Placebo

Carrie Coon and Florencia Lozano
photo: Joan Marcus

I can’t stand people who talk during a performance. It demonstrates rudeness in the extreme and an utter lack of consideration for the enjoyment of fellow audience members. Yet when the man sitting next to me at Placebo, the new play by Melissa James Gibson, currently in previews at Playwrights Horizons, turned to his wife and whispered, “this is one of those plays where everyone just sits around and whines,” I couldn’t help but nod and agree. (Though in the future, sir, please save your commentary for after the show).

An Octoroon

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' An Octoroon is one of those plays that is so excellent, challenging, insightful and funny that it leaves me with the desire to see it again immediately, several times even, and also to read it a couple of times for good measure. It's one of the strongest and most satisfying shows I've seen in a while. It serves as a reminder of the fact that as a nation, we tend not to talk meaningfully, effectively, or straightforwardly about race, and that our inability to do so makes our ugly racial past bleed into our present. It does all this without crushing the possibility of frank talk or real, productive change. And it's really fucking funny.

While not a straightforward history lesson, An Octoroon does a seamless job of demonstrating to its audiences some of the ways our distant past and immediate present remain entwined. The show simultaneously reconstructs, comments upon, and updates aspects of Dion Boucicault's 1859 melodrama The Octoroon, which was, in the states, second only in popularity to the big commercial blockbuster of the time, the melodramatization of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Clearly, as it remains now, race was on a lot of American peoples' minds during the leadup to the Civil War. Go figure.

Jacobs-Jenkins' Talmudic reworking of the Boucicault piece is at once respectful to and critical of the original, and through it, An Octoroon compares past performance styles, social mores, views on race (and class and gender), and collective national consciousness with their contemporary equivalents. Lots has changed; lots hasn't. The production is unsettling, and even disorienting at times--especially since Jacobs-Jenkins doesn't let his audience get too caught up in the comedic aspects of the show before abruptly reminding us about what we're laughing at in the first place. He also refuses to tie up all the loose ends he and Boucicault have introduced in the process. There are just so many, after all--and as a collective, contemporary Americans are still trying to figure out, a century and a half after slavery ended, who is allowed to approach them, and in what ways, let alone how we are supposed to work them out once we do.

I am humbled by and grateful for An Octoroon. I hope you run right out and see it if you can. I hope it continues to be staged, seen, and discussed. And for the love of this stained, strained country, I hope like hell it's not the only contemporary American theatrical entertainment to do so.

On the 20th Century

Yup, I'm with Cameron on this one.

The Roundabout's revival of On the 20th Century, currently in previews, is delightful in its embrace of a whole mess of contradictions. The cast is having a loose, giggly, slapsticky good time, which doesn't mean that they aren't, to a one, professional as hell. The show itself is pretty dumb. But it's also so fast-paced, charming, and sharply staged that you won't bother to think about how many holes there are in the plot until well after you've left the theater.

And even then, seriously, who cares when there are four totally awesome tap-dancing porters who introduce and conclude the acts? Or when Mark Linn-Baker does a truly brilliant spit-take in the second act? Or when Andy Karl, late of Rocky fame, gets smashed repeatedly behind a door? Or when he uses Kristin Chenoweth as a human barbell? This show is comedy gold, people. COMEDY GOLD.

Peter Gallagher is still not back on stage, though when he is, I am sure he, too, will contribute to the overall madcap grooviness of this revival. Gallagher's understudy, James Moye, is not as chiseled or as glib as Gallagher can be, but he sounded terrific, and infused the role of Oscar Jaffe with a fine mix of clueless arrogance, melodrama and desperation. And as Letitia Primrose, Mary-Louise Wilson is a titch understated in act I, but then, as a result, the revelations about her character, revealed in a riveting extended ensemble number in act II, are that much more enjoyable.

Then, of course, there's Kristin Chenoweth, who is her own wonderful mess of contradictions: she's a teeny, tiny, classically beautiful woman with an absolute monster of a voice and seemingly no hangups about looking totally ridiculous when the role calls for it. As a result of her disarming goofiness, she comes across as warmer and less intimidating than some of her contemporaries; this quality is milked to great effect during a showstopper in act I, where she brings the house down just by looking out at it. Chenoweth's a great physical comedian with notably good timing, and in this case, she's working with a whole bunch of people for whom I might say the same.

On the 20th Century is hardly the deepest or most layered thing you'll see in your life--or even, probably, during the course of the day you see it. But the cast and company know that, and they don't give a rat's ass. They just want to have a good time while they're traveling on the train between Chicago and New York--and to get you to elicit a couple of genuine belly laughs as you sit back and watch them go. 

Why Can't Women Play Men's Roles as Frequently as Men Play Women's?

I stumbled across this casting call for Doctor Faustus on Playbill.com, and a fascinating document it is. It gives the salary for actors doing shows at CSC (not much), discusses how much double-casting they're doing, and gives hints of the tone the show will take.

Sarah Bernhardt as Hamlet

It also reveals, as so often happens, that the men get all sorts of interesting roles (devil, clown, doctor) with all sorts of interesting things to do. The one women, however, is to be "Female, 20’s. Vision of loveliness, incomparably beautiful. Sexy, pin-up girl. Possible nudity."

Yes, of course Doctor Faustus was written centuries ago, and that's a pretty typical role for a woman in those days. (And not even actually for a woman, since it was likely played by a man.) But it's the 21st Century, and nontraditional casting is one of the glories of modern theatre. However, that nontraditional casting is often limited to two types: (1) people of color playing roles that are not traditionally played by people of color, and (2) men playing women. 

For some reason, having women play men is a lot less frequent, but why? Why couldn't a woman play any of these roles in Doctor Faustus?

• WAGNER: Narrator of the play; A more refined and learned clown; Faustus’s servant.
• MEPHISTOPHILIS: A devil called on by Faustus. Depressed clerk who has worked at the same desk job for all these years.
• A clown; brazen fool, but not without native wit.
• Another clown / bumpkin; a complete idiot, innocence incarnate and a dupe; loveable and dangerously daft.
• The Devil; kind by temperament, but firm; likeable.
• An almost absent presence, like a wayward son or disaffected teen.
• Versatile utility actor, comedic clown.

Fashions for Men

Bravo to the Mint!

Once again, the Mint has revived and revitalized a neglected play with respect, creativity, fine acting, excellent direction, and knockout scenery and costumes. This time around it is Fashions for Men, by Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár, author of Lilliom (turned by Rodgers and Hammerstein into Carousel), The Guardsman (Lunt and Fontanne starred in the original Broadway production and the movie) , and The Play's the Thing (seen periodically in New York in the adaptation by P. G. Wodehouse).

Fashions for Men opens in a Hungarian habadashery shop owned and operated by Peter Juhász. Juhász is so kind that he cannot bear to stop offering credit to a poor aristocrat who will never pay him back, even though the shop is having financial problems. Also working at the shop are Juhász's wife Adele and his friend Oscar, who love him dearly--but not as dearly as they love each other. We also meet a fiercely loyal clerk who has worked for Juhász for years, another employee who wants desperately to be rich, the much older count who loves her, and an array of customers. The plot is in some ways predictable and in others surprising, but always engaging and satisfying.

John & Jen

It is a wonderful thing that John & Jen exists. Written in the early 1990s, it was never going to be a huge hit or a big money-maker. Clearly Andrew Lippa (music and book) and Tom Greenwald (lyrics and book) simply had something to say, and a unique way to say it. The story of Jen and her brother John and then Jen and her son John, it addresses serious themes of abuse and the meaning of love, and the heavy parts outweigh the light ones. It is largely sung, and it covers nearly 40 years. Many of the songs are excellent: funny, sad, emotional, informative, silly, etc, as needed. Some are beautiful.

Kate Baldwin, Conor Ryan
Photo: Carol Rosegg

And it is a wonderful thing that Keen Company is presenting this strong revival. Kate Baldwin is lovely as Jen, and Conor Ryan does an excellent job as both Johns. All in all, this is a piece of work that should be seen.

That being said, I have to admit that I didn't much like it. I admired it tremendously, but I was never quite emotionally involved. I think this is due to the book, which I found problematical.

[here be spoilers]
The show begins with John sitting quietly. He seems to be a young adult. Jen says something along the lines of "can you forgive me?" Then we go back to their childhood, with Jen striving to protect John from their abusive father and promising to always be there for him. But when Jen goes off to college, she ignores John for years as she lives the '60s full out, and he ends up allied with their father. John joins the army, goes to Vietnam, dies.