The Five: Sorry Kids, No Time

Anthony R. Miller checks in with adventures in educating.

So I’ve been teaching a “History of Musical Theatre” class the last few weeks and you would think three hours would be long enough to give them a pretty solid, if not basic knowledge of the musical theatre, and you would be wrong. I use a lot of video clips for the class, and with over 50 clips; I never get to use them all. There’s a few that kill me to skip, a few that make me feel like I’m doing these kids a disservice but skipping them, so here are my top clips I had to cut, predictably there are five.

Follies-“I’m Still Here”

Ok calm down, I mention it. I bring up that it’s co-directed by Michael Bennett. But there is no playing of the classic song. There is no discussion of how this show is just one part of the death of the Broadway Myth that happens in the 1970’s.

The Will Rogers Follies-“Our Favorite Son”

Again, I mention the show I never really give Tommy Tune his time in the sun. Not only does the show base itself on the Ziegfeld Follies which we discuss at the begging of the class, but it features some musical theatre’s most iconic choreography.

Contact-“Simply Irresistible”

I would have blown minds with tis clip. We would have discussed Susan Stroman’s use of dance and movement to tell her story in the tradition of Jerome Robbins and Agnes Demille. We would have discussed the controversy that followed its 2000 Best New Musical Tony Award win when it had no original or live music.

Gypsy-“Everything’s Coming Up Roses” (As Performed by Patti Lupone)

So Gypsy is discussed in the class, I even show a clip, but I don’t show this one. I feel it is my friggin duty to show them video of Ethel Merman performing it, I wish I had time to show both of them. Patti Lupone burns the friggin house down in it. But I can only choose one and Ethel Merman has to t win.

The Music Man-“Ya Got Trouble”

I have no fucking business teaching the history of American Musical Theatre without showing a clip of this show. Oh sure, I mention it beat West Side Story for the Tony. I discuss its use of rhythmic speak-singing. I mention it took 7 years to make it to Broadway. What I don’t do is show a clip. Maybe I’ll cut the clip from Pippin.

You can check out the entire playlist HERE and see everything I do show, along with everything that got cut for time.

Anthony R. Miller is a doer of many things, keep up with them www.awesometheatre.org.

It’s A Suggestion, Not A Review: The Penultimate Chapter

So, at the end of our last installment, I was about to propound some deep thoughts on directorial interpretation.

I went on and on about Joanne Akalaitis’s version of “Endgame,” which deviated enough from Mr. Beckett’s intentions that he sought to stop it in the courts. Failing there, he had a note included in the program:

Any production of Endgame which ignores my stage directions is completely unacceptable to me. My play requires an empty room and two small windows. The American Repertory Theater production which dismisses my directions is a complete parody of the play as conceived by me. Anybody who cares for the work couldn’t fail to be disgusted by this.

That would seem to have put an end to it. The production got what I take to have been mixed reviews, and even if Mr. Beckett wasn’t satisfied, everyone did make a case for their position.

Samuel Beckett at 70, but don’t think he couldn’t have taken you.

Mr. Beckett died in 1989, but his estate has closely guarded productions of his work ever since – even ill-considered ones (some of which shall go unnamed, given my potential readership; discretion indeed being the better part of valor …). So it was a surprise to me to find that, in 2009, ART had once again attempted a production of “Endgame” – though by this time, neither Ms. Akalaitis nor Mr. Brustein were on the premises, and ART was committed to doing the play in exactly the way Mr. Beckett had intended. Director Marcus Stern explained, “We had to sign a contract with the estate that we’d stick absolutely to the letter of the script. We are literally coloring inside clearly drawn lines by Beckett.” Leaving that “literally” aside, this is a point I’ll return to in a minute.

According to the Boston Globe:

It’s not easy to pull off, says Stern, who at first thought the directions would be limiting. But instead he says he finds it deeply challenging and exhilarating.

“It’s very labor intensive and really exhausting,” he says. “The task is really hyper-focused, but it’s also very interesting getting the mechanics down. Normally it would be frustrating, but there is a great faith he’s such a great writer that it will pay off to strictly adhere to his description.”

Stern and his actors, “literally” coloring inside the lines.

I remember some actor – I think it was George C. Scott, so I’ll give him the credit – talking about how ridiculous it was to give awards in the arts. Not only is it impossible to compare performances in varied plays and movies (I mean, who gave a better performance? Kathy Bates in “’Night, Mother,” Groucho Marx in “A Night at the Opera,” or Robert Preston in “The Music Man?”) He felt the only real way to judge actors was to have everyone play Hamlet and then decide who was best. And even then, it would be purely subjective; there’s no empirical way to say that a performance is good, bad, or indifferent; it’s all up to the observer. We’ve all seen performances that others raved about and left us shrugging and saying “What the hell was that?”

Try to tell me this isn’t the equivalent of Gielgud in “Hamlet” and you’ll get an earful.

So, to get back to Mr. Stern’s comment, we have to color inside the creator’s lines. Not only is it what’s required legally, it’s also the only basis by which we can determine how closely a production comes to the writer’s intentions. Yeah, you might think “South Pacific” would make more sense if it were set on Mars, or that “The Farnsworth Invention” (remember that one? From all those days ago?) would be better with a different ending, but it’s not your decision to make. It’d be like walking into someone’s house and saying “those walls would look better if they were bright green” and painting them on your own volition. You might be right, but it’s not up to you. You might think my new shirt would look better if the sleeves were cut off, but if you try to do it, I’m probably gonna get pissed off and punch you.

So what’s the solution? Well, three come immediately to mind, but we’ll discuss those next time. (I know, I know …)