Author: Joe

Boredom sets in early and sits down for a long respite during the ninety minutes of Dr. Ride’s American Beach House.  Audience members noticeably squirm in their chairs.  A few leave, noisily.  This slice of semi-repressed lesbian Americana is underwhelming, cliched and an absolute waste of time.

Harriet and Mildred went to college together and studied poetry.  That has led them to careers as waitresses in St. Louis.  One is married with a child who is sick today.  Mom’s not really in a rush to get home.  The other has a boyfriend.  She describes in detail a sexual liaison she has with a motorcycle guy.  That story is so far from believable that it registers as amusingly ridiculous.

Both women hang on each other so casually that there is no doubt they are (or have been) lovers.  After a work shift, they gather on Harriet’s rooftop to gather for the Two Serious Ladies Book Club.  No books have been read.  Instead, they drink beer and listen to the radio.  They are excitedly anticipating the launching of the space shuttle Challenger the next morning.  Sally Ride is going to make history.

Dr. Ride was closeted as are these women.  It’s 1983 and a very different time.  This play is blunt with the metaphors.  These two close friends are in their thirties and life is eluding them.  Mildred has invited Meg to the book club.  She arrives wearing a Motorhead t-shirt and a backwards baseball cap.  Her hairstyle screams BUTCH!  She says, “I don’t hate men, they make me homicidal.”

Meg is the contrasting, very blunt counterpoint to these two women who are meandering through an unfocused life.  At one point, Meg changes the music to heavy metal.  She head bangs in her chair.  The other two eventually start jumping up and down in a dance of sorts.  The overtly obvious message is that these two lesbians yearn to be free like Meg.  Presumably metal is a gateway?  The scene is clumsy and cartoonish.

Another woman arrives to round out the lesbian stereotypes.  She only cares about “safety and money.”  Why is she in the house?  Who cares.  She has an unseen woman with her who never stops eating.  Yes, Liza Birkenmeier’s play is that cliched.

As Harriet, Matilda and Meg, Kristen Sieh, Erin Markey and Marga Gomez are committed to their dialogue and produce good characterizations.  Katie Brook’s direction dutifully stages the piece as written.  The audience drops in on a conversation with little backstory ever explained.  When snippets of information arrive, they seem forced.  I was bored from start to finish.

Why did Sally Ride want to go into space?  The funny theory offered was to “wave at the Russians” and “pray for you in your totalitarian darkness.”  I suppose the juxtaposition between Dr. Rice’s closeted existence and these women fumbling to thrive during this era is an interesting conceit.  I never got past the hoary stereotypes and general anesthesia of the evening.

Two women sat in front of us before this play began.  One turned around to apologize.  “I’m sorry, I’m top heavy… by that I mean tall.”  She was indeed tall but not blocking our view.  I assume the woman with her was her partner.  She replied “she’s top heavy the other way, too.”  The first responded, “Yes, I am.”  We all laughed heartily.  Neither of them seemed to respond enthusiastically when the show ended either.

www.arsnova.com

In his intensely mesmerizing new play, one of Will Arbery’s characters calls liberals “empathy addicts.”  There are no liberals on stage in Heroes of the Fourth Turning.  Catholic conservatives from rural Wyoming have stormed a Manhattan theater.  They are not attempting conversion as much as  communication.  The dialogue is so brilliant that it draws you into this little world for a sane glimpse into a group not often sympathetically (or even respectfully) represented in plays.

Laura Jellinek’s set design contains a lone house at dawn.  There is a forest nearby and a mountain in the distance.  The lights are dim.  Justin (Jeb Kreager) is sitting quietly on the porch when he hears something.  He picks up his rifle and shoots.  He retrieves a deer and dumps it on his porch for gutting.  Stains of blood and murder set the tone.

Justin’s home is the location for an after party.  The Transfiguration College of Wyoming has just installed a new President.  This is a private Catholic College, similar to one the playwright attended.  His father is the current President of that school.  If you want a peek into a world that is laser focused on propagating its beliefs – especially if they disagree with yours – and you want that view to be adorned with some of the most satisfyingly artful and intelligent prose, then this play is a must see.

Gina  is the new President but she has not yet arrived at this party and it is getting late.  Emily (Julia McDermott) is her daughter who has an unexplained illness, walks with crutches and manages to exist in a state of perpetual goodness.  She’s devout but counts as friends one who works at Planned Parenthood and another who is a drag queen.  It is easy to love her and her contradictions.

Teresa has come back to the school to celebrate one of her teachers and this particular accomplishment.  She lives in Brooklyn.  The world around her is filled with evil liberals.  She reminded me of a terrifically articulate Ann Coulter type.  She smokes and does cocaine.  Her exquisitely delivered staccato diatribes are nothing short of spectacular.  Zoë Winters performance is mind-blowing.  It is easy to dislike her but she’s got spunk for days.

She argues that abortion and the Holocaust are the same thing.  Abolishing slavery has led to anti-slavery where “they” are trying to “oppress us.”  Almost militant in her convictions, I could never be friends with someone this far off my spectrum of reasonableness.  Sitting in a theater and absorbing her beliefs without any opportunity to argue or turn the channel forces listening.  She’s whip smart and polished.  This play gives her voice a serious pulpit.  The theatergoer can take it all in and think.

The Fourth Turning of the title is a pseudoscientific theory which believes that every generation goes through four cycles.  Teresa explains this and believes it wholeheartedly.  We are currently at the fourth period which is also known as crisis.  Who’s fault?  If you guess Obama then you would be correct.

Kevin is the fool of the play.  He’s drinking tonight and desperately trying to find a girlfriend.  He is filled with self-loathing.  Teresa calls him a “soy boy.”  Portrayed by John Zdrojeski, he is a young man who graduated from this college.  He’s young and caught between his commitment to faith and obsession with internet porn.  He questions his behavior when going to church, speed praying by rote and then going off to brunch.

The character of Kevin is filled with heart and soul, along with supremely entertaining inner conflicts.  They erupt volcanically in an enormously self-deprecating way.  Mr. Zdrojeski is superb in his depiction of this deeply flawed yet highly sympathetic character.

When Gina (Michelle Pawk, excellent) finally arrives to pick up her daughter, the debates escalate even further.  Rather than simply showcase a pile of brainless conservatives, Mr. Arbery has created five individuals who reside along the spectrum of conservatism.  Gina is looking past the Trump presidency.  “He’s a gaseous windbag and I pray for his soul.”  He was, however, the choice that had to be made.

Danya Taymor beautifully directed this cyclone of intermingling arguments and interpersonal relationship drama.  Heroes of the Fourth Turning is dense with language and concepts.  Somehow Ms. Taymor makes this celebratory evening at Justin’s house crackle with realistic life.  This production is one of the year’s finest.

Fans of debate will find this entire play filled with scintillating verbiage.  You may or may not agree with the content and that’s the point.  Asking a New York audience to sit for two hours with no intermission and listen to a non-stop barrage of conservative philosophizing may seem audacious and ill-advised.  Not at all.

Perhaps this play is the first pylon in the creation of a new bridge in which opposite points of view are actually heard.  I’ll certainly never align with most of the opinions of conservatives and the inherent hatred which permeates organized religion.  Like the author, I grew up in such a household.  I’ve stopped hearing them.  Will Arbery’s play, however, made me listen and appreciate his mission to write this astonishing literary achievement.

www.playwrightshorizons.org

Sometimes an impression leaves a lasting memory.  When I began attending Broadway theater in the mid-1970’s, the group school trips focused on the big musicals.  During this period of consuming Shenandoah, Annie and A Chorus Line, there were other marquees which drew my attention.  One was for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf.  Another was Elizabeth Swados’ Runaways.  With this revival, I have finally managed to experience these unique and intense theatrical pieces.

The  year before I started blogging, Runaways had a short summer Encores! Off Center revival.  I loved the show and was surprised that it didn’t seem dated.  The subject was children who had run away from their homes and were living on city streets.  Both for colored girls and Runaways were elevated to Broadway via Joseph Papp and the Public Theater.  The institution that nurtured A Chorus Line also – and significantly – brought bold new voices to uptown audiences.

Ntozake Shange wrote her play based on personal experiences and observations.  The Lady in Orange “convinced myself that colored girls had no right to sorrow and I lived my life that way.”  All of the seven ladies are represented by a color.  Yellow is still developing: “being a woman and being colored is a metaphysical dilemma I haven’t conquered yet.”

This piece was written as a “choreopoem,” a collection of individual poems with frequent music and dance.  There is a true bonding of sisters.  Brown wants to sing a black girl’s song which has been “closed inside so long, she doesn’t hear the sound of her own voice.”  The sheer volume of gorgeous prose and deep introspection is staggering.  The work was written “for colored girls who have considered suicide / but are moving to the ends of their own rainbows.”

Originally performed in bars and other downtown spaces, this play managed to hit the mainstream (at least in New York).  The Broadway run was 742 performances and included a Tony nomination for Best Play.  How rare a feat?  This was only the second play written by an African American woman to be produced on the aptly named “Great White Way.”  It was produced seventeen years after Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun.  This trailblazing work lives up to its reputation.

This collection of poetry covers many topics from living in Harlem to rape and abortion.  Men and relationships are dissected to release their pain.  The Lady in Red’s blistering monologue “a nite with beau willie brown” recalls the arc of one young lady from thirteen to twenty two.  In the original production, Trazana Beverley won a supporting actress Tony for her rendition.  Jayme Lawson’s interpretation in this show stopped my breath.

The singular finest moment in a tempest of excellence, pain and partial healing belongs to the Lady in Green (Okwui Okpokwasili).  This poem is called “somebody almost walked off wid alla my stuff.”  Her stuff is metaphysical.  The title is repeated throughout this monologue.  Each time Ms. Okpokwasili lands that line, her eyes widen, boring through the listener.  Her realization explodes as her percolating outrage is laid out raw.  The writing and acting is riveting.

There is a lot of movement in for colored girls.  The Lady in Orange tells us that “We gotta dance to keep from cryin’.”  This section is named “no more love poems #1.”  Ms. Shange is perhaps communicating her own personal chrysalis.  She could not stand being “sorry & colored at the same time.  It’s so redundant in the modern world.”

I found myself thinking for colored girls was both a psychological breakthrough for the author and a remarkably brave outreach to her sisters.  The seven women listen to each other’s stories and provide noticeable support and nods of recognition.  One says that she is finally being real and “no longer symmetrical and impervious to pain.”  Fans of lyrical language and expressive emotions have plenty to savor in this groundbreaking work of art.

I happened to see the performance of this play on the one year anniversary of Ms. Shange’s death.  At the curtain call, there was a pause of silence in her honor.  A fitting tribute in the theater where her work transitioned from beloved to famous.  After all these years, I am thrilled to have finally encountered this long overdue revival.  It reminds me why the Public Theater was and is vital to our theatrical community.  It implores us to listen to voices which are not our own.  And, most importantly, for colored girls shows how one person’s life can inspire and help change the world.

for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf is running at the Public Theater through December 8, 2019.  I strongly advise not ordering seats on the stage.

www.publictheater.org

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For the past decade, Richard Nelson has written eight plays which take place in the small town of Rhinebeck, New York.  The Michaels is my fourth visit to this community.  He writes Americana in a most intimate way.  Prototypical families filled with people who are thoughtful, decent, loving and worried.  The dramas are intimate in scale amidst the big wide world.  Events which influence and shape our lives are present but are not the sole focus.

The four Apple Family Plays were a sold out sensation at the Public Theater.  That Hopey Changey Thing took place during the 2010 midterm elections.  Sweet and Sad was set at the tenth anniversary of 9/11.  The next year, Sorry had the backdrop of the 2012 Presidential election.  The cycle wrapped up with Regular Singing in 2013 on the fiftieth anniversary of JFK’s assassination.  I missed them but they were a significant enough phenomena that PBS filmed them.

The Gabriels:  Election Year in the Life of One Family took place through the 2016 Presidential campaign.  This three part drama started with a funeral in Hungry.  The second play was What Did You Expect?  The final entry, Women of a Certain Age, opened on the night Donald Trump was declared the winner.  The play did not include the final results but the backdrop of an economically and morally fading America was omnipresent.

Two splendid actors, Maryann Plunkett and Jay O. Sanders, have appeared in all eight productions including The Michaels.  The characters may be different but their recurring appearance binds together Mr. Nelson’s thematic use of Rhinebeck.  The town becomes a familiar terrain used to dissect and ponder this time in American history.  There is a feeling of classic to this entire group of plays.

The Micheals is subtitled Conversations During Difficult Times.  In Rose’s kitchen on October 27, 2019, a group of women (and one husband) gather to recount past glories.  Rose (Brenda Wehle) is a semi-retired modern dance choreographer.  Irenie Walker (Haviland Morris), one of her celebrated dancers, has come to visit.  Once again, a meal will be prepared and cooked.  Conversations will gently swing from yesteryear nostalgia to today’s worries.

Rose’s daughter Lucy (Charlotte Bydwell) is a dancer who is practicing to perform a series of pieces from her mother’s repertory with her cousin May (Matilda Sakamoto).  The circle of life is ever present.  Nurturing is accompanied by stern warnings.  Kate, a retired schoolteacher, is a new friend who is preparing dinner.  Lucy was once her student.  The small town vibe hovers around these individuals.

Mr. Nelson considers major life moments in a beautifully understated way.  As a result, there is a richness to the dialogue which seems organic and very familiar.  Escape is the slightly unspoken word.  Rose has had a big career in the dance world of 1970’s New York.  She moved away.  What is best for her daughter and niece?  A romantic opportunity presents itself to another character.  This riddle creates heartbreak.  Should one be practical and responsible no matter what the alternative choice?

The Michaels is soft spoken and, like the quiche being prepared, takes time coagulating into the depths of its character’s emotions.  Deliberately paced, the onion peels back during this little reunion.  Pivotal life changing events are on the horizon for both the young and old.

This entire cast is directed with effortless naturalism by Mr. Nelson.  Each persona is a fully inhabited individual wading through life but stopping at this moment to do so with each other.  No more plot description is needed.  Letting this play unfold is one of its great joys.

Returning to Rhinebeck reminded me how little connectivity exists with my own family.  There is goodness in these people which, therefore, makes you want to visit with them.  They help me traverse the highs and lows of my own American journey.  Richard Nelson is a playwright who will always be worth your time.

The Michaels is being performed at the Public Theater through November 24, 2019.

www.publictheater.org