metaDRAMA: Doin' What We Do

So . . . how exactly does one become a theater critic, anyway? (Not that this is exactly the best time in the world to do so.) Education only takes you so far, and unless you're independently wealthy, seeing enough shows to gain "experience" can be difficult, too. It's hard to believe that there's much mentoring going on these days, or that there are apprenticeships. There are things like the O'Neill National Critics Institute or internships with, say, American Theater, but most of those require either funding or the Catch-22 requisite of prior experience. And while Mirror Up To Life points out this great article by Andrew Haydon in The Guardian, it's worth noting that the "Young Critic's Scheme" was an overseas-only collaboration between Time Out and BAC. (As to Haydon's question of whether mentoring threatens to stifle originality in the review format, that really depends on the type of teaching being done, as well as on the inky chains of word counts.) MCC has an excellent youth company, but I have yet to find one that seeks to cultivate criticism, too.

Though I've agglomerated with fellow critic-bloggers at Show Showdown, seen the so-called Blog Critics site, and had the opportunity to weigh in at the elegant Critic-O-Meter, I've never really had this discussion--I'm not sure how to approach critics who have been in the game for a long time. (The few that I have met with were kind enough to reach out, which says a lot about them.) This is something I'm now getting far more serious about at Theater Talk's New Theater Corps, and we hope to start organizing workshops for the members (and to find new ways of reaching and recruiting writers) that perhaps provide moderated discussions, the opportunity to shadow professionals, or just to continue providing basic editorial suggestions.

In other words, the answer to this question is: I don't know. I'm glad that people find this site useful, and I'd call myself a critic, but I don't even know what criticism is turning into, so if there are steps to take, I certainly can't share them. What I can say, however, is that if you're blogging and serious about theater--which was, for me, the first step--you should check out Ken Davenport's "Theater Bloggers Social" (h/t Leonard Jacobs). I think top-down discussion (provocative/thoughtful post leading to colorful commentary) is the format in which we're going (just look at media sites, like Hulu, which append reviews/discussions to every streaming show/movie), and I'm looking forward to the chance to meet more people who do what I do--so that I can figure out where I'm going next.

Tartuffe

[Reviewed for Show Business Weekly]

The good and bad of the Pearl Theatre’s revival of Tartuffe is clearest when Damis (Sean McNall) leaps from a closet to protect his mother, Elmire (Rachel Botchan), from the lecherous advances of the not-so-pious Tartuffe (Bradford Cover). Hamming it up, he falls out ass backward, though he turns this collapse into a sprightly roll. Sam Fleming’s terrific costuming telegraphs his every move — we can tell from his foppish mane of golden hair and his gaudy garb that he’s going to fail, but that, in failing, he’s going to be hilarious. That he should run out of breath while ranting is both youthful inexperience and passion — in any case, he’s committed. In other words, although Gus Kaikkonen’s rendering of Moliere goes overboard, it never drowns.

It does, however, sag — especially if you’re not familiar with the Pearl’s dedicated troupe of resident actors. Too much of the show is about them: Moliere’s specificity is washed away by boisterously disconnected work. They nail their blocking — the play opens with the sound of an approaching argument — but they don’t think about it. That’s why the energy drops when Mme. Pernelle (Carol Schultz) first steps into Harry Feiner’s tapestry-covered dining room: Nobody’s actually heated enough to follow through without the aid of lines or specific actions. This leads to missed beats, and those brief pauses pockmark Richard Wilbur’s excellent translation of the rhymed couplets.

This disconnect between actions and dialogue (or between actors and motivation) leads most of the cast to compensate the only way they can: by getting bigger and bigger. At one point, Tartuffe turns to the audience and shrugs, as if he can’t believe Orgon’s stupidity either, before taking a maliciously evil bite of an apple; it’s the show’s lowest point, for it strips away the little humanity that Cover’s performance has left it.

Thankfully, Tartuffe is a waterproof show, helped by the floatation devices of the cast’s strong female players (Robin Leslie Brown, Carrie McCrossen, and Botchan) whose directness helps them stay connected. And if in the end we’re laughing more at the flailing about of the actors than at the very funny play itself, we are still, after all, laughing.

metaDRAMA: Too Long For Twitter

Still not using Twitter. But if I were, I'd be mulling over this old unquestioned chestnut:

Minds are like parachutes; both work best when open.

Except that's not true, is it? I mean, a parachute works best at breaking your fall when it's open. But it would be pretty terrible if your parachute were open when trying to board the plane, or trying to jump out of it. In fact, that's the very reason they're closed in the first place. The moral is either (A) sometimes your mind has to be closed (i.e., creativity requires being stubborn to a certain degree) or that (B) being open means not accepting anything at face value: it's not right just because people have been doing or saying it for years.

Either way, you're probably going to get tangled up in a propeller.

Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage

Beowulf and baggage—two alliteratively perfect things for the audacious company Banana Bag & Bodice to tackle in Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage. There are shades of John Gardner’s revisionist Grendel, but Dave Malloy and Jason Craig’s songplay is a beast of a different sort, focusing neither on Beowulf’s point of view nor Grendel’s but rather on the subjective interpretations of three damnable academics. The result is a clash between the physical reality of Beowulf (Craig) and the gleeful spin of the academics, who justly double as the villains of the epic poem: Grendel (Christopher Kuckenbaker), Grendel’s Mother (Jessica Jelliffe), and the Dragon (Beth Wilmurt). Oh, and the whole thing’s set to Malloy’s nicely hodge-podged music, be it feedback (“Overture”), jungle-like techno (“Beowulf Arrives”), punk (“Body”), a dirge (“Grendel’s Death”), or even Broadway (“Ripped Him Up Good”).

The company’s set design helps to show the various levels of the play: The academics sit in a recessed portion of the stage up front, only their heads visible, while the action occurs on a raised white platform that is surrounded by the band and, upstage, by a wall of fans. But it’s Rod Hipskind’s fluid directing that nails the emotional levels, allowing Grendel’s mother to keen for her son (“I don’t fucking care how fucking men my fucking son murdered/they all fucking deserved what fucking ass pushers in fancy dress”) even as she wears arm floaters to signify that the scene’s taking place underwater. It’s a good balance for Craig’s language, which has a childish directness (e.g., “strong strength” and “sick weird weirdo sicko”) that allows the actors to seriously play with action figures one moment and comically go to slaughter the next.

Juggling all of these different elements requires a lot of energy—at one point, the chorus of warriors (Shaye Troha and Anna Ishida) runs up and down the aisles like cheerleaders, pumping us up. These efforts inevitably ebb, especially after the big numbers—like the armlock-filled dissonance of “The Battle” or the hilarious dioramic depiction of the “Underwater Battle.” Thankfully, it always builds back up, eventually reaching a surprising climax sung in “Olde English” and the elegant elegy “Passing.” Though some of the scenes are overcooked, the variety of styles and spices keep the show fresh, and though some of the interstitial gristle is unwieldy, it only serves to make the meaty action all the juicier.

What Sounds Cool: April 2009

Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage (3/31 - 4/18) | I've only seen Banana Bag & Bodice's The Fall and Rise of the Rising Fallen, and I didn't like it -- and yet, I can't stop thinking about the punk aesthetic, the warbling lyricism of the text, and the absurd design of the production. To match that, then, with Beowulf . . . unforgettable indeed, and the trailer they've posted (along with pull quotes like "that was fucking awesome") only furthers that.

Homer's ILIAD: Book One (3/31 - 4/25) | Aquila's adaptations are always at least visually pleasing (Prometheus Unbound), and their last show was dramatically adept, too (Catch-22). The Iliad is pretty daunting, but that just makes me all the more excited to see how they're going to manage it, especially given what looks like a contemporary flair.


Rock of Ages (open) | How American, that this 80s jukebox musical should rise from the New World (Stages) to reach Broadway. I'm not normally a fan of mindless entertainment, but sometimes you need to just cut loose, and from all the buzz I've heard, this is the right show for the right time.

Angela's Mixtape (4/6 - 5/2) | I love New Georges's commitment not just to female playwrights but to INTERESTING ones, ones with unique voices, styles, and flair. Their latest production deals with the mixing of memories and music (literally and figuratively). There's a hip-hop rhythm, but it looks like there's a substantial theatrical backbeat, too.

Artifacts of Consequence (4/16 - 5/2) | It's no secret that I think Electric Pear's been doing some of the more creative theater work in this town, so it's a pleasure to see the sort of play that their artistic director, Ashlin Halfnight, has been cooking up. The director, Kristjan Thor, has already proven to be adept with unique material (The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents), as has at least one of the actresses (Hannah Cheek).

Pretty Theft (4/24 - 5/17) | Another company of note is Flux Ensemble, which has been steadily producing new work (or taking on daunting repertory trilogies) for some time now. Their latest play is written by the nervy Adam Syzmkowicz and features the physical Todd D'Amour; the crime here would be not stealing a ticket to check this out.