UStheater

Saturday, November 5, 2011

LIST OF WORKS INCLUDED

Douglas Messerli "Something Bad Is Happening" (on William Finn's and James Lapine's Falsettos)

something bad is happening

by Douglas Messerli

William Finn (music and lyrics), William Finn and James Lapine (book) Falsettos / Third Street Theater, Los Angeles (the performance I saw was a matinee on Sunday, October 16, 2011)

There have been numerous revivals of William Finn’s operetta-like musical since its long 1992 run on Broadway (487 performances). Unlike most American musicals, Finn’s work, broken into two parts—March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland—has basically no spoken words, the story being told through the music and lyrics.

Finn’s story, of the late 1970s and early 1980s in New York is almost a textbook of social issues and expression of correct attitudes towards its two major focuses, American Jews and gays, and for that reason the story was highly appreciated by its audiences (including the performance I attended) and, with its further introduction of AIDS, along with the difficulties the characters face with marital relationships—a young son being very much at the center of this work—it elicited more than its share of empathy resulting in tears (falling even from own eyes).

The work begins with the main character, Marvin (Jesse Einstein), his son Jason (the talented young Major Curda), his psychiatrist Mendel (Chip Phillips) and his lover, Whizzer (Richard Hellstern) singing “Four Jews In a Room Bitching,” a piece laying out the difficulties each are facing. Marvin has left his wife, Trina (Lani Shipman) for Whizzer, but continues to insist upon a “tight-knit family,” demanding that both he and Whizzer continue to play an important role in Jason’s life.

For her part, Trina is obviously hurt by the series of events, but still attempts to create a conciliatory relationship with her for husband and boyfriend. A trip to the psychiatrist, Mendel, however creates a new series of events, as Mendel, singing “Love Is Blind,” attempts to help her while at the same time falling in love. When Mendel demands to know more about Marvin’s relationship with Whizzer, in “Marvin at the Psychiatrist, a Three-Part Mini-Opera” Marvin details his relationship with Whizzer, concluding that he is in love with him, Mendel moving the conversation to Trina’s bedroom habits, as Marvin and Jason reply in counterpoint.

Jason, in turns out, is having his own difficulties, wondering whether his father’s homosexuality can be inherited (“My Father’s a Homo”). Whizzer suggests that Jason also visit Mendel, who now is in what might be described as personal relationships with the entire family.

Meanwhile, tension is building between Marvin and Whizzer, as the former attempts to put Whizzer in the position of homemaker. At the same time, Trina is increasingly feeling alienated by the situation, growing fearful that she is becoming less and less prominent in her family’s life (“I’m Breaking Down). A visit from the psychiatrist for dinner and therapy results in further involvement between Mendel and Trina, and before long he has made a marriage proposal to Trina.

Trina has mixed feelings which she expresses in “Trina’s Song,” but she realizes that Mendel’s love is sincere, and, in need of support, she realizes she could do worse. The men, all realizing their failures, together sing “The March of the Falsettos,” admitting that their roles as “masculine” examples represent a great deal of bluff.

Trina and Mendel announce their marriage plans, and Marvin reacts with anger, violently slapping his ex-wife, both painfully singing “I Never Wanted to Love You,” a sentiment Whizzer repeats to Marvin, and Marvin relays even to his innocent son.

By the end of the first part, Marvin has broken with Whizzer and created a gap between him and Trina. Attempting to salvage his connections with his son, he sings “Father to Son,” reassuring Jason that he will love always love him, however he turns out.

If the first part has been almost brittle with the dilemmas Finn presents us with, the second part is even more distressing. It is now 1981, two years later. The cast has now grown by two others, lesbian neighbors of Marvin, Dr. Charlotte, an internist, and Cordelia, a kosher caterer. These two women offer support and love to the lonely Marvin, but create new problems of their own.

Although Marvin has grown wiser (“About Time” being a song about growing up and getting over his selfish behavior), and has managed to retain a close relationship with Jason, the issue of his son’s Bar Mitzvah creates new tensions between Trina and him, she attempting to plan a large event, while Mendel (and Jason) encourage a more simple party. Caught in the middle, Jason is furious with both parents, which Mendel assures him is absolutely natural (“Everyone Hates His Parents").

Both parents, Cordelia and Dr. Charlotte attend a baseball game in which Jason is playing, and in “The Ball Game,” all make fun of themselves of watching Jewish boys “who can’t play baseball,” and getting caught up in the event. To everyone’s surprise, Whizzer shows up—invited by Jason—which creates new tensions and reveals to Marvin just how much he has missed him.

In the midst of these adult dilemmas, Jason somehow manages to hit the ball, but is so nonplussed that he forgets to run!

Another “falsetto” piece relates their new traumas. And soon after Marvin and Whizzer return to their relationship. The war between Trina and Marvin, however, continues, until suddenly, in a racquetball game, Whizzer collaspses, and is taken to the hospital. Dr. Charlotte has already warned us through song that “Something Bad Is Happening,” young men increasingly becoming ill and dying. And we soon discover that Whizzer has AIDS.

In the trauma of the new situation, both parents offer Jason the option of “Canceling the Bar Mitzvah,” while all four of the gay figures, Marvin, Whizzer, Charlotte and Cordelia musically muse on how their love can last, “Unlikely Lovers.”

As Whizzer’s condition worsens, Marvin turns to God, singing—a bit like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof—“Miracle of Judaism.” Suddenly all break into Whizzer’s hospital room, Jason having decided that the Bar Mitzvah should be celebrated there, with Cordelia catering the event. For a few happy moments, “The Bar Mitzvah,” lifts everyone’s spirits, but suddenly Whizzer can no longer continue in their company, and is wheeled from the celebrations.

Left alone, Marvin sings his major love song of the work, “What Would I Do If You Had Not Been My Friend?” a piece which might melt away all the icebergs in Greenland, as we hear the news that Whizzer has died.

Marvin and his friends surround him to bid the audience farewell without another round of “Falsettoland.”

Finn’s work is, as I mention above, often touching and certainly affecting. The audience with whom I saw the production, clearly loved the work. But the constant stereotypes of both Jewish and gay issues the musical presents often transform it from a serious dialogue of its concerns into a kind a saccharine and even sanctimonious affair. At their best the lyrics remind one of Stephen Sondheim, with their cleverly satiric purposefulness, but just as often they can’t hold up the significance they attempt to portray, and the music—never reaching the heights of Sondheim in works such as Follies, Merrily We Roll Along (which is closest in spirit to Finn’s work) or Sweeney Todd—seem all to be of one piece without creating the variance of sound and structure that would lend the musical a richer sheen.

The cast I saw were all quite capable, at moments even wondrous, with the small musical combo on stage creating a feeling of a much larger cast than the work actually entails. Their acting also created a sense of absolute delight. So what, it’s not a perfect work? It certainly is worth a visit to the theater any night.

Los Angeles, November 4, 2011

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Gertrude Stein and Al Carmines | IN CIRCLES

For a link to hear Gertrude Stein's and Al Carmines In Circles of 1967,
click here:
http://www.ubu.com/sound/stein_circles.html

Friday, September 2, 2011

J. M. Barrie THE OLD LADY SHOWS HER MEDALS (printed edition)

For a printed copy of J. M. Barrie's play "The Old Lady Shows Her Medals," click here:
http://openlibrary.org/books/OL24357802M/The_old_lady_shows_her_medals

J. M. Barrie THE OLD LADY SHOWS HER MEDALS (radio performance)

For a radio performance of Barrie's "The Old Lady Shows Her Medals," with the Barrymores, click below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM28okGT5J4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A5X3_spDcU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgxxnnLoSdk

Douglas Messerli "Bond of Age" (on J. M. Barrie's "Rosalind" and "The Old Lady Shows Her Medals")

BOND OF AGE
by Douglas Messerli

J. M. Barrie "Barrie: Back to Back," Rosalind and The Old Lady Shows Her Medals / Los Angeles, Pacific Resident Theatre (the production I saw was on Sunday, August 28, 2011)

If Barrie's Peter Pan can be described as the refusal of youth to become old, a play about the attempt of the young to remain that way forever, the two short plays I saw this past Sunday— although still very much centered on the issues of young and old—might be said to hint at strange bonds between the two. One might almost be tempted to take that further and suggest a "bondage." After all, if Wendy and her brothers had not been surrounded by loving, if sometimes disapproving adults, there would have been no need to seek another world. Indeed, in Barrie's works, the desire for new adventures is not at all like Dickens' world, peopled with tortured children and waifs who must escape simply to survive. In Barrie's child-like fables, the figures reach out to other worlds simply for solace and psychological needs. As in our own youth-obsessed culture, so Barrie's adults and children simply prefer to stay young.

It is that relationship between the young and the old that is the focus of these two slightly sentimental, but still entertaining short plays. In "Rosalind," a middle-aged woman (Mrs. Page) sits in a country home which she has rented with her slightly older landlady (Dame Quickly) in attendance as they gossip—Mrs. Page greedily eating bon-bons or nuts while they speak. The conversation mostly centers on Mrs. Page's satisfaction about being middle-aged, her feeling that it is wonderful to be aging and much more enjoyable than the activities of her actor-daughter who, at the moment, so we hear, is in Monte Carlo. The somewhat disheveled, graying Mrs. Page is obviously proud of her daughter, Beatrice—she has her photograph prominently displayed—but she is not at all distressed that she seldom gets the opportunity to see her, and, she later admits, has never seen the girl upon stage.

Into this quaint tea-time setting stumbles a young man, Charles Roche, seeking, improbably, a short respite from the rain before his train returns to the city. At first he is refused by the landlady, as Mrs. Page pretends to sleep, but gradually he wiggles his way to the warm hearth, intending to read and leave the tenant to herself. But all that changes when he spots Beatrice's photograph! The actress is at the center of his attentions, and, we soon discover, he has met her and dined with her, unable to comprehend, accordingly, why her photograph should appear on the mantel of the "far from London" setting. Gradually he awakens the sleeping Mrs. Page, and, little by little, discovers that the woman he has just met is the actresses' mother.

So obsessed with Beatrice is Charles that he feels equally strong attachments to her mother, and opens his heart to her, telling the older woman how much he is in love with her daughter. Surprisingly Mrs. Page puts these sentiments and the trinkets that go with them (a photograph he keeps in his wallet across from the picture of his sister) into perspective, even mocking them. And in a quick dismissal of his emotions, Mrs. Page rips up the cherished photograph.

He is horrified, shocked by her behavior. But gradually discovers, through her knowledge of him and growing revelations (dear reader, go no further if you will not have the plot revealed) that the middle-aged woman before him and his beloved Beatrice are one and the same. Beatrice, it appears is not at all in Monte Carlo, but has escaped as Mrs. Page to be able for one of the few times in her life to discover herself at her true age instead of the eternally young figure she must play upon the stage.

Charles is stunned, disheartened, even perhaps horrified. How could such a beauty have been transformed into the woman standing before his eyes? Yet, as she reveals her's—and every young star's dilemma—he gallantly offers her marriage—in order to protect her in her old age! The gesture may be gallant but, of course, is ridiculous! It is also, perhaps, somewhat obscene. It is quite impossible that the young, handsome boy come out of the rain, can sit for the rest of his life gossiping with his aging wife.

Barrie, fortunately, has another surprise up his sleeve, as Beatrice/Mrs. Page is called back to London to play Rosalind in Shakespeare's As You Like It. Suddenly the actress is in a flurry, running to pack, to change clothes and accompany her potential "lover" back to the city. Her entry after dressing says it all: she is now young again, not a real human being plagued with age, but something of the stage, a made-up simulacrum of a young beauty for all her audience to love. In a sense, Mrs. Page has become her own Peter Pan, a reimagining of her own being.

The second of these solidly staged plays is simpler in plot, but far more complex emotionally than the first play. After bearing through a recitation of four charwoman's recountings of their sons, all at war (acted, unfortunately, as he have come to expect from small companies, with a babble of unfocused English accents), the play turns to the central character, Mrs. Dowey (excellently performed by Penny Safranek), whose son, so the vicar reports, has just returned for a leave from the front. His arrival is almost breathtaking, as a handsome, brawny, kilted man from the "Black Watch" enters Mrs. Dowey's basement hovel, while the other women are sent scurrying off.

The actor playing Kenneth Dowey (Joe McGovern) has the Scottish brogue down rather well, and is stunningly handsome enough that, despite his overly self-confident sense of being, his presence almost does take away the breath. Certainly, his appearance seems to have startled his mother. Rightfully so, for as we soon discover, although they share last names, they are no relation to one another. Mrs. Dowey has "stolen" his name and address from the local paper, and having herself no son or even previous husband, has felt so alien from the "war effort," and so excluded from her friends, all of whom have boys in service, that she has "made him up," so to speak, sending him cakes and other treats under a different name, and following his wartime adventures through the papers. The stack of letters she has shown her friends that he has written her are all blank.

At first the soldier is justifiably angry with the lying woman, but gradually, as he discovers the extent with which she had deceived everyone, including himself, and her explanations for her acts, he grows more tolerant. He, we soon discover, is himself an orphan, and her desperate interest in his being suits his high impression of himself. When she offers him a bed and clean sheets he cannot resist.

A few nights later, we discover, they have dined out each evening, he buying her a astrakhan, she serving as a doting and somewhat gay confidant for a lonely man in the city. By the end of the play, Kenneth kneels before her, as if about to propose, and does so: will she accept the role of his mother? It is a beautifully conceived, if sentimental, gesture. But it is also so revealing of the author's strange entanglements of youth and age. As in "Rosalind," youth bows to age always, although it understands itself as the superior. But it is just its own shining being that so attracts the old to it. There is a whiff here almost of "pedophilia," and given Barrie's own relationship with his mother—for whom he often played his preferred dead brother—and his deep (and apparently detrimental) involvement with the boys of the Davies family, there is certainly much more to be said about this "bond between the ages."

As Kenneth tearfully leaves, however, we are awarded the delightful sight of the old woman opening the package of trinkets, a hat, medals, etc., which he has awarded her. And we feel, despite her lies and, now, perhaps his self-deceptions, this bonding of the two has been nearly inevitable, and is surely a good thing.

Los Angeles, August 31, 2011

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Karel Čapek R.U.R. (Rossum's Universl Robots)

To read Karel Čapek’s drama R. U. R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) of 1921, click here:
http://www.greeninteger.com/pdfs/capek-rur.pdf

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Czech dramatist Karel Čapek, writing several times in collaboration with his brother Josef, became one of the most noted names of Czech Expressionist drama. Among his works are R.U.R (1921)., The Insect Play (1921), and The Makcropoulous Affair (1923) , later transformed into an opera.