Weekly Margin 2023, W31: Malvolio, The Half-God of Rainfall

7/25/23: Malvolio

What: The Classic Theatre of Harlem presents Betty Shamieh's sequel to Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, starring Allen Gilmore reprising his wonderful rendition of Malvolio from this company's celebrated production of Twelfth Night.

And? I've been hyped to see this production since I saw Allen Gilmore's wonderful Malvolio back in February. But this play was a pretty big letdown. Too much about it didn't work for me: from the too-smirking allusions to other Shakespeare works to the beyond squicky age difference in the central romance, I did not enjoy the script. Craft-wise, Shamieh knows how to build a Shakespearean style collection of characters with odd interconnections (hearkening to the chaotic revelations in Cymbeline), but the story itself did not work for me, nor did the muddied storytelling of directors Ian Belknap and Ty Jones. The cast does the best with the material they have (Gilmore especially still manages to shine), but it's still a disappointing evening  (also feeding into my pet peeve this past season of a production claiming to be ninety minutes but actually running closer to two hours).

Allen Gilmore and Kineta Kunutu as Malvolio and Volina. Photo by Richard
Termine.

7/27/23: The Half-God of Rainfall

What: NYTW presents Inua Ellams's new epic poem, a blending of mythologies of Yoruba and Ancient Greece to tell the story of a demigod born of the sexual assault by Zeus of a beautiful Yoruba woman. After Demi becomes a basketball star and incurs Zeus's jealousy, the gods demand punishment. But it is Demi's mother Modúpé who journeys to Olympus for a final vengeance.

And? This is why I love theater. Pieces like this, that tell new stories, or old stories with new lenses. Stories of gods that still aim to overthrow colonialist bullshit, I am here for it. Stories of women not just surviving their assault, but drawing strength from each other, strength enough to bring down the monster who tried to steal their bodies from them. Just, it's so good. This cast is so good (Lizan Mitchell is having a moment, y'all, between this and her work at The Public recently), the staging and rhythm, the physical language created by Beatrice Capote. My one (tiny) complaint is that the floor, made of a black glittering sand, creates a (specifically to me) unpleasant aural sensation when the actors cross it. But maybe it's not as bad if you're not in the second row?

Mister Fitzgerald and Kelley Curran as Demi and Perseus.
Photo by Joan Marcus.

Weekly Margin 2023, W18: Eleanor and Alice

 4/24/23: Eleanor and Alice: Conversations Between Two Remarkable Roosevelts

What: Urban Stages presents an encore presentation of Ellen Abrams's play, spanning nearly sixty years in the friendship between cousins Eleanor Roosevelt (wife of Franklin Delano) and Alice Roosevelt Longworth (daughter of Teddy).

And? Not precisely a story, but a respectable character study, I suppose. Alice is renowned enough for her acerbic wit that a lot of her lines felt like they were lifted from reality, rather than organically part of a dialog. Both actors do good work crafting their individual characters' arcs over the years, emotionally and vocally, but I never quite feel they're in the same room as each other. Either one feels like she could exist in a one-person version of the same play and accomplish the same thing.

Trezana Beverley and Mary Bacon as Eleanor Roosevelt and Alice Roosevelt
Longworth. Photo by Russ Rowland.

Home: Hat-hanging and Picture-hanging

Home is the sailor from the sea,

The hunter from the hill.

-A.E. Housman, "Home is the Sailor"

friendBrian, who has been studying in London for some time, is gearing up to head back to the States, and saddening at all the things he will miss, or never got round to, in his time there. But, in trying not to wallow, he reminded himself that "Life is a whole tapestry of things that are home." cue: A girl named Zelda's brain starts whirring.

When I was a wily young college student, I had a routine whenever I moved into a new dorm. It was called "attacking the walls." Okay, it was actually just me hauling out pictures that made me happy, either candid photographs, postcards of paintings, posters, or particularly pretty ads for plays that I like. I would then proceed to cover up nearly every inch of white with said pictures (speaking of tapestries). I always restricted said decorating to my half of the dorm room, and would leave space open, knowing I would continue to contribute to the collage as the year went on. It was my way of branding the room, making it mine, and declaring it home - at least for nine months. When May came back around, I would carefully remove all pictures and store them until I returned to campus in September.

Spinning Forward

The world only spins forward. - Tony Kushner, Angels in America

So the world changed a little bit this weekend. And that's, to put it mildly, awesome. My facebook and twitter feeds were flooded with my friends cheering in celebration, either in New York or elsewhere. After all the nonsense in California, it's nice that some states at least are seeing sense.

friendJason in Virginia posted that while he was delighted that the bill had passed in New York, he was still living in Virginia, "THE LAST place in the USA that legalizes it." And it is true that the south in general is far more conservative on issues of sexuality. But I remember when this friend of mine came out to his very southern, very conservative father. And I remember this friend calling me, almost in tears, because his father had accepted him, still loved him, was not holding to the cliche of redneck.

And I reminded my friend that this had just happened: in our own hometown, at our own high school, a boy ran for, and was elected, prom queen - and not in the cruel manner that was recently presented on Glee. In a town small enough that eight years ago didn't even have a Starbucks, we've come this far.

Legacy and Posterity

Why does a boy carve his name on a tree
Or the firstborn inherit the throne?
What is a sculptor aspiring to be
When he spends half his life carving stone?

In The People in the Picture, an aging Jewish grandmother, leaning ever further into dementia, tries to tell the story of her youth and life as a member of a traveling Yiddish theater troupe to her young grandchild. That the story be told is exceptionally important to Raisel - she is a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, and the people who perished in that time were only able to leave precious few relics as evidence they even existed - not knowing at that time whether any would survive to tell their story. She has a truly heartbreaking moment, as she sings to the young ghost of her lover that, while she cannot remember what happened that morning or where her coat is, she remembers quite clearly how much she loved him.  Raisel's memory is failing, and she must pass on the story to her young granddaughter before it is too late.

The Ring Cycle: An Opera in Four Parts

Part the First: Exposition and Opening

I am A (young, angsty, teen) girl named Zelda. I have decided that I would like to commemorate my young angsty teenage years by ordering a high school class ring. I promise my cautious mom that I will be very careful with said ring, as it ain't cheap. The ring is silver with a clear red stone. My legal name is engraved on the inside. Zelda is written on one side of it, with a dragon below (shut up, dragons are cool). The entire company sings a celebration song of youth and its foibles and baubles, complete with a maypole.

Here I am in Arcadia

Thursday night I saw one of my favorite plays in the history of ever, Arcadia [editor's note: A girl named Zelda is seeing a crapload of plays during the month of May. Consider yourself forewarned]. This was my third time seeing this production, my fourth time seeing the play, and my bazillionth time experiencing it, as I've read it more times than I can count.

I love this play. I love this play. I would see it every night for a month if I could.

(Please bear with me, o those of you unfamiliar with the play, as I promise I will get to you in a moment.)

Love and Alcohol (sort of)

The title of this post is salacious and misleading! Twist!

Last night I saw a play called Drunken City, a quiet(ish) little piece about a group of people learning the truth about themselves through the magic of alcohol. And, surprisingly within that unoriginal premise, at its heart are two sweet simple honest declarations of love (or at least declarations of intentions toward love). And I must admit, I was suckercharmed by it. I smiled open-mouthed at the sweetness of it, in a completely unironic un-cynical-twentysomething-New-Yorker way.

Because I gotta admit, I miss that.

My Hamlet can beat up your Hamlet

I go to a weekly workshop in downtown Manhattan called The Shakespeare Forum. It's a group that formed about two years ago, as an open arena for actors or Shakespeare-nerds of all shapes and sizes to come and play. Every Tuesday night actors stand up in front of their peers and show work - a scene or a monologue - and receive feedback - mediated by its creators, Tyler Moss and Sybille Bruun, as well as resident artists - from everyone watching. Afterwards everyone goes out to a bar.

It's an incredibly generous, supportive atmosphere, frankly more so than my very expensive undergrad conservatory training (not to rain on that parade, oh parents-who-paid-for-this-education-and-also-read-my-blog - I don't regret that training and I learned a lot, but we all know I spent a lot of time being unhappy). These are genuinely good smart people.

More importantly, they're good smart teachers.

Contract Audience

Last week I was walking through the labyrinthine (SAT word!) Times Square subway station with friendLauren and we passed that large open space near 7th that almost always has some musician or break-dancer performing.

This time it was a group of about five musicians, drummer, guitars, etc., called The Beetles, playing (of course) Beatles songs, and they were playing one of my favorites, "Here Comes the Sun", and they sounded gooood.  So we stopped to listen, along with the sizable crowd already gathered.

A little girl of about ten - who, let's face it, was way too happy to be an actual Native New Yorker, so we shall call her Touristette - was ecstatic to be there. "There" being either New York, Times Square, a subway station, or in front of a group of live performers. Or all of the above, because she's ten and capable of that kind of EVERYTHING-ecstasy. This ecstasy manifested in a sort of free-for-all dance explosion. She spun, she hopped, she threw her arms out, she laughed, she bobbed and weaved, and she soaked in the happy. This dance occurred in that dead-man's-land empty space that always bubbles between gypsy performers and the watching crowds, so she was in effect part of the show.

When the Melancholy comes

This post will be less funny than, I hope, this blog will typically run. Because I've been thinking about death a lot this past week, and it's a melancholy train of thought.

There are three circles to this thought (I know I'm mixing my metaphors, bear with me).