Don't Rush the Seasons

By Jonathan Jones

Friday, May 20, 2011

On a lark, in the wee hours, having just finished reading Maryanne in Autumn, I went online and booked a ticket to come to San Francisco to see the premier production of the musical of Tales of the City. Note to readers: when yo desperately love characters so much that they seem  real to you and someone decides to adapt it to film or stage, do not see it. You are too close to it and you probably will not like it. I wish someone had given me this advice. "Jonathan," they would say, "You've spent 4 months reading these books. You dram about these characters. It broke your heart when you finished the last book and knew there would be no more. You are too close to it. You will not like the reinterpretation." I could have accepted that. Instead, I blindly went in desperately wanting to fall in love all over again, yet walked away missing the friends I've grown to love.

I came late to reading the Tales of the City novels. Like many a young, impressionable gay, I was told that I must get the books and devour them. Dutifully, I bought the first book and read about 50 pages. In the midst of this, I discovered the mini-series and thus, decided why bother reading them when I could just watch them. And there, I fell in love. 

Seven years later, upon the release of Maryanne in Autumn, I decided to finally return to Barbary Lane as it seemed wherever I listened, Armistead Maupin was there promoting the latest book. I purchased the remaining seven volumes, and started again at page one of the first book. 4 months without another thought in the world, I communed with the inhabitants of 28 Barbary Lane and really felt that I was a part of their family. Not the family you're born with, mind you, but the family you choose - and experience that most adults grow through - nevermind that mine was fictional. I knew everything about them. I could premeditate their thoughts and reactions. And, under the spell of Jake Shears and the Scissor Sisters, I knew this journey would be required.

Adaptation is always a difficult road. If you're making a movie or tv-series of a book, it may be appropriate to edit for length and just film it as written. But transforming a literary work to a musical requires just that - transforming the work. As Tales was originally serialized, Maupin created a series of characters whose lives were creatively intertwined, but essentially, each chapter dealt with one of four-six ongoing story lines. In a musical, this is just too much to go with, Perhaps Sondheim's Company or Into the Woods is an exception, but generally speaking - less is more. Unfortunately, the artistic team did not see this as a problem. As such, the episodes and every character from Book One are there - which results in very short scenes, minimal character development, many short songs, and a lot that could be done without. As there are 8 books, there was an enormous amount of material to work from, and they would have been best to work around the main characters and told a more unified story.

Here's what we needed:

Maryanne Singleton and Brian Hawkins - Simple Cleveland girl becomes subsumed in a life she is told that she should want, yet does not want (a heartbreaking tale that comes later in the series - and eerily parallels Laura Linney's role in the play Time Stands Still)

Mrs. Madrigal and Edgar Halcyon - Finding the strength to love and be loved in return - in the face of death

Michael Tolliver and Jon Fielding - Letting go of your inhibitions and finding a way to love - in the face of death

Mona Ramsey - Finding herself in the most peculiar of places

Granted, these stories do not come from the linear progression of the novels, but they would work together in a harmonious whole that is more representative of the arc of the series. They are each other's family, and the love relationships that come and go are largely less significant.

Here's what we got:

A very faithful cliff-notes version of the first book. While the actress playing DeDe Halcyon is very comical (she reminded me a lot of Megan Mullaly), she dalliance with the grocery boy does not feed the larger story. Maryanne's relationship with Norman, also, comparatively insignificant. Beauchamp's running around with men and women is fun to read, but purposeless on the stage. Connie Bradshaw equally was unnecessary. Mother Mucca was a fun potty-mouthed treat as well, but at the end of the day, Mona could have gone away to contemplate what her life had become in the midst of secrets and deceit, and sung her incredible 11 o'clock number (video below) - and that would have gotten us through.

The problem with including every detail from the original narrative is that it serves one purpose: reminding people who read the books about all the fun and clever ways of connecting seemingly disconnected characters. For an audience member who had not read the books, I'm just not sure what they could make of this parade of underdeveloped caricatures.

Mary Birdsong as Mona Ramsey and Judy Kaye as Mrs. Madrigal are both incredible. The characterization of Mrs. Madrigal was a little too kum-ba-ya / Mother Oprah, but that certainly wasn't her doing. Wesley Taylor is a tin type of Aaron Tveit and Karl Dean Massey, but was still charming as Michael Tolliver. Betsy Wolf was incredibly disappointing as Maryann Singleton -- a combination of the writing and her characterization. Here, Maryanne is a cross between Tracy Turnblad (Hairspray) and Elle Woods (Legally Blonde) - neither of which is anywhere on the path to whom Maryanne really is. I'm not often convinced by Serie Rene Scott, but this is a role she could definitely give a heartbeat to. Andrew Samonsky was a vision as Lt. Cable in South Pacific, but his Beauchamp Day leaves much to be desired. He would make a much better Jon Fielding, but Josh Breckinridge (previously from The Scottsboro Boys) is just fantastic, so I'd hate to deny him the privilege.

The music was not all together very memorable, though there were a few divine moments (one of which is in the video below). Other highlights included Michael's coming out letter to his parents which was quite cleverly set ("'Cause if you're the one who made me who I am, I wanna thank you, mama."). Lyrically, there were a few deep questions: "Is there anybody alive without a paper face? This is not a way I'll survive--behind paper faces. Is there anybody alive?"

In all fairness, it was the third preview of a new show, so I'm sure everyone is aware that there is work to be done. There were moments I loved and moments that made me year for Laura Linney. Either way, it was wonderful to spend three hours (oh yes, three) with people I absolutely adore.

(BroadwayJLM at Barbary Lane - May 20, 2011)

Mary Birdsong (Mona Ramsey) performing "Seeds and Stems" - could anyone have more perfect stage name? She is incredible and should be a star.

The creative team talk about their work:

War Wages on in The Normal Heart

By Jonathan Jones

Sunday, May 01, 2011

In June 2004, I attended the revival of The Normal Heart at the Public Theatre, directed by David Esbjornson and featuring Raúl Esparza as Ned Weeks. Nineteen years after its premier, the work was new to me though much of the subject matter had been covered in a number of my undergraduate courses. Given that the play is largely a lesson in history, much is required of the actors in order to give life to the characters. This is not a play about people. This is not a play about plot. This is a play that insists audiences wake up to what they have turned a blind eye to before. It condemns the players, whom are minimally masked in this autobiographical work. And this is a play that allows playwright Larry Kramer an opportunity to do what he felt at that time he had not yet been successful at doing—fighting as hard as he can—a fight that is still being waged with expert vigor and heart at the Golden Theater.

Twenty-six years have come and gone since the debut of the work, yet the audience sits in rapture as though they’ve never heard these words before. Perhaps they haven’t. This cannot be guaranteed, and as such, it was pivotal for Joel Gray and George C. Wolfe to push the work further. Not having seen the original production (I was six after all), I can’t entirely be sure what is old and what is new. What I do know to be new since my experience in 2004 is the direction of the heart of most speeches to the audience rather than between the characters. We in the audience are schooled in the history of the AIDS epidemic and creation of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. We are schooled in the apathy of the political leaders. We are schooled in the divisions within the gay community unsure of how to face the reality that they are unknowingly killing themselves. When the characters get angry, they want us to be angry with them. Thus, Gray and Wolfe smartly decorate the stage with actors who are not in the most confrontational of scenes so that we can understand that the real focus of the anger is not at the character it’s being directed to at a given moment, but rather to every character who is not giving their all to fight this fight. By extension, we in the audience as part of this New York, albeit twenty-six years removed—we too are implicated. Ellen Barkin’s Dr. Emma Brookner yells at the audience for nearly five minutes, trying to deal with the frustration of the National Institutes of Health’s refusal to fund her preliminary research into the cause of what would become known as HIV. We were not angry then, and we are not angry now—and the gravity of this piece is to implore us to finally get angry.

At the close of the first act, in the most intimate of scenes between Ned and his lover Felix, the cast is assembled onstage watching, as if to say that we all must be privy to these private moments as they are the truth behind what we are fighting for. Felix removes his sock and reveals his first tell-tale lesion on his foot. He says to Ned, “It keeps getting bigger and bigger, Neddie, and it doesn’t go away.” At this moment, the second of three scrawls of the growing list of names of those who have died from AIDS is projected in a crawl along the up-stage wall. It began as a few short columns,  grew to a list that encompassed the entire wall, and finally, in a moment that just knocks the wind out of you, it encapsulated the entire proscenium by the night’s end. Masterful imagery; masterful direction; impeccable acting. The Normal Heart fights on.

The Normal Heart is currently playing a limited run at the John Golden Theater through July, 2011. Tickets are available through telecharge.