Comedy of Menace: Pinter's No Man's Land

  “Listen. You know what it's like when you're in a room with the light on and then suddenly the light goes out? I'll show you. It's like this."

He turns out the light.
BLACKOUT” 

― Harold Pinter, No Man's Land        

             

             The first time I witnessed a production of Theater of the Absurd was Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, at the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival.  Although I have great respect for the talented actors who trained me during my teenage years, I remember leaving bored, confused, and frustrated.  While it is certainly possible that my sixteen-year-old self, completely unfamiliar with Beckett, was ill-prepared to give a fair assessment to this play I had never heard of (now one of my favorites), I’m fairly certain I wasn’t the whole problem.  I distinctly remember the theater being half empty before the show was over.  As my education continued, I grew to love and understand the work of authors such as Beckett, Albee, and Pinter, but I still believed that, without adequate preparation, it was difficult for mainstream audiences to enjoy productions of these plays.  The current production of Harold Pinter’s No Man’s Land, directed by Sean Mathias, proved me wrong.  The production, which is running in rep with Beckett’s classic Waiting for Godot, demonstrates how a strong production can make even the most difficult texts accessible and powerful for large numbers of people.  After all, these plays are classics for a reason.

Hirst informs Spooner that he slept with his late wife

            The difficult-to-define term comedy of menace, used to describe Pinter’s unique style, came into clear focus as I watched this production.  The failure of human beings to communicate with each other, the interplay between sex and violence, and the blurred lines between truth and deception became humorous in their absurdity.  I found myself laughing in order to avoid discomfort, exactly what Pinter would have wanted.  No Man’s Land tells the story of two old men, Spooner and Hirst, who apparently meet at a bar and go back to Hirst’s mansion for drinks.  Spooner is a self-proclaimed poet and Hirst is a wealthy older gentleman consumed with regret over the missed opportunities of his life.  During the first act, Hirst becomes progressively intoxicated to the point of incoherence, while Spooner makes piercing psychological insights into his companion’s psyche, giving us the impression that Spooner is the far more competent of the two of them.  In the second act, we learn that Hirst is a highly successful novelist, poet, and essayist, while Spooner is out of work.  Furthermore, they seem to have a shared history, knowing many of the same people and sharing many of the same women.  As if often the case with Pinter, it is impossible to determine the facts of the story.  Indeed, the characters themselves seem uncertain.  But this is not what is important.  Mathias’ expert direction highlights what is universal in these people: their frustrations, anger, and confusion.  As my friend, who was having his first Pinter experience, observed at intermission: “I know nothing is happening, but it feels like we’re building to something huge.”

            Of course, it’s not direction alone that makes these plays work.  It takes truly skillful actors to capture the subtle humor of Pinter’s language.  It is no surprise that Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart were up for the challenge.  The X-Men costars are familiar with working together, and their deep relationship is vital to making pieces such as No Man’s Land and Godot successful.  While both plays use casts of four, they are heavily dominated by a primary relationship between two men, who I would guess hold approximately seventy-five perfect of the lines in both plays.  These are stories about the complexities of a single, troubled, human relationship and it’s links to universal relationshps. In No Man’s Land, as in Godot, the characters move between an intense connection to an intense dislike of each other in a matter of seconds.  While this may seem like a difficult switch to make convincingly, the truth is that it is vitally true to human relationships.  The two stars never forgot the realism of this aspect of their relationship, no matter how convoluted the story between them became.

            As Hirst, Stewart demonstrated incredible emotional control.  The sickly millionaire, being cared for by his son and a man who is probably his son’s lover, fought valiantly to maintain his dignity despite being so intoxicated he is unable to walk, as well as so apparently disappointed with his life that he is unable to stop drinking.  His repeated demands to “Give me the bottle” are the only hint as to what is going on in his interior, with the exception of the one line of his that is certainly true.  “There are places in my heart” he confesses, “where no living soul...has...or can ever...trespass.” Near the end of the first act, when, unable to stand, he is forced to crawl out of the room, it is as if he is crawling towards his looming death.  For this reason, it is all the more surprising when he returns, fully functional, in Act Two to take the power back from Spooner.  Although he is now able to lord his wealth and success over his rival, the image of who he was the night before remains with us, tarnishing his victory.

            McKellen’s Spooner is a perfect foil for the repressed Hirst.  Insightful and emotionally available in the first act, he gloats about his identity as a poet.  When the next act opens, we find him in a vulnerable position, having been locked in the room overnight.  When he is offered breakfast, he coyly declines at first, only to devour it in hunger.  This moment was, in my opinion, the most powerful acting moment of the play.  McKellen refrained from playing the starving man, but rather embodied the man who doesn’t want his companion to observe his hunger, but is unable to conceal it.  When Hirst enters again, he appears to recognize Spooner from his younger days.  They swap stories about wives and conquests and it becomes clear that Hirst has been a successful writer.  Their statuses are reversed.  In an incredibly moving speech, Spooner offers himself to Hirst as a personal servant, declaring his unending devotion for the privilege of being able to copy down Hirst’s dictation.

            The Broadway production of No Man’s Land was everything a Pinter play should be: taut, foreboding, sinister, and funny.  The specificity of the performances allowed for the ambiguity of the texts, leaving the audience curious but not confused:  a difficult task.  The rich relationship between the actors left me wanting to see more.  Fortunately, there is more.  I have no doubt that I will be returning to the Cort Theatre to see Waiting for Godot, and I trust that the experience will be far more satisfying that my first Beckett production. 

            

Cyndi Lauper, Drag Queens, and My Dad

A Review of Kinky Boots

"It’s not just a factory. This is my family.
No one’s gonna shut us down.
Not  while Charlie Price is around."

I’m going to be completely honest: Kinky Boots was not the top of my list of must-see musicals.  In fact, it wasn’t on the list at all.  I had virtually no plans to see Kinky Boots, even after its Tony Award, and I wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for my mother’s love of all things sparkly and pop-infused.  I didn’t really have a good reason to stick my nose up at the show.  I admit I was initially turned off by the weird name.  Then I was further turned off when I learned that the score was written by Cyndi Lauper. I have nothing against Lauper, but with all of the disastrous concert musicals on Broadway I was fearful that this would be another example of a pop icon’s music being turned into a horrible parody of itself.  (Rock of Ages?  Seriously?) I guess I just didn’t have enough faith in the iconic creator of pre-teen anthems such as Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.  But, as it turns out, girls no longer just want to have fun.  Girls (under which I am including all those who self-identify as women) want to have fun, own their identity, and run a successful small business.  All while looking great.  Men, understandably, want the same.  And this is what Kinky Boots is all about.

I’m obviously way behind the times when it comes to Kinky Boots.  The show has been out forever, and I’m certain a million reviews have been written celebrating what is probably the most queer-friendly Broadway musical since RENT. I 'm also very happy about this, but I’d like to discuss an aspect of this play that perhaps hasn’t been explored as in depth.  As my father gleefully proclaimed at intermission: “I can’t believe it.  They made a manufacturing musical!” And indeed they did. 

Kinky Boots is inspired by the true story of Steve Pateman’s shoe factory WJ Brooks, in Northampton, England. (In the play, the company is Price and Son and Steve Pateman is the young Charlie Price.) Pateman inherited the factory from his father in 1978, becoming the fourth generation in his family to run the company.  In 1990, WJ Brooks began to struggle and lose money as buyers opted for cheaper shoes imported from overseas.  Shoe factories in the surrounding area began to close, and Pateman was forced to let a majority of his workers go, cutting his employees from 80 to 30.   Fortunately, Patemen discovered that a nearby woman’s clothing store was looking for a company to manufacture a new type of shoe for drag queens.  Patemen took on the project, and managed to save the company and bring back the jobs, with the “kinky boots” line bringing in a full 50% of the company’s revenue.   Of course, in the musical, Charlie forms a close bond with a drag queen named Lola, learns about how everyone is really the same at heart, and takes the company’s new line of kinky boots to the Milan Fashion Week. Oh, and he falls in love with a cute blond. Fine.  But the essential manufacturing story is still there, and that’s what really tugged at my heartstrings.

The cast dancing on a conveyor belt.

My dad owns a small manufacturing business in Cincinnati, OH.  They make metal parts for metal things.  I wish I could be more specific but 1) I am ashamedly ignorant of that which has supported me my whole life and 2) what they make constantly changes.  What Dad has always taught, and what Charlie learns, is that if you want to have a successful business, you have to make what the customer is buying.  You have to be smart, innovative, creative, and you have to take risks.  If you’re a theater person reading this, you may think I’m a bit confused.  Creative?  Risk-taking?  Those are the traits required to be an artist, not a business person.  Business people play it safe and they only care about money.  I’ve heard it all before, and at the risk of outing myself as a panderer to The Man, I have to say this conception is completely and utterly false.  Creativity and the willingness to push the envelope and take risks are prerequisites to success in all fields, regardless of whether you're writing plays or making metal lids for trash cans. Artists like to think of ourselves as having a monopoly on emotional investment in our work, but I’ve witnessed the passion my father feels for running his company and it is in no way less valid, sincere, or honorable than my own passions.  Not to mention the fact that I’d never be able to pursue my passion if it wasn’t for his.

 Charlie took a huge risk when he agreed to manufacture a stiletto that could support the weight of a full grown man.  First of all, he didn’t know if it was possible, and if he failed he would lose all the money he spent trying.  Second, he ran the risk of looking ridiculous in front of the fashion industry and the shoe industry of Northampton.  Third, he felt the weight and responsibility of other people’s livelihoods depending on his making a good decision.  Faced with competition from foreign markets, a decline in demand, and a rise in their own costs, both Charlie and my father have had to make tough choices.  Both Charlie and my father have gone through times when they truly didn’t know if their little idea would work out or whether they would end up losing everything, both for themselves and for the people that work for them.

What leaders in all fields have in common is a certain feeling of isolation.  Whether you're the President of the United States, the owner of a shoe factory, or the director of your high school theater club’s fall play, the buck stops with you.  Sure, if you’re successful you get the most credit, but if you’re unsuccessful you take all the blame.  And with good enough reason: that’s your job.  You’re the guy who's responsible if things don’t work out.  Personally, I could never cope with this sort of pressure.  But if we didn’t have people who could, we wouldn’t have jobs or an economy at all.

Only a few days before the company’s pivotal trip to Milan, Charlie realizes that his assistant has miscalculated the price of travel.  They can no longer afford the flight, they are behind on hiring models and, worst of all, the boots are not being made correctly.  Although someone else had done the miscalculation and the workers are the ones messing up the boots, it's Charlie’s responsibility to solve these problems, and time is short.  Added to all this is the fact that, as 8:00 pm rolls around, the workers throw in the towel and head home.  Charlie is left completely alone, hopeless, and faced with the impending threat of moral and financial failure.  This moment is a given for anyone who owns a company.  It’s the standard existential crisis when a man or woman looks in the mirror and asks “Seriously?  What was I thinking?  Who am I to run a small business?”

Charlie sums up the feeling perfectly in Soul of a  Man when he sings “Stupid Hubris, no excuses/ I blew my fuses, I guess I'm just a ruse in my father’s shoes/ Not amusing, no confusing this streak of losing/ Totally brutal and useless too.”  At the end of the number my dad simply turned to me and said “I feel bad for the guy.”  Of course, almost immediately after, Charlie’s employees return to the factory, full of support and passion for kinky boots.  What a nice ending for a musical, I thought. 

But, as often happens, I was wrong.

After the show, Dad told me this story: 

A couple years ago, one of his major customers told him they needed an entire shipment of a product by the end of the day.  Dad’s company hadn’t even ordered the parts they needed to make the project.  They ordered the materials immediately, and they came in around 5:00 pm.  Well, not surprisingly, it was time for the guys in the shop to go home.  And they did.  So my dad, with a customer breathing down his neck, went out into the plant, turned on the laser, and starting making the parts himself. Gradually, employees started trickling back in of their own free will and working alongside him.  They got the product delivered on time.  Now, I’ll admit to being biased, but I’m willing to wager that strong yet humble leadership is what pulled the company through on this day.  So it doesn’t just happen in musicals.

Now, I’m in no way trying to undermine or ignore the importance that sexual politics and gender diversity had in this story.  And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the best song of the show by far was Lola’s heart-wrenching “I’m Not My Father’s Son.”  The heart of Kinky Boots is a story about embracing one’s true identity, accepting others for who they are, and rocking out to 80’s-style pop music.  But it touched my family in a slightly different way.  For my dad, it validated his experience as a small business owner.  It’s a difficult, emotional, labor of love that requires the willingness to make tough decisions, be creative, risky, and persevere.  After seeing Kinky Boots, I think he finally felt like those theater people get him.  And I guess that’s why he loved the show so much.

Love and Friendship: Just an Opinion

To a Dear Friend.

I tried to respond to your comment in the reply box, but I quickly realized that I had so much to say that my comment was going to be about as long as a blog post.  So I may as well go ahead and give you a full answer, because insightful comments deserve full answers.  As do friends who take the time to read my little blog as many times as you have.  I want to start off by saying, that I’m no expert on the subject of love and relationships, obviously.  But anxiety has prompted me to become a bit of an obsessive, so over the past six months I've been reading everything I can get my hands on, talking extensively with a rather well-known therapist who specializes in the subject, and maniacally interviewing happily married couples, such as my parents and grandparents.  So what I can give you now is only an opinion.  The opinion of an anxious 23-year-old who has never been married.  And of course this opinion is filtered through the lens of my religion (because of course I had to talk to priests), my life in theater (grilling married classmates until they avoided me in the halls) and all my personal isms.  But I’ll go ahead and share it, for what it’s worth.

“There was something kind of unsettling to me about what you wrote here when I first read it.”

First of all, I'm glad this post unsettled you a bit.  What I mean is, it’s often unsettling when our unconscious beliefs and expectations are challenged, as you've so rightly observed.   And what is anxiety if it’s not a deep sense of being unsettled, a sort of perpetual state of “I’m not sure if this is right”?

 I want to respond to your comment about love verses in-love, because this idea has given me so much anxiety over the past months.   And when I say anxiety I mean literally calling my partner up in the middle of the night because “my heart is beating so fast I can’t sleep, I’m so scared, how do I know we’re meant to be.” To which my good man would sleepily respond that he loved me and I loved him so would I please go back to bed and stop calling for the love of God.  Easy for him to say.  And yet for a while the question lingered, and with this question came a lot of shame, which triggered more panic.  And while I've been doing a lot better, even your comment was enough to trigger me.  But then I took a deep breath and thought… actually I can respond to this.  I've been there before.  I know the answer I've come to for myself, which possibly will help you.  (But I’m not sure.)  And underneath it, I think I hear a more universal question that so many people ask, which is “what has been keeping me from finding something that works?” 

“I think there's a difference between just love and being in-love... the difference between how I feel towards my friends and how I would feel toward the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. Not necessarily something perfect, but definitely something deeper.”

I want to share with you a beautiful quote from Jungian analyst Robert Johnson’s book We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love.    Johnson writes “When two people are ‘in-love’ people commonly say that they are ‘more than just friends.’ But in the long run, they seem to treat each other as less than friends.  Most people think that being ‘in-love’ is a much more intimate, much more meaningful relationship than ‘mere’ friendship.  Why then do couples refuse each other the selfless love, the kindness, the good will, that they readily give to their friends?  People can’t ask their friends to carry all their projections, be scapegoats for their moods, keep them feeling happy, and make life complete for them.  Why do couples impose these demands on each other?”

So in a sense, you’re certainly right, but on the other hand there are certain aspects of friendship that we would do so well to integrate into our romantic relationships.  I’ll list a few here.

1)      Friendships grow over time.  We don’t expect to be best friends with someone the moment we meet them.  We don’t expect to just see them and “know” they are our friend.  Sure, sometimes this does happen, which is awesome, but more often than not it’s a gradual thing, and that doesn't make the friendship any less strong.  But with our partner, we expect the connection to be instant.  We want to know right away, and if it’s not there that second, why even bother trying? 

2)      We go out and make friends.  We actively seek out friendships, because they are necessary to our lives.  There is no shame involved in trying to make friends, in fact if a person doesn't try to make friends its pretty darn strange.  In contrast, actively seeking out a partner is seen as desperate or just pathetic.  If it’s meant to be it will “just happen,” right?  Logically, though, if we’re searching for something deeper than friendship, and it’s universally accepted that friendship takes some work to form, we may want to reconsider the idea that love relationships are ready-made.  If anything, deeper connection should require an even deeper effort.

3)     We forgive AND forget.  If your roommate pisses you off, you’re over it by the next morning, because ultimately you know he’s a good guy and… whatever you can’t stay mad at him for long.  But if it’s your girlfriend, well, you have to reconsider the whole relationship, right?  Because whatever it is she did could be a sign that deep down she’s not even the person you thought she was, and maybe you shouldn't be together, because you can’t be with someone who does that, right?  Right?  Well, actually… the loving thing to do would be to treat her like your friend in this case.

4)      We don’t expect them to solve our problems, just listen.  This is so essential to the myth of romance in our culture, I almost didn't list it, for fear of turning you off to my opinion. But I'd rather you deeply disagree with me than not give you my full thoughts, because this is so important.  We expect our relationships to complete us, to make us happy.  To fulfill us.  But the truth is, if you admit that no matter how great your partner is, she is still a human being, we basically have to admit that she can’t save our soul.  So to speak.  We are still responsible for our own happiness.  A partner can half your sorrow and double your joy, but she can’t eliminate your sorrow and create your joy.  She just can’t.  So if you’re in a relationship and you’re dissatisfied with life, it doesn't automatically mean the relationship is wrong.  There are a million things that could be wrong, and ending the relationship will help your work struggles about as much as ending a friendship would.  That is, not at all.

5)      We go through periods where we don’t hang out as much.  Sometimes we get busy, we don’t have the same classes, or we just get sick of each other and need a break.  But this is okay, because we know the person is our friend and when the time comes, we’ll be two peas in a pod again.  When it comes to relationships, we expect a great deal more consistency.  And this makes sense, because we’re talking partnership here.  But relationships, like friendships, do ebb and flow.  You’re not always going to feel as passionate towards your partner.  But unlike friendships, we too often take the natural ebb and flow of relationships as a sign that they are over.  We don’t realize that, with trust and time, our feelings will reappear.  Like the moon which goes through cycles of fullness and eclipse, or the tide of the ocean, feelings move in and out, but we trust in their return.  Feelings come with love, but they are not identical to love.  Love, like the moon, is always there.

I don’t want to over-share in regards to my own relationship.  As you know, we are unmarried and have no immediate plans to be married, so we’re not the best example of real lovingness.  (And if we never end up married, everything I’m saying still holds true for me.) But I will say that the fact that he is my best friend is one of the essential things that makes our relationship romantic.  Once, in one of my highest anxiety states, I called my mother in tears saying “But we’re best friends.  Do I need to break up with someone because we’re best friends? What about love?”  My mother basically laughed in my face and said, “Being best friends is the best case scenario.  You can always get back to loving someone if at the core he is your best friend.”  This is coming from someone who has been happily married for almost thirty years.  And I will say that my parents have a highly romantic relationship, nothing like those platonic-friends-pretending-to-be-in-love sort of couples that give me so much fear and you’re probably imagining on some level.

The last thing I will say relates to that something deeper that we all yearn for.  I’m going to make a bold statement and say that that something deeper has nothing to do with the initial spark that our culture holds as tantamount in relationships.  That initial spark fades and is no indication of whether or not that something deeper will arrive.  There is a beautiful quote about soul-mates that I heard somewhere along the mess of my frantic research.  I’m going to paraphrase and probably butcher it, but let me go ahead.

“Anyone who says they will know their soul-mate right when they see them has no idea what they are talking about.  You only become soul-mates by becoming.  By struggling, and learning, and living together over time, that is how you become soul-mates.”

Of course, being an anxious person, as soon as I learned that friendship was an essential aspect of love, I began to obsess that my mate and I weren't good enough friends.  I said to my mother “But we don’t like the same things!  We can’t even agree on a movie to see.  He doesn't even like sushi.  Oh my god, he doesn't like sushi!” 

To which my mother replied, “Well Emily, that’s what your friends are for…”

Blue Jasmine and Living With Anxiety

I hesitated when setting up to write this, because it would be so easy not to get personal with this blog.  I could write a pretty sharp essay about the similarities between this film and A Streetcar Named Desire.  A huge part of my psyche is screaming "For God's sake, Emily, don't talk about anxiety.  No one wants to read about anxiety.  This is a blog for reviews, so you can show people how much potential you have as a playwright."  But of course, the primary job of a playwright is to reveal herself on a personal level. 

So I'm going to write about anxiety.

In Blue Jasmine, Cate Blanchett plays the title character, the former trophy wife of a brilliantly wealthy financial genius - who turns out to be a brilliantly wealthy financial criminal.  And a cheat.

 After the FBI confiscates all her money, Jasmine finds herself heartbroken, broke, disillusioned, and on the verge of a mental breakdown.  As she explains, “There’s only so many traumas a person can withstand until they take to the streets and start screaming.” She returns, out of necessity, to the dilapidated home of her sister, Ginger, played by the delightfully sunny Sally Hawkins. (Happy-Go-Lucky, Made in Dagenham).  The two sisters, despite each having gone through their share of difficulties, have utterly divergent outlooks on life. 

Ginger, who worked bagging groceries while her wealthy sister ignored her for years, is generous enough to open her home to Jasmine, despite the fact that this prevents her fiance from moving in with her. Jasmine cannot stop comparing the run-down house to the mansion she lived in before.   Ginger, who also went through a nasty divorce, has opened her heart to a new man and is ready to move on.  Jasmine sees no one wealthy enough, successful enough, classy enough, educated enough, good looking enough… you get it.  She is constantly criticizing Ginger’s admittedly imperfect fiance, even to the point where Ginger starts to have her own doubts.

But Jasmine isn't really a nasty person.  Jasmine is living with acute anxiety.  Living with anxiety feels like the layer of skin just below the surface is constantly vibrating.  You wake up in the middle of the night or early in the morning with your heart pounding and a million frightening thoughts running through your mind.  “Is my neighborhood safe enough?  Do my friends really like me?  Am I doing well enough at my job/school? Is my relationship on stable grounds?” And then there are the really frightening thoughts.  “Is the world around me one great lie?  Am I lying to myself?  Am I really happy?  Do my loved ones really love me, or are they just pretending?  Am I just pretending to love them?”

We live in an unstable world.  As Blue Jasmine portrays, we’re in an economic crisis caused, in part, by unethical business practices.  Politicians, financial institutions, and other powers we trusted have deceived us on numerous occasions.  Our climate is changing, and no one really knows what to do about it. On the personal level, the people we love sometimes don’t love us back.    To top it all off, our culture’s expectations for quality of life are going up and up, to the point where many find it difficult to be satisfied with what earlier generations would have deemed enough.

I don’t know about you, but I see this especially played out in our relationships.   This is where my anxiety has recently settled.  (It hasn't always settled there.)  My grandparents, both sets, married very young by today’s standards. They were not necessarily financially stable by today’s standards.  I can’t say for certain, but I’m guessing they probably weren't Hollywood good-looking at the time. I’m also guessing - and this is just a guess so please correct me if you happen to be my grandparent reading this - that they weren't passionately “in-love” by today’s standards.  What I mean by that is they probably weren't running-through-an-airport-quoting- the-Notebook-never-had-a-doubt-you’re-my-soulmate-you’re-perfect-no-work-involved-the-end “in love.” I’m certain they don’t feel that way now.  But my grandparents, both sets, still seem like each other’s best friends.  They still seem to like each other a lot.  They still seem to love each other in a quiet way, which is more than I can say for most other couples I've seen.  So how does this relate to Blue Jasmine? 

At the top of the film, we hear Jasmine describing to a stranger on a flight the way she felt when she first met her husband, Hal. (Played by the ever-more-impressive Alec Baldwin.) Hal, she describes “swept her off her feet.”  They have a song together.  She just knew.  He was The One.  To top it off, he also happened to be filthy rich and good looking.  He buys her all kinds of crazy presents.  He is the perfect guy.  Except that it turns out he never stopped cheating on her and most of his money was stolen.  So it would seem that all of Jasmine’s initial instincts were, maybe, wrong.  She picked the wrong guy.  She made a mistake. 

Or did she? 

Is the problem actually not the man at all, but the criteria by which she judged him?  For myself, I feel a great pressure to judge my mates by Hollywood standards.  I feel like we should have a song.  I feel like I should look across the room and “just know.”  This pressure comes partly from society, but I also largely from myself.  I find myself looking at perfectly good relationships my friends have and thinking “oh he is so quiet/loud/skinny/fat/whatever.  She could totally do better.”  This is the root of anxiety.  Good is never enough.  Reasonable advice such as “don’t settle for someone who doesn't treat you well or who you don’t love,” has morphed into “don’t settle for anyone that isn't perfect in every way and who you’re not so in love with that you will chase them through an airport to keep them from leaving.”  Note that I am contrasting love and “in-love” in this statement.  Feel free to disagree with me in the comments.

The modern, anxious, mind, has a tough time being happy.  It has a tough time knowing when it truly loves another person.  It just has a tough time connecting with people.  What makes Blue Jasmine a great film, in my opinion, is that is challenges society’s deeply help value of “never enough.”  The movie isn't about how Jasmine fell for the wrong guy and moved on until she found the “right” guy.  It’s about how her conception of right and wrong so drastically contrasts with that of her sister.

In one of the most telling lines of the movie, Jasmine  shouts at Ginger “You choose losers because that’s what you think you deserve and that’s why you’ll never have a better life.”  This sounds reasonable, but what do we consider a “loser” by today’s standards?  Flawed human being?  Average job?  Average looking?  Not the guy from The Notebook? (Or the original fiance from The Notebook, who actually was a pretty good guy, right?)

 SPOILER ALERT (not major)

 Ginger doesn't choose losers because she doesn't think she can do better, she chooses the best of the average guys that come her way and make her happy.  As Ginger describes, the better guys just aren't beating down her door.  And when a guy does come along that seems like a step up, he turns out to be a liar as well.  Rather than wallowing in self-pity, Ginger returns to her fiance, happier again to have him back.

Hal may be highly romantic, and he may have made Jasmine feel madly in-love, but he ultimately did not care about her or any of the people he came in contact with.  In contrast, the most romantic thing Chili says in the entire film is probably “Some of the stuff she said made me really mad, but I kept it on the inside.”  It might not seem like much, but this means he cares enough about Ginger to try to improve himself and his temper.  So I’ll take it.  And she seems comfortable enough with herself to realize that a mate isn't a status symbol and how much you laugh with someone may be just as important, if not more, than how many butterflies he gives you. 

I get Jasmine.  I've spend a lot of time in high anxiety worried about whether I have the perfect relationship.  It’s hard not to, looking at the divorce rate in our society.  Look at what Hollywood teaches us about love.  (They are probably connected.) But then I look at my grandparents and I look at Ginger, and I think...

I’m so lucky that my guy took me to see Blue Jasmine.

It’s probably okay if I don’t marry that dude from The Notebook.              

Out, damned spot!

Shakespeare's Macbeth, perhaps more than any other play, bears with it a sense of darkness, mysticism, and the occult.  Legend has it that the infamous "double double toil and trouble" was lifted from an actual book of spells, casting an eternal curse on the play.  The effects of this curse have been felt from the first performance, where it is said an actual death took place onstage, right up to my own high school appearance as a witch where a brazen stagehand fell headfirst into the cauldron after daring to speak the name of the play in the theater.  (Not normally the superstitious type, I have been a true believer ever since.)

A passionate lover of Shakespeare, I have seen more productions of Macbeth than I care to admit.  Worse, I've liked most of them, demonstrating how difficult it is for me to separate a bad production from a brilliant text.  I just like Shakespeare, and I'll be the first to admit it.  But it is rare for any production to show me anything new when it comes to The Scottish Play.  Sure, you may have put the witches on stilts this time, but it's still the same basic thing.  You can set it in the future or the past or make everyone wear fuzzy suits, but its the same story.  In fact, I had started to pretty much think there was no way to do the play differently if one is to stick to the text.  (In an earlier blog, I wrote about Punchdrunk's adaptation "Sleep No More," a highly creative production, but completely divergent from Shakespeare's text.)  

Last Friday, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre, much to my delight, I was proven wrong.  Alan Cumming, who won a Tony for his performance in Cabaret and is currently appearing on the popular television program The Good Wife, performs almost the entire text alone.  Let me repeat that, Alan Cumming plays every character in Macbeth by himself.  I can safely stop and say this is something I've never seen.  And in the matter of stage spectacle alone, it certainly blows any stilted witches out of the water.  Cumming approaches the Herculean task with energy, commitment, and a complete lack of inhibition.  Performed in an hour and forty-five minutes without an intermission, I personally felt like I had ran about three laps around Central Park's reservoir and then been hit by a truck, and I was only observing. For a good twenty minutes afterwards, my boyfriend and I were unable to speak.  Complete spellbound amazement: something you simply don't find often in the theater. 

But was it good?  Cumming was quite conspicuously not nominated for a Tony for this performance, despite the boldness of the endeavor.  Most of the reviews I read after the show were lukewarm to negative, some even accusing Cumming of being pompous and egocentric to attempt such a thing.  More importantly, they accuse him of not bringing anything new to the text.  After meditating for some time on what I saw, I have to pipe up and say I vehemently disagree. 

Cumming's Macbeth takes place within the frame of a lunatic asylum.  He is brought on during a silent pre-show in which it becomes apparent that he has murdered someone, most likely his entire family.  Before long, the patient is enacting his own version of Macbeth, as the doctors periodically peer in through observation windows and take notes.  The Scottish Play, a story of vast scope and many divergent characters, is now the story of one man's infected mind, one man's torment.  For me, this is where the play really is taken somewhere new.  In past productions that I have seen, the emphasis has always been on the magical elements.  Yes, Macbeth may have a killer instinct somewhere within him, but it never would have been brought out if it wasn't for the witches.  The idea of becoming king is planted in his mind and he becomes evil, while he was noble before.  In this version, any magic that exists is entirely in the patient's mind.  The killer instinct comes from inside of him, from his own madness.  This is a frightening but true aspect of the play that is brought glaringly to the forefront.  He may get the idea from the witches, pressure from his wife, and help from hired hit men, but no one really kills but Macbeth.

For this reason, some of the weaker aspects of the play bothered me less than other critics. Cumming has received much flack for his comedic portrayal of Duncan as an idiotic fop and Malcolm as a talking baby doll.  (Although I daresay the audience loved it.)  The criticism is that these characters were trivialized and he never really bothered to penetrate their psyches.  To this I say:  bah, you missed the point!  Cumming never actually played any of the characters in Macbeth, he only played the patient playing all the characters.  He was not Duncan or Malcolm or even Macbeth, but the patient painstakingly unraveling all of the divergent characters in his mind.  Duncan represents the part of himself that was silly and playful, forever buried by his terrible deeds.  

I will admit that at times during the performance I was bored.  Even with cutting a third of the text, it seemed incredibly long.  Possibly watching one person do all of those parts was simply sensory overload.  I will also admit that anyone who didn't already have a good grasp of the story would probably be irredeemably lost, as there was really no way to keep track of who was talking to who or where the characters were.  But the action was punctuated by some wonderful stage effects, which allowed the pressure to be taken off Cumming for a moment and shake up any boredom by giving us something else to look at.  The use of three screens projecting Cumming's distorted face as the three witches was highly effective and super creepy, as was the tearing open of a bird's entrails during the cauldron scene. Another great moment was Macbeth's death, where the patient attempts to drown himself in the onstage bathtub.  Screens allow us to see Cumming's face underwater, and I daresay the length of time he was under there made the audience gleefully uncomfortable.  (He's been under there for a long time.  Are the lights going to go out?  Is he coming back up?  Is this supposed to happen?  God please let him come back up soon!)

Despite Cumming's impressive breath-holding, the best moment of the play by far was Lady Mac's mad scene.  As doctors observe, the patient steadily loses control of his emotions, as memories of his terrible deeds haunt him.  As Lady Mac laments the inability to rid herself of her guilt, so does the patient, and in this scene the overlap between the two stories is perfect.  Even though we know what he has done, we empathize with him in a deep and painful way.  We know there is no escape, and when the lights go on and we realize he has attempted to slash his wrists, we understand.  This is no longer a play about the occult, about magic, this is a play about regret.  

As he desperately tries to rid himself of the all-encompassing guilt, the foul spot, our own guilts, however small, are remembered.  And I think this is what Shakespeare would have wanted.  

Summer in the City

Yes... yes... I know... I know.  It's been months.  It's been forever.  And I'm sorry.  I really, truly am sorry.  I could talk about how busy I've been, how stressed I've been from school but 1) that's not and excuse and 2) you probably don't want to hear it. So I'm going to skip that part and just say that I am sorry for not posting for basically an entire semester.

I thought a lot about what to write about in this new post, and I considered going through all the plays that I have seen and giving quick responses to all of them, but I don't think I could do any of them justice anyway and, besides, most of them are closed by now so what's the point?  Instead, I'm simply going to celebrate that it is indeed finally summer in New York City.  And I have time and energy to write a blog. And it's beautiful.

I never thought that I'd think New York was beautiful.  I mean, sure, it's cool.  And there are awesome buildings and stuff, but it's dirty and, let's just admit it now: it smells terrible.  But there's something almost mystical about a city that has been dark and freezing suddenly becoming bright.  The buildings and the sidewalks somehow seem less hard, like maybe they are taking deep breathes.  I think the people might actually be nicer in the summer. Well, maybe not.  I'm probably just projecting.  I'm certainly nicer.

And I'm not just talking about the places in the city that we know are beautiful: central park, the highline, those places where nature has been stuffed in among the concrete and garbage bags, in an effort to preserve our sanity.  I'm talking about when you come out from the subway at Brooklyn Bridge and you see the flowing, watery edges of the Beekman Tower touching the sky and you think "Huh, who came up with that?"  Everywhere I look, it's something I've never seen before.  Everywhere I look its creativity and innovation and... awesome.

Okay, pulling myself back down to Earth.  Why do I feel the need to write this?  Well, recently, due to a cancelled flight, I was forced to take the eight-hour train to Buffalo from NYC.  And, as is often the case when random people are stuck together, I had dinner with two really interesting people and one really annoying person.  This man insisted on blabbing on about how much he hates NYC.  So many people!  So much greed!  It's so dirty! And, most importantly: it's ugly!  Now, this is not the first person that I've heard express this opinion, or the similar opinion that "New York is a nice place to visit, but God I'd NEVER live there,"  but he was the first one to really irritate me.  And I think I've figured out the reason.  

Flowers, trees, rivers, and all that are great, but they don't think.  They don't have imaginations.  People do.  People may curse at you when you walk too slow and their cars may send fumes up into the atmosphere, but people create art, and theater, and business.  I love living around all these people.  People are the most beautiful part of summer in the city.  And, while I may hate them when they are slammed up against me in the subway, I'm so grateful to be a part of this place that is constantly generating new ideas and new stories for the world.  

Do I miss the roses growing in my Mom's huge backyard in Cincinnati?  Sure I do.  But I just saw Monet's Waterlilies at the Museum of Modern Art, so I'll live.

Beekman Tower

How not to Rewrite Brecht

I'm going to keep this short because I don't like writing bad reviews.  But there are times when one must come out and say the painful truth: Clive, by Jonathan Marc Sherman is not worth seeing.  Unless you have a crush on Ethan Hawke or Zoe Kazan.  But even then, I really wouldn't.

This is how the play is described on the Acorn Theatre Website:

Inspired by Bertolt Brecht's inflammatory play Baal, Clive tracks a dissipated songwriter in 1990s New York City from the hedonistic heights of seduction and consumption into an ecstasy of self-destruction.

If that description leaves you thinking "WTF," the play itself will not enlighten you.  From the first moment, when Hawke sings a mumbling piano-bar version of "You Must Come in at the Door,"  the play is self-consciously lyrical, trite, and melodramatic. 

I'm not saying that every play has to have a traditional character arch or even a coherent story-line.  I'm fascinated by the avant-garde.... when it's good.  This was more like a play that sort of pretended to be cutting-edge, but in an emo sort of way.  Clive came across as an angsty rapist who its hard to feel sympathy for, because he really doesn't have a positive side.  The female characters are shallow and for some reason easily seduced by Hawke's winy pubescent take on rock-star.  I was in no way convinced that a 17 year old virgin would find this man fascinating enough to sleep with, or that she would kill herself after he rejected her.  Sorry.  Just no dice.

Also, I'm a bit confused on what the interpretation of Brecht is in this play.  In on very telling line, Clive "philosophizes" : "Art is meant to be felt, not understood."  Brecht is turning over in his grave.  This is exactly the opposite of what this politically-minded playwright stood for.  His plays often interrupt the flow of action right at critical moments so that characters might directly tell the audience what they ought to think or do as a result of what they see.  Brecht hoped to stop the action in order to limit the amount of emotional investment that audience took in the story, in favor of the message.  So, either Sherman didn't understand Brecht, or he thought he knew better than Brecht.  He didn't.

Happy New Year!

Better Late than Never.  I realize February is almost over... but anytime is a good time to blog about New Years Eve in NYC.  So for those of you who want to know: Here's how I spent the night of December 31st.
New Years Eve in New York City is a celebration of the city itself.  Sure, another year has passed, and sure, we're a bit older, but it's really a chance for Manhattan to strut her stuff.  And there's a lot to show off.  Yes, we're all familiar with the yearly Times Square bash, but this really only begins to scratch the surface of what is going on in the city on this night to end all nights.  I was fortunate over New Years Eve to have my family come to visit, but they, of course, wanted to stay on the square and watch the ball drop.  From what I know, though, there are several practical reasons to opt out of Times Square.
1) No bathrooms.  You have to get there early that morning if you want any type of view.  And there are no...erm... provisions made for bodily functions.  So bear this in mind when making your plans.
2) No drinks.  You can't drink in the streets in New York, and while I'm sure that rule isn't particularly enforced, good luck bringing enough libations to last you throughout the day.  Also, see #1.
3)  No choice of music.  I mean, if you really love Taylor Swift, this year would be wonderful for you.  If not, I'm not sure.  Just not sure.

So what did I do on my first NYE in NYC?  Joe and I opted to dance the night away at historic Webster Hall in the Village.  Webster Hall boasts itself the oldest nightclub in the United States.  It was a favorite stomping ground for iconic figures from Frank Sinatra to Ray Charles to Jefferson Airplane.  The club is situated in what feels like an aging mansion in Greenwich village.  The building was recently restored, but all of the old charm was preserved.  We may have been listening to techno, but one could easily imagine a jazz band lighting up the stage.  There are two main dance halls, one that played mostly pop music and one that leaned towards electric music.  Joe and I mostly stayed in the pop area, but we braved the massive, two-story techno room for the fabled midnight balloon drop.  Forget the ball drop.  This was the single most exciting New Years countdown I have ever experienced.  Never mind that I was a little nervous I was going to get trampled in the mosh-life mob beforehand.  Once the balloons feel from he ceiling I literally felt there was a layer of balloons above me, covering a layer of wildly dancing young people. Swimming through balloons while dancing in the New Year is a memory I will never forget. It was beyond exhilarating. Too bad I lost my feather hat. :-(

Here are the cons of Webster Hall New Years:
1) It took a long time to get drinks.
2) Way too much dub step for those of us who don't do drugs.
3) Douchy people. Like the guy who called my boyfriend a rather choice name when he was simply trying to keep me from being trampled.

Here are the pros:
1) Unlimited drinks, which were quite strong, once you got them.
2) Lots of people and dancing.
3) Pizza for sale
4). Free party favors.
5.) A no-cover membership card for the entire year of 2013.  (Which Joe and I will absolutely use.)
6.) Breakfast if you make it late enough.

So, as you can see, its really no contest.  Next year, though, I'm sure we won't be there.  We'll be somewhere else awesome.  I love this city.

"You're a Live Cat, Maggie."

First off, I apologize for my almost three-month absence from my blog.  I would say I have been really busy, but when has that ever been an excuse?  I could say I haven't seen any shows, but as my father informed me, there is a lot more that all of you want to hear about.  So, it make it up to you, I will try to write two blogs in a very short period of time: first, my review of the new Broadway revival of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and then I'll go back in time and give a super fun account of my first New York City New Years Eve.

I'll make you sit through the intellectual stuff first :-)

"Living with someone you love can be lonelier- than living entirely alone!- if the one that y'love doesn't love you..."

This is my favorite line from Tennessee Williams' powerful masterpiece Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.   It also serves excellently to demonstrate the overall theme of this play, as well as many of his other works.  For those of you not as familiar with Tennessee Williams, he is considered to be one of the greatest American playwrights. He was born in Mississippi, grew up in Saint Louis, and started his writing career as a young man in New Orleans.  Many of his greatest plays are distinctly Southern family tragedies, often dealing with the lies that human beings tell themselves in order to cope with their own failures.  He was fascinated with the quiet, very private disappointments of people whose lives never amount to what they expected, and in this way he creates what seem like epic tragedies onstage out of the quiet struggles that go on behind closed doors.  His most successful plays were written in the late 40's and 50's, although he continued to write until his death in 1983.

Although I have always loved A Streetcar Named Desire, it took me until college to really appreciate what is now my favorite Williams drama, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.  While Streetcar is highly emotional and dramatic, Cat is subtle and realistic in a way that I'm not sure I was able to appreciate when I was in high school.  This story, while encompassing the whole of the main character's emotional life, takes place in the smallest, most invisible of worlds: in her a bedroom behind a locked door.  Or I should say somewhat locked, because people just can't seem to stop invading her privacy.

In Broadway's recent revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Rob Ashford, Scarlett Johansson portrays Maggie the Cat as desperate and unraveling, yet restrained.  Maggie, whose husband has been refusing to have to sleep with her for years, is too-often portrayed as overly sexual or needy.  Johansson, to her credit, was able to deliver such emotionally charged lines as "if I really believed you'd never sleep with me again I'd go to the kitchen, take out the biggest knife, and drive it into my heart," not as a neurotic, but as someone who has simply had this conversation over and over again.  Someone for whom this has become the routine.  Johansson's Maggie just said the words, and I believed her.  When this play first appeared, the idea that a woman could actually be sexually frustrated was, to say the least shocking.  Women do not need sexual intimacy... or so we'd like to think.  I am not convinced that this mentality has entirely changed, contributing to an interpretation of Maggie as ultra-seductive or even sex-addicted.  The reality is that Williams understood that women have longings just as men do, but the expression is often even more dangerous and rejection more shameful.  This is what makes the role of Maggie such a vulnerable and difficult one for an actress to play.  Imagine dressing up in lingerie and being rejected over and over again in front of a live audience...
 I also appreciated how Johansson embraced the side of Maggie that is more than a little annoying.  This is a woman who, in many ways, I would not want to be around.   The play opens with Maggie openly mocking children, calling her nieces and nephews "no-neck monsters."  She is crude in conversation and can be bitterly mean.  And she knows it.  Johansson understood that when Maggie says, "Why am I so catty?  'Cause I'm consumed with envy and eaten up with longing."  It is not a joke, but a very blunt admission of a fact about herself.  Johansson's is a bitter and envious Maggie, deeply concerned with wealth, beauty, and popularity.  She is even  determined to lie and cheat her way into earning what she needs to survive.  And she is delicious.

I will say, though, that little annoys me more than when an actor walks onstage and is instantly applauded.  At the risk of sounding like a snob, I can't help but think: congratulations, tourists, you just saw a famous person.   But they haven't done anything yet, and while I know we're so impressed that she memorized all those lines (as the man behind me pointed out)  the celebrity in question has yet to actually act and therefore, lets not just assume they are going to do anything like a good job. So, it's possible that the compulsory applause as (gasp) Scarlett walked onstage unfairly pitted me against her, but I feel obligated as a reviewer to actually criticize her performance.  Honestly, there were moment's in the first act that really dragged. Yes, every night she begs him to sleep with her, and yes, every night he refuses... but why is this night any different?  Why is this night the night that Williams put in the play.  Some might argue that the reason for that comes later, but the reality is that roughly 80 percent of the lines in act one are Maggie the Cat's (Brick is in a state of alcoholic detachment.) And too much matter-of-fact isn't necessarily the way to go.  Because Johansson played it as "this is what this character's life is like now,"  I did not believe that she was really trying to get Brick to sleep with her that night.  She was saying she was trying, but in order to try the character has to believe that it is possible to achieve her goal.  I didn't think Maggie saw this night as any different.  A concrete example of this was when Maggie was trying to clean a stain out of her dress.  Scarlet Johannon was not cleaning that stain.  She was barely dabbing at the thing.  Because she knew she was going to end up picking up a new dress.  (Everyone who knows the play knows that Maggie spends all of Act One in lingerie, so we also know that she is going to end up taking off the dress.)  But Maggie doesn't know this... so scrub the darn thing.  Try to get the stain out.  Please, Scarlett.  Thank you. Now, keep in mind, I truly enjoyed her performance.  I think she did the role great justice.  But I also love the play.  It is alarming that the girl next to me, at the end of the show, said "That's three hours I wish I had back."  Granted, some people will always feel that way about a Williams play. They are dialogue-heavy, action-light, and, frankly, depressing as all Hell.  But it's the actor's job to make it exciting for everyone.  That is the actor's job.

 Also, I took a slight issue with her voice.  Rather then a Southern drawl, this Maggie seemed to have acquired the raspy voice of a life-time smoker. (Is this Johansson's voice?)  Now, this makes perfect sense, because Maggie is a life-time smoker. No one is saying the Johansson's Maggie has to sound just like Liz Taylor's Maggie, for example, but this play is taking place on "The richest plantation this side of the Mississippi."  So this ought to be born in mind.  Maggie is a Southern woman.  She needs a good Southern accent.

Of course, Scarlett Johansson was not the only part of this play worth commenting on.  Ciaran Hinds as Big Daddy was by far the most delightful performance of the night.  Big Daddy, the wealthy patriarch who is dying of cancer but believes himself to be cured, is probably one of theater's most memorable and difficult roles.  He is simultaneously so admirable and so cruel, that one barely has time to catch one's breath before he shocks you again in a new direction.  And Hinds' portrayal was deeply effective, especially in his long Act Two scene with Brick where he forces Brick to come clean about the reasons for his alcoholism.  I both hate Big Daddy and love him for his crude declarations such as " I'm going to pick me a choice one, I don't care how much she costs... I'll strip her naked and choke her with diamonds and smother her with minks and hump her from hell to breakfast" and Hinds made no apology for the ambiguity of his character.  This is a man who hates his wife, but loves his son.  And he is not ashamed to bribe Brick with alcohol in order to find out why Brick drinks.  And, unlike in Johannson's long scene, I was on the edge of my seat every moment.  Of course, I know how it ends... but I wanted to see how Hinds made it end that way.  And he did it moment-by-moment and beat-by-beat. We learn that Brick, who claims to be refusing Maggie as punishment for cheating on him, is really blaming himself for the suicide of the "other man," who was actually in love with Brick.  Brick may or may not be a homosexual himself.  (This is an interpretive question for another day.)

Finally, I really loved the set design, by acclaimed designer Christopher Oram.  The giant bed center stage seemed to posses a sort of gravitational pull, so that every aspect of the surrounding room was sucked in my it.  The floorboards pointed to the bed, the windows surrounded the bed, even the trees outside seemed to lean into the bed.  This was a brilliant creative nod to the original Broadway design, which was extremely abstract with the bed as basically the only set element.  In Oram's version, we got the feel of a realistic set, but at the same time, it was clear that something was off balance... something not right.  Also, the massive doors and windows were merely frames, which worked wonderfully at creating a space where privacy isn't really possible.  The characters could "shut the door,"  but if the walls are transparent, it really doesn't matter.  In a play with eavesdropping as such a vital element, it helped give the sense of complete vulnerability.  I also appreciated the surrealistic use of sound: every sound effect had some believable justification within the world of the play, but they were crafted in such as way as to be obviously intended for underscoring a scene or punctuating a line.  For example:
Brick: How about these birthday congratulations, these many, many happy returns of the day, when ev'rybody buy you knows there won't be any!
(Firecracker goes off outside.)

This is an excellent use of atmosphere to punctuate meaning.

Directorially, there is one important choice I'd like to mention.  In an earlier blog, I talked about the relevance of certain aspects of darkness in the theater, and this play is a prime example.  Its rare to see a play where literally every scene reminded me of something that has happened in my family.  For this reason I highly commend director Rob Ashford's decision to use Williams' original ending in this revival, as opposed to the altered ending requested by famed director Elia Kazan in the first Broadway production.
Time for a little history lesson:
In the original script, William's wrote the closing lines this way:

Maggie: I really love you, Brick.
Brick: Wouldn't it be funny if that were true.

In this version, there is no doubt that Maggie's advances have been futile, and Brick does not believe she loves him.

Director Elia Kazan felt that this ending was too definitive.  He believed endings should be ambiguous, and the audience should be left to decide for themselves what to think about what the future holds for Maggie and Brick.  Williams could have chosen another director, but Kazan had directed his previous plays with great success, and Williams wanted him, so he made the changes.  The original Broadway script, and the version most commonly read and performed, ends this way.

Brick: I admire you, Maggie.
Maggie: Oh, you weak, beautiful people who give up with such grace.  What you need is someone to take hold of you- gently, with love, and hand your life back to you, like something gold you let go of- and I can!  I'm determined to do it- and nothing's more determined than a cat on a tin roof- is there? Is there, baby?

Keep in mind, that these lines are in the first script, but a few moments earlier.

There is also a third script that sort of jumbles the two endings together. I'm not exactly sure how this script goes, nor have I ever really heard of it being used.

THEN THERE IS THE MOVIE.... oh, the movie. Oh, Hollywood.
The movie ends like this:
Brick: Come here, Maggie.
(They kiss passionately.)

 Don't get me wrong, this is a fantastic film.  It's beautiful, touching, and dramatic.  Elizabeth Taylor is mesmerizing as Maggie the Cat.  By all means, go ahead and watch it.  But keep in mind that the movie Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Richard Brooks, is an excellent film that has nothing to do with the play by the same title.

Okay, that's an exaggeration.  But there are three fatal flaws:

1) A really long and wordy second scene between Brick and Big Daddy that, unlike the scene derived from the play, really has nothing to do with the plot.  It is an extended  opportunity for popular actor Burl Ives to get more screen time.  It essentially amounts to the message that "Money can't buy happiness," which is already dealt with in a better manner in the regular script.
2) Censorship.  Why did Brick's friend Scipper drink himself to death in the play? Because he was a homosexual and Brick said he was disgusted by him.  Why does he throw himself out a window in the movie?  (Well first of all, because drinking oneself to death was "too vague" and audiences wouldn't get that it was a suicide.)  But as to the motive...not really sure.  It's unclear.  Why is it unclear? Because the censors at the time couldn't allow mention of homosexuality.  So... it's kind of just a weird sort of depression mixed with guilt thing.... I guess.  Who really can tell? He just kind of did it and Brick kind of blames himself.  Major plot hole, to say the least.
3)The ending. This is possibly one of the most heinous butcheries of a playwrights's intentions in the history of American theater.  As a result of this line, Williams completely washed his hands of the film.He even claimed in one interview that he refused to see the film.  (This is confirmed to be untrue, but the sentiment is very important to note.)

Given all the possible endings of the play, I am thrilled that the revival is using the original.  The intention of Williams was not to show a marriage in healing, but a marriage in crisis.  Sure, marriages can heal, but Williams didn't know that world.  His parents had a bitter relationship and his relationships were always tumultuous at best.  He was writing the world he knew.

The natural desire of directors and audience members to be happy has brought the play progressively closer and closer to a "feel good" ending. But this is not a feel good play.  That is my opinion.  But it is not the ultimate opinion. (This is the fun part of opinions.)

So we have three different directors opting for three different endings.  They were all talented artists with their own vision and their own interpretation of Williams' script.  (Theater, a collaborative art form  is never entirely one person's voice.)

So: Original ending, Broadway ending, or movie ending?

Which would you chose?
Please comment :-)