Metatheatricality and Perils of Creation

"Ganesh Verses the Third Reich"
Apparently trains are the transport of choice of Hindu gods

"Sunday in the Park with George" is my favorite musical, the reason because it has the song which has served as the testament to how frustrating and alienating, and essential, the process of making art is. Yes, I am talking about "Finish the Hat," and "watching the world from the window while you finish the hat."

The song came to me as I was in the audience for two pieces this winter. One was "We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as South West Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915" (whew!) by Jackie Sibblies Drury at Soho Rep in November, and the other was "Ganesh verses the Third Reich," from Back to Back Theatre in Australia, as part of the Under the Radar Festival this month.

And two other works I saw in January, as part of the P.S. 122 COIL festival, "Inflatable Frankenstein" and "Seagull (Thinking of you)" had the same quality to them as well. It was all meta-theatrical, or, works about artists making work, about the questions, frustrations, egos, emotions and (in the case of "Frankenstein" since there was pink goo involved) the messiness of creation.

I Don't Date Because I Tweet

On HBO's "Girls," a hook-up turns into a relationship.
Which almost never happens in real life.

I was looking through the most popular article on the "New York Times" (because I have a subscription and I like to make the most of it) and one came up which was: "The End of Courtship?" The article posits that texting and Facebook has turned dating and courtship into "hangouts and hook-ups."

Instead of dinner-and-a-movie, which seems as obsolete as a rotary phone, [millennials] rendezvous over phone texts, Facebook posts, instant messages and other “non-dates” that are leaving a generation confused about how to land a boyfriend or girlfriend. 

Another day, another article talking about how millennials such as myself are ruining courtship and making the good ol' days of wining and dining as dead as the dodo. And another article using the TV show "Girls" as an example of how millennials date, even though that show is only representative of a very narrow, very specific slice of 20-somethings (aka trust fund babies with artistic ambitions who live in Brooklyn).

I'd also recently read an "Atlantic" piece which claimed that dating sites, such as OKCupid, threatened monogamy. It followed one man, Jacob, who blames his lack of commitment on the binders full on women on display online. But you only needed to read the opening of the article to get a clue into why Jacob is still single:

“I’ve never been able to make a girl feel like she was the most important thing in my life,” he says. “It’s always ‘I wish I was as important as the basketball game or the concert.’ ” An only child, Jacob tended to make plans by negotiation: if his girlfriend would watch the game with him, he’d go hiking with her. He was passive in their arguments, hoping to avoid confrontation.I'm sure his inability to have a real relationship doesn't stem from him "not putting his girlfriend's needs first."

Jeez ladies, why wouldn't you want a gem like that? So it's not Jacob's infantile behavior that's the cause of his dating woes. Nope, it's all the Internet's fault. You hear that love? We don't need you anymore! We have Facebook...

Les Mehserables

"Don't worry Anne, you're gonna win the Oscar."

If I was to characterize a theme for December, besides as "the month I spent way too much money", it would be, "the month I was let down by movies I was really excited for." The first was "The Hobbit," which I vented about here, and the other was "Les Miserables."

But before I say another word, readers, listen to me! There is something I must do! I must confess that I've never seen a musical production of "Les Miz" (I use a z because it has more glitz, Broadway glitz). My only exposure to it was through the 10th Anniversary Concert (Judy Kuhn! Lea Salonga!) and the 25th Anniversary Concert (Lea Salonga again! Norm Lewis!), both of which I enjoy for different reasons, none of them being Nick Jonas. But from reading the synopsis of the musical, I got the idea of what was happening in-between musical numbers. And truthfully, I have a theory that you can either be a "Les Miz" fan or a "Phantom of the Opera" fan. Loving too many bombastic, 80's musicals will make your head explode. And I was more of a "Phantom" girl (what can I say? I love my doomed love stories).

We're like Romeo and Juliet! Except British! I mean, French!

So being a relative "Les Miz" virgin, I was excited for the film version. This was not going to be like Joel Schumacher's "Phantom" movie where the Phantom of the opera couldn't hold a note without growling and Christine cheated the cadenza. No, this had Hugh Jackman (who I had seen on Broadway before), Anne Hathaway, Samantha Barks and Aaron Tveit, people who have proved that they could sing to the back of the house. And if the various "Les Miz" concerts have taught me anything, it's that "Les Miz" is a showcase for beautiful voices singing with every single instrument in the orchestra, while waving revolutionary banners. This would be a transcendent experience, not just with beautiful voices, but with gorgeous scenery, sweeping shots of Paris and crowds rising up and fighting while singing!

2012 in Theatre Superlatives

"What good thing have you seen lately?"

That's the question I'm usually asked when I tell people that I write about theater (for a living, wow). It's as if because I report on it, I am suddenly the guru of good theatrical tastes. And since year-end lists and summations are "a la mode" during this time in the season, I want to offer something in the stream-of-consciousness vein. I'm realizing that the more theater I see, the more they start to blend together. And what makes a play stand out in your memory, even months later, were small moments that just burrowed deep into your brain and refused to let go.

So here is the 2012 Deep (Diep) Theater Superlatives!, a list of shows that were memorable in many different ways to me. It's not a complete list of the best things I saw this year, it's even more subjective than that. These plays, at different price points, in different locales in New York City, did what the arts does best, grab a piece of your soul and leave their mark on it.

"The Hobbit" aka Dammit Peter Jackson!

Gandalf: worst party promoter ever.

I saw "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" film at midnight on opening night. I sat my butt down at the theater at Lincoln Square on the Upper West Side at 10:30 PM, excited and just a little bit sleepy. I exited the theater 4.5 hours later at 3 a.m. incredibly sleepy, drained and disappointed, like I'd been cramming for a college exam that I probably won't get an A on. And my thoughts after went something like: "Oh god I know I'm going to sit through two more of these and it's going to be so fucking long!"

Compare this to my thoughts after seeing "Fellowship of the Ring" 12 (WTF?!) years ago, which was, "Oh my god, I have no idea what I just saw but I love it and what happens next?!" Which was quickly followed by an explanation of the ending of "Return of the King," which was followed by a "WTF, Frodo fails?!" I was a very easily excitable 13 year old (like almost all 13 year olds).

I tried to figure out why it was that I, as a self-professed Ringer who dressed up as a hobbit and then Eowyn for Halloween, who has the Evenstar necklace, was unsatisfied. Then my roommate gave me the answer: "Every moment was like a parody of itself."

Tweeting in the Theater (No, Just No)

Like most people in their 20's (aka Millennials), I have a very intimate relationship with my cellphone. It's underneath my pillow when I sleep at night (not for any emotional reason, it's because the outlet for my phone charger is next to my bed and I don't own a nightstand). My phone is on my desk at work. It's in my pocket when I'm on the subway. And it has a name when I plug it into my MacBook: it's Pippin. In short, I probably spend more time with my phone than with any other piece of technology, jewelry or memento that I own. Who needs a teddy bear when you have an iPhone to hug at night?

Which is why when a cellphone goes off while I'm at the theater, I get irrationally angry. Why? It goes without saying but a cellphone ring is distracting and when you're at the theater, it takes you out of a connective moment that you were having with the actors on the stage.

Thoughts During a Hurricane

New York City, along with a majority of the East Coast was hit by a hurricane this past week. A hurricane named Sandy (who no doubt was looking for a man, probably one by the name of Danny). And this innocuously named hurricane caused some damage. In fact, quite a bit of damage.

Last year, I sat through Hurricane Irene in my apartment in Washington Heights, while making a cake and wondering, "It's awfully quiet for a hurricane."

This year was a bit rougher and for a California-raised girl like me, definitely a wake-up call in terms of how powerful Mother Nature can be. Because while we had earthquake kits in California, we were never cooped up in our houses for days with water and bread we stocked up particularly for the occasion.

Here are a selection of my thoughts during the hurricane, in no particular order.

1. Working from home is not nearly as fun as "working" from home. For one thing, you need to actually try to be productive while in your pajamas, which is a mutually exclusive state of being. And in my case, I had to try and work with a server where I had to download every document in order to view it, and upload it back up into the server if I changed it. So more time waiting for documents to download and upload, and needing that piece of paper on my work desk that I didn't think to bring home. Though working and "working" are similar in that you can sneak in a quick nap during the day and no one will ever know.

2. Believe or not, when you wear nothing but pajamas for two days straight, you feel dirty and like a slob. The dirtiness feeling confuses me because technically, I have not been outside so I have not been getting dirty. I wonder if it's a withdrawal symptoms from productivity.

3. A New York City without power looks, scarily, like the New York City in almost every disaster movie ever made.

A photo of lower Manhattan completely darkened by Hurricane Sandy

A still of Manhattan getting hit by a tidal wave in "The Day After Tomorrow

4. Similarly, a New York City without a subway system looks like Los Angeles during rush hour. Except in the case of New York City, rush hour lasts all day. On Wednesday, when the subways were still down, I tried to get to work via the bus. It took my 45 minutes just to get to the street leading to the Queensboro Bridge. Normally, after 45 minutes, I would have already been at work and had coffee.

I took this freeway home every weekend when I went to UCLA. It sucked. Balls.

Traffic post-Sandy and pre-subway system restoration. Deja vu...

5. Drinking during the daytime during a natural disaster is the New Yorker thing to do. During my pre-Sandy, hunkering-down-on-munchies grocery run last Sunday, beer was the hot commodity, followed closely by bread. Indeed, I was prepared for Sandy with, not just ice cream and bread, but a bottle of red wine and a bottle of Makers Mark. And when did I usually start drinking? 2 p.m. Right after lunch.

6. Disasters bring out the most generous and beautiful part of humanity. And New Yorkers show their generosity and kindness in the most unexpected of ways. Observe the photo below.

Courtesy of Buzzfeed

7. Wondering how your friends were doing during and post-Sandy? Just check Facebook. Sunday came the "I bought beer, food and have Netflix, going to catch up on TV during Sandy." Monday and was "It sounds like a vacuum cleaner outside." Tuesday was "I'm okay! But pray for those who are without power." As for the people without power, well, they didn't update Facebook, which obviously meant something was wrong. Because if they were okay, they would have updated their statuses to say that they were okay, since that's what friends do for their Facebook stalkers.

8. I feel very close to New York City now. Like in any relationship, we have been through a large, potentially deal-breaker event. And yet I am still here, still willing to keep the flame alive. I guess that means the honeymoon stage is over. And I'm officially dedicated to this relationship. Next up: 40-degree weather!

Racial Links and Musicals

I'm writing this blog post from my childhood bedroom in California, where I'm staying at my parents while researching a story on Tim Dang, the artistic director of East West Players, the oldest theater of color in the U.S, for American Theatre.

It is part of my (not-so-secret) ploy to give more visibility to the Asian-American theater artist plight. A plight that was given more flames this week when the Royal Shakespeare Company across the Atlantic pond decided to mount "The Orphan of Zhao," a classic Chinese tale with, you-guessed-it, Asians in minor rules. In fact, out of the 17 castmembers, only 3 are Asians and they are playing servants and a pet. Gregory Boyd, the artistic director of the RSC, calls the backlash against this decision "sour grapes," giving credence to the backlash, and proof that even when you are leading one of the most famous theater companies in the world, you can still be majorly insensitive to race.

Erin Quill writes a more proper, and passionate, summation on her blog.

This comes out in the same week where Bruce Norris, who wrote the Pulitzer-winning play Clybourne Park (about racial interactions and real estate), pulled the rights to his play from a Staatstheatre Mainz in Germany. The reason: they wanted to cast white actors in blackface to play African-American roles.

So in totality, not the best week in the world of race relations and casting. But tomorrow I'll be reporting on a panel at East West Players about the lack of Asians and Asian-Americans onstage. EWP was kind enough to invite me to it (and even had to go through the wrong Diep Tran in order to get to me). So the fight continues and I'm here to report on it. And hopefully not criticize too much afterwards.

But in other non-racial news, I wrote a blog post for "TCG Circle" this week about what I think is the new age of American musicals: the age of the small musicals. Or as I titled it (and I'm quite proud of this headline): Go Small or Go Home.

A snippet here:

Are we entering a new age of the American musical, where the imperative is not to go big, but to go small? And is folk a new musical genre? I can’t remember the last new musical I’d seen where there were chorus lines; bombastic, every-piece-in-the-orchestra-at-attention showtunes; or glory notes. Instead, it’s been character-driven stories where the actors sang their feelings, not belted them, and were accompanied by a piano and/or a guitar. Sometimes even a violin (the imperative word being a violin, not many violins).

These are all musicals that “whisper rather than shout.”

The example that sparked off this train of thought was from a PigPen Theatre Company, a troupe of five Carnegie Mellon graduates who have a penchant for folk tunes, shadow puppets and a dose of whimsicality. A video here to end the week (or to start the week, depending on when you are reading this post):



Have a good rest of the week. I'll be back in NYC on Wednesday.

A Conversation with My Boyfriend About Zombies

When killing zombies, it's best to have something sharp.
Still from Season 3, Episode 1 of "The Walking Dead" on AMC

Below is a conversation I had with my boyfriend about "The Walking Dead" and zombie mythology,. Because when you're in a relationship, you talk about anything and everything, including shows that you know the other person will never ever watch (He's been trying to get me into "Archer" for months now). Beware, slow-walking, moaning spoilers ahead.
 
Me: Tonight, I watched the Walking Dead and at the end of the episode, the main character chopped off another character's leg with a hatchet.

BF: Did he get bitten?

Me: Yeah, and he was the only person there with medical knowledge and really old, so it made no sense why they would bring him along on a suicide mission to take over this prison and fortify it.

BF: So they're going with the rule of, you get bitten, you turn into a zombie?

Me: Basically.

BF: Why did they chop off his leg if he was going to turn into a zombie anyway?

Me: No, in this world, everyone is a carrier for the zombie virus. A bite will just make you die faster.

BF: How fast? Are we talking about hours or days?

Me: Days. It's like Ebola. You die quickly and then you're reborn as a zombie. They had to chop his leg off before the virus infected the rest of his body.

BF: But he may still die because they don't know if he's been completely infected.

Me: Yeah.

BF: If these zombies were trapped in a prison, how are they still alive? Can they eat each other?

Me: No, zombies can only eat living flesh and zombie flesh is dead.

BF: Then why can't they just wait for the zombies to starve and decompose? Why are they so afraid of these zombies?

Me: ...It's a zombie show. If we followed the rules of nature, there would be no show. Are you going to start watching zombie movies now?

BF: Probably not.

And that is how you poke holes zombie mythology.