This Gaudy Gilded Stage

The second show PJ and I saw in New York a couple of weeks ago was William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, starring Mark Rylance, Samuel Barnett, Paul Chahidi, and Stephen Fry. This production used an all-male cast, and the sets, costumes, and staging approximated what it might have been like to see this play during Shakespeare’s own time.

Twelfth Night is about a young woman, Viola, who is shipwrecked and believes that her twin brother has drowned in the accident. Until she can figure out what to do, she poses as a young male servant and go into service for Count Orsino, who is love-sick for Olivia. Olivia, however, won’t give him the time of day, in part because she is still mourning her brother’s death. Orsino employs Viola (posing as a boy) to woo Olivia for him, but Olivia falls in love with cross-dressed emissary. A subplot involves Olivia’s drunken uncle, suitor, and servants conspiring to play a cruel joke on Malvolio, Olivia’s steward, since he often interferes with their revels. After Viola’s twin brother arrives, mayhem ensues until everyone’s identities and romantic matches are clarified.

This was the one play that I had to see during our visit. We saw a Globe production of Measure for Measure with Rylance years ago, which was great, so I didn’t want to miss this show. It is very well done. Most of the actors get dressed and put on their makeup on stage before the show officially begins. There are Renaissance-style musicians, and the set mimics the Globe Theater. There are even wax candles that drip onto the stage from above throughout the performance.

But this attention to historical authenticity and similitude comes at the price of contemporary relevance. I couldn’t help but feel distanced from the action, and I wonder if the play has anything profound to say about the human condition today. I’m not sure it holds up in an era of gay rights and gender bending.

Even so, Rylance is marvelous as Olivia. And Chahidi almost steals the show as Maria, her conniving servant. Stephen Fry is also excellent as Malvolio. Barnett has the most difficult role: an actor playing a woman playing a man. He does it well, but his part ultimately lacks the zest of Olivia, Maria, and Malvolio.

I definitely recommend this production and am glad we saw it. It didn’t move me in the way that The Glass Menagerie did. But, of course, it wasn’t really trying to, so I don’t hold that against it!

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Earlier this month, PJ and I spent a few days in New York City before the spring semester began. We saw four shows in three days, the of which was Tennessee Williams’s The Glass Menagerie starring Cherry Jones, Zachary Quinto, Celia Keenan-Bolger, and Brian J. Smith and directed by John Tiffany.

As PJ and I discussed after seeing it, The Glass Menagerie is a play we each had to read in high school, and neither of us came into this production thinking that this is one of Williams’s best works. This production made us both rethink that position. It is an excellent production, one of the best plays I’ve ever seen on Broadway!

The play is about a woman, who was abandoned by her husband, and her two adult children. Cherry Jones plays the woman, Amanda, whose only goal in life is to see her daughter, Laura, played by Keenan-Bolger, married. Amanda knows that Laura’s only hope for future security is marriage, because she is extremely shy and partially crippled. Amanda enlists her son, Tom, played by Quinto, to arrange for a Gentleman Caller to court Laura. The last act of the play depicts what happens when the Gentleman Caller, played by Smith, arrives. Everything about this production is captivating. The stage design, the use of only minimal props, the staging, the acting, everything grips the audience in these characters’ story.

Cherry Jones is a Broadway legend, and I can now see why. Amanda could easily become a caricature, but Jones  humanizes Amanda and, even though we can see how she’s doing almost everything wrong, we also see that she’s ultimately right. I wasn’t expecting much from Zachary Quinto to be honest. I dismissed him as a TV and movie actor. But he was excellent as the son who longs to escape from his suffocating mother, a stand-in for Williams himself. And Keenan-Bolger is heart-breaking as Laura. I wouldn’t be surprised of all three received Tony nominations this year and would definitely support all three winning.

There’s only a little time left to see this production. I highly recommend it. It’s right up there with The Little Dog Laughed and August: Osage County as one of my favorite Broadway shows I’ve seen. This is everything a night at the theater should be.

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PJ and I only went to New York City once in 2013, and we didn’t manage to see any plays when we traveled to other places. Consequently, I saw fewer professional plays in 2013 than was usually  the case over the previous few years. We did see a local summer stock production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was fun. We also saw some of the shows that the School of Theater produced this year. So we didn’t entirely miss out!

Since I didn’t get a chance to post about most of these productions throughout the year, I will write a quick round-up of my five favorite productions that I saw 2013.

Cloud 9 

My favorite production from 2013 was a production of Caryl Churchill’s Cloud 9 locally. Our School of Theater has an MFA in Directing. The students, of course, have to direct productions of various kinds to earn their degree. One of these is a “style project,” and one of the MFA directing students, Ryan Holihan, chose Cloud 9 for this assignment.

I don’t know the director, but I love Churchill’s work, so PJ and I made sure we got tickets to see it. Holihan did an amazing job — and not just amazing for being a graduate production in a small Appalachian town. Everything about the production was top-notch.

What impressed me most was Holihan clearly understands the play and was able to get his actors to understand it as well. The production was hilarious, suspenseful, and moving, not an easy combination. Add to that the fact that some of the actors play characters of different genders and ages, and you have a work that could be an utter disaster in the wrong director’s hands. I was clearly impressed by the skills Holihan, his cast, and his crew demonstrated in this production. It’s a reminder that, perhaps, the most important theatrical engagements don’t happen on Broadway by on stages throughout the country, in small towns with amateur or student actors and crews. The work these performers do is arguably the true essence of what theater is all about.

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While in NYC last month, PJ and I saw Harvey, starring Jim Parsons and Jessica Hecht. In fact, one of the reasons we went to New York was to see this play. I remember seeing it as a kid — my parents love old black and white movies, and I was interested in seeing it on the stage. Plus, I love The Big Bang Theory, and, now that Jim Parsons is officially out, I really wanted to see him live too.

Harvey is about an eccentric man, Elwood P. Dowd, played by Parsons, who is friends with a six-foot tall invisible rabbit named Harvey. Elwood explains to various people he meets that Harvey is a pooka, a mischievous sprite who plays tricks on people.

Elwood’s sister and niece, who live with him in the family’s ancestral home, have had enough of Elwood’s behavior. Embarrassed one too many times by his introduction of his invisible friend to their acquaintances, Veta, played by Hecht, and Myrtle Mae, played by Tracee Chimo, decide to commit Elwood to the local insane asylum. When Veta takes Elwood to the asylum, however, a comedy of errors ensues as the junior, too self-assured young doctor mistakes Veta for the patient. The rest of the play involves sorting out who does and who does not belong in the hospital, with the play’s climax revolving around a new drug that can make sure Elwood never sees Harvey again.

Parsons is good in this role, but it’s not really much of a stretch for him. Elwood is a slightly differently eccentric take on Sheldon, his character on The Big Bang Theory. The part doesn’t call for anything else, so it’s clear why Parsons would be cast in the role, but it will be interesting to see if he’s able to break out of the Sheldon mold for his future forays onto Broadway and film. His supporting role in the movie version of The Normal Heart might be a good indication of his career after TBBT.

The play also features Carol Kane in a small, but hilarious role as the senior physician’s dotty wife. But the real star of this production is the set design, which is superb. Both the Dowd house and the hospital are realistically portrayed and realized. It’s clear to see why the Emmy winning designer, David Rockwell, has garnered Tony and Drama Desk nominations in recent years.

All in all, this is a good, solid production of a classic mid-twentieth century play. It’s good, family entertainment, and audience members of all ages seemed to enjoy it. I’ve decided to teach Mary Chase’s play in my class in the fall. It will be interesting to see what my students make of it!

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The hottest ticket on Broadway right now is Other Desert Cities, a family/political drama by playwright Jon Robin Baitz, who my be best known for creating the television drama Brothers & Sisters. Like that show’s early days, Other Desert Cities explores big political issues by filtering them through a family’s internal rifts, recriminations, and love for one another.

In this case, the play focuses primarily on the Wyeth family’s Christmas gathering in Palm Springs, California, where the elder Wyeths, Polly and Lyman, played by Stockard Channing and Stacy Keach, live. Polly and Lyman are Old Guard Republicans who remain active in a certain kind of Republican circle. Lyman was a former actor, much like Reagan, and was appointed an ambassador during his administration. Polly is friends with Nancy.

Polly and Lyman have taken in Polly’s sister, Silda, played by Judith Light, who has had a drug problem. Now out of rehab with no place to go, she resents living with her sister in part due to their former success as a screenwriting partnership, which broke up with Polly’s turn to Republican conservatism. As Silda constantly reminds her, Polly is a Jew who plays the part of a transplanted-Texas WASP.

Rounding out the family gathering are the Wyeth “children,” both of whom are adults. Rachel Griffiths plays Brooke, an emotionally delicate writer who suffered from a six-year emotional breakdown after the publication of her first novel but who now insists that she knows how to manage her depression. Trip Wyeth, played by Matthew Risch, who will soon be replaced by Justin Kirk, is a producer on a cheesy Judge Judy type of television show in which celebrities serve on a jury and decide cases.

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The third–and best–show that PJ and I saw in New York with our friends last week was Seminar, which stars Alan Rickman as Leonard, a problematic creative writing instructor teaching a private seminar for four up and coming writers. Paying $5,000 for the opportunity to study with him, these four students get more than they bargained for as Leonard upends all of their notions of what it means to be a successful writer.

Seminar is hilariously witty and a crowd-pleaser (even if you’re not an English professor!). Rickman is excellent as Leonard, a boozing, lecherous, washed-up writer who makes end meet by writing magazine stories and teaching these private seminars. He imbues Leonard with life, pathos, and egotism, making him a fully rounded character when he could easily be a one-dimensional stereotype instead.

Here are a few clips from the production:

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The second show PJ and I saw last week in New York was the revival of Noel Coward’s Private Lives starring Kim Cattrall and Paul Gross, who play Amanda and Elyot, respectively, a divorced couple who meet again during their honeymoons with their new spouses.

Both quickly realize that they’re still in love, and comic mayhem ensues as they flee their new spouses and run off together to Amanda’s Paris apartment. The reason their previous marriage fell apart five years ago, however, was that Elyot and Amanda fight as passionately as they make love. We see both sides of their relationship in Acts 2 and 3.

Here’s a brief glance at the Canadian production, which is nearly the same as the one in New York:

This next sentence is probably one of the gayest things I’ve ever written: one of my favorite plays as a kid was Private Lives.

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