Recently in theater Category

I am in paperwork hell and therefore desperate for fun things to talk about. Therefore I am not going to talk about the 2008 election. Not that it's not fun - it's enormously fun, and at times sadly funny - but it's too much a blood pressure point for me and apparently a lot of the people who read this page. Long and short of my thoughts on the matter: it's all going to work out. Everyone breathe.

Instead, I want to talk about [title of show], which Cheryl and I treated ourselves to after a day of canvassing for Obama in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. You can read Cheryl's post about that here.

I did not know, going into this show, that I was entering a Fan Zone. Pieces of culture that have Fan Zones are different than others, though the circle is growing wider every day: it may not be the most popular movie, television show or play out there, but there is a strong band of devotees, who will show up every night and scream, post about it on their Facebooks, urge their friends and family to watch/read/listen, etc. I know about this kind of fan because I am one. One thing I truly love about a show will sell me on it for life. This is not usually because the show/movie/etc. deserves it more or is inherently better, but because it has struck the nerd nerve: if only one thing about it is one of the best things they've ever heard, they're sold. Of course, there's usually well more than one thing - but there's one moment that always piques the experience. It's Free Love on the Free Love Highway during the British version of The Office. It's "Seasons of Love" in Rent. It's Defying Gravity in Wicked. It's the fashion show on Project Runway, "Suddenly Seymour" in Little Shop of Horrors, the entire first season of Heroes, the end of season one/beginning of season two of The West Wing, the slide down the pole in Bridget Jones (the book), the what-will-she-wear-now game of Sex and the City.

(One doesn't immediately jump to mind with Harry, but that's really because the first book is full of all those truly imaginative twists on reality that it's like a series of wave peaks throughout.)

And, being one of these fans, and being familiar with the accoutrements of intense fandom, you know exactly when you're walking into a Fan Zone. If it's a live event, it's usually accompanied by a lot of screaming. This happened when we saw [title of show], a fabulous little musical about making a musical. I knew only that it was an "inside" ("meta") play, going into it; I wasn't even sure it was a musical. But as the lights went down and the roar deafened (it was the show's last week on Broadway) I groaned internally. The Fan Zone is almost unanimously a good thing for the material that is the object of the fans' obsession, but to newcomers it can make it hard to understand and enjoy that material. I wasn't sure I wanted to be part of a few hours of incomprehensible screaming that made me think I was a year too old to be a New Kids on the Block fan, and at one of their concerts. (Which I am only allowed to say years and years after being part of the screaming, and years and years after realizing how it can be completely obnoxious to those outside the Zone.)

Thank goodness, that's not how it played out. The show was, sincerely, one of the best things I've seen in a long while, and that happened well before the middle, when the real Fan Moment happened. Because for all the potential annoying character of a Fan Zone, it can be really useful. I was enjoying this charming show - self-aware, unadorned, a hilarious little reflection on creativity that played itself with honesty and no trace of pretension - when I knew we were about to get to The Moment. Why? The screaming went THROUGH THE ROOF. Cheryl and I looked at each other, eyebrows raised, because the woman onstage had just said, "Die, Vampire, Die," and she hadn't said it while simultaneously twirling flaming batons, juggling three apples and a live grenade, and shooting fireworks out of her sleeves, so why was everyone going crazy? Because they knew what was coming, and luckily this pre-emptive hype wasn't enough to spoil the moment.

The song is Die, Vampire, Die, and it's the best exploration of the ridiculous inner monologue that goes on while you are writing that I've ever heard. It's not all Finishing the Hat, it's not all sweet, melodic elixirs of endorphins caused by creation. No. Sometimes there are ugly gnomes playing twstie-tie with your confidence, inside your head, and it's annoying and petty and feels small. What did I call this phenomenon awhile back? Ahhh... Grogsnot! I had nearly forgotten about him. Yes, this is a song about Grogsnot!

Listen to this (it's the audio track set to a picture of the show's playbill, you don't have to watch), if you want to know just how silly, sad, funny, stupid, elating, and unglamorous creation really can be:

I saw the - funniest - show last night. Sides, the tale of six actors auditioning around NYC.

All right, full disclosure: one of the actors is a dear friend's boyfriend. But that made no difference. They call it Sides, they say, because a side is the part an actor reads in an audition. Well, I think they really call it Sides because those are the body parts you end up grasping as you roar, as you struggle for breath.

It's really careful comedy, structured more around timing and pauses than impressions and punchlines. And the details - my goodness, the details. God and comedy are in the details, and that's where this show soars - in one segment a girl who is doing a god-awful audition dance screws up her face in major concentration to perform what must be a very, very difficult combination and is in reality as easy as snapping her fingers - see, it's the kind of comedy you just cannot describe. It loses it to describe it.

Anyway, it's really awesome. Go if you can.

(I will get to the youyous, I haven't forgotten!)

I owe a large, massive, huge, site-consuming, tremendous, long, big-ass report of the 12 hours I spent at Wall to Wall Sondheim with Cheryl and Ginny on Saturday - not only because I know a lot of people who come here are also Sondheim fans but because things like this need to be recorded. Events like this must be put down. People must know. When you go to things like this - when you are part of things like this - when your memory is lucky enough to hold a thin shadow of the essence of something like this - it must be told.

This is the event I talked about here, which Arjuna made me aware of in one breathless voice mail. Arjuna couldn't come in from Cali, but I called him several times throughout to gush. More than 100 of the best performers in the world...12 hours of Sondheim. TWELVE HOURS.

Yes, all 12 hours. We were part of the crowd that made it impossible for everyone else to get in, we were Sondheim hogs, yes, yes, yes, guilty as charged. Sorry, those of you who lined up three times around the city block and couldn't take our seats because we wouldn't vacate them. I bought a subscription to get us priority admission and we still waited over an hour in the chilly morning, completely oblivious that we had forgotten to bring food and soon would be trapped in the theater under the threat that if we got up we could not get back in, because even the line for members was 150 people long. Look, I'm 25 and got into musical theater too late to have seen all these shows in their original incarnations - I claim being vitally deprived as my reasoning for moving about three millimeters to my left and right over a course of twelve hours.

Twelve hours. Have you ever tried to go 12 hours without food? Even if it's for Sondheim, by the 11th hour (ha ha ) we were really questioning our loyalty. Ginny had a doughnut which we split half of three ways once, and then half of three ways again, at the four and eight hour marks, as a feast of a celebration we had made it that far. Cheryl brought water, which we doled out very sparingly because the effort of bowling through our aisle to get to the bathroom was not worth it. I did not have my glasses, and so squinted most of the time. I had a wedding the night before and had only slept 3 hours - I think I did nod off during a couple of the numbers, particularly the one that was like Sondheim on the Prairie. When the show ended we staggered out and took a huge swig of cool night air, then stumbled into a deli so we could buy food to devour on our way to a diner, where we could order more substantial food. We were faint and weak and battered by the amazingness that had just taken place before our eyes. One of us got very ill on the way home.

But was it worth it? Every last food-deprived, gonna-eat-my-hand, numb-butt, hot-theater, my-neighbor-is-starting-to-smell, I'm-starting-to-smell, hey-wait-we-all-smell-now, bright-lighted, guilt-tripped minute.

Angela Lansbury doing "A Little Priest." Neil Patrick Harris on "Finishing the Hat." Michael Cerveris on EVERYTHING. Judy Kuhn reprising Passion. Jason Danieley reprising "Agony." Donna Murphy: "Losing my Mind." And the genius who thought to put Joss Whedon, Frank Rich, Andrew Lippa and Stephen Sondheim on a stage together and make them talk. I want to kiss these people. All of them. Long and wet.

More soon, that's a promise.

It really has to be said, and it's going to make me sound like more of a gay man than I already am (but that's all right, because my roommate is a straight "gay man" too, so we make a fine pair), but Audra McDonald is a goddess.

That is all. I'm listening to her right now. "Any Place I Hang My Hat Is Home." I literally danced in my kitchen to this song, all by myself. Yes I'm a big fat dork. But...man. MAN. Where did she COME from?

Okay, that's all from the gay man in me. Now the journalist is going to return to doing the story she's put off all week.