Margin Notes: An Octoroon

Amber Gray and Austin Smith as Zoe and
M'Closky. Photo by Gerry Goodstein.

An Octoroon

Seen on: Sunday, 3/22/15.
My grade: B+. Absolutely fascinating production of a show I probably didn't fully understand.

Plot and Background

BJJ (stand-in for playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins) tells the audience of his struggles with depression and his role as "a black playwright," and his decision to re-examine Irish playwright Dion Boucicault's 19th century melodrama The Octoroon. He is soon interrupted by the Playwright (Boucicault), and the two begin the retelling of the play - with a few twists. It seems they couldn't find any white actors willing to play slave owners, so BJJ, a black man, puts on whiteface make-up to portray the white characters; Playwright, meanwhile, paints his face red to take on the role of Native American stereotype Wahnotee; his assistant in turn wears blackface. The narrative of the play within the play is the melodrama of the kind-hearted plantation owner, in love with the octoroon, and the machinations of M'Closky to seize the plantation and all its slaves. There's murder, stolen letters, a mock trial, and even an explosion. This play ran previously at Soho Rep in 2014, where it won an Obie for Best New American Play.

What I Knew Beforehand

I knew what the term octoroon meant (thanks Blacksburg High School and mr. dee!). I knew somewhat what a 19th century melodrama was like, though I haven't been exposed to much in practice. And I'd heard this play was not to be missed.

Thoughts:

Play: So while I understood I was watching something truly interesting - I do like the deconstructionist approach to the narrative, and the breaking down of the trial scene and its subsequent events was really quite wonderful - with an immensely talented cast, intelligent director, and sharp and creative design team, at the end of the show I wasn't entirely sure what I was meant to take away from it. Maybe I got too mired in the actual events of the melodrama when I should have been paying more attention to everything around it. It wasn't, after all, about the story. It was about the story around the story, about the struggle to tell the story - not just the racial components, but the very trappings of melodrama and how they fail to move today's audience (BJJ and Playwright apologizing profusely that the pivotal piece of evidence was a photograph, something that would have been far more innovative back in the day). And while the story around the story is fascinating, and the way in which it's told is delightful, I guess at the end of the day I still don't understand why this is the story Jacobs-Jenkins wanted to deconstruct in the first place.

Margin Notes: Paint Your Wagon

Alexandra Socha and Justin Guarini as
Jennifer and Julio. Photo by Joan Marcus.

Paint Your Wagon

Seen on: Friday, 3/20/15.
My grade: B+. Delightful production of a fun if problematic show.

Plot and Background

Ben Rumson and his 16-year-old daughter Jennifer lay claim to gold in California and Rumson town is born - 400 men and one underage girl. However, she's got eyes only for the young Mexican prospector forced to live outside the town's borders, Julio. Throw in a Mormon trio, some Fandango girls, a dried up gold supply, and the wanderlust that plagues all prospectors, and you've got yourself a musical. Written in 1951 by Lerner and Loewe, Paint Your Wagon predates their larger hits My Fair Lady and Camelot. A heavily-revised film adaptation was produced in 1969, starring Lee Marvin and Clint Eastwood. Another revised production opened in Los Angeles in 2004. This production was presented as part of New York City Center's Encores! series.

What I Knew Beforehand

Pretty sure I saw the utterly bewildering film version of this, featuring Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin in some sort of threesome of people who can't sing. As this film adaptation heavily revised the script and score, I went into the show with only a vague notion of some of the songs I would hear.

Thoughts:

Play: What I love about the Encores! series is that it gives us a chance to see rarely-produced musicals with high quality performers and a full orchestra. Sometimes these lead to full Broadway productions (Chicago, anyone?); often they demonstrate why the show probably won't get a full production, even while it has something to offer. In this case, the show was truly a lot of fun - clever, funny script, catchy score (I've been humming "I'm On My Way" since I saw the show), and some lovely performance opportunities. It was definitely Encores! at its finest. But that still can't hide how absolutely messed up the sexual politics in this show are. First we've got 400 men lusting after a teenage girl; then there's the auctioning off of the "spare" Mormon wife. Then there are the Fandango ladies who arrive later. There isn't a female character in this show who isn't treated largely as a commodity. Even Jennifer, who has more agency and characterization than the rest, still sings, after her transformation from tomboy teen to well-dressed little educated lady, that she did it "All For Him." I shouldn't be surprised, I know, since this show came from the same men who brought us "How To Handle a Woman," "A Hymn to Him" (aka Why Can't a Woman Be More Like a Man), and whatever the hell is going on in Gigi. And the show was fun. But damn is it problematic as hell. Much like "A Secretary is Not a Toy" from H2$, this stuff just does not age well.

Margin Notes: The Heidi Chronicles

Elisabeth Moss as Heidi Holland. Photo by Joan Marcus.

The Heidi Chronicles

Seen on: Friday, 3/13/15.
My grade: B-. Some strong performances, but an overall underwhelming experience.

Plot and Background

The Heidi Chronicles follows Heidi Holland, an art historian, from her school days until her 40s, tracking not only her progression through various feminist movements, but also the turgid decades of the 1960s through the 1980s. The story also follows her on-again off-again romance with Scoop, a journalist slash lawyer who makes safe choices, and her lifelong friendship with Peter, a gay pediatrician who is bold without seeming to have a choice in the matter. This play was originally produced in 1988 and starred Joan Allen in the title role. There was a film adaptation in 1995 starring Jamie Lee Curtis. The Heidi Chronicles won the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for Best Play in 1989. This production is the first Broadway revival of any of Wendy Wasserstein's plays.

What I Knew Beforehand

I'd read the play once or twice a number of years ago, and didn't retain much beyond the basic structure.

Thoughts:

Play: While the cast was solid enough, and the production not obviously flawed, I came away vaguely underwhelmed by this production. It might be the script, it might just be that it's gotten itself a bit dated, or it might just be one of the vaguely lackluster revivals we seem to get every season. One wants, especially in today's newly toxic climate for gender politics (perhaps the new toxicity levels are due in part to the Internet's ability to make even the obscure crackpots visible), to be galvanized by the recognition that this is still a fight we're having. But this was never a galvanizing play. Wasserstein is not Larry Kramer. It is, instead, an examination of one woman (and various satellite women of her life), saddened by her generation's disappointing show at a fight she thought they were all in together. "It's just that I feel stranded," she says in a speech to young undergrads. "And I thought the whole point was that we wouldn't feel stranded. I thought the point was we were all in this together." That's the feeling at the center of the play, that vague sense of loss and abandonment, that sadness. And all I can feel in response is a similar sadness.

Margin Notes: John & Jen

Connor Ryan and Kate Baldwin as John and Jen.
Photo by Carol Rosegg.

John & Jen

Seen on: Friday, 2/13/15.
My grade: B. A solid enough production of a rather thin show.

Plot and Background

Told almost entirely through song, Andrew Lippa's two-hander musical follows the story of John and Jen (and other John), as told against the ever-changing times of the second half of the twentieth century. Jen watches out for her little brother from his infancy, trying to protect him from their quarreling parents and controlling father; but when she leaves for college and discovers the psychedelic lifestyle, he falls more under his father's influence, enlists, and is killed in Vietnam. In Act Two, Jen, now a single mother raising a son named after her late brother, tries to keep the memory of her brother alive in her son, not noticing how smothered he feels by his mother's clinging protectiveness. When he decides to forego college to stay home and look after her fragile emotional state, she has to confront whom they've both become. john & jen was originally produced Off-Broadway in 1995 at The Lamb's Theatre and briefly revived there in 2006. This production marks the show's twentieth anniversary.

What I Knew Beforehand

I'd heard the cast album years ago and remembered being unimpressed by what felt like a rather predictable and derivative narrative.

Thoughts:

Play: Seeing this production didn't drastically change my opinion of the story itself - it's not, at least for me, a terribly interesting narrative - but there was something about the storytelling, something that didn't translate to the cast album I'd listened to as a teen, that made the story more palatable. It wasn't just getting to see it staged, the songs removed from their vacuum - largely it was the charisma of the two performers, as well as being able to see the transitions within and around the songs, as the characters age and grow. Maybe it was even that patch of green grass at the center of the stage - the place where Jen could be alone, where John leaves her, and leaves her again.

Margin Notes: The Nether

Sophia Anne Caruso and Frank Wood as Iris and Papa.
Photo by Jenny Anderson.

The Nether

Seen on: Saturday, 2/14/15.
My grade: B +.

Plot and Background

Mr. Sims, also known as Papa, is being interrogated by Detective Morris, as to his activities within The Nether (future-language for the internet) - an escape into virtual reality in a world where actual reality is dull, cold, and hard. What seems at first like the persecution of a man with a sophisticated code - his realm is more realistic in sensation and detail than most others - soon turns into an examination of the morality of a world without consequences. Has Sims created a haven for the sexually deviant to act out their worst impulses in a way that harms no one, or is he fostering and awaking impulses in previously healthy individuals? Is what happens in The Nether more real or less than what happens in what's left of the real world?

What I Knew Beforehand

Almost exactly nothing. I knew the director Anne Kauffman, as she was one of my teachers at NYU. That's pretty much it.

Thoughts:

Play: This play was fascinating, if only because it kept me internally debating, the entire time and in parallel to watching the narrative unfold, what exactly are the moral lines we need to draw on our behavior online (or as it's called in the near-future, The Nether). This isn't just a question of the fact that we can create entirely fictional personas online - it's about the culpability of what those personas accomplish. If the issue with pedophilia is age of consent, and these children are constructs being controlled by adults well over the age of consent, is there still a violation being perpetrated? And if the answer is no, then the new question is, is Papa's realm not a refuge for people with a mental illness, but an enabling environment that encourages deviant behavior? These questions are not answered definitively by the play itself, but I have a lot of admiration for a play that has me asking these questions, and changing my mind with each new piece of information, the entire performance.