Book of Mormon and Sister Act: A Second Glance

With friends in town wanting to see the two best musicals of the season, I got a chance to revisit Book of Mormon and Sister Act. I also got a chance to see both from a different vantage point--the last row of the theater. (I had seen Sister Act from the first row center with rush tickets and BOM from fourth row right back when they offered discounts.) After a couple of attempts at the Mormon lottery, my friends finally won, so I not only got to watch the show from the back of the theater, I also got to watch the back of my friends' heads.

My first viewing of Book of Mormon was thrilling, a complete religious experience--I was enriched, enlivened, shared a connection with souls searching for a common gladness. But the show was an avalanche of anticipation, each moment building on the next, no time to luxuriate because something new and surprising and hiliarious was about happen. It would have been like watching one domino as the rest fell. I saw the show before it opened so I didn't write about it at the time. Thereafter, when I tried, all I could muster was a vomit of superlatives because the moments had blurred into one collective memory. A wonderful blur, but I needed to see it again to sort it out, reinspect each golden plate.

On second viewing, the show not only held up to my internalized hype, not only hit the ball as far out of the park, it was exponentially more entertaining overall. Because I knew what lay ahead, I wasn't suffocated by my own held breath. I simply savored each moment, wallowed hog hungry in its brilliance, laughed until I hurt, and then laughed myself out of pain. Despite whatever controversy the content might spark--and it certainly doesn't seem to have sparked much--and in spite of its contemporary themes, the creative team (Trey Parker, Matt Stone, and Robert Lopez) have created a very traditional musical, and a finely crafted one at that. The songs are beautifully and thought-provokingly constructed: memorable, singable, both telling a story and supporting the bigger story. Minus the acid on the tongue-in-cheek, the musical could stand alongside the standards of the 50s and 60s.

The actors are universally excellent and perfectly cast. I wouldn't want to be the deciding vote for the Tony Awards, choosing between Andrew Rannells and Josh Gad (a point, not a prediction). They are so different but equally effective. Rannells is a more complete performer, but Gad's performance is no less affecting because he doesn't tap dance. I suspect Mr. Gad is a latent schtick milker, but he was disciplined at my viewing. Nikki M. James has the unenviable task of sustaining innocence and keeping it interesting. There is no hint of caricature or stupidity. She is all heart, hope, and honesty.

That the show gets a bit preachy for a moment as it makes its point about the absurdity of faith in all its forms is forgivable. Most South Park episodes that I have seen dissolve into a similar, momentary sentiplicity right before they yank the rug out from under you just for emphasis. You are the pratfall, collapsing into laughter one last time.

Enough of the Mormons, now for the Catholics. Sister Act was a solid, fun show the first time around. It, too, was better on second chance. The last row of the Broadway did me no favors, nor did the two idiots texting toward the end of Act 1. The sound was better in the balcony. All of the men were vastly improved, especially Chester Gregory who was flat out good (whereas before he was just flat.) Victoria Clark, who seemed to be doing the best she could with some lousy melodies the first time, had perhaps been having a bad night. During Friday night's performance, she sang beautifully. Her songs were still the weakest in the show; but the numbers, taken as a whole, were poignant and textured and great counter-point to the energy and intensity of the rest of the show. Patina Miller was a joyous treat both times, but she is settling into the role and is now owning the full stage, hell, the entire house, instead of just the lit portion beneath her feet. She was infectious to the back row. She is giving the best performance by an actress in a leading role in a musical this season, bar none (a fact, not a prediction.)

I suspect I will see Sister Act again. It is well-suited for out-of-town guests with a low tolerance for offense. I will, without a doubt, see Book of Mormon again and again. I am not a Catholic or a Mormon, but I am a fully-converted fan of both shows.

2010-2011 Patrick Lee Theater Blogger Award Winners

OUTSTANDING NEW BROADWAY MUSICAL

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson

OUTSTANDING NEW BROADWAY PLAY

Jerusalem

OUTSTANDING BROADWAY MUSICAL REVIVAL

Anything Goes

OUTSTANDING BROADWAY PLAY REVIVAL

The Normal Heart

OUTSTANDING NEW OFF-BROADWAY PLAY

The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity

OUTSTANDING NEW OFF-BROADWAY MUSICAL

The Kid

OUTSTANDING OFF-BROADWAY REVIVAL (PLAY OR MUSICAL)

Angels in America, Part 1: Millennium Approaches

OUTSTANDING SOLO SHOW/PERFORMANCE (ALL VENUE CATEGORIES)

Michael Shannon, Mistakes Were Made

CITATIONS FOR OUTSTANDING OFF-OFF BROADWAY SHOW

Feeder: A Love Story

Invasion!

The Caucasian Chalk Circle

Belarus Free Theater's Discover Love

Black Watch

ReWrite

UNIQUE OFF-OFF BROADWAY EXPERIENCE

Sleep No More

OUTSTANDING ENSEMBLE PERFORMANCE

The Scottsboro Boys

CITATIONS FOR EXCELLENCE BY INDIVIDUAL PERFORMERS

Nina Arianda, Born Yesterday

Laura Benanti, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

Reed Birney, A Small Fire

Christian Borle, Peter and the Starcatcher

Norbert Leo Butz, Catch Me If You Can

Bobby Cannavale, The Motherfucker with the Hat

Colman Domingo, The Scottsboro Boys

Sutton Foster, Anything Goes

Josh Gad, The Book of Mormon

Hamish Linklater, School for Lies

Joe Mantello, The Normal Heart

Arian Moayed, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo

Lily Rabe, The Merchant of Venice

Mark Rylance, Jerusalem

Michael Shannon, Mistakes Were Made

Benjamin Walker, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson

CITATION FOR EXCELLENCE IN OFF-OFF BROADWAY THEATRE

La Mama

Lucky Guy

Lucky Guy isn't everyone's cup of tea. As a matter of fact, only those with a real taste for tea will leave quenched. If the idea of an overgrown drag queen, a funny-looking little troll, and the worst camp since Dachau doesn't sound like a winning formula (and God knows the formula failed in All About Me with such resounding proof that to even consider mounting this production required balls too big to gaff), you may need to look for other reasons to see the show. The good news is, those reasons exist.

For the Varla Jean fans, Merman is in full tuck. The script utilizes her schtick to comedic effect but doesn't come close to matching the on-your-guard laughs from her solo shows. The score gives her ample opportunity to sing but doesn't fully showcase her vocal talents.

For the Leslie Jordan fans, and I count myself among those who walked in believing he could make anything funny, the writing proves me wrong. The story is so thin it loses sight of itself. The songs are neither memorable nor remarkable and are so formulaic they stole from themselves; but they are fun and occasionally funny. Willard Becham--the book, music, and lyric writer--might have done himself and the production a favor to let someone else direct.

The real reasons to see this show are the delightful performances of the most stunning quartet of male, triple threats since Jersey Boys. Callan Bergmann, Xavier Cano, Wes Hart, and Joshua Woodie sing harmonies so tight they are almost waterproof. Their dancing, taken as a group and choreographed to showcase individual abilities, fully entertains. They don't have enough collective body fat to fry a chicken. I realize that isn't a talent; but they didn't really do any acting and, when they took their shirts off (repeatedly), it was a threat to my self-esteem.

Kyle Dean Massey, so haunting and powerful in Next to Normal, was charming and vocally stunning. He was so good, he made the hokey Okie character seem genuine and sanguine instead of genuinely stupid. Massey was billed as the Lucky Guy, but I enjoyed his performance and those of the four Buckaroos so much that I considered demanding shared billing

Cabaret

Joy Yandell, Karson St. John
(photo: Daren Scott)

Spoilers Throughout. 

San Diego's excellent Cygnet theatre is presenting a problematic production of Kander and Ebb's classic musical Cabaret.

The show is preceded by a German-language sing-a-long that the director presents (I think) as playful but that made me uncomfortable. This was my first Cabaret with a largely non-Jewish audience, and being surrounded by people cheerfully singing in German in the context of a show about Nazis made the hair stand up on the back of my Jewish neck. Was I reacting reasonably or overreacting? I could make a case for either one. (The non-Jewish friend I went with sang along innocently and happily.)

The choice of a female emcee is intriguing, and Karson St. John is good (though not great) in the role, but the gender switch is undercut in a number of ways. For one example, having men in drag playing the "Two Ladies" feels like a cop-out. In addition, the Emcee's representation of evil oozing into society is played inconsistently, and having Nazi soldiers rather than the Emcee throw the brick that breaks Herr Schultz's window strikes me as a flat-out mistake.

Another problematic directorial decision was to have the "her" of "If You Could See Her Through My Eyes" be a pig rather than a gorilla, particularly since the pig is directed to behave as grossly as possible. This heavy-handed, arguably insensitive change took the song from wistfully and ironically satirical to obvious and icky. And having the Emcee put a black bag with a star of David over the pig's head completely ruins the timing and effect of "she wouldn't look Jewish at all."

And why was the Emcee dressed as Charlie Chaplin for that song? As an excuse to wear a Hitler-esque mustache? Why would Hitler be singing that song? Why would Chaplin? Why change the "her" from a gorilla to a pig? The friend I went with suggested that the director was trying to emphasize the insult to Jews, and she may be right, but it seems to me a misreading of the song.

Another problem is presenting Frauline Schneider and Herr Schultz as an almost cartoon couple in the first act; they need to be sympathetic humans. And having Frauline Schneider sing directly to the audience is wrong. She's not at the KitKat club performing; she's at home, singing non-diegetically. (That is, the character does not perceive herself as singing and has no reason to face an audience.)

I am a big fan of director Sean Murray. His Arcadia and A Little Night Music were wonderful, subtle, and sensitive. Because I know his work, I am inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt here. Many people have been blown away by the show, including a friend of mine who is Jewish. But the show left me feeling creeped out in the wrong way.

(First row, slightly to the side, full-price tix, $36 or so.)

The Normal Heart

Photo: Joan Marcus

Larry Kramer’s 1985 play The Normal Heart, currently in revival at the Golden Theater, is about as subtle and gentle as an angry camel. The characters are all spitting mad, ready to stop dead in their tracks and commence screaming into the void at the drop of a hat. The fact that what they often scream about are statistics—how much money is being spent, how much research is being done, how many men are dying painful, horrifically undignified deaths—is one of the reasons that this play is so important, but also so potentially anesthetizing. In less skilled hands, the characters could have easily become flat, and the talky, polemical dialogue less powerful than merely preachy. Yet the characters in The Normal Heart were all real people who struggled and died during the earliest years of the AIDS crisis, and whom Kramer organized with, argued with, alienated, but also loved deeply. The real grace of his play lies, then, in the careful balance he strikes between facts and feelings: this is a man who is chronicling an important history, but who experienced that history first-hand by watching his friends and lovers die terrifying, inexplicable deaths while doctors wrung their hands, politicians turned their backs, and the media focused their concerns elsewhere. The personal is never not political for Kramer, and vice-versa, and one never gets to take precedent over the other. 

The brilliance of this stellar revival lies in the sum of its parts. The set, which initially looks almost offensively nondescript—the most boring staffroom in the most maddeningly drab, bureaucratic institution you can think of—takes on a touching, increasingly meaningful life of its own. The ever-growing list of AIDS victims’ names, projected between scenes, begins with a list, in large letters, of 41 names on the backdrop at the first blackout. The lettering gets smaller and the list gets longer, and when it takes over the entire theater by the end, you know well that it’s coming, but it delivers like a two-by-four square in the face nonetheless. The direction has actors sitting in darkness watching the action taking place center-stage: ghostly memories and departed souls never stop haunting the living.

The cast has clearly worked hard to follow Kramer’s lead, and thus the actors—all of whom are terrific—strike a careful, respectful balance between the play’s politics and the people who have found themselves mired in it. Individual actors spout exposition or lurch suddenly into lengthy diatribe with regularity in this production, but never at the expense of their characters’ complexity. These people are angry, desperate and real, and the actors never forget that. While I admire Joe Mantello as a director, his interpretation of Ned Weeks makes me realize how much I’ve missed him as an actor: no one can play irritable, irritating, and endearing in quite the way that Mantello can. His habit, here, of keeping one hand jammed in his army-jacket pocket—as if he were afraid of what might happen were he to suddenly release all of the anger he holds so tightly in his fist—was a particularly effective touch. The rest of the cast is equally as strong, but the real revelation for me was John Benjamin Hickey, who, as Ned’s partner, Felix, exhibits a sexy swagger that fades slowly and excruciatingly as time passes, and eventually runs out.

Jerusalem

Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem, currently playing at the Music Box Theater, takes its name from a hymn that, according to director Ian Rickson, is held dear by the English people. “Its words,” Rickson writes in the director’s notes, “have helped form an idyllic sense of aspired Englishness.” It is quite fitting that none of the characters can remember the song, which is on the tips of their tongues until near the very end of this sweeping, insidious play. Jerusalem is about English people, yes, but it is also about a whole mess of cultural ambiguities that relate not just to England but, really, to the human condition.

Themes that run through Jerusalem are not neat or tidy; they frequently clash and sometimes directly contradict one another: The state of the nation is strong; the nation is in decline. You can’t go home again; you can’t run from your past. Same shit, different day; if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. We are a highly sophisticated species; we are, in the end, animals. Technology helps us; technology has made us emotionally disconnected idiots. See the world; there is no place like home. Cultural messages are messy, and so is Jerusalem, but in increasingly profound ways.

The central character is, like the themes of the play itself, a tangled mess of contradictions. A middle-aged, black-out drunk who has long lived illegally in a trailer on a small clearing in the woods in Wiltshire, England, Johnny “Rooster” Byron (played with scenery-chewing awesomeness by Mark Rylance) is the kind of perpetual adolescent that both English and American culture has long been fascinated with: he is equal parts Peter Pan, Stanley Kowalski, that self-destructive, brilliant guy that Kevin Bacon played in the 1982 film Diner, and that self-destructive, benignly predatory guy that Matthew McConaughey played in the 1993 film Dazed and Confused (“That’s what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.”).

Rooster spends his days drinking, partying, and creating a nuisance. As the town around him becomes more and more upscale, a growing number of locals voice their desire for Rooster to simply go away; the local government would prefer this, too, since there are plans to develop his patch of woods into a housing development. All this doesn’t stop many of the locals from buying drugs from Rooster, whose trailer has for decades been a place where local teens hang out, get high, and listen to Rooster’s tall-tales. The fact that most of the kids who kill time gobbling drugs and guzzling booze with Rooster are safer with him than they are in their own homes is just one more of the many contradictions this play toys with.

Another is the characters’ tortured relationships with both the past and the future. Rooster’s tall-tales are the only things that make the past interesting for many of these characters, whose lives all exhibit a deadening sameness that is clearly never going to change. Rooster has done nothing but swagger around his trailer since the early 1980s; his behavior is beginning to catch up with him, but he’s utterly incapable of changing into anyone else, except perhaps, eventually, The Professor (Alan David, hilarious and terrifying), a senile, alcoholic professor emeritus who wanders frequently through Rooster’s woods in a blithely befuddled search for Mary, who might be a dog, or his long-dead wife. Ginger (Mackenzie Crook, also hilarious and terrifying), a man in his early 20s, is as close as one can be to Rooster, which is not very close at all; Ginger is clearly a Rooster-in-training, and while Rooster is well aware of this fact, Ginger is not.

The rest of Rooster’s entourage consists of a group of stubbornly provincial teenagers, who don’t hesitate to mock him behind his back. Like Ginger, they have no intention of admitting to themselves that they, too, will be Rooster one day, and ridiculing him helps them keep such realizations at a distance. While many of the kids, like Davey (Danny Kirrane, very good), never question their humdrum, lackluster lives, a few, like Lee (John Gallagher, Jr., fine, but could use a few more sessions with his dialect coach), dream of leaving home to seek adventure on their own. There are plenty of girls around to party with and, occasionally, to fuck; alas, I would have liked to have heard more from at least one of them.

Butterworth never dashes his characters’ chances of making changes, but always makes absolutely clear just how hard real change can be. This is especially the case when complacency is, if boring, also so comfortable, and the past—at least as reinvented by Rooster—so awesome and powerful. Rooster’s actual past—which has resulted in a young son that he’s utterly incapable of caring for or even relating to, and at least one ex-lover, the boy’s mother (Geraldine Hughes, heartbreaking), who views Rooster with contemptuous disappointment—is pathetic, and very much his fault. So he takes refuge in tall-tales, which take on a growing desperation as the future closes in on him.

Butterworth doesn’t tie up all the loose ends at the end of Jerusalem. Which is as it should be: how can one solve a nation’s identity crisis, resolve the human condition, untangle the mess of cultural baggage, and explain the appeal of suspended adolescence in a mere three-plus hours?