40. The Week in Me
I like to see myself a bit of a cicerone, so here’s all the theater I saw this week!
Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors (New World Stages)
If you love Dracula: Dead and Loving It and Arsenic and Old Lace and the “Ski Lodge” episode of Frasier, you will love this vampy, campy romp (it is the epitome of a romp) telling (loosely) the saga of Dracula, Harker, the Westfeldts, and an insectophile Renfield. The production is choicefully simple, with aerosol cans being openly sprayed by characters to create mist, Monty Pythonesque horses, and each actor besides *Beanie Feldstein voice* the titular role dashing offstage to return in the guise of two to three different characters, with the frenzy eventually devolving into actors flicking wigs in front of their face to call-and-response their multiple identities.
Also, look at the guy who plays Dracula holy shit he may be the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my entire stupid life:
My Italo-peasant-woman-cum-Jew ass is rightfully mistrusting of blond men but:
The one strike against this show: a man is dressed as a woman for laughs, which is a gendered minstrelsy I think we need to learn to live without as a society. The concept has been meriting diminishing returns for years if not decades now, and it is at odds with the comfortable other queerness of this show. The actor gives an excellent performance in both of his “drag” roles and the choice is evocative of farce theater of eras prior from which Dracula sucks its blood, but the Bosom Buddies schtick can feel insensitive to the dismissal (to put it lightly) of transness in modern America. The decision to put a woman actor into pants for three male roles of her own would, could (?) mitigate the charges, but the costumes and script pay as much attention to this as they would have since women first donned the Peter Pan hat and harness in flying theater. One is made a joke of, the other isn’t, and in contrast it comes off less tasteful. I still loved everything around this choice and again, the actor does beautiful comedic work, but I felt I couldn’t recommend the show without the caveat.
I saw Partnership with friend and reader Michael Dale on Wednesday. The Mint is dedicated to, often, reviving works in danger of extinction of remembrance and does not adapt the plays to reflect modern sensibilities and standards (though they cast “race-blind” a la Hamilton). It was a delight to discover that Partnership, first produced in 1917, was refreshingly feminist in its obstacles and resolutions for its leads, unmarried business owner Kate Rolling (Sara Haider, all Margaret Keane big eyes but brimming with wit and change and recognition) and her unexpected match Lawrence Fawcett (initially unassuming, which can only be a choice with talent to spare, as he really grows into the character by the end as he grows in his attachment to Kate). It’s almost as if….theater…and women…were as feminist in thought as they are now and….this work….got buried…for a reason? I loved the many short scenes between the women who run Rolling’s dress shop: bright, silly characters with points of view that foiled and bolstered the others’. I would have happily written the men out of the show and just let Kate and Maisie Glow (Olivia Gilliatt, who has terminal iPhone face but the perfect smart British drawl and I was completely enraptured by this woman, who was so charming I want to see everything she does from now on) and Miss Blagg (Gina Daniels - underused!) giggle and gossip on the microscopic stage they were given. The stage: again, tiny, but so thoughtfully designed to look like a dress shop of the time with , with a Beauty and the Beast sliding ladder and furnitured just so to allow the characters to stumble as directed in the story around the small space. Beautiful costumes. The hats! A Ralph Fiennes ass “villain” (played by a guy named Gene Gillette - that can’t be his real name; it’s too Gielgud, too Olivier to be real) who actually is being kind of reasonable as you can expect a slave to capitalism to be! He’s not in some George Wickham twist a complete nonce, he’s just snively and too dedicated to work. He’s a useful character to ponder, and I think his characterization is the most feminist note of the play: he’s just not worth Kate sacrificing her independence. I was disappointed the show had ended and kept thinking how I would have invested in a filmed version. Just lovely.
And then Emergence…listen, I rarely come here or anywhere to shit on someone’s artistic dream. I am not a hater. I am a Barb in streams only. It is not rife within me. But I just last night sat through a man who looks like Tim, my boss who laid me off in September but who is actually I think a…science textbook publisher named Patrick Olson who came out in an (admittedly gorgeous) sunset ombre suit to ask us questions like "Is this tulip really yellow?” and “When are we?” (I fell asleep for that one; do not ask me; I do not know) and little nuggets of scientific wisdom like “starlight becomes love.”
I really think it’s a miracle and an undeniable achievement that anyone creates a completed work, a song, play, let alone something like this that combines both, received a theatrical home and funding and backing singers and musicians reliable to show up. I never want to take that from anyone, even when John Mayer makes his “old man disappointed with his sandwich” face1 (justice for
and I’s favorite show, Ben & Kate!!!). But this was 90 minutes of Bill Nye putting on a photosynthesis-themed American Utopia2 if it didn’t slap. A lot of people do little light-and-music shows with AutoTuned backing tracks and a rhythm guitarist in a beanie and one of those handkerchieffy long cardigans but when this man DID THE DAVID BYRNE OCTOPUS ARMS3 I wanted to throw my program at the stage in fury.Patrick was outside in the Pershing lobby giving out some of his not-really-yellow tulips after the show and I was very gagged that one of Demi Lovato’s backing singers was in this project and the one dancer whose drunk, loud friends were sitting next to us all night had the most beautiful legs that did not stop me from eating a white pizza when I got home but did make me feel really guilty about it. Patrick Olson himself: deep and rich speaking voice. Very enjoyable. The man should perform audiobooks in addition to singing. He’s a good singer! The band sounded great. The choreo was risky at times and evocative allthrough. I didn’t mind that they didn’t have shoes on.I usually enter a theater space with a sincere desire for everyone to have the best performance of their career working off of a great concept that enriches and challenges them but I really just felt like I was watching a middle school assembly.
Sigh. And now, onto the recs!
To read:
I read George Eliot’s essay “Silly Novels by Lady Novelists” on one of my usual click-benders and I have never been so hesitantly impressed with the writing of an essay with which I entirely disagreed.
“But in novel-writing there are no barriers for incapacity to stumble against, no external criteria to prevent a writer from mistaking foolish facility for mastery.” Girl. Are you crazy?
George Eliot is, for this vagina dentata job and to quote the Real Housewives, “not a girl’s girl.” I may be lacking some critical context here, but in the 1850’s it should have (right?) been a marvel that women were being published en masse, under their real and feminine names (unlike our friend George here) telling womens’ stories and being purchased and celebrated. Only today do women “dominate” the publishing industry, with women authors selling more books than men and receiving more accolades and name recognition. And of course, of course, this is in an era when print is on the decline and the reigning breed of content is television…mostly produced by men. For George Eliot to come out here and goosestep all over women writing and being paid to do so when they couldn’t even vote or show (armpit) hole in the streets…incorrigible.
The essay itself is masterfully written: I just wish she had dropped this pick-me, choose-me, love-me-and-my-book-Middlemarch rankness and sicced these razing words at men. Georgie here could have listened to Reese:
The above short, twisted story from
on, in my opinion, what men go through when they loose their leash on a woman.A not-long-ago-written article on Disney’s expiring copyright control over Mick Mouse (who in America, honey, is Earth-bound) and this is as ever an excuse for me to tell you all how you need to drop your Zooeyphobia (I did and you can, too!) and embrace New Girl as the masterpiece sitcom of our epoch:
Given what I now know thanks to a reckless Urban Dictionary search4, I shudder to think what the public will do when Steamboat Willie becomes public domain in 2024.
My favorite takeaway from Adasi’s post:
I don’t know if you know this (but you should because I call my cats “the chickens”) but I love chickens. I even own a book called Extraordinary Chickens that reminds me of many, many Barnes & Noble expeditions with reader-and-bestie Nick Messina:
This piece by Tove Danovich for The Dirt on the beauty chickens brought to her backyard touched me deeply. I love these small, fleefy dinosaurs. Especially silkies5!!
To listen:
My pal Elaine Rasnake behind this one:
I heard this on the radio driving in to see Dracula and it was enough to tear my eyes away from the Comic-Con cosplayers strolling 10th Avenue. How have I never heard this before?
To watch:
This email is already so long so if you want my take on House of Usher, comment below. Carla Gugino and Kate Siegel didn’t kiss, which is sad. Bruce Greenwood’s lemon speech…give Mike Flanny his Emmys. I have more to say but you all already tell me I write too much so bye!!!!
This is literally just Simone!!!
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This is literally just Lugosi!!!
Actually my babies:
Actually me:
I don’t know who this is but I love them:
Various and sundry:
Please consider donating to support in medical care for, to quote Robert Klein, “comedy royalty” Kitty Bruce, the daughter of Lenny Bruce. I was alerted to this fundraiser by friend Dan Pasternack, who I’d wager is comedy royalty himself and is always there with a way to keep comedy alive, a kind eulogy, an esteem for rising artists and artists who deserve to still have eyes and ears on them. A nice man. You can donate here to support Kitty’s care costs.
And as it MUST be said…when Luke Kirby showed up in that goddamn mustache…moist. And then when Triumph the Insult Comic Dog showed up…moist (face, I cried).
This is never not floating around the colliding sedans of my mind:
Love you bitches,
TG
Is this the time to mention that I’ve made out with one of the American Utopia castmembers or?
1. Best cats. Always much love for cats.
2. I haven't gotten to watch The Fall of the House of Usher yet, what with a complete horrorphobe in the house, but I will make some time asap. I'm all about unexpected adaptations of Poe.
2a. Eg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_Mystery_and_Imagination_(Alan_Parsons_Project_album)
Hilarious and incisive as always!