading, Pennsylvania and the devastation caused by joblessness (as well as the aforementioned –isms) is a hell of a depressing show. Nottage interviewed real citizens of Reading (not including Michael Scott) to research this show, since Reading has notably experienced a horrible decline in employment and 40% of the population now lives in poverty. I don’t know how many times I can say ‘depressing’ in one review but we will probably break that record today. Sweat shows us the lives of a small group of friends and acquaintances in Reading before and after all their lives changed for the worse.
This group consists of people who work at the big factory in town, people who used to work at the big factory in town, and their kids who have little choice but to also work at the big factory in town: Martha Plimpton’s volatile Tracy and her equally hot-tempered son Jason (stereotypical and scarily accurate central-PA white people who probably voted for the cheeto toilet); management-material Cynthia and her son Chris (black people who have to work harder to prove themselves), plus their estranged husband/father who is now an addict; their floaty old-hippie now-drunk friend Jessie; the bartender friend Stan; the bar’s Mexican busboy Oscar; and the good-intentioned parole officer. Yes, parole officer: the show begins with the kids, Jason and Chris, just released from prison. The rest of the show – before returning depressingly (there’s another!) to present day – shows us what led up to their arrest.
If this sounds compelling to you, well good, because we are all living in this world, and Sweat felt like a genuine reflection of the hardships of the working class, from the fear of how quickly joblessness can destroy your life, to America’s opioid epidemic, to how this fear to have someone real to blame for your lot in life can so easily lead to blaming those who are different from you. As someone who tries to focus on making her social justice efforts intersectional, I found a lot of this show a gut-punch of a reminder that some other people who we write off as not caring about people different from them simply don’t have the ability, the time, the luxury of caring about anything except working enough to make enough money to feed themselves to stay alive and then repeat the next day, and all their next days. It doesn’t make them good or bad people (well, some of them are bad people); it just makes for a world where caring for each other isn’t seen as a priority, and so we’re stuck in this vicious cycle of shit.
Nottage’s nuanced playwriting shines best as she develops these characters, along with a pretty remarkable cast. Plimpton was of course incredible, but she scared the absolute shit out of me. She was 100% exactly like some people I’ve met. She even looked exactly like a woman I used to work with: same exact fake blonde hair and gruff demeanor and ease of saying suuuper racist things. She was like half the women in Upper Darby who say “Wha, you think ya better than me?? YA THINK YA BETTER THAN ME?” and then knock over the bar table. That was Tracy, and her white supremacist son never had a chance with her antagonistic tendencies. (NB: Never get face tattoos, just don’t, you’ll never get a job et al., and ESPECIALLY don’t get white supremacist face tattoos. Or, ya know, do, so we know to stay away from you.) I found the whole cast moving and convincing in their individual ways. My favorite was honestly Leanne Best, who had little to do as Jessie but managed to turn her one big scene into the most heartbreaking part of a show that’s all hardship. When she reminisces about how she was supposed to see the world as a young adult but she started working at the factory and never could stop, she keeps repeating the list of destinations she and her boyfriend had memorized as a sort of mantra: “Istanbul, Tehran, Kandahar, Kabul” and so on. Her melancholy and regret at never having left Reading was palpable and tragic, and it was a tiny but wonderful performance.
But the plot teeters a bit, and it’s hard to provide a strong enough answer as to what we were actually supposed to take away from how depressing it all is. I wish, I honestly really wish, that the play had ended a scene early. Once we see all the pre-prison scenes (most of the action is the flashback), we meet again with the parole officer with Jason and Chris. He’s trying to inspire them and get them to really try with their new leases on life, and his scene ends with him talking to both men but speaking to the audience, and saying something super inspiring like “so what are you going to do to make it better? what are you going to do?” and then the theatre blacks out and I was like ‘HOLY SHIT I WANNA DO ALL THE GOOD THINGS! LET ME GO DO THEM!’ and I found it incredibly powerful. But then there was another scene! And, this final scene was clearly supposed to be super moving, but it actually wasn’t, and considering the content, it’s a shame that it just doesn’t work.
Overall, however, it’s a decent, poignant look at modern tragedy. There’s so much nuance about how ingrained racism, for one example, can be. I was blown away realizing how Tracy blames everything on her friend Cynthia’s inability as a low-level manager to stop some huge things from happening in the company, yet completely accepts her (white) bartender friend Stan’s reporting that his boss changed a rule at the bar. This kind of subtle creation of each realistic character makes Sweat a play to see, even if you won’t really learn anything except ‘fork, this is a ball of shit.’
INFORMATION
Sweat ends its short run (intentionally limited; only 50 performances at this theatre) on July 20, but it’s the kind of show that I am sure will be popping up all over the place with regional theatres, tours, everyone trying it on for size given how relevant it is.
If you can get there before July 20, the best seats (I’m SO happy I remembered for my own good!) at the Gielgud, if you pee in the ladies room and pee often, are front stalls, about Row D-K, because the door to the kind-of-hidden ladies (WHY DO THEY WANT TO KEEP THESE BATHROOMS A SECRET) is literally RIGHT THERE, if you are sitting on the aisle stage right (that’s HOUSE LEFT). I was sitting three feet from the door to the bathroom door! It was the best ever! I was so happy! (And then so quickly unhappy, obviously (did you READ the review??)) It was also really well air-conditioned on the hottest day in London so far this summer, so it was nice not to literally sweat.
