Not going to post full reviews of these, just a few thoughts --
The chief one is how similar the shows are. Both are about young would-be playwrights from the world of tenements and deprivation. Both introduce their playwrights to eccentrics who become their collaborators. Both involve the revision of scripts the first drafts of which the young writers have written. And, in both, I think, the audience doesn't give enough of a damn about the projects in question to care about whether the problems are licked or not.
One of the things that keeps Bullets (adapted by Woody Allen from a movie he co-wrote and directed) from working for me is that the young writer, David Shayne, seems to have no larger desire than to be a successful playwright. This is no Clifford Odets, on fire to share his vision of an unfair world. What little we see of the play he has written makes it look like a thin star vehicle set in a drawing room. I might care about a guy with a passion to fight injustice through drama, but a guy who -- like so many others -- just wants celebrity? Also, if his gangster collaborator has a more artistic sensibility, what is it in service to? A better grade of garbage? Heroes are people who pursue admirable goals. Shayne's goal doesn't make me care about him. In fact, his goal to be a famous writer (as opposed to a really good writer) marks him as something of a jerk who deserves the grief he gets.
Act One's young playwright, Moss Hart, does care about being good. He also cares about rescuing his family from the humiliation of the poverty that has hobbled their lives. Good, playable goals, and I am on Moss's side from the start. The best material in the show involves the world he is trying to escape and his relationship with an eccentric aunt whose passion for the theatre akin to a religion. Played by Andrea Martin, she is the figure who helps guide young Moss to a future she will not have the satisfaction of seeing him attain. Moss's big chance to escape arrives in the interest a producer takes in a comedy he has written called Once in a Lifetime and the willingness Broadway legend George S. Kaufman shows in collaborating with the neophyte in bringing the play up to scratch for Broadway. Much of the second act of James Lapine's adaptation of Moss Hart's best-selling memoir involves trying to fix the play. But in order for us to appreciate the fixes, we have to a) know the play sufficiently for the changes put in to mean something and b) believe in the play's promise. Unlike Kaufman and Hart's later collaborations, The Man Who Came to Dinner and You Can't Take it With You, which continue to be revived successfully, Once in a Lifetime doesn't hold up terribly well and hasn't had a major revival in years. (The stacks are filled with scripts that were hits in their time and are unpersuasive today.) As a result, I found the struggle to make it work less than urgent urgent. It's like watching two guys labor valiantly in the effort to write the jingle for a toothpaste commercial.
Both of these shows have been created by teams much of whose other work I've admired. Well, everyone stumbles.
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Biography of John Updike by Adam Begley
Just finished reading Adam Begley's biography of John Updike. I admire much of Updike's work -- the Rabbit books in particular (except for the second one, which place Harry Angstrom in the Sixties and which I thought was unpersuasive and a mess). One of the reasons I read biography is to correlate the life to the work, and Begley makes it clear that much of what Updike wrote was autobiography with some names changed.
Being a writer not much interested in the autobiographic impulse, I couldn't help but be intrigued by how Updike sidestepped the pitfalls of autobiographic writing. But the book also brought me to a conundrum -- much of the behavior of the autobiographic characters in Updike's stories is not terribly attractive and the writer seems to be aware of this. Nonetheless, Updike the man continued to engage in behavior that he criticizes in the role of Updike the author. I couldn't help but wonder why he didn't seem to learn learn much from considering in depth and with such insight his own behavior. Much of the fiction was about compulsive adultery and it seems that Updike pursued compulsive adultery even as he was showing his alter ego's choices as corrupt and weak.
The book has some curious omissions. Updike was adapted to film a few times, but the book mentions only The Witches of Eastwick, which was converted to a Jack Nicholson-Cher vehicle. Why no mention of Too Far to Go? Adapted from the stories about the Maples (thinly disguised versions of Updike and his first wife), the film features career-best performances by Michael Moriarty and Blythe Danner. I remember reading that Updike was very taken by Danner but somewhat offput by Moriarty's performance. Could it have been that he saw in Moriarty some of what he wasn't comfortable with in himself?
Also, given the attention Begley gives to the Rabbit books, it seems odd that Begley neglects to comment on Rabbit Remembered, the novella published in the anthology Licks of Love that serves as a sequel to the series. It wraps up the Harry Angstrom saga with particular compassion, suggesting that, for all of Harry's transgressions and blundering, he left behind something hopeful. Curious that Begley makes no mention of the final words Updike wrote about his most famous creation.
These quibbles notwithstanding, I got what I wanted out of this biography, and it's hard to ask for more.
Being a writer not much interested in the autobiographic impulse, I couldn't help but be intrigued by how Updike sidestepped the pitfalls of autobiographic writing. But the book also brought me to a conundrum -- much of the behavior of the autobiographic characters in Updike's stories is not terribly attractive and the writer seems to be aware of this. Nonetheless, Updike the man continued to engage in behavior that he criticizes in the role of Updike the author. I couldn't help but wonder why he didn't seem to learn learn much from considering in depth and with such insight his own behavior. Much of the fiction was about compulsive adultery and it seems that Updike pursued compulsive adultery even as he was showing his alter ego's choices as corrupt and weak.
The book has some curious omissions. Updike was adapted to film a few times, but the book mentions only The Witches of Eastwick, which was converted to a Jack Nicholson-Cher vehicle. Why no mention of Too Far to Go? Adapted from the stories about the Maples (thinly disguised versions of Updike and his first wife), the film features career-best performances by Michael Moriarty and Blythe Danner. I remember reading that Updike was very taken by Danner but somewhat offput by Moriarty's performance. Could it have been that he saw in Moriarty some of what he wasn't comfortable with in himself?
Also, given the attention Begley gives to the Rabbit books, it seems odd that Begley neglects to comment on Rabbit Remembered, the novella published in the anthology Licks of Love that serves as a sequel to the series. It wraps up the Harry Angstrom saga with particular compassion, suggesting that, for all of Harry's transgressions and blundering, he left behind something hopeful. Curious that Begley makes no mention of the final words Updike wrote about his most famous creation.
These quibbles notwithstanding, I got what I wanted out of this biography, and it's hard to ask for more.
Monday, April 28, 2014
Running Around
A busy time.
I vote for the Tony Awards and the Drama Desk, so I've been going to see shows on a nearly non-stop scheduled for a few weeks now.
But the shows that will stay with me most were a pair of optional ones. The McCarter Theatre in Princeton, NJ has been hosting (and will continue to host through the upcoming weekend) Stephen Wadsworth's stagings of two of Beaumarchais' Figaro plays -- The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro.
"But," I hear you cry (not really, but ...), "those are the titles of two famous operas." True. But before Rossini and Mozart got their hands on them, they were plays, and pretty scandalous ones. Why? Because they took shots at the privileged class and suggested that a servant (Figaro) might have the upper hand over his masters ethically. Apparently, some of the aristocrats in the audience thought such ideas insulting and revolting. (Revolting indeed, because some thought Beaumarchais' plays gave encouragement to the French Revolution.)
Certainly, as I sat watching Wadsworth's remarkable stagings of these plays, Beaumarchais' outrage at the assumption the rich and privileged of the time had that they could, oh, buy justice and sleep with anyone they fancied, came through with full strength. Of course today our rich and privileged behave so much better.
Barber runs a shade over two hours and is a succinct treat. Marriage runs more than three hours and feels like an epic. Size usually doesn't lend itself to comedy, but in this case a giant palace of hypocrisy is erected and when it all falls down at the end it is with almost explosive force. I don't know the original texts to know how much of the frequently explicit satire is Beaumarchais and how much is Wadsworth's adaptation, but a clear case is made that human nature hasn't changed so much in the past couple of centuries. Certainly the audience around me whooped and cheered and applauded many of the more incendiary pronouncements.
So, yes, the plays end their run on May 4th. I wish someone would bring these productions into New York. As strong a season as we've had in the city this year, Wadsworth's brace will probably stand as the achievement I will remember this season for.
I vote for the Tony Awards and the Drama Desk, so I've been going to see shows on a nearly non-stop scheduled for a few weeks now.
But the shows that will stay with me most were a pair of optional ones. The McCarter Theatre in Princeton, NJ has been hosting (and will continue to host through the upcoming weekend) Stephen Wadsworth's stagings of two of Beaumarchais' Figaro plays -- The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro.
"But," I hear you cry (not really, but ...), "those are the titles of two famous operas." True. But before Rossini and Mozart got their hands on them, they were plays, and pretty scandalous ones. Why? Because they took shots at the privileged class and suggested that a servant (Figaro) might have the upper hand over his masters ethically. Apparently, some of the aristocrats in the audience thought such ideas insulting and revolting. (Revolting indeed, because some thought Beaumarchais' plays gave encouragement to the French Revolution.)
Certainly, as I sat watching Wadsworth's remarkable stagings of these plays, Beaumarchais' outrage at the assumption the rich and privileged of the time had that they could, oh, buy justice and sleep with anyone they fancied, came through with full strength. Of course today our rich and privileged behave so much better.
Barber runs a shade over two hours and is a succinct treat. Marriage runs more than three hours and feels like an epic. Size usually doesn't lend itself to comedy, but in this case a giant palace of hypocrisy is erected and when it all falls down at the end it is with almost explosive force. I don't know the original texts to know how much of the frequently explicit satire is Beaumarchais and how much is Wadsworth's adaptation, but a clear case is made that human nature hasn't changed so much in the past couple of centuries. Certainly the audience around me whooped and cheered and applauded many of the more incendiary pronouncements.
So, yes, the plays end their run on May 4th. I wish someone would bring these productions into New York. As strong a season as we've had in the city this year, Wadsworth's brace will probably stand as the achievement I will remember this season for.
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
The O'Neill Center's Meryl Streep Party
Last night put me in mind of the old baseball line, "Tinker to Evers to Chance," the famous double play combination of the Chicago Cubs. No baseball was played, but it was "Kushner to Shanley to Letts." Each was introduced to talk about working with Meryl Streep in the film adaptations of Angels in America, Doubt, and August: Osage County. For those who have never encountered Kushner, Shanley and Letts, they are three distinct and mordantly funny speakers. When Joe Grifasi got up to introduce Meryl Streep and give her the Eugene O'Neill Center's Monte Cristo Award, he made rueful comment about following those three. (He did just fine.) And then Streep got up, thanked the writers, and glanced heavenward to send a cosmic shout-out to Wendy Wasserstein, who was a friend from Yale and in whose name she has given money to make certain that the O'Neill Center maintains a policy of completely open submissions. Bobby and Kristin Anderson Lopez (the husband and wife team most recently known for composing the songs for Frozen) sang a tribute song they had written that made use of many rhyming possibilities of honoree's last name. I believe the song ended with a salute to "Meryl Fucking Streep," which MFS seemed to enjoy mightily.
The O'Neill celebrates its 50th birthday this year and this event is being marked by an exhibit at the Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library (under the supervision of designer Skip Mercier) and the publication of a book called The O'Neill (clever title, yes?) that I have spent the past couple of years writing. A number of the people mentioned in the book were at the Monte Cristo Award party at the Edison Hotel last night, and it was a pleasure to connect or re-connect with them.
The book is officially being published in a few weeks, but I was sent an advance copy and lugged it with me in hopes of getting it signed by George C. White (the founder of the O'Neill) and his wife and collaborator, Betsy. They had written me a letter in response to reading the book that was enormously gratifying. Essentially they had said I had gotten it right. And it turns out that I had dug up things that neither had known about.
Though I never got to interview Meryl Streep for the book, she had sent a substantial and quirkily-detailed letter of her memories which she permitted to be used as a foreword. (I had actually seen her in her first O'Neill outing, playing a princess in Jonathan Levy's children's play, Marco Polo, in which she was supported by Grifasi and Christopher Lloyd.) Betsy was kind enough to guide me over to "MFS", who signed her foreword for me and then began looking through the book, commenting on pictures of friends in their younger days and on the too many that are no longer with us.
As it happens, a number of the people whom I mention in the book have left us within recent months. Phyllis Frelich, the leading lady of the National Theatre of the Deaf, died recently, as did Philip Hayes Dean (who wrote a play about Paul Robeson that Lloyd Richards directed) and Martin Gottfried, who figures prominently in an anecdote Ron Cowen tells about the late critic advising him to get out of playwriting (and about how some other critics surrounded Gottfried and pummeled him for being a jerk).
The loss of these people reminds me of the importance of getting our history while we can. I can't pretend that the book is cheap, but it's filled with evocative pictures and some stories I think you haven't heard.
The O'Neill celebrates its 50th birthday this year and this event is being marked by an exhibit at the Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library (under the supervision of designer Skip Mercier) and the publication of a book called The O'Neill (clever title, yes?) that I have spent the past couple of years writing. A number of the people mentioned in the book were at the Monte Cristo Award party at the Edison Hotel last night, and it was a pleasure to connect or re-connect with them.
The book is officially being published in a few weeks, but I was sent an advance copy and lugged it with me in hopes of getting it signed by George C. White (the founder of the O'Neill) and his wife and collaborator, Betsy. They had written me a letter in response to reading the book that was enormously gratifying. Essentially they had said I had gotten it right. And it turns out that I had dug up things that neither had known about.
Though I never got to interview Meryl Streep for the book, she had sent a substantial and quirkily-detailed letter of her memories which she permitted to be used as a foreword. (I had actually seen her in her first O'Neill outing, playing a princess in Jonathan Levy's children's play, Marco Polo, in which she was supported by Grifasi and Christopher Lloyd.) Betsy was kind enough to guide me over to "MFS", who signed her foreword for me and then began looking through the book, commenting on pictures of friends in their younger days and on the too many that are no longer with us.
As it happens, a number of the people whom I mention in the book have left us within recent months. Phyllis Frelich, the leading lady of the National Theatre of the Deaf, died recently, as did Philip Hayes Dean (who wrote a play about Paul Robeson that Lloyd Richards directed) and Martin Gottfried, who figures prominently in an anecdote Ron Cowen tells about the late critic advising him to get out of playwriting (and about how some other critics surrounded Gottfried and pummeled him for being a jerk).
The loss of these people reminds me of the importance of getting our history while we can. I can't pretend that the book is cheap, but it's filled with evocative pictures and some stories I think you haven't heard.
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Received a finished copy of THE O'NEILL, the book I spent a year researching and writing. It was a fine way to spend a year. I had long, meaty conversations with more than a hundred people (including Edward Albee, John Guare, Chris Durang, Lynne Meadows, Robert Redford, Jeanine Tesori, Michael Douglas, Amy Saltz, Courtney Vance, Paulette Haupt, Wendy Goldberg, and Bobby Lopez and his collaborator-wife Kristen Anderson-Lopez), had the excuse to revisit much of recent American theatre history, and got to put together a lot of stories for the first time. A particular pleasure -- I just got a note from the O'Neill's founder, George C. White, and his wife Betsy, and they were enthusiastic and seemed to think I had done right by their life's work. I could hardly get a greater compliment. It's on a par with when, during my last conversation with Paul Sills (a man not given to compliments), he referred to my book about Second City (SOMETHING WONDERFUL RIGHT AWAY) and said, "You know, Sweet, I've been thinking about that book of yours, and I think you made a contribution." I don't choke up easily, but it took several seconds before I could make a sound in reply.
Though the books are about two substantially different places (and are divided by 36 years), there are parallels. I was attracted to writing about both because both the O'Neill and Second City are places that changed the game in American theatre, pioneering new ways to build stuff, and establishing methods that would become part of the DNA of our culture. There are hundreds if not thousands of improvisational theatres built in imitation of or reaction to Second City, and almost every new play program based in theatres or universities around the country borrows from lessons learned at the O'Neill.
Tomorrow Kristine and I go to the O'Neill Center's Monte Cristo Awards where I'm guessing I'll finally meet Meryl Streep. (She kindly wrote a spritely foreword to the book, but I've never met her, though we've been in the same room a few times.) Lots of other O'Neill alumni will be there. It should be quite a time. I'll report on it, promise.
Though the books are about two substantially different places (and are divided by 36 years), there are parallels. I was attracted to writing about both because both the O'Neill and Second City are places that changed the game in American theatre, pioneering new ways to build stuff, and establishing methods that would become part of the DNA of our culture. There are hundreds if not thousands of improvisational theatres built in imitation of or reaction to Second City, and almost every new play program based in theatres or universities around the country borrows from lessons learned at the O'Neill.
Tomorrow Kristine and I go to the O'Neill Center's Monte Cristo Awards where I'm guessing I'll finally meet Meryl Streep. (She kindly wrote a spritely foreword to the book, but I've never met her, though we've been in the same room a few times.) Lots of other O'Neill alumni will be there. It should be quite a time. I'll report on it, promise.
Saturday, April 19, 2014
The home of my previous blog has been re-organized. I could continue posting there, but I prefer to have a dedicated URL. So ...
So I will pick up doing what I did on my previous blog -- sharing thoughts on what I see, read and participate in. On the assumption that you might be interested, I'll also post news about my publications and productions.
Nothing fancy. Just words and the occasional picture or link.
So I will pick up doing what I did on my previous blog -- sharing thoughts on what I see, read and participate in. On the assumption that you might be interested, I'll also post news about my publications and productions.
Nothing fancy. Just words and the occasional picture or link.
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