My third trip to what is fast becoming the most respected music festival in America was easily the one I was most excited about. Headliners included Pavement, my favorite band of all time, and LCD Soundsystem, whose live show remains one of the best concerts I've ever seen. The remaining acts were similarly enticing and I was really jazzed heading into the fest. And so, Pitchfork 2010:
Sharon Van Etten
I had never heard anything from Sharon Van Etten before Friday and had no real expectations regarding her set. I was really surprised, then, to find that her folksy guitar playing and ghostly voice were beyond engaging. While a singer-songwriter might not have been the best possible kickoff to the festival, her set was consistently engaging and her playing and singing revealed exactly the kind of emotive catharsis that Conor Oberst aspires to. Definitely a talent to keep an eye on.
Tallest Man on Earth
Kristian Matsson made multiple references in his set to being both overheated and terribly jetlagged, but if he was you couldn't tell. At one point, my friend Brandon leaned over to say "I'm mad about how good at guitar he is." Also, he writes better in his second language than I do in my first. While two singer-songwriters was a bit of a slow way to start the weekend, it was a thrill to see a human as talented as Matsson play a set. The Wild Hunt is one of the year's best and "King of Spain" is just as great live as on record.
Liars
Going into the Liars set, I was terrified what their music would seem like live. After they began playing, however, and Angus Andrew revealed himself as a hilarious and engaging frontman, my fears evaporated. The band delivered a tight set that featured a nice mix of songs and a Bauhaus cover that sounded right at home. I've read some derogatory things about this show, but from my point of view they were great. My friends and I left a bit early, however, to get closer for...
Robyn
The day's best show came courtesy of Sweden's most revered pop starlet. Robyn hit the stage wearing sunglasses, a jacket, and a sexy gray dress, two thirds of which were gone after the first number ("Fembot"). The rest of her set featured her recklessly charming dancing, go-for-broke vocals, and thrilling music. In addition to being a sexually confident pop star, she also came across as endearingly realistic when she thanked the audience and said she was glad the crowd was so excited, since she "had never played Pitchfork before and didn't have any expectations." While she favored Body Talk Vol. 1, she did deliver some hits from her self-titled album of '08. Highlights included "Dancing on My Own" and "Be Mine." An absolute triumph.
Broken Social Scene
To be honest, I wasn't that excited for Canada's second-best supergroup. The first BSS concert I saw was good, but I don't spend much time with their records these days. As it turns out, though, I'm wrong and everyone else is right because they were great. It was a typically anthemic set but their particular brand of indie rock is, if nothing else, consistently rewarding and lends itself to a live show. I missed the presence of any of the famous female group members but thought the girls they had onstage did an admirable job. Also, frontman Kevin Drew's closing line--"Hope isn't just a word, it's a fucking responsibility!"--was a highlight of the day.
Free Energy
I was really excited about Free Energy and arrived about one minute into their first song. Their debut record, Stuck on Nothing, is a power pop fan's wet dream that crams hooks, harmonies and soaring vocals into every square inch. Their set didn't disappoint, either, as they played all the highlights of that release (with the best being lead single "Bang Pop") and a new song. If the guitarist from Thin Lizzy had played with the Beatles, it would have sounded a lot like this.
Delorean
I hadn't heard Subiza before this concert, but afterward I immediately picked it up. My second favorite show of Saturday, the Spanish band played a joyous set that felt a lot like a Cut Copy show. Indie rock's biggest problem is that it's music directed at guys with beards, but Delorean incorporates a much needed sense of dancy fun. The keyboard player was really, REALLY into it, dancing between his two synths and really drawing in the crowd. At one point, I turned to Jeff and said that it would be really fun to be blind high for this particular show. Regardless, they were great.
Titus Andronicus
This was my third time seeing TA and first after The Monitor, their excellent sophomore release. They still have the same energy that made me love them initially and it was great to hear them in such a massive venue. The crowd was thrilled to be there and it was a generally rewarding, if not exceptional, set. The new material sounds great live and these guys have a promising future. Personal note: a supercute girl asked if she could have a picture with me during this show because she liked my "McNulty is My Dad" shirt. Cool!
Raekwon
I'll admit that I was very nervous about this show. The last time I saw Raekwon here--with Ghostface in 2008--it was a bit disappointing. To compound matters, the set started late and with technical difficulties. Once everything was smoothed out, though, Raekwon KILLED. He played a set heavy with Wu-Tang classics, including "Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuthin' to Fuck Wit'" and "C.R.E.A.M." Also, the set of pre-teen break dancers that he brought out were priceless. Excellent.
Wolf Parade
I had seen these guys once before and they played a competent, if somewhat disinterested, show. Tonight, however, they were much tighter and much livelier. They cranked out as many songs as possible, with keyboardist Spencer Krug commenting at one point that they didn't have much to say and were going to play as much as they could. The set reached a high point with Spencer's "Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts," although I really enjoyed Dan Boeckner's "This Heart's on Fire" and "Palm Road." The band was obviously uncomfortable, however, as Spencer referred to them as being "drunk with the sun" more than once. Also of note: endearing moments when Spencer asked us to greet tour manager Todd and Dan dedicated a song to his wife.
LCD Soundsystem
There are few bands in the whole world with whom I have a more complex relationship than LCD Soundsystem. I hated the whole dancepunk genre when I first came to it in 2005 but eventually came around after hearing their song "Movement." I first saw them in November of '05 and, very drunk, almost left the show before the band came on but ended up thinking it was the best concert I'd ever seen. Their 2007 release Sound of Silver remains my favorite of that year and deserves some further commentary. Their 2005 self-titled record is an entertaining party-to-go, Sound of Silver is an absolute masterpiece that features some of the best music--indie or otherwise--of the past fifty years. Foremost among these is "All My Friends," a song that is as good--no exaggeration--as any of Shakespeare's plays. I told Jeff on Friday night that if I found out James Murphy had blacked out when he wrote "All My Friends," I wouldn't be surprised because humans shouldn't be able to do things that good. And for as good as they were when I saw them in '05, they were legendary on Saturday night.
To start, we were less than 20 feet from the stage. To warm up the crowd, the PA blasted "Electric Avenue" by Eddie Grant. My friend Adrienne said "If they go this crazy for 'Electric Avenue', what will they do for LCD?" And then it happened...
Opening with "Us V. Them." the band blasted onstage with more energy than all the other shows of the day combined. Following that with "Pow Pow," James Murphy had the crowd eating out of his hand. The highlight of the set, of course, was "All My Friends," during which I could have dropped dead and been happy. I have literally never been more thrilled in my whole life than I was during the "...see all my friends tonight" outro. "I Can Change," "Movement," "Daft Punk is Playing at My House," "Tribulations," and "New York, I Love You/Empire State of Mind" were other highlights. Although they weren't my favorite, LCD were undeniably the best show of the whole weekend, and probably the best live band in America right now. James Murphy is an absolute genius--a topic for a later time.
Alla
Chicago's own Alla kicked off Sunday's fest and turned in a fine performance of My Bloody Valentine-esque dreamy rock. Worth keeping an eye on.
Best Coast
Definitely my surprise hit of the festival. I'd never heard any of their stuff before, but Bethanny Cosentino's surfy vocals and mopey lyrics paired with the band's power pop sound was something special. Worth seeing, for sure.
Girls
I had heard negative things about their live show, but for my money, the band delivered on the promise of their 2009 record. Lots of noise, lots of melody. "Hellhole Ratrace" and the ear-splitting guitar squall afterward were great. A solid set.
Beach House
Dreamy, poppy vocals wafting over a crowd of hipsters. Their release from this year is a masterpiece. A brilliant set. Fuck the haters.
Surfer Blood
A very competent and engaging set from a power pop group. Didn't blow me away, but did make me happy about their existence. Good job.
Major Lazer
WOW!!! FUN TIMES!!!!!! Seriously, see these guys live. Diplo Rulz indeed.
And now, the moment we've all been waiting for:
PAVEMENT
First of all, my big complaint:
Rian Murphy sucks.
I realize he co-founded Drag City, a great label. And I realize that his whole intro was a joke. Look, WE ALL GET IT. The big joke was that everyone who was younger than 28 left before Pavement started. But some of us didn't. And even so, we paid to see PAVEMENT. Not that living endorsement for late-term abortion. So fuck that guy. Even if it was a joke, and even if the "right" people got it, there were people there who didn't. I (pretty much) knew what was up and I was still REALLY pissed off. He took up at least two songs worth of time with his fucking "comedy." And FUCK YOU Jim DeRogatis and FUCK YOU AV Club for acknowledging its funniness. It wasn't fucking funny. It was an annoying waste of time for people who had paid to see a band, not a load that should have been swallowed, Drag City or no. So fuck you Drag City.
Now, I realize that I love Pavement more than anything. I love them in the way you're supposed to love: uncritically, without reason, seeing only the best. Everything I've read about their set was sort of couched in the same ennui that you hear in every Pavement song, but from where I'm standing it was excellent. I'm not going to get (m)any? more chances to see these guys play these songs and it was a truly transcendent experience. I love Malkmus more than anyone else on the planet and he gave me exactly what I wanted. "Gold Soundz," "Unfair," "Frontwards," Debris Slide," "Cut Your Hair," Stop Breathin,'" "Here," "Trigger Cut," all great. I realize that Pavement doesn't give a shit about me, but that's not why I like them. You are what you love, not what loves you. And I loved this concert.
The highlight was "Grounded," among my favorite of their songs and a gorgeous, lilting guitar ballad that sums up the nonchalance and engagement of Malkmus's lyrics. The lone Spiral song, "Kennel District," was a fine choice and a great performance, but they knew no one was there to hear him sing. I realize that there are a lot of bad vibes around their breakup and the reunion, that it's only for cash, that they don't care for each other anymore and that it was a just okay concert that I (and a lot of other people, no doubt) glorified into a heroic triumph. But if you stood where I stood and you felt like I felt that Sunday night, you couldn't say that. From where I was, it was heaven.
Now I realize it's not the job of a music critic to lavish praise, and that's fine. But what pisses me off is how dismissive they are of the set Pavement played. I'm sure they were better on the Crooked Rain tour when they didn't hate each other. Maybe they will be better when they get tighter later in the tour. But fuck off if you think for a second that shitting on them will make people like them any less. It's shit like this that makes me happy about the irrelevance of the critic--and I say this as someone who used to write reviews and get hate mail for a living.
I have millions of things to say about Malkmus and Pavement, and I'm sure I'll eventually get it all out. But for now, that was my favorite concert. And I'm not sure I'll ever love anything more.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
The American Theatre in the New Millennium OR Kill Yr. Idols
There exist, generally speaking, three different visions of Broadway in the minds of the American populace at large. First, there are the die-hard red-staters, the NASCAR-loving, Sarah Palin-quoting, gun rack in truck-having, Democrat-hating "patriots" who consider theatre in general--and Broadway specifically--to be the fancy pastime of the effeminate liberals who are responsible for despoiling this once great nation. These people can be dismissed out of hand, both because they are insane and because they do not currently nor will they ever have any effect on shaping America's theatrical traditions.
Having eliminated the irrelevant, we may now turn to two equally dangerous views of the entity known as Broadway. First, there is the old guard, who cling to the anachronistic view of Broadway as the gold standard for cultural excellence. These people think of New York's streets as home to gilt theatres with marble floors that produce works of wondrous majesty and artistic integrity. They think of the world of Rodgers and Hart, David Merrick, men dressing in tuxedos and women in gowns for opening night. They lament the tangible erosion of class that Broadway has undergone in the past thirty or so years and long for the days when going to a Broadway play was a true event.
Opposite these staunch traditionalists is a lazily rebellious group that view Broadway as a sort of cultural artifact, sort of like Colonial Williamsburg or an Amish community, i.e. something to see just for the sake of being able to check it off the list. It's a nice way to spend an afternoon or evening on vacation or if you live in the city and can score a cheap ticket. They see Broadway (and pretty much everything, I'd guess) with a sort of detached neutrality: it's neither good nor bad, it just is.
Obviously, both of these views degrade the American theatre in the importance they place on it. The former group fetishize theatre as an event, negating the content of the piece. They want theatre to exist as some sort of beacon of class and dignity which inspires merely in its formal (as opposed to casual) elegance. As a result, the mere existence of something that could be termed "beautiful" becomes a success, throwing actual metrics for quality out the window. The latter negate any meaning that theatre might have because they see it as just another product to be consumed. With a casual cynicism and basic utilitarianism, they preclude any necessity for meaning since a Broadway show is nothing more than a collector's item.
Viewing theatre only in terms of Broadway, it's hard to see any flaw in this logic. The majority of Broadway houses are run by for-profit organizations. Looking at this in a cost-benefit sense, theatre is just another entertainment choice that one has--and it's also the most expensive. Most Broadway tickets run between 60 and 130 dollars. That's equivalent to one month of cable television, two really good concerts, or six movies on the low end. Thus, a show has to be pretty likely to recoup its expenses to even have a shot at getting produced on the Great White Way. In order to maximize the likelihood of making their money back, producers can (and usually do) take the following steps:
1) Small casts. Fewer people onstage=fewer people to pay.
2) Related to above, small sets/crews.
3) For a musical, smaller orchestras. (Which often greatly handicaps the show).
4) Most disturbingly, name recognition. In order to enjoy a healthy run, a show will have to appeal to the devoted theatre-going crowd in New York as well as tourists. There are two ways to maximize a title's visibility: mounting revivals or converting well-known movies into Broadway shows.
5) Related to above, casting movie stars to draw in more viewers.
This is not to say that a production team is doomed to failure; in fact, one of the hallmarks of a great genius is to work well within the confines of a rigid structure. To wit, the recent remount of South Pacific garnered rave reviews and is embarking on a promising national tour. More often, however, this results in tired retreads starring people who have taken to the stage because of a gap in their filming schedules. Broadway is currently little more than a product designed to capitalize on tourist dollars rather than the artistic pinnacle of the American theatre.
The reasons for this are complex and extensive and I will only briefly address them here. To grossly oversimplify, film precluded the cultural necessity for an American theatre. Just as the country was expanding to its current size and throwing off the chains of British cultural and literary supremacy to develop a unique artistic voice in the theatre, film arrived to develop as a parallel to theatre. Ultimately, though, film would replace theatre since it's possible to mass produce and mass market a film in a way that is more financially lucrative. While theatre--with Broadway leading the way--held on valiantly for half a century, film--and later television--ultimately came to the fore. Musicals and plays, once cultural leaders and bastions of some of the greatest American writers (O'Neill, Williams, Wilder, &c.), became followers. Rather than emphasize the things that make theatre a unique cultural experience, Broadway folded its hand and fell in line behind film, becoming merely a (highly lucrative, if you know the right people) cash cow.
If you need any extra evidence of this, last Sunday's Tony Awards served as a dismal reminder of the state of America's most visible theatrical center. Of the eight acting awards, four went to actors better known for their film careers (including a baffling win for Scarlett Johannson over Jan Maxwell) and one went to a former fashion model whose acting skill is questionable at best (Eddie Redmayne). The award for Best Play went to Red, a mediocre and very talky drama by a screenwriter and the award for Best Musical went to an asinine travesty written by the keyboard player from Bon Jovi. I am always leery of awards as an indicator of excellence, but this is ridiculous. Acting-wise, it looks like a shameless pitch to try to lure more movie stars to New York for a few months. The field for new plays that can succeed on Broadway looks bleak at best. So what are we to do?
1) Disregard Broadway. The most interesting American plays of the next generation will be produced by smaller companies and regional theatres.
2) Disregard film and television. Don't follow, lead! Rediscover what made American theatre great in the last century while creating new modes of artistic expression. Emphasize the uniqueness of theatre.
3) Politicize the theatre. All art is propaganda! Embrace this fully--regardless of your personal politics--and allow that to drive meaning. Think Brecht! (He's kiiiind of an American...)
4) One of the smartest things I was ever told is that the joy is in the work. Too many people become theatre artists because they want to be famous with their name in lights. Anyone who starts a career so that they can be on Glee or serve as Patti LuPone's understudy is a dilettante and a fool. Avoid these people. They will poison your ability to work and destroy your faith in the medium. You become an artist because you believe in the transformative power of art, not because you want people to adore you. The best art--even if it isn't beautiful--betrays some sense of joy from the artist.
5) Embrace change! Theatre must evolve or die, like everything. Move forward--avoid stagnation.
6) Remember the past. Without knowing where theatre is coming from, it's impossible to know where it should go. These two seem contradictory but actually are complementary.
It is possible for theatre to regain a cultural relevance on par with film. It is too powerful a medium not to do just that. But the first step toward that reclamation is a rejection of art-as-product, a decentralization that elevates regional and repertory theatres and smaller, ensemble-based theatre companies above the ersatz prestige and assumed superiority of Broadway, and an altruistic desire to elevate our art form. Once the artists and patrons agree that the emperor has no clothes, we can engage each other in an honest way.
In closing, the commercial theatre of New York is an insult to both artists and the audience. It mistakes money for quality, visibility for acclaim. These producers offer nothing of any merit but demand exorbitant fees to see disinterested movie stars on half-baked sets. We must all reject their collective arrogance and aggressive mediocrity. Artists desire to create better work, the kind that our audiences deserve. Let's make it possible for that to happen.
Having eliminated the irrelevant, we may now turn to two equally dangerous views of the entity known as Broadway. First, there is the old guard, who cling to the anachronistic view of Broadway as the gold standard for cultural excellence. These people think of New York's streets as home to gilt theatres with marble floors that produce works of wondrous majesty and artistic integrity. They think of the world of Rodgers and Hart, David Merrick, men dressing in tuxedos and women in gowns for opening night. They lament the tangible erosion of class that Broadway has undergone in the past thirty or so years and long for the days when going to a Broadway play was a true event.
Opposite these staunch traditionalists is a lazily rebellious group that view Broadway as a sort of cultural artifact, sort of like Colonial Williamsburg or an Amish community, i.e. something to see just for the sake of being able to check it off the list. It's a nice way to spend an afternoon or evening on vacation or if you live in the city and can score a cheap ticket. They see Broadway (and pretty much everything, I'd guess) with a sort of detached neutrality: it's neither good nor bad, it just is.
Obviously, both of these views degrade the American theatre in the importance they place on it. The former group fetishize theatre as an event, negating the content of the piece. They want theatre to exist as some sort of beacon of class and dignity which inspires merely in its formal (as opposed to casual) elegance. As a result, the mere existence of something that could be termed "beautiful" becomes a success, throwing actual metrics for quality out the window. The latter negate any meaning that theatre might have because they see it as just another product to be consumed. With a casual cynicism and basic utilitarianism, they preclude any necessity for meaning since a Broadway show is nothing more than a collector's item.
Viewing theatre only in terms of Broadway, it's hard to see any flaw in this logic. The majority of Broadway houses are run by for-profit organizations. Looking at this in a cost-benefit sense, theatre is just another entertainment choice that one has--and it's also the most expensive. Most Broadway tickets run between 60 and 130 dollars. That's equivalent to one month of cable television, two really good concerts, or six movies on the low end. Thus, a show has to be pretty likely to recoup its expenses to even have a shot at getting produced on the Great White Way. In order to maximize the likelihood of making their money back, producers can (and usually do) take the following steps:
1) Small casts. Fewer people onstage=fewer people to pay.
2) Related to above, small sets/crews.
3) For a musical, smaller orchestras. (Which often greatly handicaps the show).
4) Most disturbingly, name recognition. In order to enjoy a healthy run, a show will have to appeal to the devoted theatre-going crowd in New York as well as tourists. There are two ways to maximize a title's visibility: mounting revivals or converting well-known movies into Broadway shows.
5) Related to above, casting movie stars to draw in more viewers.
This is not to say that a production team is doomed to failure; in fact, one of the hallmarks of a great genius is to work well within the confines of a rigid structure. To wit, the recent remount of South Pacific garnered rave reviews and is embarking on a promising national tour. More often, however, this results in tired retreads starring people who have taken to the stage because of a gap in their filming schedules. Broadway is currently little more than a product designed to capitalize on tourist dollars rather than the artistic pinnacle of the American theatre.
The reasons for this are complex and extensive and I will only briefly address them here. To grossly oversimplify, film precluded the cultural necessity for an American theatre. Just as the country was expanding to its current size and throwing off the chains of British cultural and literary supremacy to develop a unique artistic voice in the theatre, film arrived to develop as a parallel to theatre. Ultimately, though, film would replace theatre since it's possible to mass produce and mass market a film in a way that is more financially lucrative. While theatre--with Broadway leading the way--held on valiantly for half a century, film--and later television--ultimately came to the fore. Musicals and plays, once cultural leaders and bastions of some of the greatest American writers (O'Neill, Williams, Wilder, &c.), became followers. Rather than emphasize the things that make theatre a unique cultural experience, Broadway folded its hand and fell in line behind film, becoming merely a (highly lucrative, if you know the right people) cash cow.
If you need any extra evidence of this, last Sunday's Tony Awards served as a dismal reminder of the state of America's most visible theatrical center. Of the eight acting awards, four went to actors better known for their film careers (including a baffling win for Scarlett Johannson over Jan Maxwell) and one went to a former fashion model whose acting skill is questionable at best (Eddie Redmayne). The award for Best Play went to Red, a mediocre and very talky drama by a screenwriter and the award for Best Musical went to an asinine travesty written by the keyboard player from Bon Jovi. I am always leery of awards as an indicator of excellence, but this is ridiculous. Acting-wise, it looks like a shameless pitch to try to lure more movie stars to New York for a few months. The field for new plays that can succeed on Broadway looks bleak at best. So what are we to do?
1) Disregard Broadway. The most interesting American plays of the next generation will be produced by smaller companies and regional theatres.
2) Disregard film and television. Don't follow, lead! Rediscover what made American theatre great in the last century while creating new modes of artistic expression. Emphasize the uniqueness of theatre.
3) Politicize the theatre. All art is propaganda! Embrace this fully--regardless of your personal politics--and allow that to drive meaning. Think Brecht! (He's kiiiind of an American...)
4) One of the smartest things I was ever told is that the joy is in the work. Too many people become theatre artists because they want to be famous with their name in lights. Anyone who starts a career so that they can be on Glee or serve as Patti LuPone's understudy is a dilettante and a fool. Avoid these people. They will poison your ability to work and destroy your faith in the medium. You become an artist because you believe in the transformative power of art, not because you want people to adore you. The best art--even if it isn't beautiful--betrays some sense of joy from the artist.
5) Embrace change! Theatre must evolve or die, like everything. Move forward--avoid stagnation.
6) Remember the past. Without knowing where theatre is coming from, it's impossible to know where it should go. These two seem contradictory but actually are complementary.
It is possible for theatre to regain a cultural relevance on par with film. It is too powerful a medium not to do just that. But the first step toward that reclamation is a rejection of art-as-product, a decentralization that elevates regional and repertory theatres and smaller, ensemble-based theatre companies above the ersatz prestige and assumed superiority of Broadway, and an altruistic desire to elevate our art form. Once the artists and patrons agree that the emperor has no clothes, we can engage each other in an honest way.
In closing, the commercial theatre of New York is an insult to both artists and the audience. It mistakes money for quality, visibility for acclaim. These producers offer nothing of any merit but demand exorbitant fees to see disinterested movie stars on half-baked sets. We must all reject their collective arrogance and aggressive mediocrity. Artists desire to create better work, the kind that our audiences deserve. Let's make it possible for that to happen.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Twelfth Night: A Review
I watched in glum horror last night as the American Theatre Wing distributed its little trophies to a bunch of movie stars in an attempt to convince themselves that Broadway still has more cultural relevance than, say, a third-rate sitcom. After the final award for Best Musical went to a show written by the keyboard player for a New Jersey hair metal band whose best days are more than two decades in the past, I thought a lot (and drank even more!) about my role both as a theatre artist (you can roll your eyes now) and theatre goer. What is the point of the whole process if all the acclaim is heaped on a bunch of hot messes designed to separate tourists from Kansas City from their cash? To mount a bunch of shows that aren't bad, per se, but merely okay (in spite of the big names and the fancy marquees and the ungodly expensive tickets)? Is theatre even worth saving if everything, all the spending and starfucking and endless self-congratulation produces a response no more powerful than a "Meh..." And then, when you're afraid that you're approaching a nadir of belief, you see magic.
In Tribeca, Fiasco Theatre has staged a thoroughly brilliant version of Twelfth Night. With a cast of eight and a comparative paucity of scenery and props, the ensemble brings the play to life in a way that's so engaging, so thrilling and so endlessly compelling as to keep the audience completely transfixed for two hours. So how do they do it? How does this small, inspired company manage to create living works of art in front of an audience while most of the midtown theatres struggle to make a play more exciting than the conversations you have in a diner? Easy: Fiasco understands and very visibly loves theatre on a fundamental level.
The truth is that people go to the theatre to see dynamic actors. No production, no matter how grandiose, is of any true merit without a talented ensemble engaging the text, themselves, and the audience. It is in this arena that Fiasco's Twelfth Night succeeds wildly. The eight actors who constitute the ensemble are uniformly excellent. They bring the characters to life in such a vivid way that the two hours the audience gets to spend in Illyria is far, far too short. The play begins with a thrill as the actors take positions around the theatre and sing, creating for the audience the shipwreck that separates Viola and Sebastian. Thus, the company instantly establishes the canny conventions that will drive the production: no stage machinery, no glitzy scenic pieces, no expensive lighting effects can replicate the sublime beauty of a group of humans using their bodies and voices to tell a story. The result is an actor-driven production that never once lags or lets the audience down.
All of that is to say nothing of the performances: I would need a book to break down each of the wonderfully intricate characters that come to life as a part of Twelfth Night. To briefly address each: Ben Steinfeld pulls double duty as both Feste and Sebastian, a combination that would, in the hands of a lesser artist, merely seem absurd. Steinfeld, however, embodies both the jovial clown and the erstwhile romantic hero in a way that almost defies description. One would expect it to be distracting to see Feste and Sebastian as the same person, but Steinfeld so varies the two that even without the distinguishing costume pieces the viewer can tell the difference. Noah Brody is so moving as the lovesick Duke Orsino that the audience will practically beg Olivia on his behalf. Speaking of Olivia, Georgia Cohen plays her with such passionate ferocity that even the most reserved in the audience has no choice but to love her with the same hopeless abandon as the poor lovelorn Duke. Andy Grotelueschen's Sir Toby Belch is the perfect raucous drinking companion whose fun-loving exterior belies a capriciousness and malice that makes him clearly unfit to run the household. Groteleuschen's wonderfully boisterous Toby is matched in his love interest, Maria, played with a wonderfully prim sexuality and playfulness by Elizabeth King-Hall. Sir Toby is also well-met by Haas Regen as Sir Andrew Aguecheek, the poor simpleton whose generosity Toby can't help but exploit. Avoiding the standard tack of Aguecheek as an aggressively foolish boor, Regen deploys a hilariously elastic physicality and highlights Aguecheek's naivety, which is hilarious right up until it becomes heartbreaking. In a similarly nuanced way, Paul L. Coffey avoids hollowing Malvolio into the typical sad-sack Puritan and makes the character a transformative study in the price of repression. The yellow-stockings gag plays less like farce here and hints at a profoundly deep look into the psyche of the disturbingly religious. Finally, as Viola, Annie Purcell displays such quick wit and largeness of spirit that it is no great mystery to see why Olivia is so taken by her. I, of course, have done little justice to these wonderful performances. Suffice it to say that each member of the ensemble acts with such ultimate commitment, such robust athleticism and precision, and such unadulterated joy that even the most cynical observer would find it impossible to tear his gaze away.
Ultimately, Fiasco is a company that manages to deliver both the honesty and the romance that theatre gives the audience when done well. Directors Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld, along with vocal coach Jessie Austrian, take responsibility for bringing the play to life in a truthful way that captures all the majesty and nuance that constitutes Shakespeare's unique genius. In each of his plays--whether comedy or tragedy--we see profoundly human moments of success and failure, rapture and despair, beauty and squalor. The magic of their production is that the play contains hilarious and touching moments side-by-side and none of it seems forced or false. By focusing on the ensemble and using humans to do the storytelling, the company magnifies the humanity of the text. Ultimately, Fiasco make brilliant and moving theatre by showing immense respect for the material, the audience, and each other. They have rejected the ugly cynicism of the "art-as-product" attitude that dominates the commercial theatre in favor of a brand of unique joy that is in all too short supply today. More artists need to be willing to engage themselves and their art in such a bold way. Midtown should be so lucky.
In Tribeca, Fiasco Theatre has staged a thoroughly brilliant version of Twelfth Night. With a cast of eight and a comparative paucity of scenery and props, the ensemble brings the play to life in a way that's so engaging, so thrilling and so endlessly compelling as to keep the audience completely transfixed for two hours. So how do they do it? How does this small, inspired company manage to create living works of art in front of an audience while most of the midtown theatres struggle to make a play more exciting than the conversations you have in a diner? Easy: Fiasco understands and very visibly loves theatre on a fundamental level.
The truth is that people go to the theatre to see dynamic actors. No production, no matter how grandiose, is of any true merit without a talented ensemble engaging the text, themselves, and the audience. It is in this arena that Fiasco's Twelfth Night succeeds wildly. The eight actors who constitute the ensemble are uniformly excellent. They bring the characters to life in such a vivid way that the two hours the audience gets to spend in Illyria is far, far too short. The play begins with a thrill as the actors take positions around the theatre and sing, creating for the audience the shipwreck that separates Viola and Sebastian. Thus, the company instantly establishes the canny conventions that will drive the production: no stage machinery, no glitzy scenic pieces, no expensive lighting effects can replicate the sublime beauty of a group of humans using their bodies and voices to tell a story. The result is an actor-driven production that never once lags or lets the audience down.
All of that is to say nothing of the performances: I would need a book to break down each of the wonderfully intricate characters that come to life as a part of Twelfth Night. To briefly address each: Ben Steinfeld pulls double duty as both Feste and Sebastian, a combination that would, in the hands of a lesser artist, merely seem absurd. Steinfeld, however, embodies both the jovial clown and the erstwhile romantic hero in a way that almost defies description. One would expect it to be distracting to see Feste and Sebastian as the same person, but Steinfeld so varies the two that even without the distinguishing costume pieces the viewer can tell the difference. Noah Brody is so moving as the lovesick Duke Orsino that the audience will practically beg Olivia on his behalf. Speaking of Olivia, Georgia Cohen plays her with such passionate ferocity that even the most reserved in the audience has no choice but to love her with the same hopeless abandon as the poor lovelorn Duke. Andy Grotelueschen's Sir Toby Belch is the perfect raucous drinking companion whose fun-loving exterior belies a capriciousness and malice that makes him clearly unfit to run the household. Groteleuschen's wonderfully boisterous Toby is matched in his love interest, Maria, played with a wonderfully prim sexuality and playfulness by Elizabeth King-Hall. Sir Toby is also well-met by Haas Regen as Sir Andrew Aguecheek, the poor simpleton whose generosity Toby can't help but exploit. Avoiding the standard tack of Aguecheek as an aggressively foolish boor, Regen deploys a hilariously elastic physicality and highlights Aguecheek's naivety, which is hilarious right up until it becomes heartbreaking. In a similarly nuanced way, Paul L. Coffey avoids hollowing Malvolio into the typical sad-sack Puritan and makes the character a transformative study in the price of repression. The yellow-stockings gag plays less like farce here and hints at a profoundly deep look into the psyche of the disturbingly religious. Finally, as Viola, Annie Purcell displays such quick wit and largeness of spirit that it is no great mystery to see why Olivia is so taken by her. I, of course, have done little justice to these wonderful performances. Suffice it to say that each member of the ensemble acts with such ultimate commitment, such robust athleticism and precision, and such unadulterated joy that even the most cynical observer would find it impossible to tear his gaze away.
Ultimately, Fiasco is a company that manages to deliver both the honesty and the romance that theatre gives the audience when done well. Directors Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld, along with vocal coach Jessie Austrian, take responsibility for bringing the play to life in a truthful way that captures all the majesty and nuance that constitutes Shakespeare's unique genius. In each of his plays--whether comedy or tragedy--we see profoundly human moments of success and failure, rapture and despair, beauty and squalor. The magic of their production is that the play contains hilarious and touching moments side-by-side and none of it seems forced or false. By focusing on the ensemble and using humans to do the storytelling, the company magnifies the humanity of the text. Ultimately, Fiasco make brilliant and moving theatre by showing immense respect for the material, the audience, and each other. They have rejected the ugly cynicism of the "art-as-product" attitude that dominates the commercial theatre in favor of a brand of unique joy that is in all too short supply today. More artists need to be willing to engage themselves and their art in such a bold way. Midtown should be so lucky.
Friday, January 15, 2010
My Thoughts on an Already Overtalked Topic (Or, Alternately, Everything I Have Ever Thought About Anything)
If you are exposed to any media outlet at all during the course of your daily life, you are doubtless aware of the debacle wracking our country's late night television programs. Essentially, the improbable string of mismanagement and blatant idiocy that is the management of the National Broadcasting Company reached a fever pitch that looks like it will drive Conan O'Brien from the network in an effort to reinstall Jay Leno as the host of the Tonight Show. This, of course, begs two questions: 1) how and, more interestingly, 2) what does this mean?
First, how did this happen? Essentially, because NBC President Jeff Zucker is a complete idiot and a humorless asshole. He has managed to drive NBC's ratings through the floor; the network is currently in fourth place behind CBS, ABC and Fox. FOX?!? Let me get this straight: the same television station that has housed such cash cows as Seinfeld, Cheers, Friends, Frasier, Will and Grace and The Cosby Show, to name just the sitcoms, currently can't draw more viewers than fucking American Dad? How did it get this bad?
Zucker was stupid enough to give Leno, who hasn't been funny since the first Bush was president, ANOTHER comedy show on the network. At 10pm. In the time slot when the same people who like Jay Leno (i.e., old people) like to watch shows about moody detectives who find semen in corpses and then sleep with each other. Everyone whose paycheck doesn't have GE on it knew that this was a terrible plan because no one wants to watch an hour long talk show, local news and then two more hour long talk shows. Especially when the first one is hosted by an unfunny tool. (Don't get me started on Jimmy Fallon).
Perhaps this is unfair. Leno seems like a mildly decent guy...but he is painfully devoid of comic talents at this point. Patton Oswalt does an excellent job explaining the problem in the linked piece, so I'll refer you there for a better explanation of Leno's problem. As Oswalt points out, it is baffling that Leno is so hell-bent on hosting a show that doesn't even seem to thrill him. The guy still does stand-up most weekends in Vegas, for God's sake. And why in the hell was NBC willing to give O'Brien the show just to bail on him after seven months? It took him nearly two years to make Late Night into a viable comedic force; in fact, he was starting to hit his stride now with the new Tonight Show.
More interesting than the how, though, is what all this means about society. The short answer, of course, is nothing. Late night talk shows really have no meaning outside of themselves, and possibly none at all. Since I am a profoundly shallow person, however, I spend a lot of my time reading into the nonsense and trash that comprises most pop culture. The Tonight Show dust-up, then, is representative of the culture clash between people my age (Millennials, or whatever the fuck we're supposed to be called) and the Baby Boomers.
I know very few people over the age of forty who actively like Conan O'Brien. Most often I'd hear his brand of humor dismissed by Boomers as "weird" and/or "creepy." His blend of self-deprecation, absurdism and eccentric fearlessnes was directed squarely at an audience younger than Jay's. Leno plays relatively safe, broad, toothless comedy that flirts with edginess as successfully as you'd flirt with Giselle. Leno's shows were like a glass of warm milk: dull, quotidian and ultimately nauseating in its treacliness. O'Brien, even at his most outre, was at least doing something interesting. I'd rather watch an interesting failure than a boring success.
Beyond their comedic styles, though, each man represents a different generation. Leno is, metaphorically, a symbol of weak-kneed conservatism. He stands for soft peddling cowardice that refuses to move forward merely out of fear, both of the unknown and of failure. While I am myself not inclined toward a conservative outlook, I could at least respect a philosophy that was rooted in something other than ignorance and fear. It is the Leno-esque tendency to resist change out of timidity, however, that I find both morally and intellectually repugnant.
O'Brien, on the other hand, represents the same progressive spirit that helped sweep Obama into the White House last fall. The desire for something new, something different and something brazenly original is something that I see in people my age all the time. While I despise the Family Guy model that equates difference and offensiveness with comedy and celebrates "randomness" (UGH) which some people would liken to O'Brien's comedy, I think that Conan goes deeper than this. His comedy, no matter how hard to pin down, is rooted in some sort of realism. There is heart at the center of his jokes. He's not afraid to fail--which he does, sometimes with disturbing frequency--but this ultimately led to some of the most compelling television of the past decade. This same desire for experimentation and progress came to the fore as twentysomethings made their first political strides in the fall of 2008 to elect the nation's first black President over an old white guy. The night of the election in New York City is one of the most singularly electric experiences in which I have ever taken part. Along with the new President, 2009 would bring a new Tonight Show as part of my generation coming of age. 2009 was supposed to be the annus mirabilis of the young, urban liberal. The technicolor horrorshow of W.'s America and the aggressive mediocrity of Leno's Tonight Show would be swept away by the inevitable tide of Progress. The hell with flying cars, the Future had arrived!
(Just in case you're curious, in this stupid analogy, Letterman represents the Ted Kennedy liberals, who will end up on the right side of history but, in their time, were too cantankerous and bitter about their inability to win America's heart away from its perpetual love affair with averageness.)
Of course, now that 2009 is behind us, everything has stalled. While I realize how stupid it is to compare a comedian to a politician, look at the similarities: a young, hip, lanky stranger comes on the scene promising change (in Conan's case, implicitly, Obama's, explicitly). A better world geared toward the youth movements that will, inevitably, come into positions of power in the future. Their grey-haired forebears will be nothing but a bad memory and a reminder of how not to run things. Yet, as soon as both O'Brien and Obama (!) took their respective places, rear-guard sniping began. The former masters, enraged at the fact that they were no longer in power and unable to gracefully endure their tenure as the underdogs, began a program of bitter recrimination that aimed to undermine their replacements. When Conan lagged in the ratings, when Obama failed to instantly fix the economy and end two wars while simultaneously crushing al-Qaeda, their detractors cried foul. Where is the difference? Where is the change you promised us?, they howled. WHY DID YOU NOT INSTANTLY FIX EVERYTHING?!?! Republicans/the Middle Aged held their enemies to standards that no one could live up to, merely to mock and belittle the legitimate efforts of Obama/O'Brien.
And so, Baby Boomers, J'accuse. You mollycoddled your children, giving them (well, us) a sense of false, scumbag entitlement. You removed all the obstacles in life that should have toughened us, mentally and physically. You bought into the bullshit pop psychology, read the bullshit parenting books and tried to be our friends instead of our parents. You made monsters of us and then scratched your heads when we came out as irresponsible jerkwads. In spite of this, we finally pulled our collective head out of our collective ass and found causes to champion and leaders to believe in, you threw a tantrum and decided you didn't want to have to stop being the boss. Once we were finally ready to take the bowl of shit that passed for a world that you were leaving us and make it better, you were too selfish to loosen your death grip.
So here we are in 2010. O'Brien is almost certainly leaving the Tonight Show within the next week to make way for a host that nobody under the age of fifty likes. Health care reform, the biggest item on Obama's legislative to-do list, is both so wizened as to be a shadow of its former self and mired in a congressional clusterfuck so petty and partisan that it makes the cast of The Hills look demure. Beyond that, Obama committed what I'd call a pretty severe misstep in his reactionary, overblown response to a Nigerian man burning his own wiener off. In an effort to not appear "soft" on terror (you know, like a Democrat) Obama has criticized that whipping boy of American politics, the intelligence community, and all but instituted a program of aggressive profiling. This, of course, both undermines his goal of convincing the Arab world we're not at war with Islam and basically gives terrorists our playbook. Millennials (UGH), we have to do something.
Apparently, the Boomers aren't going to let us have anything. We're going to have to take it. We're going to have to refuse to listen to their asinine complaints and backward-looking philosophy. We're going to have to assert ourselves like we actually have spines. We're going to have to stand up and act like adults for once, instead of teenagers with ten thousand dollars of disposable income and a drinking problem.
Boomers, you have to let go. The thing about being alive is that one day you will die. When that day comes, we, your children, will take over. Begin phasing yourselves out now. Trust us. The world will be ours one day--let us shape it as we like. You were right when you were young and you railed against the Eisenhower generation. Now remember what it was like to be young and let us have our turn. And our own goddamn comedy shows.
There are those who will say that Conan's reaction has been petty and overblown. Imagine, however, that you were promised the host gig on a venerable franchise. Before you'd even been allowed to truly settle in, however, your ratings are deemed too low and the network decides to tamper with a franchise that has been unchanged for more than half a century. You'd be pretty fucking pissed too. And look at the consequences: as it stands, Conan will move to Fox, Leno will briefly return to his old show and Jimmy Fallon, the spineless twerp who has kept his mouth shut the whole time, will end up inheriting the Tonight Show. The political analog here is, of course, playing Hail to the Chief every time Jeb Bush enters the room.
First, how did this happen? Essentially, because NBC President Jeff Zucker is a complete idiot and a humorless asshole. He has managed to drive NBC's ratings through the floor; the network is currently in fourth place behind CBS, ABC and Fox. FOX?!? Let me get this straight: the same television station that has housed such cash cows as Seinfeld, Cheers, Friends, Frasier, Will and Grace and The Cosby Show, to name just the sitcoms, currently can't draw more viewers than fucking American Dad? How did it get this bad?
Zucker was stupid enough to give Leno, who hasn't been funny since the first Bush was president, ANOTHER comedy show on the network. At 10pm. In the time slot when the same people who like Jay Leno (i.e., old people) like to watch shows about moody detectives who find semen in corpses and then sleep with each other. Everyone whose paycheck doesn't have GE on it knew that this was a terrible plan because no one wants to watch an hour long talk show, local news and then two more hour long talk shows. Especially when the first one is hosted by an unfunny tool. (Don't get me started on Jimmy Fallon).
Perhaps this is unfair. Leno seems like a mildly decent guy...but he is painfully devoid of comic talents at this point. Patton Oswalt does an excellent job explaining the problem in the linked piece, so I'll refer you there for a better explanation of Leno's problem. As Oswalt points out, it is baffling that Leno is so hell-bent on hosting a show that doesn't even seem to thrill him. The guy still does stand-up most weekends in Vegas, for God's sake. And why in the hell was NBC willing to give O'Brien the show just to bail on him after seven months? It took him nearly two years to make Late Night into a viable comedic force; in fact, he was starting to hit his stride now with the new Tonight Show.
More interesting than the how, though, is what all this means about society. The short answer, of course, is nothing. Late night talk shows really have no meaning outside of themselves, and possibly none at all. Since I am a profoundly shallow person, however, I spend a lot of my time reading into the nonsense and trash that comprises most pop culture. The Tonight Show dust-up, then, is representative of the culture clash between people my age (Millennials, or whatever the fuck we're supposed to be called) and the Baby Boomers.
I know very few people over the age of forty who actively like Conan O'Brien. Most often I'd hear his brand of humor dismissed by Boomers as "weird" and/or "creepy." His blend of self-deprecation, absurdism and eccentric fearlessnes was directed squarely at an audience younger than Jay's. Leno plays relatively safe, broad, toothless comedy that flirts with edginess as successfully as you'd flirt with Giselle. Leno's shows were like a glass of warm milk: dull, quotidian and ultimately nauseating in its treacliness. O'Brien, even at his most outre, was at least doing something interesting. I'd rather watch an interesting failure than a boring success.
Beyond their comedic styles, though, each man represents a different generation. Leno is, metaphorically, a symbol of weak-kneed conservatism. He stands for soft peddling cowardice that refuses to move forward merely out of fear, both of the unknown and of failure. While I am myself not inclined toward a conservative outlook, I could at least respect a philosophy that was rooted in something other than ignorance and fear. It is the Leno-esque tendency to resist change out of timidity, however, that I find both morally and intellectually repugnant.
O'Brien, on the other hand, represents the same progressive spirit that helped sweep Obama into the White House last fall. The desire for something new, something different and something brazenly original is something that I see in people my age all the time. While I despise the Family Guy model that equates difference and offensiveness with comedy and celebrates "randomness" (UGH) which some people would liken to O'Brien's comedy, I think that Conan goes deeper than this. His comedy, no matter how hard to pin down, is rooted in some sort of realism. There is heart at the center of his jokes. He's not afraid to fail--which he does, sometimes with disturbing frequency--but this ultimately led to some of the most compelling television of the past decade. This same desire for experimentation and progress came to the fore as twentysomethings made their first political strides in the fall of 2008 to elect the nation's first black President over an old white guy. The night of the election in New York City is one of the most singularly electric experiences in which I have ever taken part. Along with the new President, 2009 would bring a new Tonight Show as part of my generation coming of age. 2009 was supposed to be the annus mirabilis of the young, urban liberal. The technicolor horrorshow of W.'s America and the aggressive mediocrity of Leno's Tonight Show would be swept away by the inevitable tide of Progress. The hell with flying cars, the Future had arrived!
(Just in case you're curious, in this stupid analogy, Letterman represents the Ted Kennedy liberals, who will end up on the right side of history but, in their time, were too cantankerous and bitter about their inability to win America's heart away from its perpetual love affair with averageness.)
Of course, now that 2009 is behind us, everything has stalled. While I realize how stupid it is to compare a comedian to a politician, look at the similarities: a young, hip, lanky stranger comes on the scene promising change (in Conan's case, implicitly, Obama's, explicitly). A better world geared toward the youth movements that will, inevitably, come into positions of power in the future. Their grey-haired forebears will be nothing but a bad memory and a reminder of how not to run things. Yet, as soon as both O'Brien and Obama (!) took their respective places, rear-guard sniping began. The former masters, enraged at the fact that they were no longer in power and unable to gracefully endure their tenure as the underdogs, began a program of bitter recrimination that aimed to undermine their replacements. When Conan lagged in the ratings, when Obama failed to instantly fix the economy and end two wars while simultaneously crushing al-Qaeda, their detractors cried foul. Where is the difference? Where is the change you promised us?, they howled. WHY DID YOU NOT INSTANTLY FIX EVERYTHING?!?! Republicans/the Middle Aged held their enemies to standards that no one could live up to, merely to mock and belittle the legitimate efforts of Obama/O'Brien.
And so, Baby Boomers, J'accuse. You mollycoddled your children, giving them (well, us) a sense of false, scumbag entitlement. You removed all the obstacles in life that should have toughened us, mentally and physically. You bought into the bullshit pop psychology, read the bullshit parenting books and tried to be our friends instead of our parents. You made monsters of us and then scratched your heads when we came out as irresponsible jerkwads. In spite of this, we finally pulled our collective head out of our collective ass and found causes to champion and leaders to believe in, you threw a tantrum and decided you didn't want to have to stop being the boss. Once we were finally ready to take the bowl of shit that passed for a world that you were leaving us and make it better, you were too selfish to loosen your death grip.
So here we are in 2010. O'Brien is almost certainly leaving the Tonight Show within the next week to make way for a host that nobody under the age of fifty likes. Health care reform, the biggest item on Obama's legislative to-do list, is both so wizened as to be a shadow of its former self and mired in a congressional clusterfuck so petty and partisan that it makes the cast of The Hills look demure. Beyond that, Obama committed what I'd call a pretty severe misstep in his reactionary, overblown response to a Nigerian man burning his own wiener off. In an effort to not appear "soft" on terror (you know, like a Democrat) Obama has criticized that whipping boy of American politics, the intelligence community, and all but instituted a program of aggressive profiling. This, of course, both undermines his goal of convincing the Arab world we're not at war with Islam and basically gives terrorists our playbook. Millennials (UGH), we have to do something.
Apparently, the Boomers aren't going to let us have anything. We're going to have to take it. We're going to have to refuse to listen to their asinine complaints and backward-looking philosophy. We're going to have to assert ourselves like we actually have spines. We're going to have to stand up and act like adults for once, instead of teenagers with ten thousand dollars of disposable income and a drinking problem.
Boomers, you have to let go. The thing about being alive is that one day you will die. When that day comes, we, your children, will take over. Begin phasing yourselves out now. Trust us. The world will be ours one day--let us shape it as we like. You were right when you were young and you railed against the Eisenhower generation. Now remember what it was like to be young and let us have our turn. And our own goddamn comedy shows.
There are those who will say that Conan's reaction has been petty and overblown. Imagine, however, that you were promised the host gig on a venerable franchise. Before you'd even been allowed to truly settle in, however, your ratings are deemed too low and the network decides to tamper with a franchise that has been unchanged for more than half a century. You'd be pretty fucking pissed too. And look at the consequences: as it stands, Conan will move to Fox, Leno will briefly return to his old show and Jimmy Fallon, the spineless twerp who has kept his mouth shut the whole time, will end up inheriting the Tonight Show. The political analog here is, of course, playing Hail to the Chief every time Jeb Bush enters the room.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)