I got home tonight from listening to a conversation between the NYT's Frank Rich and WTTW's John Callaway at the Harold Washington Public Library with a lot on my mind. (More on that talk on the TOC blog tomorrow.) Here, via the magic of the internets, I keep finding more to think about.
At the Guardian's arts blog, Mark Ravenhill (playwright of such high-minded, accessible works as Shopping & Fucking) suggests that fluffy musicals on the West End deserve less attention from the press than "serious" drama. Here at home, our own Don Hall laments that, in his view, flash outweighs substance with both audiences and critics.
Ravenhill suggests that London productions such as the new, reality-TV-cast revival of Joseph or the stage edition of Dirty Dancing shouldn't get the same number of column inches as Pinter or William Wycherley. Don seems like he might be expressing the same sentiment as regards Jersey Boys and Wicked versus solidly acted storefront fare.
I'm not exactly arguing against the spirit of Don's argument—I think he's taking his cue from things we said in TOC's Fall Theater cover story last month. But there's more to our argument than that, I think. After all, Don gave us props a few months ago for giving the same word count to shows both big and small.
I'm not anti-glitz, necessarily. I've mentioned here before that I'm all for Wicked if it gets young audiences into the idea of going to theater.
Having heard Frank Rich tonight, I'm reminded of the early parts of his memoir Ghost Light, in which he recounts his earliest encounters with theater: the cast recording of The Pajama Game, the TV version of Mary Martin's Peter Pan, a touring edition of Damn Yankees.
And I think of my own introductions: the community college (I think) production of Annie Get Your Gun that my uncle was in and I barely remember attending; the production of Grease I saw on a 5th-grade field trip to my future high school; and the first show I was cast in as a high school sophomore, playing Officer Klein in Arsenic and Old Lace. None of these were very challenging shows, really, any more than the touring productions that came through my small Southern town (the first tour I remember seeing at the Walton Arts Center after I got turned on to theater in high school was Neil Simon's Lost in Yonkers). If all of these things hadn't gotten me interested in theater, I would never have sat down for two hours in the stacks at the Hendrix College library during my summer at Arkansas Governor's School to read the newly published scripts of Angels in America. I wouldn't have enrolled in the drama classes where a student teacher gave me Paula Vogel's The Baltimore Waltz, where I found the monologue that got me into Governor's School. And I certainly wouldn't have gone into college as a drama major.
So for myself, I can't argue against these kinds of shows existing, as they may well be the "gateway drugs" that get kids, or teenagers, or 40-year-old women into theater in the first place.
There's nothing wrong with razzle-dazzle. What bugs me is the windstorm that seems to be loose in Chicago, where commercial producing money and city subsidy money and mass media attention are going to that kind of theater to the detriment of our own homegrown theater. There's a wide variety of theater in Chicago, and all of it deserves attention. If Frank Rich and I needed Rodgers & Hammerstein and Neil Simon and Moss Hart to get to Brett Neveu and Sheila Callaghan and WNEP, then more power to it. The trouble is that too much tourist-focused attention on the big shows could make our local audiences forget the breadth of the material available to them.
As long as we're talking glitz, the Jeff Awards ceremony just ended. Click after the jump for the winners.
COMPLETE LIST OF JEFF AWARDS
Production – Play
“August: Osage County,” Steppenwolf Theatre Company
Production – Musical
“Ragtime,” Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago
Production – Revue
“The All Night Strut!,” Marriott Theatre
Ensemble
“August: Osage County,” Steppenwolf Theatre Company
New Work – Play
Tracy Letts, “August: Osage County,” Steppenwolf Theatre Company
New Work – Musical
Joshua Schmidt & Jason Loewith, “The Adding Machine,” Next Theatre Company
New Adaptation
Mary Zimmerman, “Argonautika: The Voyage of Jason and the Argonauts,” Lookingglass Theatre Company
Director – Play
Anna D. Shapiro, “August: Osage County,” Steppenwolf Theatre Company
Director – Musical
L. Walter Stearns, “Ragtime,” Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago
Director – Revue
Marc Robin, “The All Night Strut!,” Marriott Theatre
Actor in a Principal Role – Play
Ben Carlson, “Hamlet,” Chicago Shakespeare Theater
Actor in a Principal Role – Musical
David Hess, “Shenandoah,” Marriott Theatre
Actress in a Principal Role – Play
Deanna Dunagan, “August: Osage County,” Steppenwolf Theatre Company
Actress in a Principal Role – Musical
Ernestine Jackson, “Raisin,” Court Theatre
Solo Performance (2 recipients)
Lance Stuart Baker, “Thom Pain (based on nothing),” Theater Wit
Matt Sax, “Clay,” About Face Theatre and Lookingglass Theatre Company
Actor in a Supporting Role – Play
Maury Cooper, “The Price,” Shattered Globe Theatre
Actor in a Supporting Role – Musical
Aaron Graham, “Ragtime,” Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago
Cameo Performance
Douglas Vickers, “The Best Man,” Remy Bumppo Theatre Company
Actress in a Supporting Role – Play
Penny Slusher, “Another Part of the Forest,” Writers’ Theatre
Actress in a Supporting Role – Musical
Sara R. Sevigny, “Assassins,” Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago
Actor in a Revue
"Mississippi" Charles Bevel, “Fire on the Mountain,” Northlight Theatre
Actress in a Revue
Molly Andrews, “Fire on the Mountain,” Northlight Theatre
Choreography
Marc Robin, Beverly Durand, Mark Stuart Eckstein, Sylvia Hernandez-DiStasi, & Sasha Vargas,
“The All Night Strut!,” Marriott Theatre
Scenic Design
Todd Rosenthal, “August: Osage County,” Steppenwolf Theatre Company
Costume Design
Mara Blumenfeld, “Mirror of the Invisible World,” Goodman Theatre
Sound Design
Richard Woodbury, “King Lear,” Goodman Theatre
Lighting Design
John Culbert, “Mirror of the Invisible World,” Goodman Theatre
Music Direction
Eugene Dizon, “Ragtime,” Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago
Original Incidental Music
Michael Bodeen, “Mirror of the Invisible World,” Goodman Theatre
Artistic Specialization
Michael Montenegro, Puppet Design, “The Puppetmaster of Lodz,” Writers' Theatre
*sigh*
Kris, you seem to have stumbled into my bete noire of the moment (see http://jeffreymjones.blogspot.com/2007/10/thinking-about-writing-about-thinking.html).
Simply put, it's offensive to lump "kids, teenagers, and 40-year-old women" together into a category that you seem to be defining as "people who won't go to theater unless it's mostly entertaining and not too challenging." Surely you can see why? (If not, you need to meet more 40-year-old women.) I would never dream of saying, for example, "Well, this frothy musical campy show is a good 'gateway drug' for all those twentysomething gay boys." Because somehow, I've picked up on the fact that not all gay men are the same, and their cultural tastes can vary wildly. And hey -- whaddya know? It's EXACTLY the same way for women -- of all ages! (And kids and teenagers too -- though let's keep the conversation focused on adults for now and not continue the mistake of conflating "older female" with "immature.")
I am really fucking tired of running up against people in theater who don't seem to find anything wrong with using "middle-aged/older woman" as code for "unsophisticated and shallow. (I never see "older men" used in this condescending way -- no, nay, never -- even though I think most theater surveys would show a lot of older straight men go to theater only because they're dragged along by their unsophisticated pain-in-the-ass wives.)
Again, I know you didn't mean offense by this, but man -- lumping grown-ass women into a category that includes juveniles is, on the face of it, not good.
Sorry to ride you, but this shit bugs me. Obviously.
Kerry
Posted by: Kerry Reid | October 30, 2007 at 12:02 PM
look around when you're at the theatre next time, kris. you might indeed see me there. more than that, you'll see a lot of women who are, gasp, OVER 40 there.
perhaps you'd like to elaborate on your comment that suggests that 40 year old women need a dramatic 'gateway drug' to get their finely sculpted butts into any theatre seat.
Posted by: martha | October 30, 2007 at 12:19 PM
Kerry, Martha, you're both quite right. I intended the emphasis of that sentence to be "in the first place," as in the idea that the glitzy shows can attract patrons who are inexperienced with theater, whether they be kids, teenagers, twentysomethings or middle-agers of any gender. But looking at it again, it clearly reads the other way around. The implication that the tastes of all women of a certain age is the same, or that all of them universally need to be eased into theatergoing, is incredibly careless of me—particularly given that I've so recently pointed out other critics using phrases like "chick-lit" or "Lifetime movie" in derisive or dismissive ways.
And Kerry, your point about older straight men is obviously salient considering our conversation the other night about all the male commenters' defensiveness about enjoying Jersey Boys.
This is why I'm starting to appreciate having editors at the day job. Mea culpa. Thanks for calling me on my shit.
Posted by: Kris Vire | October 30, 2007 at 08:12 PM
No problem. Thanks for owning up. That shows class.
Posted by: Kerry Reid | October 30, 2007 at 10:34 PM
ditto. keep on writing kris. you caught me on a "i AM a grey haired lady" day.
the jeff award winners? from "the price" to "the best man" to "raisin" to "argonautika" to "august" ... chicago and american theatre doing some fine things lately. proud to be here.
Posted by: martha | October 31, 2007 at 04:28 AM
I'm also thrilled about "The Adding Machine" winning and getting another production in New York. (Not that it needs the New York imprimatur to convince me it's good, but I'd like to see that show have a life in the regional circuit and beyond.)
Posted by: Kerry Reid | October 31, 2007 at 10:47 AM