The New Morality

Harold Chapin's The New Morality, the slight but delightful piece from 1915 currently on view at The Mint, resembles an Oscar Wilde play if Wilde wrote about (almost) real people.

Brenda Meaney
Photo: Richard Termine

Betty Jones has taken to her bed and refused a meal to perform a level of repentance she doesn't feel. Her crime? She unloaded on Muriel, the woman with whom her husband has been flirting all summer. She acknowledges to her good friend Alice that some of her language would be better left to dog shows, and she admits that she was probably pretty loud. She thanks Alice for visiting at risk to her own reputation.

And then Muriel's husband Wallace shows up, demanding that Betty apologize.

Chapin uses this thin plot as a skeleton for discussions of sexual politics, society, and the meaning of fidelity. He fleshes it out with scores of very funny lines. His take on sexual politics is fascinating, since it exists in a world that probably never was: the gorgeous homes of independently wealthy people, taken care of by servants, where women rule the roost and men fecklessly try to figure them out. Chapin ignores the true power that men have and had, particularly 100 years ago, yet there is a level on which his sense of sexual politics is advanced and even vaguely feminist. (Chapin was killed in World War I, one of the millions of tragic casualties of that stupid and useless war, so there's no way of knowing how his work would have developed.)

Show Showdown Theatre Links Updated

In a long-needed piece of housekeeping, we have updated our list of Theatre Links in the right-hand column of this blog (scroll down). If you'd like us to add your theatre blog/website to our list, please put the info in the comment section of this post. Thanks.--Wendy Caster

Cameron Kelsall Joining Talkin' Broadway

I am pleased to announce that I will be joining Talkin' Broadway as a contributing critic. I will be covering theatrical productions in New Jersey and Philadelphia. Although I can't provide a firm date at this time, I expect to begin filing reviews sometime in the very near future. I will continue to serve in my capacity as a contributor for Show Showdown. -- Cameron Kelsall

Hollywood Arms

There are two ways of looking at the anniversary reading of Carrie Hamilton and Carol Burnett's Hollywood Arms at Merkin Hall last night. As an event, it was a huge success. Just getting to see Burnett on stage and express our love for her was a major treat. She received a wonderful, slowly-evolving ovation. People clapped and cheered, and one by one, began to stand as we realized that the applause and cheers weren't enough. It took a long standing O to acknowledge the tremendous joy that Burnett has brought into our lives.

Emily Skeggs, William Jackson Harper, Cotter Smith, Michele Pawk, Tyne Daly,
Sydney Lucas, Caleb McLaughlin, Anthony Edwards, Jenny Jules, Will Pullen
Photo: Paul Zimmerman/WireImage

And just seeing the cast--Tyne Daly, Michele Pawk, Emily Skeggs and Sydney Lucas of Fun Home (once again playing the same character), Cotter Smith, and Anthony Edwards--walk on stage was exciting.

The desnudas in Times Square

I wrote a thing for OUP blog, and figured I'd share it here. It's about the "painted ladies" in Times Square, the history of that particularly raunchy neighborhood, and how silly this news story is.

Spring Awakening

Two young women reflect each other through a mirror. One is dark-haired and slight, with a deeply expressive face. The other is blond and fuller-bodied, with a guitar strapped to her back. They both sing: one uses her voice; the other, her hands. Despite their differences, there is no question that they reflect the same person. This is how Deaf West's extraordinary production of Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater's Spring Awakening announces itself.

photo: Kevin Parry

Directed by the actor Michael Arden, this revival of the 2006 musical -- currently playing at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, after a successful run in Los Angeles -- puts the action in the context of the 1880 Second International Conference on Education of the Deaf, which occurred a decade prior to the publication of Franz Wedekind's Spring's Awakening, on which the musical is based. Known colloquially as the Milan Conference, it banned the teaching of sign language in favor of lip reading and oralism. Assimilation was prescribed as the only answer to the "deaf question;" those who could not essentially pass for hearing had no place in society.