This Is Fiction

The InViolet Rep is presenting a little gem of a play down at the Cherry Lane. It's called This Is Fiction, and it's written by Megan Hart and directed by Shelley Butler. It's not a perfect gem; it could use a little polishing. But it's a damn good play in a damn good production.

Aubyn Philabaum, Michelle David
Photo: Jason White

The plot echos two recent shows. A grown daughter comes home with the announcement that she has written/is writing a piece about the family. In the still-running Miracle on South Division Street, it's a one-woman show. In the recently shuttered Other Desert Cities, it's a memoir. In This If Fiction, it's a novel, an important difference. As Amy (the excellent, quietly intense Aubyn Philabaum) points out, and as the title of the play reiterates, her version is fiction. (The choice to name the play itself This Is Fiction is intriguing. Is that a message to some of Hart's own family members?)

Another difference is that the story she's writing is nothing out of the ordinary--no big reveals, no shocking secrets, just her version of growing up in a flawed family with moments of love, neglect, and high drama. But her father (the touching Richard Masur), who is ill, and her sister Celia, who takes care of him, don't want their story shared with the entire world--even a fictionalized version.

Hart offers us a quietly realistic depiction of real people struggling with real people's problems. Her play is full of recognizable moments, as when the family's response to the lack of "dumpling sauce" with take-out dumplings offers a glance at simmering resentments and long-established allegiances. And she chooses no favorites; each daughter has a legitimate ax to grind, and the father's refusal to grind axes is also legitimate.

Hart's dialogue is a nice mix of lyrical and natural, with the lyrical moments never going beyond the language each character would know and use. (Example: "But did you really have to use me as your buffer? Or--not even a buffer--more like one of those blow-up bumpers that line the gutters at a bowling alley--yeah. You know--just the thing you bounce off of on your way to wherever you're trying to get.) Much of her writing is funny, though always with an underlying poignancy. In one exchange that stands out for me, Amy says to Celia, "I hate you." And Celia responds, "That’s not true. And the feeling's mutual."

The show loses its way a bit in some of the sisters' discussions, which occasionally get a little repetitive. And the breaks between scenes take too long. (This seems to be a new theatrical style, and it's consistently annoying. One director explained to me that she wanted to give the audience time to think, but all we're thinking is, get back to the play!) The bookstore could be suggested with far less scenery, and the passage of time could be shown much more efficiently. Also, it's not always clear which parts of the scene changes are and aren't meant to reflect the reality of the play. (If Amy and the father really left the cleaning up of dinner for Celia, Celia would have every right to murder them both--and would be let off by a jury of her peers.)

Michele David does full justice to Celia's anger and complexity. Bernardo Cubría is charming as Amy's potential boyfriend. Leon Rothenberg's original music is nice, but scene changes shouldn't be extended to match its length. Ashley Gardner's costumes add much to our understanding of the characters.

This Is Fiction is small and sensitive and true and ultimately more affecting than most of the plays that have made it to Broadway in the past few years.

(press ticket; second row on the aisle)

4000 Miles

Photo: Erin Baiano

Amy Herzog's 4000 Miles is a quiet, warm, delicate little play, inhabited by very real characters. It is also seamless, in the way that not very many plays are: there is no big, stagy moment near the end when a character turns to the light and reveals a big secret. Emotional healing does not clearly begin as the final curtain comes down. There is no carefully-paced lead-up to a stunning, shocking conclusion. No one learns about themselves or others in a way that is particularly big, or profound. Vera is old, but she does not die at the end; Leo is young, but he does not die--in an ironic twist!--either. There is, in short, no big catharsis; despite the largeness that the play's title implies, not a whole lot of big happens as 4000 Miles runs its course. What makes up the most of 4000 Miles is, instead, a whole mess of subtle, graceful, carefully understated realizations and confusions, emotional gains and setbacks, triumphs and disappointments. They make for a particularly satisfying visit to the Mitzi Newhouse Theater.

Amy Herzog is too interested in keeping it real to force anything on her characters except the general ebbs and flows of daily life, even during slightly trying or confusing times. Thus, her characters interact, bicker, make up, connect, disconnect, reconnect, and help or hurt each other in tiny, lingering ways as a few days--maybe a few weeks--go by. The fact that spending time with them is moving and interesting, that they are so complicated and flawed and likeable, and that the intermissionless show moves along so quickly despite the many silences, mundane conversations, and unanswered questions is a testament to Herzog and the fine, fine cast.

Most of the conversations--as well as the halting, heavy silences--take place between Leo (a wiry, tightly-wound, excellent Gabriel Ebert) and his grandmother, Vera Joseph (Mary Louise Wilson, as close to perfect as is possible). Leo, a particularly lost 20-something, has just completed a cross-country bike-ride that he began with a close friend and completed alone. He shows up unannounced at Vera's Manhattan apartment at 3:00 AM, filthy, exhausted, and just a little too upbeat and enthusiastic, given the circumstances. Vera, whose occasional memory lapses and inability to remember certain words has in no way deprived her of whip-smart insight, takes pains not to push Leo to talk, but merely sends him to take a shower and then to get some sleep.

As the two settle in, we learn about them both through conversation and silence. They have plenty in common, despite the obvious generational differences: both are politically leftist and socially very liberal; both struggle with Jane, who is Leo's mom and Vera's stepdaughter. Both are enormously self-centered and small-minded in some ways, and just as enormously sympathetic, kindhearted, and open to the world in others. And, most importantly, both are in mourning: Vera for most of the people she knows, who seem to die on her daily, and Leo for the friend he began his cross-country bike-ride with.

They're both in mourning for the past, too. Vera has long ago realized that life doesn't quite work out the way one is convinced it will when one is idealistic and young; Leo is only just beginning to struggle with the ways that his ideologies--and the friendships he's formed around them--have begun to crumble, to betray him, to die. Leo's girlfriend, Bec (Zoe Winters, rock-solid), who lives in Brooklyn, has begun to think more seriously about college, and to ponder a future that doesn't necessarily include him. Leo, stung by the rejection, is nevertheless far more perturbed by the realization that he, too, is eventually going to need to put away childish things and begin the painful, hugely daunting process of becoming a grownup. Scenes near the end of the play involving a particularly ditzy, drunk artist (Greta Lee, dead-on) and Vera's unseen, elderly neighbor strongly imply that Leo is already on his way to becoming a perfectly fine grownup; while this might reassure the audience--I was certainly happy to know it--it does nothing for Leo, who hasn't arrived at adulthood yet, and whose growing pains haven't abated by the final curtain.

Herzog refuses to tidy everything up for us by the end of her play, which leaves her characters more or less the same as they were when we found them: a little damaged, a little sad, but no more or less so than anyone else. It's no spoiler to note that Vera and Leo are ultimately going to move on, too: Leo will not be crashing at his grandmother's place forever, and while this makes Vera very sad, it also pleases her. Neither she nor Leo is happy about the act of letting go, even though they both know and accept that ultimately, life is just as much about embracing as it is about releasing the embrace.

Kaye Ballard at Feinstein's

If you are a Kaye Ballard fan and didn't get to see her Sunday, now is the time to bug her and Feinstein's about her coming back for a week or two. Because, really, you have to see her.

From the second she enters the room--to tumultuous applause--to the second she leaves, Ballard is entertainment personified, old school. First, she is funny. Very very very funny. Her material isn't exactly new, but it doesn't matter. Even the oldest, hoariest bits sparkle again when presented with her wry smile, twinkling eye, and master timing.

Her singing voice is pretty much shot, but she manages to do well by a number of songs anyway. (I could have done with less singing.) Her Mabel Mercer impression is spot on according to my friend who saw Mercer many times--and completely delightful even to those of us who never did.

Ballard has an array of beguiling show biz anecdotes. I had no idea that "Maybe This Time" was written for her (although as "Maybe Next Time"). I had no idea that Ballard was one of the originators of "Lazy Afternoon" from The Golden Apple. And her story about Sophie Tucker's response to Ballard's imitation of her is everything you'd want it to be.

The pertinent point is this: overall, Kaye Ballard remains the energetic, entertaining, delightful performer she has always been.


(press ticket; by the door)

Love Goes to Press

Imagine that someone told you that you were about to see a play about female war correspondents in World War II, written by Martha Gellhorn and Virginia Cowles, who had actually been female war correspondents in WWII. What would you expect?

Chances are that you wouldn't expect Love Goes to Press (a title not chosen by the authors and described by Gellhorn as "odious"), a three-act play that combines, not always successfully, war, romance, comedy, and farce.

Heidi Armbruster (top), Angela Pierce
Photo: Richard Termine

The play, which was a hit in London just after the war, was a flop in New York soon after. When Gellhorn read the reviews, she wrote, "I must say I agree with them that it was a very minor piece of work, but what I can't quite understand is why they seemed so angry about it." Years later, she wrote "Everyone in those London audiences knew about real war; they had lived through it, either in uniform or as embattled civilians. Knowing the real thing, they were free to laugh at this comic, unreal version of war. . . . Laughter was lifesaving escape. Theater tickets were inexpensive, and a theater was warm because of all the bodies in it. New York was something else."

Some 65 years after its premiere, how does the play hold up? In The Mint's strong but uneven production, Love Goes to Press is a pleasant evening in the theatre,  perhaps more rewarding historically than theatrically. And although I know it is my role to evaluate what Gellhorn and Cowles actually wrote, instead of what I wish they had written, I still wish they had given us a less "minor piece of work." It turns out that they didn't pen this play to express themselves in any real way--they wrote it to make money. Which they didn't. Oh well.

The plot, such as it is, is simple: Annabelle Jones and Jane Mason are war correspondents who have been friends for years. Currently they are in Italy, trying to cover the Allies' attempt to break through the German line at "Mount Sorrello," a fictional version of Monte Cassino. In contrast to many of the male correspondents, who seem happy to stay at the press camp, the women want to go where the action is and provide actual first-hand reporting. They utilize a combination of smarts, wiliness, and manipulation to try to achieve their aims. However, each is bothered by a man who gets in her way (Mason's is head of the press camp; Jones's is her ex-husband) . . .

. . . and, despite the men's intrusiveness, disrespect, and general annoyingness, the women love them.

This is played for laughs, and it is often funny--but it's also kind of bizarre. Even by the mores of the day and the setup of the play, these women are much too smart to be that stupid--particularly the one whose love interest has the bad habit of stealing her stories.

It doesn't help that director Jerry Ruiz's direction fails to set a consistent tone. The storyline is challenging, granted, with its combination of "those boys are so brave," and "I'm a giggling actress visiting the front lines," and "I want to make a difference in the world but I love you," and "I love you but I want you to be a completely different person," and so on. But, for example, the addition of sudden sappy music every time two particular characters meet is distracting, and I wish Ruiz had not allowed (or asked) Rob Breckenridge to play his role as a cartoon (it's a legit interpretation but doesn't mesh with the other performances). On the other hand, the love scene while bombs are exploding nearby is nicely done, and Ruiz's pacing keeps the show energetic and interesting.

The cast has a lot to offer--in particular, Angela Pierce and Heidi Armbruster as the two leads. Steven C. Kemp's set manages to be quite attractive while also being realistically raw and rundown. Andrea Varga's costumes are just right for the people and time period--and becoming as well--and Christian DeAngelis's lighting is appropriately evocative.

To learn about the realities of being a female war correspondent from the 1930s on, your best bet would be to read Cowles's and Gellhorn's reporting and books. For a fun and silly riff on the same topic, you could do worse than Love Goes to Press.

(fifth row center; press ticket)

Introduction

Howdy! I'm Jamie Fuller and I'm thrilled to be writing for Show Showdown!

A little about me - I'm getting ready to start my MFA in Stage Management at the University of Illinois's Krannert Center. So far, my theatre experience has been community and college theatres, as well as writing reviews on my own theatre blog, so moving toward both Krannert and writing for Show Showdown is a lot of exciting changes at once! I've stage managed (obviously), crewed everything, acted a bit, and, just this February, directed my first show and loved every minute. I adore anything to do with theatre and if it's on stage, I probably have something to say about it.

My reviews will be a bit different from the typical Show Showdown fare because 1. I've only been to New York once and 2. I live in Illinois. I'll be covering traveling companies, some Chicago theatre, local Illinois theatres, and wherever my summer internships take me.

Rock of Ages

Hey, kids, remember the '80s? Hair metal ruled MTV! The Sunset Strip was one big wild party! Banging your head was cool, and so were long, teased, wild hair and blue eyeshadow and thigh-high boots! Also, Reagan was president, greed was good, there was that Where's the Beef commercial, and that movie Ghostbusters was, like, totally hilarious! Remember?

I have long avoided seeing Rock of Ages for a couple of reasons, the largest being that when it started its run Off Broadway in 2008, I was at the tail end of a self-imposed break from rock musicals. This break started in 2006 when I finished my first book, which is all about rock musicals. By the time the book went to press, I was so tired of seeing, thinking about, and researching rock musicals that the very thought of visiting one made me agitated. And rock musicals are supposed to be fun and rockin', and I knew that if I went to any, I'd be sour and overly critical. So I stayed away. The break worked--I'm back to thinking about rock musicals, wondering how they've been doing, even considering writing about them again. In short, I've missed them, much the way one starts to miss a dear friend they had a falling-out with so long ago that they can no longer remember why they fought in the first place. I picked a good time to return to my old scopic stomping grounds, I guess: the movie version of Rock of Ages is about to open, and the hype has resulted in sold-out houses--and highly enthusiastic crowds--at the teeny, beautiful little Helen Hayes Theater on 44th street, where the Broadway version has been running since it moved from the larger Atkinson in March 2011. I'm not gonna lie: I had fun and was glad I finally saw it. [Editor's note: Liz's book is The Theatre Will Rock.]

But I'm also not gonna lie about how unbelievably stupid and sloppy and occasionally, if inadvertently, offensive it is. Especially since what I say won't matter: no one would ever go to this show for a deep, inspired night at the theater. Nope: this show promises that you'll get "nothin' but a good time," and there's ample energy expended toward that end. The Hayes is plastered with posters of hair bands, booze, and scantily clad women with big hair draped over various shiny cars. Bars on both the orchestra and mezzanine levels remain open during the show, and at least last night, many members of the audience took appropriate advantage of that fact. The cast works hard at having fun and entertaining, and while many chorus members seem to have been cast for their dancing ability and not for their voices, there's a lot of talent up on the stage.

Also, there are a lot of laugh-out-loud funny jokes and self-referential humor about how ridiculous and excessive the '80s hair metal scene was, and also about how ridiculous a Broadway musical about hair metal is, if you bother to think about it. Which some of the characters do, at length, smack in the middle of the show, at about the time the plot falls to pieces. Not like there is much of a plot anyway. Actually, that's not true--there's a ton of plot. Too much, maybe, to be carried by the generous handful of earnest rockers and pop-metal ballads that cram the show. But for what it's worth, here's what happens. Spoiler alert! Nah, fuck it, just kidding.

Drew, a nice kid with big hair and a dream, works as a busboy at the Bourbon Room, a divy bar on the Sunset Strip owned by the slightly sleazy but ultimately goodhearted Dennis Dupree. Dennis's right-hand-man, the similarly icky-but-ultimately-cool sound- and light-man, Lonny Barnett, narrates the story. The Bourbon originally nurtured the now-famous metal band Arsenal, fronted by wildman Stacee Jaxx. When Sherrie Christian, an innocent young blonde from Kansas, arrives on the Strip to follow her dream of becoming an actress, she lands a waitressing job at the Bourbon, and she and Drew develop feelings for one another.

But wait! Many, many, many problems arise! The mayor of LA is visited by a German guy named Hertz and his son, Franz, who propose ridding the Sunset Strip of its evil rock and roll, and building strip malls there instead. The mayor goes for it, but the city planner, a career protester named Regina, gets upset and chains herself to the Bourbon. Dennis refuses to close the Bourbon despite the offer of a lot of money from the city, so the Germans take the deed to the place by force. Dennis invites Stacee Jaxx and Arsenal, which has just announced their breakup, back to give their last concert. This, he figures, might generate enough money and attention to save the Bourbon.

Stacee shows up to the strains of Bon Jovi's "Blaze of Glory." He is insufferably arrogant, rapacious, and utterly depraved--and he sweeps Sherrie off her feet. Just as Drew takes the stage to open for Arsenal, thereby getting his big break, Stacee leads Sherrie off to the men's room for some meaningful intimacy. After having sex with her and before taking the stage, he demands that Sherrie be fired, because he's decided that "her energy is totally toxic and she shits on my soul." Lonnie fires Sherrie who, with little convincing, accepts a job offer from Justice Charlier, the owner of the nearby strip club. Drew is signed by a record producer who changes his image and makes him part of a boy band. As Act I ends, Lonnie explains to the audience that everything is always pretty fucked up by intermission when it comes to musicals.

But in act II, as expected, everything ends up ok: Hertz and Franz begin to destroy the Strip, but when Franz falls in love with Regina, they decide to return to Germany and follow their dreams instead. Stacee Jaxx shows up for a lapdance from Sherrie, whom he harasses enough that she punches him and runs off, whereupon Justice encourages her to reunite with Drew. Drew disses his record producer and takes a job as a pizza delivery boy. He and Sherrie run into one another and, after a few more twists and turns, live happily ever after. Lonnie and Dennis realize their secret love for each other as they contemplate the loss of their club, but then Hertz and Franz give the deed to the Bourbon back, and the Bourbon, too, lives happily ever after. Stacee Jaxx hits on a middle-school girl and is then forced to flee the country. PAAAAAAAARTYYYYY! ROCK AND ROLLLLLLLLL!

Sounds fun, right? It is. It's cute, if a little plot-heavy for such a light, sweet confection. I found the whole Regina-Hertz-Franz plotline expendable, in particular, and suspect that the show could be cut down significantly without anyone missing much. Rock of Ages felt a little too long for what it was.

What bothered me the most about Rock of Ages, though, was not its messy, multi-tentacled plot, but its almost aggressive social conservatism. The show makes fun of the time period: the overly wrought anthems, the big hair, the spandex and gaudy makeup. This is stuff that's totally ripe for the mockery, and Rock of Ages mocks it with appropriate, gentle good humor. What it never does, however, is question the fairly rigid gender constructs of the time, which are, I think, also well overdue for some mockery. But Rock of Ages inadvertently swallows, part and parcel, the notion that the tight clothes, big hair, and even the androgyny was a means toward a particularly hypermasculine, hypersexual end. Some of the aging characters--particularly Lonnie and Dennis--are teased, affectionately, for being aging horndogs who seem increasingly pathetic surrounded by a sea of youthful testosterone, but this same sort of commentary is never really extended to the female characters, who usually seem to drive the action forward merely by writhing, gyrating, and undulating for the men on the stage (and, of course, for the audience) like so many Tawny Kitaens. Even Sherrie, the romantic female lead, spends most of her time mooning over Drew or Stacee, or, when she joins Justice's strip club, humping a pole.

The two women who don't engage in such antics depart from the groupie stereotype only to embrace other stereotypes: Regina is the Shrill, Angry, Misguided Leftist, who impedes progress with her tree (or in this case, Bourbon Room) hugging. (And, yeah, I know it's all in fun, but the wacky joke about her self-immolation at the end of the show is beyond not funny.) Justice, too, embraces a stereotype that I'm sick to hell of seeing, and wish would stop on the Great White Way: The  earthy, soulful, big black mamma, who seems to exist solely to sing a bluesy shouter late in act II that helps young white people fix their lives.

The show also included a serious throwback in the character of Franz, who is a particularly hateful prototype: the flailing, lisping, limp-wristed fairy. The big joke with Franz is that he turns out to not be gay...just German! Hi-fucking-LARIOUS: One small-minded empty threat, neatly replaced for another! He ain't no faggot--he's a furrner, ain't that cute? I'm all for having fun--and as I've said, I did--but the reaction to Franz by the audience, which just screamed with laughter at his every hissy, prissy flail, genuinely made me uncomfortable. The implication that Lonnie and Dennis secretly love one another was slightly subtler, but only in the way that those particularly horrible seasons on SNL that featured some sort of juvenile gay joke or agonizingly extended gay punchline in every single sketch were subtle.

I get the sense from the previews of the film that Hollywood has addressed the overt sexism in the show by making Sherrie the aspiring rocker, and not Drew. I don't expect Hollywood to do anything to improve the depictions of gay characters, and while it's promising that Justice is played by the ass-kicking Mary J. Blige, I'll withhold judgment on that front, too. I really hope for some softening of this stuff, and I intend to see the film to find out. Because at the end of the day, and after all of my obligatory gripes about the social implications of Rock of Ages, I think it's only fair to acknowledge that as I've been writing, I've been listening without a break to music by Bon Jovi, Journey, and Poison. So what the hell do I know? I guess every rose DOES have its thorn.