The loquacious, elusive Stephen Sondheim

I recently went to hear playwright Tony Kushner interview Stephen Sondheim and it's a measure of the stature of these two theater men that the 870-seat Skirball Center at New York University in Greenwich Village was sold out. Not only sold out, but at a top ticket price of $100, basically to see/hear two guys sittin' around talkin'.

The proceedings got under way at 8 pm in a bit of a lumbering fashion, with the Public Theater's artistic director, Oskar Eustis, greeting us since the event was part of the Public's Forum series of conversations. He provided a memorable quote from someone who didn't think much of his livelihood: "Why would you want to tell lies to strangers in the dark for money?" I might respond, "well, I certainly wouldn't want to do it for free," but then that would ignore the realities of much work in the theater.

Rocco Landesman, chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, and former producer of shows by Kushner and Sondheim, introduced things. Resembling the actor James Cameron a little, Landesman was lively and full of good theater anecdotes, but did tend to go on. It was edging toward 8:30 and we hadn't yet heard a word from Stephen Sondheim or Tony Kushner.

Kushner was an engaging but long-winded interviewer and I found I was torn between being glad he was there to wishing for a professional interviewer/arts journalist. The frame of the conversation was Sondheim's new book Look I Made A Hat: Collected Lyrics (1981-2011) with Attendant Comments, Amplifications, Dogmas, Harangues, Digressions, Anecdotes and Miscellany. (Funny, his first book in the series was called Finishing the Hat; you'd think it would be the other way around.)

Tony Kushner interviews Stephen Sondheim

Kushner called Look I Made A Hat a "manual of instruction" and an "adventure story," most apt descriptions as the format of Sondheim's memoir is unique: the printed lyrics and some of the most detailed, brilliant, careful and hard-working analysis of show-tune writing to be found anywhere.

When Sondheim finally did get a chance to speak, he prove to be a chatty, unpretentious interviewee with insights about his own work and musical theater in general. He's certainly not a recluse, having participated in many public interviews. 

Among the gems heard from the conversation with Kushner: Sondheim's not interested in writing opera because "you don't get a chance to fix it" unlike a musical with its workshops, tryouts and previews. He felt that "in opera, you see a lot of first drafts." One of his maxims is "less is more," but "opera is about more is more." Delightful.

Oddly, for me, he also said he can't "accept" recitative. Obviously, he'd disagree, but some of his songs almost seem to me to be recitative.

Kushner has written for a specific actor; Sondheim, never.

Sondheim doesn't necessarily need hushed silence to work. If he gets the melody stuck in his head, he "can write in a steakhouse."

They talked of how Sondheim's work is sometimes criticized for being "cold" and people mistake "smart" for "cold," to which Kushner added, "stupid people." To which I would add, "not so fast, Tony." Simply because an artist's work is not to one's taste doesn't necessarily equate to "stupid," but perhaps this slipped out as part of the generally worshipful attitude that attends such conversations.

There was a telling exchange when the talk turned toward Sondheim's collaboration with James Lapine, which resulted in Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods and Passion. (Love the first two, do not care at all for the third.)

Kushner mentioned a new openness, a longing and yearning quality to the work with Lapine and Sondheim said he was "responding to [his] collaborator." Kushner pushed a little, asking if there was something personal, but Sondheim, who only began a live-in relationship with a partner at age 61, replied that no, it was due to Lapine: "I take the coloration of the person I'm working with."

What impressed me was Sondheim's passionate commitment to the brutal process of making art. He compared it to the effortless quality of nature with this aphorism: "Art is beautiful; nature is pretty."

Hitting some wrong notes

It's mystifying, sometimes, when one sees a show that's been running for a long time, is a popular favorite and one's reaction is "hmm, where's the beef?" I had that reaction at the Canadian show 2 Pianos 4 Hands, which recently played its umpteenth engagement in Toronto.

In this case, it's literally a two-hander, written and performed by Ted Dykstra and Richard Greenblatt, this time at the Panasonic Theatre, about their piano careers -- or rather, the piano careers that never quite got going. Originally produced in 1996, it has, according to the program, played in 10 countries and 200 cities. Since I studied piano for ten years as a young person, then returned to it in 2005 as an adult and continue to play today, I was eager to catch up.

Growing up in the U.S., I had never encountered the Royal Conservatory exams, but as an adult living in Canada, I decided to go through them and am now aiming at level 6. In the 22 years I spent in Toronto, it seemed that 2 Pianos, 4 Hands was perennially playing somewhere. So I was primed for fun. 

There is a simple set -- two grand pianos, nose to nose, and a backdrop that consists of two video screens enclosed by huge picture frames. The first disappointment was that Dykstra and Greenblatt, who also are credited as directors for this production, made relatively little, unimaginative use of those video screens -- window panes to denote a house, etc, but the screens sat blank for much of the show.

They play all the characters, from themselves as kids going through the usual practice agony and lessons ("it sounded better at home" - who hasn't said that?) to teachers and examiners.  

As kids, the two do not seem to be especially talented piano students, which I found a wee bit puzzling as the adults onstage possessed serious piano chops. Their teachers -- especially Sister Loyola -- run the gamut from encouragement to exasperation. The boys persist and enter the Kiwanis Music Festival, a venerable Canadian institution that encompasses local, regional and national competitions. (Canadians love competitive festivals. They exist for music, choirs, community theater -- and auto repair, for all I know -- and more can be found about this national characteristic here.)

The funniest character, for me, was Ed, a long-suffering emcee at the Kiwanis festival who announces in a dead tone that "67 children will all be playing the same piece."

As they progress in their musical studies, they try to take the next step. Dykstra applies to the Royal Conservatory and Greenblatt to a jazz faculty -- but they slam against reality. Dykstra has gotten by on an easy facility at the keyboard, but the conservatory interviewer sees through his facade and bluntly tells him he'd have to work a lot harder to be top-notch. Greenblatt's version of jazz smacks too much of classical training, and his interviewer basically tells him he just doesn't have the soul for it.

Greenblatt gets work in a piano bar ... Dykstra does some teaching ... and the continuation of their story, as one can read from their program bios, is that both went on to busy, full lives as well-known theater artists -- acting (in some roles demanding musical talent), directing, writing, mentoring.

But the acting on display in 2 Pianos, 4 Hands is more of the hammy variety (see photo), with a little Victor Borge-style kidding around at the beginning. And one small question: how the heck could two musicians misspell the names of Richard Rodgers and Edvard Grieg in the music credits for the show?

Richard Greenblatt and Ted Dykstra in 2 Pianos 4 Hands

The show consists of a series of vignettes, but there isn't much character development and there are such hoary jokes as the teacher with the foreign accent mispronouncing English words - the same word, several times.

One of the few negative reviews the show has gotten came from the New York Times in 1997, when it played the Promenade Theatre in New York. Acknowledging their skill, reviewer Peter Marks sharply noted that "they never make it clear what the music has meant to them," so it's hard to feel much when they lose their dreams of becoming concert artists. The full review is here. 

I kept waiting for the play to catch fire, to scale the heights of musical joy, to give me some insight into the despair of being found wanting at the very thing you desire so much (a feeling with which I am all too acquainted when it comes to music). But what I saw was two pleasant guys with a very enjoyable amount of piano talent reminiscing about their young years in music and ending the show with what I thought was a boring arrangement of Bach's lovely Sheep May Safely Graze. I was under-whelmed.

A "Signature" identity

I've seldom been as inspired by sheer artistic passion as I was on Dec. 1, having lunch on a bare plywood stage, looking out at an auditorium stacked high with cardboard boxes, at what in two months will be 20-year-old Signature Theatre Company's new home on West 42nd Street.

Lunch on the stage in the soon-to-be-finished End Stage Theatre at Signature Theatre

It was a press preview of a $66 million complex designed by Frank Gehry that will include - deep breath - three auditorium theaters, a studio theater, a rehearsal studio, administrative offices, a bookstore and a cafe. 

All this will be in service to those of us who make sense of the world through words spoken in a big dark room, who inhabit a neighborhood of voices and walk just one block from crazy, who approach the work half-crippled with fear and electrified by arrogance, in equal measure. "Theater begins with the written word," Signature's founding artistic director, Jim Houghton, told us.

The entire complex, he said, will support Signature's dedication to the playwright -- seasons that focus on the early and current work of a single writer who is in residence and engaged in the creative process and five-year residencies for several playwrights that focus on new work."Every square inch of this place is tied to mission," he said.

The opening is scheduled for February 2012, kicking off a season of work by Athol Fugard, Edward Albee, Katori Hall, Will Eno and Kenneth Lonergan.

Playwright John Guare talked about Signature's artistic legacy. "Signature revived the career of Horton Foote. It restored Edward Albee to his rightful place of prominence in the American theater," he said, adding that Tennessee Williams, in the last 20 years of his life "had no base, no home" to nurture his creativity. "Signature is so unfashionable" in producing a range of a playwright's work, he said. "Usually you are as good as your last play," he added.    

Architect Frank Gehry: "With all the insanity going on in the world, it's nice to be involved with sanity."

Gehry, whose design includes a dramatic canopy at street level and a lobby that will serve as a crossroads for the center, praised real estate developers the Related Companies, whose 63-story apartment/hotel tower houses the Signature Center. He also mentioned the City of New York, which contributed an astonishing $27.5 million to the project. Signature Executive Director Erika Mallin, who has shepherded the project since she arrived in 2007, has worked in the mayor's office.

A rendering of the Signature Theater lobby, next to the tools and materials that will make it happen.

Among the dramatic initiatives at Signature is its Access Ticket program, which will make tickets available at every performance for $25. This can't happen without the generosity of donors and among the major gifts announced were $5 million from John and Amy Griffin to name one of the theaters after John's mother, theater writer Alice Griffin; a $5 million gift from writer Margot Adams that will name the main theater after Signature founding playwright Romulus Linney and $3 million from Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg to name the lobby grand staircase.

In keeping with the spirit of the ticket initiative, which seeks to answer the question of actor and board member Edward Norton - " Is theatre for all of us, or is it just for the very few?" - I'd like to make a suggestion about the bookstore. 

I am as passionate about books as I am about theater, and about theater education. Signature said its bookstore will carry playscripts and books about the worlds portrayed onstage -- apartheid during the run of an Athol Fugard play, for instance. If tickets are $25, then why couldn't every book in the bookstore be available for $5? Why should a person who has spent $25 to see a play be stalled by the $25 price of a book or the $15 price of a playscript? But who would subsidize the Book Access initiative? Possibly individuals who feel as strongly about the written word as I do - or perhaps foundations that have literacy as part of their mandate.

Signature Theatre -- is it worth a thought?

Chinglish: more than fortune cookie fun

Seeing David Henry Hwang's new play, Chinglish, now on Broadway and briskly directed by Leigh Silverman, is like going on the perfect date. You feel very comfortable with the other person, who is polite and eager to please but very witty. Things turn a little sexy and surprising halfway through and you end the evening feeling you've come to understand another human being and you are, well, satisfied.

The play, from the author of the extraordinary M. Butterfly, is told in flashback as American businessman Daniel Cavanaugh begins giving a corporate presentation on doing business in China. Seems he's the proprietor of a Cleveland-based, family-owned sign company. Three years ago, he was trying to convince the town officials of Guiyang that his firm should supply signs for a new cultural center - and avoid the garbled and laughable "Chinglish" on many signs in China. ("Fuck goods" in a grocery store is actually "dry goods," as the modern Chinese character for "dry" and "do" -- as in "to do" someone -- are the same, Cavanaugh explains.)

He picks up as a translator and all-around fixer Peter Timms, a local British teacher who has been living in the country many years and speaks fluent Mandarin. (A delightful bit of information from the Playbill is that actor Stephen Pucci holds a B.A. in Mandarin Chinese from Leeds University/Tianjin Normal University.)

Jennifer Lim as Xi Yan and Gary Wilmes as Daniel Cavanaugh in Chinglish

But of course, the local minister of culture, Cai Guoliang (the suave Larry Lei Zhang) has brought his own hapless translator who mangles such business overtures as "Here's why we're worth the money" into "He will explain why he spends money so recklessly."

While the apparently-affable Cai seems like a fellow one can "do business with" (to echo Margaret Thatcher's famous assessment of Mikhail Gorbachev), vice minister Xi Yan (Jennifer Lim) maintains a composure of steel.

Cavanaugh tries to read the signs communicated in non-written form when people from different cultures meet. Soon, those signals lead to an affair between Cavanaugh and Xi Yan, but each of them have very different motivations. Cavanaugh soon discovers that Timms and Cai also have agendas that won't necessarily align with what seems to be a pretty simple mission: sell some sturdy, correctly-written, American-made signs to the Chinese.

As a comedy, Chinglish is a tamer look at East-West relations than the dark M. Butterfly, but the American's guileless attempt to come to grips with a complex ancient world brings to mind Henry James' novels of Americans in Europe. David Korins' brilliant revolving set seems like a visual maze that complements the characters' dilemmas. Much of the dialogue is in Mandarin, with translations projected on the set and beautifully designed by Jeff Sugg and Shawn Duan. I loved hearing lengthy conversations in this musical, dramatic language.  

Wilmes gives us an attractive, affecting portrait of a middle class Midwesterner (who has a surprise up his sleeve about his background), but one would have liked his character to show a little more deeply how the China experience changed him. Lim reveals a number of layers to Xi Yan, a woman who knows herself and what she wants. Pucci and Lei Zhang create well-rounded characters, but director Silverman possibly could have asked the supporting actors not to play "Oriental" stereotypes quite so broadly.

All told, though, this dramatic Chinese meal doesn't leave you hungry an hour later.

Taking the Godspell to the public square

My legs are sooo soooore. From 9:30 to 1:00 pm on Saturday, Oct. 15, I jumped and danced and shimmied and clapped and slapped my thighs, rehearsing with 84 other people for a "flash mob" appearance in Times Square in support of the Broadway revival of Godspell. As I am an investor in the show, I thought this was a wise move. [Pun intended.] Who am I kidding - the chance to rehearse in a Broadway studio and be part of an Event in the middle of the Great White Way - sign me up!

Perhaps in keeping with the inclusive message of the Gospel, uh, sorry, Godspell, we were a remarkably diverse bunch - young, not-so-young, tall, short, thin, not-so-thin, dancers, actors, at least one writer (moi), teachers, all sorts. One woman had flown in from San Diego, another was there with her daughter, a man I met named Patrick had come in from Phoenix.

Rehearsing for the Godspell flash mob event. 

Our choreographer, Nancy Renee Braun, put us through the four sections of the piece, along with some professional dancers starting things off and punctuating some transitions. What a motivated crowd we were, clapping after we successfully executed every succession of eight-counts. It occurred to me that working in theater is like being in perpetual high school, but with grownup requirements such as reliability, leadership, teamwork and persuasiveness.

There was much talk about how the event was in keeping with Godspell's message of love and joy and community, but one of our dance captains stepped in it a little when she said the musical "isn't religious." Well, I'm not particularly evangelical, but in the interest of accuracy, yes, it actually is. What's regrettable is that Jesus has been used as a bludgeon rather than an inspiration so many times. The Christian message - love God, love thy neighbor - needs no apology, and maybe Godspell is a vehicle that makes it simple and clear.

Just before the flash mob

We worked like crazy, lead producer Ken Davenport showed up to see the last few run-throughs, we got a very brief lunch break, then made our separate ways to Times Square, where speakers had been set up around a space on the pedestrian mall next to the TKTS half-price ticket booth.

Spectators were already waiting to see what might go on in the space when a lone girl walked into the center and blew a couple of long notes on a bugle. Our dancers started their joyful swoops around the space to "Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord," then we mobbers seemed to flow out of the crowd to "Day by Day." Then, whoosh, the beat started rocking and we started hopping. Halfway through, we took off our jackets and bloomed into a sea of red Godspell t-shirts. You can see it here

There are a couple of other videos on YouTube, taken by people on their phones. My favorite overheard line from a woman chatting to her companion as they film: "This looks rehearsed." I'll say! As we picked up our jackets and walked away, a woman asked me, "What's Godspell?" I answered, "The 70s rock musical, based on the Book of Matthew." 


Now, I'm off to get the Advil. I'd do it again - in a flash.

The Godspell According to Us

This theater blog started in April with news that I had become a Broadway producer for the munificent sum of $1,000, courtesy of real Broadway producer Ken Davenport's decision to open up the process for his revival of Godspell. Six months later, I am about to become part of a flash mob in Times Square to support the show.

Solange and Jesus on Broadway

To tell the truth, the sweet earnestness of Godspell was never my cup of tea (sorry, Stephen Schwartz); I usually preferred a drier drink. But nobody else on Broadway was inviting me to this particular kind of dance, so I decided to sign up and, once invested, naturally had a stake in seeing this show succeed.

Couple of weeks ago, about 100 of us investors gathered at the Circle on the Square theater to hear Ken update us on the production just before previews began. (Opening night is Nov. 7.)

The show was just in the process of moving into the theater - note all the boxes onstage and the shop vac at left of the photo below. Ken, wearing his red Godspell hat, shared some of director Danny Goldstein's concept for the show. Ken asked us not to reveal the secrets of some production effects (Jesus will walk on water), but it doesn't seem too outrageous to say that Goldstein's idea is that the cast will be a group that happens to wander into an old Broadway theater.

Ken talked about the sound design challenges in a theater in the round and the location of the band, as well as what some audience members might be doing as part of the show. The production's budget is about $5 million, a number that's been publicly announced, and there are about 600 small investors. I asked if it was the small investors who put it over the top (a planned revival in 2009 never got off the ground due to lack of financing), but Ken responded that we were all "people of Godspell," which is his term for the investment group.    

Ken Davenport updates his fellow producers on the Broadway revival of Godspell

The poster I'm holding, above, was among the promotional items available at our meeting.

In the six months since April, Ken has kept a daily blog of the show's progress, detailing the many steps a producer takes to get a show to Broadway.

In a way, I've felt oddly detached from the experience, but also deeply part of it. Detached because for me, whether I'm directing a show or reviewing it, I'm directly involved. That's what I love about theater, it's in-person. But Ken has done something historic here. The world of Broadway producers can be pretty small and only open to those with serious money. He's invited us in and let us watch over his shoulder.

So, tomorrow (you thought I'd forgotten), there's going to be a flash mob event in Times Square. On a Saturday, I'm going to get up in time to be at a rehearsal studio by 9 am. And I'm going to make a fool of myself at the Crossroads of the World. Maybe a holy fool.

Heroes for all ages

On a day filled with human concerns both large and small - I learned of the deaths of two friends, got stung by a wasp and fell on the sidewalk, turning my ankle - I entered the realms of gods and heroes via a dramatic reading of the Greek epic The Iliad at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

Broadway actor Anthony Newfield, who edited the selections for the evening using a new translation by Stephen Mitchell, is artistic director of Poetry for Peace, which presents readings of great works that deal with war and peace.

The cast of The Iliad, presented at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York. Anthony Newfield is at the far left.

The work was punctuated by percussion and incidental music from Marlon Cherry, whose vigorous bass drumming created an appropriately war-like milieu.

It's a daunting work - some 15,000 lines in all (edited into a two-hour performance), dozens of warriors, gods and goddesses, even rivers and horses and mountains figure in the awesome story of the war between the Greeks and the Trojans.  


The impressive cast, including Theatre Hall of Fame member Dana Ivey as Hera and Hecuba, admirably negotiated Homer's poetry. Bryce Pinkham, late of the cast of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, crafted a particularly intense Achilles. And what a story: the Greek leaders Achilles and Agamemnon arguing over going to war; the Trojan Paris stealing Helen, wife of the Greek Menelaus; the Trojan Hector slain by Achilles and dragged behind his chariot; Hector's father Priam sitting down to dinner with his son's killer to ask for the body. And the gods, above it all yet intervening in human affairs and pursuing their own amorous paths.

The cathedral's magnificent grey and beige stone was a dignified setting for such a tale, one that sent us out into the unusually warm fall night with swords ringing in our ears and the cries of titans.