Eason Down the Road

For American Theatre, it was my great pleasure to write a big, juicy, in-depth profile of Laura Eason, a multidisciplinary artist forged by Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre Company who has, seemingly suddenly, become a real playwriting force.

For another venue, I also happen to be working on another feature about a fabulous playwright emerging, like Laura, from the Chicago scene; more on that anon. Both features were seeded by last year's TCG conference, obviously. I hope to be similarly inspired by the next one, in my old stomping grounds, this coming June.

Thursday Tidbits

Rocco Landesman is not mincing words about the state of the American nonprofit theater (money quote, paraphrased by Scott Walters: "If theatres were deer we'd have to shoot much of the herd").

Michael Sommers finds a precedent for the Spider-man juggernaut.

Nice subhead.

All Weill All the Time

I don't think I'm objective about this--heck, I know I'm not, I've been living with this man's music for the better part of my life--but I have to say that as odd and lumpy as Max Anderson's intermittenly charming book proves to be, the chance to hear Knickerbocker Holiday brought to life in toto last night at Alice Tully was a personal landmark for me. Not long after the early love duet "It Never Was You" began, and Ben Davis' baritone started to swim in a swirling orchestral accompaniment, I was transported, and by the time the priceless Kelli O'Hara chimed in, I was somewhere in the stratosphere (is this what "over the moon" means?). I think the last time I was as transported by a song performed live, it was "J'attends un navire," also by Mr. Weill, sung by the operatic mezzo Stephanie Vlahos about a foot from my ear at the Gardenia in L.A. about 15 years ago. The rest of the evening, including Victor Garber's well-turned rendition of "September Song" and the on-point performance of Bryce Pinkham, was a joy, though, as my companion pointed out, the star of the evening was Weill's orchestration (he famously did them all himself), performed to the letter under the baton of James Bagwell. Weill's overstuffed, operetta-ish score, heavy on the chorus (hence the participation of the Collegiate Chorale), gave Bagwell's band a lot of chances to shine, and gleam they did. (My colleague Matthew Murray liked the score, too, though unsurprisingly he especially appreciated Anderson's muted anti-FDR message, while Andy Propst was less impressed.)

So, for what it's worth, there's one more performance tonight, and the show's being recorded, which will give the world its first recording of the whole score. This may all be white noise for non-Weillheads, but as I said, I can't pretend to be objective about a body of work that feels practically like a member of my family. As such, this Knickerbocker concert--and next week's Lost in the Stars, no doubt--felt like a reunion party.

Weill and Anderson, Together Again

photo by Hugelemeyer
In some sort of eerie coincidence, both of the musicals that Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson wrote more than 60 years ago are being revived in semi-staged and/or concert readings in the next few weeks: Knickerbocker Holiday, which gave us "September Song," and Lost in the Stars, which gave us the title tune among other priceless gems. And I should just say here that I've enjoyed few privileges like the chance to write about my favorite composer for the paper of record. My last chance to geek out on Weill was in Back Stage West many years ago.

Do Yourself a Favor...

...and enjoy this lip-smacking Sardi's meal of theater chat in which the pressing question of "greatest American musical" is weightily weighed and argued (hint: there's a three-way tie at the top). The panel includes Nora Ephron, Frank Rich, George C. Wolfe, Jonathan Tunick, and Jesse Green, moderating but hardly withholding his opinion. There are too many gems to mention them all, but I think this is a key insight, which I flatter myself I was lucky to reach at a slightly earlier age (in a college class on the film musical, but I digress):

Ephron: I was thinking about why I didn’t love She Loves Me when I first saw it, but then fell so deeply in love with it later on. And its partly that at a certain point in your life you don’t have the intelligence to know that the sentimental show is also great, because you’re so busy being hip and loving the dark shows. And then you get older and you love the ones that are—whatever you want to call them—romantic.

The whole thing is Grade-A show-queen catnip.

Posted Without Comment

What Does Horatio Want?

Over at Gus's blog, there's a talkback from hell, nicely rendered by Liz Duffy Adams (author of the smart, sexy Or,). My favorite bit of spot-on stream-of-consciousness:

Talkbacker 4: There’s so much great stuff in this play, Bill, some of it is just brilliant. Really, very poetic, very powerful. But right now it’s really kind of a mess, you know, it’s all over the place. Like in the, what is it, the fourth act, when he comes back and tells us all that mishigas about switching the letters and being captured by pirates? Well, that’s just poor craft, poor playwriting; I’m sorry, but it just is. First of all, it’s ridiculous, I mean, pirates? And plus you just shove it in there, it’s so over-determined, you need him to come back for the play to keep going so you just have him pop up, say, oh, yeah, switched the letters, Guildencranz and Rosenstern are dead, rescued by pirates, la la la, let’s move on. It just doesn’t work, the audience will never buy that. It took me right out of the play.

RTWT.