THEATER: Outside People

Photo/Carol Rosegg

The well-meaning American is alive and kicking in Zayd Dohrn's Outside People, in which Malcolm (Matt Dellapina), the would-be vegan/Communist from Williamsburg, Brooklyn (who nonetheless boats a Stanford education), travels to Beijing, China, to visit (and potentially work for) his old college roommate, David (Nelson Lee), only to hook up with a local, Xiao Mei (Li Jun Li), whom he both wants to save and be saved by. His awkwardness isn't limited only by his feeble attempts to speak Mandarin, but also by his heightened self-awareness, which leads to a cringingly funny hotel-room encounter in which Malcolm is determined to confess to a half-dressed Mei that it's possible he might give her herpes. He's even further out of water in comparison to the bright, highly assertive, and quadrilingual Samanya (Sonequa Martin-Green), David's extremely well-rounded (in every sense) African girlfriend. 

The question isn't whether or not Malcolm will fall in love with Mei, nor is it about whether he loves him or his passport: it's whether his sense of guilt will allow him to walk away with the girl, and the greatest strength going for Outside People is Dohrn's refusal to translate the complex emotions of love into black-and-white text. In fact, the play's strongest scene involves no English whatsoever -- no translations, either, although director Evan Cabnet's physical choices and tonal direction help one to follow along. In this scene, David drunkenly confronts Xiao Mei, either accusing her of manipulating his friend, or threatening her (as her superior -- class is the skirted-around centerpiece of this play). I can tell you that even with the script's translations in hand, it's impossible to tell how Mei really feels about Malcolm: like the term "shui bi," which is either an unspeakably impolite phrase or the way one says Sprite in Chinese, it's a matter of how one interprets the tone. 

Malcolm's the worst sort of romantic (and I have some experience in this regard): he's the Xanax-popping, ultra-shy, unbelieving type, who literally cannot believe his own good fortune (to a fault). And while he's perhaps right to be suspicious of the job David's provided him with -- a do-nothing, high-paying role in which his whiteness is being exploited to provide the company with "face" -- it's absolutely toxic to the relationship he claims to want with Mei: "I don't want [to know] the best part. I want all of it. Everything." But one man's foul is another man's gold, and for Dohrn, Malcolm's tics and inhibitions make for a oil well of winning dialogue. Moreover, they reflect well on the entire cast, with Lee indomitably chewing through his scenes, Martin-Green providing the sharp, intellectual banter we expect of a play like this, and Li serving quietly serving her heart on a platter. 

You can tell Outside People is a fully conceived work from its natural flow and complex actions, but moreover, from the way that it allows all four characters -- not just the star-crossed lovers -- to, at times, be the titular outsiders, trapped with the fear of never fully being known or recognized, of never having a home. But most importantly, you can tell Outside People is a good play because you'll still be arguing about it on the inside, too. 

metaDRAMA: Not the YMCA, but the DMCA?

Does anybody out there understand the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act)? I recently had a review of a show that I covered back in 2010 taken down off this site because it had in some way violated it (the DMCA), and I feel as if I've received no notice on how to actually go about rectifying my error -- if there was in fact one -- so that I might go ahead and re-post the (highly positive) review.

I've written before about my dislike of copyright acts in general, but now that I've had direct exposure to them as an independent writer who is outside of the mass media and therefore has no access to legal counsel or anything more than the flimsy and unhelpful FAQs and links provided upon receiving such a notice, I think I dislike them even more. I'm all in favor of checking piracy and preventing others from profiting directly from another person's work, but this is a site that runs no advertisements, makes no money, and, at worst, quotes only a few lines from a play -- and generally one in which I've been asked to review, as press. However, when we reach a point at which the organisms we set up to protect ourselves begin to encroach upon other people's speech, when these systems shut down the discussions they were originally established to protect, then we're at an issue.

I guess above all, I'm frustrated with how impersonal it all is. If I've made inaccurate statements in a review, playwrights, publicists, actors, directors, and even audience members are more than welcome to respond in comments or via e-mail, and I'm always willing to post an update or correction. Likewise, if photographers or playwrights think I've in some way misused their material, I'm more than willing to take something off the site if they simply contact me. The idea that you'd need to go to a third-party, to legally threaten and intimidate through a document which, mind you, I haven't even been able to see (since it goes directly to Google, I assume)  . . . well, that just seems silly.

If anybody else is out there in a similar situation, or has found themselves treading this water in the past, I'd appreciate any information you can pass along. Mind you -- I'm not in any actual trouble; as I said, the post has been automatically removed from the site, and I'm entitled to repost it if I remove the offending sections (never mind that I haven't been told what those are). This is more about the principle of thing; what happens if more of my reviews are suddenly and inexplicably taken down? What happens if this post is removed? We take our ability to blog and upload to the web as a given these days, especially me, as I've been doing this for seven years now, so I guess I'd just like a little more information.

Cheers!

THEATER: How the World Began

Photo/Carol Rosegg

How the World Began is a frustrating play, both intentionally and unintentionally so. The central premise, quickly revealed, is that Susan Pierce (Heidi Schreck), a teacher-in-training who has moved to a school still being rebuilt in tornado-afflicted Kansas, has inadvertently let some of her snarky East Coast habits sneak into her biology lectures. As one of her students, the bright and traumatized Micah Staab (Justin Kruger), points out, whether it's scientifically true or not, it's not right to imply that other theories of evolution are "gobbledy gook."

This is the intentionally frustrating part, for as the five-months-pregnant Susan admits to Micah's unofficial guardian, the easy-going and rationally religious Gene Dinkel (Adam LeFevre), she's both not good on the defensive and has no way to get through to someone with such ardent beliefs. What follows, with moments of tenderness interspersed within, is the unintentional part, for the result is an unambiguous ninety minutes of religious debate in which playwright Catherine Trieschmann's only real accomplishment is in giving each of the characters the moral high ground at one point or another. Her previous play with Women's Project, crooked, used original characters and circumstances to throw us off our own firm beliefs, but we've seen people like Susan, Micah, and Gene before.

Like the equally one-note Other Desert Cities, then, How the World Began struggles to rise above being a repetitious argument centered on a misunderstanding. No matter how well-written, how realistic, how witty, it boils down to a verbal standoff, and there's only so much the talented director Daniella Topol can do without something big actually happening on stage. (The escalations occur off-stage, and are only vaguely implied by, say, transitional lighting cues.) Schreck does a fine job selling us on her intensifying stress, especially after a gorilla-masked scarecrow is burnt on her lawn, but this also makes it seem as if she's the only character with anything at stake. And while Trieschmann implies that Micah's need for a public apology is grounded in his recent history -- his mother and step-father were killed in the same storm that destroyed the school -- she also holds back so much that it's difficult for Kruger to play the role as anything less than a cipher.

The final scene -- the final moment, actually -- hints at the better play How the World Began is capable of being, as Susan once again helps to sooth Micah's internal storm ("Just breathe...'til there's nothing left inside you but breath and heartbeat"). As the lights dim, on the two of them, she feels her baby kick. Micah reaches out to feel, only to have his hand slapped away: "Don't you dare." It's the first moment of real surprise, a play on the earlier suggestion that despite our beliefs, we're all human, and therefore all connected.

FILM: War Horse

[Note: War Horse releases in theaters on 12/25. It's the perfect holiday film, notwithstanding the graphic war-scenes, so you might consider buying your tickets now, especially if you liked the stage version, which this one-ups in just about every way possible.]

I felt as if I was one of the few people to find the Lincoln Center production of War Horse to be overhyped: never able to forget that I was watching elegant and impressive puppets, even at the moments of greatest drama, the constant thought racing through my mind was, "This would make a mighty impressive movie." I feel vindicated now, having caught a screening of Steven Spielberg's adaptation of War Horse: there's a scope in the war scenes (comparable to those of Saving Private Ryan, although there's nary a splotch of blood in this PG-13 family film) and a tenderness in the close-up focus on the reflection of a little girl in a horse's eye that the play cannot achieve.

At the same time, however, the novel (which was originally in the first-person perspective of the horse) is less well-adapted by screenwriters Richard Curtis and Lee Hall than by playwright Nick Stafford. For one, Albert Narracott (Jeremy Irvine) and his horse, Joey, now seem more star-crossed than ever: the film opens with lush, long shots of the green Devon landscape (which will later be contrasted with the tight, muddy grey ones of a war-torn France), as Albert watches the miracle of life: Joey's birth. When Albert's father, Ted (Peter Mullan), picks him up at auction, however, it's because his landlord (David Thewlis) is bidding for him, a rivalry that makes far less sense than the play's choice to make this his successful brother, the one who chose not to fight in the Boer War that has turned Ted into such a bitter drunk, love of his wife Rose (Emily Watson) aside. Likewise, when Joey's sold off to the British military at the start of World War I, it's not as much of a betrayal from father to son as it is a necessity of repaying a mortgage.

These changes make the opening "act" less tight, just as the scenes in France sometimes wander too aimlessly over the bizarre chances in which both Joey and his "friend," the black stallion Charcoal (inexplicably renamed from Topthorn in the book and play), dodge disaster time and again. It's nice to see the variety of people affected by war -- the dashing British commanders who are out-thought by their "crude" German rivals, the German brothers who desert in order to fulfill an oath to their family, the fragile French girl and her doting grandfather who are glad to have a moment of brightness in their occupied life -- but this isn't the film for it. The focus is best left on Albert, Joey, and the horrendous things that happen around them: Spielberg is too happy to trot about the scenery, though he's best at a brisker pace.

Just look at those "brisk" and agonizingly terrific final forty minutes. They're full of holiday miracles and tear-jerking presents in which Joey drags artillery, faces down a tank, and deals with barbed wire, while Albert -- who, in a smart although obvious edit from the screenwriters, has enlisted since we last saw him four years ago -- finds himself facing the other end of that artillery, the dangerous trenches, and the deadly gas warfare. It's more visceral than the theatrical production, and the stakes are higher, and yet the emotions are the same, which speaks well to the humanizing effects from the play's Handspring Puppet Company. Still, it's Spielberg's production that wins out: some horrors are impossible to imagine, and the realism of the film's war scenes -- fields scattered with the corpses of horses and their riders, bones shattering under the stress of such constant toil -- makes it unnecessary to imagine, only difficult to watch.

I don't imagine it will be possible to overhype this production of War Horse, a shoo-in for Academy nominations in all categories except those for acting (and that's no offense to Irvine, Mullan, the excellent Watson, and spot-on villain Thewlis, but this isn't really about them). Striking both visually and emotionally, and with only a few issues with pacing along the way, it's a great achievement (especially for an adaptation) for Spielberg, whose inclusive scope even manages to find a comic place for a belligerent duck.

THEATER: Bonnie & Clyde

Photo/Nathan Johnson

In 1934, after a two-year crime spree that painted the star-crossed bandits as revolutionary heroes in a depressed America, Bonnie and Clyde are violently gunned down in their "death car." That's the legend; but that's not Bonnie & Clyde, the new musical from Frank Wildhorn (music), Don Black (lyrics), and Ivan Menchell (book). Sure, their deaths, in a flash of strobe lights, are a part of the show, but they're up at the front, pushed out of the way in favor for a poetic look at the Americana behind the myth. It's a little funny that the first number, "Picture Show," set in 1920, is all about Bonnie's desire to be like Clara Bow and Clyde's affection for Billy the Kid, given that the musical is far from the glamour both of films of that era, and of the 1967 classic, Bonnie and Clyde, and yet it's not surprising: born into lean times, with absent or hardscrabble parents, is it any wonder that escapism was on their mind? (Act II's opening will suggest the same, with the folk-like "Made In America.")

The musical is full of winning contrasts, particularly in the musical's tendency for unlikely duets that are sung by rivals, often across great distances, and yet about similar themes. Outlaw Clyde (Jeremy Jordan) and heroic cop Ted (Louis Hobson) both pine for Bonnie (Laura Osnes), and so they sing "You Can Do Better Than Him." Blanche (a terrifically wry and religious Melissa Van Der Schyff), is set up to be Bonnie's opposite -- in an early comic number, "You're Goin' Back to Jail," she convinces her husband (and Clyde's brother) Buck (Claybourne Elder) to turn himself in, whereas Bonnie ends up breaking Clyde out -- and yet both she and Bonnie sing from the heart that "You Love Who You Love." There's no shortage of tortuous solos, either, with Clyde, sexually abused in prison and abandoned by the carefree guards, turning to murder in the wailing song "Raise A Little Hell": if that's his only option ("I sure won't get to heaven"), and it sure seems to be, then why not? ("Freedom's something I gotta steal" is his mantra.)

These contrasts are further enhanced by Jeff Calhoun's wonderful direction, which handles some rather graphic and gritty violence -- these were murderers, after all, whether they intended to be or not -- in imaginative ways. At the moment of greatest chaos, a bloody shoot-out, the action literally freezes, with Clyde turning to his younger self (Talon Ackerman) to warn him about the way things'll be, before brutally jumping back into the fray as he murders a sheriff. Watch, too, the echoes in the reprisals: "God's Arms Are Always Open" plays with a baptism the first time around, and with a burial the second, both staged in similar ways; although "Picture Show" is still sung by the young versions of our "heroes" when it repeats, it manages to carry the weight of their grown-up reality; and "Dyin' Ain't So Bad" is a killer number both times -- at first, it's just Osnos singing through tears, but then she's joined by Jordan as the two ride off to their final destination, a sweet moment between lovers who can at least know that they've had some good time together.

Now, the play does have some flaws: the writing is all-around a little too literal for Calhoun's visual flair, Bonnie's prided poetry, and Clyde's basic skills with the guitar. The music is so heavy on up-beat pop/country that it sometimes doesn't match the mood, as in "Too Late To Turn Back Now." And some of the work just feels slight: "How 'Bout a Dance" is flirty and nothing more, and "When I Drive" is an unnecessary reminder of how boyish the Barrow brothers are. I sometimes wished the musical were a little more wild -- that the slap Bonnie and Clyde give one another didn't seem so staged, that the live projections on the wall weren't so on-the-nose about the "accuracy" of the musical. At the same time, however, I found myself wanting their ride to continue, hoping that they'd find some way to pull through: perhaps Bonnie & Clyde, in these days of the 99%, will.