THEATER: Maple and Vine

Nostalgia can be a crippling thing, which sends people who are afraid of the future hurdling back into the safety and comfort of the past. But it's served the young and talented Jordan Harrison well, for he writes of times that he never knew, pulling lessons out of the '60s (Doris to Darlene), '40's (Amazons and Their Men), and '20s (Act a Lady) to help inform the present, to give a context to where we are. Even Futura, which was set in a dystopic future, centered around those brave few souls who remembered the days of paper. His latest, Maple and Vine, walks that same ground, as an unhappy Katha (Marin Ireland) convinces her husband, Ryu (Peter Kim), to move to the SDO (Society of Dynamic Obsolescence), a gated community in which every day re-enacts the values, attitudes, and lifestyles of 1955 America. If the slow food movement is about limiting one's ecological footprint, then this is slow mood movement, which aims to give one freedom in the bustling world by limiting their choices and reverting to a simpler time.

Of course, the 50's weren't a simpler time: they were simply more repressed. This works for Dean (Trent Dawson), a gay man who gets off on his guilt, the sort to sharply fill out a suit, patter glibly, and rendezvous with his boyfriend, Roger (Pedro Pascal), for some rough and secret sex. It's an interesting dynamic, the idea that the freedom to be gay might actually be difficult for a select few, and it allows Harrison to fully explore the dimensions of his '50s paradise, particularly in the "mixed marriage" of Katha and Ryu (only a decade after the internment camps and reparations) and the character of Ellen (Jeanine Serralles), whose prim attitude wasn't serving her in the real world, but who is built manipulate with the hidden powers of her apron strings and talent for gossip. Harrison suggests that there's a place, a role, or a character for all of us -- just not necessarily in a global culture as all-inclusive as today's. After all, if everything is permitted, is anything true?

Anne Kauffman, who has handled realist, surrealist, and surreal realist plays (The Thugs, God's Ear, Sixty Miles to Silver Lake), is a perfect fit for Harrison's material: she's visually distinct enough for the short scenes, quick cuts, and montages, and knows exactly how to stage dream sequences, in which Katha's new paradise is haunted by echoes from her old publishing job. If there's a flaw, it's that Alexander Dodge's scenic design doesn't better distinguish between the present and past -- sets from both times are wheeled about  (or elevated in) in little dioramic frames (good for cubicles, bad for the "freedom" of the '50s), and a steel-rimmed modernity hangs both above the set (a triangle that represents the roof) and in a long staircase off the stage-right wing.

In terms of decor and tone, however, Maple and Vine does a fabulous job, and there's genuine growth from the hesitant and skeptical views of this society (a major faux pas comes not from aggressively playing charades, but from accidentally pouring Grey Goose) to the actual happiness shown within. Katha, depressed over the miscarriage of her child, finds herself embracing pregnancy again, and even goes so far as to suggest (at the local "authenticity meetings") that her neighbors actually be a little less accepting (and more suspicious) of her and her foreign husband. A little controlled adversity can help a relationship grow; you'd also be surprised at the fulfillment Ryu, a plastic surgeon, gets in his new job as a box maker.

I can't speak to life in the '50s, but given how many electronic distractions there are, Harrison makes a valid argument toward people being more present in the past. It's a clear and potent argument, thanks to the extremely present cast -- some of whom get rather close to those of us in the aisles. There are some real standouts, too, like Ireland (who plays instability better than anyone else), Serralles (steely, but not inflexibly or unemotionally so), and Pascal, who flickers not only between tough-guy floor manager and tortured gay lover but also doubles as Katha's comically Queer Eye-like coworker in the "modern" world. Maple and Vine illustrates a "simpler" time without sacrificing complexity, reminds us that we're all "playing" characters of some sort or another, and succeeds in proving that less can absolutely be more.

metaDRAMA: Computers Killing Critics?

I had the recent opportunity to speak with a director regarding the clash between the poor critical reception of the show and what appeared to be much warmer responses from the audience. I understood the director's frustration -- that's why I started blogging, freelancing, and aggregating for StageGrade: so as to help widen a discussion about theater that is often dominated, sometimes unfortunately so, by the so-called 1% (it's actually far, far, less) of critics who get paid on a regular basis to weigh in on the merits of a show.

Like this director, I actively disagree with some of the major critics out there, particularly when I feel they've misinterpreted a show (like Milk Like Sugar) because they come from a different background and don't "get" or aren't able to "engage" with the work, or when they fill up an allotted number of words speaking about things tangential to the production, like the book or film that preceded it, the previous work of the actors or playwright, etc. (Not that this information is necessarily bad; I just feel it shouldn't dominate and skew the conversation.) However, unlike this perhaps righteously wounded director, I also think that criticism is important, and that this director's dream of direct-response, in which audiences might reductively give each show a "thumbs-up" or "thumbs-down" that would help to inform other paying theatergoers -- in other words, People Just Like Them (the 99%, to continue that popular metaphor) -- what the real story was. I'm assuming here that the implication is that critics often get things wrong, and that even when they praise a show that the audience isn't investing in (like Journey's End, the early closing of which pains me to this day), they should shut up and let the market do its dirty work.

The biggest problem with this, for the record, is that people in a theater are not Just Like Them -- particularly on Broadway. For a 40-seat theater that produces risque work, it might help to know how the immediate audience felt: they know what they're getting into. But the larger the house, the more varied the audience, and the more difficult it is to quantify the results of stripping their thoughts into an American Idol-style vote (and it should be noted that American Idol was originally watched, in part, for its critics -- particularly the foul-mouthed ones). "Thumbs up" and "thumbs down" doesn't actually tell you what people liked about the show, so as to help you with the next production you work on, nor does it help to recognize actors (which might help them to get work in the future), and might lead to bad plays being produced more frequently, as there'd be no way to direct that "thumbs up" at the star, or the director, or the costumes, etc. On the flip side, a good play that's poorly mounted in its debut, or which finds the wrong audience might be doomed forever. Now, I'm not saying that a critic is going to be more accurate -- but they're going to be more descriptive, and that critic is going to have a body of work behind them that allows the various producers, directors, and audiences to decide how much of their review seems trustworthy.

Another problem is that this would lead even faster to the proliferation of "easy" shows, "light" entertainment in the theater, and work that's more "simply" marketed. There's already a ton of tourist-friendly pap flung up on the boards each year ("holiday" shows, I'm looking at you), and critics are already largely ignored when it comes to certain mega-spectacles (Spider-Man); while it may be more profitable, would it be healthier for the theater if everybody suddenly shied away from the harder sells, knowing that they'd no longer be able to lure people in on the merits of the work? (Ironically, this director spoke about how nobody working on a show was in it for the money, while simultaneously pushing for a way to make more money.) In the same sense that sports can be heightened by an understanding and appreciation of rivalries, histories, and statistics, so too can theater be strengthened by a fuller, livelier debate of the ideas expressed within.

The final, largest problem, is that simply looking at percentages of likes and dislikes doesn't help you to find the sort of show you're interested in. Do you buy a ticket to a show simply because it's 100% rated? No more than you buy things on Amazon simply because they're closest to five-stars: you go because something about the production speaks to you. Hopefully, in a good review (and there are some stinkers out there, I'm guilty of some myself) the critic's description helps to describe it to you, or can be purposed to work like the Netflix algorithm, in which how closely you agree with past reviews helps to recommend new shows. Direct democracy doesn't seem to have been all that great for California -- do we really want that in theaters? (Also, not to be skeptical or anything, but such a system would no doubt feature a lot of ballot stuffing, right? Assuming you could even get apathetic audiences to talk back?)

Ultimately, I was glad for this discussion with the director, however seriously intended it was (raw emotions and hard alcohol sometimes lead to faulty conclusions). I'm not the hugest fan of the system we have, but I'm convinced that doing away with it entirely is not the right solution. To me, the real trick would be in getting audiences to more actively speak out in dialogue with the critics, and making sure that there's a way to aggregate those thoughts right along with the reviews. (Again, I'm biased here, but StageGrade is the only thing that even comes close to doing this.) One voice is too tyrannical, every voice is too anarchic. I've written before about the wisdom of crowds, but it's a wisdom that comes only through moderation. Let's find the best way to talk about theater; after all, as you can see, my own voice alone is more a rant than a solution.

THEATER: The Cherry Orchard

If you're a profound optimist like Pischik (Ken Cheeseman), the sort of man who rests so easy in the knowledge that everything will somehow work itself out that he's practically a narcoleptic, you'll likely find Classic Stage Company's latest revival of The Cherry Orchard to be, in his uninformed words, "Amazing, amazing." Look at the pretty, star-studded cast! Hear the clean, accessible translation of John Christopher Jones! There's little room, however, for optimism in Chekhov, and while Pischik manages to stumble into a quiet sort of success, Andrei Belgrader (who similarly under-directed Endgame several years ago at BAM, also with John Turturro and Alvin Epstein) simply stumbles, time and time again.

For a drama that's so much about the characters -- the plot revolves around a single action, the upcoming sale of the family's debt-ridden estate -- Belgrader largely ignores them, leaving them to their own devices, and in the case of Turturro, their own bad habits. Instead, he puts up a showy veil around the three-sided stage; has Santo Loquasto wash out the circular set in eye-straining white that belies the manor's former opulence (and looks particularly bad in the "outdoor" second act); and, in an act of token minimalism, leaves only the furniture directly mentioned in the script -- a dresser here, a trunk and a mirror there. These scenic choices clash thematically with the object-centered theme of the play, but for real evidence that Belgrader doesn't really know what he's doing, one need only watch as Charlotta (Roberta Maxwell) cheerily breaks the fourth wall, chatting up and dancing with members of the audience -- and not just in the third act's party scene, which features a variety of divertissments intended to heighten the tension felt by Ranevskaya (Dianne Wiest), as she awaits the results of the auction of her family home -- but during the relatively private second act, too.

The production's clumsier than Epikhodov, which is ironic, since the cast is by and large the one good thing here. I suspect it's largely to do with the experience of these stage and screen veterans, who know how to infuse their characters with more than the seemingly scant directions of Belgrader. In the particular example of Epikhodov, Michael Urie comes in already having mastered pratfalls, so he's able to concentrate on the otherwise undeveloped nuances of his scenes with the self-defined "fragile flower" Dunyasha (Elisabeth Waterston), and his new bad-boy rival, the boorish footman Yasha (Slate Holmgren). The same can be said, however, of Josh Hamliton, who makes the "perpetual student" Trofimov feel like more than Chekhov's intellectual interjection, particularly in the half-witted romantic effect he has on Ranevskaya's naive daughter, Anya (Katherine Waterston).

This is clearest most of all, however, with Ms. Wiest, who plays more than a variation on her usual type. At the play's opening, she is giddier and younger than anyone else, spinning through her old nursery with the sort of delusion that comes from a bad case of nostalgia; by the middle of the play, her mercurial nature comes across more as an informed fatalism -- the sort of woman who knows her charity and lack of money-sense is destructive, but cannot stop; and by the end, she's stooped over with the age and weight of her poor decisions. It's the polar opposite of the over-the-top incredulity that John Turturro brings to the other central role, that of Lopakhin, the hard-working former servant who has now earned enough so as to purchase the very cherry orchard where his parents were once slaves. In some sense, this is fine: Lopakhin is not a subtle man. On the other, Turturro reduces him -- particularly during his big third-act monologue -- to a man of all-business, with the conflicting notes of humility, relief, sorrow wrapped up entirely by one of his booming, over-the-top rants. At the start of the show, Turturro notes that "I've got money, but if you look at me, I'm still a peasant," but hints of the secret shame he feels at this -- one of the key reasons for Trofimov to be in this play, as a means of cultured contrast -- are never visible.

This is, again, where Belgrader's direction -- or lack thereof -- shows; he's too content to let the actors do their thing, with little regard for how those elements all fit together. He may be blessed with talented actors like Daniel Davis, but he doesn't go the extra mile with them: he settles for Davis's wistful and nuanced portrayal of Ranevskaya's brother, Gaev, without pushing for the sublime horror that can be shown by this semi-senile character. The same can be said for Fiers: here's a servant so old and stalwart that he is literally forgotten about at the end of the play, but while Alvin Epstein plays him well, he's used mainly for comic relief, which makes his final lines sit poorly with the rest of the production.

Ultimately, this Cherry Orchard suffers from the same abundance of riches as the orchard within the show: bright and once-majestic, these talents ultimately go to pot, mismanaged as they are.

THEATER: It Is Done

The great thing about site-specific theater is that even when the play's awful, you're at least somewhere new. Thankfully, Alex Goldberg's It Is Done isn't awful -- just mediocre -- and it's in the basement of The Mean Fiddler, a cheery, old-fashioned bar, so you can pass the time with a few drinks. Passing the time is also the theme of Goldberg's ninety-minute play, in which Matt Kalman plays a horny bartender whose godforsaken watering hole is visited by two strangers, Ruby (Catia Ojeda) and Jonas (Ean Sheehy), and their two dark secrets. Or at least that's the theme of the stronger and funnier first half, in which the characters flirt with and/or disgust one another; once the ice melts (it soon gets very hot, in case the play's foreshadowing isn't clear), the play gets stuck on a single, mildly entertaining note, which largely revolves around (1) how much fun Ojeda seems to be having and (2) how infectiously close the audience is to her as she prowls around the bar.

The plotting renders its own points moot; when one character asks why certain unnatural things are happening, the reply is that "It's more fun this way," along with the disclaimer, "Well, for me." It's a one-sided cry for help, and although there are a few neat visual tricks worked out between director Tom Wojtunik and production designer Tim McMath (the paintings, the door, and the jukebox all have their moments), the dramatic balance of power never changes. It Is Done has no shortage of quips (e.g., if rotary phones are classic, so's syphilis), but writing like that's bottom-shelf theater. If we begin as flies on the wall, eavesdropping on a fresh first date, by the end we're closer to the sort of flies that buzz around a long-dead corpse.

THEATER: Seminar

Douglas (Jerry O'Connell) is a slick, Yaddo-referencing, New Yorker-ready writer; the smug sort of guy who likes to talk about the so-called "interiority and exteriority" of his peers. Izzy (Hettienne Park) is his polar opposite, a rough and energetic writer, but one with the ability to go far in publishing, even if she has to flash her tits to do so. This makes Kate (Lily Rabe), the prude, spoiled would-be feminist more than a little jealous, and she'd say something about it if only she weren't so repressed. And then there's Martin (Hamish Linklater), who is simultaneously attracted to and repulsed by the lot of them, the sort of insecure genius whose work ends up being published posthumously. These four young writers have each paid $5,000 to secure a private workshop with the once-famous Leonard (Alan Rickman), so consider yourself lucky to have the opportunity to witness him dryly cut each of them down to size for considerably less money. Welcome to Theresa Rebeck's wickedly fun Seminar, a lesson that seeks to blur the line -- with razor-sharp wit -- between the self-diagnosed whorishness of Hollywood, the precise artlessness of The New Yorker, and the long-sought after (and ill-paid) honesty of "Literature."

Some people will inevitably be turned off by the self-absorbed nature of the play, and those who have taken a workshop will appreciate the backtalk, seething acceptance, and delusional comments quite a lot more. But director Sam Gold (as he did with the outstanding yet potentially insular Circle, Mirror, Transformation) manages to open up the production, working at a faster, sharper pace, sure, but with his patent naturalism intact. The students are sincere in their insincerity, and their professor means well with his mean-spirited comments; that's sometimes just how the world works. In Gold's hands, even Rebeck's shorthand stereotypes -- a few nymphomaniacal moments, a large tub of ice cream for a depressed girl -- manage to be successfully played for more than just laughs. (It helps that Rebeck is intensely aware of her own stylistic tics; unlike Mamet, who nowadays wallows in his own style, she is consciously making choices.)

The young actors are perfectly cast, with a surprisingly moderated turn from O'Connell and some heavy lifting from Rabe, who transforms from mousy shrew to confident sexpot. And while the play suffers a little from Martin's unwavering angst, Linklater learned enough about inflections while working on The School for Lies to at least provide some variance to all his cynical sniveling. Let's face it, though: this Seminar is largely taken for its professor, and Rickman is potent and present in this role, as much a dominating force as Linda Lavin was in Collected Stories. There's a marked difference -- as there should be -- between the master and the students, and Rickman is careful to ensure that his critiques are more than simple dismissals or snipes (Snapes?): you can see that he understands where his pupils/cast-mates are coming from, having been there once himself. 

Harsh truths are rarely this entertaining, although it helps to be on the unlit side of the theater for some of the more scathing moments. Seminar may not be high art, but as Leonard reminds his students, noting the respectable positions of ghost- and screenwriters, it's still good work.