The Play’s the Thing, Part 3

Our final play on Broadway was a non-musical, a piece that we were entirely unfamiliar with. We chose it by browsing through the list and finding a synopsis that intrigued us. “The Minutes,” by Tracy Letts, was described as part-Parks and Recreation, part-Twilight Zone. That alone was enough for us to buy tickets.

It was an apt description. The play takes place during a city council meeting in the small town of “Big Cherry.” At the start, there is abundant humor in the form of finicky little bureaucratic details and the eccentricities of each council member. Then we become aware of something more sinister as the tone subtly shifts into horror.

One council member was absent from the last meeting, and he’s disquieted to learn that another member was ousted from the group that week. No one will tell him why. When he requests to see the minutes, the others fend him off with odd mutterings and vague excuses. Meanwhile, the current meeting addresses proposals that are related to the town’s heritage. We are treated to an enthusiastic (and hilarious) reenactment of the town’s founding hero and legend. But something still seems…off.

Eventually the events of that last meeting are revealed, and things get very dark. I’m not exaggerating that we left the play feeling shaken to the core. Yet…in a good way? It was a stark and thoughtful interrogation of the founding myths that we cling to, and the extremes we might embrace to keep those myths nice and shiny.

The production was excellent. This is a fairly new play, and it had just debuted on Broadway a week earlier. I was captivated by every performance and particularly delighted to recognize the actor playing Mr. Oldfield as Austin Pendleton. He’s in some of my favorite films from the 70s, and still going strong! Certain features of live theater made this production especially immersive, like the conceit of the lights flickering or going completely black during the thunderstorm going on throughout the council meeting. Watching something like this on a screen could not compare to actually being there in the spooky darkness. And as always, the audience responses to humor or shocking moments make it so much more electric and alive. A powerful finish to our Broadway experience.

The Play’s the Thing: Part 2

The second play we attended during our week in New York was Wicked, a musical that first premiered on Broadway in 2003. Obviously a show doesn’t stick around that long without having achieved intense popularity, and it certainly has. I was already well-acquainted with the music and the storyline, but we figured we might as well choose at least one musical experience with all the quintessential spectacle and glitz of Broadway. In that regard, the production delivered amply.

In other regards, I have to admit I wasn’t particularly moved by the characters. They were entertaining (especially Glinda’s histrionics) but a little too larger-than-life, skimming swiftly from one development to the next, to engender much empathy. Perhaps this is also because we were sitting too far from the stage to see any clear facial expressions. Or the fact that I already knew what was coming for the most part…I don’t know. It was a fun experience, and not much more than that.

Clearly our experience is not universal. What is it about this play that makes it so successful and beloved? There are several elements that, I believe, contribute to its staying power. (I’m not going to avoid spoilers, because after all, it’s nineteen years old.) The first element is its source material. Ostensibly it’s adapted from Gregory Maguire’s novel of the same name, but said adaptation borrowed little more than the names and basic circumstances that Maguire created. In the simplest sense, the musical takes one concept from the book and runs with it: what if the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda were roommates at school, and became best friends?

People love fan fiction. We might not always acknowledge it as such, particularly when the creator of the original story is long dead and we don’t have to worry about copyright issues, but that’s basically the driving force behind all the remakes, reboots, reimaginings and sequels that inundate film and television. We love seeing fresh takes on familiar stories, something that provides both the comfort of something we recognize and the excitement of the unknown. I’ve already ranted at length at how this trend succumbs so easily to artistic bankruptcy, so let’s avoid another tirade and move on to the specifics of this story.

L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz was written, and largely succeeded, as an American fairy tale that combined time-honored tropes with modern elements like Kansas. And of course its most beloved and famous incarnation is the 1939 film with Judy Garland. It’s deeply embedded in our pop culture, with oft-quoted lines and instantly-recognizable images. So many referential elements in the musical are presented with a sort of winking (apologies to the Winkies, no pun intended) acknowledgment of their counterparts in the film. The black pointed hat and broom, the Tin Man and the Lion and Scarecrow; they all get their little origin story. We can nod knowingly as we put the pieces together, chuckle at lines that tease the movie’s dialogue.

We also love stories that reframe villains from a sympathetic standpoint. It would explain the bizarre (to me, anyway) success of films centered on Maleficent or Cruella DeVil, which may not really explore the motives behind their protagonists’ nefarious actions, so much as recast all the heroes as the true villains and the title characters as unjustly-wronged victims. I’m not really a fan of this “revisionist history,” as it were. I much prefer stories like the Star Wars prequels that allow heroes like Obi-Wan to be flawed without being outed as “the actual villain,” while portraying Anakin’s fall into evil as the tragic consequence of his bad choices. We can sympathize with him, to be sure, but there is no attempt to justify him.

Never mind my personal preferences, people love Elphaba’s story. She is awkward, lonely and ostracized for her green skin. She finds some friendship and support during her journey, but just as often that support is ripped away, or tortured into antipathy. I would say she’s really only “wicked” for about two scenes of the entire musical, and this behavior (her terrorizing of Dorothy) happens offstage. She never does gain widespread acceptance, but she gets a relatively happy ending, certainly in comparison to Maguire’s version who actually melts to death. She and Glinda reconcile their differences, she fakes her death and she and her love interest go quietly off into the sunset.

Ah, Glinda. I suspect the Elphaba/Glinda friendship might be the most powerful component of the musical. Just from my husband’s frequent struggles to find female-dominated plays for a female-dominated drama club, it appears that a lot of plays center around men. Women might play a part; they might even be the lead, but most likely their story has to do with falling in love. Wicked does include a romance, but it’s far from the most important element. It’s really all about two girls with violently clashing personalities who form an unlikely bond. While I could criticize the underdeveloped nature of that bond thanks to the madcap pacing of the play, I will acknowledge that it’s still the most satisfying part. The final song before the grand finale is “For Good,” positioned in contrast to the “unadulterated loathing” they express during their first duet. Considering how many Broadway fans are young women, is it any surprise that a musical centered around two women and their friendship has gained such a following?

What else? The songs are catchy, the costuming and sets are splashy, and the effects are well-executed. I personally prefer one of Stephen Schwarz’s musicals that never made it to Broadway, but I’m fine with being in the minority. The success of Wicked might be more of a testament to the power of a film from 1939, and that’s fine as well. Some stories are going to be told over and over and over again, and sometimes those retellings stumble into something truly brilliant.

The Play’s the Thing: Part 1

Last month my husband and I celebrated our twentieth wedding anniversary, a milestone that has me rather flummoxed. Like most people over the age of 30, I’m fairly certain that I just graduated from high school ten or so years ago. Shouldn’t someone of my alleged age and experience have more wisdom, confidence and/or competence? I still feel like I’m largely faking it when it comes to adult capabilities. Yet here I am.

Regardless of existential mysteries, I’m very glad for the occasion to celebrate. My parents generously watched our kids for a week while we went to New York City. I haven’t been there since high school, and my husband had never been at all. Among the many touristy things that filled up our week, we attended three plays on Broadway. The general mood there is downright celebratory after COVID forced us all to forego live performances for so long. You can feel a sense of joy emanating from every theater.

Live theater is, I believe, a vastly under-appreciated art form (naturally I’m biased because of my theatre-teacher husband, but still). Though the big showstoppers on Broadway might rake in tons of money, the average person is unlikely to attend plays on a regular basis in their own community. We tend to get most of our performative storytelling in the form of film and television. And there’s nothing wrong with those mediums, don’t get me wrong! But I fear we’re losing something when we don’t support live theater, particularly non-musicals. It seems to have developed a reputation of being stodgy, enjoyable only for for elitist intellectuals rather than common folk.

And that’s a shame. Watching a story on stage versus on the screen is an entirely different experience. There is real interplay between the audience and the actors. No one performance is exactly identical to any other. And there’s plenty of entertainment to be had in local theater, if you’re willing to look for it. I can attest to this because I’ve seen plays at just about every level, from simple elementary school programs all the way to, well, Broadway. And I’ve seen some community theater productions that absolutely blew me away with their display of talent, energy, and emotion.

Now, back to Broadway. Each play we watched was a very different experience. I’m going to explore each of them over the course of three entries, comparing and contrasting and whatnot. I’ll start with “Come From Away” since it was the first one we saw. These were some lucky discounted tickets that we bought just a day before the performance. The seats were ideally situated, though the theater was small and intimate enough that I doubt you could really get terrible seats. It’s a small production compared to many musicals. Only twelve cast members who play multiple roles, with a minimal set and the orchestra playing in the wings instead of in a pit.

It was well-suited for the story, the true tale of the little town of Gander, Newfoundland and the thousands of passengers who were grounded at its airport on September 11, 2001. The locals took in the stranded travelers and provided shelter, food and just about anything they could think of until the planes were permitted to fly again. Of course anything associated with 9/11 is a delicate topic, however heartwarming it may be. The musical strikes a careful balance between humor, inspiration, tragedy and hope.

The cast was phenomenal. Each actor is required to portray several characters, often switching roles in a split-second change. The differences are cleverly marked by a change in dialect and minor costume details like hats or coats. For all the rapid shifts, I was rarely confused at who someone was supposed to be playing. The staging helped greatly as well — though the cast isn’t always literally dancing, the entire play is tightly choreographed so everyone is in the right place at the right instant. Chairs and tables are arranged in various configurations to represent a coffee shop, an airplane, a bar or even a rock formation. This is one of the aspects of theater that really delights me, how the audience is invited to play make-believe without the need for elaborate simulacrums. We are trusted to be able to figure it out, to use our imaginations and become a part of the story-making process.

Also interestingly, most of the lines are spoken or sung directly to the audience. Characters do interact with each other, but for the most part they are narrating the story to us, relating their individual experiences. Soliloquies are of course a common feature of theater, but it’s intriguing to watch a play that is almost entirely in that format. I heard they were planning a movie adaptation of the musical that was later scrapped, and I have to say I’m relieved. This is an inherently theatrical production. It would lose so much of its unique spark if it was forced into the typical narrative style of film.

The music is catchy (we’ve already bought the soundtrack) though there’s very few songs that would work as stand-alone pieces. That’s not a bad thing. The entire show is under two hours, with no intermission, and each song tends to move rather sprightly into the next. Some moments are hilarious, others are poignant or heartbreaking or bittersweet. The writers interviewed large numbers of real-life people to create composite characters for the show. No single role stands out as the lead; each character’s story is important and valued.

Though most of the story takes place in Canada, this is a play of particular significance for New York, as any 9/11 story would be. As it happened, the very day after we saw this play, we visited the World Trade Center memorial that honors those who were lost. It was an awful day with unspeakable horrors. It was also a time when opportunities for kindness and compassion arose in many unlikely places, including a little town in Newfoundland. If you have the chance to attend a live performance, I highly recommend it. If not that, there is also a recording of the production with much of the original cast on Apple TV.

Next time: a more conventional musical with a whole lot of dazzling effects and a preponderance of green.