Seasons gleanings

Check out my batch of new reviews up TONY: Coram Boy, Radio Golf, The Fall and Rise of the Rising Fallen and Church. I'm uptown, I'm downtown, I'm all over town.

I thought Radio Golf (featuring Harry Lennix, left) was a bit unfinished and the ending slightly weak, but it was an honor to see the great Wilson cycle come to a close. I can't think of another playwright, besides O'Neill and Shakespeare, who thought quite so ambitiously as Wilson. In terms of sheer large-scale conception, his ten-play cycle sounds more novelistic than theatrical, and yet his language is pure oral tradition. (I've yet to enjoy his plays as much on the page as I do spoken. Maybe I should learn to.) Radio Golf is essentially a play about assimilation versus traditionalism—a huge issue in the African-American community—and I'm not sure that Wilson explored all the sides of the issue, or asked himself the tough questions. I think an African-American studies theorist under 40 would provide an interesting analysis of Wilson's views on race, class and authenticity. Still, it's not apologizing for its naturalism or the staginess of its language, and you want to discuss the issues afterwards.

Coram Boy received some of the oddest, most dismissive reviews this season. I found it perfectly entertaining, with a tremendous cast and shrewd use of lights, sound, revolving deck and music. Yes, it's a melodrama, don't expect a great play, but it's a fun, well-crafted ride. An acquaintance at Columbia complained that it carries a "pro-life" conservative message and he felt like he'd given his money to the Bush administration. I told him that I thought the message wasn't so much anti-abortion as don't bury babies alive in the woods in the 18th century.

Banana Bag & Bodice punks the performativity-of-rock thing with its installation-cum-metaconcert. I found myself wishing that the twitchy, motormouthed Fan—who starts off the show with cryptic babble of how her friend fell into a "reacto coma" at a concert of the Rising Fallen—would reappear and be threaded throughout the show. But it's a good time nonetheless. BB&B rehearsed the show at the Collapsable Hole, but don't expect to see free beers at PS 122; indulge before, mayhaps?

And Young Jean Lee continues to impress me with her twisted takes on hot-button issues such as ethnicity and religion. Church is being praised as a straight-faced provocation to atheists in the audience, and it is that, but I think of it more as a clinical inventory of psychic discontents that turn people into believers: insecurity, fear of death, body shame and social alienation. Even deeper, I think it raises a disturbing philosophical question: Is it possible to be happy without lying to yourself? I guess I was a bit perplexed by Church. Enjoyed it, but it was muddled—on purpose, perhaps. I didn’t quite buy it as giving equal time to believers, since Lee mixes up commonsense self-help nostrums with silly stuff about mummies and unicorns. To me, it was a performance of an idea of ritual, not particularly feel-good (at least for me), a seductive, structured program of speech, dance, testimony, song, into which believers can project their hopes & fears. I understand WHY people go to church, I just wish they’d patronize a museum or play instead. As for the play itself, I think cultivating waves of discomfort or ambivalence is part of Lee’s whole project.

UPDATE: I have been informed by PS 122 chief Vallejo Gantner that after performances of The Fall and Rise of the Rising Fallen, audience members can enjoy a beer with the cast. Come tipsy, and stay tipsy!

Comments

[nick]

David, I was wondering about your critique of Church in light of your concurrent harangue against Christianity and religion. The reader of your reviews now has your biography, belief system, and prejudices as context. I guess this is a good thing. For sure, it is a new thing. No pretensions of journalistic objectivity for you.

You say in the review “religion is bad theater for stupid people.” Do you think the inverse is then true? “Theatre is good religion for smart people?”

I think many artists in their lives have replaced the religion in which they were raised with their art form. Artists do also generally seem smarter than the Average Joe. But I am not so sure art makes that good of a religion.

[David]

Nick, my atheism, irreverence, general amused disdain for religion, does not make me any less incapable of solid objective reviewing or reporting than if I were a pious regular churchgoer (I can't believe I'm actually writing this). In fact, since I dislike all religions equally, I have a better chance at objectivity than a sectarian, who perforce must be partial to his particular deity. As for the art/religion thing, mindless, exclusionary worship whether it's of God or aesthetics is equally bothersome. Of course, fewer people kill each other or exploit their children over a well-written play.

[nick]

No doubt you can be as objective as a pious churchgoer. But that’s beside the point. Normally the reader would not know whether the reviewer was either a pious churchgoer or an atheist. But now that the cat's out of the bag, the reader must “consider the source” when evaluating the review.

[David]

Only a fool would think that a reporter or critic has no biases, or could not read them between the lines.

[nick]

Except there is no need to read between the lines anymore. Even the fools can read now. I think that’s good.

As print reviewers move into the blogosphere, seems to me the relationship to their readers will evolve. For instance, I would normally never read your reviews. I do now, but I read them only as extension to my reading of your blog. I find your blogging more interesting than your reviewing. Sure, that may just be me, but the broadcast model is breaking down under the pressure of this new interactive model.

[Vallejo]

David your comments about Banana Bag and Bodice have deeply wounded all at PS122. They absolutely are giving away free beer.

[RLewis]

Before the religion vs. theater divide makes me cry, I just want to put in $.02 that maybe we don't always have to pick between the two. I love the theater more than anything in my life, or I wouldn't be a 45yr old still working a day job. I also have a deep belief system. I attend church 2 or 3 sunday's a month (even if I'm Fudging the Pimp until 3am the night before).

These can be mutually exclusive, but they don't have to be. And if you don't believe me, I invite you both, and all, to join me on May 20, 11am at Judson Church when the Rev' Howard Moody will be speaking (a wise man who wont be with us much longer).

I love the theater because I've always found it to be a place where the most outcast of us have a place to belong whether you're a loveable authority-challenging theater anarchist or a writer who could make acting magic with a peacock feather in his butt. Regardless of their place in this community, if anyone has to check their beliefs at the door before they can have an opinion about puttin' on lil' plays, we're never gonna change the world.

[David Cote]

My point has always been that religion IS theater, only the metaphors have metastasized into tautologizing absolute truths. Religion provides what theater provides, sans ambiguities or drama. (Okay, yes, liturgical rituals involve call-and-response and narrative aspects, and there is a kind of implicit ambiguity in internalized notions of sin and damnation...there's an AESTHETIC reason why religion gets such a grip the minds of believers) I know that religion predates religion, I just think the same human urges that god-belief serves are served—with less psychic, intellectual and physical damage—by theater.

[David Cote]

That last word should have been "art" or "imagination."