Le Vent

Wowza--this video of two Staatsballett Berlin ballet dancers shot at 1000 frames per second, to Radiohead's Everything in Its Right Place. Gorg.

{via Cup of Jo}

Constellations

“Why should the universe have a purpose…there is a considerable grandeur, I think, in the presence of our spectacularly majestic universe just hanging there, wholly without purpose.”

Phenomenal New Yorker review for this show, now playing at the Royal Court in London. My girl Sally Hawkins plays the lead and the set consists of white balloons. Let's go! Jolly-ho.

Born Yesterday

Born Yesterday is a cheeky little revival playing at one of those little Broadway theaters you never think to go to. I was slightly nervous going in-- secretly judging this 1940s self-proclaimed romantic comedy for its impending jazz hands, overblown stereotypes, and corny punch lines. I've been disappointed by these kooky golden age revivals more times than necessary, undoubtedly annoyed that someone out there didn't try a little harder, and that Broadway is full of blockheads, and that all the good ideas have quite frankly run out.

However. After fidgeting for the first fifteen minutes or so of introductions, and then completing a mental packing list for my little business trip the next morning during all of Jim Belushi's opening business driven dialogue, one Miss Nina Ariana snapped the entire play into focus. Oh! This play is about Billy! Ignore gravely old Brock (Belushi), he isn't the point anyway.

Born Yesterday, turns out, is a slightly deconstructed version of Pygmalion that chooses to maintain our leading lady's own version of self while simultaneously handing us the gratification of a makeover. She's smarter but not uglier. She'll question but not demand. It's also a lovely little observation on the gender war as was so brilliantly outed by Hepburn and Tracy a decade earlier in rom-coms Adam's Rib, Woman of the Year, and Pat and Mike.

It's so well observed, in fact, that the conversation I forced upon my theater companion during intermission was quite astonishingly mirrored onstage as the lights dimmed and the curtain rose again. Life imitating art!, or the other way around. (Although whether the repeated conversation is testament to the script's timeless quality or rather a commentary on the repetition of human interaction is up for further debate.)

Nina Ariana stole this one, folks. Belushi and his intellectual counterpart, played by Robert Sean Leonard, were perfectly fine but utterly forgettable in the spotlight of Broadway's next Tony award winning actress (you heard it here first). It's a fun play with a surprisingly thoughtful conclusion that if nothing else, allowed this jaded theater goer a full fledged sigh of relief.

Daniel Kitson: The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church

"Exploring That Old Knee-Slapper, Suicide."

The Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival charges on, and with it, a brilliant performance of what Ben Brantley deftly called 'theatrical urgency'-- Daniel Kitson's The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church.

Aside from the bits of sparkling review found on the theater's website, I had no real prior knowledge of Kitson or his show before freezing my way to St. Ann's on Wednesday night. The site also holds and a brief yet poignant description that summed up the show as 'a story of death postponed by life.' It's a one man show about the discovery of over 15,000 suicide notes written by Gregory Church (and another 15,000 or so responses) in a loft in West Yorkshire.

Under The Radar: Keepin' it random.

Daniel Kitson enters the arena setup of St. Ann's with a glass of water, a reporter's notebook, and what we can only assume are the same clothes he put on upon waking that morning. He sports a full beard, shaggy hair, thick rimmed frames, and a slightly awkward yet confident gait-- he's someone who touches his face a lot, who shoves up his glasses at the arch, and fidgets with his keys at the dinner table. Those initial moments of 'Hello, I'm Daniel, thank you all for coming, I hope you like it," made us all relax into the evening knowing that, yes, we know this guy, and yes, we're interested in what he has to say. He's someone with whom we'd get along.

He begins the show hurriedly with the back story of what becomes an obsessive and ultimately voyeuristic two year journey as the self appointed curator the life of Gregory Church. We expect Kitson to at some point relax as well, to catch up with himself and his telling, but he instead charges rampantly on, as if his mind works faster than the average human, and his speech-- graced with a stunning vocabulary and illustrative structure-- can't quite keep up. The result is 90 minutes of uninterrupted explosive storytelling that I wish I could rewind and watch again. It happens fast-- yours truly let her mind wander twice and missed two extremely important points that I had to piece together later with research and conversation. It's that smart, it's that good.

The life of Gregory Church-- that we know only through the letters as told by Kitson-- touches on the ol' George Bailey model: 'Remember George, No man is a failure who has friends'. We meet Church as a retired, unhappy, miserable old man who plans to kill himself by noose the next morning, after writing a few (56, initially) suicide notes. We leave knowing that those 56 notes expanded to 30,000 and that Church lived on to experience a life parenthesized by his impending death. It's poignant, touching, and humbling to unravel a tale of two men-- one obsessively writing, the other obsessively reading-- whose lives become entwined by relationships alone.

Yet therein exists a third layer to this web of understanding. The catch here (catch is probably the wrong word, but bear with me) is that Kitson mentioned in his opening remarks that the entire play to follow is fiction-- that he made it all up. Although unlike any other work of fiction or novel, or various other styles of created prose, this performance in particular feels outrageously true. I've been trying to nail down why it's more difficult to believe it to be fiction that not (usually its the other way around). I suppose it is simply a testament to Kitson's performance.

The show ended as abruptly as it began, with a quick 'well, that's what I wanted to tell you, that's the story, I hope you enjoyed it.' (Further convincing us of its truth! He didn't even think of a poetic ending!) Although the swift exit left my head spinning for the entire walk home, unsure of what just happened, wishing I could ask more questions, wanting to see those letters myself-- just as Kitson intended.

The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church is playing through Jan 30th at St. Ann's Warehouse in DUMBO.

photo: NYT

Gob Squad's Kitchen (You've Never Had It So Good)

Gob Squad's Kitchen is showing as part of the Public Theater's Under The Radar Festival right now in the Village. I attended the performance Saturday night knowing very little about the festival or the troupe, but left fully convinced of Under The Radar's spirit and intention.

The ultimate goal of UTR is to 'offer a crash course in theater that is exciting, independent, and experimental.' The Gob Squad, one of 20 or so invited artist groups, is a traveling troupe of British and German artists working collectively with video, installation, and theater to explore the 'complexities and absurdities' of various pop culture phenomenons-- in this case, Andy Warhol's film 'Kitchen'.

The play has been called a 'live film', as the audience views the play on a screen placed in front of the actual set. We entered the space through the infamous 'factory', before taking our seats facing a screen that-- after a round of technical difficulties that I swore were part of the act (they weren't)-- projected the action in a grainy yet illuminate black and white picture. Smart indeed.

The tone isn't unlike Jemaine and Bret's Flight of the Concords-- a performance that doesn't take itself at all seriously about people who take themselves extremely seriously. The result is an endearing yet extremely silly observation of real people, acting themselves, in an otherwise banal setting. That silliness is the saving grace of the depiction of Warhol's world of foggy, confused pretension. No one REALLY wants to watch those old films without some sort of mind altering aid, come on. But we do want to know about it. So what the Gob Squad handed us instead was a recreation. And it worked.

Edie Sedgwick was there, among others, in black tights, a pixie cut, and aloof giggles. Yet instead of playing Edie by the book, the Gob Squad shifted her into 'Sharon', who gives us a solid footing that Sedgwick would never yield to. I laughed aloud for much of the 90 minutes, delighted by the little inside jokes about Warhol and the 60s and the feminist movement and basic human tendency. There was an element of audience participation, and a three minute kiss, and many references to 'others watching it in 100 years', which seems to be as far into the future as people dared to consider mid-century. Those tiny observations, spewed from the mouths of very sweet British and German actors, gave structure and meaning to an otherwise random piece of theater.

Gob Squad's Kitchen is silly, lasting, and smart. I can only imagine what the other 19 Under the Radar are handing out for free (well, like $15, which is amazing). The festival lasts through the 16th, and tickets can be found here. GO.

GATZ

Oskar Eustis, the Public Theater's Artistic Director, said it best-- that upon his first time seeing GATZ, he was transported. He "walked out into Soho that cold winter night convinced that The Great Gastby was the greatest American novel ever written." It took him a few days to come back to earth, he said, and to remember that Moby-Dick was actually the greatest American novel, and to start the process of bring it to The Public.

I would probably argue the Moby Dick promotion, but its only been three days since my viewing, and its possible my views will shift. I love this novel. Loved it the first time I read it, and drank in every single word on Friday night in what can best be described as a prayer. My mind started wandering exactly two times during the performance, both of which I mentally bookmarked, and reread later that evening from my own worn copy in my bed in Brooklyn, clinging to the haze.

I knew all about this play before seeing it-- read the stellar reviews, contributed to the buzz, and gawked with the masses regarding its odd format. It's a 8.5 hour play-- starts at 3pm, ends at 11:30-- that uses for its script the entire text of The Great Gatsby (that wonderful blue and white paperback copy we all read in High School), each and every word and no additions. The formula doesn't make sense, any of it, which is clearly part of its appeal. I was told I that I couldn't get a ticket, that the production has been sold out for months, but reader, please. I found myself there at the Public Theater on Friday afternoon, Playbill in hand, front row center, eagerly awaiting what would surely be an eight hour thrill.

The show opens in a drab office in a nondescript industry, somewhere in America. A khaki-wearing redheaded someone enters the space, hangs his coat, and reaches to turn on his outdated clunky computer. The computer won't start, he tries again, murmurs to a coworker or two who have entered looking bored-as-all-get-out, and suddenly, VOILA!, our leading lady of a book pops from a Rolodex as we all audibly adjusted forward in our seats to discover how the hell this was going to play out.

Our redhead flips to the first page, and slowly begins reading the novel aloud-- seemingly for the first time-- and clunkily starts the ride. I knew it would work, that we would soon be successfully transported to East Egg from Office Building Somewhere, but those first twenty minutes were key to drawing in an audience in dulled mass confusion only to charm our socks off four short hours later.

Scott Shepherd, the redhead, of Elevator Repair Service took on the role of Nick Carraway--that daunting task of narrating the show and speaking all but the scattered dialogue aloud-- although I'm pretty sure he was actually playing Jimmy Stewart playing Nick Carraway, which was a fantastic decision on his part. His voice dipped and clung, a melody of normalcy that we recognize from an era gone by.

Literary snobs love to cry disappointment to adaptations of classic novels, arguing that they shouldn't be touched, and cannot be approved upon. But this is different-- its as if Collins always wanted to remake Gatsby, but understood the task as a setup for gigantic failure, as all abridged versions are. Then he decided to not take anything out, read it in its entirety, and completely dismiss the idea of costuming and set design all together. We already know what it looks like, you see. We don't need him to tell us, the book does that just fine. (THIS was just announced, by the way, and its two leading men actually sat behind me at Friday's production, ha!)

It is with this attempt that we can't argue the execution because we all saw the story as we saw it the first time we read Gastby, and I will bet that most of us geeks sitting there for all 8.5 hours read it every year. I could tell you here, exactly what happened on that stage, but even I am unbelieving of it now. The famous twinkling party scene at Gatsby's manner was played out as the cast cleaned up papers and spilled whiskey and note cards strewn across the floor from the 'Myrtle Apartment' scene right before. Jordan Baker served as our comedic relief, and the swimming pool was played by a leather couch. Gastby wore a magenta suit, and Daisy was brunette. None of it adds up, which is the point of it all, you see.

I left the theater upon its intricate and compelling conclusion understanding the real feat of whole thing: GATZ is a true testament to the human mind and the scope of an often neglected grown-up imagination. It's also a testament to good theater and to good writing and--let us not forget-- the book itself, but it is the human mind that takes us from a theater, to an office, to Southampton Proper without explanation. I've written about this before-- my annoyance at too-literally-executed set designs on Broadway and Off-- and GATZ all but laughs at big budget attempts to create a castle, when their audience is fully capable of building one themselves.

Why the office? It was someplace to start-- a challenge, I presume, of John Collins to his actors. It was also about READING BOOKS, and turning off our computers and ipads and droids, sitting down with a book, which come to think of it, is the same message we received from the other show I saw last week. Interesting. At any rate, the show closes with Nick seated at his desk, after a slow stripping of office supplies and papers and the computer itself, sometime in the past 4 acts. I thought perhaps they would nod back to the office setting at the end, fixing the computer and returning to daily life, but they didn't and I'm glad. It was the quiet ending Fitzgerald offered, so we left still in Gatsby's world, and not our own.

GATZ is closing on the 28th, so SEE IT. This show is magic, I mean it, and despite what you will hear, there are tickets to be found.

Mike Birbiglia at Union Hall

Annie beat me to Union Hall last night, an hour before the doors opened, greeting me with a smirk. "There are lots of girls here," she said before eyeing the room over the rim of her glasses.

It was true. The room was packed with eager looking Brooklyn females in the Brooklyn Girl Uniform of scarves and sandals and unfounded optimism. (Well, eager looking females and BILL HADER, who we ended up sitting next to and who I not-so-secretly glanced at all evening to see if he found Mike Birbiglia is as funny as I think do, and, guess what, he does.) Anyway. Birbiglia's act is kind of comedy-light. Nothing raunchy, nothing degrading, nothing base or offensive. It's comedy for girls. Well, and, we think he's cute.

The thing is... Mike Birbiglia is funny. But his stories often tend toward sad. He took the entire hour to tell the back story of how he met his wife, and asked her to marry him, very little of it actually 'funny'. The self deprecation is funny, the tone is funny, the telling hilarious-- but the story slightly cutting. She was dating someone else for most of their courtship; he didn't believe in marriage at all; neither did she. Typical New Yorkers, yessiry. But they did get married, and he gave us the happy ending we were waiting for-- we're girls, afterall.

I've seen other comedy at Union Hall, none of it even close to keeping my attention or gaining my respect. It's his humanizing nature that draws us in. We need to hear his stories in order to understand our own lives, and why not laugh while getting there. He's a storyteller above all else, but I've already given this argument, a few times, and I think we can come to a mutual agreement that this is true. If you still haven't heard him, part of this performance can be found on last week's episode of This American Life, and I know I'm a broken record by even mentioning NPR right now, my apologies.

I left the show a little bit sad, to be honest. Not because it wasn't brilliant and funny and wonderful and fresh. I guess I was more aware of his pain this time-- the stories behind the telling. Like Sloane Crosley, Birbiglia isn't unique, and he therefore hits close to home. But there is grace in the end, thank goodness. The grace lays in that doesn't have it all figured out either--- he just has a better time getting there :)

Galapagos Art Space and Tami Stronach Dance Troupe

"Sarah, I thought we were going to see Modern dance. What the hell is this."

Last night marked another epic Sarah and Alison night-o-fun. We originally planned on attending a book reading by dear friend Molly at Chelsea Market, but being as we have done that before, we instead took up Laura on her offer of two tickets to the Galapagos Art Space in DUMBO to see the Tami Stronach Dance troupe.

The Galapagos Art Space is something to see. If you haven't been, go, and if you have been, we should talk. I was a bit distracted by the whole thing, as I've heard rumors of its massive planning errors. The space was clearly planned by artists for artists, which doesn't always work out that well, despite its obvious coolness factor. It's a large space with extremely limited seating, and instead of standing room, moats. Like, water moats, I kid you not.

Thus, this super-cool-space-without-very-much-seating business plan turns into inflated ticket prices which turns away super-cool-Brooklynites-who-would-attend-random-Modern-dance-performances-on-a-Tuesday, which in turn jacks up drink prices to make up for the lacking attendance. Which makes the attendance lack even more. BLAH, it frustrates me. (What did not frustrate me was the $6 Syrah and $12 antipasti plate that Al and I shared at Superfine beforehand. Now, that's a bargain! Going back for live Bluegrass at brunch soon.) ANYWAY...

The dance troupe was also something to see. And by something to see, I mean, just your everyday leopard thong wearing, rose petal blendering, diaper toting dance event. This was not Martha Graham, my dears. In fact, lets just cut out that word Modern all together and swap in Contemporary and enjoy the show. I was somewhat prepared for the oddities, and I kind of delight the craziness of these little performance pieces, but that didn't stop me from joining in Alison's giggles and uncomfortable squeals as a topless woman began pulling dental floss out of her hoo-ha and using it as a jump rope. Good times.

The performance consisted of several short dance numbers, linked in theme and concept. As stated in the program, they separately 'considered the private body, the public body, the disgusting body and the sensuous body.' More than anything, though, the dancers seemed to be having an absolute riot up there, and I am pleased to say that the same can be said for two of its giggling audience members.

Yes, despite the uncomfortable squeals and $12 vanilla infused vodka concoctions, Al and I had a fantastic Tuesday night. It was graced by a perfect April evening, the stunning Manhattan skyline via DUMBO, and absolute howls of laughter. Not bad at all.


***Note: When googling a picture of this dance troupe, the majority of photos that came up in my search were of the Childlike Empress from The Neverending Story. Turns out-- TAMI STRONACH WAS THE CHILDLIKE EMPRESS IN THE NEVERENDING STORY! Man, that movie freaked me out as a kid. Tami was the one saving grace that distracted me from Falcor, that horrifying flying dog thing. Shivers.

Red

Alfred Molina, best known in Lovelydayland as the Mayor from Chocolat, is currently playing the brilliant Mark Rothko in Red on Broadway. It is the story of an artist and his assistant and the mind behind the paint we love.

As far as theater goes, it was a bit superfluous. And as far as art goes, it was a lot superfluous. (I stole that word directly from the mouth of Alfred Molina, now didn't I?) But superfluous or not, I enjoyed this play immensely. I enjoyed it because it was ninety minutes of art talk and because the girl next to me couldn't stop smiling. Ya know, there could be an entire short film of Annie watching Red. It would star Pepé Le Pew, and the play would be made of flowers. ANYWAY...

Yes, it was all a bit superfluous. It's difficult to explain how to talk about paintings to people who don't understand how to talk about paintings. And the point of Red was, basically, 'how to talk about paintings' but it never quite got there. Conversations and soliloquies bounced around the topic, but basically hit all the cliches we learn in art school-- colors shifting, lines vibrating, paint glowing-- plus a few hidden cracks at the art world that made certain audience members laugh LOUDLY to let everyone else know that WE GET IT! BECAUSE WE ARE IMPORTANT PEOPLE IN THE ART WORLD! Oh, art world. You're so full of yourself.***

But what this play did hit was the sentiment of an aging artist. This part gave me pause. It made us bow to an artist past his prime who was watching the world grow around him. A sharp irony was held in the references Rothko made to artists who he considered to be past their prime-- Picasso, Matisse, the entire fleet of plein air painters, as well as references made to artists who he didn't think would have lasting quality-- Warhol, Lichtenstein, and pop as a whole. Rothko referred to Picasso as a 'mantle painter,' superfluous in his old age (there it is) knowing full well that his own current commission for the Four Seasons was a fancy way of selling out as well.

I just read an article in The New Yorker about artist Julie Mehretu that spoke of this very concept, and to be honest, made me somewhat angry. Mehretu is the artist recently commissioned to paint that huge mural in the new Goldman Sachs building. When asked to do the commission, she allegedly took six months to decide whether or not she wanted to do it. "What would be the reason to make a painting for a financial institution, you know? Why would that be interesting?" she relayed to the author, as if she was trying to consider artistic reasons for painting something that big other than the massive paycheck behind it. YAWN. I just didn't feel like she meant it. I didn't feel like she actually cared about her work's 'purity' but instead felt pressured to address it because that's the sort of thing 'a real artist' would suffer over.

Of course Mehretu took the commission. The mural is hanging in the Goldman Sachs lobby, and you can go downtown and see it for yourself. (Actually, I really want to do this. Anyone up for a field trip to GS? The mural looks gorgeous, and I adore Mehretu's work, despite me calling her a fake a few moments ago. She is an important painter!)

But Rothko-- the great Mark Rothko-- gave his commission back. He didn't hang his paintings in the Four Seasons. In the end, he chose 'purity' over money (I have to put that word in quotes-- my cynical mind just can't type it without an eye roll) and placed that late, morbid, red series in a chapel in Texas, I kid you not. And this, we came to find out, was the point of the play. In the end, it was an exercise in semantics, a philosophical discussion on what makes art real, on what makes art good.

I'd be interested to hear opinions of this play from those of you who don't spend all day every day talking about art. Did the conversations make sense to you? Did it crack open the mind of an abstract painter? Did it help you understand those big red blocks of color? Go see it, then call me, and then lets sit downtown in front of Julie Mehretu's mural and talk about art.


***yes, I was one of them last night. Am one of them, maybe. I saw this show with clients (and Annie!) for work and was very aware of the super important art dealer sitting next to me. In addition to watching the show, I was constantly trying to determine what one of the greatest minds in art today thought about one of the greatest artists of all time. HE liked it, if that tells you anything.

God of Carnage

There is a very specific chatter that takes place in the opening dialogue of God of Carnage that sets the audience on an unnerving tilt between fear and laughter. It pointedly mocks every overheard conversation ever to have taken place between the Brooklyn-professionals-originally-hailing-from-somewhere-in-New-England-stroller set.

If you have ever been to a gentrified Brooklyn playground, you know to what I'm referring... the small talk, the found energy, the obligatory exchange of pleasantries over a stunning yet thrown together backdrop. Your tulips are lovely; I ADORE Frances Bacon; do you have any other children?; it's the Korean deli on the corner, you know the one? It's so funny when regurgitated on stage. I could have watched entire play of that, to be honest--simple observations subtlety replayed.

However, the tone shifted quickly-- almost too quickly-- from compliments and thank yous to hysteria and name calling, just as we knew it would. (The first Lucy Liu cell phone outrage at her husband came too soon. She leaked that anger before it was necessary, I wish they had kept the audience at 'polite tension' a bit longer. Moving on.) God of Carnage is the story of two couples coming together over a playground brawl between their eleven year old sons. Both sides thought it civil to meet and discuss what happened (two teeth knocked out and an apparent name-calling boys gang), and decide how to proceed moving forward.

The entire 90 min play is acted in one long scene without an intermission. The stage is washed in a stark red lacquer (can you use the word 'stark' to describe 'red'?) with a minimal set that forms a Cobble Hill apartment. A modern design sofa with a generous offering of African print throw pillows sits center; book-ending side tables with large vases of white tulips; a massive coffee table housing stacks of art books; and a telephone.

It isn't a set as much as it is a collection of props, and time can actually be measured by the number of items left untouched. The books went first in a spray of vomit (I kid you not, it was awesome), then the side table hiding a bottle of rum, the plates, the cups, the cell phone... Those perfect white tulips were the last to go-- spraying hysterically and wonderously in a fountain of green and and white and water by Ms. Liu upon her final cracking.

The characters took their turns dropping as well. They each hosted a monologue of sorts that revealed an inner madness, each more poignant than the next. Liu, as Annette, had the best monologue, I'm just going to put that out there. Maybe not the best acting, but she had the most to work with and the stage direction and pace were impeccable. She circled the room while her three comrades lay like fallen soldiers, addressing them in turn (Well, Veronica was standing, but slumped facing the wall). Annette started seated against a side table and ended in the same spot and same pose-- a classic theatrical two-step but it worked.

The story itself circled around a constant trading of alliances. This, my friends, is why 90 min of constant conflict was bearable. Yes, the comedy helped most of all, but the switching of sides made what was essentially an ever growing fight interesting. The couples riffed against each other, then the women took sides, then someone poured someone else a drink, and shuffle-ball-change, we got a break and some breathing room and could move onto another layer of id and ego and primal understanding.

Remember those African print pillows? The Frances Bacon book? It's all intentional. Each word, each prop, each movement points toward a central theme that gets to the gut of humanity. It's all there for a reason-- so perfect it makes my teeth hurt.

I loved this play. Loved it. I didn't know what I was getting into upon arrival (I was picturing something more Tony Soprano. James Gandolfini + the word 'carnage' just doesn't read Cobble Hill proper to me.) and I don't remember the last time I was that engaged with a story on Broadway.

...And later that evening, a bit further downtown, two more Brooklyn professionals acted our their own little comedic tragedy. What started out as a standard evening of theater-and-conversation morphed into something else entirely. That happy little game of verbal ping-pong, dueling wit, and intermittent jukebox snapping suddenly collapsed into a pile of dirty laundry, prime for the taking. You see, that's the thing about New York and its people-- in the end we all want to rip tulips from water. And whether or not we chose to admit it, we like the game and will take carnage over ping-pong any day.

*Note: The cast I saw was Jeff Daniels (in the Gandolfini role,) Dylan Baker, Lucy Liu, and Janet McTeer, but there weren't any photos of this cast online. I have been told that the original cast was better, as usually happens, but I didn't see that cast and I thought that this one worked well.

A View from the Bridge

I first fell in love with Arthur Miller for all the wrong reasons, I will admit that. It probably had more to do with the movie Hocus Pocus than it did with The Crucible (although that 1996 adaptation with Winona Rider certainly sealed the deal), but my interest still culminated in a trip east to visit Salem, Massachusetts with my ever patient mother and ever adventurous sisters the summer I was sixteen.

We did the ghost walk, we toured the House of Seven Gables, and we saw the (claimed) pile of rocks under while Giles Corey famously muttered 'More weight!' as he was being crushed to death. It was awesome. (See, I have a dark side too. It's not all flowers and sunshine over here in Sarahland.)

When I discovered that Miller was also romantically linked to none other than Marilyn Monroe, my swooning reached new heights. I read Death of a Salesman shortly thereafter, and a few of his short stories, but, alas, my love quickly switched to boredom upon realizing that all of his stories weren't about witch hunts. My sixteen year old interest then shifted, I believe, the more racy Miller-- Henry Miller-- and his dear Anais Nin, blushing all the while.

Now that you know a sliver of my own literary history (if you are still reading this post, bless you), I suppose I will get to my point: A View from the Bridge. A View from the Bridge is what I would like to talk about today. This Arthur Miller play hit Broadway with a bang due to its young starlet, Scarlett. I'm also curious if Katie Holmes had anything to do with it-- would anyone have seen All My Sons without Mrs. Cruise along for the ride? And would Broadway have lit another Miller aglow without the financial success of All My Sons? I digress. Scarlett Johansson, Liev Schreiber, and Jessica Hecht (WHO PLAYED SUSAN ON FRIENDS! ONE OF MY FAVORITE SMALL ROLES EVER!) took on this doosey of a play with vigor.

I attended the show early last week with Allison (before the art madness began), in lieu of her actual date, JP. (Thank you, JP, for the ticket!) We sat in the first row mezzanine, my very favorite spot to see theater, and ate up this uncomfortable tale of family, passion, and regret.

Liev Schreiber rocked this role. So well, in fact, that I cannot remember him as anyone without a strong Brooklyn accent and a nervous, snapping anger. His gruff demeanor was a nice contrast to the script itself, which felt slightly Greek in its approach. It opened with a classically thought monologue by a secondary character and a held brief, yet steady chorus to bookend the tale.

I can't say that it was the best play I've ever seen, not even the best I've seen so far this year. I will argue the set design, the movement, and even ScarJo's acting. It was too obvious; too little; too much. But what this play succeeded in, it succeeded well. The story made us physically uncomfortable, to the point of squirming and covering our eyes. The tension was incredibly felt, and we left with a rock lodged somewhere between our stomach and our heart. I haven't felt that since a small production of Macbeth that I saw in North London at the Almeida Theater with Simon Russell Beale-- I left that show angry and upset, hating the play so much that I knew it had indeed worked its intended magic.

This production also brought forth multiple conversations between my girls and I about women and women's historical role in the home. I think it was supposed to have encouraged more talk about immigration, incest, jealousy, and morality, but whatever. We talked about women. We talked about how few options we, as a sex, had in early America and how very dependent we were on husbands just one hundred years ago. We wept for Beatrice, Hecht's character, who must have feared her husband beyond belief. Yet, we didn't blame her for sticking with him, how could we?

This show closes soon, this week maybe. See it. But go for the right reasons-- not because you have a strange schoolgirl fascination for witches, or because you wanted to see ScarJo's curves in person, like I did. Go for the brilliant and classic tragedy that Miller intended. You will not be disappointed.

Twelfth Night

It's almost embarrassing to write this post. It seems a bit too New Yorky and romantic even for me. Its about free outdoor theater in Central Park under the stars on a lovely evening in the summertime. I'm just a a big fat cliche of myself. I know.

At any rate-- Alex and I all but stumbled across the Public Theater's production of Twelfth Night on Sunday of last week. We planned to spend Sunday in the park, no particular 'plans' other than being outside, so sitting in a line for four hours didn't sound so bad. And it wasn't. Quite pleasant, actually. (Six degrees of Kevin Bacon was played more than once and we both kind of rock at it.)

If you know anything about Shakespeare in the Park you know that getting tickets is a bit of a nightmare. Although free, the tickets are very valuable in that there aren't enough to go around, not even close. We were told to wait in the 'cancellation line' which was about four steps removed from actually receiving the tickets. But we did get tickets (God knows how) and we were two of the three hundred or so lucky New Yorkers to see Anne Hathaway perform Twelfth Night under stars in Central Park that night.

The play itself wasn't much the point at all, to be honest. It was Shakespeare proper, unabridged and unaltered. We laughed at the jokes not because they were necessarily all that funny, but because that's what you do when you watch Shakespeare. You play too. We were all there for the spectacle. We were there for Anne Hathaway and for Audra McDonald and for the romance of it all.

The set was well thought and the costumes intentional. The actors were having fun and the bluegrass band edged sixteenth century England into twenty first century New York. The moon was almost full and temperature bobbing around 75 degrees. All in all--I'm going to apologize in advance for saying this-- it might have been the perfect New York night.

Next to Normal

Next to Normal is a musical about a woman with bi-polar disorder. Yeah, I know. What?

I saw this stunning production on Broadway last Monday (my sincere apologies for my tardiness in blog posts, its been sunny in New York and blogging just can't be done in the sunlight.) with Carey and just fell into it. It is the best musical I've seen since Spring Awakening.

In fact, I wish that shows like Hedda Gabler, Becky Shaw, White Christmas, Speed the Plow, and West Side Story would come take a few notes from Next to Normal in terms of set design and artistic presentation. Next to Normal had the best set I've seen since Equus and the best artistic concept since, I don't know, London a few years ago.

Everything else on Broadway right now needs to come observe the BRILLIANCE of a set dreamt from an 'idea of a house' and not just 'a pretend house.' There is a difference, Becky Shaw. They all need to take a written exam on conceptual theater and the effects of 'thoughtful design' verses 'sets that look like houses.' We know its a house. Give us something else to look at.

The show itself was phenomenal and the story could not have been more resonant. I cried the entire time (really, I did. Ask Carey.) and am not even going to touch on the importance of this story. It is in essence about a family and about marriage and about mental illness. It was funny, it was sad, and it was just incredibly well done. The facial expressions coming from the mother were dead-on heartbreaking. Just so very realistic and biting in terms of mania.

Next to Normal gave me real hope for the future of theater and Broadway. I am sick of the cookie cutter musical song and dance, and Next to Normal proved that music and musical theater still have a very real place in storytelling. This show would have been nothing without the musical element and for that I am extremely grateful.

Go see it. Katie and Maria did so the next night and they will say the same thing. It's heartbreaking in the way we need our hearts to be broken.


Note: You are probably wondering how I afford all of these fabulous activities on my modest little art salary. Well, my friends, that's what friends are for. I have a friend who writes for a theater website who gets free press passes and then generously takes me as her plus one. I also have friends who get free dvds before they are released in theater. I also have friends who get free screening passes for new independent films. I also have free trade dinners in Chelsea from my work. So, you see, I paid $0 for Next to Normal. Just so you know.

West Side Story

So I was leaving work on Friday, chatting with my coworker Vivien about our weekend plans. She asked if I had seen any good shows lately, and I told her about Becky Shaw and that my friend Alison loved Guys and Dolls starring our gal Lauren Graham. Vivien mentioned that she really wanted to see West Side Story when it opened, that it was a childhood favorite. I enthusiastically agreed, and promised myself that I would see it sometime this year.

Upon exiting the elevator on my way to meet friends in West Village for dinner, I got a call from my theater friend Colleen who had three free tickets for that night's performance. Do you want them she asked? Yes please!

So Katie, Chris and I scampered up to Broadway, grabbed a coffee and our free tickets (I love free tickets more than anything) and settled into our red velvet sets for the next three hours. I love West Side Story.

The show opens with a long, stretching overture and dance number so rarely seen in shows today. The Sharks and Jets spring onto stage with snaps and pirouettes and shocking grande jettes. We are whisked into Sondheim's world as he intended... fighting via ballet kicks and choreographed punches... dancing with bright skirts and stomping heels.

We all know the story... its Romeo & Juliet with a trick ending. Tony and Maria fall in love without so much as a hello and then die a day later at the fault of their families and friends. Its a tragic tale of racism, boundary, and true love. The story serves as a warning to all of us about hatred and decency. Maria's final monologue hits us at our core as she forces the gun into the faces of Sharks and Jets alike. It's stinging... a difficult point to hit in musical theater. And it works.

This production specifically wowed me is ways I haven't felt in a while. I was most impressed with the small changes including a large amount of Spanish. I Feel Pretty was sung completely in Spanish, as was the entire dialogue in the Maria bedroom scene. The Sharks spoke to each other only in their native tongue, just as they would, and nothing was translated for the audience. This worked primarily because we all know the story, but also because we are more able to understand human interaction than we give ourselves credit for.

I once heard a story on NPR about a deaf girl who worked at a shoe store without any of her customers ever knowing that she was deaf. What could first be attributed a lip reading was revealed as a basic understanding of the human condition. Ladies and gentleman, she even answered the phone. She said she could understand maybe every 10th word which allowed her to connect the dots and string sentences together.

Humans are just so predictable, she laughed with the host. People rarely surprise us, and when they do its usually within a certain realm. No, I can't hear. But I have found a way to understand. The same goes with the Spanish in this rendition of West Side Story. Of course we know what Maria is saying when told that Bernardo was killed. Of course we do.

The singing was spectacular, the dancing right on pitch. We laughed and cried and felt. It took me back to a time in my life when entire afternoons were spent enveloped in musicals with my sisters and friends... under big quilts with popcorn and Sunkist lemonade.

Natalie and Holly first introduced the music and FANTASTIC movie (Natalie Wood, so great!) to my sisters and I. Remember that blue spandex skirt from the Mrs. Singer years? We had the record and would sing and dance to Sondheim's ripping 60's brass numbers and memorize each step and snap in our cold basement during those long summer days.

Holly was probably Maria, Nat would have been Anita, and Laura most likely donned the blazer and cowboy boots as dear Tony. I would have been one of the dancers with those awesome flamenco skirts (substituted by the Christmas Tree skirt, no doubt) twirling and shrieking in the background. Chels would have been Rif.

Am I right?

Becky Shaw

Becky Shaw is a play that understands the art of observation. The point isn't some theme or character or plot... it's about a generation. Our generation... eek. And Gina Gionfriddo gets it.

She has obviously observed the annoyance, the selfishness, the confidence, the lack of confidence, and the idea of tricking ourselves into knowing what we want... all resulting from a coddled generation raised on msnbc and post-Freudian textbooks. Yet because it was observed instead of felt it absolutely worked as entertainment. This play was hilarious.

Bubbles and I saw Becky Shaw together tonight on Broadway. We talked furiously between curtains about this very idea of a generation and what defines it. 'We're back to the sixties! noted Bubbles in exasperation, 'You kids are the talk, talk, talk of the sixties!' Her generation, mind you, was 'full of grunters. We didn't talk about anything.'

This generation... (what are we again? Millennials?) knows how to analyze and pick and prod until the point of exhaustion. We have been raised to believe that if there is a problem, you talk about it. You figure it out. And talk they did.

That said, it should be noted that in no way is Gionfriddo trying to capture an entire generation the way that Rent did for the 90s or Grease for the 50s. Shaw is more of a shapshot or a focus group. She took extremes and set them in a room and they in turn set the room on fire. And that's what makes it interesting... there's nothing epic about it.

The title character enters at the end of the first act as an unsure, delicate, needy (yet gorgeous) blind date. She is set against a cast of strong personalities who have zero tolerance for weakness and very little boundaries in terms of opinion. She took hit after hit from her date, Max, who she of course ultimately fell in love with despite his blaring disinterest and obvious mistreatment. It was so funny. She is the embodiment of tragedy and hopefulness... a combination that will always prove detrimental.

Susannah, the lead female, represents a false sense of identity so evident in a generation weened on 'favorites' and 'selective tagging.' It's like she decided one day that she wanted to be a certain person and married the first man who fit the mold. She tries desperately, every day, to fit that mold as well. She wants to like mountains and flannel and good deeds... but its only effort, not sincerity.

Max often refers to her husband as a alternative music junkie, yet we know from the opening scene that Susannah prefers rock music by the ocean. She is a judger, not a listener. Because of her complexity and harshness, Susannah is much less funny than Becky. Yet her counterpart, Max, keeps her likable by prodding her bad side.

The play continues in Shakespearean entanglement with language to match. Becky twists Max's words as if guided by Puck himself while Susan (Susannah's mother played by Kelly Bishop... aka... EMILY GILMORE!!!) bounces one liners in deadpan declaration a la Titania on her throne of thorns and certainty.

The second act gains momentum from Becky's naivete and we suddenly realize why this play is called Becky Shaw and not Susannah... for Becky, like Puck, messed with everyone's lives without permission. Yet, unlike Puck, Becky is oblivious to her irreversible ripples.

Max's character proved the most complex, stemming from a stubborn rejection of psychology and almost existential view on human limitation. He crushes ideologies and false truths in favor of realism. He is the typical jack-ass who kicks girls out of bed before morning then insists on paying for the cab.

He is the serial dater, the pompous financial guy, and the misogynistic alpha male all rolled into one delicious wool coat. Again, this is comedy and its hilarious. He kills us with his sarcasm and brutal honesty, always at the expense of the fool on the other end of the bargaining table. We of course get to see him break, but as they say... too little too late.

in addition to his character, Max actually drove me a little insane in his pitch... he started high and had a difficult time coming down. Granted, his lines were all based in sarcasm and argument but I would have liked to see a variation in his deliverance. The same goes for Susannah. I kept wishing she would belly her breath (think Kate Winselt) instead of talking directly from her head. It turned nasal and too high for the amount of angry dialogue thrown about. They were clearly written to be abrasive, but if you ask me, they could have toned it down.

Bubbles and I had a marvelous time. There is nothing like good live theater to lift your spirits and energize your soul, we agreed. Especially on a Wednesday in the dead of winter during a recession. The Times review agreed. Speaking of this damn recession, tickets to this show are $35 if you're under 30.... a STEAL. Becky Shaw is fresh, young, bold, theater and deserves to be seen.

Hedda Gabler

Hedda Gabler is my very favorite type of female character-- beautiful and mean. She follows in line with Estella, Scarlet, Blanche, Tracey, Ingrid, and Elizabeth. (A gold star for the first to place each name. One isn't actually a character, but a real person. That is your only hint.)

Mary-Louise Parker, who I'm obsessed with, is starring in Ibsen's Hedda Gabler on Broadway. And I sat fifth row center last night. (This is why I live in New York. Because I can read about something on the train, then have an opening preview ticket in my hand thirty minutes later. This alone makes all the bad stuff worth it. It just does.)

Parker was phenomenal. As predicted. As told by NY Mag, in the past decade no fewer than three major names have played Ibsen's manipulative leading lady here: Kate Burton (acclaimed on Broadway), Cate Blanchett (ditto at BAM), and now Mary-Louise Parker. Its said to be the single most sought after role for female actors today, and I can see why. Its a firecracker role. And Parker stunningly ripped it to shreds with her perfect timing and biting glances. She made the role fresh, big, and contemporary. We couldn't take our eyes off of her.

Now, Henrik Ibsen was a big deal at my college... the Scand's LOVE him. This of course made me reject him for many years, I found the Ibsen-gush-fests incredibly boring. He was, to me, the tip of pretension and it made me yawn. I know I wouldn't have seen this show had Mary-Louise not taken top billing, and I have to admit that I did swallow a bit of my better-than-Ibsen mantra and completely enjoyed the script. He knows how to write a leading lady.

In Hedda Gabler, Ibsen explored psychological conflicts that transcended a simple rejection of Victorian conventions. This was shocking at the time, and still quite shocking today. While we have just about had enough of crazy-suburban-entrapment stories, we don't often see a housewife shinning her pistols and shooting at the neighbors for fun. Its delicious theater.

Parker's deadpan annoyance and flat sarcasm juiced up Hedda like never before. The curtains open to a seemingly hung-over Hedda waking up to a room filled with sheet-covered furniture. She stands up slowly and begins to fling off the sheets with disgust, pushing around chairs, and clearing off tables with a fell swoop. She walks lazily and bored, but with fire in her eyes.

She speaks to her dewy-eyed husband with clear annoyance and curt responses. She offends everyone accidental-on-purpose, and shoves bouquets of flowers to the floor before torching their greetings in the wood burning stove. See... you would want to play her too.

The twist in Hedda comes from the idea that despite her awfulness, her terrifying meanness, we want Hedda to come out on top. We are cheering for her to escape her suffocating marriage to the boring, academic, bald man and to run off with her crazy and unstable old flame. But she doesn't. As I've said before, stupid Melanie Wilkes will always get Ashley. Hubble will never chose Katie. The boring nice girl will come out on top and the terribly gorgeous vixen will remain alone and fiery and ever-angry.

But that's okay... in the end, Ibsen gave us something even better than love. He gave us freedom and bravery. Sure, it was in the form of suicide (ha.) but it was an absolute triumph for our femme fatale. That gunshot made our mouths water.

In addition to one of best plays I've seen on Broadway, my evening was capped by lovely surprise. I scored a new best friend. Her name is Bubbles and she's 80 years old and she wears sparkly gold glasses and a fur coat. I had already made up my mind to NOT talk to those around me... I wasn't in the mood for chatter. But when I stood to let this tiny white-haired woman take her seat, she exclaimed something that I took as, "My, you are tall!" (I get this ALL of the time. Like, three times a day.) To which I gave my current automatic response... a bored "Yep, I know. Very tall." To which she responded, "No, I said you're gorgeous!" to which I responded, "Well, I like you." The rest is history.

We talked about New York, and shows we've seen and her failed attempt at an art gallery and her summers on the cape. We talked about how sad it is that publishing is taking a hit and may never recover, and about our shared love for the Times Art section (its the only section I read daily, we both admitted.) We agreed that seeing theater alone is the only way to go, yet we're seeing Becky Shaw together sometime next week. The crazy adventures of Bubbles and Sarah: more to follow.

Sleepwalk with Me

I laughed and laughed and laughed at Mike Birbiglia's show Saturday night at the Bleecker Street Theater. Best feeling ever. We laughed until our heads were floating above us and nothing in the world seemed to matter because everything in the world was funny. I love that feeling, and I haven't felt it in far too long. (Well, that's not true. I recently realized that physical feeling of a good laugh is the same light-as-air feeling that we get from a really hard cry... how unfortunate.) Laughter of this degree comes from good storytelling, not comedy alone. And while Sleepwalk with Me could be categorized as stand-up, it held its own as a story, which made this show stunningly unique.

I first heard of Mike Birbiglia on This American Life, the Fear of Sleep episode. (Listen to it immediately... there is also a super interesting story about The Shining and an even more interesting bit about understanding death through sleep. The human mind astounds me!)

His tone is extremely endearing and his comedy is very clean and not the least bit crude. Well, obviously, as I first heard him on NPR. But he isn't trying to be clean, he isn't trying to be family friendly... he just uses real life as a jumping point, and his real life and his real person are respectful and deeply feeling. I don't usually like stand-up comedy for the reason that it is too easy. Its so easy to jump into vulgarity and to make fun of audience members while being overtly inapproprite. Its so base. Its talentless and cheap.

Birbiglia, on the other hand, talks about love and sex and family with respect and honor, but makes it FUNNY. So funny. So in addition to laughter we feel heart. He's a good guy. These honest good guy qualities--from his opening instructions for us to turn off our cell phones to his closing comments about finally relating to his distant father--make every audience member fall in love with him.

This is what happens when we create a platform for everyday people who are good at telling stories. He reminds me of my friend Cale. He could have been at our dinner table, he could have been in our living room, late in the evening, with wine and lingering laughter. The difference is that he hints at an event, an epic event, then takes the entire two hours or so to get there. There is no one to interrupt or jump in with thier own anticdotes, as often happens when Cale tells stories. And we don't get frusterated by his wandering... that takes talent. We let Mike speak and are grateful for it. The story ebbs and flows, in and out of his life in his twenties, so familiar that we nod along amidst the song-like laughter.

We learn bits an pieces of his life building up to a grand moment that of course doesn't disappoint when we finally arrive. Its a one-two punch, a shuffle-ball-change, but real and epic and larger that life. I turned to my friend Meghan so many times, whispering in her ear our own funnies, our own embarrassing memories from a life growing up awkwardly and together. He was a catalyst, after all, for not taking ourselves too seriously. Thank goodness for that.

If you live in New York City, I highly recommend this show. Its local, off-Broadway theater done really really well. And as my boy Ira Glass has said... hurry and catch him before he gets too famous.

Speed-the-Plow

I am in love with Jeremy Piven. Love love love. He is about a foot too short for me but (reader, please) a girl can deal. He did me proud in this short, sassy little Hollywood play that my big sister Laura and I smiled all the through last night. Love.

Piven stars with Elizabeth Moss, from my beloved West Wing, and Raul Eparaza, who absolutely holds in own against the dynamo that is Ari Gold.

Okay, Piven doesn't actually play Ari Gold in Speed-the-Plow, I realize this. But he might as well have. Its the same role...the same testosterone laced ego, the pointed glances, the jarring inflections. That Piven played Bob Gould as Ari Gold wasn't an error, and most certainly not a disappointment. There is no doubt Piven's scale as an actor--three Emmy's, thank you very much. Its just that this is Piven's playground. No one else could have nailed the Hollywood He-Man with the same satisfying gusto. Ari he needed to be.

Speed-the-Plow is a swift 90 minute battle--three scenes, no intermission--between art and commerce. Piven and Eparaza hold commerce in their greedy Hollywood trenches, knowing full well that money, fame, and glory stand as prizes. It isn't art, Piven thunders... its not supposed to be! But alas. In walks the girl, clutching art as her moral compass. And there lies the story.

Moss does a gorgeous job with the subtlety of her character's humor... after all, she does represent goodness in this tale. But with goodness comes naivety, and with naivety comes the brunt of many-a-joke (and as the case may be, a bet on the likelihood of Piven sleeping with her). Moss owns this. Her lines center around the reading and analyzing aloud of an Eastern text that she wishes to be made into a movie. That she needs to be made into a movie... for art's sake of course.

We listen to passages of this book for what must have been pages and pages of the second scene. When we think we are finally through with her heartfelt argument, she grasps the text again-- one last hope to convince these two hoodlums of joining forces with good, not evil. When finished reading a bizarre passage on bells and showers and rain with the utmost of her honor, she pauses for just two beats and retracts... 'wait, that was the wrong part...' Brilliant.

Piven is completely convincing in what becomes his own inner battle of right and wrong, good and evil, art and commerce. We love his selfish yet realistic ambitions at the start of the play, then actually flip to believe that he will turn his back on all of it at the opening of the third scene. Finally, Eparaza stands in as reason, a violent reaction to the mush of crazy art talk.

This is where the play accomplishes an extremely difficult task in not asking us, or letting us, choose sides. We are as baffled as Piven, who at one climactic point turns away from the other two and states in jaded comedic defeat, 'I am so confused.' So are we. At this point, no one knows which side to join, which banner to wave. Its Eparaza, in the end, who sets everything straight, as reason often will. We leave content and completely satisfied, another impossible task firmly accomplished after a 90 minute moral debate.

Although- this script and these actors didn't take the content too seriously. Thats the unholy beauty of it all--they didn't actually ask us to do so either. It was light and funny and extremely smart which convinces me that theater---that art (ah ha!)--will always come out on top.

Equus

Daniel Radcliffe is currently staring in Peter Shaffer's Equus on Broadway. I saw this a few weeks ago with a lucky second row ticket.

Equus debuted in 1973 at the National Theater in London. Now, the National Theater is one of my favorite places in the entire world, and I can say with complete confidence that the best theater in the world comes out of its productions and off of its stages. Equus is no exception. The production is so clearly British and so flawlessly crafted... It didn't feel like Broadway, it felt like London. I was thrilled.

Radcliffe stars opposite Richard Griffiths, who I originally saw in History Boys at the NT in London. No one else should have this role, and if I ever see a psychiatrist I kind of want it to be Griffiths, or more appropriately, his character Dr. Martin Dysart. He was believable in his empathy and discretion; successful in his approach. Griffiths opened and closed the play with startling monologues that drew the audience in with his first breath and kept us there, swirling and hovering like the cigarette smoke above him.

Radcliffe plays Alan Strang, an adolescent boy who, as we learn before he even steps onto the stage, committed a violent and disturbing crime against six horses. Its a classic set-up-- we learn the outcome before we hear the story. But they get us there, brick by brick, and in the end the violence and the disturbing nature of it makes so much sense that Dysart actually convinces us that Strang may in fact have it right. And all of us should be so lucky. It was so beautiful, I cried.

One line struck me in particular. It was said by Strang's mother, who defends herself, her husband, and her son. Alan is Alan, she said. He was born Alan and nothing I can do to change him. I look at everything I've done from his birth until now and nothing points to this. Alan will always be Alan, that's who he is. It was so striking to me, and something I've thought about several times since: we are convinced by parentage, so trusting in guidance. But there is something to be said for the person that is our soul. Religion, parenting styles, tone, and environment--those are our strongholds. And yes, guidance is essential but Alan is Alan and there is nothing she could do about it.

The set consists of a few blocks that the cast rearranges and shifts to denote space in a rounded stable with six tall doors and six tall horses inside. The horses come alive in the skin of six men whose stances, twitches, and body language are undeniably horse. They wear cage-like masks and didn't have hindquarters, which is an important detail to dissect from the storyline. (I would again like to credit the National Theater for nailing this costume design.) The costumes referenced the photo above Alan's bed--a horse facing directly toward him. Both eyes.

This is so important in order to understand Alan's real interest and passion... its the soul of the horse, the all-encompassing Equus that he fell for, not his creature. And its the head facing directly at us that we see as Alan's perspective. The horse as a physical being was not Alan's interest. The hindquarters makes a horse more real to us, but not to someone focusing on who the horse is at its core. Plus, this takes away some of those sodomy fears, if you were concerned.

And, yes, I know what you're wondering. Did I see Harry Potter naked? Yes, I did. Second row center. But it wasn't what you would think. He was so incredibly convincing that I just wanted to wrap him in a blanket and cover his nakedness. The nudity makes sense in its place and is essential for the us to really understand the intense, very specific pain in this young, confused, passionate boy. But, yes. Naked as a jaybird.

The script is an absolute feat in terms of depth and thoughtful substance. And its execution matches this glory inch for inch. This represents the best theater I've seen in New York and reminded me what a script can become with proper care and detail. As I've said, I think about it often. Its a play about passion... real passion and its sometimes damaging remains.

All right! Griffiths says in final surrender, The normal is the good smile in a child's eyes. There's also the dead stare in a million adults. It both sustains and kills, like a god. It is the ordinary made beautiful, it is also the average made lethal. Normal is the indispensable murderous god of health and I am his priest.