“Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,”
abandons “Good People,”
to find her “Arcadia,”
with her “Book of Mormon”
by Tony Vellela
There’s a great old Astaire/Rogers picture ‘The Gay Divorcee’ [not that kind of ‘gay’], where Ginger’s rented an alibi guy, who keeps mangling the sentence “Chance favors the prepared mind.” In David Lindsay-Abaire’s “Good People,” and Tom Stoppard’s “Arcadia,” that guy could wander in and out saying his line and fit right in. When it premiered in 1995 at Lincoln Center, the Stoppard play fascinated those who understood it, and bewildered those who didn’t, with many switching back and forth during any given performance. This time around, it seems a little easier to follow, but some of the ‘fascination’ elements have been rendered less mesmerizing. Here are the basics: We’re in the nearly-empty room of an English 1809 manor house [Derbyshire] in spring, with only a few odd chairs and a dining table of unlikely length at its center, holding books, a candelabra and a tortoise. At the start, a twenty-ish young male tutor and a puberty-realized young girl are doing lessons. She’s smart, clever and curious. He’s bored. Her mother fancies the tutor; a guest couple has had tryst-connected events peppering their stay; a landscape gardener has been hired to convert the grounds from proper formal British style to the in-vogue Continental free-range look, shorn to be wild, as it were.
Next scene, we’re in the late twentieth century – same room, same spare appointments, including the enervated reptile. A professor who specializes in literary history and criticism is there to research the place’s place in lit. hist., using the estate records as her source. One of her severest critics is also in town, and plans to challenge her work while proving on his own that Lord Byron was a house guest at the time she is looking into.
Of course, you can’t get the whole picture beyond the fact that these two story lines are woven throughout with sexual escapades, status and class questions, enough name-dropping to sink the Bismark and most crucially, a quest for knowledge [real or not]. For a play that relies on some need to demonstrate how life’s mysteries and realities always find their connectedness, the set design alone works against establishing that milieu. Intimate it is not. As the stories unspool, migrating proper nouns pop up in both centuries. The ‘engine’ that drives this remarkable vehicle is the playful, fifteen-year-old Thomasina, whose boundless curiosity is matched by her keen mathematical acumen. She stumbles upon the key to the solution to figuring the proof for Fermat’s last theorem, which has stumped the collective learned for centuries. [It’s a math thing.] And when, nearly two hundred years hence, her papers are discovered, the researchers are in disbelief that a mere female child could have calculated this arcane formula. And in her more mischievous mode, she examines the sketches of how the estate will look after it has been reconfigured, and draws in the figure of a man, referred to in the 20th century as The Hermit, because she’s placed him next to the drawing of a small outbuilding known as the Hermitage. Can’t have one without the other, she jokes. And it is this ‘by chance’ impulsive adolescent act that launches hundreds of researcher-hours, reams of analysis, wildly divergent kinds of speculation and a small cottage [hermitage?] industry devoted to marketing all of it.
Making it through this epic requires talents all round. Director David Leveaux handles his responsibilities of moving people in, out and about, as a choreographer would, but falls short of the ‘acting guide’ component. And inattentiveness to line delivery in regard to comedy timing causes vital bits to be lost when drowned out by laughter. Happily, young Bel Powley comes off much better than the somewhat frenetic, gesticulating Jennifer Dundas did in the original 1995 production. Powley skillfully meshes adolescent and prodigy – we can see how hormones and brain cells can believably do battle in an energetic, yet thoughtful young girl. Tom Riley [the tutor] and David Turner [the visiting husband of the couple] turn in flawless incarnations of their characters. But a few surprising let-downs mar the overall undertaking, including Billy Crudup [he starred as the tutor a generation ago], as a high voltage critic who acts like he’s an ancestor to Ari from ‘Entourage;’ Margaret Colin and Lia Williams, both of whom, for different reasons, do not generate enough heat to be women who would inspire even an agenda-free tryst, and Raul Esperza, marking time as another of the academic researchers.
There are three ways to enjoy this ambitious venture: [1] just watch it for the fun of piecing together the story lines and judging the full range of acting styles and choices for yourself; [2] read the play first, so you can tell the players without a program, and [3] study up on Fermet, Lord Byron, the natural gardener pioneer Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, chaos theory, the tension between the Classical and Romantic eras in all areas of European life, and the other works by Tom Stoppard. You choose – then take your own chance.
The chance that Margy [Frances McDormand] takes in “Good People” leads her onto a high-wire of recriminations during a high voltage windstorm that she can’t quite control. Her better self eventually whispers into her ear with a loud South Boston accent. She is mother to an adult mentally-challenged daughter, struggling to hold on to blue collar jobs that are often sabotaged by her need to care for that daughter, and loosely befriended by old high school chum Jean [the flawless Becky Ann Baker, deserving of a long-overdue Tony Award] and a humorously cantankerous landlady Dottie [the equally flawless Estelle Parsons, ditto the Tony Award thing], Margy [hard ‘g’] must now try to recover from losing yet another job when her daughter’s condition creates scheduling problems – read ‘excessive tardiness.’
When Jean proposes that Margy pay a ‘friendly visit’ to their former high school friend Mike [a credibly conflicted Tate Donovan], now a successful Chestnut Hill endocrinologist who never looked back to his old neighborhood mean streets of South Boston, Margy at first bristles. She decides to drop in sans appointment to his office, where he manages to generate some degree of bonhomie. She would like a job; all he can offer is a handout. He gets maneuvered into inviting her to his son’s birthday party, but when she arrives, there’s no party because the son is sick. She suspects otherwise – that he lied to her to prevent her from hitting up his friends for a job, which was in fact her agenda. What wounds Mike is Margy’s skillful deployment of the charge that he’s become one of the ‘lace curtain Irish,’ traitors to their roots, and no longer ‘good people.’ It takes his lovely young, smart wife [a captivating Renee Elise Goldsberry] to untangle the web Margy’s enmeshed Mike in, and Margy leaves without real satisfaction, sadder but no wiser. All this is territory that could’ve been kicked around quite convincingly in a two-parter on “Roseanne,” where, you may recall, Estelle Parsons played Roseanne’s mother Bev.
Daniel Sullivan generates true organic relationships here, as he did in the playwright’s “Rabbit Hole.” What Margy quite eloquently relates to Mike is how one small incident, a chance encounter, a delay of two minutes when an event unfolds, even a broken tooth, can wind up shaping a person’s entire life. She both accepts the inevitable occurrence of random events, and curses their power to alter in bad ways the trajectory of her life. In “Good People,” Lindsay-Abaire almost pulls it off, deflating the play’s power and sting with a throw-away line just at the end that serves to trade rare clarity for pointless ambiguity. Maybe leaving before the final scene would be the best bet.
What you can bet on is the powerhouse entertainment quotient of two new musicals, one imported from Australia, the other from South Park Land. With both of these twisted versions of the musical theatre form, it helps to have an acquaintance with the effects of hallucinogenics – a kind of belated tribute to my old friend Owsley. This is not to say, lest creators are dialing attorneys to draft slander suits, that said creators were under any influence at all of any illegal kind. It just sort of looks that way. And as it happens, they are both trippy musicals about a trip.
“The Book of Mormon” unites South Park originators Trey Parker and Matt Stone with ‘Avenue Q’s’ Robert Lopez. Their intention is to shock and provoke. And depending on who you are, they may succeed. If references to female circumcision, scrotum infestation and child rape seem out of place in a musical, no amount of formula chorus lines, conventional staging or redeeming follow-ups will win you over. If not, this is a good book. Profanity is in the ear of the be-hearer.
The trip happens when an eager, magnetic young Mormon evangelist, [the door-to-door guys – white shirt, black tie, smile] and the over-eager, social misfit, both ending their training and about to start their two-year stint as Elders in the field, get paired up and sent to AF – rica !!! Not St. Petersburg, San Diego or even Denver, but the End of the Earth. It’s a coming-of-conscience tale as stolid Ken [Andrew Rannells] and bumbling Arnold [Josh Gad – character names do give it away] mature into who God wants them to be, I think. As they try to convert even one native, stuff happens, always set to catchy tunes and snappy dance routines. The filching the creators do is good-natured satire, and includes mimicking the ‘Small House of Uncle Thomas’ set piece from “The King & I,” and a hefty amount from “The Lion King.”
While the formula draws [lovingly, I might add], from the solid book R&H book musicals of mid-century last, the result, surprisingly, is even more reminiscent of ’60s musicals such as “Promises, Promises” and “How to Succeed…,” but with a lot of verbal assaults on every type of convention. Rannells and Gad at first represent their stereotypes with vigor and a kind of sweetness, and as their belief systems unravel, and they see the damage their religious peddling does to people who need more than slogans and leather-bound Bibles, they blossom into truly enjoyable guys to watch. Casting kudos to Carrie Gardner, for filling the show with a splendid array of talented newcomers and vets. Due to the skillful direction by Mr. Parker and Casey Nicholaw, the pace is rambunctious, aided no doubt by Mr. Nicholaw’s experience with “Spamalot” and “Drowsy Chaperone.” There’s a genuine peppiness to the proceedings that all but mitigates the material, and whatever your take on its irreverence elements, The World Did Not End because “The Book of Mormon” has begun to corrupt Broadway audiences. Is that even possible? In fact, it has rejuvenated a form that is still one of America’s proudest creations, the stage book musical.
Priscilla, in “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,” is a bus. Three guys, a second-string drag queen, a more accomplished DQ, and a transsexual now retired from the business, are all living in Sydney. The second-stringer has a son from a hapless encounter in the Aussie boonies, and the mother/wife contacts him because the boy wants to meet Dad. In a stunning coincidence, Mom owns a club in the town called Alice Springs, and suggests that Dad and friends can play there, while the reunion takes place.
So, it’s a road picture musical, the basics coming from the film of roughly the same name. But the stage version resembles a Las Vegas nightclub revue, with one ‘act’ after another presented to dazzle the paying customers, while the storylines get inserted as little more than afterthoughts. It has echoes of the “Gypsy” segment when Rose motors cross-country, picking up newsboys along the way. It’s what would happen if “Mamma Mia” slept with “La Cage Aux Folles” and they had a hyperactive child.
The true stars of “Priscilla” are the designers. Jonathan Deans and Peter Fitzgerald [sound], Brian Thomson [bus concept & production design], Nick Schlieper [lighting], Cassie Hanlon [make-up] and Oscar-winners Tim Chappel & Lizzy Gardiner [for the costumes in the picture, repeated here in giddy, witty excess] keep the pace fast. The show’s structure almost mirrors nineteenth-century melodramas in reverse, where book scene changes were masked by the presentation of short musical numbers, called ‘olios.’ Here, the musical numbers are the main attraction, with the story popping in and out, while the chorus changes into and out of their innumerable behemoth headdresses, and more outfits soaked in sequins, feathers, beads, bangles and spangles than any sober person can count. Also popping in and out are tributes to performance icons such as Tina Turner, Eartha Kitt, Marilyn and Madonna.
As one [older] person said to another during intermission, “This type of show goes back to the twenties. It’s a revue, except that it’s vulgar.” Younger eaves-droppers nearby couldn’t hold in their snickers. And the jukebox that this happily tawdry musical draws from must have been fathered by a time machine, because the songs range from ‘Material Girl’ and ‘I Say a Little Prayer’ to ‘Thank God I’m a Country Boy’ and ‘A Fine Romance,’ the latter demonstrating how the skill of lyric-writing has degenerated soooo much. It’s by Jerome Kern, from a picture called “Swing Time,” starring Fred and Ginger, which, you could say, brings us full circle.
Afterpieces
Because I grew up in northeastern Pennsylvania, I know very well the setting for Jason Miller’s “That Championship Season.” The playwright is said to have modeled the character of the aging high school basketball coach after Scranton Prep’s legendary winning coach Jack Gallagher. In the play, four of the five members of a former team that has become the stuff of mythology once again reunite, more than two decades later, in the coach’s living room, to commemorate that winning final, last-second victory. But the structure, seen today, reveals its outlines, in which each character must come clean and deal with a development that threatens their personal or professional lives, and the truth of the legend – think “Boys in the Band” in satiny shorts, bouncing basketballs and drinking beer. Kiefer Sutherland comports himself remarkably well, given the somewhat musty feel of the exposition-heavy writing, with red flag names such as Father Coglin, Joe McCarthy and Pope Pius providing touchstones for the coach’s mentality. Written in 1972, the fear-mongers were crying ‘communist’ as a code word for ‘hippies,’ and Coach is the perfect dupe for those who dealt in painting with a broad, Red brush. He’s a ‘there’s no place for second place’ type of bulldog guy. If you feel at home in that rah-rah, dominate-at-all-cost, ‘America – love it or leave it’ environment, you’d do much better dropping in on Vince and Marie Lombardi, at Circle-in-the-Square.
Two acting legends, and a third in the making, populate the revival of “Driving Miss Daisy.” Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones portray the ‘best friends’ Daisy and her driver Hoke, and Boyd Gaines handles Daisy’s diligent son, but it still comes off as a very very good university production. If you’ve never seen any of these truly fine actors, you might want to enjoy their work in [sort of slow] action. If it’s the story you want to revisit, watch the picture again. And, the play doesn’t have that marvelous theme song.
In other news, as they say on network television, Neil LaBute’s “Fat Pig” has been postponed until next season, because a key investor has pulled out. And the New York Philharmonic will treat us all to a concert version of Stephen Sondheim’s “Company” from April 7 to 9 at Avery Fisher Hall. The cast includes Neil Patrick Harris as Bobby, with his circle of friends to include Anika Noni Rose, Martha Plimpton, Stephen Colbert, Jim Walton and Patti LuPone.
On Book
Miss LuPone can also be seen on bookshelves. Her autobiography “Patti LuPone: A Memoir,” co-written with Digby Diehl, is a breezy read, funny, lively and candid. It was interesting to learn that her first name is not the result of the ’50s craze of changing the ‘y’ to an ‘i’ at the end of girls’ names, such as Joni James and Patti Page. Our Patti gets her moniker from the surname of her mother’s family. Her great-grandaunt, Adelina Patti, was a famous nineteenth-century coloratura from Sicily!
Another show business tome that can seduce you into immersing yourself for many hours is David Leopold’s lovingly compiled “Irving Berlin’s Show Business.” The photo collection alone will pull you in for quite a while, and the book tells how the Russian immigrant, born Irving Beilin, filled nearly all of his 100+ years crafting songs, including three of the most revered and recorded in the last century, “Easter Parade,” “White Christmas” and “God Bless America.”
Now if you do choose to read “Arcadia,” you can expand your Stoppard IQ by picking up Faber & Faber’s Contemporary Classics edition “Tom Stoppard: Plays – # 5,” which includes the aforementioned, along with “Night & Day,” “Indian Ink,” “Hapgood,” and one of my favorites, “The Real Thing.” And a word to the easily confused – if you want to give yourself an edge before seeing two other pond-jumpers, “War Horse” and ‘Jerusalem,” pick up the playscripts first.
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TONY VELLELA wrote and produced the PBS series “Character Studies,” about theatre. His work has appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, Dramatics, Parade, Rolling Stone, Theatre Week and The Robb Report, among other publications. His award-winning play “Admissions” is published by Playscripts, his play “Maisie & Grover Go To The Theatre” is published by Art Age, and his new play “Labor Days” will be produced in August.