Summer Season (Part 1)
Because it is one of the two cities in the United States, some part of me constantly wishes I was in New York. (The other proper city is Los Angeles; I don’t mean to say that other places do not exist, simply that they don’t qualify as cities when you account for the existence of Beijing, Lagos, Paris, Tokyo, etc. Instead, they’re the same middling Americana town reproduced at scale. The vast majority of US communities are provincial, proud, and humiliatingly ignorant of the scale of the world.)
I came to New York for theater and opera, overlapping dates of the new Cabaret reimagining and the very recent revival of Fire Shut Up in My Bones, and then tossing in the revived Carmen almost as an afterthought because everyone should see the most well-known opera at least once.
So let’s start with Cabaret:
I showed up and spent a lot of time milling around, wondering which parts of the August Wilson Theater hadn’t been changed for the show. So much of everywhere looks the same now, so much is a bulk purchase, a shittier imitation, and already broken.
And more and more, regardless of how they dress it up, everyone is a cop. I was handed two things when I entered the theater and they scanned my ticket: a shot of well vodka and a sticker. The vodka was supposedly to get me “in the spirit” of the show (I passed) and the sticker was a non-optional cover for my phone’s camera in an attempt to deter people from recording the production.
Cabaret is a musical about a naïve closeted(ish) bisexual man who comes to Berlin right on the brink of the cultural collapse before the Second World War. He meets and becomes caught up in the life of a nightclub singer, and also becomes unwittingly employed by a member of the Nazi Party. As history plays out with the Nazis getting more confident and loudly anti-Semitic, things become worse for characters in the musical and the young man flees. But the nightclub singer insists on staying, believing in her dream that things will get better somehow. The show ends with the club, and the singer, deteriorating.
And the reason I’m even passingly familiar with various historically significant productions of Cabaret on (and off!) Broadway over the last 50 years is because of the very cammers this production went to such pains to keep out. I find the attempt to try and place any musical, but especially this one, at odds with cammers/slime tutorial makers and still try to position the musical production as making a meaningful statement about systemic forces of oppression, to be either lacking self-awareness, or deeply perverse: I didn’t pay all that money for a good seat in the speakeasy just to be turned into a narc at the door.
The Vault Bar felt like the living room of someone who had been very into “Millennial Pink” ten years ago but who was now into “Eyeballs and Gold” and was trying to make that transition work. Every color was the version that an Anne of Green Gables type would apply the adjective “dusty” to. Dusty rose, dusty yellow, dusty brown. The paneled ceiling had been painted with Germanic floral patterns and gold leaf. Blue was spare and I was hungry for it: The Vault Bar sign itself, small beads on the oboe player’s costume harness, The Emcee and Sally Bowles occasionally. But they hadn’t shown up yet, and overall the pre-show had the vibe of being trapped at a house party with a score of Amanda Palmer admirers.
I was not in a good mood. A revival is often a tough sell for me, especially in this time when we seem unable to imagine a future absent an overwhelming amount of nostalgia for past media and ideas (many of which do not deserve near-constant remembering). I had seen the wrong amount of hype ahead of time – enough to get a glimpse and form an opinion, not nearly enough to get any informed sense of how it could all hang together. The Pineapple Room, a little emerald of a place to eat and get ready access to toilets, was delightful if, y’know, the kind of thing that had excited me aesthetically in 2017. But it in no way reminded me of a Coachella inspo board, and that’s the only room I can say that about in the venue.
On to the thing we were ostensibly there to see, the show:
There is a story that needs to be running in an actor’s head the entire time they’re on stage, and every gesture they make, every facial expression they have, every place their eyes fall – all of these things need to align with and be informed by that story. For some of the cast, a certain moment would come in a song and I would see the character drop away and I was simply watching a talented singer and dancer showing off how well they can perform the last refrain of a song. It’s extremely noticeable when the actor to their left and right is still in character. Some of the Kit Kat Club cast is extraordinary, and not just because of their singing or dancing – at this level, everyone is so good that it’s a waste of time trying to measure to that kind of standard. But maintaining enough focus to stay in character even as you cross and clear a stage requires a certain skill, there is no faking it, and not everyone on that stage has developed it. But for the ones who had it, it was sublime to watch.
(The ability to hold a character’s inner life no matter what and appear natural when doing strange things is one of the key parts of what makes an action-oriented performance good, and why I maintain that Keanu Reeves is one of the finest actors of his generation. He will probably never receive the appropriate level of credit for his on-camera stunt work or his ability to make extremely high-concept circumstances feel grounded and relatable and have that all naturally read on camera. Meanwhile, I have seen actors who can make me weep in other roles become utterly unconvincing when they hold a prop gun and hit a green screen mark. I’m certain I’ve written a variation of this before. I will probably bring it up again whenever I can.)
Much attention was on Eddie Redmayne and how he would interpret The Emcee. My main impression of Redmayne as an actor before this comes from his performance in Jupiter Ascending, a film I describe to people as, “great but not good.” The thing is, where film really rewards stillness and thus can allow for a near-total absence of personality, preparation, what have you, and translate it into something that feels very natural on screen, theater rewards hard fucking work. (Inversely, it’s very easy to try too hard in movie acting and spoil a performance; this is why some people hate everything Anne Hathaway does.) Redmayne worked his fucking ass off to build a technically skilled, nuanced performance where every choice and even motion his character makes are connected. Redmayne built the magic circle brightly. His was an emcee that suited the vibes of the building we were in precisely: at times alluring, at times clownish, but never truly cool, always slightly uncanny, and by the end of the night it was clear that this was the kind of person in charge who would turn you in–if he hadn’t already–if it meant his neck was safe.
I suppose it’s expected to say something about Gayle Rankin as Sally Bowles. Here’s the thing: as mentioned above, almost every historically significant performance of Cabaret is available on the internet. There are so many wonderful interpretations of that role, where the actor sank in and found so much to play with, not only the songs but also the acting scenes. There isn’t one “right” way to play any character, and appreciating the different directions talented, skilled people have chosen to take a character is part of the fun. Go enjoy those. There are so many good things in this world. I try to put my attention there whenever I can.
At a higher level, I will say that this production felt like it was struggling to be, at every opportunity, “relevant” (derogatory). At one point the Emcee even came out in what was either a blue variant of That Alaia Coat or a knockoff (I hope it was a knockoff, I know what costumes go through). Given that the United States is a fascist country actively funding genocide in Palestine, I’m not sure it’s a challenge to make Cabaret’s material something audiences can connect with. If anything, it might be tough to make sure people don’t get confused and cheer for the Nazis; and I did notice the material has been softened so there’s less outright Nazism and more vague allusions and gestures. (Very little Sieg Heil-ing in this one! Too camp?)
I’m not sure if it’s wise or not, and I mean that – I’m not sure. On the one hand, people do not seem to be able to connect their behavior with the behavior of anyone they’ve been taught is “bad”, so once something’s identified as “Nazi” on stage, you’ve lost the ability to let the audience hold something more complex close to their heart. On the other hand, if we do not give language to it, it literally cannot be addressed.
The next night was Fire Shut Up In My Bones, which I had seen twice already but never live. (The Metropolitan Opera occasionally simulcasts operas to movie theaters across the country and while it is a somewhat clunky event, it is also a much less expensive ticket to the Met than otherwise available, especially if you don’t live in New York City.) I don’t quite know how to write about something I am an uncritical fan of; it happens so rarely. This is an opera (a genre I have no educational background in) based on a memoir (a genre I roll my eyes at) and just sitting here now thinking about it again, I’m near tears. It’s simply that way with art when it is truly fine, and why ultimately when I criticize something, it’s because I am wanting it to attain this place. To construct a framework so that the audience may sense the mirrored door within the self, so that the relation between one and all the rest–the living and those who were once alive–can be felt. Fire Shut Up In My Bones opens that door for me.
Finally came Carmen. Yes, back to The Met, which felt decadent (as, I’m confident, it is designed to feel), and if anyone is interested in becoming my patron so I can write about theater in New York City more regularly, consider me very available.
(If anyone is running a carpet installation business, consider studying whatever was used underneath the carpeting at The Metropolitan Opera House for the top of your range. I think I sank a quarter of an inch every time I took a step. Anyone who wears high heels to The Met must be getting the glute workout of a lifetime.)
I guess normally Carmen is about a wanton woman who drives a man crazy by refusing to marry him and doing all kinds of sexy antics and being uncontrollable and…yeah I can’t even get the whole description out. But apparently, that is the frame! For over a hundred years, this has been Carmen, and people were just…okay with that! I guess opera-goers were very late to develop critical thinking skills (see also: still putting Turandot on stage…I’ve sat through it. Yikes.) but eventually people decided perhaps one could look at things from the titular character’s point of view. So!
The Met’s revival of Carmen is about a modern Chicana factory worker in a border town who is just living her life, hanging out with her friends, her frienemies, etc, sometimes getting in fights, but all in all making it work. And then a border guard gets it into his head that he’s in love with her. She goes with that for a while to get out of a detention facility, but then she can never manage to ditch the guy. He refuses to let go, escalating and stalking her, even after she and her girlfriends cross the border and she starts dating a rodeo star. She refuses him to his face once more and he murders her.
And it was so good and so much fun! This felt like the “thoughtful, relevant” update that I hear producers claim they’ve always given shows, but this one worked. It still had so many “big” moments, but they felt very grounded…yet still delivering the spectacle The Met demands. (I could practically feel the class divide in the audience as the story progressed and it sank in that yes, we would be watching people sing in jeans the entire time. Which ruuuuuled. It’s not like the stage wasn’t still full of incredible set pieces and lots of stuff that I am sure has never been at The Met before (eg: an 18-wheeler full of people dancing), it’s just also not Old And Racist so that may have felt alarmingly nontraditional for some of the audience. Maybe I’m being ungenerous! I’m so into this Carmen’s butterfly knife and cowboy boots, though.)
I also stopped by the Whitney Biennial while I was in town, but I took no notes (like a fool) and it’s been months so I genuinely couldn’t tell you who made what or what felt memorable. I recall spending a luxurious amount of time in assorted chairs watching interviews of queer elders talk about their sex lives, and watching a lengthy neon sign with “Free Palestine” hidden in it in flickering letters.
(Watching people notice that one and point it out to each other, and then react to the statement together, was a different art exhibit: the cold American heart. I would say I’ve seldom felt more lonely but that is a lie. It is if not a daily effort then a weekly one to find the humanity in the inhumane behavior of others. To continue to feel among. This has been the main work of the past five or so years for me. It does not get easier.)