Weekly Margin 2024, W15: Teeth

4/13/24: Teeth

What: Playwrights Horizons presents Anna K. Jacobs and Michael R. Jackson's new musical adaptation of Mitchell Lichtenstein's film, about a subject I'm worried will get my blog flagged (wheeeeeee).

And? This has great potential. The cast is fantastic, led by Alyse Alan Louis, who also costarred in Jackson's White Girl in Danger at Second Stage. The songs are catchy, though I think they need a few steps further to elevate them to their full potential (a few songs have a chorus that's show-stopping hilarity when it first hits, but doesn't push the joke further so the laughter dies out as the song goes on). However, I don't think the show currently has the right director. I've seen Sarah Benson's exceptional directing work at at TFANA with both Fairview and An Octoroon, but right now the performance isn't matching the degree of camp that the script wants to deliver. I also don't think it's currently staged that effectively. I look forward to seeing this show continue to develop, and become what it is surely destined to be. (and if the subject matter--revenge predicated on sexual assault--isn't for me, that doesn't invalidate that it's a worthy show that should be seen)

Jenna Rose Husli, Wren Rivera, Alyse Alan Louis, Phoenix Best, and Helen
J. Shen as Trisha, Stephanie, Dawn, Fiona, and Keke. Photo by Chelcie Parry.

Weekly Margin 2024, W14: Patriots

4/06/24: Patriots

What: The Broadway transfer of Peter Morgan's play about Russian billionaire Boris Berezovsky, who first helped Putin's ascent to power and then became one of his most vocal critics.

And? The play is bookended by Berezovsky telling us how the West doesn't understand Russia, doesn't understand its soul. This is probably true. However, I don't know that the play itself (written, after all, by a Westerner, the bulk of whose works have centered on British politics and monarchy) does much to elucidate. The whole play still feels very much like a Western lens. It also doesn't manage to shed much light on the enigma of Putin himself, who seems a timid nobody until he takes control of Russian government and never lets go. He remains a cypher. 

But. What if we say this is deliberate. What if we admit the Western lens of this play and say that's a choice, that Morgan isn't trying to write from within the Russian mentality. Why, then, this play? Why now? I found myself for most of the performance trying to discern what story the play was telling. But if we ask that question with the acknowledgement of the deliberately Western lens, maybe this play is a warning to us, to not be complacent. Putin took power during Russia's brief era of freedom from its totalitarian communist rule. Democracy on its own doesn't protect itself as remaining a democracy, not when people act in bad faith to tip the balance. Britain and the US are not free from the risk of fascism, and we know damn well that there are people who would like the next election to be the last election. They're saying it openly at this point.

So while I can't necessarily say this is a great piece of theater that will stick with me, competently done though it is, I can see why they want to tell this story now. Michael Stuhlbarg is wonderful and eccentric and elastic as Berezovsky (and continues to make me regret having missed his performance in "The Pillowman") and will probably get a Tony nomination.

A scene from the Almeida Theatre production. Photo by Marc Brenner.

Weekly Margin 2024, W12: The Ally, The Who's Tommy, Lempicka, The Motive and the Cue

3/19/24: The Ally

What: The Public Theater presents Itamar Moses's new play, about Asaf, a progressive Jewish playwright in a college town who finds himself embroiled in a delicate and contentious campus conflict when he's asked to add his name to a manifesto that--in criticizing the institutional violence against Black people in America--sees fit to criticize Israel as well. Important to note: the play takes place in September and early October of 2023, just before the pogrom on October 7th. It was also written years ago and intended to be presented at The Public, before Covid shutdowns delayed it until now; it has seen some revisions in light of current events.

And? Oskar Eustis's program note articulates that the intention of the play is to dive into these difficult questions without providing an answer, and without designating one voice as the author's proxy. It asks the audience to take the space to listen, to bring empathy to hearing different voices than their own.

It's good to make the space for this discussion, in a landscape where people stop to listen before speaking. For me, however, the play doesn't truly get past the various different talking points I've already read and heard, and the characters themselves aren't fully sketched beyond being the different mouthpieces for those talking points (Reuven, the most ardent defender of the existence of Israel, exists for one scene only and then is neatly packed away in his mouthpiece box. I got the quiet feeling that if he'd gotten any more time, they would have accused the play of being too imbalanced, even though most of the characters are anti-Israel). But maybe this play isn't for me. Maybe it's for that person in the back row the night I went, the person who clapped every time a character spoke one of the dog whistle talking points: those phrases that sound like criticism of Israel but are actually invoking centuries-old tropes and propaganda. (I hate that I have to do this because it should be obvious, but much like the protagonist Asaf, I know I need to reiterate that criticism of Israel's government is valid and necessary; there's a difference between that and a lot of what's being said right now) So maybe this play is for that person clapping, who's heard only their own talking points; maybe it's to break them out of that bubble and work towards empathy. But I can't say I have high hopes that she heard anything she didn't feel like hearing.

Hanging over all of the proceedings, like a Greek tragedy, is the audience's certain knowledge of the tragedy that is only days away. What we see are the tensions ready to explode, just waiting for their object to do so. I wonder what the sequel to this play might look like.

Zooming in a bit, underscoring Asaf's on-campus challenges are his struggles to satisfy his wife, struggles which mirror his struggles as a progressive Jew in America: at once he's both given up too much to move across the country for her job, while also not compromising his ethics enough to support her; she didn't know he felt so strongly about Israel, but also how could he then back down from his stance? Part of their conflict necessitates the unpacking of why a past relationship of his fell apart, one where he could never seem to find safe ground. Where is the path to being the perfect partner? Where is the path to being the perfect Jew, one who satisfies all their liberal friends by being the right kind of ally and not calling out imbedded antisemitism if it detracts from the larger cause (there's always a larger cause)? How are any of us ever enough to deserve to be treated like our pain matters too?

Josh Radnor, Madeline Weinstein, Cherise Boothe, and Michael Khalid
Karadsheh as Asaf, Rachel, Nakia, and Farid. Photo by Joan Marcus.

3/20/24: The Who's Tommy

What: The Broadway revival of the musical about that pinball wizard. (okay, it's about a young boy who witnesses a scene of intense violence and retreats so far into himself that he spends the next twenty years unseeing, unhearing, and not speaking)

And? Des McAnuff, who cowrote the book and won a Tony award for directing the original production, returns to direct this revival. By and large, I think it's a great time. The absolute perfection of David Korins's skeletal scenic design with Amanda Zieve's lighting and Peter Nigrini's projection design work in perfect concert to sculpt this real and unreal space, where walls are imagined and perspectives are constantly shifting, telescoping in and out, then sliding away. The movement as crafted by McAnuff and choreographed by Lorin Latarro is kinetic and relentless. 

My big complaint though is the costume design: I have no idea what story Sarafina Bush is telling. Though the color palate--pulling the neon yellow from the scenic and projection designs to show a sort of poisoning of the space--is effective against the grey scale, a lot of the other costume work feels a bit cartoonish. And I don't know why there are armbands everywhere (gonna hold McAnuff responsible for this too) -- why is fascism a theme in the show now? I thought the show was about the difficulties of processing intense trauma (especially in a family that wants to suppress the bad feelings), and then the dangers of celebrity worship (and a bit of a failed Christ story, a la Pippin). But now there's fascism too, and a longer jump to the future than I remember being in the show prior. I don't get it. It doesn't help that, with the cuts to the second act, that whole second arc feels rushed and a bit unearned.

An interesting new aspect of the staging now is that Tommy is very clearly coded as autistic. At first I was concerned the production was implying that the trauma somehow caused it, but then I realized: in this version Tommy was always autistic: after witnessing the horrible violence and then being instructed by his parents that he didn't hear it, didn't see it, and would never speak of it, the traumatized child took them at their word, and self-induced these psychosomatic disabilities. So um. It's not perfect, and it's not exactly good science, but I don't think Tommy has ever bothered itself about good science. It's a fairy tale.

The preview night we went, two of the principal actors--Adam Jacobs and Christina Sajous--were struck down with a sudden illness; the producers had canceled that day's matinee to let the covers rehearse the show. So we got to see David Paul Kidder's and Afra Hines's debut performances in the roles of Captain Walker and Acid Queen, and if we hadn't been told that, we wouldn't have known. Just, god I love live theater. I love how everyone in the audience cheered loudly, both at those actors' first appearances but also at the curtain call. We were all there celebrating that things go wrong, but theater people figure out how to cope.

Ali Louis Bourzgui as Tommy and the company of The Who's Tommy.
Photo by Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman.

Weekly Margin 2024, W11: Sweeney Todd, My Mama and the Full-Scale Invasion

3/14/24: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

A repeat visit to see the new cast. Joe Locke as Toby puts the accent work of the rest of the cast to embarrassing shame. Sutton Foster brings a similar energy to the role as Annaleigh Ashford, though she's still putting her Sutton spin on it. Aaron Tveit is better than expected (he's certainly doing better with the acting beats and matching the music than Groban did; his dancing background surfacing), but the role still feels like a bad fit for him: not just character tone but also vocal range. He can hit the notes but that's all he's doing--so that when he hits the high notes and you get a sudden zing all up your spine, you remember that oh, yes, he's a tenor and he really can sound that good all the time, if only he was singing a tenor role. (the zing was super zingy on "Nor a HUNDRED CAN ASSAUGE ME")

3/16/24: I was supposed to see Sleep No More, but they've been cancelling performances for the past few days without an official explanation (rumors abound online).

Streaming Theater-Related Content I Watched

• Wilma Theater's My Mama and the Full-Scale Invasion.

Weekly Margin 2024, W10: Flight Risk, The Hunt

3/07/24: Flight Risk

What: Dakota Silvey's new play about three people stranded in the forests of Alaska after their prop plane crashes.

And? full review here

Grace Sallee and Conor Andrew Hall as Andi and Clark. Photo sourced from
Press Kit.

3/09/24: The Hunt

What: St. Ann's Warehouse hosts The Almeida Theatre's play adaptation of the 2012 Danish film about a schoolteacher falsely accused of molesting a young student.

And? Theatrically speaking, I think it's a terrific piece of work, and Tobias Menzies in the lead role manages to deftly balance a man who vigilantly guards his emotions and yet feels and thinks so much. The staging and choral work is powerful and disturbing. I think I just feel conflicted about the subject matter itself. While it is true that children will make up horrible stories without realizing the damage they can do, I worry when the majority of fictionalized stories I see about someone being accused of assault are a false accusation. It contributes to the sense that the majority of these are false and can bring a good man down, and makes it easier to discredit and discount the stories of actual victims and survivors of abuse and assault. I think when society gets to a place where the instinct is not to accuse a woman of being vidictive and fame-hungry, trying to ruin a man's life--as opposed to acknowledging that her life has been ruined and he needs to face consequences--then maybe this story should be told, as a cautionary. But not when the norm is still to believe the man, always the man, before the woman.

I dunno. It's messy. It's good theater but it's a messy thing to wade into.

The cast of The Hunt. Photo by Teddy Wolff.