Sondheim: perplexed (Photo credit: Ron Sachs)

When musical theatre icon (and recent Chicago Tribune Literary Prize honoree) Stephen Sondheim gets raged up, he knows exactly what to do: fire out a feisty letter to The New York Times.

Such is the case with his reaction to a recent New York Times article previewing the upcoming revival of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. In the letter, Sondheim blasts director Diane Paulus, star Audra McDonald and script writer Suzan-Lori Parks for the apparent “disdain” they show toward the original material.

An excerpt from Sondheim’s letter:

What Ms. Paulus wants, and has ordered, are back stories for the characters. For example she (or, rather, Ms. Parks) is supplying Porgy with dialogue that will explain how he became crippled. She fails to recognize that Porgy, Bess, Crown, Sportin’ Life and the rest are archetypes and intended to be larger than life and that filling in “realistic” details is likely to reduce them to line drawings. It makes you speculate about what would happen if she ever got her hands on “Tosca” and “Don Giovanni.” How would we get to know them? Ms. Paulus would probably want to add an aria or two to explain how Tosca got to be a star, and she would certainly want some additional material about Don Giovanni’s unhappy childhood to explain what made him such an unconscionable lecher.

Get it, girl!

(Despite the touches of cattiness, Sondhiem remains a level-headed guy throughout the letter, and uses this opportunity to remind readers that DuBose Heyward provided many of the lyrics for the folk opera — a point that’s often overlooked. He also did something similar last year by clarifying, via a letter to The New York Times, who actually did the original orchestrations for West Side Story. Hint: it wasn’t Bernstein.)

Now, I’m all for taking risks and re-examining classic material in a bold, new way. But when I read the preview article, this quote from Parks struck me:

“I feel this work more than anything is a romance, and so I wanted to flesh out the two main characters so they are not cardboard cut-out characters,” Ms. Parks said. “I think that’s what George Gershwin wanted, and if he had lived longer” — Gershwin died in 1937, at the age of 38 — “he would have gone back to the story of ‘Porgy and Bess’ and made changes, including to the ending.”

Wow. Who says things like that? Always the eagle eye, Sondheim’s all over it:

It’s reassuring that Ms. Parks has a direct pipeline to Gershwin and is just carrying out his work for him, and that she thinks he would have taken one of the most moving moments in musical theater history — Porgy’s demand, “Bring my goat!” — and thrown it out. Ms. Parks (or Ms. Paulus) has taken away Porgy’s goat cart in favor of a cane. So now he can demand, “Bring my cane!” Perhaps someone will bring him a straw hat too, so he can buck-and-wing his way to New York.

As for Porgy and Bess being a flawed show and, as Ms. McDonald argues, the character of Bess being nothing more than a one-dimensional plot device, I didn’t get that at all when I saw Court Theatre’s recent production of the opera. While the creative team, under the direction of Charlie Newell, made bold, daring choices, they kept the spirit of the piece intact, and even maintained the original ending (unlike the “happier” ending the new production is apparently implementing).

While Bess is a very, very flawed, and perhaps unlikeable character, she’s also very real.

Now, as Sondheim also notes, we can’t judge the show until we see it, and perhaps it will be brilliant in its own, revisionist way. I’m just thrown by the arrogance of the creative team to think they are doing us all a service by fixing this “flawed” show. After reading the preview article, a bitter taste lingered. So, thank you Mr. Sondheim for articulating these thoughts in your, well, articulate way.

The Addams Family cast recording: On the flip side, what a disappointment we have here. This recording is leaden, overproduced and ill-conceived. Funny, because I enjoyed the pre-Broadway tryout of the show. Maybe without all the in-your-face star power and fancy sets, the weaknesses of the material really shine through? Or, it might also be that Bebe Neuwirth, whom I’ve loved for years, sounds horrendous here. You could drive a truck through her vibrato. And Nathan Lane is essentially sleep-walking through the role, relying 100% on his well-worn shtick.

Sutton Foster to star in a revival of Anything Goes: Foster is Broadway’s darling (one of the only few left, actually), and I’m sure she’ll be fine as that sassy chanteuse Reno Sweeney. True to form, theatre message boards are already lambasting the casting news, declaring how wrong she is for the part and citing Ethel Merman (who originated the role) and Patti LuPone (who revived it in 1987 with great success) as her untouchable predecessors. I bet if the internet were around in 1986, these theatre queens would have been even more vitriolic with the casting of LuPone, who was then primarily known for her balls-of-steel roles (i.e., Evita.) Though, the news that Kathleen Marshall will be directing this revival puts me right to sleep. (FYI: Foster will be christening Chicago’s new Broadway Playhouse theatre with her one woman show in September. More info here.)

iPhone OS 4.0: The download for this upgrade was slower than the CTA on a Sunday. I let it go overnight, and woke up to find it still processing. It’s finally done, and I’m not sure what all the fuss is about. I can now put my apps in folders? Why? I mean, the whole point of the iPhone’s interface is its flat design and navigation. Is there something I’m missing?

Red Line fire: Speaking of the CTA, what the hell with this fire Sunday afternoon? Apparently it was caused by flammable lubricant that’s sprayed all over the under workings of the train, which was ignited by a spark. You see sparks fly from the el trains all the time — the fact that they coat the wheels with flammable liquid mystifies and terrifies me. Not to mention that they apparently sent another train through the flames, thinking the fire was out. Is the city trying to kill us? And the reason CTA is citing for all this insanity? Lack of funding. Oh shut the hell up, CTA, and take care of your passengers.

Imagine our surprise when, after paying our tab, we walked around the corner to find my Subaru being pulled up onto the bed of an impound truck.

Shit.

Much yelling and swearing followed. But, our pleas and threats fell on deaf ears, and off my Subaru went — on the bed of a rusty truck to lord knows where.

Why was I towed? We parked next to a sign with a giant snowflake on it. If you live in Chicago, I’m sure you’re well-aware of the sign (click here). We assumed it was the same sign…and, while it was snowing, there was no accumulation. So we were fine. We thought.

However, the sign, which, keep in mind, had a giant snowflake on it, was much more complicated after we inspected it closer following the towing. This tricky little fucker said: “No Parking between 3 and 7 am or when snow is over two inches.” Why the time limitation mixed in this the snow warning? That’s just bullshitty.

Why don’t they just go a step further and say, “No parking between 3 and 7 am or when the moon is waxing or when snow is over two inches.”

A very broke-down me at the auto pound next to an extremely thorough list of firmly-phrased "dos" and "don'ts." None of which were being respected.

Or…”No parking between 3 and 7 am or when the moon is waxing or when you are ovulating and /or if you are a Cubs fan or when you suspect it might be raining in the next 30 minutes. Or when snow is over two inches.”

Even more infuriating: It was 3:10 am when we turned to corner to find my Subaru being cranked up on the truckbed, proving they just waited for confused, tax-paying Chicago citizens (like ourselves) to mistakenly park in the area. And we weren’t the only ones: another poor sap across the street discovered his car was gone, after leaving it just 15 minutes.

Gina, in such an unselfish effort, drove me, Gator and this guy, who’s name we came to learn was Darius, to the impound lot located on the corner of Chicago and Sacramento. I’m not exactly sure where we were, but let me tell you: it was the epitome of sketch. Not only were we dangerously close to the west side, a place you don’t want to find yourself at 3:30 am on a Friday night, but the impound lot is like a concentration camp for cars. It’s a muddy pit bordered by a chain-link fence run by some really rough dudes who might tazer you should you just look at them the wrong way. And the office/waiting area is a tiny, ramshackle trailer crudely placed next to the muddy impound lot. That’s where we spent around 1.5 hours waiting to pay our $160 towing and impounding fee.

I, along with a small group of like-minded people, huddled in a corner of the unheated trailer/office as we watched the antics play out before us.

First, let me set the stage: By now it’s nearly 4 am, and all the drunk and angry folks are rolling in via taxi to collect their errantly-parked autos — which seemed to be taken while they were all clubbing. And by clubbing, I mean bootay-clappin.

Here’s a highlight of what we saw: Groups of girls in stretch pants and stilettos escorted by frontin’ dudes ready to break out in a fist fight over who should pay the fees. (At that point, I wouldn’t have been surprised to have witnessed a shooting.) One guy got hauled off by the police for being too volatile: i.e. yelling “fuck you!” about five times to the cashier. Another drugged out girl sat on the floor, Indian style, talking to seemingly no one on her cell. One girl started, what I believe to be, “krumping.” Darius broke up yet another fight before it boiled over.

It got pretty crazy up in there. I mean, it was like performance art.

And we just laughed and laughed and laughed. As it was now 5am, and what else can you do?

Fast friends were made. Phone numbers exchanged. Memories formed.

While not a performance I’d care to revisit, I think $160 was a pretty fair deal.

Perhaps the greatest challenge in getting audiences out of the house is faced by live theater, particularly production-heavy musicals. The typical top ticket price for a Broadway musical has been $131, and a few years ago, some shows were fetching “premium” ticket prices upward of $200. Wicked asks, and gets, that rate nightly for most of its best seats. But newcomer Rock of Ages, a “jukebox musical” of ’80s rock tune covers, starts performances March 20 with a top weekday price of $90–a cut of more than 25%, and back to where the top price was nearly a decade ago.

Okay, so you’re not getting Shakespeare for that, but a show that wouldn’t be out of place in a Vegas showroom or on Lido deck. And the star talent isn’t Kelli O’Hara or Patti LuPone, but Constantine Maroulis, the dimple-chinned American Idol cast-off who, beside having a decent voice, is famous for peering upward past his forehead like Luke Perry in 1994 heartthrob mode. Still, $90 is also a price you haven’t seen since the mid-’90s, and any reduction like that is a welcome step for Broadway, which has been killing itself with stratospheric prices faster than cultural obsolescence could do.

[full post here]

Well, it’s a start! (And thanks Jamie for passing this link on to me!)

Jamie: You could talk about Broadway ticket costs again…
OR
How it might as well be spring…
OR American Idol
OR your “Is sitting at a desk 9 hours a day a life” thing.

I’ll discuss ALL THREE.

Broadway Ticket Costs

Yes, I’ve blogged about this before, but I’m still fired up.

I want to see Mary Poppins so bad it hurts. She flies over the friggin’ audience, for chrissake! However, I’m NOT willing to spend at least $200* to see the show.

*This cost represents two tickets, for fairly crappy seats, plus all the added Ticket Master fees.

Other shows I want to see that I will most likely miss because it’s just too damned expensive include:

- A Chorus Line
- Spring Awakening
- Jersey Boys

(However, I bought tickets for Legally Blonde, as I’m no fool, and Jamie and I can get our pink on for her birthday.)

Anyway – why the FUCK are Broadway (Broadway in Chicago) shows so expensive? I think it’s very sad that someone like ME who loves musical theater so much is not attending these shows. Are they trying to kill the art form? The upside is that it’s forcing me to explore smaller shows at local theaters, like Mary Ernster in Wings at Apple Tree in Highland Park. However, Broadway is really killing itself. Something needs to change.

“It might as well be spring.”

Yeah, it sure as hell could be. But it’s not. It’s 18 degrees today and my car door was frozen shut this morning. FUCK that shit.

American Idol

Is anyone actually following it this year? I’ve watched about 10 minutes so far. Danny Gokey, while cute, is a one-trick pony. The others sound like shit and seem to have the personality of a sleeping pill. I do like the new judge lady. She always has something logical to say. That said, I’m not wasting my time. I have more important things to do.

Is sitting at a desk 9 hours a day a life?

It pays the bills. But it sure as hell isn’t enough for those Broadway in Chicago tickets.