I Got Soul

Last night was one of the most enjoyable theatrical experiences I've had in a long time.  I admit, when an old friend of mine told me she was in The Mysteries at the Flea theater, my stomach sank a little.  I knew that play was five and a half hours long.  I knew it was about the Bible.  And although it had gotten incredible reviews, I just wasn't sure if I was up for the marathon of Jesus stories.  So I made a deal with myself.  Not willing to shell out the $75 dollar ticket price, I decided to rush tickets.  If I got in, I'd go.  So yesterday I took the 6 train all the way down to SoHo to the tiny, nondescript, Flea theater and waited an hour for rush tickets.  And I'm so glad I did.                

Forbidden Fruit in the Garden of Eden

The Mysteries is modeled after the famed York Mystery Cycle, a tradition dating back to Medieval England.  In those days, performers would enact short scenes from the Bible on moving wagons.  The audience would travel from wagon to wagon, experiencing each play separately and in different orders.  By the end of the festival (which could last for days) they audience was supposed to have experienced the story of the entire salvation of man, from the Fall of Adam and Eve to the foundation of the  Catholic Church.  The traditional Mystery Cycle is still performed once every four years, a massive undertaking that is one of the last remaining vestiges of the medieval world.

The Flea's take on the tradition is, to put it lightly, a bit different.  This delightfully blasphemous fantasia of music, myth, and mayhem features 48 plays by 48 playwrights, including names such as Jose Rivera and Craig Lucas.  Each play is distinct in style.  Some of them rhyme, some take place in modern day Brooklyn, some present the angel Gabriel as a pin-striped corporate lackey, and some are downright ridiculous.  Many feature sex, drugs, and rock and roll.  Nevertheless, thanks to the impressive work by dramaturge Jill Rafson, all the the plays fused together to form a more or less cohesive piece, leaving a few key elements for the audience to track throughout the night.

When the show works, it is thought-provoking, shocking, and immensely entertaining.  Director Ed Sylvanus Iskandar does an excellent job of keeping the night alive with surprises.  The music, most of it sung A-Capella by an "angel choir" of twenty-something punk-rockers, was beautiful.  Aside from a few moments where the harmonies were off (the play is in re-mount and many of the cast is new) the music greatly elevated the show.  My favorite number was the blue-grass/A-Capella rendition of the Killers' "All These Things that I've Done" that had the entire audience singing "I've got soul, but I'm not a solider..." as Jesus ascended into Heaven.  The lyrics took on a new meaning as Jesus sang, "...over and in, last call for sin.  While everyone's lost, the battle is won, with all these things that I've done."

And when the show doesn't work, the audience is comforted to know that each individual play only lasts fifteen minutes.  So if there's something you don't like... well, it will be over with shortly.  Personally, I was less of a fan of some of the more politically-bent numbers. (Although the Massacre of the Innocents was a major exception.)  Someone else whose interest lies in these areas may feel differently though, and the great thing is, there's really something here for everyone.


Jesus baptized in the River Jordan

As a believer myself, I was pleased to see that the play asked all the right questions.  What does it mean to say that Jesus Redeemed the world? What is redemption?  What is free will?  What is sin?  At no point did I find my religion reviled, although a more conservative theater-goer may be offended by some things in the play. (Jesus in a bi-sexual poly-amorous relationship/ Mary refusing to ascend into Heaven.)  It is not a religious play, per se, but it uses the archetypal stories of faith to ask questions that are important to all human beings.  This makes it accessible, in my opinion, to persons of all belief systems.

While I simply don't have time or space to say everything I want about this play (it was almost six hours long!) the two stand-out performances (out of about 50 actors) that I must mention were the Virgin Mary, played by Allison Buck and Lucifer, played by Asia Kate Dillon.  The violent and erotic scene in which the terrified Mary is forcibly impregnated by the Angel Gabriel  made me view Mary's plight in an entirely new way.  Lucifer's constant questioning, based in love at first, but gradually morphing into resentment, then hatred, and, ultimately, back to love, mirrored the emotional journey of many in the audience.


Allison Buck as the Virgin Mary

But what ultimately makes The Mysteries a great experience is structure of the event itself.  It has truly earned its rep as "the best party in SoHo."  The audience is wined and dined throughout.  (Dinner, snacks, and dessert are included.  Drinks are inexpensive and available throughout.)  Between acts, actors wander through the audience, making sure everyone is having a good time and refilling beer and wine.  I must have been thanked for coming about twenty times by actors, when all I wanted to say was "This is amazing- thank you."  By the end of the night, you really feel as if you are participating in a wild party, and, after a few drinks, you have no qualms about joining in with the song and dance.

Overall, The Mysteries reawakens the sense of wonder and awe that is the basis of all religious faiths.  It is an enchanted work of imagination and love.  In the final transcendent moments, when the cast thanks God for everything from square roots, to curve-balls, to blondes, everyone is truly connected to something divine.


Jesus is crowned with thorns.

The Mysteries, at the Flea Theater (41 White Street) have been extended through July 14th.
Tickets are available at www.theflea.org

(Although it is about the Bible, this is not Sunday school. I highly recommend leaving the kids at home.)

The Meaning of Broadway Part II: Machinal

“I do not wish women to have power over men, but over themselves! … The helpless- the degraded position of women is the presumption of my mind.”   -                                                      Sophie Treadwell, 1921

In my last post I asked, “Is murder the only way out of an unhappy marriage?”

 Well, obviously not.  Phew!  But when Sophie Treadwell wrote Machinal in 1928 things were a bit different.  And her question was not so much about the relative feasibility of divorce, but about what would drive a woman to do such a thing. 

The play was inspired by the sensational murder trial of Ruth Snyder, who conspired with her lover to murder her husband, whom she detested.  Apparently the husband was still in love with his late fiancé, calling her “the finest woman he had ever met.”  Snyder made several weak attempts to murder her husband before finally succeeding.  When she finally did, she claimed burglars had done it, only to have detectives discover the apparently stolen property still in the house.  Popular reporter Damon Runyon famously coined it “the dumbbell murder,” because of the perfect stupidity of the crime.  Snyder was the first woman to be executed at Sing-Sing prison.  Her death by electric chair caused a mass sensation when a photograph was released showing her body as electric currents ran through it.  (The photograph is quite tame by today’s standards.  For those interested, a link is here.)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/40/Snyder_chair.jpg 

But Treadwell was not interested in sensation.  She was interested in the underlying human drama.  What motivated an apparently simple woman to commit a crime so obviously not in her nature?  And what made her feel that divorce was not an option?  By all accounts, the husband was not abusive.  He did not threaten her.  She was not imprisoned in a physical sense.  And yet she was trapped. 

In her adaption of the story, Treadwell changed the circumstances of the crime, as well as the identities of the characters.  The play centers around a Young Woman (referred to as Helen by other characters but given no name by Treadwell) who is struggling to make ends meet working as a secretary.  She has an aging mother to support.  She is not very bright.  Fortunately, the owner of the company, Mr. J, thinks she has pretty hands and asks her to marry him.  Unfortunately, he makes her skin crawl.  The heart-breaking exchange she has with her mother indicates the circumstances of this union.

MOTHER: I’ll tell you what you can count on! You can count that you’ve got to eat and sleep and get up and put clothes on your back and take ‘em off again- that you got to get old- and that you got to die. That’s what you can count on!  All the rest is in your head!

YOUNG WOMAN: But Ma- Didn’t you love Pa?

MOTHER: I suppose I did- I don’t know- I’ve forgotten.  What difference does it make?

The title of the play Machinal, refers to the machine-like quality of life that this young woman lives.  Like a lifeless part on an endless assembly-line, she is pushed from one stage of life to another.  She goes through the movements of her wedding like an automobile through a drive-through car wash.  What is so fabulous about Treadwell’s depiction of the story is her use of expressionism to capture this robotic mode of living.  While one’s first instinct would probably be the use of realism to capture a historical event, Treadwell opted for a highly stylized manner of both speech and atmosphere, capturing a more emotionally realistic world for the characters to inhabit.  We see and hear the world onstage not as it looks on the outside, but as the young woman experiences it. 

My boyfriend, who was experiencing the play for the first time, observed that the dialogue sounded like a sort of spoken-word rap to him. While that didn’t exist at the time Machinal was written, I thought that was a pretty accurate description.  The staccato arrhythmic dialogue imitates the hard whirring of turning gears.  When done well, it is both hypnotic and disconcerting.

In Roundabout’s production, the Young Woman was portrayed by the magnificent Rebecca Hall (Vicky Christina Barcelona, The Prestige.)  Hall was uncharacteristically unsexy in the part: naive, awkward, out-of-place, and sweet.  In the first moments of the play, we see her ducking between bodies in a crowded subway full of identical-looking men in gray suits.  She is unable to keep pace with the world around her; she only barely seems to understand what her coworkers are talking about.  Hall had the difficult job of carrying the weight if the unusual text without making her character especially unique or original:  the essential quality of the Young Woman is her ordinariness.  But Hall demonstrated her mastery of Treadwall’s text in her adept handling of the difficult first monologue.  After Mr. J’s proposal, the world around her stalls to a grinding slowness and a single light shines on the Young Woman.  In Treadwall’s strange poetry, we hear the gears of her mind turning.

YOUNG WOMAN : Marry me- wants to marry me- George H Jones- George H Jones and Company- Mrs. George H Jones- Mrs. George H Jones. Dear Madame.- marry- do you take this man to be your wedded husband- I do- to love honor and to love- kisses- no I can’t…. fat hands- flabby hands- don’t touch me please- fat hands are never weary… no rest- must rest- no rest… alarm clock- alarm clock- alarm clock…

                                         

                                                      Hall completes the possibility of married life

Hall resisted the temptation to overact these monologues, rather she trusted the audience to understand what it was she was talking about.  She captured a stillness that was almost paralysis, an attempt at decision-making where no choices were presented.

Other notable performances in the cast included Michael Cumpsty ( Flags of Our Fathers) as the unbearable Husband. (Aka Mr. J.)  He managed to be repulsive without being mean.  Overbearing, offish, stupid, and simply an impossible person to have around.  His self-congratulatory manner was never rude, but nevertheless obnoxious.  So when he bragged, for the hundredth time, “Well, I put it over- Yeah, I swung it- surely, they came through- did they sign? On the dotted line!”  I was pretty okay with the thought of him getting his brains bashed in with a bottle.  Even if he didn’t deserve it.

Ashley Bell as the sleazy Telephone Girl brought a fresh note of humor to the play, and Morgan Spector was mysterious and distant as the Lover.  

    

           "Did you swing it?"  "I swung it!"

The most exciting aspect of Roundabout’s production was their set design, a brilliant piece of inventiveness by Es Devlin.  In keeping with the style of the play, the set was an enormous piece of machinery.  This four-sided turn-table allowed for actors to walk out of one scene and into another as the stage moved.  Each of the four sides could be transformed into several sets, so while one scene was being showed on stage, each of the three hidden sides were being changed.  Of course, the Roundabout Theatre's plentiful funds helped to make this level of production possible, and there were a couple times when the design flirted with gratuitous "show-offishness." Also, from where I was sitting there were some sight-line problems in that I could see a couple of the changeovers taking place backstage and had to deal with a beam in my way on two occasions, but overall the effect was still magical.  At the turn of a wheel, the set transformed from a crowded subway car to an office, to a hotel room, to a speakeasy, to a dark alley, to a prison cell, and, finally an execution chamber. 

                                   

                                            "I will not be submitted- this indignity!"

The most effective use of the set was in the final scene of the play, when the Young Woman is being led to her death.  The script calls for a seemingly never-ending litany of saint’s being evoked for prayers. (Saint Joseph, pray for us, Saint Teresa pray for us, Saint Stephen…) When reading the script, I remember thinking there was no way this could work on stage.  But by allowing the set to endlessly turn as the characters walked, Devlin created the impression of a long road to death.  The walk from her prison cell to the chair must have seemed eternal to her, and in true expressionistic style, it seemed eternal to us.  And as she walked further and further on an endless wheel, the atmosphere of inevitable doom weighed heavier and heavier on her and on all of us.  The final image of the play, the sparks of the electric chair flashing through a glass window, left the audience in a shocked silence.

So how did this sweet, unassuming woman end up in an electric chair?  As she desperately confesses at her trial:

JUDGE: Why?

YOUNG WOMAN: To be free.

JUDGE: To be free?  Is that the only reason?

YOUNG WOMAN: Yes.

JUDGE: But if you wanted to be free- why didn't you divorce him?

YOUNG WOMAN: Oh I couldn't do that! I couldn't hurt him like that!

Unlike Bronx Bombers, not everyone in the audience stood at the end.  Perhaps it’s because they were too busy thinking…

The Meaning of Broadway

Or: How did Bronx Bombers and Machinal end up in the same place?

Part I

“And what are you studying in grad school?” The kind, well-intentioned family friend asks.

“I’m getting my MFA in playwriting.”

Cue this:

“I can’t wait to see your name IN LIGHTS,”  “When you’re FAMOUS, I’ll be able to say I KNEW YOU WHEN.” “You’re going to be such a STAR!”

 Now, I know these people are only trying to be nice, but I can’t prevent the sick, sinking feeling in my stomach whenever I hear these words. Which is, inevitably, every time I tell someone about my personal goals.  Whether out of forced politeness or a sincerely naïve conception of the world of theater, everyone wants to believe I'm going to be famous. I normally brush off these remarks with a casual reminder that playwrights aren't generally famous.  (How many playwrights can the average person name?  Three?)  But the conversation never stops there. 

“But you at least want to be on BROADWAY, right?”  At this point, I normally nod politely and move on.  Sure, I want to be on Broadway.  Right? 

This pattern culminated in a negative way one day last summer when I snapped at my poor, unsuspecting mother over Sunday brunch.  “No.  I don’t want to be on Broadway,” I hissed.  “I hate Broadway.  I hate it.  I hate it.”  She looked at me, rather crushed, and certainly shocked, and responded, in a small voice.  “All right.  I get it.  You hate Broadway.”

Now, to be clear, I don’t hate Broadway.  Who does?  But what caused me to have this adverse reaction to the quintessential symbol of success in the American theater? Meditating upon this question, it dawned on me that my frustration has to do specifically with that word: success.  And then it really hit me, why all those questions touch such an uncomfortable place: all of them imply that success in the theater means being famous.  Lights, stars, being known… yes even the word Broadway hints that the end goal of making art is admittance into the sparkly universe where confetti rains from the ceiling and everyone breaks into spontaneous jazz squares.  I want to be a star.  I think of Hairspray, and I shudder.  Actually I want to make art that will move people and affect the world.  Am I opposed to monetary success? Absolutely not.  I have no illusions about the romance of the starving artist.  But fame is shallow, puerile, goal, and it frightens me when people think I have it.  Whether conscious or not, the assumption hurts.

                                  

A simple look at some of the junk being produced on the Broadway stage right now demonstrates that fame is the name of the game.  Motown the Musical? First Date? Cinderella starring Carly Rae Jepson? (Seriously?) These are the things being given to the American people because it is believed that they do not wish or are not able to think at the theater.  Is this not insulting?  This is not what I want to do with my life.  And you can bet that’s why it hurts me when people ask if I want to be on Broadway.  Because I desperately and passionately do not want that.  But Broadway itself is not the culprit.  It’s all about intention.  What is the intention of a company producing a piece of theater? Is it there to make money or is it there to challenge us, to help us grow, and to shape us into a freer, more daring society.  Both exist.  Only one is art.  Two recent Broadway productions represent this dichotomy perfectly. 

Bronx Bombers, by Eric Simonson is, frankly, a shameless attempt to capitalize on the uncritical market of Yankees fans who will gladly sit for two hours admiring the authenticity of the uniforms.  (The only positive review I found of the show made a great deal of this.)  The story, from what I could understand, involved Yogi Berra trying to mend the relationship between Reggie Jackson and Billy Martin.  Apparently they didn’t get along too well.  Which is obviously of critical importance because… well I’m not sure.  I suppose if they don’t get along, the Yankees don’t win.  So Yogi Berra is really worked up about this.  (I could tell he was upset, because there was a lot of shouting.)  Fortunately, that night he has a dream in which Joe DiMaggio, Elston Howard, Mickey Mantle, Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, and Derek Jeter show up and give him advice.  I’m not sure what that advice was exactly.  Something about sticking together as a team.  Mostly they shared beloved Yankee anecdotes, which were beloved only if you already knew them.  Really, it was a parade in which people dressed up like Yankees and recited some famous quotes attributed to said Yankees. 

But the most appalling part of the whole experience was the standing ovation.  The entire audience except myself was on their feet.  This includes the woman who was fast asleep in the front row the entire time.  She woke up and gave a standing ovation.  (Was her dream really that good?)  It didn’t matter that the story was almost incomprehensible, that the acting was so bad I thought the characters were telling jokes when they were supposed to be upset, or that the set was downright bizarre.  (Is that supposed to be a chandelier?  I think it’s a chandelier with tiny baseballs hanging down.)  No one in the theater could distinguish between this play and the thing they did love.  This audience loved the Yankees, and they were applauding the Yankees.  You could have placed cardboard cutouts of them onstage for all the difference it would have made. 

A weird chandelier and cheesy fog grace the Bronx Bombers set. 

I guess what offends me most about this type of show is the way it takes advantage of the theater audience.  Give them something we know they’ll buy by re-packaging theater as something they are guaranteed to like, based on what they are already buying.  You like baseball?  Here are the Yankees onstage.  Motown your thing?  Let’s dress up like the Supremes and sing their songs to you.  Rock of Ages.  The Beatles.  Mama Mia.  You get the idea.  We know you, the audience, don't want to be challenged. You haven't been given good theater in so long, you won't know the difference anyway. You don’t want to leave the theater with anything to think about.  If you talk, let it be about how much you “liked” the play.  And tell your friends to go as well.  They’ll really enjoy it.

There was a time when people were so aware of theater’s capacity to change society that a simple play could inspire riots.  How did we end up with a theater of mutual back-patting?  What is gained by singing the praises of that which we already adore?

But just when I was starting to wonder if perhaps all was lost, I received the opportunity to see Roundabout Theatre’s magnificent revival of Sophie Treadwell’s expressionistic masterpiece Machinal.  Perhaps it was just because the last play I had seen was so incredibly disappointing, but it actually felt like an honor to be sitting in the theater during the final moments of the production.  When I set out to write this blog post, I intended to include my reaction to both plays, but even as I write this I'm realizing that I lack the space to do this production justice.  It deserves a post of its own, which is why I will write a full review of Machinal, tomorrow.  For now, suffice it to say that this play was devastating, shocking, and transformative when it was first produced in 1928, and it retains all of those qualities today.  It is only a shame that it has taken this long for it to be revived.

In conclusion, it is not Broadway itself that is the problem.  It is not money, or success, or even the unlikely prospect of fame that turns me off to the idea of Broadway.  It is, perhaps, us.  What are we asking for when we go to the theater?  Is it merely a means of escape from the struggles of our daily lives? Is it a way to congratulate ourselves and our heroes? Is it a way to forget?  If so, I want no part of it.  I’ll quit writing right now, because I’m not interested.  

But maybe it's a way to look inside of ourselves and discover what is hidden.  Maybe it is a way to wake ourselves up to what isn’t pretty, to what needs fixing, to what can still be done.  When Sophie Treadwell read about Ruth Snyder’s sensational murder conviction and asked herself if murder was the only way for a woman to escape an unhappy marriage, I bet that question terrified her.  And yet she thought the theater was the best place to pose that question. That's how you write a masterpiece.

If being a playwright means doing that, I’m in. 

(Maybe I do want to be famous, after all.)




Stay tuned for part II....