January 19, 2023
Lin-Manuel Miranda's "Hamilton" Is So Much Better Than All The Hype You Can't Even Begin to Fathomby Randi / October 6, 2015
The arts seem to be the most accepting and tolerant of any field, don’t you think? Especially theatre. Theatre has long-welcomed and honored all kinds of non-straight-white-majority people for much longer than any other place. Nowadays, mainstream theatre seems to be making even more of a concerted effort to be inclusive. Of course “Hamilton” is the Broadway show making waves, and history, for representing American history using primarily black and Latino actors. But another current Broadway show is doing something that even that blockbuster can’t do: showcasing actors with disabilities. This season’s revival of “Spring Awakening” comes courtesy of Deaf West Theatre Company, and it stars deaf and hearing actors while presenting the show in both song and sign language.
It’s f-ing incredible.
I really like liking things, and I am trying to be nicer in my recaps because husband thinks I am too mean to rich and famous celebrities who really need me to be nice to them, but even though it might seem like I love so much, well, so much, I don’t. There are very few things I’ve witnessed that are equally faultless and brilliant, and devastating beyond belief, that haunt your thoughts for months on end. This is one of them.
“Spring Awakening”, based on the 1891 German play of the same name by Frank Wedekind, tells the story of sheltered, ill-informed 19th century German teenagers dealing with their sexual discovery. It doesn’t sound like ideal musical material but the original 2006 production won the Tony Award for best musical along with 7 others. And it’s awesome. With a rock score by Duncan Sheik (yes that Duncan Sheik) and Steven Slater, it’s a haunting, effective tale of the consequences of lying to children instead of educating them. So yeah, it’s like the most important show for people making decisions about America’s public school system to see.
The original production, starring the now-very-famous then-very-young Lea Michelle, Jonathan Groff, and John Gallagher Jr. (with an ensemble composed almost entirely of Broadway and Hollywood almost-as-famouses), seemed unbeatable. The cast was excellent, the music is remarkable, and the subject matter progressive and provocative. Everyone thought it was too soon for a revival of this modern show, especially considering no real problems with the original existed – revivals that happen so quickly should significantly rework the material to make it worth mounting, and the original production seemed to be as good as you can get. But Deaf West proved all the naysayers wrong, because this revival is so much stronger, more heartbreaking, and more earth-shatteringly brilliant than imaginable.
How is this possible when, at least I (and Tony voters) thought, the original was rock solid? Because the central themes of the show – the horror that happens when you fail to speak honestly to young people, refuse to fully or even partially educate them as to real life and not just Latin, really the ramifications of socially controlled ignorance – are enhanced and elucidated by making most of our main characters deaf. Half of the actors onstage are actually deaf – including Oscar-winner Marlee Matlin as the Adult Women – and signing throughout while hearing actors sing and speak. When signing isn’t possible given the staging or the actors present in a scene, subtitles appear on screens (written like a blackboard). Matlin shares the role of Adult Women with Emmy-winner Camryn Manheim, the latter of whom gets to yell as the mean teachers and Wendla’s dire mother, while the former breaks our hearts as Melchior’s mother who just can’t communicate with her son as she’d hope.
Most of the roles are doubled, actually, with deaf and hearing actors sharing the role. A pretty wonderful touch is that these roles, including the two non-Melchior main characters, Wendla and Moritz, are primarily played by the deaf actors, while their speaking and singing counterparts mainly shadow them, standing away from the action and away from the light, allowing the audience to see the deaf actor as the character and the hearing actor as perhaps the voice in their head.
Wendla (a glorious Sandra Mae Frank, voiced by Katie Boeck) is our tragic heroine, naïve as hell because of her teachers and crucially her mother, doomed to stay that way by her youth and experience. The show opens with Wendla asking her mother where babies come from, as her married older sister is having another child. Her mother is comically distraught over how difficult it is to tell her kid science, so she lies, saying that if you really love your husband with all your heart, god gives you a child. The audience laughs, because it’s a common funny situation, but of course we are soon reminded that education is everything, vital in every way, and the difficulty that ignorant adults have with it cannot excuse lack of honesty in educating kids.
Moritz (wonderful Daniel Durant, voiced by Alex Boniello) is the opposite of Wendla in demeanor, though just as tragic. While Wendla is sweet and unquestioning in her naiveté (for the most part), Moritz knows that shit in the world doesn’t make any sense, and his inability to handle things can be seen from space. His disturbing schoolroom scenes, in which he constantly spars with his stern, cold teachers, is heightened in this production by a little bit of history: He uses sign language, and the speaking teachers disapprove of it. This is an allusion to the infamous 19th century Milan Conference, in which sign language was banned by a biased congress in favor of forced oralism, which no regard to how this would actually affect deaf children. The ramifications of that terrible decision still persist, adding an extra layer to this aspect of the show.
As in the original, which won a Tony for JGJ, Moritz here is our emotional powerhouse, whose frustration with all the lies and ignorance and adults in his life becomes too much to handle, too reminiscent of so many people. His story reinforces how necessary communication is. I mean, the whole show does, but his in particular seems the most common in reality.
Both Wendla’s and Moritz’s deafness show their inability to communicate what they need to, though for Wendla it evidences her lack of awareness – she doesn’t even know what she doesn’t know – while for Moritz it’s his inability to explain himself and his needs, or at least for his words to get through to anyone. The various adult characters’ deafness reflects their refusal to listen to the kids in their lives or talk to them as humans.
Our lead character, Melchior (Austin P. McKenzie), on the other hand, is our highly intelligent, well-informed guy whose mother actually treats him like a person and is okay with him knowing necessary facts about life. He’s as smart as a teenager whose brain isn’t fully developed yet can be. As such, Melchior is one of the few characters played by a hearing actor who also uses sign language the whole time. His bilingual nature lets him educate Moritz and the other boys in his school about sex, it lets him talk honestly to teachers and parents, and it lets him have a relationship with his love Wendla. Their relationship provides much of the plot, and it’s complex: Wendla has no idea what sex really is or what it can do, so even though it is presented as consensual it’s really not. And even though Melchior does know the hard facts, he’s still too young to fully understand everything. Shit goes down, naturally, and that opening ‘funny’ conversation with her mother’s evasion proves important. The language and hearing barrier makes all the conflict and tragedy unspeakably worse and more intense, because it’s so clear to see where communication failed and things went wrong.
McKenzie’s Melchior, as the crux of the show, was a little weak for me, but then again Jonathan Groff’s shoes are impossible to fill, especially when a naturally hearing actor has to learn sign language and sign the whole time, while carrying most of the show. So I’m probably being too harsh. Only two other actors onstage, that I can recall, were both hearing and signing. One was Ali Stroker in the ensemble – Broadway’s first actor in a wheelchair. I wasn’t kidding when I said this show was hella inclusive and groundbreaking. I like that they showed that her physical disability doesn’t mean anything compared to her mind and abilities. The only other hearing and signing actor is Krysta Rodriguez, who was in the ensemble in the original production. The inimitable KR now plays Ilse, the much-abused girl whose abusive parents no longer provide a home for her, forcing her to a life on the streets, in a sort of druggie artists commune.
The uniqueness of this production led to several stellar moments in addition to the enhanced depth and meaning of the show overall. The big one was Ilse’s main scene, when she encounters a distraught Moritz in the woods before his suicide (plot spoilers are fair game for revivals, but I’ll try to avoid production spoilers. Also it happens in act one so come on). They used to be good friends, and so she senses he’s unhappy, but he hides how bad it is. They sing one of the best songs, “Don’t Do Sadness/Blue Wind” about how much easier life used to be and how things are generally shitty now. Ilse reluctantly says goodbye, leaving Moritz to shoot himself with a pistol he took from his uncommunicative, uncaring father. But in this show, Ilse comes back, to retrieve a scarf I think, and finds Moritz. The moment that happened next gives me chills just thinking about. It’s short, nothing on paper, but so unbelievably powerful and genius that I want to find director Michael Arden and hug him and slap him. It’s the kind of thing that made me almost throw up, I choke-gasped tears so hard. It’s almost too much, and it’s only a few seconds. (I’ll tell you if you wanna know.) This is when I went from ‘wow, this revival really transformed the show in a positive way’ to ‘wow, this is the most powerful piece of theatre maybe ever.’
Another stellar moment comes from another strong song (they’re all strong, dammit) – “The Dark I Know Well” – sung by one of the girls, Martha, about how her father abuses her and her dead-inside mother doesn’t care. Ilse joins in to commiserate about her former similar situation, and it’s a shattering song no matter what. But here, Martha (Treshelle Edmond (voiced by Kathryn Gallagher)) is deaf. She’s furiously signing the whole time, and it adds such heartache to it, knowing that she can’t and won’t do anything to stop it, and she implores her friends not to tell anyone. It’s like, oh let’s hear from one of the other girls, surely her story can’t be as mindnumbingly tragic as the oh wait it is.
There’s so much brilliance in this production that I really can’t say any more. Every movement, every decision was brilliant. I realize that it all seemed brilliant to me, a hearing person, for whom the signing was supporting the show and not determining it. I realize that it’s a much different experience for deaf audience members – at least 10 of whom I saw while waiting to enter the theatre, so this production really is a game-changer in audience makeup. I’m sure the production team had the hearing audience first and foremost in its mind, and I’m lucky that I got to see the vision of it as the team intended without missing much. I hope that it’s just as great for deaf audience members since it’s so rare for them to be considered, but I imagine there are many flaws from their perspective, things they missed, ASL that wasn’t as complex as the lyrics being sung, or maybe just difficulty seeing all the actors’ hands when necessary. However, no fault can be found with the ending. The ending is when everything falls to pieces, people are dead, abortion is illegal, Melchior is punished for his knowledge, truth is censored. We’re all quite sad, and the last plot-driven song is fucking BRUTAL, with the ghosts of Moritz and Wendla telling the imprisoned Melchior that they will always be there walking by his side. I mean. Damn. The last actual song is more like an epilogue, called “The Song of Purple Summer”. It’s one of my favorite songs of all time OF ALL TIME, and it’s about how even in the face of tragedy you still need to have hope that we can work together and make things better. or that things will just get better. I don’t know, it’s just hopeful. But in previous productions, it’s hard to feel that hope when you are like ‘BUT BUT BUT PRISON AND SUICIDE AND COAT-HANGER ABORTIONS WHAT DO YOU MEAN HAVE HOPE?’ Here it actually worked, because the most stellar moment of the show is the final image we see. I’m not going to tell you what it is (perhaps in the comments, if needed), but I’ll tell you this. I cry a lot in the theatre. I mean I cry a lot at all the arts but mostly the theatre, because my tears come if something is done well. I don’t care if it’s the happiest show and the cast is doing an energetic tap dance – if it’s really great, I’ma cry. Case in point: Sutton Foster and the last production of “Anything Goes” during the title song. That dance was perfect and it was a joyous scene. I cried. So this happens a lot. Well, my crying at this ending of “Spring Awakening” was indeed because it was done well, done perfectly actually, and all brilliant, but that’s not all. It was f-ing beautiful, sad and hopeful and everything that song and that show ever wished to accomplish. Hell, I’m pretty sure that final image was everything any show wants to accomplish. I thought my chest was imploding. The last time I had that much trouble breathing because of how hard I was crying, I ended up in the hospital with food poisoning and broken blood vessels all over my face.
Go see it. It ends in January. The end.
I really like liking things, and I am trying to be nicer in my recaps because husband thinks I am too mean to rich and famous celebrities who really need me to be nice to them, but even though it might seem like I love so much, well, so much, I don’t. There are very few things I’ve witnessed that are equally faultless and brilliant, and devastating beyond belief, that haunt your thoughts for months on end. This is one of them.
“Spring Awakening”, based on the 1891 German play of the same name by Frank Wedekind, tells the story of sheltered, ill-informed 19th century German teenagers dealing with their sexual discovery. It doesn’t sound like ideal musical material but the original 2006 production won the Tony Award for best musical along with 7 others. And it’s awesome. With a rock score by Duncan Sheik (yes that Duncan Sheik) and Steven Slater, it’s a haunting, effective tale of the consequences of lying to children instead of educating them. So yeah, it’s like the most important show for people making decisions about America’s public school system to see.
The original production, starring the now-very-famous then-very-young Lea Michelle, Jonathan Groff, and John Gallagher Jr. (with an ensemble composed almost entirely of Broadway and Hollywood almost-as-famouses), seemed unbeatable. The cast was excellent, the music is remarkable, and the subject matter progressive and provocative. Everyone thought it was too soon for a revival of this modern show, especially considering no real problems with the original existed – revivals that happen so quickly should significantly rework the material to make it worth mounting, and the original production seemed to be as good as you can get. But Deaf West proved all the naysayers wrong, because this revival is so much stronger, more heartbreaking, and more earth-shatteringly brilliant than imaginable.
How is this possible when, at least I (and Tony voters) thought, the original was rock solid? Because the central themes of the show – the horror that happens when you fail to speak honestly to young people, refuse to fully or even partially educate them as to real life and not just Latin, really the ramifications of socially controlled ignorance – are enhanced and elucidated by making most of our main characters deaf. Half of the actors onstage are actually deaf – including Oscar-winner Marlee Matlin as the Adult Women – and signing throughout while hearing actors sing and speak. When signing isn’t possible given the staging or the actors present in a scene, subtitles appear on screens (written like a blackboard). Matlin shares the role of Adult Women with Emmy-winner Camryn Manheim, the latter of whom gets to yell as the mean teachers and Wendla’s dire mother, while the former breaks our hearts as Melchior’s mother who just can’t communicate with her son as she’d hope.
Most of the roles are doubled, actually, with deaf and hearing actors sharing the role. A pretty wonderful touch is that these roles, including the two non-Melchior main characters, Wendla and Moritz, are primarily played by the deaf actors, while their speaking and singing counterparts mainly shadow them, standing away from the action and away from the light, allowing the audience to see the deaf actor as the character and the hearing actor as perhaps the voice in their head.
Wendla (a glorious Sandra Mae Frank, voiced by Katie Boeck) is our tragic heroine, naïve as hell because of her teachers and crucially her mother, doomed to stay that way by her youth and experience. The show opens with Wendla asking her mother where babies come from, as her married older sister is having another child. Her mother is comically distraught over how difficult it is to tell her kid science, so she lies, saying that if you really love your husband with all your heart, god gives you a child. The audience laughs, because it’s a common funny situation, but of course we are soon reminded that education is everything, vital in every way, and the difficulty that ignorant adults have with it cannot excuse lack of honesty in educating kids.
Moritz (wonderful Daniel Durant, voiced by Alex Boniello) is the opposite of Wendla in demeanor, though just as tragic. While Wendla is sweet and unquestioning in her naiveté (for the most part), Moritz knows that shit in the world doesn’t make any sense, and his inability to handle things can be seen from space. His disturbing schoolroom scenes, in which he constantly spars with his stern, cold teachers, is heightened in this production by a little bit of history: He uses sign language, and the speaking teachers disapprove of it. This is an allusion to the infamous 19th century Milan Conference, in which sign language was banned by a biased congress in favor of forced oralism, which no regard to how this would actually affect deaf children. The ramifications of that terrible decision still persist, adding an extra layer to this aspect of the show.
As in the original, which won a Tony for JGJ, Moritz here is our emotional powerhouse, whose frustration with all the lies and ignorance and adults in his life becomes too much to handle, too reminiscent of so many people. His story reinforces how necessary communication is. I mean, the whole show does, but his in particular seems the most common in reality.
Both Wendla’s and Moritz’s deafness show their inability to communicate what they need to, though for Wendla it evidences her lack of awareness – she doesn’t even know what she doesn’t know – while for Moritz it’s his inability to explain himself and his needs, or at least for his words to get through to anyone. The various adult characters’ deafness reflects their refusal to listen to the kids in their lives or talk to them as humans.
Our lead character, Melchior (Austin P. McKenzie), on the other hand, is our highly intelligent, well-informed guy whose mother actually treats him like a person and is okay with him knowing necessary facts about life. He’s as smart as a teenager whose brain isn’t fully developed yet can be. As such, Melchior is one of the few characters played by a hearing actor who also uses sign language the whole time. His bilingual nature lets him educate Moritz and the other boys in his school about sex, it lets him talk honestly to teachers and parents, and it lets him have a relationship with his love Wendla. Their relationship provides much of the plot, and it’s complex: Wendla has no idea what sex really is or what it can do, so even though it is presented as consensual it’s really not. And even though Melchior does know the hard facts, he’s still too young to fully understand everything. Shit goes down, naturally, and that opening ‘funny’ conversation with her mother’s evasion proves important. The language and hearing barrier makes all the conflict and tragedy unspeakably worse and more intense, because it’s so clear to see where communication failed and things went wrong.
McKenzie’s Melchior, as the crux of the show, was a little weak for me, but then again Jonathan Groff’s shoes are impossible to fill, especially when a naturally hearing actor has to learn sign language and sign the whole time, while carrying most of the show. So I’m probably being too harsh. Only two other actors onstage, that I can recall, were both hearing and signing. One was Ali Stroker in the ensemble – Broadway’s first actor in a wheelchair. I wasn’t kidding when I said this show was hella inclusive and groundbreaking. I like that they showed that her physical disability doesn’t mean anything compared to her mind and abilities. The only other hearing and signing actor is Krysta Rodriguez, who was in the ensemble in the original production. The inimitable KR now plays Ilse, the much-abused girl whose abusive parents no longer provide a home for her, forcing her to a life on the streets, in a sort of druggie artists commune.
The uniqueness of this production led to several stellar moments in addition to the enhanced depth and meaning of the show overall. The big one was Ilse’s main scene, when she encounters a distraught Moritz in the woods before his suicide (plot spoilers are fair game for revivals, but I’ll try to avoid production spoilers. Also it happens in act one so come on). They used to be good friends, and so she senses he’s unhappy, but he hides how bad it is. They sing one of the best songs, “Don’t Do Sadness/Blue Wind” about how much easier life used to be and how things are generally shitty now. Ilse reluctantly says goodbye, leaving Moritz to shoot himself with a pistol he took from his uncommunicative, uncaring father. But in this show, Ilse comes back, to retrieve a scarf I think, and finds Moritz. The moment that happened next gives me chills just thinking about. It’s short, nothing on paper, but so unbelievably powerful and genius that I want to find director Michael Arden and hug him and slap him. It’s the kind of thing that made me almost throw up, I choke-gasped tears so hard. It’s almost too much, and it’s only a few seconds. (I’ll tell you if you wanna know.) This is when I went from ‘wow, this revival really transformed the show in a positive way’ to ‘wow, this is the most powerful piece of theatre maybe ever.’
Another stellar moment comes from another strong song (they’re all strong, dammit) – “The Dark I Know Well” – sung by one of the girls, Martha, about how her father abuses her and her dead-inside mother doesn’t care. Ilse joins in to commiserate about her former similar situation, and it’s a shattering song no matter what. But here, Martha (Treshelle Edmond (voiced by Kathryn Gallagher)) is deaf. She’s furiously signing the whole time, and it adds such heartache to it, knowing that she can’t and won’t do anything to stop it, and she implores her friends not to tell anyone. It’s like, oh let’s hear from one of the other girls, surely her story can’t be as mindnumbingly tragic as the oh wait it is.
There’s so much brilliance in this production that I really can’t say any more. Every movement, every decision was brilliant. I realize that it all seemed brilliant to me, a hearing person, for whom the signing was supporting the show and not determining it. I realize that it’s a much different experience for deaf audience members – at least 10 of whom I saw while waiting to enter the theatre, so this production really is a game-changer in audience makeup. I’m sure the production team had the hearing audience first and foremost in its mind, and I’m lucky that I got to see the vision of it as the team intended without missing much. I hope that it’s just as great for deaf audience members since it’s so rare for them to be considered, but I imagine there are many flaws from their perspective, things they missed, ASL that wasn’t as complex as the lyrics being sung, or maybe just difficulty seeing all the actors’ hands when necessary. However, no fault can be found with the ending. The ending is when everything falls to pieces, people are dead, abortion is illegal, Melchior is punished for his knowledge, truth is censored. We’re all quite sad, and the last plot-driven song is fucking BRUTAL, with the ghosts of Moritz and Wendla telling the imprisoned Melchior that they will always be there walking by his side. I mean. Damn. The last actual song is more like an epilogue, called “The Song of Purple Summer”. It’s one of my favorite songs of all time OF ALL TIME, and it’s about how even in the face of tragedy you still need to have hope that we can work together and make things better. or that things will just get better. I don’t know, it’s just hopeful. But in previous productions, it’s hard to feel that hope when you are like ‘BUT BUT BUT PRISON AND SUICIDE AND COAT-HANGER ABORTIONS WHAT DO YOU MEAN HAVE HOPE?’ Here it actually worked, because the most stellar moment of the show is the final image we see. I’m not going to tell you what it is (perhaps in the comments, if needed), but I’ll tell you this. I cry a lot in the theatre. I mean I cry a lot at all the arts but mostly the theatre, because my tears come if something is done well. I don’t care if it’s the happiest show and the cast is doing an energetic tap dance – if it’s really great, I’ma cry. Case in point: Sutton Foster and the last production of “Anything Goes” during the title song. That dance was perfect and it was a joyous scene. I cried. So this happens a lot. Well, my crying at this ending of “Spring Awakening” was indeed because it was done well, done perfectly actually, and all brilliant, but that’s not all. It was f-ing beautiful, sad and hopeful and everything that song and that show ever wished to accomplish. Hell, I’m pretty sure that final image was everything any show wants to accomplish. I thought my chest was imploding. The last time I had that much trouble breathing because of how hard I was crying, I ended up in the hospital with food poisoning and broken blood vessels all over my face.
Go see it. It ends in January. The end.
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The Haystack at the Hampstead Theatre: What Modern Theatre Wants to Be
If you still take your iPhone into the bathroom with you, then this is the show for you! Man alive you won’t be doing that shit anymore. The Haystack is the fantastic new play that all modern theatre wants to be. It’s fascinating, provocative, gripping, and best of all completely original. Nearly every minute of this show felt warranted and every plot twist had me simultaneously gasping (quietly) in surprise and smiling at how well done it was. I have been waiting for a new play (or a revival, I mean see my last theatre review) that was this close to being flawless.
The Haystack is not, as I originally guessed just when I heard the title, a farm show that’s sort of like Oklahoma! but without music. Instead, it’s a thrilling look at modern society and how our government watches all of us, for ‘good reason’, so they say. Told in flashback after what seems like it’s going to be for sure a tragedy, the story centers on the work of Neil (Oliver Johnstone, I mean, so good) and Zef (Enyi Okoronkwo, airtight performance) at the GCHQ, which is like the UK version of the NSA. It’s the government agency where they spy on you, pretty much, with technology that is mind-boggling. Neil and Zef are best friends, video game aficionados, and incredible spygame wizards (hackers? Are they hackers? I mean probably also?). When the two get assigned a particularly important case that falls under the terrorism unit’s purview, everything changes, and not in the fun ‘last song of Waitress’ kind of way. The subject of their surveillance, a young journalist named Cora (excellent Rona Morison), captures Neil’s attention, and then he starts to Adam-Sandler-in-Uncut-Gems it up real hard (i.e. make bad decisions).
The play depicts a huge issue – government’s alarming incursions into civilians’ privacy – while telling an interpersonal story about how the larger actions of the government agencies controlling our society play out on the small scale. As someone who remembers when the USA passed the Patriot Act (super typical America to call something so insidious such a delightful name), I appreciated how they used this fictional tale to remind us that we should be horrified at what rights to privacy we have given up without a fight, in a way that worked without being overbearing.
What’s great about this show is that, with Neil’s central performance, you know he’s doing bad things but you understand why, and I can’t really fault his reasoning for first going down this path (for continuing it, sure, lots of bad moves, but the initial part, I probably would have done the same). By establishing that empathy with him, you feel the anguish of his conflict, and his stress, my god the stress. Johnstone’s Neil is a guy we all know and like and root for, and he handles the weight of this role wonderfully, as does Morison’s Cora, fully fleshed out like an actual real person, with flaws and heart and vulnerability. The rest of the small cast is equally strong and believable.
I was impressed with how thrilling the first act was that I even said “even if the second half of this is the second act of Oslo it’ll still be overall a good evening.” But that second act, and its two twists in particular (I seriously would never have guessed), is brilliant and harrowingly formed. That line about how if we turned off our devices, the agencies tracking us would be blind made me want to go build a cabin in the middle of nowhere and just live off the land, which if you know me is a huge feat (and probably a mistake). This show will stick with me for a while. Also, it’s all well researched. My date has a masters in computer security and worked at similar agencies I shall not name, AND knows all the gaming references they make in the show, to things like godcodes and other things that I don’t know about because I went outside as a teen. Aside from a few things that he found out were simply UK vs. USA differences, the content was pretty much unassailable.
The look of this show holds its own with this text. With impeccable direction by Roxana Silbert (female directors do exist, hallelujer!) and captivating movement from Wayne Parsons (the shrewd blocking was one of my favorite aspects), the show visually impresses despite a minimal set. The projections, of all the various tracking and video captures, are also well done, and Ivo could learn a few things in When Projections are a Good Idea.
The only thing that makes me mad (besides government corruption and control) is that the playwright, Al Blyth, is making his professional full-length debut with this. His first full play and it’s this good. What an asshole.
Okay now that you’re finished reading it, let’s all go destroy our smartphones (you first).
INFORMATION
With about a 19:33 start, the first act finished at 20:47 (I was so captivated I didn’t even notice I went past my bladder time limit so that’s really quite something). After a 20 minute interval, Act II finished at 22:19.
THE HAMPSTEAD THEATRE BAR SELLS VEGAN SAUSAGE ROLLS AND THEY ARE REALLY GOOD! They also have vegan focaccia. WIN.
My seat J1 was absolutely perfect – you want to be house left/stage right to be nearest Door 1 which is right next to the bathrooms, and rows around G-K are closest to the door. Also this particular seat doesn’t have one behind it so you don’t get anyone kicking your chair.
This audience was faaaairly okay. Someone only set their phone to vibrate and they didn’t hear when it rang but we did, of course. VIBRATE IS NOT SUFFICIENT.
Tony Awards Nostalgia
Frens, as you know, the 2020 Tony Awards were supposed to be last night. Instead of this post-Tony Monday bringing you a list of my favorite moments, the best speeches, the performances that weren’t medleys (huzzah), the worst losses, and so on, I’m sharing some superlatives from Tony Awards past. All I have been doing* during quarantine, honestly, is watching old recordings of Tony broadcasts. I’ve watched like 40 years’ worth. You might be thinking that’s a weird preoccupation or even a waste of time but if you would say something that unbelievably stupid I bet you wouldn’t be reading this. Also old Tony broadcasts are the bee’s knees.
* well at least while cooking dinner, which honestly adds up for me time-wise because no matter what your 30-minute recipe! bullshit is about it will take me those 30 minutes just to chop my onions so back off
Before I get to the ridiculous categories I chose to honor, I have to mention how much the Tony Awards have changed even just since I’ve been alive. Watching old ones has been enlightening. First of all, in like the ’80s, they literally NEVER cut off long speeches! They were like you just won a Tony? Amazing job! Thank everyone you want this is important shit! You wanna pause when it seems like you’re finished but then keep going? That’s wonderful dear! I wish they were still like that. I despise cutting people off who just had their life’s work recognized. (Unless they’re reading their speech. No matter what else has changed – and everything has – prewritten speeches that winners reeeead off paperrr are THE WORRRST.) Ugh and it’s awful when the producers not only bring up the orchestra but also cut the mic. That’s just cruel, because a) it prevents any amazing Bette-style complete ignoring of the music where the winner continues to yell over it for just ever (which is usually soo fun) like ‘are you kidding me get OUT of here with that nonsense’ I adore that, and b) winners always, always save thanking their families for last. (Which is its own bullshit. Thank your fam bam before Scott Rudin you moron. If I ever won a Tony I would grab the mic and scream at the top of my lungs THANKS MOM WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING THIS IS AMAAAZING I DIDN’T KNOW YOU COULD WIN TONYS FOR PETTING DOGS!!!)
Also, the Best Revival categories were mixed! Plays and musicals together like the Wild West. I guess it makes sense, though; there were fewer properties to choose from back then.
Once you hit the 2000s, the award show gets obviously bigger, louder, more raucous. (Change approved.) In part thanks to Neil Patrick Harris and Hugh Jackman’s hosting abilities (how lucky we are to be alive for the 2013 opener), in part just due to times changing and people wanting more, it’s quite the contrast to watch the modern Tonys with jaw-dropping 10-minute musical number intros after you’ve seen the 1991 Tony Awards hosted by I shit you not Julie Andrews and Jeremy’s Iron, who began the show in fancy British accents and were like “Hello and welcome to the 45th Annual TOE-ny awaaaahds. What a time to celebrate being a pahht of the theatuhhhhh. Here’s the first awaaahd” and like that’s it. So calm. Adorable.
As for future Tony Awards, I hope we have them. All thanks to CBS for airing them at all (you better keep it up), but I hope in the future they realize who they’re for. They’re never going to attract new uninterested viewers, so just stop trying. Stop getting random movie stars to present awards and then billing their presence in all the commercials. Like, no non-theatre but pro-Marvel fan is going to tune in just to see one of the Chrises present Best Choreography. Have they not realized this yet? In the ’80s, all the presenters were stage luminaries and it was exciting to celebrate them in this, their one arena for that kind of acknowledgment. Let the Tonys be for actual theatre fans. Let the telecast go on as long as you can give them, and let theatre people be involved, no matter how famous they are. And have plays perform short scene! They used to do this and it WORKED! It was great! And present Book of a Musical as part of the live telecast and not just when you think Tina Fey is going to win! (Although that surprise was one of my absolute favorite things about the last decade, when the producers did decide to air Best Book on the telecast just because they thought Tina would win and then she lost to Itamar Moses omg it was so funny.)
On that note, let’s share some other memories. Some of the videos below are just the entire telecast recording so just like enjoy.
Most Fun Performance for Posterity
There’s no question about this one. What can I watch no matter how I’m feeling and just laugh my ass off? Patti LuPone singing Buenos Aires at the 1981 Tony Awards. Why? Oh my dear, because of these (fake but come on, real.) subtitles. Sure there are 100s of incredible, perfect, soaring performances I could actually have chosen for ‘best performance’, but nothing compares to this gem.
My god I just watched literally 15 seconds of this and I am screaming and shrieking from laughter. EBBA DO ME!
Best Treat that Might be Cooler than the Tony Award You Just Won
Ten years after Patti sang about the laddad rat hat, Baby Daisy Eagen won the Best Featured Actress in a Musical Tony forThe Secret Garden. Baby Daisy was only 11 years old! Obviously she was crying and overwhelmed, and presenter Audrey Hepburn came back over to her and kissed her head. It’s the sweetest little moment but I imagine it didn’t help her outsized emotions to realize that Audrey Hepburn just kissed her head. LOVES IT.
Biggest “We Should Have Known“
In 2009, Susan Sarandon presented both Best Director awards (for play and musical). We should have known she was about to come out as a piece of a nothing when, despite reading a teleprompter and you know being a professional word-sayer, she said Matthew Warchus’s name wrong like 3 times. When she announced his win it came out something like Tathy Martis. SHAME. SHAAAAME. Almost as much as the shame you should feel for being so g-d stupid about politics. Nothing bother me more for the purposes of this sentence than when people say ‘actors should stay out of politics’ – that’s just nonsense, everyone affected should have a say – but when it comes to Susan actors should stay out of politics.
Biggest “We Really Didn’t Need That But Thanks?”
In 2014, Emmy Rossum introduced the performance from Best Revival nominee Les Miserables because I guess one of the telecast producers mixed up two classics. She introduced the performance by unironically, completely sincerely describing the plot of Les Mis as if it were this new thing no one knew about, as if every fucker in that audience and at home didn’t know every single word of that show by heart since they were children. Lol I was HYSTERICAL.
Cutest Outdated Joke
In 1986, Rupert Holmes won Best Score (for Drood) and then 10 seconds later won Best Book of a Musical. In his second speech in two minutes, he quipped “Wow I hope my home VHS recording is working.” Man remember not having technology, woof. Anyway it was adorbs, and watching someone win Tonys back to back made my heart grow even bigger, another reason why they should air Best Book on the live show.
Best Slogan for Life Learned from a Speech
In 2005, the great Mike Nichols (RIP) won for directing Spamalot and in his speech he said to the losers, “Cheer up, life isn’t everything.”
Worst Change for Tony Performance But a Cute Little Coincidence Makes it Okay
One of my favorite productions ever was the 2005 The Light in the Piazza, introducing me to that gorgeous, soul-buoying score and to my queen Kelli O’Hara. But their Tony performance, hoo boy. For some reason, instead of just singing the beautiful opening song, they had Victoria Clark in character be like, ‘Hello, I’m Margaret Johnson, and this is my daughter Clara. It’s her first time in Italy!’ ahhh it was beyond cringe. But soon afterwards, Norbert Leo Butz won the Best Actor in a Musical Tony (for Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) and in his speech he thanked his daughters Clara and Maggie – the names of the LITP characters! Cute!
Best Host Sentiment Continuity Decades Apart
In 1987, host/ledge Angela Lansbury talked in her opening monologue about how during an early pre-Broadway tryout (in Philly!), she was thinking about how she didn’t belong there and how she wanted to be home in California. Later in her career, in another leading performance on a Broadway stage, she realized that she was home. She said from everyone tonight who is coming home to Broadway to celebrate, welcome to the Tonys. It felt very much like the precursor to what would be the best opening of all time – Neil Patrick Harris’s 2013 song, in which he said, to the kid in the middle of nowhere, “So we might reassure that kid, and do something to spur that kid, ‘cause I promise you, all of us up here tonight, we were that kid.”
Best Sixth Win
My other queen Audra McDonald winning her sixth Tony Award, for Best Actress in a Play for Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill, expressed more gratitude and humble appreciation and overwhelmed joy at belonging to this community than most first-time winners. What a ledge. The audience’s reaction was wonderful too. And yes, I agree that Lady Day was rightfully considered a play, as all the music was presented in a concert format.
Best Line From an Opening Number
As I’ve said, the greatest opening number of all time is NPH’s 2013 behemoth, never to be topped (it’s below ps like I’d ever write this sort of nonsense post of my thoughts and not share the vid). It continues to blow my mind every day, 7 years later, and I’m particularly OB. SESSED with this part:
Hats off to Berry Gordy
He runs Motown like a boss.
He dominates Top 40 and he banged Diana Ross!
He wrote his own libretto which is really kinda ballin’
He took every Motown classic and he said “Eh, put ’em all in!”
The audience’s shocked laughter at the Diana Ross line, my god it was AMAZING. And I just adore how Neil says “eh put all ’em all in!” It’s perfect, while also kind of a burn at how overstuffed Motown the Musical was!
A close, close second is this line later in the song, about all the children on Bway that season:
They barely come up to your knees
But God they’re singing like MVPs
And they’re the reason this whole season seems to look like Chuck E. Cheese!
If you didn’t know Lin-Manuel wrote that song, you did when you heard the assonance in that line.
Best Line from a Closing Number
Another NPH performance, this time from the end of the 2009 telecast, had the unforgettable line:
Chris Sieber! Please! Performing on your knees? Dude that only works to win Golden Globes.
Forking classic.
BEST ACCEPTANCE SPEECH NEVER TO BE TOPPED
Forget his official works, Lin-Manuel’s first ever Tony win, for the score of In the Heights, is responsible in itself for a new era in musical theatre. Reminding everyone that he’s just as talented freestyle-rapping as he is with the written word, his genuinely heartfelt speech managed to on-the-fly make an unforgettable proclamation to Chris Jackson’s talents as well as an incredible reference to Sondheim’s greatest work about making art. Perfection.
MOST.
Alright, it’s time to just share the best opening of all time, the best Tony Awards celebration of all time, the best just simply, best. The 2013 opening number. I’ve watched this at least twice a week every week since 2013, so, you know, a lot, and every time it still brings me to happy tears. ENJOY!
What did I miss? What are your favorite Tony moments?
