Blasted

Photo/Simon Kane

If Beckett had balls, Blasted is the play he would've written, stripping the physical comedy from his hopelessly hopeful looks at humanity. In Sarah Kane's world, the goad doesn't just force us onward: it anally rapes us; water isn't dangling just out of reach, it's locked in the corpse of a dead baby, awaiting our desperation. What's most troubling--and powerful--about Blasted is that it doesn't take place in some surreal landscape, where women are progressively buried in mounds of sand, or where men sit around in a wasteland, or spend their time in garbage cans. It begins in a fancy hotel room (meticulously created by set designer Louisa Thompson)--a place in which our anti-hero can say only "I've shat in better places than this." And thanks to Sarah Benson's unremitting direction, the play remains condemningly fixed in reality, even as it deconstructs into bleak surrealism.

To some people, this may sound rather unpalatable, but that's largely the point: in the midst of our blissful ignorance is an almost accidental violence, one which we are a part of, whether we choose to open the door or not. It's no accident that the central character, Ian (Reed Birney), is a misanthropic reporter: though he carries a gun, he's the most passive of people, something made even clearer when a soldier (Louis Cancelmi) breaks down his door. Even when the story is at his doorstep, he tries to ignore it, explaining things away first as a dream, then as something nobody cares about. And that's where Kane is so effective, and why Benson's direction is so brutal: this world cannot be mistaken as a nightmare nor can we ignore its characters.

You see, Blasted begins with picture perfect domesticity: Ian has brought his girl, Cate (Marin Ireland) to a fancy hotel room for some privacy. Except that by the looks of things, Cate isn't entirely grown-up (she giddily bounces on the bed), and as it turns out, her first dalliances with Ian were as a child. And although Cate cares for Ian--it's tragic to see her try to protect Ian from his self-destructive use of gin and cigarettes--she doesn't want him (and again, it's a sad, quiet moment when Ian undresses for her, only to be laughed out of the room). This doesn't excuse Ian's pathetic violence--he whines like a child and grabs her arm, forcing her to assist in his masturbation--or the next step, a between-scenes rape that's left blood on the sheets, but it keeps it framed in an understandable need.

The success of this production of Blasted is that the frame never collapses, even when the world explodes. Instead, there's the sense of a camera slowly panning out, going from the specific domestic and civil questions "How can we rape the ones we love?" to "How can we excuse things like this?" to the broader social questions ("How does it feel to have done to us what we have done to others?") and ultimately human questions ("How do we go on with what we've done?"). In conjunction with this, there's an outstanding cast that's able to capture such small gestures and miniature moments: even when the scene has pulled back to an almost unrecognizable distance, the underlying humanity is clear, and in that clarity, heartbreaking.

A perfect example: Ian, who has been raped, blinded, and left alone in the ruins, begs Cate for his gun--and she gives it to him, but not before removing the bullets, a moment that is equal parts spite and compassion (and Ireland is one of the few actresses who can carry that across with a single action). Ian then places the gun in his mouth--only to take it out long enough to make sure that Cate isn't standing behind him. The desperate sadness on Birney's face overrides the increasingly fragmented tone of the show, and in quick flashes--a perfect summation of life--we see him go through the stages of grief as he hovers between life and death.

This isn't just marvelous storytelling, it's marvelous everything, and it's through such intense work like this that we are better able to distinguish the hope at the end of this tragedy, just as we are able to pick out the moments of grim comedy and relentless truth. ("You hurt me," says Cate. "No, I love you," says Ian.) Tear down the walls, then, and see what's left.

metaDRAMA: What Makes the FLEA Tick?

I'm proud to introduce another "trusted theater" to my site: The Flea, a downtown staple which first got my attention for its focus on training young actors (The Bats) in a similar fashion to what I've been working on with Theater Talk over at the New Theater Corps. If there are sometimes misses in the programming, that's simply because Jim Simpson takes risks, not just booking stuff from Beau Willimon, Will Eno, and Adam Rapp, but also wildly experimental stuff, like Offending the Audience or seating ARRANGEMENTS. Currently playing is Cato, the sort of revival I'd expect from Metropolitan Playhouse, but done--I'm told--very nicely here; and coming soon are World Premieres from Thomas Bradshaw (Dawn) and Itamar Moses (But You Will Get Used To It), not to mention the prolific A. R. Gurney and a comissioned piece called Kaspar Hauser, which is a contemporary opera. What's most impressive about The Flea is that much of their work is generated with the young resident company in mind: not only does this results in a lot of hip and edgy work, but it makes it a lot easier to justify paying those already low ticket prices. It's nice to feel connected to development like that.

metaDRAMA: Roundabout's Turnabout

UPDATE: As Isaac points out, and I admit this isn't exactly clear as I worded it, Roundabout did not produce Journey's End. What I mean is that their casting (especially for this season) seems to follow the same mold as Journey's End: their stars are generally selected for their hard work, not on their celebrity (look at The Overwhelming, although Isaac has a point about Cyndi Lauper), and the productions are always nicely done (David Grindley is an ace director for them). As for putting butts in the seat, the HIPTIX program really is a nice touch, along with not just the social events for that, but for all sorts of age groups. As for Woolly's season: I can't speak for anything outside NYC, I am tied to this place. But I stick by what's below: I'm psyched for this entire season, whatever that says about my taste.

For some reason, Roundabout took a lot of flak last year, although I have to say, their HIPTIX initiative has always been very kind to younger theatergoers (as is their only slightly obstructed rush policy). They seem genuinely interested in putting butts in the seats, and in making revivals interesting, casting theater stars (not film stars) to do so, even when it sometimes hurts a show (like the brilliant Journey's End). Flaws aside, I think it's safe to say that Roundabout has the "Best Season on the Books," with David Rabe's Streamers being joined by Hedda Gabler (with Mary Louise Parker now joined by Paul Sparks and Michael Ceveris) and a Nathan Lane and Bill Irwin love-fest in Waiting for Godot. To say nothing of Matthew Broderick in the anti-Moliere The Philanthropist (directed by David Grindley). Even shows I'm not interested in (A Man for All Seasons and Pal Joey) have AOI (Actors of Interest) like Frank Langella and Martha Plimpton giving me reasons to attend. As for the mystery show, Distracted . . . I may not be a Cynthia Nixon fan, but given a line-up like this, I feel obligated to trust Roundabout's direction. Oh! And of course, let's not forget that their Underground series has what I'm told is a terrific new second production, The Language of Trees. This is a good time to subscribe, if you're into that sort of thing.

David Foster Wallace, "McCain's Promise"

It seems a little inane to review McCain's Promise, a $9.99 republication of an essay ("Up, Simba") that already appears in David Foster Wallace's Consider the Lobster. Then again, it's a little crazy to be living in a world without DFW, and one in which John McCain, the subject of this 2000 essay (originally "reported" for Rolling Stone) is ungallantly repeating the mistakes of his primary campaign against Bush (a k a "The Shrub"). But and so then, because it would be crazy to imagine intelligent readers out there somehow missing this redundantly published yet wholly original essay, an ode to DFW, in review form:

First off, the genius of DFW, who--in footnotes, blocks of run-on text, or parentheical asides--always found a deeper connection to his material. In his fiction, this sometimes led to a solipsistic recursion, logical digressions and nested loops of introspection. But in his nonfiction, a new form of journalism was born, a synechdocal-gonzo hybrid that associated everything to everything. (Charlie Kaufman should be adapting Infinite Jest.) McCain's Promise proves to be no exception, "...not so much the campaign of one impressive guy, but rather what McCain's candidacy and the brief weird excitement is generated might reveal about how millennial politics and all its packaging and marketing and strategy and media and spin and general sepsis actually makes US voters feel, inside, and whether anyone running for anything can even be 'real' anymore."

So run the next 124 pages, a jampacked collection of observations not really about McCain, but about how McCain affected the political landscape, and about how badly we needed to feel something other than "the enormous shuddering yawn that the political process tends to evoke in us now in this post-Watergate-post-Iran-Contra-post-Whitewater-post-Lewinsky era, an era in which politicians' statements of principle or vision are understood as self-serving ad copy and judged not for their truth or ability to inspire but for their tactical shrewdness, their marketability." It's hard not to quote; as hard as it is to not absorb the richness of complex sentences like these, which nonetheless unfold like origami (hard to put together, easy to take apart).

It's all too easy to get lost in the abbreviation heavy language--not purple prose, but rainbow prose, effective prose, necessary prose--until you realize that despite the inclusion of words like "styptic," it's easy to stay afloat. Why? Because this essay is timeless, or at least prescient enough to describe America c. 2008: these observations transcend candidates and campaigns, and get to the root of what's wrong with politics: "It's easy to tell the truth when there's nothing to lose." How nice for DFW, then, who makes a point of reminding us that he's not a political journalist, and who punctuates this point by deriding the "12 Monkeys" (big political reporters for the MSM, distinguishable by their lack of distinguishability) and spending most of his time with the camera crew, with people like Jim C. who, because he's holding a boom mic just out of frame, is probably paying more attention than most people. Including this analysis of negativity:

Well no shit Sherlock H., the ABC techs in essence respond, good old Frank C. then explaining more patiently that, yes, if there's a low voter turnout [because the ugliness of the race has gotten voters so "bored and cynical and disgusted with the whole thing that they don't even bother to vote"], then the majority of the people who get off their ass and do vote will be the Diehard Republicans, meaning the Christian Right and the party faithful, and these are the groups that vote as they're told, the ones controlled by the GOP Establishment . . . [L]ow turnouts favor incumbents for the same reason soft money does.

As it turns out, DFW spends a great deal of time speaking in the vox populi, and it's this common tone that justifies all of his perfectly human and ultimately comic digressions ("Is it any wonder that over half of all US suicides take place in chain hotels?... Is it any coincidence that McCain's POW prison was known as the Hanoi Hilton?"), nay, which demands such momentum-stifling reports on the meaningless banality behind a campaign: "Editorial Meeting w/Detroit News. Press Conference at Weird Meth Lab-Looking Internet Company in Flint. Red-Eye to North Savannah on Chartered 707 with Faint PanAm Still Stenciled on Tail. Spartanburg SC Town Hall Meeting. Charleston Closed-Circuit TV Reception for McCain Supporters in Three States...Six Hours Flying for Two-Hour Fund-Raiser with NYC Supporters. Congressman Lindsey Graham Hosts Weird BBQ for a Lot of Flinty-Eyed Men in Down Vests and Trucker's Hats in Seneca SC." Could any other writer capture such mundanity (which is really the ghost of humanity) in the political machine?

This isn't an essay about the 2008 campaign any more than it's about the 2000 campaign, or about John McCain. It--like most, if not all of DFW's work--isn't actually even about politics, even though its observations and eerie parallels are always accurate. It's about life, the pulse of which persists in even the most artificial moments, and the hope behind all that stylized writing that we will always seek out, discover, and eventually achieve change. Here's a promise: read this essay--in fact, the whole collection. You will enjoy it.

Like You Like It

Photo/Jennifer Maurfrais Kelly

Transposing Shakespeare to high school is nothing new--Taming of the Shrew became 10 Things I Hate About You, Othello simply stood for O--and that's to say nothing of all the giddy musical riffs out there, like Kiss Me Kate, or the current production of Ilyria. But don't just shrug off this '80s take on As You Like It with a laconic "Whatever," or a lacerating "As if!" Sammy Buck (Book/Lyrics) and Daniel S. Acquisto (Music) may not be particularly ambitious with Like You Like It, but they are in firm territory, and in a fine production from the Gallery Players, in this, their second original musical production (following last year's Yank!).

Despite cutting out the social satire (and Jacques himself), the musical hews rather closely to the original. The one addition, the "narrators," rockers Jackie West and Eddie Van Beethoven (Jennifer Blood and Lance Olds) and their band, the "Seven Stages of Man," only make it easier to self-satirize the plot, enhancing the crowd-pleasing narrative, (now with 80s affectations that include Molly Ringwald, Rubik's Cubes, Swatches, and Wonder Twin powers). Apparently, cannibalizing a show is fine, as long as you use authentic spices, and keep a smile on your face. (For an instructive glimpse on how to make the most of something, keep an eye on Elisabeth Ness, who plays the hell out of the bit chorus part, "Neckbrace Girl.")

As for the story, Orlando (Nathan Johnson) is dating popular girl Audrey Shepherd (Caitlin Kent), but worries (in the aptly titled "The Song About Orlando") that nobody really likes him. The one exception is Rosalind (the fantastic Alison Luff), but she's just as shy about taking a risk as he is--a problem that is solved when Orlando's brother, Oliver (Clint Morris), suspends Rosalind and her cohort, Celia (Hollis Scarborugh). In order to spend the day wisely--shopping their cares away at the enchanting, newly opened Arden Mall--Rosalind disguises herself as a boy, Corey, while Celia channels a rebellious Madonna. They're joined, of course, by the car-driving class clown, Walter "Touchstone" James (a delightful Trey Compton), who has a crush on Celia. In one clever gender-bending twist, Sylvie and Phil (originally shepherds, but now role-reversed students, played by Brynn Curry and Michael Lowney) are best friends, dealing with the sudden revelation that Phil has fallen for Corey. (As does poor, misunderstood Audrey.) There's a lot going on, but despite the very clever Act I closer, "Complicated," the jokes are as broadly painted as the plot.

Where Like You Like It suffers isn't in the story, nor is it in the surface (Keith Andrew's choreography and Hunter Kaczorwski's costumes nail the period), but rather in the music. Musical director Jeffrey Campos isn't to blame--the large chorus numbers sound just fine. But with the exception of Luff and Scarborough, too many of the lead singers are tame (which is ironic, given a song like "Be a Little Wild"), and while they generally hit their notes, there's little behind it. (This is most apparent in the sloppy "So Close, So Far Away" number, in the short duets between Sylvie and Phil, or when Orlando takes center stage.) Comedy needs more truth, not less: that's how you sell the humor.

But hey, if all the world's a mall, then we have to accept the odd Pottery Barn out along with all the other good shops, and taken as a whole--as in the fantastic, song-blending and utterly satisfying "Finale"--Like You Like It ends up quite likeable indeed.