It's delightful, it's delicious, it's dlevy!
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- Catey Sullivan: What do you hope the audience in general takes away from the musical?
- Mary Zimmerman: That’s a capitalist question. I feel like it’s enough for shows to be experiences. There is no object that you take. I hope what audiences have at the end is a sense of the incredible wonderment of being a child. Children have one foot in reality and one foot somewhere else.
It’s worth noting that three months into my life as a New Yorker, I have absolutely enjoyed off-Broadway significantly more than Broadway, plays more than musicals, and shows with lower budgets and cheap-o production values over those with spangles and follow-spots.
What’s happening to me?
As if there’s any doubt about how out of touch Isherwood is…
I mean, I don’t love The Last Five Years, but I got angry reading his dismissive review.
And TODAY in poorly-named places..
I dare you to sing “In Your Eyes.”
“I got the horse right here…”
Do you belong to a papering service? Which one should I join? Should I join more than one?
Sometimes when I see a show, I find myself redirecting it in my head. This was the case with today’s trip to the SpeakEasy Stage Company to see Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson. When they got to the line about “sometimes you want to shoot the storyteller in the head,” I leaned over to my friend Rachel and said, “sometimes you want to shoot the director in the head.”
How do you do this show and not have it be loud? Not have it be sexy? How do you do it with a lead actor who’s commenting on the character instead of playing him?
This was one of two shows (along with ART’s Pippin) I was most looking forward to in Boston’s theater season, and I am so disappointed.
I think the piece itself has some problems, largely due to under-writing (and confusion due to too many conflicting framing devices), but I really can’t judge it based on this production.
From 2004 to 2006 I was the Boston-area theater critic for TalkinBroadway.com. They list their review archives by show title rather than by date, so it’s hard for me to direct people to my archives should they want to look, so I thought it would be useful (if only to me) to create a list of links here.
- Company (SpeakEasy Stage, October, 2004)
- Ears on a Beatle (Lyric Stage, October, 2004)
- Big River (National Tour, November, 2004)
- Johnny Guitar (SpeakEasy Stage, November, 2004)
- The Value of Names (Theatre Cooperative, November, 2004)
- John and Jen (Stoneham Theatre, February, 2005)
- blue/orange (Zeitgeist Stage Company, February, 2005)
- The Sound of Music (Wheelock Family Theatre, February, 2005)
- Homebody/Kabul (Boston Theatre Works, March, 2005)
- The Old Man and The Sea (Stoneham Theatre, March, 2005)
- The Trojan Whore (Mill 6 Collaborative, April, 2005)
- You Never Know (Trinity Repertory Company, April, 2005)
- Promises, Promises (Animus Ensemble, December, 2005)
- Brooklyn Boy (SpeakEasy Stage, March, 2006)
- Talley’s Folly (Lyric Stage, March, 2006)
- Boots on the Ground (Trinity Repertory Company, April, 2006)
- Caroline, Or Change (SpeakEasy Stage, May, 2006)
- Into The Woods (New Repertory Theatre, May, 2006)
- The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told (Encore Theater Company, June, 2006)
- 1776 (Lyric Stage, September, 2006)
- The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee (National Tour, September, 2006)
- Little Shop of Horrors (Animus Ensemble, October, 2006)
- The Women (SpeakEasy Stage, October, 2006)
- The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin (SpeakEasy Stage, November, 2006)
This American Life: Retraction [PDF Transcript]
There are going to be some amazing masters theses written about this event.
For a long time I’ve been fascinated by the ethics of telling stories that uncover truths while the stories themselves aren’t factual. I mean, that’s the essence of liberal religion. I think this comparison is particularly apt given the way Apple devotees worship Steve Jobs, the way theater fans worship theater, and the very name of Daisey’s show: The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.
I wonder now if last week’s obsession with The Lifespan of a Fact on public radio was a subtle way to prepare listeners for this.
I wonder if Mike Daisey has any hope of maintaining a career as a monologuist after this. Will his next great monologue be the theatrical equivalent of the Opera Apology Appearance? I Lied To You And Now I’m Sorry: A Theatrical Monologue By Mike Daisey (Of course, a more appropriate theatrical exploitation of this chapter would be for someone else to create Daisey/Glass, ala Frost/Nixon, so Daisey himself neither profits nor has a hand in how this part of the story is portrayed and interpreted.)
The real problem for me, as someone who wants to believe in the redemptive power of theater, is that Daisey’s fabrications go beyond what happened on stage, beyond the confines of his story. During the fact-checking process, he lied directly to the radio producers. He wrote op-eds in major newspapers containing these lies.
I mean, I get it. The attention that came to Daisey because of this monologue was huge, career-making, life-changing. And when that kind of attention comes calling, it’s very hard to draw the line and say, “No, I this kind of exposure, this kind of publicity will pull my story out of the realm of theatrical licence and into an ethically indefensible area.” How do you say to This American Life, to The New York Times, etc. “No thanks?”
But he should have. And Daisey, in particular, as someone who has examined these very issues in previous pieces—most damningly so in Truth, about James Frey—should have known better and acted better.
Is this an opportunity for an American conversation of the nature of truth versus fiction, truth versus facts, history versus memory versus mythology? Probably. Will the conversation last beyond one news cycle? Doubtful.
ETA: The Public Theater’s statement on the show’s relationship to facts.
TimeOut New York has done their semi-annual roundup of the hottest chorus boys and chorus girls opening in shows in the next couple of months.
At first glance, I can say that Evita seems to have the guys I’d most want to lick, and Nice Work If You Can Get It has the guys I’d most want to hug. Honorable mention to Jesus Christ Superstar for being more or less the half-way point between licking and hugging. And WTF if going on in the picture of the guy from Newsies?
Also, isn’t it nice for a chance to have a feature where the ladies are wearing more clothes and being slightly less objectified than the gentlemen?
