A version of this review will be printed in the May 12 edition of The Envoy.
Redemption Has its Price
Jesus Hopped the A Train marked by memorable performances
Scott Klocksin, Staff Writer
This spring's Hunter College production of Stephen Adley Guirgis's modern urban tragedy “Jesus Hopped The A Train” is set at Rikers Island Prison in the present, and opens with a rude reminder to extinguish any doubts in the house about who's in charge.
A large, menacing figure named Valdez pierces the anxious pre-curtain darkness of the Fredrick Lowe Theatre in full prison guard regalia, barking in a working class New York accent an otherwise mundane announcement about audience comportment.
Welcome to Rikers, bitch.
People end up in The Joint for all sorts of reasons, but in this play there are some doozies. Lucius Jenkins (Roger Smith) is a paranoid schizophrenic who admits to eight murders in a vicious, multi-state killing spree. Angel Cruz (Luca Ritter) is a 30 year-old bike messenger who lost his childhood friend to the seclusion of a religious cult and reaped vengeance by shooting the cult's leader in the ass.
Jaclyn Mitgang summons a wide-ranging and disciplined ardor as Mary Jane Hanrahan, a public defender tasked with representing Angel. It's hardly a match made in heaven. Angel wants another lawyer. Mary Jane wants another client. But in looking back on the tumult of her past, she takes a fondness to Angel and decides his crime of peculiar if genuine passion is worth going out on a career-threatening limb for.
Lucius, meanwhile, is a tad harder to like. His status as a born-again Christian does little to divert the wrath of either the prisoners or the guards. Hope—at least of the kind the judicial system can provide—is lost for him, and his liveliness comes from on high. In their exercise yard encounters, Angel isn't convinced by Lucius's semi-coherent proselytizing.
And, to put it mildly, neither is Valdez.
Ryan Castro's convincing performance as the sadistic Valdez is one of several that stand out for deftly shouldering the burden of a script which demands full commitment in its reification onstage. Also worthy of mention is the way Roger Smith renders Lucius with an energy that is by turns manic and devastating yet always shot through with fortitude and emotional truth.
That Lucius, the Serial Killer could also be Lucius, the Charismatic Human Being, is brought home by a poignantly-delivered homage by “good cop” guard D'Amico (Ernest Pysher).
Caleb Levengood's sparse set, consisting mainly of a chain-link cage set at a 45 degree angle from the audience, fits the mood of the show like a big, chicken-wire glove, but makes for some awkward viewing at times. On several occasions, Valdez delivers lines obscured by the fence, and his bullying swagger suffers for it.
Th verisimilitude in the vision of director Antonio Edwards Suarez is also dealt a small blow in scenes in which Lucius and Angel pass cigarettes through an inexplicably imaginary fence that's supposed to be between them, though the Lowe's space constraints may have made this unavoidable.
The small set changes are executed by guards with a swift militarism befitting the bleak setting.
And that setting, as the play goes on, becomes the crucible of an improbable bond between Lucius and Angel—though, like the one between Angel and his lawyer, it's a bond that can't hold for long.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Swinging For The Fences
This review will be published in the May 13th issue of The Envoy.
The promotional videos on the website for the new Broadway production of August Wilson's hauntingly complex domestic tragedy, “Fences,” make the play seem light and fun. That it is one of the great dramatic works about the African American experience, almost seems lost in a promotional campaign that (perhaps understandably, but nonetheless annoyingly) squeezes every possible drop of hype from the appearance of Denzel Washington and Viola Davis in its lead roles.
But “Fences” is a rich and tragic tale. This staging, nominated for ten Tony Awards and helmed by Kenny Leon, who has directed Wilson's entire repertoire, gives flight to its tragic and deeply human essence, despite some shortcomings. Set mostly in 1957, the play centers around the life of Troy Maxson, a 53 year-old garbage man whose dreams of playing Major League Baseball are thwarted not for want of ability, but by the times he lives in. Those times, though, were changing in 1957. A constant subtext is the way Troy's son, Cory, and his wife, Rose, are able to see which way the wind is blowing, far better than the weathered and wise old man in whose towering shadow they live.
This production abounds with moments of comedic brilliance, and Washington's firm command of his character and impeccable timing make them all the more pleasurable. But what we have far too much is a fast-paced back and forth between stage and house, in which laughs beget adjustments in performance aiming for more laughs, and the heart-wrenching weight of many of the play's pivotal moments are subsumed, their power dealt a blow.
One example is the way that Chris Chalk's Cory betrays a frenetic, almost goofy energy that at certain moments buries much of the emotional dynamism in his relationship with his father. He saws pieces of wood in one pivotal scene with a cartoonish frenzy that steals focus and left me scratching my head. Chalk's energy does accent the contrast between his appearance as a 17 year old high school athlete early in the play, and the stoic discipline of his later incarnation as a twenty-five year old U.S. Marine. The trouble with the younger Cory, though—and it's a problem that plagues much about this staging—is that our attention is lured away from the complexity and completeness of the relationships between the characters, and toward quirks found by the actors.
Those quirks and subtleties, though, are at times just as capable of thrusting the show toward greatness as they are of holding it back. Washington finds in Troy Maxson all the tenderness, vulnerability and suppressed rage befitting a man who has given his life to something he deserved yet always knew he'd never get. Amid a scene in which Cory pulls Troy off of his mother as they fight, Troy, in one motion and with the full conviction of his character, kisses his son on the head before shoving him away and verbally threatening him.
Those moments that require commitment rather than subtlety are also done well. Viola Davis, as Rose, earns our empathy as a waterfall of emotion washes over her at the news of her husband's infidelity. And in a grippingly sad exclamation point on the finality of Troy's journey, in the final scene in which he appears with Bono (played with skill and grace by Stephen McKinley Henderson), the emotional distance between the two old friends is starkly manifest in blocking that never lets them get too close to one another, and by the glaring absence of the brotherly warmth shared by the two men in their earlier encounters.
What stays with you, despite some significant hiccups, is the howling echo of a man whose stubborn and old-fashioned sense of responsibility have perhaps as much to do with his undoing, as the very real and painful injustice of the era that defined and defied his rugged spirit.
The promotional videos on the website for the new Broadway production of August Wilson's hauntingly complex domestic tragedy, “Fences,” make the play seem light and fun. That it is one of the great dramatic works about the African American experience, almost seems lost in a promotional campaign that (perhaps understandably, but nonetheless annoyingly) squeezes every possible drop of hype from the appearance of Denzel Washington and Viola Davis in its lead roles.
But “Fences” is a rich and tragic tale. This staging, nominated for ten Tony Awards and helmed by Kenny Leon, who has directed Wilson's entire repertoire, gives flight to its tragic and deeply human essence, despite some shortcomings. Set mostly in 1957, the play centers around the life of Troy Maxson, a 53 year-old garbage man whose dreams of playing Major League Baseball are thwarted not for want of ability, but by the times he lives in. Those times, though, were changing in 1957. A constant subtext is the way Troy's son, Cory, and his wife, Rose, are able to see which way the wind is blowing, far better than the weathered and wise old man in whose towering shadow they live.
This production abounds with moments of comedic brilliance, and Washington's firm command of his character and impeccable timing make them all the more pleasurable. But what we have far too much is a fast-paced back and forth between stage and house, in which laughs beget adjustments in performance aiming for more laughs, and the heart-wrenching weight of many of the play's pivotal moments are subsumed, their power dealt a blow.
One example is the way that Chris Chalk's Cory betrays a frenetic, almost goofy energy that at certain moments buries much of the emotional dynamism in his relationship with his father. He saws pieces of wood in one pivotal scene with a cartoonish frenzy that steals focus and left me scratching my head. Chalk's energy does accent the contrast between his appearance as a 17 year old high school athlete early in the play, and the stoic discipline of his later incarnation as a twenty-five year old U.S. Marine. The trouble with the younger Cory, though—and it's a problem that plagues much about this staging—is that our attention is lured away from the complexity and completeness of the relationships between the characters, and toward quirks found by the actors.
Those quirks and subtleties, though, are at times just as capable of thrusting the show toward greatness as they are of holding it back. Washington finds in Troy Maxson all the tenderness, vulnerability and suppressed rage befitting a man who has given his life to something he deserved yet always knew he'd never get. Amid a scene in which Cory pulls Troy off of his mother as they fight, Troy, in one motion and with the full conviction of his character, kisses his son on the head before shoving him away and verbally threatening him.
Those moments that require commitment rather than subtlety are also done well. Viola Davis, as Rose, earns our empathy as a waterfall of emotion washes over her at the news of her husband's infidelity. And in a grippingly sad exclamation point on the finality of Troy's journey, in the final scene in which he appears with Bono (played with skill and grace by Stephen McKinley Henderson), the emotional distance between the two old friends is starkly manifest in blocking that never lets them get too close to one another, and by the glaring absence of the brotherly warmth shared by the two men in their earlier encounters.
What stays with you, despite some significant hiccups, is the howling echo of a man whose stubborn and old-fashioned sense of responsibility have perhaps as much to do with his undoing, as the very real and painful injustice of the era that defined and defied his rugged spirit.
“Fences” is at the Cort Theatre, 248 W. 48th St., through July 11th.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Snow-icane
One-day snowfall record for Central Park: 11.3 inches.
Wind gusts: up to 50 mph (hurricane strength).
Total snowfall expected: 20-30 inches.
Living through what might be the biggest snowstorm ever to hit New York amid the winter I've taken a vow to get around only by bike and on foot: priceless.
Wind gusts: up to 50 mph (hurricane strength).
Total snowfall expected: 20-30 inches.
Living through what might be the biggest snowstorm ever to hit New York amid the winter I've taken a vow to get around only by bike and on foot: priceless.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
A feaverishly Productive Weekend!
It's mid-December. And every year around this time, two very inter-related things happen to me.
First (if I'm a student, as I am this year), I start getting all schmaltzy for my hometown, as one of my by-annual visits starts to approach. Second, I start procrastinating.
A lot.
I look for any excuse not to study for exams. Don't act like you didn't/don't do it.
Aaaaannnnnnnnnyway. If you breathe air and have ears, as I do, then you've probably heard Jay-Z's new jam, Empire State of Mind about every third time you walk into a deli in New York. And if you don't live in New York, maybe the same can be said, I don't know.
Hearing this song all the time has pumped me full a kind of strange, two-years-ago nostalgia. And as an unabashed lover both of my current city and of my hometown, I can't help wondering whether it is intended in some way as a response to Kanye West's uplifting and enchanting Homecoming (y'know, maybe one of those silly regional rivalry things that seem to go on a lot in rap... and in sports and lots of other cultural arenas, for that matter).
If you're working feverishly to be unproductive like I am, I'll leave you with some questions to fill up your mind and your time:
1)Which is the better video, and why?
2)Which is the better rapper, and why?
3)Which is the better city, and why?
Discuss.
First (if I'm a student, as I am this year), I start getting all schmaltzy for my hometown, as one of my by-annual visits starts to approach. Second, I start procrastinating.
A lot.
I look for any excuse not to study for exams. Don't act like you didn't/don't do it.
Aaaaannnnnnnnnyway. If you breathe air and have ears, as I do, then you've probably heard Jay-Z's new jam, Empire State of Mind about every third time you walk into a deli in New York. And if you don't live in New York, maybe the same can be said, I don't know.
Hearing this song all the time has pumped me full a kind of strange, two-years-ago nostalgia. And as an unabashed lover both of my current city and of my hometown, I can't help wondering whether it is intended in some way as a response to Kanye West's uplifting and enchanting Homecoming (y'know, maybe one of those silly regional rivalry things that seem to go on a lot in rap... and in sports and lots of other cultural arenas, for that matter).
If you're working feverishly to be unproductive like I am, I'll leave you with some questions to fill up your mind and your time:
1)Which is the better video, and why?
2)Which is the better rapper, and why?
3)Which is the better city, and why?
Discuss.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Disturbingly of the Moment
A version of this review will be printed in the December 9th edition of The Envoy.
On November 17th of this year, the final appeal in the case of Lynne Stewart was denied, and she now sits in jail. Stewart is a New York City defense attorney who has represented the downtrodden and the unpopular for decades. She is now serving a 28-month jail term for a conviction that was made possible because the U.S. Government, using the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act, undermined attorney-client privilege, one of the cornerstones of the rule of law, in order to allege that she provided material aid to her client, who was charged in a terrorism-related offense.
What a moment in history to see the release of William Kunstler: Disturbing The Universe, a new documentary by Emily and Sarah Kuntsler.
William Kuntsler was a radical lawyer and at times a political firebrand outside the courtroom. He represented scores of defendants who, he really believed, had right on their side in the 1960’s and 1970’s. His most famous case came in 1970, when he represented the “Chicago Seven,” the defendants accused of starting riots which were in fact started by police, outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention. He served a jail sentence for Contempt of Court in that case, and emerged more radical than ever. He represented members of the American Indian Movement when they occupied the town of Wounded Knee, SD and the National Guard descended on them. He went to Attica State Prison in 1971 to act as a negotiator for inmates who’d taken over part of the prison in protest of their conditions, and was cruelly forced to watch as troops opened fire and indiscriminately murdered 39 people, including ten prison guards.
Kuntsler’s daughters, Emily and Sarah, made the film in part to tell his story, and in part, it seems, as a way to come to grips with who he was. It walks us through his personal history from serving as a Major in the Army in World War II, to settling down as a lawyer in the white picket fence world of Westchester County, to abandoning that life to fight for what he knew was right, even when that meant providing counsel for people who’d been accused of awful things.
Told in voiceover narration by Sarah, the Kuntsler sisters’ point of view helps give this story a warm, personal touch. We get a multi-dimensional picture of a man of tremendous moral and intellectual weight, but we also get a sense his many flaws. Though at times it takes on the feel of a group therapy session, hearing the story as told through the eyes of Emily and Sarah gives a personal, accurate and complete sense not just of William Kunstler the historical figure, but of Bill Kunstler the man.
Growing up in the West Village in the 1980’s, Emily and Sarah disapproved of many of their dad’s choices about whom to represent, and lived in fear of the havoc those choices might wreak on their lives. After the upheaval of the 1960’s early 1970’s had fully ebbed, they saw their father move away from his role as a stalwart champion of the oppressed, and toward what they saw as a series of attempts to garner publicity by representing the most reviled clients he could find.
Maybe it was an expression of a lofty principle the Kuntsler sisters look back on their father once articulating to them: “everybody deserves a lawyer.” Maybe it was partly that, and partly an attempt to hold onto the fading spotlight that had shone so brightly on him for so long. But in any case, the work would go on.
Kuntsler represented a man accused of murdering a fundamentalist Rabbi in Brooklyn. The political fallout from that case sent angry conservative Jewish protesters to the sidewalk in front of the Kuntsler family’s townhouse for months. In 1990, he represented Yusef Salam and four other Black teenagers who were accused of the brutal rape and beating of a young woman in “the Central Park Jogger Case.” The brutality of the crime sent much of New York City and the country into a frenzy of retaliatory rage, and it prompted Donald Trump to take out full-page newspaper ads demanding the death penalty for the culprits.
But in 2003, eight years after Kuntsler’s death, another man confessed to the crime. That confession, combined with DNA evidence, led to Yusef Salam’s exoneration. He was released from prison after 13 years. Those kids really didn’t do it.
We all have moments in our lives that we look back on as turning points. At one point in the film, we hear Sarah recount her father’s reaction the first time he saw Michelangelo’s famous statue of David. He looked up at the hulking marble statue that depicts a young biblical king calmly pausing as he prepares to slay a giant, and immediately knew that injustice would be his Goliath, and that from that point onward, he would fight to become a David who could help slay it.
Well Bill, wherever you are, sorry to be the one to have to tell you this: Goliath’s still out there. But you know what? Yusef Salam is alive and free. And that’s gotta count for something.
On November 17th of this year, the final appeal in the case of Lynne Stewart was denied, and she now sits in jail. Stewart is a New York City defense attorney who has represented the downtrodden and the unpopular for decades. She is now serving a 28-month jail term for a conviction that was made possible because the U.S. Government, using the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act, undermined attorney-client privilege, one of the cornerstones of the rule of law, in order to allege that she provided material aid to her client, who was charged in a terrorism-related offense.
What a moment in history to see the release of William Kunstler: Disturbing The Universe, a new documentary by Emily and Sarah Kuntsler.
William Kuntsler was a radical lawyer and at times a political firebrand outside the courtroom. He represented scores of defendants who, he really believed, had right on their side in the 1960’s and 1970’s. His most famous case came in 1970, when he represented the “Chicago Seven,” the defendants accused of starting riots which were in fact started by police, outside the 1968 Democratic National Convention. He served a jail sentence for Contempt of Court in that case, and emerged more radical than ever. He represented members of the American Indian Movement when they occupied the town of Wounded Knee, SD and the National Guard descended on them. He went to Attica State Prison in 1971 to act as a negotiator for inmates who’d taken over part of the prison in protest of their conditions, and was cruelly forced to watch as troops opened fire and indiscriminately murdered 39 people, including ten prison guards.
Kuntsler’s daughters, Emily and Sarah, made the film in part to tell his story, and in part, it seems, as a way to come to grips with who he was. It walks us through his personal history from serving as a Major in the Army in World War II, to settling down as a lawyer in the white picket fence world of Westchester County, to abandoning that life to fight for what he knew was right, even when that meant providing counsel for people who’d been accused of awful things.
Told in voiceover narration by Sarah, the Kuntsler sisters’ point of view helps give this story a warm, personal touch. We get a multi-dimensional picture of a man of tremendous moral and intellectual weight, but we also get a sense his many flaws. Though at times it takes on the feel of a group therapy session, hearing the story as told through the eyes of Emily and Sarah gives a personal, accurate and complete sense not just of William Kunstler the historical figure, but of Bill Kunstler the man.
Growing up in the West Village in the 1980’s, Emily and Sarah disapproved of many of their dad’s choices about whom to represent, and lived in fear of the havoc those choices might wreak on their lives. After the upheaval of the 1960’s early 1970’s had fully ebbed, they saw their father move away from his role as a stalwart champion of the oppressed, and toward what they saw as a series of attempts to garner publicity by representing the most reviled clients he could find.
Maybe it was an expression of a lofty principle the Kuntsler sisters look back on their father once articulating to them: “everybody deserves a lawyer.” Maybe it was partly that, and partly an attempt to hold onto the fading spotlight that had shone so brightly on him for so long. But in any case, the work would go on.
Kuntsler represented a man accused of murdering a fundamentalist Rabbi in Brooklyn. The political fallout from that case sent angry conservative Jewish protesters to the sidewalk in front of the Kuntsler family’s townhouse for months. In 1990, he represented Yusef Salam and four other Black teenagers who were accused of the brutal rape and beating of a young woman in “the Central Park Jogger Case.” The brutality of the crime sent much of New York City and the country into a frenzy of retaliatory rage, and it prompted Donald Trump to take out full-page newspaper ads demanding the death penalty for the culprits.
But in 2003, eight years after Kuntsler’s death, another man confessed to the crime. That confession, combined with DNA evidence, led to Yusef Salam’s exoneration. He was released from prison after 13 years. Those kids really didn’t do it.
We all have moments in our lives that we look back on as turning points. At one point in the film, we hear Sarah recount her father’s reaction the first time he saw Michelangelo’s famous statue of David. He looked up at the hulking marble statue that depicts a young biblical king calmly pausing as he prepares to slay a giant, and immediately knew that injustice would be his Goliath, and that from that point onward, he would fight to become a David who could help slay it.
Well Bill, wherever you are, sorry to be the one to have to tell you this: Goliath’s still out there. But you know what? Yusef Salam is alive and free. And that’s gotta count for something.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Uptown is a Neighborhood, Not a Direction!
A version of this review will run in the November 23 issue of The Envoy.
It’s rare that a play can make a person homesick. You see, I grew up just outside Chicago, and Uptown, an eclectic neighborhood not far from Wrigley Field and a hop-skip-and-a-jump from the glistening shores of Lake Michigan, is where I rented my first-ever apartment. It’s also the setting of “Superior Donuts,” the newest play by Tracy Letts. It’s a gritty place, its pothole-laden streets lined with homeless shelters and seedy bars. But it’s got a tender charm and a resilient spirit that always reminds you that even when it’s down, it’s a long way from out.
Kind of like Franco Wicks (Jon Michael Hill), a young, witty Black student and aspiring novelist who saunters into a donut shop owned by Arthur Przybyszewski (Michael McKean), a 50-something Polish-American one-time Vietnam War draft-dodger. Franco is cocky and forthright, bursting with humor and a fiery intellect. He challenges the quiet, reserved Arthur to name ten Black poets to prove he’s not racist. Not five minutes after walking in, Franco’s acting like he owns the place!
But as the play’s well-crafted plot reveals, he doesn’t own much—other than a penchant for gambling and a chin-high heap of debt because of it.
Like “Superior Donuts,” Letts’ masterpiece “August: Osage County” first opened at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre to a Midwestern tornado of critical and popular praise, before making the move from the City of Big Shoulders, to the city of big, um, egos.
But whatever Tracy Letts thinks of himself, the theater world is catching on to his mastery of playwriting. “August” boasts both a Tony and a Pulitzer Prize for best play in 2008, and Broadway greeted the opening of “Superior Donuts” this October with a barrage of anticipatory buzz from critics and theatergoers.
Letts has described the play as an homage to his adopted hometown of the last twenty years or so, and under the direction of Tina Landau, it abounds with those little slices of life that scream “Chicago” without slipping into caricatured overstatement. One salient example is the way Kate Buddeke, as Officer Randy O’steen, a love interest of Arthur’s, nails the nasal accent and puffed-up swagger of an Irish-American patrolwoman from the South Side.
But hers is a role that avoids any simplistic vulgarization of the tension we might expect when a ‘60s liberal and a big-city cop wander into each other’s lives. The budding romance between Randy and Arthur is but one soft-spoken, roundabout front in Arthur’s larger internal battle to break out of his emotional comfort zone, ditch the lingering demons of his past, and live a truly principled life.
In exposition throughout the play and in a series of intimate monologues, we learn of Arthur’s rocky relationship with his immigrant father, his failed marriage and his estrangement from his only daughter. We also learn that he’s willing to cling to the stale comfort of the solitary life he’s known with a ferocity you might think a peacenik incapable of. But the bond between Arthur and the ever-hopeful Franco is what finally starts to erode that comfort enough to allow Arthur to see beyond the narrow horizon of a lonely life as Everybody’s Favorite Donut Maker, and at last dream of something more.
Maybe more than anything else, “Superior Donuts” is a play about dreaming, and how essential (and potentially dangerous) it is for us to dream in a world that will jump at the chance crush our dreams, or be just as happy to let them die a slow, suffocating death. The young Arthur dreamt of a better world. The older one daydreams in wistful “what-if’s.” Franco dreams of writing the Great American Novel. Kiril (Michael Garvey), the owner of the electronics store next door to Superior Donuts, dreams of owning a bigger store and his own home some day.
But these dreams are not treated with the unmoored optimism of that worn-out narrative found in the lore of the “American Dream.” That’s because, at root, what these characters dream of is something a lot harder to attain than a house or a career or a couple of cars in the driveway. They dream of a world where we can come from disparate corners of the globe and the ideological spectrum, yet live side-by-side, helping each other rise to the challenge of being the best people we can be. And Letts’ script embraces that most lofty of dreams, but doesn’t shy from making the point that it’s an awfully tall order to fill.
Kind of like Franco Wicks (Jon Michael Hill), a young, witty Black student and aspiring novelist who saunters into a donut shop owned by Arthur Przybyszewski (Michael McKean), a 50-something Polish-American one-time Vietnam War draft-dodger. Franco is cocky and forthright, bursting with humor and a fiery intellect. He challenges the quiet, reserved Arthur to name ten Black poets to prove he’s not racist. Not five minutes after walking in, Franco’s acting like he owns the place!
But as the play’s well-crafted plot reveals, he doesn’t own much—other than a penchant for gambling and a chin-high heap of debt because of it.
Like “Superior Donuts,” Letts’ masterpiece “August: Osage County” first opened at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre to a Midwestern tornado of critical and popular praise, before making the move from the City of Big Shoulders, to the city of big, um, egos.
But whatever Tracy Letts thinks of himself, the theater world is catching on to his mastery of playwriting. “August” boasts both a Tony and a Pulitzer Prize for best play in 2008, and Broadway greeted the opening of “Superior Donuts” this October with a barrage of anticipatory buzz from critics and theatergoers.
Letts has described the play as an homage to his adopted hometown of the last twenty years or so, and under the direction of Tina Landau, it abounds with those little slices of life that scream “Chicago” without slipping into caricatured overstatement. One salient example is the way Kate Buddeke, as Officer Randy O’steen, a love interest of Arthur’s, nails the nasal accent and puffed-up swagger of an Irish-American patrolwoman from the South Side.
But hers is a role that avoids any simplistic vulgarization of the tension we might expect when a ‘60s liberal and a big-city cop wander into each other’s lives. The budding romance between Randy and Arthur is but one soft-spoken, roundabout front in Arthur’s larger internal battle to break out of his emotional comfort zone, ditch the lingering demons of his past, and live a truly principled life.
In exposition throughout the play and in a series of intimate monologues, we learn of Arthur’s rocky relationship with his immigrant father, his failed marriage and his estrangement from his only daughter. We also learn that he’s willing to cling to the stale comfort of the solitary life he’s known with a ferocity you might think a peacenik incapable of. But the bond between Arthur and the ever-hopeful Franco is what finally starts to erode that comfort enough to allow Arthur to see beyond the narrow horizon of a lonely life as Everybody’s Favorite Donut Maker, and at last dream of something more.
Maybe more than anything else, “Superior Donuts” is a play about dreaming, and how essential (and potentially dangerous) it is for us to dream in a world that will jump at the chance crush our dreams, or be just as happy to let them die a slow, suffocating death. The young Arthur dreamt of a better world. The older one daydreams in wistful “what-if’s.” Franco dreams of writing the Great American Novel. Kiril (Michael Garvey), the owner of the electronics store next door to Superior Donuts, dreams of owning a bigger store and his own home some day.
But these dreams are not treated with the unmoored optimism of that worn-out narrative found in the lore of the “American Dream.” That’s because, at root, what these characters dream of is something a lot harder to attain than a house or a career or a couple of cars in the driveway. They dream of a world where we can come from disparate corners of the globe and the ideological spectrum, yet live side-by-side, helping each other rise to the challenge of being the best people we can be. And Letts’ script embraces that most lofty of dreams, but doesn’t shy from making the point that it’s an awfully tall order to fill.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Halloween is Over; You Know What That Means...
I've been pretty busy lately and blogging has been low on the priority list. So the first post in a while is an occasion to take note of. I wrote a poem (trust me: I use the term loosely) to celebrate.
Winter Solstice
Winter Solstice
Stop the presses, it's happened again. Mountain of candy still digesting. I always buy too much and can't give it all away. Give me a break. Break me off a piece of that steak sandwich, will ya. Funny, I don't recall being asked if I wanted an image of Santa Claus on my Coca Cola can. It's official: The annual Red And Green Stampede. The Running Of The Bullshit. Run with the herd or get swept down the street. Swipe your card, please. Would you like cash back. We offer gift wrapping downstairs. Downtown. Midtown. Middle of the road. In the middle of 34th Street, watch carefully as the Empire State Building sheds that lovely orange and again dons a clashing color palette. Exactly ten minutes after sundown and you can see them go on. Check your cellphone clocks. The race is about to begin. On your mark. Get Set. Go to the mall with me this weekend. I don't envy the guy who has to unlock those doors. Up to fifty percent off. Up to here with this nonsense. Nice hat. Nice try. This wallet stays in the front pocket. This wallet stays put as mister sidewalk purse salesman cuts deals. Are you kidding me. That leather is so fake. How many animals would you say that coat is made of. How many hours would you say it took them to put up that tree. Let's go ice skating. Let's not do gifts this year. Let's go home, it's freezing out here. Freeze on the dotted white lane marker. This matador leaves the red fabric at home and opts for shopping bags with half-nude male models. They heed not. Hey asshole, I'm walking here. Some people. Some city. Somehow I knew you'd end up here.
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