New York Is Burning

Although I do remember seeing a documentary called Paris Is Burning I was still blindsided by the off-Broadway production (at Primary Stages) of Wig Out! I guess I was too influenced by the coupon I got in the mail (shown here) and, knowing zilch about the show, I just assumed it would be an amusing, campy entertainment; a perfect show for a weekend houseguest from out of town. A blast of NYC coolness to impress any rural American-citizen redneck passing through.

Paris Is Burning was filmed in the mid-to-late 1980s, released in 1990, and won a bunch of awards in ‘90, ‘91 and ‘92. PIB details the “ball culture” of the poor African American and Latino gay and transgendered community involved in it. At the time it was highly touted as “a thoughtful exploration of race, class and gender in America.” (I got that from Wikipedia.) Wig Out! is not based on the film but it does owe Paris Is Burning a debt in that it made us somewhat familiar with the milieu. Both the film and the play explore the elaborately-structured Ball competitions in which contestants, adhering to a very specific category or theme, must "walk" (much like a fashion runway) and be judged on criteria including the "realness" of their drag, the beauty of their clothing and their dancing ability.

Wig Out! succeeds in all those categories but also succeeds as a theatrical entertainment in and of itself, and to a high degree. By no means a documentary, there is a storyline with several subplots and yes, thank goodness, there are two acts and, boy, do you need that intermission to recover from the relentless attack on your senses. The music is raucous (read “loud”) and quite a bit of it is lip-synched, which is perfectly acceptable since that was obviously the usual mode of musical accompaniment at these balls. Also there is one major difference and this is really a personal opinion and maybe I’m not being as smart as I think: There is actually only one “real” drag performer (known in those circles as Sweetie) but the rest of the cast are actor/singers playing drag performers and, yes, I think there is a difference. I loved Sweetie and her two extra-extravagant solo numbers (her rendition of Grace Slick’s “White Rabbit” killed me but was, admittedly, a trip into my own checkered past) but, somehow, the rest of the cast made their numbers more “human;” does that make any sense? They are all mighty impressive in portraying the believability of their characters and I came out of the show with lighter shoes and Go Ask Alice on my lips.

A side note (I always seem to have one or two of those): Wig Out! opens with three black girls doing their harmonic-voices and synchronic-dancing thing and, for the rest of the evening, they serve as a Greek Chorus, making comments (sometimes in unison) and giving stage notes (“Lucian stomps off”). This is just fine but, hey, wasn’t this threesome a big part of Dreamgirls, Little Shop of Horrors, Hair and goodness knows what other dramas I missed? I guess it’s a tradition we haven’t seen the last of. I even saw it fairly recently in the Patrick Stewart production of Macbeth at BAM in Brooklyn, wherein those three opening-scene witches really rocked. There is probably the equivalent somewhere in Sophocles; I know not.

You know what, I don’t know if these “Ball competitions” are still being held. If not, I can see Wig Out! serving as the catalyst for their revival.

Update October 1, 2008: Wig Out! opened last night and in today's NY Times Ben Brantley, their No. 1 critic, gave it a sensational review. Told ya so, told ya so.

Jane's Carousel

While stumbling around DUMBO last Saturday (literally, since lots of those streets down there have been allowed to revert to their original cobble-stoned surfaces) we came across this carousel, which is housed in a warehouse barely large enough to hold it. It has been restored to a pristine condition and is awaiting some kind of agreement between its owners and local government bureaucracies to install it in the park Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. It’s in beautiful condition and lovely to look at in its present locale and I’m of two minds about the plans for it. Keeping it safe and sound and pristine pleases the eye but, of course, it’s a practical entertainment device and probably should be utilized in the manner for which it was built and allowed exposure to the elements; that is, the vagaries of wind and weather and susceptible to vandals of all kinds: human, avian, insect and of course the natural erosion of its own materials when exposed to natural (east coast) elements. In other words, should it be a museum piece or should we set it into motion and allow our tiny human counterparts to throw-up on it?

It was built by The Philadelphia Toboggan Co. in 1922 and installed in Idora Park in Youngstown, OH from whence David and Jane Walentas purchased it in 1984 when the park closed and its contents auctioned off. It seemingly became Ms. Walentas obsession for many years and an on-again off-again restoration proceeded under her auspices. Now the work is done, but evidently coping with a tangle of bureaucratic red tape to get it installed in its proper spot, continues.

While we were standing behind the protective ropes admiring the carousel the attendants kindly put it in motion just for us. How cool was that? I missed the reedy thump-thump music usually associated with carousels but it was great to watch the horses glide by, some leaping angrily; snorting to break free from their shiny brass poles (yes, I sometimes wax poetic, obviously in a somewhat purple hue). Whatever happens to Jane’s Carousel, I feel privileged to have seen it in its lovingly restored perfection.

Shuffling Off...

A.J. Gurney owes me half a play. Well, maybe a third if he is adroit enough to fix what I think is wrong with his play Buffalo Gal. Don’t get me wrong, this long one act is perfectly pleasant and the premise is interesting enough to pique one’s interest: A semi-famous television actress of a “certain age” agrees to star in a production of Anton Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard at the theater where she started her career in Buffalo, NY some thirty years earlier. She arrives grandly, shakes up the natives grandly and departs with (perhaps sincere) repentance when an offer of an on-going role in an upcoming television series arrives on her handheld mechanical device (perhaps a blackberry). Her fawning subjects, both on stage and, well, in the audience (us) are left gasping when she sucks the life out of the air and, flinging a promise over her departing shoulder that she would only miss one, maybe two, rehearsals, she disappears into the ether, stage left. Everybody left behind is fully aware that it’s not a likely prospect they will be seeing her any time soon despite the fact the actress grew up in Buffalo and, during the course of the play, professes an interest in moving “home” and buying the house where her grandmother lived.

Every character in the play seems to have his or her purpose in explaining the whys and wherefores of “regional” theater. The stage manager is used as a device to explain to us how much money this “star” would have to forego to do Chekhov in Buffalo; right down to specifics, that is, $463 a week she would make (presumably after taxes) as opposed to the possible $1 million over time if the series gets picked up. How can “art” compete with that? There is a young intern from a local college who is writing a thesis on regional theaters in the U.S. so the topic gets covered nicely. The director fantasizes a rosy future if she can bring off a successful production of a Chekhov classic with a proven star (we’ll take it to Broadway!). An actor brought in to get approval from the star (she gives it) because he is to play her character’s brother in the play and he happens to be African American; thus giving us a primer on just what “non-traditional” casting means and which has, nationally, become fairly common.

I’m not sure what the function is of the old boy friend who turns up unannounced and wants to rekindle that 30-year-old flame, despite having a family of his own. I guess Gurney thought some love interest was needed although our star isn’t much into it (consequently neither are we). All of these characters are played nicely by the actors assigned to them however, even though you learn to like them, you really don’t learn much about them. They touch you only a little but don’t make much of a dent. Overall, it’s a play about doing a play at a theater you don’t much care about and it trails off into a future in which you mildly wonder what happens next; but oh, well, no big deal.

There are two aspects of this production that have the Life-Imitates-Art-Blah-Blah-Blah and that is the casting of Susan Sullivan (I won’t list her accomplishments…Google her if you want) in the part of the television star, Amanda. Secondly, it’s telling that the professional regional theater in Buffalo on which this play is based, the Studio Arena Theatre, went belly-up in February of this year. Consequently, although lightly played, it’s a sad story brought home by the fact that, in one brilliant technical move Ms. Sullivan has a fitting for her Amanda costume (and a photo shoot thereof) and she effectively slides subtly into the dignity and pathos of Chekhov’s Madame Ranevskaya as well as Amanda’s take on the role and you sense the actress (both Ms. Sullivan and Amanda, if you get my drift) really could do this classic role, maybe brilliantly.

Buffalo Gal is an enjoyable evening but a slight-of-hand trifle that works for the hour and 20 minutes it takes to get us back out on East 59th St., but without much bacon to chew on. However, the designer pizza (shrimp and artichoke) at Shelly’s Tradizionale Ristorante de Pesce right up the street was certainly crispy and, even better, available since it was still so early in the evening.

Have you noticed that more and more plays are being encapsulated into only one act these days? I guess it’s easier to write just one “curtain” scene or speech instead of the traditional two or, god forbid, the three required for longer works. Not that Gurney gives us a climax in Buffalo Gal since he allowed his ending to float off rather than have any sort of finality about it. Being the theatrical puppets we are we filled in our own individual endings which might have been his intention, but, NUH UH! You owe me at least 20 more minutes, Mr. Gurney! Tell me what YOU think happened to all these characters and why. I mean it! I don’t like treading water when it’s not deep.