[part where I apologize for being scarce by validate it by explaining once again that this just means I'm busy with work, so it's good thing]
Not once but twice in last Sunday's Arts & Leisure section, the NYTimes repeated my favorite of its ridiculous policies - instead of printing perfectly printable words, ie the title of the marvelous Broadway play The Motherfucker with the Hat (see it!), it censors itself/its interviewee by glazing over whatever was obviously said by saying it's unprintable. Once toward the end of an article about Andrew Lloyd Webber (which should be unprintable since his recent work is unlistenable), and then by calling Cee-Lo's marvelous song "Forget You," which has become the acceptable title, which is stupid.
As I've explained before, this drives me batshit fucking crazy. Because it's untrue. These words can be printed - look! I just did it myself with a free blogging platform! So really it's just their (understandable) policy not to print them. So that's how they should phrase it. Or! Have a New York People Who Can Handle Language version of the paper, and another Ultra Conservative And Worried About Superficial Societal Problems Like "Bad" Words version for whoever is writing in a blog that's the polar opposite of this one.
Also in the Arts section, Justin Timberlake. Love. And I don't even want to make out with him, I just want to go see dance movies together. I mean, it's about time You Got Served had a sequel, amIright???
Last night I saw Fela! on Broadway, and it sparked all kinds of thoughts, many of which I'm still processing. Please, please do not miss this show. Reading this review in the Times made me vow to see it, and I'm so glad I didn't let it fall into that list of good intentions sans follow-through.
(Here is a ticket discount. I went to the box office an hour before and got standing room tix for only $27.)
Two main things I want to address re Fela:
Activism Flora and I talked a lot after the show about the nature and impetus for revolution. She made an excellent point: "How is it any different when Shell is exploiting Nigerians for oil versus the big banks exploiting middle class Americans for credit?" Why are we so different, because we're a superpower or the West or??
It's ridiculous. We just sit around and let these corrupt things happen. People won't even write a fucking email to their elected official from the comfort of their own living room, boycott a product post a link to Facebook; let alone take to the streets and march on Wall Street, which is what we all should have done last fall when everything started spinning out of control.
We deserve what we get if we're too lazy to do anything besides complain to our friends who already think the same things we do anyway.
Responsibility I have a strong belief that most of us, certainly anyone reading this blog, have a responsibility to do certain things simply because we can.
This belief comes from my Christian upbringing, more specifically, my interpretation of Paul's letter to the Ephesians (see verse 4:11, or Jesus' lesson on the widow's offering in Mark 12:41ff, his words to the Pharisees in Luke 11:41, the parable of the talents, or Luke 19:11ff). God gives each person different talents, and a different measure thereof. So each of us has a different capacity for giving in respect to what we have. Bill Gates and Oprah giving $1 billion to help children is the same as you or me giving a few thousand. The Times did an interesting article on this a couple years ago.
So I write this blog because I can articulate my convictions about what's going on in the world and this is one of my ways of putting my words into action, not just having an opinion. I have the luxury of time and education and access to news, so I digest as much of it as I can. I have plenty of resources to have all I need, so I have an obligation to donate time and/or money to the less fortunate. I was blessed with a lovely home so I open it to others as much as I can. You see where I'm going with this.
So another thing we talked about after the show was that those of us with the blessing of living in New York, in the middle of some of the best art in the world, and with the resources to take advantage of it all, have an obligation to go to these shows, go to these museums, purchase this music, and tell our friends so that it can survive.
And those of us working in the arts have a responsibility to make it accessible to those who can't afford $250 Broadway tickets. We were turned away from another show last night that wasn't sold out, but we weren't able to pay $80, the lowest-priced ticket, to see it. (Suck it, David Mamet's Race!) There's something wrong with that when we're talking about art rather than a product. (Yes, I know, but art as commodity is a whole other post.)
And beyond the arts - I vote out of respect for the blessing of living in a democracy and respect for the women and African-Americans who secured my right to have a voice. And the hospitality thing, volunteerism, etc. But I'm not trying to be on a pedestal about this; I don't think I give at the level I can or should yet, but I'm working toward it. May we all give in relation to what we've been given, and encourage others to do so too.
I saw Hair on Broadway last night. Definitely enjoyed it and was on my feet dancing with the rest of the audience at the end, but something had been bothering me about the show, and not just the fact that every song was not sung by the showstopping Sasha Allen and that the nude scene was too lowly lit.*
The New Yorker review by Hilton Als may have hit the nail on the head: I didn’t expect to take such a dyspeptic view of the show, and I was saddened by my response... I was disturbed by certain elements in Gerome Ragni and James Rado’s book and lyrics. “Hair” was first produced in 1967, at the Public Theatre. (It went to Broadway the following year; the current production mirrors that trajectory.) At the time it premièred on Broadway, a mixed cast was still relatively uncommon. But that suited “Hair” just fine. Less a musical than a revue, it was meant to showcase those elements of society which the American stage had relegated to the margins: blacks and women. And yet there is not one believable black character in “Hair.” In fact, its strangled, hackneyed depiction of black masculinity is painful to watch. Compare how we meet the free-spirited white hippie Berger (the excellent and appropriately narcissistic Will Swenson) and the militant black man Hud (Nichols). Berger introduces himself and his tentacle-like sexuality—he wants to touch everyone he sees—by joking around and flirting with the audience. Hud, on the other hand, comes across immediately as one angry dude—and angry about just the things that white people might imagine he’d be angry about. Glaring at the audience, as he paces the stage, he sings:
I’m a colored spade, a nigra, a black nigger A jungle bunny jigaboo coon pickaninny mau mau Uncle Tom Aunt Jemima Little Black Sambo Cotton pickin’ swamp Guinea junk man shoe shine boy. . . . And President of The United States of Love I said President of The United States of Love
I’m sure the original creators of the show felt that they were treating these issues—the way a black man is perceived and the way he perceives himself—with “irony” and a healthy dose of liberal self-consciousness. But Hud is simply a construction, meant to validate the white hipness of the show. (He’s straight out of Norman Mailer’s 1957 treatise “The White Negro.”) The strain in the portrayal of blackness becomes only more evident and uncomfortable in the play’s second act, when a Tribe member (Saycon Sengbloh), dressed in an Abraham Lincoln-like stovepipe hat, joins Hud and four black men carrying spears to sing “Yes, I’s Finished on Y’All’s Farmlands.” In short, aside from the draft, all the “issues” in “Hair” seem to have to do with race, and the task of representing them falls on the overburdened black characters, who have to do almost everything here except tap-dance.
*I really am a gay man in the body of a straight woman, aren't I? So awesome.
If this is what we're dealing with re Tony nominations, just shut down the Great White Way altogether now and leave it with a shred of dignity.
If you're not aware, the Tonys are pretty much the most BS awards out there because if you're produced, you're probably nominated. Because whereas there are hundreds, thousands of TV shows, movies, etc for the other big televised award shows, there are only a handful of B'way shows produced each year period, so a nomination isn't exactly a big deal. The nominees for best musical alone make me nauseous: two movies and a jukebox musical - three out of four without original content? Why nominate anyone at all?
I guess some naive part of me still thought that the Tonys aren't entirely political. But reading these noms shattered that -- the shows I've seen this year that have nominations are mostly entirely undeserved, i.e., Alison Janney was thoroughly entertaining in 9 to 5, but a Best Actress performance? Hardly. Her agent must know all the right people. And who doesn't love Dolly Parton, but to put her in the category formerly graced by a genius like Sondheim is embarrassing.
I get it, Broadway needs a big marketing gimmick just like every other performing art, but lord, can we at least open it up to London, off-Broadway, and regional to make it an actual contest?
Letter to the editor concerning the review of 9 to 5: The Musical:
Mr. Healy writes that the character of Violet “emerged during the Reagan era as a symbol for women seeking equal treatment in the marketplace.” The character of Violet was created in December 1980, when the film of “9 to 5” was released, a month before Reagan took office... The implication that Violet became a symbol in opposition to the “Reagan era” is an example of the use of cultural narrative in the service of rather small-minded political partisanship.
Theatre Royal Stratford East is to give audiences a free rein to choose its [programming] for the first six months of 2012, in the run up to the London Olympics. The move, which is thought to be the first time a major producing theatre has given the general public an open say about what is put on its stage for an entire season, is seen by officials at TRSE as an extension of the company's long tradition of being a "theatre of the people".
All I can say is, thank god this is happening in the UK and not the US. Can you imagine a season chosen by the people who frequent Broadway these days? It would look something like:
Phantom Les Miz 10th Revival of [insert popular 1950s musical here] Some Disney Cartoon Jukebox Musical Based on Music of [insert 70s pop icon here] 80s Movie Turned into Musical Shouldn't We Do Something By Shakespeare? Aw, Fuck It, Let's Do Grease!!!
"The funny thing about writing is you never know where you're going to end up when you start. (Come to think of it, I guess most things in life are like that.)"
I should start one of those Blog Rolls or whatever but until I get the motivation to figure it out, here's a rec:
My buddy Kyle Jarrow is a crazy talented writer & musician - he's younger than I am and he's already won an Obie Award (off-Bway Tony) for writing a kickass play. He has like ten bands including the awesometastic Fabulous Entourage and must write in his sleep he's so prolific. I was lucky enough to be a co-producer on his musical Love Kills in '07, and now he's collaborating with Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening) on a new show, and blogging the experience.
Ms. Pressler is a New Yorker who, years ago after attending a marvelous staged reading of Sondheim's Anyone Can Whistle, thought it would be most hilarious if she were mayor and made everyone refer to her as The Mayoress. The nickname stuck. She works as a marketing consultant and in her spare time, volunteers on campaigns and runs a lot. She likes the arts, marathons, SVU, hip hop, opera, brunch, the Obamas, WNYC, style, fun events, and people who read her blog.
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