Making It In America

Review of Dishwasher Dreams, Hartford Stage

What do stand-up comics do when they’re off the circuit? Some become Hollywood movie stars or join seasons of sitcoms on one platform or another. But what about the minority comic whose ethnicity, in white-dominated popular culture, seems to suit him only for bad guys or guys whose comic range is to be a walking cliché? Maybe they create a theatrical monologue that lets them tell their story while entertaining audiences with a view of Show Biz a bit more multicultural than the norm.

In Dishwasher Dreams, now playing at Hartford Stage through March 20, Alaudin Ullah (aka, Aladdin) tells us about his family, his childhood, his career. It’s not so much a story of slings and arrows—though there are slurs and sorrows—as it is a fond journey with moments of grief and glee along the way, much as anyone’s life is. The difference is in the details, but that too is part of what makes America American: immigrant stories—no matter the immigrants’ origins—play out in the pop culture grab-bag that we all live in and with. As a second-generation son of South Asian immigrants living in Spanish Harlem, Ullah has a beguiling grasp of street energies and the kind of “melting pot” mix that spices many an urban environment. But he’s also an entertainer who rose up through the ranks in comedy clubs—beginning with Don’t Tell Mamas, with a largely gay and drag clientele—and onto cable programs on Comedy Central (Ullah’s reminiscence about cable TV coming to the projects will strike a chord with anyone who remembers TV before and after cable). So he’s also uniquely poised to tell us something about America and what it means to find a niche in which to be successfully entertaining.

Alaudin Ullah, foreground, and Avirodh Sharma in Dishwasher Dreams, Hartford Stage; photo by Michael Brosilow

Ullah’s manner finds humor in most situations, such as the identity issues that come with being Muslim in the U.S. As a faith that is sometimes mistaken for an ethnicity, Ullah can insist he’s “about as Muslim as Pee Wee Herman,” but that doesn’t mean he won’t be asked to “do a Muslim accent.” His family are Bengalis, from the part of India that won independence and became Bangladesh when Ullah was not yet a teen. Important to the story is how Ullah characterizes his background, such as how his father chose to leave his village because of a belief in America as a land of opportunity where a job as a dishwasher and a mice and roach-ridden apartment in Spanish Harlem equal a dream come true. So when Ullah finds himself living rough while trying to break into Show Biz, he’s got a model to follow.

Ullah’s acculturation lets him mock such staples as the familiar glitzy dance moments—in place of depicting sex—in the Bollywood films his family goes on outings to see, and to find great admiration in the stark beauty of Satyajit Ray’s Apu films, which happen to be set near the village Alaudin’s father emigrated from. Moments of name-checking Indian culture are more than matched by young Alaudin’s greatest U.S. enthusiasm: The New York Yankees. The scenes depicting—early and late—Ullah’s part in the collective euphoria surrounding Reggie Jackson are highpoints as the comedian is able to channel his inner twelve-year-old and lights up the stage with his love.

Tenser matters are provided by the comedian’s mother’s illness and darker themes emerge from a family visit to Bangladesh where Ullah encounters a cousin whose fate weighs heavily. At such moments the aural presence of Avirodh Sharma, playing hand-drums on stage throughout the show, is greatly effective, punctuating Ullah’s monologue and creating atmosphere, a language of percussion that supports and comments.

Avirodh Sharma in Dishwasher Dreams, Hartford Stage; photo by Michael Brosilow

And that’s to the good because Alaudin Ullah’s monologue can at times feel rather static. Director Chay Yew has Ullah move about the stage to signal changes in locale and mood, and Ullah sometimes stands on a chair or crouches to give variety to his presence, all of which, including the tasteful lighting by Anshuman Bhatia and the handsome wooden stage by Yu Shibagaki, helps to keep us focused and responsive. But if you’re used to comedians who flaunt fluid movements in the midst of fast-paced commentary and asides, you might find Ullah’s routine to be a bit over-rehearsed and even a bit too earnest.

Alaudin Ullah in Dishwasher Dreams, Hartford Stage; photo by Michael Brosilow

Ullah wisely keeps to the end his most comic bit, where he gooses the stereotypical image of the Southern Asian immigrant while at the same time wryly asserting the special privileges that come with assimilation via Show Biz. It works, because Ullah is willing to see that the laugh is on him as well.

Dishwasher Dreams
Written & performed by Alaudin Ullah
Directed by Chay Yew
Music by Avirodh Sharma

Scenic Design: Yu Shibagaki; Costume Design: Izumi Imaba; Lighting Design: Anshuman Bhatia; Composer/Arranger: Avirodh Sharma; Assistant Director: Christopher Rowe; Assistant Lighting Design: Daniel Friedman; Production Stage Manager: David Castellanos; Assistant Stage Manager: Theresa Stark; Artistic Producer: Rachel Alderman; Director of Production: Bryan T. Holcombe; General Manager: Emily Van Scot

Hartford Stage
February 24-March 20, 2022

Another Miracle

Review of Falsettoland, Music Theatre of Connecticut

Falsettoland, now playing at Music Theatre of Connecticut through November 21, directed by Kevin J. Connors is a quirky, sappy, funny, tear-jerker of a musical. And how many shows can you say that about?

The cast of the Music Theatre of Connecticut production of Falsettoland, directed by Kevin Connors; photo by Alex Mogillo

What’s it about? Well, really it’s about love, but the context for the vicissitudes of love involves gays and straights, Jews and a few non-Jews. The show’s humor is decidedly arch—as for instance in both versions of “the Miracle of Judaism” or in “Baseball Game” or “Everyone Hates Their Parents”—and its play upon our sympathies stems from our acceptance that—to vary Tolstoy—“all dysfunctional relationships are unique in their dysfunction.” For Marvin (Dan Sklar) the dysfunction is starting to double-down. In the first part of Falsettos—Falsettoland is the second half of the longer musical—he left his wife, Trina (Corinne C. Broadbent), for his lover Whizzer (Max Meyers). As Falsettoland opens, Marvin and Whizzer have split up and Trina has taken up with Mendel (Jeff Gurner), Marvin’s former psychiatrist. Then there’s the looming Bar Mitzvah for Jason (Ari Sklar), the son of Marvin and Trina who misses Whizzer and invites him to his baseball game, to the awkwardness of all. For Marvin, some kind of reckoning must be coming, but—as the song “Something Bad is Happening” late in Act One implies—he hasn’t yet seen the worst of it.

The cast of Falsettoland, Music Theatre of Connecticut, left to right: Trina (Corinne C. Broadbent), Mendel (Jeff Gurner), front, Cordelia (Elissa DeMaria), back, Marvin (Dan Sklar), front, Dr. Charlotte (Jessie Janet Richards), back; photo by Alex Mogillo

The cleverness of the show’s book—by James Lapine and William Finn—lies in how its mundane situations spark asides and reflections and confrontations, all of which are sung as dialogue. The music and lyrics by William Finn have a savvy, wry reflectiveness and bounce along with an agreeable forthrightness that seem in-keeping with the “tell it to a psychiatrist” tone. The shrink—played with crusty affability by MTC regular Gurner—is almost like a stand-in for the audience, a bit off to the side and yet emotionally involved. And that would also seem to be the point of the lesbian couple—Dr. Charlotte (Jessie Janet Richards) and her partner Cordelia (Elissa DeMaria), a non-Jew obsessed with Jewish cuisine; they might be the “zany neighbors,” but in fact, like us, they are drawn-in and play audience to the family dysfunction that, at first, seems only to hang on the question of how Marvin will navigate the emotional ties that bind him, and, more crucially, how Jason will manage to have a Bar Mitzvah he can tolerate or maybe even be proud of. But as “Unlikely Lovers,” a highlight of Act Two, makes clear, the scope of the foursome comprised by Dr. Charlotte, Cordelia, Marvin and Whizzer is key to the play’s vision of how new loves form in the space once dominated by family ties.

Whizzer (Max Meyers) and Marvin (Dan Sklar) in the MTC production of Falsettoland; photo by Alex Mogillo

But that’s not to say that more traditional family ties are given short shrift. Key to the tone the play strikes is the role of Trina. She might be more freaked out than she is, she might also be way more resentful of her former husband’s love for a man and her son’s friendship with that man, and she could whine a lot more. The great thing about Corinne C. Broadbent’s rendering of Trina is that she’s not melodramatic nor particularly long-suffering. Her big number in the second act, “Holding to the Ground” (sung while doing her aerobic exercises) lays out her emotional parameters and it’s one of the strongest numbers, matched—or even topped—by Max Meyer’s strong delivery of Whizzer’s “You Gotta Die Sometime.” What these two sung speeches give is not only insight into the difficult terrain these characters are navigating but also show them coping and revealing strengths that take us beyond the play’s tendency to use quirks for laughs.

the cast of Music Theatre of Connecticut’s production of Falsettoland, directed by Kevin Connors; photo by Alex Mogillo

At the heart of it all is Sklar’s Marvin, a likeable guy dealing with a lot; you might even say he’s a bit of a schlemihl trying to be a mensch. His genuine affection for Whizzer wins us over in “What More Can I Say,” and the real nature of the problem facing the couple ratches up the drama and takes us back to very stressful times that the musical aims to revisit as a coping exercise. And so, in good uplifting-ending fashion, the fate of that Bar Mitzvah is to reinforce the growth all the characters have undergone. Amongst all the good work done here—including Lindsay Fuori’s subway car set that adds the right note of urban landscape—special mention should be made of Ari Sklar’s Jason who is such a natural for this part it’s as if it’s a slice of his life. That illusion is helped by the fact that Jason’s father, Marvin, is played by Ari real life dad. Family ties, after all.

Marvin (Dan Sklar), Trina (Corinne C. Broadbent), background; Mendel (Jeff Gurner), Jason (Ari Sklar), foreground; photo by Alex Mogillo

In revisiting those days of something awful in Falsettoland, the MTC production might be said to sound a note of nostalgia. Bad as things got, there was a sense that that they could only get better—in part through visions like Finn and Lapine’s of the everydayness of same-sex couples as part of the same old traditions grown so familiar. One of those miracles of humanitarianism.

The cast of Music Theatre of Connecticut’s production of Falsettoland, directed by Kevin Connors; photo by Alex Mogillo

Falsettoland
Book by William Finn and James Lapine
Music and Lyrics by William Finn
Directed by Kevin J. Connors

Scenic Design: Lindsay Fuori; Lighting Design: RJ Romeo; Costume Design: Diane Vanderkroef; Sound Design: Will Atkin; Prop Design: Sean Sanford; Stage Manager: Jim Schilling; Choreography: Chris McNiff; Musical Direction: David John Madore

Cast: Corinne C. Broadbent, Elissa DeMaria, Jeff Gurner, Max Meyers, Jessie Janet Richards, Ari Sklar, Dan Sklar

Musicians: Piano/Musical Director: David John Madore; Drums: Steve Musitano, Chris McWilliams

Music Theatre of Connecticut
November 5-21, 2021

A Play For The Moment

Tiny House, at Westport County Playhouse

Happy 4th of July, that testament to the foundational myth of the United States of America. During this year’s Independence Day, Westport County Playhouse returns to active theater with Michael Gotch’s Tiny House, a dramedy set on a 4th of July lived “off the grid.” It’s a nice bit of irony. The show is streaming theater that takes us to the remote mountainous home of a couple—Sam & Nick—who purport to have withdrawn from corporate America and the distractions of internet culture. Which means they wouldn’t be likely to access theater like this.

The play takes its cue from our contemporary moment of crisis in which catastrophe looms and methods of coping have become the order of the day. And that’s apropos, as streaming theater, in which the remote audience attends theatrical content prepared digitally, was a part of many people’s quarantine experience. The fact that as of this week most theatrical restrictions of the pandemic have been lifted (for fully vaccinated companies) by Actors Equity, such as bans on actors occupying the same theater space, makes the Westport production already feel dated, part of last summer’s situational awareness.

And, on that note, just to get it out of the way: the digital green-screen version of this play is an oddly hybrid experience. The actors are all in different spaces trying to keep each other in believable eyelines, and efforts to create the illusion that they are in contact are oddly intrusive, like trying to hide the strings on puppets. Otherwise, there’s a detailed backdrop of a tiny house (you know, those cramped, small-footprint, ingenious boxes in which bourgeois accoutrements are reduced to the dimensions of a cruise ship’s cabin for a life free of excess, clutter, and waste), and very ripe nature shots, like a mountain/valley view aimed to induce vertigo and a forest verdantly ancient as only digital imagery can be. The Westport show is better than Zoom theater but not as satisfying as actors on stage together relayed by video, as at TheaterWorks this season. Even so, there’s considerable interest in contemplating how director Mark Lamos and his team pulled off this virtual theater-space which has its own odd charm. (And cheers to Westport Country Playhouse for continuing on; Tiny Houses opened on June 29, exactly 90 years since WCP first opened its doors, on June 29, 1931, so it certainly has been around for some trying times.)

Sam (Sara Bues) and Nick (Denver Milord) in Westport County Playhouse’s production of Tiny House by Michael Gotch

The play itself is a hodgepodge of the edgy, the erratic and the aiming-at-entertaining. Nick (Denver Milord) and Sam (Sara Bues), the well-intentioned male-female couple hosting, have, of course, their issues, notably with Sam’s recovery from a miscarriage. She’s feeling vulnerable and not up to what is bound to be an abrasive visit from her mother, Billie (Elizabeth Heflin), a divorcee now living with her former brother-in-law, Larry (Lee E. Ernst). Sam’s father has been jailed for perpetrating “the biggest Ponzi scheme since Jesus walked the earth” (it’s a neat line and gets trotted out three times), and there’s lots of bad feelings and traumatic scarring about that.

Larry (Lee E. Ernst) in Westport County Playhouse’s production of Tiny House by Michael Gotch

The “zany neighbor” role is given a switch in presenting the grim and mysterious Bernard (Hassan El-Amin), an armed hunter of marmots who may have been CIA and is concerned with the approaching “zero hour” of some indefinite apocalypse. We might assume this is just gun-nut fantasy, but he’s listening to “chatter” and everyone but Billie voices anxiety over the state of the world—whether climate change or anxiety-inducing news bulletins in general. Bernard helps keep alive the notion that this play is about more than awkward company on a holiday weekend but mainly he just sets up the punch that is the ending note of the play.

Bernard (Hassan El-Amin) in Westport County Playhouse’s production of Tiny House by Michael Gotch

The family sparring gets its most intense when Billie, in youth a bunny at Hef’s Playboy mansion, gets into an escalating aria of jabbering grievance with Nick that is the aural equivalent of speed-scrolling leftist 30something (Nick) and rightist Baby Boomer (Billie) flashpoints simultaneously. Like much in this play, it’s overwrought to little purpose. Early on, Nick has lines that make him a fun take-off of the intensely concerned and focused man-child of our times, so keen to offset the mess elder generations have made of the world. But the elder generation here, but for Billie, are little more than wan comic relief sporting hippier-than-thou wiftiness. Larry, in Ernst’s energetic performance, might add a loose cannon’s surprises but he collapses into the abyss of truly zany neighbors Win (Stephen Pelinski) and Carol (Kathleen Pirkl-Tague) who play on the laughs automatically conjured by Renaissance festivals, Tolkienesque elf-folk and hallucinogen-laced vegan tortes. Sigh.

Win (Stephen Pelinski) and Carol (Kathleen Pirkl-Tague) in Westport County Playhouse’s production of Tiny House by Michael Gotch

When the transmission’s sixty-second intermission arrived I was already wondering if—as with a game’s halftime—there would be a turn-around or if it was already over. In the second part, we get to the payoff of Gotch’s best idea: that the unsustainable civilization bequeathed us by twentieth-century capitalism is the equivalent of a giant Ponzi scheme that has suckered us all. That, to me, was the ideological upshot of Sam’s harangue to her mother about how bad it is to grow up as the besmirched daughter of a con-man and national disgrace. Bues gives the speech her all but it’s not her fault that the lines don’t give her much awareness beyond poor-pitiful-me whining and a self-satisfied jab at Mom (whose own woe-is-me depiction of life after Shamalot we’ve already heard). Both Bues and Heflin almost convince us we’re seeing the kind of self-exposure with consequences that drama sometimes achieves, but the ploy of having Nick overhear a certain statement by Sam feels utterly contrived—and nothing comes of it anyway.

Sam (Sara Bues), Nick (Denver Milord), Billie (Elizabeth Heflin) in Westport County Playhouse’s production of Tiny House by Michael Gotch

And that’s the nature of this particular gathering: some good ideas, agreeable performances, digital sleight-of-hand (some of which works well), in service to the baleful thought that we’re basically fiddling while Rome burns. Maybe so, but more fiddling with the script would not be out of order. As it is, Tiny House aims to be a play of its moment that only manages to be a play for the moment.

Tiny House
By Michael Gotch
Directed by Mark Lamos

Scenic Design: Hugh Landwehr; Digital Scenic Design: Charlie Corcoran; Costume Design: Tricia Barsamian; Original Music and Sound Design: Rob Milburn, Michael Bodeen; Sound Edit, Mix and Additional Sound Design: M. Florian Staab; Editor: Dan Scully; Director of Photography: Lacey Erb; Wig Design: Christal Schanes; Production Stage Manager: Matthew Marholin; Assistant Stage Manager: Ellen Beltramo

Cast: Sara Bues; Hassan El-Amin; Lee E. Ernst; Elizabeth Heflin; Denver Milord; Stephen Pelinski; Kathleen Pirkl-Tague

Westport Country Playhouse
June 29-July 18, 2021
Streaming On Demand

Lockdown Lives

We’re approaching the first anniversary of the pandemic lockdown that prematurely ended the theater season of 2019-20 and spawned a variety of coping mechanisms in the form of online theater approximations into 2021. The “watch-when-you-will by following a link” style of online event is the more prevalent and Playhouse on Park in West Hartford is currently offering a zoom playlet in that format. Elyot and Amanda: All Alone could be called a pandemic adaptation of Private Lives, Noël Coward’s popular comedy of mannered, sparring couples, from 1930 (last seen locally at Hartford Stage, directed by Darko Tresnjak, in 2015). Directed by Sean Harris, what Ezra Barnes and Veanne Cox, as Elyot and Amanda, respectively, have devised is a glimpse of a couple walking their wits as they have nothing but one another’s company to sustain them. A situation familiar to so many of us who abide by the restrictions on socializing beyond the most immediate.

Elyot and Amanda: All Alone features only the second act of Coward’s three act—it’s the part where E and A, formerly married to each other, have ditched their respective newer spouses and hole up together in Amanda’s Paris flat to see if they can let the world go by and just abide together. Turns out they can, if by that is meant that they can both stimulate and aggravate each other by turns. All reference to their most recent marriages has been omitted from the current script (with the Coward estate’s appreciated OK) and so we can imagine the couple are in the midst of their original marriage’s long durée. Their dialogue is best as the kind of repartee that many a stressed couple might indulge in: part fond reminisce, part fulsome recrimination, part provocation, part appeasement, sometimes witty, sometimes sad, sometimes not at all sure what it’s getting at beyond simply keeping open the possibility of chat. The allure of such exchanges, among the locked-down, is that they are live and in person, as so little else is.

Elyot (Ezra Barnes) and Amanda (Veanne Cox) in Elyot and Amanda: All Alone, Playhouse on Park

Key to the success of this experiment in repurposed Coward is the way the show is relayed. It’s by camera, but not in a single static perspective. There’s enough movement—from a  high fish-eye shot that takes in almost the entire room to more partial views to a shot very nicely framed in the doorway late in the play—to keep the viewer’s interest. And Barnes and Cox move about as if fully at home in the space (and why not, it’s Barnes’ apartment). Clad in very becoming silk pajamas (Amanda) and a somewhat nebbishy dressing-gown (Elyot), the couple at times seem like people we’re watching surreptitiously because they’ve left their laptop’s camera on. The show feels much more like the invasion of privacy that perhaps Coward intended than any onstage version could likely manage.

There are a number of high points but the one that probably best says it all is when Elyot, feeling amorous, tries to move to second base with Amanda only to be repulsed because “it’s too soon after dinner.” He’s irked, and it’s a good scene showing them as both agreeable and at odds, but what places the exchange in a new age of comedy is the way Barnes immediately grabs the hand sanitizer on the coffee table and sets to cleansing his hands—an automatic act—that is also washing his hands of the failed forward pass. A similar high-spirited moment is when Amanda puts on a record that annoys Elyot and proceeds to step lightly to it, underscoring a blithe spirit lacking in her spouse. When she later breaks the record on his head—after he scratches it—it seems less like violent pique and more like an echo of passionate slapstick. Something we suspect this couple knows a lot about.

Amanda ( Veanne Cox) and Elyot (Ezra Barnes) in Elyot and Amanda: All Alone, Playhouse on Park

Ezra Barnes’ Elyot is blustery when he needs to be, but not really truculent. He seems thoroughly domesticated, even though there are hints of plenty of past exploits. Veanne Cox makes Amanda his easygoing match—she’s more likely to goad for amusement than to draw blood or discomfit. The show has the even tone of the long haul, where even the outbursts can only go so far. And when the couple gets into the same act, as when affecting posh Brit accents, there’s obvious life-of-the-party sparkle left in the old ceremony.

A few songs at the piano create an agreeable musical intermission of sorts and shows how the couple can do it if they want to duet. In the end, after Amanda storms out—not without her mask—and then storms back, the act’s actual denouement (the arrival of those pesky spouses) is dropped in favor of a bit of hanky-panky patty-cake that provides a suitably upbeat sendoff. Elyot and Amanda—like their audience, one hopes—is weathering the storm, outlasting the lockdown, and generally keeping their spirits up in “glorious oblivion.” What more is there?

Elyot (Ezra Barnes) and Amanda (Veanne Cox) in Elyot and Amanda: All Alone, Playhouse on Park

Elyot and Amanda: All Alone
From Noël Coward’s Private Lives
Starring Ezra Barnes and Veanne Cox
Directed by Sean Harris
Playhouse on Park
February 10-28, 2021

NOTE:
Streaming of Elyot and Amanda: All Alone has been extended to March 7.

Drag Yourself Underground

Review of Dragaret Underground, Yale Cabaret; with photographs by Linda Young

February and drag go together, if only because, in New Haven, February is often a drag, a month where—as our most recent Nobel laureate puts it—“anyone with any sense had already left town.” But at the Yale Cabaret, February is a drag in quite another sense. It’s the month of Dragaret, an annual celebration of drag performance, as, in the words of co-director (and DJ in Village-People-leather-boy retro) Danilo Gambini, an occasion to “bring joy into the conversation of consent and pleasure.” And that can be worth sticking around for. This year the theme was “underground,” as a place, co-director Alex Vermillion said, “to explore and be safe and sexy.” All are welcome to what should be seen as a “queer utopia.”

Danilo Gambini, Gregory St. Georges

Dragaret is in its eighth year and this is the third year in which Friday night’s two shows, at 8 and 11, were reserved for Connecticut queens while Saturday’s three shows, 8, 10, and midnight, were for students in the Yale School of Drama to perform. Patrick Dunn of New Haven Pride hosted the Friday night shows as Kiki Lucia, Dunn’s drag-queen persona, and David Mitsch, a third-year costume designer in YSD, hosted Saturday’s shows as Tipsy Von Tart.

Tipsy Von Tart

Both nights share great costumes, much lip-synching, surprising moves—artful ways to remove clothing seems de rigueur—and an inspired reach into a grab-bag of cultural references, styles, and personae. The main rule—tip your queens—was enthusiastically adhered to at the shows I attended (Friday, 11 p.m. and Saturday, 10 p.m.) but I have no way of knowing if the show’s mantra—“consent is sexy”—yielded its desired results.

Kiki Lucia

The CT queens of Friday night presented two entirely different shows. The show I saw had a crisp, deliberate professionalism that made for a parade of striking presentations, which included pole-dancing, striptease, and comic or emotional elements. All the performers were memorable in their own ways, but those numbers with a somewhat satiric side—such as Lotus Qween’s hilarious takeoff of Hillary (to the tune of, among other things, “Wedding Bell Blues” with its address to “Bill”) and Laiylah Alf Wa Laiylah’s evocation of Randy Rainbow’s sharp send-up of our national embarrassment, “The Don” (to the tune of “Gaston,” from The Beauty and the Beast)—were favorites for me.

Lotus Qween

Laiylah Alf Wa Laiylah

Other acts were notable for their graceful appearances, such as transgender performer Casey Fitzpatrick, and the moves of Rarity Moonchild, Xiomarie LeBeija, and Sparkle Diamond.

Casey Fitzpatrick

Rarity Moonchild

Xiomarie LeBeija

Sparkle Diamond

Frizzie Borden, billed as a bio-diva, is a woman who does drag as a woman, making a case for how diva-dom can be not only an inspiration but also an oppression. One of the more affecting performances on Friday, for me, was Rory Roux-Lay Heart’s deconstruction of her gorgeous femme persona to the tune of Bowie’s “Is There Life on Mars?”

Frizzie Borden

Rory Roux-Lay Heart

Kiki Lucia closed the show with a driven display to Cher’s “Woman’s World” with couture from The Handmaid’s Tale. A gay man dressed as a woman celebrating the power of women felt entirely appropriate, and if it didn’t, YSD night, when many more women took the stage as bio-divas, opened the question of drag as a way of positioning femininity as a performance art.

Kiki Lucia

The performance of maleness was rather less in evidence, with Jaime Hellfyre (Emma Perundi-Moon), on Saturday night, the only female-as-male performer.

Jaime Hellfyre

On Saturday at 10, our gently ironic hostess Tipsy Von Tart quipped that the jokes had already been said at the 8 p.m., implying that she might get in trouble for going off-script. She interacted with the crowd with perfect aplomb and was a welcome presence between numbers.

Tipsy Von Tart quips with “F. Murray Abraham”

Many of the acts worked as performance art, with the element of drag (however we might define that) of minimal import: JJ McGlone dressed as a solstice maiden in his hysterical evocation of Midsommar;

Midsommar Night’s Scream

The Dollar Bells cavorted in cut-offs and showed-off pole-riding skills because they can;

The Dollar Bells

Zardoz Hologram (Meg Powers) evoked Aladdin-Sane-era Bowie in makeup and her silent cyberbots (Madeline Pages and Bryn Scharenberg), while performing to his “TVC15,” complete with projections upon a TV-prop that eventually, as per the lyrics, consumed her.

Zardoz Hologram

You Can’t Be in the Show (Maia Mihanovich, Jackeline Torres Cortes, Daniel Liu, Julian Sanchez) mystified me with the import of their performance but it ended with what seemed an entirely consensual orgiastic oneness.

You Can’t Be in the Show

Stripping off a costume to reveal a decidedly different subtext was the order of the evening for many routines: Prettiest Little Devil (Zak Rosen), the only undergraduate performer, sported red wings under his gown;

Prettiest Little Devil

Georgia O’Queef (Alexandra Maurice) opened her number as a demure lady complete with picnic basket, mouthing a ‘60s torch song, only to transform before our eyes into a bumping-and-grinding diva;

Georgia O’Queef

Lady Lilith (Alex Vermillion) began zir piece as a distressed princess desperately beseeching a bald, bespectacled Dean (Matthias Neckermann) for an MFA, only to strip off all pretense at supplication in order to spank the abased academician on his leather-clad bundy, er, booty;

Lady Lilith and Dean

and Cerebral Pussy (Jessy Yates) came forward as a devotee of Jesus in a wheelchair who, filled with grace or something more carnal, took off her clothes and danced.

Cerebral Pussy

Two routines that earn special mention: the somber and studied manner in which Shabbos Queen (Adam Shaukat) put on clothes to become herself;

Shabbos Queen

and the ladies of El Cibao (Ilia Isorelýs Paulino, Nurilys Cintron, Noemi Paulino, Nefesh Cordero Pino, Jackeline Torres Cortes, Maia Mihanovich, Tyler Cruz) who performed in two different patterns of rhythmic unison and ended by waving flags of different countries.

El Cibao

Finally, our gracious hostess, Tipsy, ended the evening with a rousing performance recalling one of the greatest of all drama queens, Blanche Dubois, who seemed only too glad to depend upon the kindness of a hirsute stranger—an embodiment of the male principle as a rather randy bear (Brandon E. Burton).

Tipsy Von Tart and friend

Credit and accolades to Jimmy Stubbs who designed an impressive catwalk with wings as well as a cage for terpsichorean celebrants; Liam Bellman-Sharpe for sound; Emma Deane and Nicole E. Lang for lights; Hannah Tran for projections, and Kitty Cassetti and Aiden Griffiths for costumes that inspired—and at times left nothing to—the imagination.

Doireann Mac Mahon, Sarah Karl

For the midnight show other acts were added, but this ends my account of Dragaret 02/20. The Yale Cabaret has our permission to do it to us again next year…

Riw Rakkulchon (YSD MFA *19)

Dragaret Underground
Co-directed by Danilo Gambini and Alex Vermillion

Co-Producers: Sarah Cain and Jason Gray; Set Designer: Jimmy Stubbs; Co-Lighting Designers: Emma Deane and Nicole E. Lang; Projection Designers: Hannah Tran; Co-Costume Designers: Kitty Cassetti and Aiden Griffiths; Sound Designer: Liam Bellman-Sharpe; DJ: Danilo Gambini; Dramaturg: Madeline Pages; Technical Director: Libby Stone; Assistant Technical Directors: Doug Kester and Kat McCarthey; Stage Manager: Sam Tirrell; Assistant Stage Managers: Julia Bates and Edmond O’Neal

Hosts: Kiki Lucia, Feb. 21; Tipsy Von Tart, Feb. 22

Performers, Feb. 21: Kiki Lucia, Casey Fitzpatrick, Lotus Qween, Rarity Moonchild, Frizzie Borden, Xiomarie LaBeija, Sparkle Diamond, Laiylah Alf Wa Laiylah, Rory Roux-Lay Heart

Performers, Feb. 22: Christopher D. Betts, Brandon E. Burton, Estefani Castro, Nurilys Cintron, Jackeline Torres Cortes, Tyler Cruz, Danilo Gambini, Sarah Karl, Daniel Liu, Sarah Lyddan, Doireann Mac Mahon, Juliana Martinez, Alexandra Maurice, JJ McGlone, Alex McNamara, Maia Mihanovich, David Mitsch, Ciara Monique, Matthias Neckermann, Reed Northrup, Madeline Pages, Eli Pauley, Ilia Isorelýs Paulino, Noemi Paulino, Emma Pernudi-Moon, Nefesh Cordero Pino, Meg Powers, Zak Rosen, Julian Sanchez, Bryn Scharenberg, Adam Shaukat, Alex Vermillion, Adrienne Wells, Maal Imani West, Devin White, Jessy Yates

Yale Cabaret
February 21-22, 2020

Remote Happiness: David Lang's 'love fail' is a meditation on love

The story of Tristan and Isolde (or Iseult) is one of the greatest love stories in Western literary history, forming not only the basis for Wagner’s opera, but also playing its part in James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, and providing inspiration for other tragic tales of love. For his composition/theater piece love fail, Pulitzer-winning composer David Lang searched through various texts that tell the story, particularly Gottfried von Strassburg but also Sir Thomas Malory, Marie de France and others, looking, as he says, for “weird incidents.” Stripped of all reference to Tristan, Isolde/Iseult, King Mark or any other elements that would make the piece seem merely a dramatization of the age-old story, love fail is a fascinating meditation on love’s lyricism, its almost mystic force, and its surprising moods and shifting desires.

Sung by the female vocal group Anonymous 4, noted for their adaptations of medieval compositions, such as plainsong, for female voices, love fail is a stunning exercise in vocal precision, polyphony, overlapping voices, and hypnotic variations on simple lyrics. The piece begins with “he was and she was,” in which descriptive terms for the two lovers are sounded against a backdrop of voices, including percussive whispers. With the stage set for intensive listening, the evening becomes an occasion for marveling at what the four gifted singers—Ruth Cunningham, Marsha Genensky, Susan Hellauer, Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek—are able to do with their voices, creating layered effects that are—no doubt because of the medieval associations of the music—spiritual and meditative.

There are also humorous elements—mostly provided by texts taken from MacArthur fellow Lydia Davis. Wonderful examples of precision and compression in their own right, Davis’ writings add a wry, modern touch to the piece. Perhaps my favorite segment, “right and wrong” (following “the wood and the vine,” adapted from Marie de France, which is also particularly strong), provides convoluted R.D. Laing-like reflections on how being right doesn’t make one right if, “in some cases,” it is wrong to be right. The “right and wrong” instances are in reference to a female, making the piece a subtle comment on sexual politics as well as a general moral consideration. As sung, the interplay between the lead voice and the accompanying voice is riveting: the lead sounds a single note/word at intervals, and in those intervals the accompanying voice must sing through the text to the next interval. Pacing was everything in this unusual form of call-and-response; the call was almost a punctuation of the response while also acting as an introductory note for each sequence.

The texts are projected on a transparency behind the singers, making it easy to follow the words. There are also large projections showing male and female faces, made-up to appear as if they are in a fantasy film, that are more or less moving portraits. Primarily static, the images move slowly, and are more of a distraction than an illustration. Jim Findlay’s set design is simple and elegant, able to look at home in a concert hall, a theater stage, or a church, but his video design was the least inspiring aspect of the piece. The lighting and look of the faces put me in mind of the recent Cindy Sherman retrospective—not an association I would normally bring to this work.

While each segment of love fail has its own significance, the 12 parts, taken together, yield a progression from introduction of the lovers to reflections on love’s durability, and on the heart’s forgetfulness toward the arguments the head furnishes against love. Musically, we might say it moves toward transcendence of the sorrows of love, though—again, due to medieval associations—the idea of true happiness on earth is remote, and so love and sorrow must be inextricably linked.

A vibrant work for voices, love fail does not fail to provide thought about love, evoking love’s higher aspirations as well as some of its darker reaches. The masterful Anonymous 4 are not to be missed.

IF YOU GO: What: love fail by David Lang performed by Anonymous 4 When: 4 p.m. June 30 Where: Yale Repertory Theatre, 1120 Chapel St. Tickets: $35-$45 Info: artidea.org

Why are we doing this? Click here to find out more.

That n+1 piece was mighty good, but needed reporting

Slate has posted what I take to be all of Chad Harbach's n+1 piece about the two worlds of publishing, the MFA world and the New York world (these are his terms). A few comments: First, I admire the gutsiness of making such a big, bold, ridiculous generalization, one that can immediately be torn apart with lots of counter-examples, exceptions, alternative schemas and taxonomies, etc. Such grand generalizations are almost always intellectually flawed, but they can advance how we think about a topic, open up new insights, etc., and I think his does. I mean, I could nitpick him--OF COURSE the MFA students are interested in Gary Shteyngart, and plenty of MFA students are working on novels, and, well, you get the point--but I think his division is an interesting one. And he sure wrote the heck out of it. I mean, the essay is really fun to read, which is odd, since it is a topic with absolutely no consequences for anybody except the people talked about in it.

Second, here is a criticism: The essay does not really deal with nonfiction writing at all, which is a shame, and limits the conceptual reach of the essay. After all, David Foster Wallace's nonfiction was his really great stuff. I think J-Saf Foer's nonfiction boo, Eating Animals, is his best by a lot. And Zadie Smith may yet prove to be a more lasting essayist than novelist. You would not know that any fiction writers even write nonfiction, to read Harbach's essay.

Third, I envy how much Harbach's name is perfect for a Pac-10 quarterback.

Fourth, the piece could have benefited from some reporting. Reporting is when a person, often called a "reporter," makes phone calls, or knocks on people's doors, or sends emails, or even Google searches, so as to find supporting evidence. It would not have been hard, for example, to find actual syllabi of courses taught in MFA programs. Then we would know if in fact all these kiddoes are reading is Joy Williams and Ann Beattie, or if maybe they are reading classic works of literature from the 1880s or 1910s or 1950s. Maybe when these profs teach their classes, they assign "Araby," by Joyce. Maybe they read My Antonia in its entirety. Or early short stories by Philip Roth. Or excerpts from Trollope novels. Who knows? I don't. I don't have an MFA. I don't have an MBA either. But if I were writing an essay about MFA fiction, I would go find out first. I realize Harbach was in an MBA program, but that only makes it more puzzling he didn’t share what particular books he was assigned.

Finally, I wish Harbach had spent more time puzzling over his own assertion here:

And the NYC writer, because she lives in New York, has constant opportunity to intuit and internalize the demands of her industry. It could be objected that just because the NYC writer's editor, publisher, agent, and publicist all live in New York, that doesn't mean that she does, too. After all, it would be cheaper and calmer to live most anywhere else. This objection is sound in theory; in practice, it is false. NYC novelists live in New York—specifically, they live in a small area of west-central Brooklyn bounded by DUMBO and Prospect Heights. They partake of a social world defined by the selection (by agents), evaluation (by editors), purchase (by publishers), production, publication, publicization, and second evaluation (by reviewers) and purchase (by readers) of NYC novels. The NYC novelist gathers her news not from Poets & Writers but from the Observer and Gawker; not from the academic grapevine but from publishing parties, where she drinks with agents and editors and publicists. She writes reviews for Bookforum and the Sunday Times. She also tends to set her work in the city where she and her imagined reader reside: as in the most recent novels of Shteyngart, Ferris, Galchen, and Foer, to name just four prominent members of The New Yorker's 20-under-40 list.

I can't decide if this is anything more than a tautology: young NYC writers are young and live in NYC. Or a truism: a lot of hip young writers will tend to live in hip, young neighborhoods of major cultural centers. Whatever the case, the interesting question to ask is why, in a culture whose great writers have tended not to be New Yorkers — Cather, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Wallace Stevens, Sinclair Lewis, Roth (NJ is not NY, and he lives in CT anyway), Bellow, and I could go on — so many writers now do live in New York. I attempted some musings on that question here.

But look, Harbach (9 TDs and 4 interceptions so far this season) did serious yeoman's labor getting these thoughts down on paper. I was turning his essay over in my head as I fell asleep last night. I think I kicked my dog beneath the covers as I cursed out one of Harbach’s conclusions. Good work, QB.

Also, could I have some money?