August: Osage County

The TKTS booth where you can buy discounted Broadway tickets is always surrounded in this season (or perhaps, year-round) by a mob of tourists. Luckily, there is a way to shorten the time you stand in line considerably: go see a play. With everyone calling August: Osage County the front runner in the Tony nominations for Best Play this year, it seemed like a good idea to go see this show before it blew up at the awards ceremony tonight. "Partial view" tickets from TKTS got us in the orchestra, with a slightly - angled - but - very - much - able - to - observe - the - actors' - facial - expressions view of the stage in Row E.

A distinctly American play set in Oklahoma, August shows a distintegrating family as it faces the crisis of a missing patriarch, much-decorated poet and melancholic misanthrope, Beverly Weston. His wife--pill-poppin', fiery-tongued Violet Weston--is a shrill, manipulative woman who will do anything to prove her own strength and independence from a family she feels has abandoned her. As the story unfolds, we witness their deep-rooted dysfunctionality has been passed on to the next generation: their three daughters. The eldest, Barbara, struggles to take hold of the reins of responsibility in the broken household while reeling from her longtime husband's infidelity and her teenage daughter's rebelliousness. While family members come together to support Violet through this difficult time, what ensues is a heartbreaking yet laugh-out-loud funny portrayal of a family so broken there remains little hope for healing.

The matinee tonight elicited a standing ovation for good reason. The play is incredibly well-written, funny, acerbic without being alienating--and really touches a nerve with anyone who has ever experienced dysfunction in a family, which is to say, to some degree, everyone. There were moments when I could just feel my heart aching for Barbara as she desperately tried to make her family whole again; times when I wanted to punch some of the characters in the face for hurting each other so much, for lashing out to prove themselves instead of listening to one another; and just times when I had to sit and marvel that someone could capture in words and on stage the frustration, anger, resentment, hatred, and despair brewed by family fights. It's an inescapable poison; you can't get away, because they're Family, for God's sake--but sometimes everything becomes so unbearable that you have to wonder whether it's better simply to be alone, unbound by genes and responsibility. All of that, and so much more, was conveyed by this play. There's no way to do it justice here, so I won't try.

My only disappointment while watching the Tonys (well, not quite: I don't understand why the Rent original cast number was so short) was that I was rooting for Amy Morton to win the Best Actress in a Leading Role award, but it went to her on-stage mother, Deanna Dunagan, instead. Not to say Dunagan didn't deserve it; Amy just completely blew me away with her performance... The former more made me want to strangler her--which I suppose, could be construed as compelling also, but it's difficult for me to wish a character I find fundamentally soul-grating the best of luck. (And yes, I have trouble separating the actor from the character they play on stage.)

I'm not sure whether there will be any discounted tickets available going forward, but apparently the original cast is already on its way out, so go see it soon (within the month) if you care about that sort of thing.

懐かしき故郷よ

Ah, Japan. You can be so endearingly misguided:

Japan, a country not known for its overweight people, has undertaken one of the most ambitious campaigns ever by a nation to slim down its citizenry... Under a national law that came into effect two months ago, companies and local governments must now measure the waistlines of Japanese people between the ages of 40 and 74 as part of their annual checkups. That represents more than 56 million waistlines, or about 44 percent of the entire population.

First of all, it was important to establish a vocabulary that wouldn't hurt anyone's feelings:

“Before we had to broach the issue with the word obesity, which definitely has a negative image,” Dr. Sakamoto said. “But metabo sounds much more inclusive."

As with any Japanese "campaign" worth its salt, this anti-metabo campaign comes with a theme song:

At a city gym in Amagasaki recently, dozens of residents — few of whom appeared overweight — danced to the city’s anti-metabo song, which warned against trouser buttons popping and flying away, “pyun-pyun-pyun!”

“Goodbye, metabolic. Let’s get our checkups together. Go! Go! Go!

Goodbye, metabolic. Don’t wait till you get sick. No! No! No!”

And my favorite part of the whole story:

The mayor of one town in Mie, a prefecture near here, became so wrapped up in the anti-metabo campaign that he and six other town officials formed a weight-loss group called “The Seven Metabo Samurai.” That campaign ended abruptly after a 47-year-old member with a 39-inch waistline died of a heart attack while jogging.

Interviews with Gangbangers

I watched my first cultural attraction in Brooklyn last night, catching a feature documentary called Made in America at the Sundance Program at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. BAM has a beautiful screening center called the Rose Cinemas, and it looks like they split their programming between normal commercial releases (e.g., Indie Jones) and independent film. We even got to meet the filmmaker--world skateboarding champion-turned-filmmaker Stacy Peralta--after the screening, which was a real treat.

To sum it up: Made in America chronicles the violent history and current realities of Los Angeles' most notorious African-American gangs, the Crips and the Bloods. Using footage of contemporary interviews with present and former gang members, the film weaves the history of black oppression with the deeply personal experiences of those who cannot escape the confines of South Central, elucidating the social drivers behind the rise of a gang war that has lasted over forty years and claimed nearly 15,000 lives and maimed over 100,000 people. A commentary on American society's failure to take action against what is, in effect, an unending civil war in one of the wealthiest cities in the world, the film gives an unprecedented, humanizing glimpse of "gangbangers" and the violent toll years of marginalization have taken on these communities.

Given it was selected by Sundance as part of its official programming, it comes as no surprise the film kicks some serious ass, but allow me to add my own personal endorsement: this film was amazing. How often are real gang members captured on film sharing the intimate details of their lives and their desperate--albeit deeply buried--hopes for something better? Peralta said it's not yet been signed for release in theaters (woe for him, the company that was to buy the film after Sundance has gone bankrupt) but even if that doesn't happen, it'll be airing on cable and have a DVD release, hopefully very soon.

It's not just me: The Times loves Jollyship, too!

Jollyship is: "diabolically sly, springing its jokes guerrilla style and making gleeful use of all those archetypal pirate characters" and full of "demented brilliance."

What more could you ask for?

Buy tickets now!

P.S. You can hear a clip from the show on their website here.

From Up Here

This weekend has just been full of great theater. Today, I had the privilege of seeing From Up Here, a play by up-and-coming playwright Liz Flahive. It had been quite a while since the last time I saw a fully-produced straight play, and this was no disappointment.

The story follows a uber- dysfunctional American family in the aftermath of the eldest son's pseudo-violent outburst against fellow classmates a la Columbine High School. Ostracized by the school community and undergoing constant surveillance, Kenny struggles through school, with only his sister Lauren as a companion to sit with him during the lonely lunch hour. Their mother, Kate, is a rather OCD, incredibly Type A figure who cares deeply for both her adolescent children but doesn't know how to reach them; neither does her new husband, Dan, a bumbling, domestic man who wants nothing more than to have a child of his own with his new wife so that at least one of their children will love him. Her sister, Caroline, is a Peace Corps volunteer/mountain trekker who has made a career out of "wandering" and is one of the only adults whom Kenny trusts and looks up to. As he prepares a speech of apology to the entire school, the family is pushed to the brink of falling apart by a series of events that are simultaneously bizarre and yet believable, precisely because when it comes to crazy families, we've all been there.

Each of the characters was so distinctive and parts of them will remain with you even after you leave the theater; Kenny, who is so serious that can't help but take the weight of the world onto his thin shoulders; Lauren, who uses anger and sarcasm as a shield to protect herself from the trials of being a teenager, yet is poignantly loyal to her brother throughout; even Dan, who makes potpourri from scratch and packs lunch for the kids in a quiet effort to show that he can care, deeply, even if he is a stepfather. Tobias Segal (only 23!), who plays the tortured Kenny, gives a phenomenal performance, as does Tony award winner Julie White, who simply nails the role of his pained mother. These two alone would make the whole production worth seeing, but amazingly, the rest of the cast is strong as well. The show had the audience laughing out loud and then reduced me to tears in its final moments. It was heartbreaking while remaining hopeful; refreshingly honest and funny.

It's no surprise this production has garnered so many awards. Go see it at the Manhattan Theatre Club; the production is co-presented by Ars Nova.