Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill

When one monstrously talented person impersonates another monstrously talented person, the desire to resort to cliches doubles in intensity. And since seeing Audra McDonald in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill on Tuesday evening, I admit I've been struggling with ways to talk about the show that don't resort to trite blathering about how incredible and heartbreaking Holiday was, or how incredible and heartbreaking McDonald's portrayal of her is.

But believe me when I tell you that every single blathery, trite, cliched superlative I can come up with applies here. At least when it comes to McDonald's performance, which is brilliant, sublime, superb, extraordinary.

The show itself is not quite as superlative, but I don't think that matters, at least not in this case. There have been other productions that I can't speak to: Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill premiered in Atlanta in 1986 and opened Off Broadway at the Vineyard in the same year (S. Epatha Merkerson, later of Law & Order fame, took over for Lonette McKee as Holiday during that year-long run). It has been bouncing around the country in regional productions ever since. I can understand why--Lady Day is small and easily staged, and it allows for black, female actresses to take on a challenging, interesting character.

After all, Billie Holiday is, in the end, just the leading character of this show--a fictionalized one based closely on the real woman. What we see of Holiday in Lady Day is playwright Lanie Robertson's reimagining of a concert she gave to seven audience members at a rundown bar in South Philadelphia in March 1959. A few months later, Holiday would die at 44 of cirrhosis of the liver and heart disease, both the result of excessive drinking and heroin use. It has been pointed out by other critics that at this point in her life, Holiday probably would have been completely unintelligible, totally ravaged, impossible to listen to. It has also been pointed out that the real Holiday was a famously private performer who suffered recurring bouts of stage fright, and that she certainly wouldn't have chatted amicably and at great length between songs as she does here. 

The 68th Annual Tony Awards

See Hugh Jackman hop. See Hugh Jackman hop some more. Watch minutes pass that could have been devoted to a number from Bridges of Madison County. Wonder why Jackman is stealing a not-interesting bit from a movie. Remember last year's fabulous opening number. Wish Neil Patrick Harris could be in two places at one time.

Be really bored by the gay jokes. Wonder why Jackman, a man whose facial hair is possibly not his only beard, would tell quite so many.

Be really glad at the open same-sex affection.

See After Midnight's number be ruined by random camera work. See Aladdin be simultaneously overenergetic and underinteresting. See Rocky be the same. See Les Miz land like a second-rate middle-school production. Feel pummeled when Nikki James sings. See Violet's number fail to express its essential (and wonderful) Violet-ness.

See Hugh Jackman do something annoying. See Hugh Jackman do something else annoying. See Hugh Jackman fail to understand that it is not the Hugh Jackman show.

Post-Tony Snark

The Tony Awards are always my favorite awards ceremony, but this year they really pissed me off. And while I am the first to argue that the Tonys are never an accurate barometer of the broader state of commercial theater in New York or anywhere, I was nevertheless dismayed by the direction last night's broadcast chose to take.

Generally speaking, Broadway has been in a weird place for the past, oh, near-century or so. Once an epicenter for popular culture in this country, Broadway has been struggling to reclaim its legitimacy since at least the 1950s, when rock and roll came along and sent Tin Pan Alley packing. I sympathize--it's tough to be made to feel like you're past your prime. Thus, while I can be snarky and loudly critical sometimes, I'm nevertheless fairly supportive of whatever the theater industry chooses to do to keep musicals alive and relevant, not only because I love and believe in the theater (commercial and otherwise), but because, selfishly, I want to patronize it as much as I possibly can and would have to find something else to do with my life were it to go away.

That being said, last night's ceremony seemed to be imitating the bigger ceremonies--the Academy Awards, specifically--in ways that it shouldn't. I hope that next year's broadcast doesn't think these things were worth revisiting:

Much Ado About Nothing

The many productions of Much Ado About Nothing I have seen boasted wonderful Beatrices or wonderful Benedicks, but not since Sam Waterson and Kathleen Widdoes in the glorious AJ Antoon version (available on DVD) have I seen a wonderful Beatrice-Benedick pair.

Hamish Linklater, Lily Rabe
Photo: Tammy Shell

Last night, I went into the New York Shakespeare Festival production at the Delacorte, starring Lily Rabe and Hamish Linklater, with optimism. Both performers are excellent, funny, likeable, and comfortable with Shakespearean language. Would they make the sexy, smart, evenly matched couple I've been hoping for since the 1970s?

Yes! They are everything I hoped for. Add to that smooth direction by Jack O'Brien, gorgeous design by John Lee Beatty, and nice acting by a largely strong cast, and this is a Much Ado to see.

Since I saw the third performance, it would be premature to give a full review, particularly in terms of any weaknesses (which were minimal). But it's not too early to say: get thee to the Delacorte.

And, speaking of the Delacorte--what a magical place it is! I've seen over a dozen shows there, some more than once, and every single time I walk up the stairs and into the theatre, my heart says Wow!

(won tickets in the lottery; row U, extreme audience right)

Song of Spider-Man

Song of Spider-Man--or, as it is more fully know in these post-colon-crazy days: Song of Spider-Man: The Inside Story of the Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History--is a must-read for anyone who is interested in musical theatre. Not because it's brilliant (it isn't) or incredibly insightful (ditto), but because it's engrossing and it exists. (For a long and thoughtful review by Liz Wollman, click here.)

I wish there were "making of" books or documentaries for dozens, if not hundreds, of shows, and I'm always grateful when one appears. In addition, Song of Spider-Man has the great advantage of being straight from one of the horse's mouths. Author Glen Berger cowrote Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark with director-creator Julie Taymor.

On the other hand, the glaring limit of any book like this--any memoir, really--is not knowing whether the writer is a reliable narrator of her or his own life. As recent research on memory has shown, even the most honest writer will still be wrong part of the time. Add to the weakness of human memory the strength of human ego, and all memoirs-autobiographies must be taken with Gibralter-sized grains of salt. My guess, and obviously it's a just a guess, is that Berger works extremely hard to be as honest as possible, and that his stories are nevertheless just as prey to the whims of memory as anybody else's.

The Tonys are coming! The Tonys are coming!

Oh, my heart is filled with joy!

This year, more than perhaps any other, the race is wide open, just about every Tony award is up for grabs, and no one knows what the hell is going on.  Nevertheless, the good people at Oxford University Press asked me to write about the awards for their blog, so I did. You can link to the post RIGHT HERE. 

And remember what I said: don't give professed experts, futurists, or mind-readers any money, or let them set up a Tony pool for you. Unless it has something to do with NPH winning an award or Hugh Jackman being fabulous. Everybody loves those dudes.