After a six month hiatus, I recently saw a couple of big ticket Broadway shows. One was Brief Encounter, based on Noel Coward’s film of the same name. The other was the current revival of the Jerry Herman/Harvey Fierstein musical La Cage aux Folles.
First of all, let me say that my standards for a theatrical experience are completely unpredictable and idiosyncratic. The best show I ever saw was The Fantasticks, about seven or eight years into its original run. Before you clap your hands to your face and open your mouth to shriek in terror and dismay, let me add that I was thirteen at the time, and had never seen a really well done show in a tiny theater, so close to the actors, accompanied only by a piano. Revolutionary! Like walking into Our Town without knowing about the “no scenery” stage direction.
I’d never heard the cast album, and since I didn’t know who Luisa was until I walked into the theatre, I wasn’t wishing with all my heart to play her in my high school’s revival of the show. When I left the theatre, I was surrounded by a golden glow, and walked on air. For several blocks. Or maybe it was several days.
That is a pretty high experiential bar to meet.
So, about these latest Broadway offerings I just saw. I left the theatre in both cases feeling that my heart had been touched, but, really not so much because of the actual show for which I’d bought a ticket. Brief Encounter is extremely well done, and if you’ve seen the recent production of 39 Steps, you have some idea what to expect—lots of inside jokes that are much funnier if you are very familiar with the source material, and incredibly ingenious use of costumes, props, media, and low tech, to represent film settings, angles, atmospheres, and effects. Obviously the creative team gets an A for ingeniousness; unfortunately, ingeniousness starts to seem like nothing more than a party trick when one is over-exposed to it.
The different between 39 Steps and Brief Encounter, though, is that 39 Steps plays it pretty much for laughs, while Brief Encounter goes for the laughs, but at the same time reaches for the romance and the bitter-sweetness of the original movie. It’s not entirely unsuccessful, but, amidst all the technical prowess, it feels kind of. . . dispassionate? Calculated?
What touched my heart was that at the end of the show the cast announced from the stage that they would be collecting money for Broadway Cares as we were leaving the theater. As a special treat, all the actors and musicians (most of whom did double duty) would hang out in the back of the orchestra and play some tunes. And they did. This ensemble, who had just finished one strenuous performance, and were slated for at least another seven that week, on their own time, dragged their instruments to the back of the house, and played an energetic and hilarious set of blue-grassy/bluesy/klezmery arrangements of disco and hair band songs. That is what touched me.
La Cage aux Folles is a rather silly show, with not terribly memorable book, music, or lyrics. Watching it did make me think about how, when you’re a young actor, you really wish that you were pretty enough to be cast as all the juveniles or the ingénues, and you’re so bummed out when all you get is old ladies and character parts instead, but then when you go back and watch the pretty people in a show like this—and here they are dressed in 1970s clothes, rendering them ludicrous, even if they are pretty—you realize that the pretty people are sticks! And the people really having fun are the character folks.
There are two reasons to see this show. One, the boys playing Les Cagelles, the drag chorus at the Saint-Tropez nightclub owned by the main characters. This is the Broadway debut for most of them, and the dance, acrobatic, and musical talent (okay, and cross-dressing) on display is impressive. As is the humorous ensemble interaction. Two, Douglas Hodge. He plays Albin, the aging transvestite chanteuse who is at the center of this show. Certainly this part offers any actor the opportunity to paint his role with broad brushstrokes, which Mr. Hodge does, but he also has this incredibly expressive physicality. Even when he is embodying the completely over-the-top reactions of this overripe diva, his physicality reveals the real human fear and fragility that are at the heart of the character. And his voice really does anything he asks it to do! Perhaps I was more touched with envy than I was touched at the heart.
And yet, these were not the elements of the show that really touched me. Or perhaps touched my heart isn’t the right description in the case of La Cage. Maybe. . . goosed me? This show has a warm-up act, and she/he greets Broadway patrons out on the street, well over a half hour before curtain, as they are gathering and checking their purses for tickets. She/he was wearing a plaid shirt, leggings, high heels, and a bomber jacket the night I attended. A longish brunette wig styled in a flip, plus dangling earrings, and a clutch purse completed the ensemble. This personage calls herself Lily Whiteass, and alternately charms, comforts, and insults the audience with blue jokes, as needed. I know, I know, it’s Broadway, and the rawness of this--essentially, this clown--was calculated, and yet, still, I found this to be the most touching element of the show.
I am sad to say that Mark is dealing with the height of the Christmas season at Macy’s and was unable to attend either of these performances.
We did, however, go to Terhune Orchards together at the beginning of this month. Terhune’s is one of the favorite purveying places that I wanted to write about in this series. However, the Wednesday after Thanksgiving, it was kind of ghostly; no pumpkins or gourds outside, the door to the garage-like store area half open, and the lights flickering.
“You think they are open?” I asked Mark.
Just then an athletic looking blonde woman came striding down the hill. “Hi!” she said, seemingly very glad to see us.
“Are you open?” Mark asked.
“Oh, it’s open,” she replied, preceding us into the space. “It’s on the honor system now, though.”
“Oh?” I said.
“Yeah. I been working here all Fall, but they told us last Wednesday that it’s on the honor system from now on. You just leave your money in the box.” she replied.
“And here I thought you were coming down to greet us,” Mark joked.
“Well, I can take your money, if you want,” she said, eagerly, stepping behind the counter. “I was actually just walking down to see what was going on. You get so used to coming down here, it’s hard not to come down and say hello.”
Mark paid her for a half gallon of cider, one of the few things Terhune’s is still selling at this time of year. It’s very good cider, too. Unpasteurized.
