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| go to lobby page | more reviews | go to other departments | GLENN LONEY'S SHOW NOTES
By Glenn Loney, April 23, 1999
[01] Selwyn Collapse & Roundabout Rebirth
WHAT A DISATROUS DUMP!--Remains of former 42nd Street entrance to Selwyn Theatre. Photo: ©Glenn Loney 1999/The Everett Collection.
[02] Michael Billington Comments on Broadway
[03] Getting "Closer" To Natasha & Rupert
[04] Dame Judy Dench on View in "Amy's View"
[05] The Weird "Weir"—One Night in a Bar-room
[06] "Censor" Drops a Load
[07] Avignon's New-Classic "Le Cid" at BAM
[08] O'Casey's "Shadow of a Gunman" at Irish Rep
[09] "The Iceman Cometh" to the Atkinson
[10] Juilliard's Redwoods & Cherry Orchard
[11] Gurneyland "Far East"
[12] Women's Project "Exact Center of the Universe"
[13] Southern Discomfort with "English Teachers"
[14] Cherry Jones with "Tongue of a Bird"
[15] Lisa Kron's Breathless "2.5 Minute Ride"
[16] Fighting "The Civil War"
[17] Real Civil War Songs in "Reunion"
[18] Mark Lamos & Gershwin Rhythms
[19] Mark Lamos & "Madama Butterfly"
[20] Is Sian Phillips "Marlene"?
[21] Princess Di Sings!
[22] "Dream True" with Vernon Dexter
[23] Dancing Flaubert's "Simple Heart"
[24] Hitch Retro at MoMA
[25] Goethe & Weimar's Culture Year
[26] Golden Tower in Copenhagen's Tivoli Garden
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For our archive of Glenn Loney's previous 1999 columns, click here.
There Was Much Ado on New 42:
Collapse of the 42nd Street Entrance
After a $17 million renovation of the Selwyn Theatre, the Roundabout Theatre will make its permanent home there early in the New Millennium. This photo shows all that remained of the 42nd Street entrance to the theatre when the Selwyn Building—which fronted it—collapsed.
To the Future Roundabout TheatreBroadway producer Edgar Selwyn's attractive 750-seat playhouse is actually sited on 43rd Street—where its stage and auditorium immediately border the sidewalk. But it was always entered from 42nd Street—as the nearby Ford Center is now—through a handsome passage into the more northerly theatre-lobby.
Unfortunately, weakened by heavy rains and the excavation next door [left] for Entertainment Walk, the historic Selwyn Building pancaked. The plywood panels in the center of the photo cover the old auditorium entrance.
Construction is now underway on the handsome glass-fronted theatre-oriented structure which will rise on this ruin.
But—until a new entry can be devised—Roundabout patrons will have to enter one block uptown on 43rd.
A model of the Selwyn, remodeled for the Roundabout, is now on view at the theatre's current Criterion premises at 45th and Broadway. It reveals, among other innovations, something very like a roof-garden—a theatre amenity not seen on the Great White Way in many years.
Disney has one of its own, the New Amsterdam Roof Garden, but that has not been open to the public since World War II. Do Mickey and Michael Eisner have plans for their roof-theatre?
If so, they're keeping mum. Not so over at the Roundabout. In addition to the model of the new/old home, they have a fascinating video—narrated by Natasha Richardson—showing what's soon to be on view on New 42! There's also a very informative website.
The British Are Coming! The British Are Coming!
Correction: They Are Already Here in Force!
The Guardian's Michael Billington on Guard!
Not only are the British sending over some of their best recent productions, they've also dispatched a leading drama critic to survey the Broadway & Off-Broadway scene.He is Michael Billington, one of the sharpest and most theatre-friendly of the current breed of Brit Crits. In a full page report in "The Guardian" on April 10, he notes the quality of the work imported—as well as the powers of the American Domestic Product.
Billington of course comments on the prevalence of musicals and revivals on Broadway. The tremendous costs of commercial production obviously discourage premiering new American plays on Broadway.
New British and Irish plays are quite a different matter. Not only do they arrive on a ground-swell of London critical raves—plus stars such as Judy Dench, Rupert Graves, and Natasha Richardson—but most of the productions have been initially made possible by public subsidy in Britain.
Billington points out that Patrick Marber's "Closer"—already subsidized by production at the Royal National Theatre—cost £300,000 to produce in London's West End. To recreate it on Broadway cost some £900,000.
"Guardian" readers now know of the excellences of Margaret Edson's "Wit," thanks to Michael Billington. And of the brilliant performance of Kathleen Chalfant as its doomed but insightful heroine as well.
But even so, he doesn't urge that the play or Chalfant's performance be soon exported to the West End. Even he opts for a smaller stage, removed from the heart of London. He suggests the Hampstead Theatre.
While Billington is understandably gratified, "from a narrowly chauvinist viewpoint," to see the current British Conquest of New York, he is also worried about the future of American Theatre.
As he insists: "But it is also a startling indictment of an American theatrical system that—despite the excellent regional non-profit theatres—signally fails to sustain and nurture its own talent."
Billington dismisses the "myriad reasons why they [Americans] have no National Theatre."
"But as long as America continues to regard subsidy as a form of dubious European practice and to exist without an institution comparable in scale and depth to the National or the Royal Court, it will be forced to shop abroad."
Michael Billington's advice is that we should make the best of our own talent. Until we do, "Broadway at least will continue to be a colonial offshoot of London."
Unfortunately—aside from the remarkable play and production that is "Wit"—Billington wasn't much impressed with the new American works he saw Off-Broadway either.
From London with Love:
A Royal National Theatre Production:
Patrick Marber's Text & Staging of "Closer" [****]Operating on a much smaller scale than either Arthur Schnitzler or David Hare, director/playwright Patrick Marber has evoked some of the obvious and also the unseen perils of changing partners.
COMING "CLOSER"--Rupert Graves romances Natasha Richardson in Patrick Marber's drama of missed chances for happiness. Photo: Joan Marcus. . But "Closer" is no carousel of casual sex like "La Ronde," or its downscale rewrite, "The Blue Room." It involves only two couples, but their self-devised problems and torments are quite enough for a Merry-Go-Round of erotic disaster.
Both Natasha Richardson and Anna Friel are radiant and remarkable as quixotic, beautiful, and very desirable women. But the loutish, self-important men in their lives—strongly played by Rupert Graves and Ciaran Hinds—don't know how to value them.
Or how to love them. Or even how to listen to them.
This intriguing drama has a high comedic quotient, as smart, brittle, successful Londoners go about their business and monkey-business. But it is ultimately a tragedy of missed opportunities, primarily caused by the men who fear—or don't know how—to make a commitment.
Much has been made by critics and publicists of this play's astonishing frankness of language, especially about sexual specifics.
For Computer Hackers and Internet Porn Surfers, a typed sex-dialogue—shown on a huge computer-screen—between the two men may prove especially inspiring. Rupert Graves' character, Dan, pretends to be a foxy woman, exciting and arousing Larry, played by Hinds.
Anna Friel is especially interesting as Alice, a Lost Girl, trying to connect, to survive. And not making it.
Looming in the background of designer Vicki Mortimer's quick-change set-prop London locations is a mysterious misty brick wall.
Some colleagues were baffled by it: What was it? Was it just another brick backwall of a stage—as suggested in "Via Dolorosa"?
In fact, it is a wall with memorial plaques to women who died valiantly trying to save the lives of others. At the close, Alice's plaque has joined them.
A Royal National Theatre Production:
When David Hare went to Israel to gather the impressions which he shares at the Booth Theatre in "Via Dolorosa," his drama "Amy's View" was premiering there.
David Hare's Dolorous "Amy's View" [****]So there may be a kind of serendipitous Fate involved in his performing on Broadway—while his play has just premiered a few blocks up the Great White Way.
For fans of "Shakespeare in Love," it is of course wonderful to be able to see Oscar-Winner Dame Judy Dench live on stage. And, for those Denchites of longer memory, it is unbelievable that Broadway audiences have had to wait so long to see her on our native boards.
She was here forty years ago. When "Amy's View " fades from view and from memory, how much longer will we have to wait to see her here again?
This is one of the reasons real lovers of theatre so often fly off to London. We may get some great plays, great productions, and great performances from Britain. But we do not always get the really great performers. Or they are soon replaced by Americans or resident-aliens with the right accents.
So the opportunity [severely limited to 115 performances] to behold the whirlwind of energy and emotion that is Dame Judy as the dynamic West End actress, Esme Allen, will be missed by many. Especially those who loved her as an aging and long-widowed Queen Victoria in "Mrs. Brown."
As for the play, this is another of David Hare's dramatic vehicles for rehearsing his very dim views of modern life, finance, morals, and art in Contemporary Britain.
It really is too bad he doesn't have Baroness Thatcher to kick around any more. Tony Blair is much too bland to attack or parody.
Still, the Ascendancy of TV over Live Theatre provides some motive-force in the drama. And Esme's total financial ruin—as an Unlimited Insurer in a Lloyd's-of-London syndicate—allows him to vent his spleen on The City.
Ronald Pickup plays Esme's financial advisor, Frank Oddie, as one of those Old Boy Amateurs, almost constantly in a drunken haze. But not so befuddled that he has made the mistake of investing in Esme's syndicate, wiped out by the losses caused by Hurricane Hugo.
A colleague noted: "He fucked her twice. At home and at Lloyds'!"
Samantha Bond plays Amy, Esme's beloved daughter, married to an aggressive, ambitious, arrogant young TV personality and producer both she and David Hare despise. Amy has a very simplistic view of life.
At times, so does David Hare.
A Royal Court Theatre Production:
Conor McPherson's Weird "The Weir" [****]The Walter Kerr Theatre may soon have to be renamed The Irish Repertory Theatre—even though Charlotte Moore is currently doing very well under that title on West 22nd Street.
DID I EVER TELL YOU THE ONE ABOUT--Jim Norton [r] holds Michelle Fairley and Brendan Coyle spellbound in Conor McPherson's "The Weir." Photo: Ivan Kyncl. Immediately following the successful run at the Kerr of Martin McDonagh's "The Beauty Queen of Leenane," Conor McPherson's strangely fey "The Weir" may be making additional territorial and cultural claims on the Kerr's stage for a Renaissance of Irish Drama.
Entering the theatre to behold a long scruffy bar, stretching almost the width of the stage, I feared I'd wandered into "The Iceman Cometh" by mistake. But no, the scene is not Harry Hope's bar on the Lower West Side of Manhattan.
We are in County Sligo, or maybe Leitrim, not all that distant from Leenane. But this spot is even more desolate. And Hope isn't even a metaphor.
The Weir of the title may however be so viewed. Audiences don't get to see an actual weir on stage. Weirs are often made of densely interwoven vines or wicker to partially dam up streams or to trap fish. Some water can still flow through the weave.
Much has been made by some critics—and all too often repeated in ads—about the haunting quality of the ghost-stories which are told on stage by three men and one woman who have congregated in the bar for a drink or two. Or three.
The ways of Irish Fairies are strange indeed, but the tales told here are no more terrifying than the long-ago appearance on Broadway of David Wayne as the Leprechaun in "Finian's Rainbow."
The difference is that there's no literal Crock of Gold at the end of McPherson's Rainbow. The ghost-stories come close to being a crock.
The real gold in "The Weir" is the oddly believable characters conjured up by this wonderfully interacting ensemble.
Kieran Ahern, Brendan Coyle, Dermot Crowley, Jim Norton, and Michelle Fairley deserve an Ensemble Award for their fine work. And director Ian Rickson deserves notice as well for the sensitive way in which he has evoked their seamless performances.
What Irish Drama or Production will be next at the Kerr?
If Patrick Mason doesn't bring one of the Abbey Theatre's outstanding productions to the Kerr, his impressive ensemble should at least be invited to BAM.
Also from London:
Anthony Neilson's Play "The Censor"—
For those who have never heard of the 29th Street Repertory, it bravely and powerfully produced "Killer Joe" way back in 1994.
But Not the Finborough Theatre Production [*]I mention this—not only to indicate the adventurous nature of this ensemble's programming—but also as a corrective to those mainstream critics who wrongly believe the current revival is a new production of a new play.
Some critics have already nominated it for Best New Off-Broadway Play! Where were they in 1994?
Considering the current critical infatuation with British Drama, there should be a stampede down to West 29th Street to check out Anthony Neilson's "The Censor."
Especially if they were perversely sexually titillated by some of the more outrageous behavior in Patrick Marber's "Closer" on Broadway. At one memorable moment in that production, when a permissive young girl points her bare behind at a randy man, he archly asks her if she is trying to flirt with him.
Neilson is far ahead of Marber in sexual excesses shown onstage.
His Censor [Charles Willey] is a repressed nerd whose low-level task it is to review every frame of new British films being considered for release to prevent any deliberate Pornography from being included.
He balks at a film consisting of nothing but sexual encounters between a man and woman. He cannot certify it as having redeeming social or artistic values.
Its producer, an ardent tart named Miss Fontaine [Paula Ewin], tries to change his mind and his rating.
Regularly cuckolded by his wife, he is a desperate case. Obviously impotent, he's aroused by Miss Fontaine manipulating his penis at his desk. You, the audience, only get to see her fumbling in his fly, of course.
The real stuff comes when she intuits his need for something really perverse in order to achieve orgasm.
She spreads a newspaper on the floor. She spreads her skirt and squats.
The Censor has a noisy climax. When she rises, a pile of feces is on the paper. At least, this is one cutting-edge film-maker who isn't Anal Retentive!
What is it with these new British plays? Are Britain's playwrights as repressed as her censors?
Among Anthony Nielson's recent playwriting credits are "Miss Conceptions," "Jeffrey Dahmer Is Unwell," "Penetrator," and "White Trash." And he gets these produced at the Royal National Theatre Studio, the Royal Court, the Edinburgh Festival, and the Hampstead Theatre.
As a cutting-edge viewer, I won't be deterred from revisiting the 29th Street Rep just because this time out they were more adventurous than artistic.
From Far-off Avignon to Brooklyn's BAM:
Declan Donnellan's Production of "Le Cid" [****]Even 350 years ago, Arbiters of Taste had problems with Pierre Corneille's "Le Cid." The Academie Française sat in judgment. Changes were made—and the drama passed over into the canon of theatre classics.
ALL FOR LOVE—OR FOR HONOR?--Sarah Karabasnikoff and William Nadylam confront each other in "Le Cid" at BAM. But the central action still baffles many modern readers, especially students. The play, after all, is seldom performed in English, so reading often has to suffice.
Even the Avignon Festival production—recently and all too briefly on view at BAM—of this great drama of Love & Honor was performed in Britain and New York in the original French.
Partly because it is extremely difficult to approximate the poetic form and beauties of Corneille's text in English. And partly because the major conflict seems so improbable, unbelievable in plain words.
Even graduate students in theatre find it difficult to believe that a young man, desperately in love, could or would kill his beloved's father, defeat the Moors at the Gates of Seville, be honored with the title of Le Cid by a grateful king, and rekindle the love of his intended—all in the space of 24 hours!
This is surely one of Drama's Longest Days!
Against all odds, or almost all, director Declan Donnellan has achieved the virtually impossible.
At Avignon, they are still worshipping at the shrine of director Jean Vilar, whose definitive 'Le Cid," starring Gerard Phillipe, established a production precedent almost half a century ago.
If no French director, no matter how brash and innovative, was willing to challenge this memorable staging, who was Cheek-by-Jowl's Donnellan to make the attempt?
In the event, his conception of this problem-play and his directorial solutions proved brilliant and strongly contemporary.
To keep the long drama moving swiftly, scene ran swiftly upon scene. Some were even cross-played.
And actions—such as duels—which would never have been shown in the theatres of King Louis XIV and Cardinal Richelieu were powerfully mimed as other scenes proceeded.
So much for Aristotle's "Poetics" and the French Rules of Decorum which insisted that any acts of violence must be kept off-stage.
At BAM, the progress of the action was accompanied by effective supertitles. The power of the actors' mime and emotions were such that these were often unnecessary.
But, for those who have savored Racine and Corneille in Paris at the Comédie Française, the tirades and dialogues took on new, fresh, contemporary meaning.
The Castillian Code of Honor demands that the shy young hero, Don Rodrigue [William Nadylam], challenge the feisty, arrogant father [Phillipe Blancher] of his beloved Chimène [Sarah Karbasknikoff].
This Spanish Grandee, Don Gomès, has insulted the aged Don Diègue [Michel Baumann], who can no longer repay such an affront with his sword, as honor demands. Rodrigue, adroitly defending himself, nonetheless kills the man who would have been his father-in-law.
Honor then demands that his faithful daughter must find a champion to kill her father's murderer. If the King [Patrick Rameau] refuses to give her justice—which he diplomatically does.
Although Don Gomès is skewered early in the drama, Donnellan ingeniously has him remain a furious physical presence on the margins of the action. After all, he has set the entire plot in motion—and he is never to have satisfaction for the way he has died.
Also impressive in this uniformly fine cast were Sandrine Attard as the King's daughter—also in love with Rodrigue—and Joséphine Derenne as Chimène's governess.
Shades of Sean O'Casey!
This season, nothing at the real Irish Repertory Theatre could top the recent production of Dion Boucicault's lively comedy, "Conn, the Shaugraun."
"The Shadow of a Gunman" at Irish Rep [***]But founder-director Charlotte Moore—who brought Conn back to life—has come close with her sensitive staging of Sean O'Casey's "Shadow of a Gunman," a tragicomedy of Dublin during "The Troubles."
Terrifying as those times were—often turning neighbor against neighbor—O'Casey never lost sight of a uniquely Irish way of dealing with good times and bad: Humor & Fatalism.
This tumultuous play could have been O'Casey's "Street-Scene," but for the fact that it takes place, not on a Dublin street, but in one squalid room of a desperately poor tenement house.
The unlikely roommates are the would-be young poet, Donal Davoren [Declan Mooney]. and the unkempt and fearful Seamus Shields [Ciarán O'Reilly], who seems only a Mass away from Death & Perdition.
A co-founder and Producing Director of the Irish Rep, O'Reilly is a wonderfully comic actor. His Seamus is worth the trip to the Irish Rep.
But so are the performances of the rest of O'Casey's Dubliners.
Davoren is thought to be an IRA gunman on the run from the British Black & Tans. But even the one Orangeman in the tenement, Protestant though he is, insists he won't inform on Davoren.
Sweet little Minnie Powell [Aedin Maloney]—who has just had the briefest of courtships with Davoren—saves his life at the cost of her own.
These were bloody, terrible times in Ireland, but O'Casey found a thread of ironic humor in the warp & weft of the struggle for Independence. Perhaps the so-called Peace Process could be helped along if another O'Casey appeared on the scene?
High-Octane Revival at the Atkinson:
Spacey in O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh" [*****]This high-powered recreation of Eugene O'Neill's metaphorical Slice-of-Bar-Life is, in effect, another British import. With its current star and mainspring, Kevin Spacey, it was initially staged at London's adventurous Almeida Theatre.
"The Iceman Cometh" (photo: Joan Marcus) At the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, Bob Crowley's suggestive setting has been recreated to great visual and evocative effect. At first glance, it looks like another bare brick stage backwall. But this is no fake "Via Dolorosa" backwall.
In fact, the rear section and two side-sections are slightly curved. At various heights on the walls are hung sections of beds and furniture to suggest the flophouse rooms upstairs over Harry Hope's hopeless bar.
Harry and most of the denizens of his bar survive in drunken stupors, kept alive by what O'Neill has his anti-hero, Hickey [Kevin Spacey], all too often call "Pipe Dreams."
A charismatic traveling-salesman, Hickey, is a welcome, if periodic, visitor to the bar. His free-spending generosity and good humor are legendary among the regulars.
On this visit, however, something definitive has changed. And he is determined to rid the rummies of their dreams so they can redeem realities.
It doesn't work, of course. But then O'Neill was hardly an Armenian Optimist like William Saroyan. His San Francisco bar-scene in "Time of Your Life" is the antithesis of O'Neill's deathly "Iceman Cometh."
O'Neill's death-haunted drama is too long and too diffuse to make a strong effect. And its [too] many characters verge on stereotypes.
Directed by Howard Davies, the play unfolds and expands at a rapid pace and with undiminishing energy. This is important to get and hold the audiences' attention.
Spacey races through Hickey's long monologue, always articulate, never slurring, but also never slacking energy or pace. He seems determined not only that everyone in the bar will hear his shocking story entire, but that everyone in the entire theatre will as well.
Now is the time to nominate Best Actors, but "Iceman" is proving a problem. There are too many interesting, intriguing performances to choose only one.
An "Ensemble Award" is out of the question. That would mean at least 24 free dinners at the awards-dinner at Sardi's.
Outstanding among the admirable cast are Tim Pigott-Smith, Tony Danza, Robert Sean Leonard, Katie Finneran, James Hazeldine, and Jeff Weiss.
Drama Revivals at the Juilliard School:
"Stars of Tomorrow" Take to the Woods—
In their spring end-of-term demo productions, Group 28 fourth-year students of the Juilliard School's Drama Division have reprised Michael Kahn's smart, shocking Post-Modernist staging of "The Duchess of Malfi," shown last fall.
"Redwood Curtain" & "The Cherry Orchard"The night I should have seen them perform "The Winter's Tale" was unfortunately the only evening available to see "The Iceman Cometh." That's also a wintry title—and it features a very well known Juilliard grad, Kevin Spacey.
After a "Walk in the Woods" with Group 28's production of Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard," I began to wonder if I was really watching the "Stars of Tomorrow," as these talented students have sometimes been labeled.
Misconceived and mal-directed by Brian Mertes, it seemed almost improvised, with some props left over from "Seagull" and "Three Sisters." Both characterizations and physical appearances seemed just this side of parody or caricature. And the incidental music was anything but incidental. It was infernal.
Aside from Eunice Wong's properly young Anya, the cast seemed almost juvenile: Kids dressed up in adults' old clothes. But even Anya's energetic antics seemed less Chekhovian than those of an alienated, hyperactive anorexic.
Some of this quality spilled over into Wong's playing of the adopted Vietnamese girl, Geri, in Lanford Wilson's "Redwood Curtain." Here, however it was less annoying for it is built into the part of a young piano-prodigy who refuses to play or practice.
She is desperate to find the American GI who fathered and abandoned her in 'Nam. Her area of search is among the great Redwoods on the Humboldt County Coast of Northern California.
This is indeed "another part of the forest" from that surveyed by Chekhov. There are no wandering Gypsy Orchestras here. Only damaged drop-out Vietnam Vets, some of them raising pot among the pines, redwoods, and ferns.
Lanford Wilson—in a David Hare Mode—has a variety of social scores to settle, which makes the play unduly diffuse and Op-Ed Page talky. That may be one reason it did not prosper when produced some time ago on Broadway.
But the dynamism and focus of Eunice Wong—strongly assisted by Patrick Darragh, as the scruffy ex-soldier, and Yvonne Woods, as her wealthy redwood-owning aunt—overcome these hurdles to make the production truly moving.
Richard Feldman staged the trio sensitively, yet maintaining a strong sense of pace. Designer Walt Spangler—who created a dazzling "Duchess of Malfi" stage-environment—outdid himself with red wood in this production.
New American Theatre Works:
Avoiding Another Madame Butterfly—
Lieutenant Junior Grade "Sparky" Watts is no Lt. Pinkerton. In Pete Gurney's new drama of East Meets West, he's posted to Japan more than fifty years after Pinkerton arrived with the Great White Fleet.
A. R. Gurney's Not So Far Out "Far East" [****]Unlike Pinkerton—for Sparky has acquired Post World War II sensitivities about people in other lands—he isn't just using his Asian girl-friend as a sexual convenience. Also, unlike Puccini's anti-hero, he wants to marry the girl and eventually bring her home with him.
But he has been born and bred in East Coast Gurneyland. And he is in open rebellion against all that that heritage represents.
His commandant's wife, Julia [Lisa Emery]—a product of the same stifled New England culture—ostensibly wants to protect both him and the girl from such a mistake. Out of place on a military base and in the wrong marriage, she has in fact taken quite a fancy to the young man herself.
"Far East" is presented with elements of oriental theatre-styling. It could have developed into one of those Kabuki or Bunraku Love-Suicide tragedies.
But Gurney has wisely avoided both "Butterfly" and "Love-Suicide at Scofield Barracks." Audiences don't even get to know the girl in question.
Instead, Gurney has a Reader [Sonnie Brown], seated high above the plane of action, provide voices and reduce cast-costs.
This is an interesting play, but it is not—as some have claimed—a Gurney breakthrough, removing him from familiar territory in Connecticut. He may have moved his Americans to the Orient, but his head is still in Greenwich.
His anti-hero is also hard to take. As brashly played by Michael Hayden, Sparky is arrogant, selfish, thoughtless, and manipulative. It's puzzling why his commander {James Rebhorn] thinks so highly of him.
To thicken the plot—and possibly to provide a homosexual flip-side to Sparky's romance with the strange, mysterious Orient—his Naval officer roommate Bob [Connor Trinneer] has also been having an affair.
Unfortunately, his lover is a spy who is blackmailing him for military secrets. Sparky gets Bob to turn himself in, with predictable results.
Daniel Sullivan directed with his accustomed skills.
"The Exact Center of the Universe"
Hits the Bullseye for the Women's Project [***]American Women are not Second-Class Citizens!
ANOTHER MISS DAISY IN ANOTHER SOUTHERN CITY--Frances Sternhagen as Vada Love Powell, in "The Exact Center of the Universe." Photo: ©Martha Holmes. Even feeling it necessary to make such a pronouncement suggests that there are a lot of men out there who don't really believe it. Or who at least do not behave as if it were true.
Even in the theatre, a kind of Special Pleading often is invoked when a new play—authored by a woman—is produced. Sometimes, this turns out to be apologetics, in advance, for Second-Class Playwriting.
When Julia Miles began flaunting the banner of Women's Projects in the theatre, it frequently could be seen as a red flag of warning: Don't judge this play or production by the same standards you would use for work by men!
Now ensconced at Theatre Four, the last project of these women was an amateurish embarrassment. This time out, with Joan Vail Thorne's "The Exact Center of the Universe," things are looking up.
Thorne's wry comedy of repressed Southern White patricians in the 1950s and '60s is a kind of "Driving Miss Daisy" without Blacks or Jews.
This is a view of Civil War "survivors" in the Deep South which is all too familiar. And Thorne is no Tennessee. But she can hold her own with Beth Henley.
That the wimpy, wispy Appleton Powell [Reed Birney] is marrying a Girl from the Wrong Side of the Tracks is a horrible shock to his doting, dominating mother, Vada Love Powell.
It's also a shock to the audience, who could well have expected him to run off to New York City with Truman Capote.
"Apple" narrates and comments a great deal during the evening. This saves Thorne the trouble of having to dramatize the progress of events—or to suggest character developments through dialogue and emotions alone.
But those are skills mastered only by seasoned playwrights—many of them men, as it happens.
The current production—staged by the ubiquitous John Tillinger—is well worth seeing, however. Frances Sternhagen's Vada is a portrait in Acid Majesty.
And when she's having tea and playing canasta with her cronies in a tree-house, the comedy is hilarious. This is owing in no small part to the collusion of Bethel Leslie and Marge Raymond up in that old "Grass Harp" tree.
Tracy Thorne [nepotism?] is vital and attractive as identical twins, one of whom has picked Vada's Apple.
Thorne's play should find a life in regional, community, and college theatres.
Watch Your Language—and Your Libido!
"The English Teachers" Speak Out at MCC [***]Following the tremendous success of its production of Margaret Edson's "Wit"—currently playing Off-Broadway at the Union Square Theatre—the MCC Theatre has now mounted what also looks and sounds very much like a Woman's Play.
"PICNIC" REVISITED--Michael Hall and Alma Cuervo in a heated confrontation in "The English Teachers." Photo: Joan Marcus. . Is it only coincidence that it's called "The English Teachers," as Ms. Edson is herself an English teacher? This interesting new play is also close kin to Thorne's "Exact Center of the Universe."
But it is set in Wayne County, West Virginia, instead of a small town in Mississippi. It also puts a dominant mother center-stage. In fact, two dominant mothers—mother and daughter.
Instead of badgering a wimpish male heir, however, they are concerned about the morals and manners of daughter and grand-daughter, 15-year-old Libby [Amy Whitehouse].
Amy's father got his walking-papers long ago from Vic Campbell, an English teacher who is honestly and ingenuously running for office in the State Legislature. Strongly played by Pat Nesbit as a rigorously righteous and correct woman and citizen, she makes Frances Sternhagen's sternness look positively benevolent.
Vic is determined to rein in any adolescent energy or passion in Libby. She always nags, never hugs. Her aged and rigid mother Mary [Sally Parrish] is even more unbending, being both fervently religious and rampantly prejudiced.
There are Wild -Flowers in this bed of Steel Magnolias. One of them is Vic's flamboyant, stage-struck sister, Polly [Alma Cuervo], who dreams of Broadway triumphs—while playing Sheridan Whiteside in a local amateur-theatre production.
Cuervo—who has just finished a valiant two-year stint as Ida Strauss on the sinking "Titanic"—must welcome this juicy role with so many sudden changes of mood and direction.
Vic's election-campaign manager, Ruthie Davis [Ruth Williamson], is another English teacher, but terminally stylish and wickedly flirtatious. As daughter of the county's long-time Sheriff, she knows how elections really get won. And how a woman can manipulate a man without challenging his masculinity.
The only man in view—of these women, at least—is a self-effacing strong silent type, Bobby Preston [Michael Hall]. Although he seems an unlettered country-boy, he is not. And he has a maturity—and a secret past—which eventually threatens the women.
He seems right out of William Inge's "Picnic." In fact, "The English Teachers" seems to draw freely on a wide range of Southern Dramas. In addition to "Steel Magnolias," there are also strong whiffs of Tennessee Williams, Flannery O'Connor, and Beth Henley.
There's even a smut scandal at school, even worse than that Thorne devised for "Exact Center of the Universe." In Thorne's play, Vada Powell objected to children looking at professional photographs of naked native women in school
In the MCC drama, several states away—but in the same time-frame—Aunt Polly loses her local teaching job for reading Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" aloud in class. The "dirty-words" outrage civic moralists—including the appalled Vic who has been through this many times before with her undisciplined sister.
[If only Polly could have known then—when Senator Jack Kennedy was campaigning in West Virginia—that Ginsberg would one day become a Distinguished Professor of English at Brooklyn College! Talk about dirty language and English Teachers!]
This play has enough stuff in it for several Southern Social Comedies. It is much richer, more complicated than Thorne's Southern Exposures. And its characters have much more depth—even in their stereotyping.
But it is too diffuse, with some scenes leading away from the center. Nonetheless, it is sure to appeal—even more than Thorne's play—to all those theatres on the lookout for a comedy unsophisticated audiences can appreciate.
The wonder in this Woman's Play—with five juicy roles for actresses of wide-ranging talents—is that it was written by a man: Edward Napier.
And its premiere production at MCC was staged by a man: Robert LuPone. This perhaps proves that you do not have to be a woman to appreciate Women's Issues, Women's Problems, and Women's Plays?
With Bernard Telsey, LuPone is co-founder and executive director of the always adventurous MCC. And, yes, he is Patti's brother!
Two Women's Works at the Public:
Semi-Articulate "Tongue of a Bird"
Ellen McLaughlin is another women's playwright. She also has won her share of awards and grants.
Struggles To Sing with Cherry Jones [**]But many still remember her best as that wonderful Angel who descended from the flies to bring a message to a dying AIDS victim in Tony Kushner's "Angels in America."
Her new poetic and visionary drama, "Tongue of a Bird," had already been canonized—before it debuted at the Public Theatre—by productions at London's Almeida Theatre and Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum.
On its icy slick surface, it is about the desperate search for a little girl, kidnapped and taken into the Adirondack wilderness.
Much deeper down, it is about the search-pilot's own search for the little lost girl who is herself. Cherry Jones is radiant in this role.
And Elizabeth Wilson is amazing as a crazy old Polish relative.
A number of spectators departed at intermission. Among those who sat the second act out were friends who expressed their bafflement to me: Did I understand it? What was this show all about?
It's about many things, not least the mysteries of the human heart and the difficulties of interpersonal relationships. It's also about trying to come to terms with your childhood and your dreams. Even with your nightmares.
"Tongue of a Bird"—in this handsome production, staged by Lisa Peterson—needs to be experienced, rather than analyzed. Rachel Hauck's efficient "box-set," with its many shutters and apertures, offers brief exposures which are visually haunting.
Lisa Kron Takes Her Audiences
On a Breathless "2.5 Minute Ride" [*****]Lisa Kron interweaves an American amusement-park outing with her father with their much grimmer visit to Auschwitz. This is Kron's unique way of dealing with the Holocaust and the effect it had on her dad—who lost his parents there—and the indirect effect upon her as well.
LOOKING AT SLIDES--Lisa Kron lectures on Auschwitz & Fun Parks in "The 2.5 Minute Ride." Photo: Michal Daniel. She has illustrated her charming lecture-chat with slides, using a pointer to indicate important details in the pictures. What the audience sees, however, are blocks of light of different dimensions.
Kron sketches in the photographic details in memory, with humor and affection. You get to know both her family and friends. And they come to seem like your family and friends as well.
Even with a heart-condition, Kron's dad loves the most death-defying of amusement-park rides. The 2.5 minute ride could give cardiac arrest to the healthiest of men.
But there are heart-stopping moments in Kron's narrative as well. This is such an engaging and moving monologue that it should be seen and heard throughout the land.
If you are not able to see Lisa Kron perform it herself, get a copy and read it. It is sure to become an audition piece in the near future.
April Is the Cruelest Month!
Musicals Old & New—
April is not only the month of Shakespeare's Birth. It's also the month in which Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.On and Off-Broadway this past month, audiences have been reminded at least of the latter event with two new musicals.
Triple-Threat Composer Frank Wildhorn
Unveils His Vision of "The Civil War" [****]Clyde Fitch, Avery Hopwood, and Neil Simon have all had three—or four—shows playing simultaneously on Broadway. But only Andrew Lloyd Webber has matched those drama records with musicals on the Great White Way.
CRY OF FREEDOM!--Harriett D. Foy and Michael A. Shepperd as freed slaves in Ron Holgate's Civil War musical, "Reunion." Photo: Carol Rosegg. Until now! Composer Frank Wildhorn can now confound his critics and Sir Andrew with the panoply of "Jekyll & Hyde," "Scarlet Pimpernel," and "The Civil War."
It is true, however, that the cast of "Pimpernel" has just been drastically down-sized. And it is soon to be off on tour to the Boonies—with a promised return to Broadway in the autumn.
Promises, Promises! By fall, who will remember? The days are long gone when Broadway hits could close for the summer—theatres weren't air-conditioned then—and reopen in September.
Because its subject is central to what America has become, as a Nation and a People, "The Civil War" is much more likely to have staying-power than Wildhorn's two other Musical Offerings.
On first seeing any of the three, one doesn't exactly stroll out of the theatre humming the Hit Tunes however. This is partly because we no longer go into musicals, our ears already ringing with the melodies played ad infinitum on radio broadcasts.
Thanks to Lloyd Webber and the musical-cobblers of "Les Mis/Saigon," we've grown accustomed to the face of the Broadway Generic Musical.
But if you have the money to see a show often enough—or you play the CD frequently—you will begin to discover special songs which do stay in your memory.
Frank Wildhorn's music seems as generic as it gets. And it is certainly a throwback to another possibly happier time, when Rap and Hip-Hop were unheard of, even unthinkable.
This, however, merely underscores the Retro Essence of the Broadway Musical. It in no way reflects new and developing popular musical modes and tastes. Nor does it intersect with Popular Culture in general.
The gruesome totality of the horrors of The War Between the States cannot be chronicled in a two-hour musical show. [That's not easy even in a TV series.]
Nor are Broadway musicals the most effective vehicles for Singing Historical Surveys. Let alone close analyses of the Causes and Effects of that awful conflict.
Wildhorn's book—concocted in association with Gregory Boyd and Jack Murphy—does attempt a form of Grand Overview. This is combined with some humanizing story-elements, but the result is still Generic.
Almost all the roles in the show have specific names in the program, but they are so stereotypical that the effect is to make them general, rather than particular or individual.
Leo Burmester—as Autolycus Fell, a pimp, profiteer, and corpse-robber—does achieve some individuality by his performance, but not so much from the way the role is written.
Nonetheless, there are some very powerful performances as well as striking separate scenes in this show. Keith Byron Kirk stands out as Frederick Douglas, as does Cheryl Freeman as Bessie Toler.
Given the ruined Greek Revival Plantation Mansion scenic-frame designer Douglas W. Schmidt has created—abetted by Wendall K. Harrington's period projections, Paul Gallos's lighting, and William Ivey Long's handsome costumes—the intensity of this era is effectively evoked.
Luis Perez has ingeniously staged the musical numbers with special attention to the pacing of the show, for which director Jerry Zaks is greatly to be thanked. It is Zaks who really makes the show work.
Whether Frank Wildhorn has finally created the definitive Civil War Musical remains to be seen. Perhaps it's time to revive that Harold Rome Japanese musical version of "Gone With the Wind"?
Called "Scarlett," it made the journey from Japan to Britain. Londoners experienced the Burning of Atlanta live on-stage, but this striking visual moment was denied New York audiences.
Those who remember the great Harold Rome Broadway scores would surely rank him higher than Wildhorn. If Annie Oakley can be exhumed, why not resurrect Scarlett O'Hara?
Meanwhile, On Theatre Row—
The Real Songs of the Civil War
Speaking of Annie Oakley and her personal musical, her current employer, Buffalo Bill, has a musical sideline. The real-life Buffalo Bill recreated some set-pieces of the Indian Wars for the benefit of obsessed Americans and fascinated Europeans.
Revived in Ron Holgate's "Reunion" [***]He even hired some of the famous Indian Chieftains and their warriors to re-enact some notorious slaughters.
On Theatre Row, however, Ron Holgate—the Broadway Bill of the moment—isn't offering the Scalping of General Custer set to music. No, Holgate is fascinated with the Civil War instead. But in a different way from Frank Wildhorn.
The "Musical Epic in Miniature" Holgate and book-author Jack Kyrieleison have devised is composed of songs actually sung during the Civil War.
The show is called "Reunion," and it ought to appeal to many theatre and music groups across the United States. The "traditional music" has been arranged for this production by Michael O'Flaherty, so this specific score is probably protected by copyright.
But the tunes and lyrics have been in the Public Domain for ages now. Many had no copyright protection then.
Nonetheless, low-budget community-theatres can still save themselves a lot of effort and grief if they can arrange to produce this most attractive and effective musical as Holgate, Kyrieleison, and O'Flaherty have devised it.
It requires a cast of only six actor-singers, a few costume-changes, and an all-purpose unit-set.
What's more, it covers all the territory and events in Wildhorn's "The Civil War" and much more. Including actual generals and leaders! General George McClellan—with dialogue taken from historic sources—sounds like a spiritual father to George Bush.
The able cast—directed by Holgate—is comprised of Joe Barrett, Don Burroughs, Donna Lynne Champlin, Harriett D. Foy, Jonathan Hadley, and Michael A. Shepperd. They are not as energized as Wildhorn's much larger—and better-paid—cast, but then the oxymoronically named Theatre Row Theatre stage is minuscule.
When I was growing up in Depression Era California, we still sang the old Civil War songs in school and round the piano at home on Sunday evenings. So it was a double pleasure to hear them again so richly rendered, and to re-connect them with the tragic historical conflict which brought them into being.
Experiencing "Reunion" made me aware of the real meaning of the lyrics to "Darling Nelly Gray." As a dumb kid, I thought "they have taken you away" meant she was one of those delicate and consumptive Victorian girls who had been carried off by the Grim Reaper.
Hearing the song in the context of this show made me realize it's a lament for a loved one sold off into slavery on a distant plantation.
Mark Lamos & Mel Marvin Rework
As I was leaving the Longacre Theatre, some colleagues—as well as absolute strangers—were complaining that they couldn't recognize most of the Gershwin tunes in "The Gershwins' Fascinating Rhythm."
"The Gershwins' Fascinating Rhythm" [***]Some of these grumblers were even denouncing Mark Lamos' deft and ingenious staging of the musical numbers.
Of course, if you are so old that you can actually remember the way George & Ira Gershwin's songs were originally staged on Broadway, you might understandably be hostile to anything newer.
But this amusing, colorful, energy-charged new show is not a Jazz Age/Art Deco revival. It is not an Exercise in Nostalgia.
George & Ira may indeed have admired smartly dressed Flappers and written memorable songs for them. But, if these wonderful songs are to survive, they need to be reclaimed for our own times.
And be performed in ways which connect with current life-styles. Not with Thé Dansants at Long Island North Shore Estates. Or hi-jinx in Eighth Avenue Gin-Mills & Speakeasies.
Encores at City Center may be able to revive "Girl Crazy" in concert staging-format. But that book sates even unquenchable appetites for Nostalgia. Even Broadway reworkings of old Gershwin scores like "Crazy for You" are uneasy compromises with the Past.
Lamos and his choreographer David Marques have instead opted for a thoroughly modern look, feel, and sound. Thus Mel Marvin and Larry Hochman's arrangements and orchestrations do confuse the Nostalgia Brigade.
The tunes just don't sound the way they used to. Nor are they telling the stories of girls and boys who have loved, lived, and died some time ago.
Like the late and entirely wonderful Martha Schlamme, Lamos understands how to give lyrics new meaning—and melodies new urgency—by finding new narratives for them.
Martha Schlamme used to help young cabaret songsters and even seasoned opera singers to "find the story in a song." Even something as banal as "I love you, I love you, I love you" can become dramatic, powerful, even heart-breaking.
Singers need to ask themselves—or their partners and directors—Who am I? Who am I singing to? Or am I singing to myself? Where are we? Why? What time is it? Dawn, Day, Dusk, Evening, Night? What season of the year? What year? What period, what era?
And they need to ask the most important question: What do I want?
Mark Lamos and his fine young singers have found some appealing new meanings inside Ira's old lyrics and George's ageless melodies.
One that's especially amusing is a psychiatric couch-session. It brings down the house, as they used to say—before tornadoes became so frequent.
In a smoothly matched ensemble of twelve, six performers are starred: Michael Berresse, Darius de Haas, Adriane Lenox, Orfeh, Sara Ramirez, and Patrick Wilson.
Paul Tazewell's costumes are colorful, smart, and move well with the bodies of the supple cast. Peggy Eisenhauer's lighting is an able complement to the bright colors and smart geometrics of the stage-design.
Michael Yeargan's elemental setting is not Retro Art Deco, but rather a Post-Modernist evocation. There is, however, one problem with his concept.
Some gremlin must have come to him in a dream and urged him to try out a Geometric Diagonal Shutter, in place of an ordinary curtain.
The obsessive—and finally annoying—result is that almost every musical number opens and closes with four panels sliding open and closed on two opposing diagonals.
This could have been cute for one or two numbers. But it became an irritating Scenic Mannerism, rather than a delightful innovation.
Perhaps Yeargan could have varied this with that old slowly-closing Camera Iris shutter-effect? They used to love that in Silent Movies.
Magical, Tragical "Madama Butterfly"
Clearly, Mark Lamos must believe in the Mantra: Less Is More! His stagings of dramas at the Hartford Stage, and of operas for Glimmerglass and the New York City Opera, all demonstrate this concept in action. And to powerful effect.
Staged by Mark Lamos for City Opera [*****]Lamos has now mounted a powerful yet elementally simple "Madama Butterfly" for City Opera. It is at once the essence of visual [and budgetary] economy, but it is all the more beautiful and memorable for its simplicity.
This is, of course, not simply a matter of directorial whim. Lamos was obviously trying to get to the heart of the tragedy of Butterfly—not only through its interpretive powers in music, words, and acting—but visually as well.
In this remarkable achievement he has been strongly assisted by Michael Yeargan—who also designed Lamos' new Gershwin revue.
Unlike some crazed European opera-production teams—or our own Peter Sellars—Lamos and Yeargan didn't even think of setting "Butterfly" in a NASA Space-Station or in a West Los Angeles Barrio.
But they also avoided the pretty pictorial mistake of recreating a complete and confining traditional Japanese house for Pinkerton and Butterfly's doomed union.
Instead, the ubiquitous shoji-screens of Japanese domestic architecture are monumentally suggested by six immense sliding panels downstage and six upstage.
Also upstage is a low flight of light blue steps crossing the entire stage. Unseen steps behind its summit suggest the hill the American Consul Sharpless and others have to climb to reach this isolated house.
The visible steps provide interesting levels for the chorus and extras at Butterfly's wedding, as well as for some domestic scenes. As in a traditional Japanese home, a few simple object-props are enough to set the scenes, complemented by handsome period costumes by Constance Hoffman.
But what makes this City Opera "Butterfly" one of the most dramatic and affecting I have ever experienced is what Lamos and his strong cast have done in making the drama come alive.
Alfredo Portilla as Pinkerton, and Cynthia Clayton as Cio-Cio-San, are fine young singers, but they are—at least under Lamos' direction—also effective actors.
I've seen & heard many, many productions of "Butterfly," some of them musically more thrilling than this. But I've never been so moved by the tragedy of this miscarried marriage.
Not only for Cio-Cio-San, but also for Pinkerton, his proper American wife, the poor child, and, yes, even for the long-suffering Suzuki!
Instead of having Butterfly commit Satori alone—to be later discovered inert in death by Pinkerton—Lamos has her don her grand marriage robe and begin an almost ritual ascent of the steps, her back to the audience.
After her long night of agony—knowing she must give up her beloved child, token of a love she believed in, even if the American Lieutenant did not—the sun is dawning over Nagasaki Bay.
Silhouetted by the Rising Sun, Pinkerton rushes up the hill. Butterfly beholds him one last time as she plunges her father's sword into her bowels and collapses.
This forced confrontation is far more powerful than merely discovering Butterfly dead. And it ensures that the torment and loss that Pinkerton says he will always feel for what his selfishness and neglect have caused—before her suicide—will be even more powerful.
This was the first production in which I've found Consul Sharpless [Jeffrey Kneebone] to be a compassionate, believable man. A State Department functionary, true, but also a mature, feeling man—whose warnings and advice to the brash young lieutenant go unheeded.
With tragic consequences that echo down the years. John Luther Long's short-story and the drama David Belasco made from it may well be the stuff of rampant theatrical sentimentalism.
Even when the play was still a Broadway sensation, there were those cold-eyed cynics who insisted it was emotional clap-trap. Tear-jerking trash.
Obviously—and fortunately—Puccini didn't agree. His vision of this tale, re-imagined and relived in music, has raised Butterfly and her hopeless love far above mere sentiment.
Puccini was on shakier ground when he decided David Belasco's "The Girl of the Golden West" was a strong drama that also deserved to be raised to the Pantheon of Opera.
Still, you can be sure that—should City Opera decide to revive Belasco and Puccini's golden-hearted Minnie—Mark Lamos will make it exciting musical theatre.
In the meantime, "Madama Butterfly" has been so ecstatically reviewed—and so enthusiastically received by City Opera audiences—that it is sure to remain in the repertory for some time. Do not miss it when the fall season opens!
Invoking the Divine "Marlene"—
Sian Phillips as the Dietrich Diva [***]Even before Sian Phillips had finished her Dietrich Finale at the Cort, the audience was already on its feet, revving up the Standing Ovation which has become standard for any self-indulgent solo-performance.
Sian Phillips as Marlene Dietrich. Photo: Mike Martin Some of them clearly could never have seen the Real Marlene, so their ecstasy was perhaps pardonable. Some of us old enough to have seen Marlene Dietrich in various incarnations—live and cinematic—over the years were—also pardonably—not so ecstatic.
Sian Phillips—another British Import—is a very talented, skilled, and focused actress. And she does a good job of impersonating the Legendary Dietrich, complete with telling mannerisms and Signature Songs.
But—even though this event is described in the program as "The New Musical Play"—Phillips is not much of a singer. Nor has she the special quality and charisma Dietrich had in talking lyrics, cooing tunes, and putting-over songs.
Thanks to the costumes of David C. Woolard & Terry Parsons—and very much to the lighting of Mark Jonathan and the wigs of Paul Huntley—Phillips does create the illusion of Dietrich in performance. But it is a Construct.
As for the moments of kitschy sentiment in her dressing-room, perhaps Brit author Pam Gems should have talked with Dietrich's one-time producer, Alexander H. Cohen.
Gems' scripts, unfortunately, are not always gems. She did one on Edith Piaf, also seen in New York some time back. Does memory fail, or was Piaf played by our new British Electra, Zoë Wanamaker?
The essential problems for the author of a solo recreation of the career of some celebrity are how to make the talking-autobiography theatrical, interesting, factual, personal, and revelatory.
Obviously none of these is easily achieved. At what point in the Famous Person's life should the stock-taking occur? On his or her death-bed? Too gloomy!
Valerie Harper recently had a similar problem with Pearl S. Buck—who was never much of a singer anyway. She may have hummed the theme from "The Good Earth" around her Pennsylvania mansion, but mostly she typed.
Not much there to make Theatrical Magic, alas.
Dietrich's life was far more public, dynamic, and fascinating. She was—like Gloria Swanson, Maria Callas, and other Divine Divas—one of those celebrated Sacred Monsters.
Pam Gems might have shown us more of that side—and not only from the vantage-point of her dressing-room.
But this venue did provide some amusing moments, such as the rehearsal for the "unexpected" delivery of large bouquets down the aisles at the conclusion of her concerts: "For me? Oh, this is really too much, too dear!"
I was once privileged—or condemned—to assist a Personal Appearance of Gloria Swanson. This was only in a boutique of a [major] department store, but Swanson had sent a long, long list well beforehand, outlining every detail of the lighting, the placement of podium, chairs, and other props, even down to her requirements for lectern-drinking-water.
Sacred Monsters indeed! Jean Cocteau had it right.
But, in death, Marlene chose utmost simplicity for that Long Night. She is buried in a small, out-of-the-way, working-class cemetery in Berlin. It's near the place where she grew up.
On the gravestone, her last name does not appear. Only "Marlene."
And she had a punning quote inscribed: "Here I stand again on my Mark."
When Dietrich was—like Swanson or Norma Desmond—"ready for her close-up," she had to stand on a mark on the floor to keep the proper distance from Hitchcock's camera.
But the ground where Marlene Dietrich is interred is also her Mark. It is officially in the Mark [or Land] of Brandenburg.
Princess Di Lives Again!
In this adulatory musical evocation of the late Princess of Wales, she is at one point referred to as a "Fag Hag." Stephen Stahl's book and Claudia Perry's songs miss no opportunity to emphasize Princess Diana's compassionate interest in unfortunates of all kinds and classes.
She Also Sings in "Queen of Hearts" [*]So—had I not a strong sense of decorum and discipline—it would be tempting to describe the events in "Queen of Hearts" as a "Fag Hagiography."
A whiff of satire might not have been amiss. Especially considering the cultish behavior of those thousands and thousands of Brits who dumped their funereal floral offerings in front of Kensington Palace.
An onstage excursion to the Souvenir-Shrine & Diana-Museum her brother, the egregious Lord Spencer, has caused to be constructed on the Family Estate would not have been an unwelcome corrective to all the breathless adoration on display at the Harold Clurman Theatre.
If Harold were not already dead, this show would have finished him off. But not before a tart comment or two. Clurman's definitive collection of critiques is titled "Lies Like Truth."
This musical tribute—and much that has been written about Princess Di—may be a tissue of lies [or fables], but it is nothing like the Truth.
When she was campaigning for Outlawing Land Mines [would Milosevic & Hussein sign?], why did no enterprising journalist ask her: "Your Highness, where do you stand on Land Mines?"
How about outlawing Anorexia, Bulimia, Infidelity, and Ethnic Cleansing as well?
"My Life with Vernon Dexter"
The most interesting aspects of the Vineyard Theatre's current production of "Dream True" were the suggestive scenic-projections provided by Jan Hartley. They were especially evocative—in misty visual whiffs—of the wide open spaces of Wyoming.
Acted & Sung in "Dream True" [**]There, two young boys are being more or less reared by single moms. World War II is just over, if that helps fix things more securely in your mind.
The boys like each other a lot, which is good, for there don't seem to be any other kids for miles around. They also sing, which can be good for young lungs in the High Country.
Unfortunately, this made me cringe and long for the harmonizing of the Trapp Family Singers. Or the unison Plainsong of the Vienna Choirboys.
One of the boys, Peter Emmons, is the product of a mismarriage between his loving but under-educated mother and a dead dad from an Elitist Eastern Family.
Rescued from Horse Whisperers, he becomes a brilliant young architect. But he is as temperamental, willful, and selfish as they come.
One day he glances at a gay AIDS demonstrator. It stirs latent memories, as well it might, for the guy is none other than his boyhood buddy, Vernon Dexter. Grown up gay, which is not appreciated in Wyoming. [And even less in Montana, to judge from recent torture-slayings.]
This chance encounter changes his whole life. It destroys his architectural practice, his marriage, and his mental balance.
Both he and Vernon discover that they can dream the same dream, if they cross their legs just so and put their hands behind their heads.
Don't try this! You may end up, like Peter, in an asylum. Or worse, like his onstage presenter, Jeff McCarthy, in a musical!
Composer Ricky Ian Gordon and librettist Tina Landau were inspired to concoct this singing fiction by George Du Maurier's drama, "Peter Ibbetson."
Far more famous in theatrical annals are Du Maurier's evil Svengali and his innocent pawn, Trilby, whom he commands to sing with a brilliance that astounds.
This famous fable would have provided ample opportunities for Sado-Masochistic singing, but in a heterosexual framework.
They might have achieved something even more provocative and compelling had they based a musical on his grand-daughter's work. How about Daphne Du Maurier's "The Birds"?
Will "Madame Bovary" Be Next?
Judging from the sparse attendance and the spartan manner of the spectators at the last production of the CSC's season, the phrase "Dance-Theatre" was enough to discourage many of the regular subscribers.
Flaubert's "A Simple Heart" as Dance-Mime [***]If you love language—figurative, emotive, narrative—on stage, then dance and mime are probably not rewarding enough theatre-experiences.
But the adaptation of Gustave Flaubert's story, "A Simple Heart," shown recently at the Classic Stage Company, was in fact amusing and moving by turns.
It had been developed in other venues by Annie-B Parson and Paul Lazar.
Claudia Stephens' period costumes were especially helpful in establishing the milieu of the story of an endlessly toiling, ever-faithful servant.
When all humans in whom she has put her trust die or desert her, she's left with her pet parrot. When he gives up the avian ghost, she has him stuffed so he can continue to console her in her loneliness.
Parson's interesting dance-conceit was to have Félicité, this maid-of-all-work, interpreted by two seemingly identical dancers: Stacy Dawson and Molly Hickok.
They were very energetic and impressive in the often unusual choreography. Also admirable was Tymberly Canale as Mme. Aubaine, their mistress. Cynthia Hopkins was arresting as Virginie. And David Neumann mimed everyone else, except Flaubert—who wasn't included.
Other Entertainments:
Alfred Hitchcock Retrospective at MoMA
The films of Alfred Hitchcock are now being screened at the Museum of Modern Art. Even early and minor movies. Some of these have a very special appeal, foreshadowing what was to develop, but often so unlike the definitive canon.Only recently underway, this retrospective will continue until mid-June in the Roy & Nina Titus Theatre 1.
There is also a special exhibition of visuals and artifacts connected with Hitch's career and the design and shooting of major movies.
Mid-April, MoMA arranged special press-showings of "Murder(!)," "Secret Agent," "Number Seventeen," "Young and Innocent," and, of course, "Rebecca"—in a new 35mm print!
Hitch's 1930 "Murder(!)" was also shot simultaneously in a German version. It's interesting to see what the young British director learned at the UFA Studios in Berlin.
Working with German Expressionist designers and directors, he caught the essences of interior lives and fears not expressed in dialogue. He never dared the visual disjunctions of, say, a "Cabinet of Dr. Caligari." But he did try most unusual effects—which have haunting visual echoes in such films as "Rebecca" and "Spellbound."
With Goethe, Schiller, & Liszt in Weimar!
This is Weimar's Year in the Sun. It has been chosen as the Culture City of Europe.
Other European cities have been so honored in previous years, but they were major capitals like Berlin, Madrid, and Copenhagen.
CULTURE & COMMERCE IN WEIMAR--This bright blue VW Beetle stands proudly in the heart of Europe's Culture-City 1999—as Goethe & Schiller look down from their shared pedestal in front of the National-Theater. Volkswagen has provided a fleet of 25 new vehicles for its "Art & Shuttle Park." These are transporting artists and technicians around the festive city. Volkswagen is the major sponsor of Weimar's Culture Year. Photo: Volkswagen AG. Weimar, in German Thuringia, has long been a sleepy little provincial town. Especially during the long years of the German Democratic Republic, when it was almost impossible for West Germans to visit. And extremely difficult for foreign journalists like your reporter.
But Weimar has a very special place in Europe's Cultural History. Here, the reigning Duke, Carl August, engaged the great German poet, playwright, and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to run his Court Theatre.
As well as to advise him on most other matters as well, including investing in dollars and pounds sterling.
Goethe's great contemporary, Friedrich Schiller, was also a Writer-in-Residence in Weimar. Also on hand to share his talents was the remarkable Hungarian pianist, composer, and lover, Franz Liszt.
Bernd Kauffmann—the Intendant/Impresario for the myriad cultural events planned this year—has been at work for several seasons to make sure hardly a minute will pass without something cultural worth seeing or doing.
In addition to avant-garde productions in the National-Theater and in other odder venues, there will be a number of art-exhibitions and art-actions. There will also be social seminars and public discussions of issues raised by the darker shadows of Weimar's and Germany's History.
The infamous Nazi Death Camp, Buchenwald, is only a short distance from the Neo-Classical Mausoleum in which Goethe is buried. There have recently been some questions about the body in the sarcophagus: is it really that of the author of "Faust I & II"?
Not to worry. Goethe's remains were apparently carefully preserved during the Communist Era. Only the bones now remain.
But Kauffmann has had Goethe's famous Garten-Haus copied, so the hordes of tourists expected in Weimar won't wear out the floors of the historic Garden-House.
For more information about Weimar and its Culture Year, check out: www.weimar1999.de
"Golden Tower" in Copenhagen's Tivoli Garden
In "The 2.5 Minute Ride," now at the Public Theatre, Lisa Kron talks about her Dad's love of super-scary amusement-park rides. Despite his heart condition!Recently, she took a few days off from her show to accompany her father on a visit to his old home-town in Germany for a town anniversary.
Had she known about the breathtaking new ride in Copenhagen—in the 157-year-old Tivoli Garden—she could have taken him there as well, to try it out.
From the Danish Tourist Board—and my friend Lillian Hess—comes the information about this ride, "The Golden Tower."
Danes and tourists alike can enjoy a magnificent birds-eye view of this great city some 19 stories above the park. They will be raised 190 feet from the ground to enjoy the splendid urban panorama that is historic and modern Copenhagen.
Then, suddenly, they will be dropped at blazing speed toward the earth again. Of course, this ride is engineered so that its thrill-seeking patrons will be gently brought to a stop at the bottom. No crash-landings!
For the record: It's called the Golden Tower because it is topped by a gleaming golden cupola. OK?
More information about this exciting ride and about Tivoli—the world's oldest amusement-park in continuous use—check out: www.tivoli. dk [Loney]
Copyright © Glenn Loney 1999. No re-publication or broadcast use without proper credit of authorship. Suggested credit line: "Glenn Loney, New York Theatre Wire." Reproduction rights please contact: jslaff@nytheatre-wire.com.
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