Weekly Margin 2018, W26: Head Over Heels, Conflict, Songs For a New World, Mary Page Marlowe, Godspell, Hamilton

6/25/18: Head Over Heels
What: In Arcadia, King Basilius rules with a stubborn but benevolent-ish hand. But when Arcadia's new Oracle warns of four prophecies which could bring ruin to the land, Basilius flees the kingdom and the curse (with his entire family and court retinue in tow). Hijinks (sooooo many hijinks) ensue when his daughter's shepherd suitor Musidorus secretly dons an Amazon's costume to join the royal progress and basically the entire family falls in love with him/her. Head Over Heels takes its score from the songs of the groundbreaking punk group, The Go-Go's (known for "We Got the Beat" and "Heave Is a Place on Earth," among others).
And? Let's go on a journey. You hear there's another jukebox musical coming, this one using the Go-Go's song catalog. You roll your eyes, but it's on tdf and you like when people break into song in general, so you buy a ticket. You think you know what you're in for: another Margaritaville with a bland, cliche-ridden story and an audience filled with people who know the songs they're about to hear waaaaaay better than you do (you're right about the second part only). Guys, this thing was so joyous, so delightfully intersectionally queer, so downright silly, and I had a fantastic time. I laughed really loudly, I clapped enthusiastically (instead of merely politely), I even teared up at one point (NO ONE saw that coming). Sporting a book by Tony winner Jeff Whitty, directed by also Tony winner Michael Mayer, and featuring a fucking hilarious and talented cast (including Broadway's first principal role originated by a trans woman), Head Over Heels is a giddy fever dream of a Shakespeare-meets-Greek-comedy, full of cross-dressing, sapphic love, and absolutely zero invalidation of anyone's gender or sexuality (did I mention the non-binary plural Oracle, Pythio?). I didn't realize until I saw this show how thirsty I've been for a feel-good musical that wasn't shit. It's been a hot minute since Come From Away, you know?

Taylor Iman Jones as Mopsa, with the company. Photo by Joan Marcus.

6/27/18: Conflict
What: Conflict begins when the privileged decadence of the 1920s is confronted with the harder truths of poverty and desperation. Major Sir Ronald Clive is running for office on the conservative ticket, and is surprised to see a former Cambridge classmate, Tom Smith, less than two years after being reduced to begging for food and lodging, cleaned up and running against him for the labour party. The Lady Dare Bellingdon, sometime-paramour of Clive, begins to question her long-held but barely examined convictions as she befriends and confronts Smith.
And? Mint Theater Company's mission is to produce "worthwhile plays from the past that have been lost or forgotten." This yields, in general, a rather mixed bag. This production, however, though it showed the same creaking signs that a lot of the old plays at Mint do, also felt timely in a rather bittersweet way: a longing for the days (did they exist?) when politicians ran on principles rather than personalities, leaving pettiness at the door. I found myself more invested than I expected, especially considering that this was more an ideas-play than anything else (particularly as each side of the political conflict argued his point). But I credit the even hand in the writing of both sides, the belief in integrity which underlines much of the worldview, and the earnestness of the performers, particularly Jeremy Beck and Henry Clarke as the two candidates, and Jessie Shelton as the woman who begins to think. And I was impressed that, though this play is focused on the affairs of men, it is the woman at the center who grows and changes, who truly pushes the action of the play forward. Not bad for a play almost 100 years old.

Jessie Shelton, Jeremy Beck, and Graeme Malcolm as The Lady Dare
Bellngdon, Tom Smith, and Lord Bellingdon. Photo by Todd Cerveris.

Weekly Margin 2018, W25: Girls & Boys, Little Rock, Fire in Dreamland

6/19/18: Girls & Boys
What: An import from The West End's Royal Court Theatre, Dennis Kelly's Girls & Boys is a one woman show, split between an audience-address monologue and memories of raising her children at home. An exploration of family, self-knowledge, and the nature of violence.
And? Absolutely incredible performance from Carey Mulligan - it seemed less a performance and more a real person speaking to us. The marriage of Es Devlin's set design and Luke Halls's video design was elegant and stunning, a beautiful physicalization of the Woman's journey. Kelly's script is well-built and well-directed by Lyndsey Turner.

Carey Mulligan as Woman. Photo by Marc Brenner.

6/20/18: Little Rock
What: A play with music about The Little Rock Nine, nine black teenagers who broke segregation at Little Rock Central High School in Arkansas. Per the program note, the play is "based on research, numerous testimonials, and interviews conducted over a 13-year period."
And? The cast wasn't bad, but the script had the subtlety of an anvil. This was such an important moment in our country's pockmarked history of race relations and discrimination, and I wanted something more out of it than a pedestrian series of scenes explaining the conflict.

Damian Jermaine Thompson,  Rebekah Brockman, Charlie Hudson III,
Stephanie Umoh, Justin Cunningham, Peter O'Connor, Shanice Williams,
and Anita Welch as the Little Rock Nine. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

Weekly Margin 2018, W24: Teenage Dick, The Great Leap

6/12/18: Teenage Dick
What: Playwright Mike Lew adapts Richard III to a high school council election. Jointly produced by The Public Theater, Ma-Yi Theater Company, and originally commissioned and developed by The Apothetae, Teenage Dick aims for an inclusive and diverse experience, with a cast composed of two actors with disabilities, three actors of color, and only one performer who doesn't readily read as an "other" (as in, there is one actor who is able-bodied, white, and male).
And? This was a cool idea, and it had a few really strong moments, some sparks of genius. But too often, I found myself cringing at the jokes or the lack of nuance. The dramaturg's note says that "monsters are not born, they are made"; this is not the story I saw in Teenage Dick. He started off in Machiavelli Land, had a crisis of conscience, and then leaned back into the ends justifying the means. This play could be piercing and powerful, but it's not there yet. And while it's great to finally start seeing representation for performers with disabilities, I could wish them a better vehicle than this.

Gregg Mozgala, Shannon DeVido, and Sasha Diamond as Richard, Buck, and
Clarissa. Photo by Carol Rosegg.

6/13/18: The Great Leap
What: Eighteen years after American basketball coach Saul taught Wen Chang how to coach China's fledgling team, the two meet again for a rematch - which unfortunately coincides with the Tiananmen Square Massacre on June 4, 1989. Manford, an aspiring Chinese American point guard, is desperate to join Saul's team in time for the rematch in Beijing. Playwright Lauren Yee wrote this partially inspired by her father's own short-lived basketball career in San Francisco.
And? This is terrific. Fantastic cast (seriously, BD Wong. But also Tony Aidan Vo and Ali Ahn and Ned Eisenberg - they are all marvelous), tight storytelling, a well-crafted and compelling narrative that metes out its revelations with a nuanced eye. The climax of the play, the basketball game itself, is riveting. Well worth a visit.

Ali Ahn, Ned Eisenberg, Tony Aidan Vo, and BD Wong as Connie, Saul,
Manford, and Wen Chang. Photo by Ahron R. Foster.

Weekly Margin 2018, W23: El Barrio Shakespeare Festival: Lear, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

The Shakespeare Forum, which I've written about several times, achieved this year a long-held dream of its Artistic Director and Co-Founder, Tyler Moss: the El Barrio Shakespeare Festival running from May 31st to June 16th. The festival is framed around Forum's production of Lear, but also includes student presentations, special classes and workshops, and more. It's ambitious and impressive, and represents the many facets of what Forum does and wants to do.

My participation in this festival was sadly (but joyfully) limited to two events: Seeing Lear and performing in an encore presentation of our all-female staged reading of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (with some of the players shuffled around).

6/07/18: Lear
What: King Lear, aging and (unbeknownst) slipping into dementia, divides his kingdom among his daughters, seeking a sort of royal retirement. Sabotage, subterfuge, and disguises, along with the ever-quickening disintegration of Lear's mind, lead to wrack and ruin for nearly everyone touched by Lear. Under Sybille Bruun-Moss's direction, the role of Lear is shared across the entire cast.
And? I've always been a big fan of form and content conversing in a meaningful way, and this is especially true when a production has a "gimmick" of some sort (think: Deaf West's Spring Awakening, where the inability of the adults to communicate clearly with the children is mirrored against the Deaf and the hearing communities' similar difficulties). The splintering of the role of Lear among all the players here is not only a reinforcement of one of the tenets of Forum (you're not barred from playing any role in the canon, and the most important thing you can bring to that role is your own unique self), but a visceral exploration of what it means to have dementia - how changeable and unpredictable your personality can be. So we can have Denny Desmarais's heartbreakingly lost Lear asking audience members if he is Lear, Antonio Disla's furiously hurt Lear, railing at his daughters for knocking his legs out from under him, Melody Lam's joyfully childlike Lear attentively listening to the ramblings of Poor Tom, and Adam Goodman and Alenka Kraigher's despondent and bitterly laughing Lears when finally reunited with the banished Cordelia. All these disparate parts culminate in a gutting coup de theatre that is simultaneously shocking and inevitable.

I will say that sometimes this device, which is indicated in the program, but not made immediately explicit in the production, does result in some lack of clarity, particularly in the first half of the play (some of the cutting down to a two-hour run time also contributes to confusion). However, I still found myself profoundly moved by this production and this cast, staged with casual grace by Bruun-Moss (and assistant director Gwenevere Sisco). And I haven't even mentioned Tyler Moss's witty and unforgiving Fool, Frankie DiCiaccio's delicate Cordelia, or Harry Waller's insecure Regan yet. But there's not a weak link in this cast, and it's yet another particularly Forum production which I am grateful to have witnessed.

6/10/18: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
What: Tom Stoppard's debut play, about two minor characters from Hamlet trying desperately to make sense of the scraps of plot they're given, while flipping coins which always seem to come up heads. We presented a staged reading of this about two years ago, and were asked by Forum to bring it back for an encore presentation in their Festival, with a few shuffled players in the parts.
And? This is one of my favorite plays, and Guildenstern is one of my favorite parts I've gotten to play. This second go around was an interesting variation on the first, with some added stressors and anxieties, but came with an amazing group of women that I am so lucky to have worked with. On a personal level, I particularly appreciated how, with Erin Keskeny's Rosencrantz as opposed to Kelly Zekas's, I couldn't let myself fall into the patterns of the first time; as Rosencrantz has changed, so too must Guildenstern. The performance, like last time, was once again thrilling and joyous, and I was so moved to be surrounded by such a supportive audience. I have so much admiration for the five women I performed with, and it was an honor to share the space with them, to see them be amazing.

Erin Keskeny and Zelda Knapp as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
Photo by Zelda Knapp.

My Habitually Inaccurate Tony Predictions

The cast of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts One
and Two. Photo by Matthew Murphy.

So I have a theory. Our beloved Hamilton was a bit of a tsunami on the Broadway scene. The show delayed its advancement to Broadway from its run at the Public, thus leaving space for Fun Home to claim the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2015; with plenty of warning, many shows delayed their arrival on Broadway to a post-Hamilton season, which explains how overstuffed last season was, and why so many shows felt left out in the cold come awards season. Now, the tide's flowing back out and we've got an emptier season. And, at least for the Spring half of it, a bit of a disappointing one. I can't say I came at this list with particularly strong feelings, either for the frontrunners or underdogs, but I will be interested to see what triumphs come June 10th.

With the caveats that I'm not going to see The Iceman Cometh because of my vow to not sacrifice any more of my time to the words of Eugene O'Neill, and that I haven't yet managed to score tickets to either Mean Girls or Harry Potter and the Controversial Fanfic, let's get started.