Wasserstein

I recommend Michael Feingold's loving as well as candid appreciation (he writes as one who knew her when...)

Terry Teachout takes the opportunity to show some genuine critical soul-searching. How do you eulogize an artist you harshly criticized?

The NY Post reminds us:

It bothered Wasserstein that so many local kids couldn't afford to see the theater for which New York is famous. With that in mind, she founded the Theater Development Fund program Open Doors in 1998, pairing bright students from the
city's public high schools with mentors. She personally recruited Broadway's best and brightest — writers, directors and choreographers — to take the kids to the theater and then out for pizza-fueled discussions.

Effective? Well, at least she did something. (Maybe someone will take up that mantle and pioneer a more affordable program not limited to Broadway.)

I myself grew to respect Wasserstein while working on a profile of her for a Groliers encyclopedia entry recently. Watching the archived video recording of the original Heidi Chronicles (starring Joan Allen) I was struck by the tangible electricity in the small Playwrights Horizons house back in 1987. I'm not sure if the play "holds up" today without context--but no matter. It spoke to its time and to a demographic of post-60s women in an unvarnished and honest way. Contrary to some perceptions, she was by no means a sentimentalist. Beneath the quips and clever characters, her plays were uncompromisingly about loneliness and the sacrifices that follow from independence. In her later works she seemed to have scrambled a bit to find the right subject for the times (politics, "old money"), but that problem always plagues an artist who speaks so spot-on to the time of his or her youth.

One hilarious and now prescient scene I recommend from Heidi Chronicles: the lunch with the TV exec. The show being pitched is to celebrate young women who are over feminism and just want to have a good time (profiting from the advances made by their mothers, of course) buying shoes and getting laid. Sound familiar? The haunting clincher of this perfect mini-satire comes in the casting of the role of the exec's eager nodding assistant in the original production: a young Sarah Jessica Parker. Whatever the ups and downs of were of her particular works, Wendy knew her historical moment.

And think of this: she was one of the last American playwrights who could reliably open a play on Broadway. (Now that August Wilson is also gone, that leaves Terrence McNally, maybe, and, now, possibly John Patrick Shanley.) But even her last play, Third--from just last month--was premiered by her patrons at Lincoln Center in their smaller space. When even Wendy Wasserstein is no longer seen as commercial enough...god help the American theatre.

Wendy Wasserstein, 1950-2006

Just in from the AP. Hard to believe, but her bout with lymphoma was reportedly brutal and long.

More forthcoming. Obviously there were other prominent female dramatists before her. But I will venture now that she will be looked back on as a uniquely popular and effective writer at a very important moment in the theatre, regardless of how people differed over her plays.

(Update: Isherwood's obit is already up on the NYT site, along with a photo-spread. I guess the rumors had been around long enough to be prepared...)

is directing "intellectual property"?

Personally, I say yes. But it's a thorny issue, to be sure. And Jesse Green's piece yesterday--of extraordinary length and depth for "Arts & Leisure" these days--manages to get at the complexity in a nicely balanced way. Definitely a must-read for directors (who will be encouraged), playwrights (who might be horrified), and anyone interested in the morphing of the theatrical divisions of labor. At least among the set successful enough to bother going to court in the first place!

I do wonder, though, if Green isn't guilty of fanning some flames here, stirring playwright and director against each other more than necessary. In the Mantello/"Love, Valor, Compassion" case, for instance, I believe Terrence McNally was totally supportive of him. The real conflict of that case was between director and director. (Of course, some may see it as the big B'way director beating up on the little guy in regional.) I also think the real issue here will ultimately be not money but credit. Shouldn't it be workable one day for subsequent scripts or regional productions to bear some citation summing up the contributions of the original director?

One positive development of all this, noted in the article, is that Mantello's crusade did get Sam French and Dramatists to finally take all those annoying outdated stage directions out of their editions!

Quote of the Day

"Martin Witts...is also looking forward to his next project: Smack - The Musical. 'It's about how, if you're on heroin, you're always dancing,' he says. 'Though I'm not sure quite how well that one's going to go down.' "

-from an engaging Guardian survey of some the wackier musicals hitting the London scene this season, in the wake of "Jerry Springer."

Hey, at least it's not "Lestat."

If it's in The Onion you know it's true:

"Second-Graders Wow Audience With School Production Of Equus."

Click here for the shocking details.

In a related, unfake news story, read about the all-puppet "Anne Frank".

Quote of the Day

"To move it down the street would cost us about $600,000. And it won't garner the media attention or the marketing dollars it needs. And we need that attention."

-Signature Theatre head James Houghton on why it's Broadway or nothing if his lavishly praised production of The Trip to Bountiful is to be extended. Forced to close at the Signature on March 11, there certainly is enough interest in Lois Smith's star performance to keep it going. Such a small play and intimate performance should, by all rights, remain in a small theatre. But the economics of commercial Off-Broadway (as opposed to non-profit OB's like Signature) are apparently worse than "On-", particularly in the limitations on profit margin. The costs of running the show are not significantly lower than B'way (marketing is the same, for instance) and the return is automatically less thanks to fewer seats at (slightly) lower prices. To add insult to injury, no matter how much money you spend on the show, if you're not on Broadway, the press covers you less, and tourists and group sales are just less interested; they want to return home with stories of the Great White Way and Nathan Lane.

What's painfully funny is that the above statement appears in today's New York Times. On the on hand Jesse McKinley seems to be doing a mitzvah by giving them some of that essential "media attention." On the other...

(Note: by "down the street" Houghton's referring to the slick smallish houses recently opened on 42nd St. to house small commercial runs.)
(Note 2: the contractual difference between B'way and Off- is the difference between 499 seats and 500. Yes, that extra seat can get you a Tony.)

damn the highbrows?

To formally respond to some the of the lively comments on the previous post...

I wholeheartedly agree with the last comment that theatre should be "relevant and THEREFORE popular, not popular and therefore 'relevant.' " And I realize some of my postings sound like I'm willing to do anything--just anything--to get cool people, young people, funders, mainstream media to please, please pay attention to us. I'm all for the legitimate stage persisting as the meeting place of an elite coterie. However, it would be nice it were a sustainable elite coterie. And not the hobby of gadabouts living in a bubble of wealthy indulgence--like Baccarat. Nor just the province of performance art cellars in bohemia. I worry that the more theatre is marginalized from the rest of--for want of a better term--"the culture," the harder it will be for our best theatre artists to make a living and sustain their work in this country. They won't die or give up, just go to Europe. The brain drain will flow back.

While, of course, acknowledging the caveat of the many fine "two-handers" (and accepting that a fine art has been forged out of the limitations of downtown theatre--solo performance, e.g.), I also agree that a theatre that cannot afford to employ more than two actors per show will ultimately limit the artform. Ed: But limitation is freedom! And read your Aristotle--the Greeks started with just one actor, and it took Aeschylus to add a third....Ah, but even the one still had a chorus beyond him

I remember something TCG head Ben Cameron says in his "big speech" he gives to every regional theatre gathering (I've heard it twice now, myself). Something like: when the cultural marketplace challenged theatre to adjust to new audiences and new realities, theatre companies responded by doing The Gin Game. It's true: these companies draw up their season budgets (hence, their seasons) partially based on how many total Equity actors will be employed. I've been in on such meetings. You can do, say The Crucible or a Shakespeare, but you have to "earn" that by using no more than 10 or so actors for the remaining plays. Look at some season schedules and you'll see what I mean--1 large cast show, offset by solo shows, two-handers, and maybe one or two 5-6 character plays.

Finally: I strongly believe that in the end, the work will out. There is indeed no point in begging the rest of the culture to go to the theatre because...well, because it's good for them. (And good for us.) There's no better "case" to make than the quality of what's on stage. (McNulty's Yale Theater essay dares to question whether the quality is indeed there. I'm not totally sure where he ultimately comes down on that.) And we should indeed be wary of expending our energy in whining and instead put it into the work. At least the theatre artists among us. As for critics--we also should beware of lecturing readers to attend (and attend to) the theatre whatever is playing. After all, we do our best cheerleading by engaging rigorously and honestly with the quality of what we see. Sending people to mediocre theatre will only make them more cynical and indifferent.

I guess what I am talking about is demanding a seat at the cultural table of this country.

where have all the highbrows gone

After catching up myself this weekend on the Rachel Shteir article I linked to, I'd like to return to one brief point that particularly got my head nodding:

[I]n the 1960s and 1970s, one theme the New York critics return to again and again is that "highbrows" are abandoning the theater. Today, no one really talks about this. The term highbrow is as unrecognizable as gams. It's not just that New York theater criticism and the theater itself no longer carry the status they did forty years ago. The other industries surrounding the arts--all equally important to New York's idea of itself as a center for culture--have shrunk also. No trade publisher is releasing books like the ones Brustein wrote in the 1960s and 1970s--with titles like Seasons of Discontent or The Theatre of Revolt....Any discontent or revolt taking place in the arts community is strictly peripheral. Recent books about the theater have titles like "Adventures in Theater," as though theater were akin to bungee jumping.

We(?) all inveigh against the catering of professional theatre to elite audiences. But when you think about it, aren't those mostly just financial elites? What's surprising--and much more unsettling to me, much more monumental change--is that the cultural elite, my ivy-league educated friends who read trendy novels and go to museums and even the opera, and who, by the way, certainly have the means... couldn't care less about theatre. That's huge as a seismic cultural shift. "Bungee jumping" actually would be fine! No, theatre has become a sideshow--not even in an intriguing "freak" sense, but only quaint--on the cultural map populated by the audience that once was its main patron. Once upon a time, not too long ago, a "cocktail party" conversation about "what have you read lately" would seamlessly segue into "and have you seen any good shows". Yes, they'll go to a blockbuster "prestige" show once or twice a year, usually for an anniversary, or else the tickets were foisted on them as gifts from their parents. (I saw a lot of these folks at the recent big B'way revivals of "Long Day's Journey" and "Gypsy" for instance. And sometimes even at BAM, somehow.) But will they check out the new Richard Foreman even when Ben Brantley says you "must see"?

Ok, some of you may bid good riddence to snooty "boho's" with their "frappacino glasses," Jonathan Franzen under their arms, and Enya soaring out of their Ipods.... But if theatre doesn't have enough cultural cache for them, if even they can't get worked up about discovering the next great young playwright or checking someone's latest take on "Hedda Gabler", then what do we do?

weekend reading

As I'll be unbloggable(?) this weekend up in the great north here are links to three worthwhile pieces from the recent Yale Theatre journal, I just caught up with:

-Charles McNulty's critique of and contribution to the "theatre is dying" genre
(McNulty is now up and running, by the way, on the LA Times theatre page)

-Rachel Shteir's skewering of the NYC critical establishment (a natural fit for this blog)

-and, as boring as it seems, "Real Estate and Theater Space in New York: A Forum" with some heavy hitters from BAM, PS122...in other words the ones with space. But maybe they can enlighten the rest of us.

Back on Monday!

Negative Tuition?

I'm off to Toronto tomorrow for a conference all weekend, so perhaps I'm in a Canadian mood. Here's an interesting alternative from up north to the standard drama school model: how about paying the students? Well, the Soulpepper Academy does, to some success so far, it seems.

Read about them here, eh?

"Bounce" Back

Sondheim lives! His latest project, the ill-fated stillborn "Bounce" (formerly "Gold!", formerly "Wise Guys") is getting a reading at the Public, with Bernadette Peters, no less. Apparently, Mr. Eustis at the Public is seriously considering giving the long-awaited NY premiere of this long-awaited piece by a genius who can no longer get his new work produced.

Sondheim at the mercy of the non-profits? Actually, that's been true ever since Playwright Horizons developed "Sunday in the Park" (and the original "Assassins"). That was back in his first slump (or his second?) before "Into The Woods" made him commercially viable. No doubt, the Public will be accused of selling out, especially if the show gets panned again. But I see it as not a bad thing for our major artists to have a home when abandoned by the commercial realm.

The "Broadway Baby" is no more?

CliveJames.com

Many of you expert surfers who have found your way here probably already know about Clive James' blog. But I didn't until I read a nice article about it here today. Gotta hand it to the spritely 66-year-old Aussie arts critic, essayist, and TV host for really exploring this twenty-first century form. The site, with lots of video and audio discussions as well as text, looks like great browsing for the longer attention spans out there. In addition to stuff on classic literature, philosophy, and political debates, James's entries range as far wide as Philip Roth, Bruno Schultz, and The Sopranos!

So for those with time on your hands check out the blog. If not, then just read the article. Highlight: "Perhaps the most touching aspect of the site is Mr. James's sincere desire to make it genuinely educational - to bring high culture to the masses, though without a trace of snobbery."

The Actor's Lot

I do kind of recommend Isherwood's Sunday NYT piece on the challenges of the working NY actor. It's woefully incomplete as a true survey of the problems, but, to be fair, the article claims only to be covering a mini-convention of actors and what was said there.

Still, though, it should be easy enough for a reporter to gather up, for instance, what the Equity minimums actually are Off Broadway and On, compared to Regional. I wonder what effect it might have on NYT readers to see--especially after reading the daily tributes recently to those "superior" Brits--that most of our cherished stage actors here are lucky to make $400-$500 a week in a non-musical play if it's not on B'way. And that's maybe a 3-week run, plus 3 weeks of rehearsal--after which it's back to unemployment.

Isherwood's opening point--that the more successful actors (i.e. those with TV & movie gigs) are in effect subsidizing the American theatre--is basically right, I think. But some more context for that is in order before we allow Tim Blake Nelson to make a complete martyr out of himself. Ideally there should be no problem (no "compromise") with actors working in all these media.

What's also conspicuously missing here, is any mention of "Law and Order," which, as we all know, is truly subsidizing the stage acting profession more than anything.

Best Performance by a leading Actress who will not win a Tony

Here's an idea for some long-weekend reading, especially for fans of great acting. Celebrate both the vivid descriptive prose of Michael Feingold and three standout performances celebrated by him recently in the pages of the Village Voice. While not one of these fine actresses will even be eligible for a Tony (unless their shows transfer--doubtful) the theatre community is already abuzz that their work in the Off-Broadway nonprofit realm this season is not to be missed. The pilgrimages made to these theatres each night are even making tickets hard to come by. It is a personal goal of mine to catch each in the coming month while I can. (Limited runs are a worse curse of non-profit than any loss of Broadway & Tony glow.)

With links to reviews of their work by Feingold (to my mind the greatest champion of acting left in the critical establishment) these three current nominees for First Lady of the American Theatre are:

Lois Smith in Horton Foote's chestnut, The Trip to Bountiful
Dana Ivey in Shaw's early masterpiece, Mrs. Warren's Profession
Julie White in Douglas Carter Beane's latest, The Little Dog Laughed

McHales' Last Call?

McHale's bar, one of the last refuges of real life in the synthetic new Times square theatre district/theme park, is now really, really forced to close, apparently. (Read the sad details here) Indeed, with the decline of the old Howard Johnson's last year, the old Times Sq really is gone. And there are no more modest fun places to hang out pre- or after-theatre that are not exorbitantly expensive or make you wait 45 minutes for a table. McHale's was a true "enclave" and, like the HoJo, actually had some "real people" (i.e. non-tourist, non-theatre folk) as customers.

So raise a final glass. And watch the remains of an authentic theatre culture chipped away a little more each day...

Quote of the Day

"Journalist may not use text produced by Amanda Peet for any purposes other than what is originally intended without securing the prior permission of Amanda Peet... Journalist agrees not to publish any quotes supplied by Amanda Peet in any manner without obtaining Amanda Peet's prior written consent."

-Amanda Peet (via her publicist) restricting interviews at the meet & greet for the upcoming B'way Barefoot in the Park revival.

And who said movie stars are the answer to saving theatre? Quoth the desperate theatre publicist: "As a rule, it's much harder to get press for a play than it is a movie or a television show, so you're happy to get press wherever and whenever you can." Indeed, the joke is the handlers don't realize all Broadway press is puffery anyway.

Michael Riedel has those and more amusing highlights from this Hollywood-meets-Broadway encounter. Including: "A correspondent for a Broadway Web site who was shooting some video of the 34-year-old Peet was ordered to stop because the angle of the shot had not been preapproved." Really, I don't even have a video camera. Honest.

Nadirs of Criticism

I have long suspected the theatre credentials of Times 2nd-stringer Neil Genzlinger. With his slick yet chatty prose--a lowbrow Anthony Lane, if you will--he may be easy and pleasant to read, but the style really does seem to cover up a lack of substance. Or should I say, lack of knowledge. He's a fine choice for the Times to send to cover kitschy schlock like Batboy. But faced with a rare revival of a complicated obscure classic the likes of Sor Juana de la Cruz's House of Desires, he is clearly out of his depth.

Typical, easy (in other words, lazy) remark from his review today:

The playwright was a nun and proto-feminist in Mexico, and there is perhaps some curiosity value in a play written by a woman in the late 1600's. The main lesson of this work, though, is that women were just as capable as men of writing forgettable, not very farcical farces.

This line may look good on the NYT Arts web page as a hook. We can't fault Genzlinger as a journalist, I suppose. But think for a moment how ignorant that is, not to mention offensive-- insulting not just to Sor Juana, to women, but to Times readers and theatre audiences.

Current interest in Sor Juana goes way beyond some nutty fringe "curiosity." As we continue to reassess the importance of Renaissance drama outside of Shakespeare, the contributions to the form from other cultures, and from women, has transformed the field in academia and by theatre artists. (The text of this production was originally commissioned for the RSC.) New York Times readers (the quintessential "cultural elite") deserve to know this. We have a right to expect their arts & culture critics to be up on things like that. After all, do we not look to them as some sort of "authorities" in their field?

Genzlinger doesn't even seem to care. His review today is embarrassing in so glibly mocking the play for being, well, "old" (he calls it a "corpse" that's "DOA") and not at all taking into account the possible shortcomings of a production in realizing a challenging text. From what I hear, first of all, the play is severely cut and I know of no previous endorsement of the proficiency of the company/artists involved. I know readers out there would agree with me that many inadequate stagings of, say, Twelfth Night and Midsummer Night's Dream might have led to momentary doubts about their author's worth--but thankfully we have centuries of production history and scholarship to counter that. Many today who pick up Goldoni's Servant of Two Masters may be baffled by the respect given to that silly slapstick-fest--until they see a brilliant recreation of its original context on stage, such as that offered by the late Georgio Strehler in his Arlecchino this past summer.

Look, I admit to not knowing this play. But when you hear that the author was a missionary nun in Mexico, don't you assume her intentions might not have just been to write a stupid sitcom? Perhaps there are good reasons House of Desires (or, in another translation House of Trials) has never caught on in the English-speaking theatre and perhaps its moment has passed. But such dismissal of potentially revealing material as junk is beneath any critic outside of Entertainment Weekly.

Quote of the Day

"It's time to redefine straight-to-video releases as a facet of legitimate distribution. If someone cannot foresee making money off of, say, Resnais's Not on the Lips, Akerman's Tomorrow We Move, or Rivette's The Story of Marie and Julien—all DVD'd in 2005—why should that negate their presence and accessibility? Projection is optimal, of course, but I'd be happier if more filmgoers stayed home with a crystalline digital Rivette or Sokurov or Iosselliani than donate their ten-spot to guaranteeing another brain-raping superhero franchise."

-V.Voice film critic Michael Atkinson on the future of Indie Film. (See here, scroll to bottom under heading "Get Rich or Die Trying." Part of December's Voice critics poll "Take 7", an annual must-read. As with the Obies, no one does anti-awards better than the Voice.)

I cite this not just for those concerned about the kind of films mentioned. This is exactly the kind of new thinking we need about the survival of all the performing arts, especially the drama, in the capitalism of the 21st century. I hope theatre artists and producers (and critics) will take a cue from approaches like this and throw out old assumptions, reimagine the conditions under which we operate. Obviously "straight-to-video" is not an option for live theatre. But smaller venues? Earlier curtain times? Less subscription-reliant?

As Netflix subscribers will tell you, all the best in exciting new (and classic) cinema is now even more affordable and conveniently available on DVD than theatrical releases could ever promise. How do we make serious theatre, good theatre, similarly accessible once again to those who actually want it? (As opposed to only those who don't really want it but use it for status or leisure.) Look no further for proof that cinema will continue to far outstrip theatre as the serious dramatic artform for current and future generations. It's the accessibility, stupid.

Shanley's latest

Interesting preview here of what is unfolding as a Shanley culture-wars triology, of which Doubt was just the beginning. Loved Doubt? Wait till you see Defiance...

The "Variety" Mess

Superfluities' George Hunka reports (by way of UK's The Stage) on the apparent disimissal of critic Matt Wolf as the London critic for Variety over a suprisingly public disagreement with his editor Peter Bart over Billy Elliot. After Woolf gave the show a thumbs-down, Bart--a man, let's face it, with a lot more experience in Hollywood than in theatre, to put it midly--went on the record in his own pages declaring:

Variety's critic greeted the show with a fusillade of words like 'maudlin' and 'lazy,' with Elton John's music described as its 'weakest link.' This caught me off guard, since, in my opinion, Billy Elliot will clearly rank as one of the best musicals of its generation. Not since the opening of The Producers has a show left its audience on such a high.

Gee, not since 2001? Sure that's not reaching too far back, Peter?

While the bullying of Wolf couldn't be any more baldfaced, I do feel compelled to wonder if Variety doesn't have a right to define itself as a very specific kind of trade publications, more concerned with commercial prospects and prognostications than serious aesthetic criticism? If Bart took the opportunity to reconsider why Variety has critics in the first place, then I could respect that. But if he's just going to replace Wolf with a hack toady who will be called a "critic" but just bow to Bart's own personal tastes (or, worse the tastes of the producers--let alone The Producers!), then this is very, very disturbing.

Is it that unimaginable that, one day, even the blessed New York Times--in its mission to promote B'way at all costs--could do the same to a critic?