to bask in the glory of one Maria Callas

credit to James White

Unexpectedly, I saw last night’s performance of Manhattan Theater Club’s Master Class, which will conclude its Broadway run next weekend.  (That is if Manhattan is still standing after Irene hits.  I kid, I kid.)  Mostly I was interested in seeing Tyne Daly knock my socks off.  And she did, for the most part.  Her commitment to the role is what wowed me the most.  But one day I will right about star-power/reputation and its effect on audience perception and reaction, and how much it irks me.  This is definitely at play at the Friedman right now.  Regardless, Tyne was impressive, especially in her mono-scenes.  Sierra Boggess, on the other hand, not so much.  I’m not sure we have a relationship that can be rectified, to be perfectly honest.  Where’s Audra McDonald when you need her.

But I digress.  What I found most interesting in this piece was the relationship between the performers and the audience, and it was unlike anything I have ever seen before.  I went into the piece knowing very little about it, and was unaware that the setting would be what it is.  We are not watching Tyne Daly as Maria Callas.  We are watching Maria Callas give a master class.  To us.

For Tyne, or Maria, as she henceforth will be referred as, there was no forth wall, for there was supposed to be an audience.  So while we were watching a play, we were also watching Madam Callas deliver instruction, and were expected to behave as such.  The appearance and disappearance of the fourth wall brought an extremely interesting dynamic for the play, and one that I struggled with throughout the performance.

Maria Callas addresses her audience, as she should in this setting.  And we are free to answer her back, and many did.  I tend to stick with Charles Isherwood in matters such as these, and no answers escaped my lips when Madam Callas proposed a question.  Despite my lack of participation, as audience members, we were characters, we had a role.

However, the crux of the matter is, is that we didn’t remain in those roles, by nature we also had a primary role as New York theater goers in a Broadway theater.  The audience would laugh heartily at anything particularly entrancing that Ms. Daly brought to the role, even if it was just a judgmental raise of the left eyebrow.  This sort of laughter, where we were more laughing at Tyne as Maria than Maria herself, is something that an audience member at a Callas master class would dare never do.  The dichotomy between the two states kept me fascinated the whole evening.

There are some tricky moments with this sort of format, of course.  Although Maria Callas can break the fourth wall, Tyne cannot.  Only to a certain extent can audience behavior play into the piece, and that is, of course, to the extent that it was written.  Concerning this, the trickiest bit is the matter of applause.  Maria made it very clear from the start that there was to be no clapping in her class.  And we obeyed, for the most part.  This is mostly due to the writing not allowing for it, not because of our obedience.

One noticeable moment was at the end of Tony’s aria, the first completed piece of music since the play began.  The audience can’t help but jump into applause- we are too trained for it.  I cannot remember if I grimaced at that particular time, knowing that we had broken the rules.  But I’m fairly certain I did.

The next moment came at the end of Sharon’s aria, combined with Maria’s second and final monologue.  It ended on a button and a pose, and I expected the audience to jump into the applause once again, although I was silently begging them not too, although I wasn’t even completely sure why that was.  No applause came, and the two continued with the scene.  I don’t remember what was said, and I do which I had a script in front of me, but Maria goes on to say that she is waiting until the applause is over.  My stomach leapt to my throat at that point, embarrassed for a hybrid Tyne/Maria, and ashamed that we as an audience had let her down, had not performed our own duties.  But no more than three seconds passed and the line continued “but of course they are not clapping, I told them not to.”  I was shocked.  How had this happened?  How had we managed to not applaud, but remain in our roles rather than automatic clapping machines we have become?  I don’t know what it was, but I congratulate McNally and performers alike for creating that moment for me, for it was truly fascinating.

I assume there are other shows where the audience is in a similar position (although I cannot think of one at the moment, although I’m sure I have seen them) but none that have the same, toying, duplicitous relationship with the spectators.  How thrilling.

Departure, explained.

I’ve had quite the absence!  It is (mostly) justified though, I swear.  I spent most of the summer working and training as a Directing Apprentice at New York Stage and Film’s Powerhouse Theater at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY.

credit to Buck Lewis

While I saw a lot of theater that kept me nourished for the past few months, both professional and not, I wasn’t able to talk about it in this type of media, due to the nature of New York Stage and Film’s work.  New York Stage and Film is determined to provide a safe space for developing work to receive an audience without the consequences of published critique.  So although I never saw a work that was, to me, flawless, I love seeing developed work for more reasons than one.

I love seeing a show’s developmental process.  My first experience with this was when I followed Next to Normal’s journey from NYMF, to Off-Broadway, to DC to Broadway.  Seeing developing work at Powerhouse provides the same opportunities.  Most immediate is February House, a musical by Gabriel Kahane and Seth Bockley, commissioned by The Public Theater.  Workshopped at Powerhouse, the production will then move to New Haven’s Long Wharf Theater this winter, and then onto The Public come Spring.  Although I won’t comment on what I saw in July, I am very excited for this piece, and plan to see it at both theaters.

Another exciting piece of news, albeit a bit old now, is the production of Seminar by Theresa Rebeck, which will be moving to Broadway sometime this season.  I saw, I believe, the first ever reading of this little play at Powerhouse in 2009.  Again, I am extremely excited to see where it has gone in over two years.  However, I admit to having been a bit out of the New York theater loop these past few weeks, and the fact that this production doesn’t have a theater yet concerns me.

On a personal note, I had a positively wonderful experience up in Poughkeepsie yet again.  Over the past few months, and maybe even years, I have been struggling with whether my heart really lies in the creation of theater, or if I just want to spend my life doing projects similar to this blog.  Although I am further assured that I do not need to pressure myself into focusing on one area, I do think that I want to be a theater practitioner, for now at least.  Directing this summer opened up a whole new world for me, and I think I have a whole new idea of the type of work I want to do and create.  And after all, I can always come back to a life of theatrical consumption if I so choose.  After all, Terry Teachout has written a play that will go into production this fall.

I’ll be back soon with some more thoughts on other works I have seen this month, and maybe some more general ideas, we’ll see.

Procrastination excuses and the ballet.

A few weeks ago, when I was updating every week or so, I wasn’t quite updating as frequently as I would like.  Then, compounded with exams, the end of the year and a trip to Europe, this thing went out the window.  Although I am still in Europe, I am determined to get back on the blogging bandwagon.

I began this blog with the intention of reviewing every theatrical piece I saw, with the addition of a book or television/movie discussion if I fancied.  However, with the incredibly busy spring theater season, I found myself going to three or four productions a week in the month of April, and simply couldn’t keep to that sort of schedule.  Now that summer is here, the theater season has ended, and I am back home in Connecticut, I have less shows to see and more time to write.  So either I will be doing a backlog of tardy theater thoughts, or you may even get some writing on different mediums. Anyway, enough with the logistics:

Two weeks ago I attended the opening of Seven Deadly Sins at the Koch theater.  I had vaguely noticed when I looked on the website that it was the NYC Ballet Spring Gala, but didn’t think much of it, and merely assumed there would be a slight increase in the number of upscale senior citizens in attendance.  I figured any “fancy” people would wait until the weekend to see the ballet, simply because of the weekend free time, and to give the company a few performances to settle in.  Well wrong I was.  I walk up to the theater to see a red carpet, and Laura Benanti (admittedly my all time favorite performer) off to the side giving an interview.  After an appropriate moment or two of geeking out, I proceed into the Koch and up the five flights to the fifth circle for the first ballet, Seven Deadly Sins.

Credit to Paul Kolnik

Admittedly, my knowledge of the straight play and musical comedy by far supersedes that of lyric theater, although I am hoping to become more acquainted with it in the coming years.  I knew right away that this ballet was much more up my alley given my theatrical background.  I latch on to any words, the characters, and the narrative as a whole, and struggle to remain interested in dance that doesn’t have such an obvious plot, because I lack the background knowledge that is necessary to adequately critique anything else.

Despite this, I found the new ballet lovely, and definitely my favorite of the five I have seen so far.  This was certainly the most narrative driven, and the only one I’ve seen so far without just a traditional bare stage and drop for set (although the second ballet, Vienna Waltzes had more going on scenically as well.)  Patti LuPone is hard to understand on a good day, but I found her even more incomprehensible all the way up in the fifth ring.  Oh well, she pulled it off, as she does.  Wendy Whelan, as Anna II was absolutely breathtaking.  I found the whole idea of Anna portrayed by two performers, in two different mediums extremely provacative, and it was easy to forget that they weren’t two completely separate characters.  It was a lovely experience, and I do hope to increase my breadth of knowledge of lyric theater so I have a bit more to say.  And a night with the fancy people was certainly a welcome break from a week of cramming for finals.  Everything really is beautiful at the ballet.

where I ramble about some mainstream set design

credit to The New York Times

At The Normal Heart revival that just opened at the Golden Theater, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the set, designed by David Rockwell, retained the integrity of the 2010 reading that inspired this full-fledged production.  Before the show begins, the audience is met with a bare, stage, with three white brick outlining the structure of the stage, with absolutely nothing on the black stage floor.  Very few furniture pieces were used, just a few chairs, a desk, an exam table and some pillows.  The closest thing that I’ve seen to it recently that I can think of is the Barrow Street Theater Our Town revival last year.

Lately, the type of sets that have been making me cringe, are the large, automated sets in flashy musicals that are meant to wow, and that’s really their only purpose.  A recent design that comes to mind are Derek McLane’s work on the How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying revival, but really the vast majority of recent big budget musicals can be included in this category.  To me, most of the brightly colored and lit pieces blend together in my mind, and there is rarely anything terribly unique with them from show to show.  Even in bigger-budget plays, most of the designers settle with a large unit set, such as John Lee Beatty’s large hotel room for Born Yesterday.

Maybe this is just my recent elitist tendency to move away from anything to do with the mainstream, Rockwell’s set was incredibly refreshing.  Although of course each play requires it’s own design to do the text justice, and I of course don’t want to see every production adapt this low-tech style, I still loved seeing a show done this way, and at the very least, would like to see designers attempt to design a show as minimally as is required.

Does anyone still wear a hat? I’ll drink to that.

credit to BroadwayWorld.com

Last week I had the extreme good fortune of seeing the NY Philharmonic Company concert at Avery Fisher Hall. A star-studded event to say the least, I spent the entire night a little wowed that I was even there. And in fact, if my birthday hadn’t fallen conveniently right around the time tickets went on sale; I wouldn’t have been there at all.

Although of course excited by all of these big name performers, I’m also always wearing of this type of casting, with some of them of course; I was bound to be wowed, even just for personal biased reasons, as in the case of Anika Noni Rose.

A prime example of classic stunt casting is Stephen Colbert as Harry, who really had no business singing a note in this crowd. However, although his singing chops were most definitely not up to snuff, that’s not to say I found his presence completely offensive, just unimportant.

Neil Patrick Harris was delightful and adorable as Bobby, as expected, although I’m sure there have been stronger Bobbys before him, and stronger ones after him. Regardless, I found his performance thoroughly enjoyable, and although his ‘Being Alive’ was underwhelming, I was quite moved for his “Marry Me, A Little.”

Other standouts include Anika Noni Rose, Martha Plimpton, and Jennifer Laura Thompson. The entire female cast was incredibly strong, with the exception of Christina Hendricks, who I was disappointed to see brought absolutely nothing originally or risky to her interpretation of April, who had previously been my favorite character. Ah well, I didn’t have incredibly high hopes for her anyway.

However, by far the most exceptional performance of the night goes to Patti LuPone as Joanne. I know, I know, it is Patti LuPone. The same Patti LuPone who will get a five-minute applause after any eleven o’clock number she performs, no matter the true quality of her performance. One thing that always bothers me about star-studded performances is people’s mindless tendency to worship any given performance, simply because the actor is simply a big name. That is not to say that they don’t deserve the praise, but isn’t sometimes gratuitous as well.

I myself have had quite a tumultuous relationship with Patti in recent years, ever since I witnessed her freakout the last weekend of Gypsy, where I lost a lot of respect for her. Not to say that I still didn’t think she was talented, and probably is my favorite ~diva, and I loved her Mama Rose, but I definitely couldn’t take her totally seriously anymore. I saw Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown more times than I’d care to admit on this blog, and most of the time, it was Patti LuPone being funny because she was..Patti LuPone. Which is fine, but nothing that is particularly noteworthy. The large applause at the end of her obligatory eleven o’clock never seemed fully deserved, but only there because she is, after all, Patti LuPone.

I see the over-applause phenomenon with pretty much any ‘star’ performance I see, where, even if it is really good, I usually feel as though people are only applauding so vigorously because of the name, and not because they have really thought critically about the performance they just witnessed.

I am glad to say that Patti was truly wowing last week, particularly the obligatory eleven o’clock number, “Ladies Who Lunch.” It was wonderful to be able to praise Patti and feel completely justified in that praise. You go, Patti, I hope your next performance is as satisfying, because I will most likely be in attendance, let’s be honest.

Some thoughts on Hair and the concept musical

This weekend I was fortunate enough to see the Hair tour on its Boston stop. I don’t live in Boston, and timed my visit to coincide with this tour stop. Although I saw the production on Broadway twice in the past year, I was eager to experience the musical once again.

The first time I saw Hair, I knew the entire score, but pretty much none of the book, or plot arc in general. I was surprised to learn that there really wasn’t much of a book to know. And then, I was even more surprised to learn that I liked what I was seeing, even though there was no sequence of events to speak of.

Like most people, my number one must-have in a piece of theater is an interesting plot. Or at least a plot. There is truly nothing worse than being unbearably bored in the theater. Surprisingly, I was almost entirely riveted for the first two times I saw the show. I recognized that there was a minimal plot, a concept, but it didn’t bother me, and I couldn’t figure out why it didn’t.

credit to Joan Marcus

This weekend, there was a noticeable change in my enthusiasm for the show, that can be attributed to multiple factors: my seats were worse, the cast was less stellar than that of the Broadway replacement cast (with a few exceptions, namely the adorable Kacie Sheik), and of course, I wasn’t seeing anything for the first time, but for the third.

Despite a few disappointments, I have returned to the question of why I don’t find Hair unendingly boring, as my father does. Fittingly, I studied Hair in my Choreography of the American Musical class just yesterday, where I learned all about its conception, and the intent behind it. Hair isn’t a failed attempt at a book musical, obviously, or even a failed attempt at a plot in general. It is a concept musical, and nothing more.

I want to use my experience with Hair as a means to look at different types of musicals in more respecting, open ways. There isn’t just one way to do something, and there doesn’t have to be an orderly sequence of events. But like Hair, it just has to evoke some sort of emotion, and connection with the actors, characters they are portraying, and other audience members. Although I will continue to look critically at a musical’s plot, usually the hardest aspect to write well, I will remember that there are entirely different forms to write in.

Another thing to note is that while I was in the process of writing this post, Jujamcyn announced that they will be bringing the tour cast back to Broadway for the summer. Despite the detriment repetitive viewings may have brought to my experience with the show, I will most likely be getting tickets to see it one last time.

Introductions are often necessary.

So I started this blog not really knowing what I was doing with it, updated once, and then promptly stopped, without a word to introduce or conclude myself. Something in the past two weeks has inspired to give it another go. Of course this incentive had to come during the busiest two weeks of the semester, but here I am, attempting it now. We’ll see if it sticks this time. I’d sure like it to.

I am a Freshman English/Theater double major at Barnard College, Columbia University. I can’t say that I really know what I want to do with my life, or what I want to concentrate in, except that I hope to be a part of the theater community for the rest of my life, in whatever niche makes me happiest. In the meantime, I am a voracious theatergoer, attempting to see as much as I can, as cheaply as I can, while still attempting to maintain some semblance of a high GPA. It’s going fairly well so far.

While I have managed to maintain blogs before, never something so public, or something that I ever really intended others to read who weren’t my friends, who already knew who I was talking about. And maybe my friends will be the only ones who will ever see this thing, or maybe not even them, and that’s okay, too. Audience is not really the point here.

I’d like this to be a place to keep my thoughts about the things I do, mostly the things I see. I spend most of my time seeing theater, reading books, watching tv, and studying. Most of it is pretty average, except for maybe the theater part. I predict this will mostly house my theater reviews, as I’ve never had quite the same desire to write about books, movies or tv like I do about theater, but we’ll see. My first post was unexpectedly about a book, so who really knows.

I’d love to wake up in twenty years with the largest accumulation of culture I can muster, whatever that looks like. But mostly I just want to think about what I experience, and react to it, in order to improve myself as an observer, consumer and creator.