How I Learned to Drive

Photograph: Joan Marcus

Li'l Bit--one of the two central characters in How I Learned to Drive, Paula Vogel's funny, smart, deeply disturbing memory play currently in revival at Second Stage--comes of age in rural Maryland during the 1960s and early 1970s, at a time when the country stopped making much sense. This is fine, really, because Li'l Bit's immediate world doesn't make much sense, either. She is enormously intelligent, but seems only to be noticed and appreciated--by friends, acquaintances, and family members alike--for her particularly large breasts. Her mother and grandparents, with whom she lives, are uneducated and crass, and if her mother is not a full-fledged drunk, she has, at the very least, a complicated relationship with alcohol. Li'l Bit's entire family has serious boundary issues, especially when it comes to gender and sexuality; all of their nicknames for one another have something to do with genitalia, and nothing is considered off-limits during conversations at the dinner table. Li'l Bit's grandfather is an ignorant misogynist; her grandmother has internalized the most traditional of gender roles; and her mother is a little too forthright in offering Li'l Bit a more contemporary perspective. Li'l Bit has no father. Complicating matters is that her sister's husband, Uncle Peck--the only person who really seems to understand, connect with, and attempt to protect her as she grows up--can't keep his hands off her breasts. Many members of her family are aware of this, but they choose to keep their mouths shut, anyway.

How I Learned to Drive explores a number of dense, interconnected themes in following its angry, damaged narrator through a series of hazy childhood and adolescent reminiscences: the shifting mores of an embattled, rapidly changing country; family bonds and family dysfunction; gender roles; alcoholism and addiction; and the ways in which close relationships can simultaneously heal and destroy, weaken and empower. To say that I liked the play is something of an understatement: I felt positively cold about the play upon leaving the theater late last week, but it's wormed its way under my skin, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.

Like my fellow blogger Wendy, whose review of How I Learned to Drive appears here, I am not fully convinced about the structure of the show. But I think I'm getting close. I don't think Peck ever stops molesting his niece, and the jumbled way in which Vogel delivers bits and pieces of Li'l Bit's past works effectively in keeping the audience engaged and perpetually uncomfortable. Also, I am enormously compelled by the idea that one addiction can take the place of another. In How I Learned to Drive, Peck neatly substitutes alcohol for Li'l Bit; in turn, Li'l Bit learns to manipulate Peck in ways that suit her needs, all the while remaining his victim. One of the more fascinating aspects of the play is the clear-eyed way it depicts two people who are perfectly capable of simultaneously destroying and sustaining one another in a relationship that is at once disturbingly parasitic and yet weirdly understandable for its rules, structure, and mutual negotiations. This makes perfect sense to me: relationships are never as clear-cut as all that; there is often only a razor-thin line between a relationship that is healthy and one that is rotten to the core.

The cast is strong, but the show very clearly belongs to Norbert Leo Butz, whose portrayal of Peck, the benevolent, manipulative pederast, is superb. Much has been written about the lengthy, increasingly unsettling monologue during which Peck teaches a nephew how to fish for pompano; that, too, was a high point for me. But so was a much smaller, shorter scene, during which Li'l Bit, at age 13, strikes a bargain with her uncomfortably inebriated Uncle Peck: if he stops drinking, she will agree to visit with him, alone but in public, once a week. Butz's reaction to Reaser's suggestion is so deeply, movingly appreciated, so choked with conflicting emotions, that Peck's entire damaged, disturbed psyche flashed vividly before my eyes. The scene, simple as it was, took my breath away.

The ensemble, too, as Li'l Bit's friends, family members and various acquaintances, was uniformly strong. I was initially bothered by the fact that so many of the supporting characters are portrayed so two-dimensionally, while Peck is depicted in such sharp relief. But then again, I think that's precisely Vogel's point: Hazy memories play funny tricks on a person after a while.

I wish I could rave about Reaser. Don't get me wrong: she did a fine job as Li'l Bit, and her icy distance through the show can certainly be (and has been) interpreted as a strength. Li'l Bit was molested as a child, so why should the actor playing her as a grownup be warm, fuzzy, and approachable? Reaser is not, but her studied distance, which didn't let up through the show, did not always work for me. I am not sure if this was the function of the character or the woman playing her, but I was left feeling like I understood Peck far more than I did Li'l Bit, even though this was her show, her past, her conflicted, complicated youth.

That being said, I suppose leaving the theater wanting to know more about the characters you've just spent an evening with is not necessarily the worst criticism you can fling at the production of a play you just can't get away from.

Venus in Fur

I missed the Nina Arianda train when she was in the off-Broadway production. I missed the Nina Arianda train when she was in the Broadway production of Born Yesterday. I was a little annoyed by the hype and heard from a few detracters. Quite honestly, I forgot about the production all together.

To be fair, I missed much of the Hugh Dancy train as well. I didn't see Journey's End. I liked him very much in The Pride, but he was delightfully functional, not revolatory. I have, sadly, never seen him in another production in any media. Yet somehow I have infomation on who he dates.

None of this made me particularly excited to catch a Saturday matinee of Venus in Fur at the Lyceum.

Luckily, for me, I finally caught up and caught on.

Nina Arianda is simply a big bag of superlatives. She was so light and comically coy, but always so specific. It all felt so real that I just enjoyed spending time in her presence. Every breath, every turn, every line was perfection.

Hugh Dancy was no less delightful. He played coy corrupter and come-on king. His smarm was genuine and his vulnerability simultaneously laid bare and guarded. He makes a turn late in the show, that was as powerful a speech as I have seen. He commanded the stage. But he relented it as deftly.

They were a good match. I am not one for deconstructions of the play. The comedy was joyous, the psychological underpinning uncomfortable, and gender imbalances an endless teeter totter.

Walter Bobbie's direction was very non-Walter Bobbie. John Lee Beatty's scenic design was functional and created the right environment for the box set. The box set was limiting at times for those of us seated far audience right.

The time flew by. I didn't drift off once. And I was happy to be alive and in the presence of these actors every moment of the play. Venus in Fur is perfection and this time I am making sure that I am all aboard.

How I Learned to Drive

Early in previews, the Second Stage revival of Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive, directed by Kate Whoriskey, was already in good shape, well-paced, well-acted, and emotionally devastating. Elizabeth Reaser was a little tentative at first, but I have no doubt that by now she's excellent in the role. The amazing Norbert Leo Butz was, as always, superb. (I guess Butz couldn't play Belle in Beauty and the Beast, but I'm sure he could play pretty much anyone else.)

While I thought the production was quite good, I was considerably less impressed with the play itself. Here's why.
 
[spoilers abound] [really, nothing but spoilers] 

How I Learned to Drive seems initially to be examining how incest is not always a simple case of older-perpetrator-abuses-younger-victim. Teenaged Li'l Bit is flirtatious with her Uncle Peck, and he comes across as more of a supplicant than an abuser. And Peck is a sympathetic character, a World War II veteran who has seen horrible things he will not, cannot, discuss.

I bought all of this. I even found it intriguing, compelling. Life is not black and white. Older people are not always the ones with power. Otherwise nice people can do terrible things.

But, then, at the end of the play, which is told mostly in reverse-order flashbacks, we see the beginning of the story. Li'l Bit, only 11 years old, is on a long drive with Uncle Peck. He offers to let her drive. She is too small to reach the gas pedal, so he suggests that she sit on his lap; he'll control the speed while she steers. And then he seriously, flat-out molests her, grinding against her to orgasm while roughly feeling her up.

No, no, no. The relationship that Li'l Bit and Uncle Peck have through most of the play did not develop out of that beginning. I think it is possible that Li'l Bit would continue to spend time alone with Peck and would even want his attention and approval, would even almost flirt with him, particularly considering the weird sexualization of her entire family. However, there is zero reason to believe that Peck would develop the sort of boundaries and supplicating attitude that he has with her for the rest of the play. The trajectory of molestation isn't less and less; it's more and more. If he had grabbed her like that once, he would do so again. And again. And again.

If How I Learned to Drive were played in chronological order, it would fall to pieces. 

(tdf ticket; 6th row extreme audience left)

The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess

Photo by Michael J. Lutch

While watching The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, the newest incarnation of the famed opera, Audra McDonald’s performance in the title role continually reminded me of the first time I saw her—in another revival—1994’s Carousel. Like then her presence resonated with vitality and the richness of that voice lingered even after she left the stage.

And that’s the problem: despite some excellent staging and singing, whenever McDonald disappears, the show loses luster and all the flaws that critics, scholars and others discuss become magnified (see Elizabeth Wollman’s review). Just as McDonald’s vivacious Carrie Pipperidge white-washed the poignancy of Sally Murphy’s Julie Jordan, her portrayal of Bess with its tough fragility mesmerizes and that power is missed when she’s gone. Since nothing ever reaches her intensity, the rest of the production feels uneven.

Ultimately, Porgy and Bess never connects beyond an appreciation of the musicality of the piece. As Ben Brantley said recently in the New York Times, “The first requisite of any work of art—theater, opera, or novel—is that it create a universe that is complete and consistent unto and within itself.” Besides the flaws in characterization that critics often cite, the imbalance of the performances also interrupts the authenticity of the show, and while the three hours of theater entertains rarely does it really touch you. It becomes easy to remain uninvolved in the unfolding drama and, instead, to scientifically dissect the opera: from the dance moves that seem arbitrary at times to the singing, which, while performed competently, rarely consumes the soul.

Of course, there are some highs: David Alan Grier’s snarky Sporting Life conveys more with a quick charming smile than others do with sweeping operatic solos. NaTasha Yvette Williams also offers a sassy interpretation of Mariah, one of the backbone presences on Catfish Row. Joshua Henry displays a loving presence as Jake, a new father and easy-going family man.

Especially good is the lighting by Christopher Akerlind who colors the sparsely decorated stage—just a hint of a boardwalk, a courtyard, some rudimentary homes—in a beautiful buttery light during the early morning calls of the strawberry seller and the honey man, later darkening that same venue with the forbidding flickers of a fierce hurricane.

At any rate, Porgy and Bess offers enough to keep audiences interested apparently since the production’s run was recently extended to September 30th.

Porgy and Bess

Since it premiered in New York in 1935, Porgy and Bess has been dogged by nagging questions: Is this an opera, or a musical? Is this show respectful, or racist? More recently, there have been even more questions and controversies: Is this show worth reviving? If so, how? Should it be staged in its original--and thus, presumably, "authentic"--state, or can we tweak some of its more outdated aspects? Perhaps most importantly, what does Stephen Sondheim think about all of this?

Full disclosure: As much as I love him, I don't care what Sondheim thinks about Porgy and Bess. I like to think that Gershwin had benevolent, and not racist, intentions in researching, writing, and staging it. As to whether it's an opera or a musical, Porgy strikes me as being about as comfortably everything as its composer was. Gershwin was a master of Tin Pan Alley, the concert hall, and the after-hours jam session, so why should it be surprising that Porgy shows up in repertory at opera companies and occasionally gets revived on Broadway, or that many of its songs have become standards covered by singers in every genre you can think of? Gershwin was brilliant; his show has a gorgeous, memorable, hugely adaptable score; enough, already.

What surprises me, though, is that amid all the controversy about Porgy and Bess, there is so very little bitching about the book, which, when you get right down to it, is just not as good as the score. The music in Porgy absolutely soars, seguing seamlessly from one genre to another and back again. Church-house moans become piercing arias; work-songs become big, Broadway show-stoppers. The music is timeless. The book, however, is very much a product of the 1930s. It reflects the comparatively sketchy character development, lack of cohesiveness, and emphasis less on motivation than on song and dance that was typical of the burgeoning musical in its pre-Rodgers and Hammerstein days. Hence, Porgy is a benevolent sap; Bess is a broken, coke-snorting slut. They get together because they are both, in their own ways, desperate. Bess would like to change her ways; she slowly becomes accepted by the community and even gets a shot at child-rearing, which by 1930s standards is, I guess, supposed to be about as legitimizing and fulfilling as it can possibly get for a woman. Yet for all her attempts at decency, Bess is a total disaster. Porgy puts up with her, helps her, saves her, and defends her over and over and over again until the final curtain, which implies that nothing is ever going to change. The end.

Another full disclosure, here: I have very little patience for this type of premise, so really, this might be entirely my problem. Romeo and Juliet is my least-favorite Shakespeare play, I absolutely loathed Jules et Jim, and I haven't fallen for any "will-they-or-won't they" TV premise since, oh, the Maddie and David plot trajectory on "Moonlighting." And through the years, I've had many people react vociferously to my dislike of such pieces--especially Jules et Jim, which is apparently a masterpiece that I just need to view through different eyes, or something. Perhaps this, then, is the test: If you love Jules, you might totally go wild for Porgy. If you are as tepid as I am about that sort of thing, maybe think about catching another show, instead.

The current production of Porgy and Bess aims to update the book, at least a little bit: some of the libretto was rewritten as dialogue by Suzan Lori Parks, and Diane Paulus worked with the cast to add depth to the characters and to make the show more appealing to new, young audiences. Porgy no longer sits pathetically in a goat cart, but instead hobbles around, just as pathetically, on a mangled leg. While the intentions may have been good, and while I am certainly happy to have seen the show, Porgy and Bess still leaves me cold: despite the changes to the book, the characters still strike me as about as one-dimensional as they always have been. Not only is there Unruly and Wild Bess and Endlessly Patient, Almost Irritatingly Virtuous Porgy, but there is also the Brutish, Dangerous, Magnetic Ex Boyfriend; the Tisking, Devout Matriarchs of Catfish Row; and the Sneering, Godless Drug Dealer. What motivates any of them? Where did they come from, what do they think, and why do they make the choices that they make? Dunno. Is there actually any heat, any real passion, between Porgy and Bess? Or is this a connection that has been made entirely as the result of convenience? If there is, in fact, true attraction, I just can't see it. And if this is all about convenience, then who the hell cares?

I do not think that my reservations are the fault of this particular production, which was rock-solid in a number of ways. The look of the show is warm, earthy, and inviting; the sound is, typically, gorgeous. My theater-going companion did not like some of the performers and hated the choreography, but I did not agree with her; I thought the various ingredients were all top-notch. The actors, too, did a fine job with what they have to work with. Audra McDonald is typically bionic, the supporting cast is strong, and on the night I saw the show, Norm Lewis struggled admirably through the first act with an almost completely blown-out voice; he was replaced in act II by Nathaniel Stampley, who was in great voice and made the transition gracefully. And David Alan Grier, who tore the roof off as Sporting Life, is the newest addition to my list of people I would pay to watch read the phone book.

But still, and for all the talent, Porgy and Bess is just not my cup of tea. Its score has blood, gore, and guts that somehow never extend to its characters.

Merrily We Roll Along--Encores

I saw the Lincoln Center reunion performance of Merrily We Roll Along in 2002. It was a joy to be in the room, to hear the score sung live. But the book and concept (going backward in time) did neither the cast nor the audience any favors. For all its faults, for all the confusion, there were those magnificent songs. And then, there was Ann Morrison. Every utterance layered, every note perfection. When she sang, I couldn’t help but wonder about her trajectory, her story in reverse, which moment, which turn kept her from being a star. It was one of those unforgettable performances, probably all the richer because she was old enough in 2002 to infuse it with the ache and regret she could only imagine and "act" in the original production.

Merrily We Roll Along is significant in musical theatre history. It’s failure marked the end of Sondheim’s unparalleled collaboration with Hal Prince. They wouldn’t work together again for over two decades. That break-up led to a long and often successful collaboration with James Lapine, who directs the Encores production currently running at City Center.

It is a bold approach to a concert mounting of a Sondheim musical to cast someone who can’t actually sing the music. Far bolder to do it twice. To make those choices for two of the three leads takes a director with balls, deftness, or deafness. James Lapine seems dead-set on fixing some of Merrily's historical flaws, namely a book that meanders two step forward and two decades back. By and large, he’s made welcome changes, using a series of projections, for instance, to great effect to provide linear references for a decidedly non-linear show. Unfortunately, he’s created problems no Sondheim musical should have—musical instability.

Celia Keenan-Bolger, who I adored in The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, is delightful as Mary Flynn. She gets every joke, every jab. To watch her reverse trajectory from bitterness and cirrhosis to insecurity and hope is both delightful and devastating. Unfortunately, every time she sings, the show falls apart. She can’t hit the notes (low or high), her voice is thin and trapped in her nose, and her words are bizarrely over-articulated and unsupported. Perhaps her voice is strained from the intense and brief rehearsal period. Having enjoyed her so much previously, I am happy to give her a pass on a future performance, but not in this role. She’s half thrill, half thud.

Lin-Manuel Miranda can actually sing most of the music, he just doesn’t have a very pleasant voice; and he harmonizes like a fist-full of nails in a clothes dryer. He is similarly well-cast from an acting standpoint. His Benjamin Button aging routine is shockingly real with as much credit going to his physical inhabitation of the character as hair and make-up. He isn’t ultimately as delightful as Keenan-Bolger, nor is he as disastrous.

In the leading role Colin Donnell acquits himself best. His acting isn’t as strong as his co-stars. He plays Franklin Shepard as either unpleasant or unaware, not much else. The pompousness that I hated so much in his performance in Anything Goes, serves him better here. Not sure I would have loved his voice (it gets a little loungey at times) had his Mary and Charlie been stronger, but we both deserve the chance to find out.

The stand-out in the cast is Elizabeth Stanley as Gussie Carnegie. She sings, moves, acts, charms, and reviles with near perfection. In some ways, she is so good she undermines the gimmick of the show. Merrily is designed to shine a spotlight on those moments we all make that we don’t realize at the time will change our lives irrevocably. For the other characters, the looking back is clouded by heaviness, regret, and tragedy. Her character is so well played that her rewind just looks like a life—could have gone left, could have gone right, but ultimately went just fine. It is an interesting counterpoint. This isn’t to say that her character’s stagelife ends in a bed of roses. She just isn’t standing at a crossroads lamenting the road she didn’t take—and neither are we.

Merrily is a beautiful, heart-breaking score with a good half dozen of the finest stand alone songs ever written for the stage. To hear them supported by a great Broadway orchestra is a gift. It is unfortunate that they work so hard, only to be undermined by the voices. It is unfortunate that Lapine used the revival score, excluding the song The Hills of Tomorrow, which adds such depth and immediacy to the story. It is unfortunate that Lapine let drown what is inherently perfect about Merrily in his quest to salvage what was sunk. For all the sense this production makes, it never soars because it doesn’t sing.