I should know by now that my writing output is one of the most obvious things to suffer during my self-imposed hibernation.  But just because I haven’t been reporting on my goings-on doesn’t mean that they haven’t been happening.  Let me fill you in…

I’ve stayed active.  Knowing that my metabolism slows as the temperature lowers, and that there are plenty of treats to be had this time of year, I’ve added in extra work-outs with my buddy, Alex.  He finally wore me down and got me to agree to try the Insanity Workout program.  So here’s a taste of what he and I get up to three times a week.

Insanity Workout

A more leisurely athletic accomplishment came just before Thanksgiving, when my fellow agents and I finally defeated the casting directors at show biz softball!  I went 4 for 4 at the plate during our 17-7 drubbing of our dreaded opponents.  There was the typical trash-talking and dirt-kicking, but when all was said and done, we still got together at a dive bar on Avenue A to enjoy pitchers and wings.

Yeah, I look like I need that pitcher, don't I?

But outdoing me on all fronts was kickball legend Stacy, running her second (or was it third?) New York City marathon!  She’s gone from Ol’ Whiskey Lips to Ol’ Whiskey Hips!  Way to go, Stacy!

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, I made my first trip to the movies in ages to see The Muppets, which I thought was absolutely delightful.  Writer and star Jason Segel imbued the film with the love and reverence of a true fan.  It keeps the spirit of the old Muppet films and TV shows but gives it enough modern sourness and self-awareness to mesh with today’s comic tastes, so as to not feel like a stale reboot.  And the songs by Bret McKenzie were a wonderful surprise.

I also did some reading these past weeks.  A duo of works by Hollywood’s hardest-working funny ladies, Ellen DeGeneres and Tina Fey, were enjoyable as expected, but surprisingly opposing in style.  Ellen’s Seriously…I’m Kidding is half comic essays on her life of late as an established celebrity, and half left-over material from her talk show monologues (I say “left-over” because they honestly weren’t that funny).  But Tina Fey’s Bossypants is a full-blown memoir in which the good-natured author reveals that, after spending half her life climbing the show biz ladder, she still holds a handful of axes to grind.  And like any good writer, she doesn’t mince words (“The definition of ‘crazy’ in show business is a woman who keeps talking even after no one wants to fuck her anymore”).

I also reached a benchmark in my American history reading, having now cleared the Civil War era.  My latest selection was Eli N. Evans’s Judah P. Benjamin: The Jewish Confederate.  Evans’s biography of the most powerful pre-twentieth century Jew in American politics is deeply interesting.  Benjamin, born to modest means in the British Caribbean, wound up becoming a United States senator and one of the architects of the Confederacy.  As Jefferson Davis’s most trusted professional ally, Benjamin was right at the heart of the Confederate machine.  But for all his skill as a politician, it was his legal talents that he was most remembered for.  It was how he made his fortune as a young man in New Orleans, and how he later supported himself–quite comfortably–in England, following his escape from the South.  Since Benjamin destroyed most of his papers during and after his flight from America, Evans is forced to explain Benjamin’s life from some interesting perspectives: as a friend of Jefferson and Varina Davis, and as a prominent Jew living in a place and time in which anti-Semitism soared among the populace.  Benjamin proves to have had a powerfully analytic mind, and seems to have had a disturbing ability to apply it to his personal life.  His marriage to the notoriously unfaithful Natalie St. Martin was worth increasing his social standing; his adherence to his faith waxed and waned as necessary given the personal or professional company he kept; his wholesale rejection of his time at the forefront of Union and Confederate politics was simply a bit of show to impress his British colleagues.  Everything was a means to an end; and as such, his loyalty to anyone but his beloved brother-in-law, Jules, and his daughter, Ninette, appears to have been completely flexible.  Given the incomplete source material, Evans has done a good job in painting a full portrait of a man who apparently was content to have been forgotten.

Finally, you’ll be happy to know that in a week or so, I’ll be posting some outrageous tales of adventure, as I am leaving soon to visit my best bud, Kevin, in tropical St. Maarten!  This is the biggest adventure of 2011.  I aim to close the year out with a bang.  Stay tuned, readers!

~ T

I’m sorry, I don’t mean to sound bitter.  Sure, it was exciting that the World Series went the full seven games, particularly with the dramatic heights of Game Six.  But honestly, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Texas Rangers?  I wasn’t the only one underwhelmed.  The earlier games of the fall classic earned piddling ratings.  This was no great rivalry, no storied match-up with a history to elevate the stakes.  And call me crazy, but when a game between the two alleged best teams in baseball ends in a 16 – 7 rout, I question the veracity of those records.  Still, I tip my hat to Tony LaRussa and his Cards.  Despite being a fan of the winningest team in American sports, I appreciate when the hardware gets spread around.

So in my final baseball posting of the year, I thought we’d dip back into the archives and see how The Honestly Blog’s official baseball correspondent, Tripp, fared with his post-season picks:

Tripp’s Picks
AL East: Red Sox
AL Central: Twins
AL West: Rangers
AL Wild Card: Yankees

Final Division Standings
AL East: Yankees
AL: Central: Tigers
AL West: Rangers
AL Wild Card: Rays

Well, once again, Tripp sold my boys from the Bronx short.  It’s okay, you can’t hate him for being persistent.  The Red Sox and Tigers, though, proved to be the victims of epic collapse.  Is Tripp’s benediction now a curse to ball clubs?  Let’s see if he jinxed anyone in the National League…

Tripp’s Picks
NL East: Phillies
NL Central: Cardinals
NL West: Giants
NL Wild Card: Cubs

Final Division Standings
NL East: Phillies
NL Central: Brewers
NL West: Diamondbacks
NL Wild Card: Cardinals

Ever the optimist, Tripp picked the Cubbies to win the wild card.  In fact, they only finished ahead of the Astros, the most anemic team in baseball.  There wasn’t much doubt that the Phillies would reign supreme in the east, and Tripp had faith that the Cardinals would make it, one way or another.  Of course, his fantasy World Series for 2011 was the Twins defeating the Phils, which proved to be way off; but I give him credit for foreseeing that the Cards and Rangers would be fixtures of the post-season.

So, now we wait through winter’s dark and gloomy hours until spring training starts again, shortly after that wretched groundhog scrambles out of his hole to taunt me with six more weeks of suffering.  Until next time, baseball fans.  Stay warm around that hot stove.

~ T

P.S: I almost forgot!  This may not really be the last baseball post of the year.  I did find out earlier today that on November 20, Yours Truly will be playing in the third annual show biz softball game between casting directors and agents.  The Sharks are 0-2.  This is our year!  Watch out, CSA!

The Submission focuses on Danny Larsen (played by Jonathan Groff), a young, white, and gay playwright who has struggled to get his work produced.  When the next major theater festival rolls around, Danny submits an incendiary work under an assumed name.  When the play is quickly snatched up by producers, Danny decides to continue the ruse, and hires an aspiring black actress named Emilie (played by Rutina Wesley) to pass herself off as the author of the piece.  For the first half hour, I wasn’t sure which road author Jeff Talbot was taking us down.  At this point, the show had the potential to be an outstanding, outlandish farce.  But Talbot keeps things serious, as Emilie begins to take ownership of the story she feels she’s more qualified to tell, and Danny struggles to maintain control of something he admittedly did not always believe in.  Caught up in this push-and-pull are Danny’s boyfriend, Pete (played by Eddie Kaye Thomas), and his best friend, Trevor, (played by the unironically named Will Rogers), who becomes smitten with Emilie.

Jonathan Groff and Rutina Wesley

I respect Talbot’s decision to maintain a serious tone.  He wants this play to provoke, not to amuse.  I’d argue that he could have made the same points with a satire that he does with his drama, but in the age of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, tackling these topics without a roll of the eyes is commendable.  Danny and Emilie have some great and uncomfortable exchanges on the topics of reverse discrimination, stereotyping, and the ownership of language.  Even their earlier, more innocent talks often come to abrupt, awkward halts (whereas the later climaxes sometimes stray too close to hysterics).  I never felt that anything said in the play was gratuitous.  Some things were repetitive, but I took that as the hallmark of a bad editor, not a shock artist.  I know at least one person walked out of the show less than halfway through.  I have to say, I really don’t understand why.  For one thing, who doesn’t do a little research on what they’re going to the theater to see before they get there?  I know plays don’t come with MPAA-certified ratings for content and subject matter, but honestly, make a little effort.  For another, you go to the theater to have something to talk about.  Sure, sometimes it’s more about who sucked and who didn’t, and which dance numbers were your favorite; but every once in a while, you leave the theater with an idea.  And if you leave the theater early, you’re probably leaving with the wrong idea.  And finally, it’s just a play!  It’s fiction!  It’s pretend!  Jonathan Groff didn’t hop off the stage, come over to your seat, and call you a nigger.  Rutina Wesley did not warm up the crowd by telling a string of jokes about two fags walking into a bar.  They were actors interpreting the lines of a script written by a guy who said, “Let me see if I can get all these thoughts I have on this extremely delicate topic onto paper, and see if I can use them to tell a story that might get people thinking.”  Like I said, that’s kind of what theater is.

The Submission really should get a second staging in the mainstream theater district, perhaps after another visit from the play doctor.  (I still think the final scene, all of seven minutes long, could be completely scrapped).  Keep your eyes open for this one, either on stage or in the bookstore.  I think it’d be worth your time.

~ T

A few months ago I reviewed Sure of You, the melancholy conclusion to Armistead Maupin’s landmark Tales of the City series.  It was a bittersweet accomplishment.  On the one hand, I’d read through Maupin’s entire San Franciscan saga, which probably totaled over 1,200 pages.  On the other hand, it was over.  Thankfully, Maupin decided four years ago to explore where the remaining veterans of Barbary Lane might find themselves in the 21st century.  In Michael Tolliver Lives and Mary Ann in Autumn, Maupin catches us up on what we’ve missed in the intervening twenty-plus years, introduces us to the next generation of unique Bay Area personalities, and carries the story forward with all his standard hallmarks: coincidences, conspiracies, and comedy.

Michael Tolliver Lives is a departure from the previous Tales books, in that it is told in the first person.  Michael is the star of the show here, as he navigates a new relationship with a younger beau and manages the push-and-pull of caring for the ailing members of biological family in Florida and his “logical” family in San Francisco.  Michael Tolliver Lives is most important for introducing readers to a whole new crop of characters, including Michael’s lover, Ben; Michael’s professional apprentice, Jake Greenleaf; and Brian and Mary Ann’s grown daughter, Shawna, a local literary legend, thanks to her provocative slice-of-San-Franciscan-life blog.  Keeping the story narrowed to Michael’s POV was a swing-and-miss, if you ask me, only because it deprived us of the chance to get inside the minds of new characters and, more importantly, those of the old ones.

Mary Ann in Autumn, however, feels more like the original installment of Tales of the City than other.  After making only a cameo in Michael Tolliver Lives, Mary Ann Singleton returns to San Francisco with little more than her baggage (physical and emotional), just as she did back in 1976.  Facing a double-whammy of life-altering changes, Mary Ann has come back west to fight her battles with friends like Michael and DeDe at her side.  She’s forced to confront the friends, neighbors, and the daughter she left behind.  There’s more to the book than just Mary Ann, though.  Michael worries about the stability of his marriage, Jake encounters a troubled Mormon missionary, and all the original Barbary Lane tenants–including the indefatigable Mrs. Madrigal–find themselves threatened when the last great unsolved mystery of the Tales of the City series comes back into focus.

These two books show that Maupin has a lot of mileage left with these characters, and his San Francisco is still a place with plenty of stories to tell.

~ T

Cooper makes no apologies for Mr. Davis’ perspective on things.  In fact, his introduction explicitly states that his book is meant neither to vilify nor qualify his beliefs.  They were simply the prevailing wisdom of the age.  Yet it’s one thing to say that the majority of white men believed in the superiority of their race; it’s quite another when you engage in a case study of a white man who shared that belief and who wielded enormous influence in the nation for nearly half a century.  The evidence Cooper assembles shows that, despite his editorial attempts at rehabilitation in closing passages, Jefferson Davis never changed his opinion that black people were inherently less than white people–even after the war he waged to ostensibly defend that view failed miserably.

Davis always contended that the Civil War was not about whether black people should be free or slave.  His view was that the growing northern sentiment towards emancipation was being forced upon the southern economy, of which slave labor was the bedrock.  He saw it as a power play to subjugate the south, politically and economically, and thus viewed secession as not only a constitutional right but as a necessity.  War, he contended, was never his design.  Cooper’s evidence supports this; but the storm that had been brewing since Davis’s days as a senator was too strong for him to stop by 1861.

Most Americans today know Davis as the president of the Confederacy (that is, if they know him at all), but I found those years of his life to actually be the least interesting.  Here is a collection of some amusing facts about Mr. Davis:

• He traveled in influential circles at a very young age.  His parents sent him from their home in Mississippi to receive an education at the famed Transylvania University in Kentucky, where Henry Clay was on the Board of Trustees.  On his journey north, he stopped at the home of former president Andrew Jackson, a personal hero of his.
• He attended West Point.  A number of contemporaries would later fight for and against him in the Civil War.  He was a bit of a rowdy cadet, but graduated and earned a good assignment at the edge of the American frontier, commanded by future president Zachary Taylor.
• Davis won the hand of Taylor’s daughter, Sarah, despite her parents’ initial objections.  They were married briefly before she died.
• Davis was on the front lines of the Mexican War, fighting to expand America’s borders deeper into the southwest.  Despite running the Civil War from Richmond many years later, he would never again be at the forefront of battle.
• He suffered numerous lifelong maladies, including bronchial diseases, eye infections that almost blinded him, and the recurrent effects of malaria.
• He was incredibly well-traveled, seeing most of America and Western Europe in his 81 years.

Joseph Davis

Central to the story of Jefferson Davis are two influential and conflicting presences in his life: his eldest brother, Joseph, and his second wife, Varina.  Joseph was more of a father figure to Jefferson than a big brother, and he took their relationship quite seriously on those terms.  He was generous and sincere; it was he who gave Jefferson the land to start his successful plantation, Brierfield.  But he could also be domineering and intrusive, something the independent and ambitious Varina did not appreciate.  Varina thrived in Washington, with its vibrant social scene at the center of such important work.  Conversely, when consigned to Brierfield, she was bored and lonesome, and chafed terribly under the presumptive chaperoning of the nearby Joseph.

Varina Howell Davis

The two were practically of different generations, and while Jefferson strived to please both simultaneously, he rarely succeeded.  It was only as the war approached and Jefferson’s responsibilities became so consuming away that he and Varina were finally out of Joseph’s shadow.  Even after the war, when their futures were all uncertain, Varina and Joseph never reconciled.  In an epic sign-off on the eve of secession, Varina told a deeply touched Joseph that it was solely her husband’s idea to name one of their sons after him.  ”I owe you nothing, and perfectly appreciate your hostility to me,” she declared.

How did we fare?  Not well.  We were drop-kicked out of competition in the first round, losing 26 – 8.  ”It was ugly,” said Laura.  ”I say, if you’re gonna lose, lose big.”  George was particularly bummed, reporting that “the field was a mud pit” and “we didn’t have enough people.”  I asked how the game was allowed to go on without a full roster, but when he told me that the ref was The White Queen from Week 2, I understood.  I demand a do-over!  At least Brandon kept his optimism.  ”There’s always next year,” he said.

Yes, that is true, dear readers.  There will always be another year of our patented schoolyard shenanigans to keep you entertained.  What will our motley crew get up to in the meantime?  Well, George, Jill, former team member Liz, and Yours Truly ran a 5K on Saturday.  I clocked a new personal best!  As for non-athletic pursuits, Jill, Brandon, emergency sub Lynda, and team founder Spitz recently crossed the canal and put their lives and livers in my hands for a downtown Jersey City bar crawl.  It was quite a success, and we hope to expand the group in the future.  And there may be a wedding or two this fall at which all your favorites will be featured.  Keep checking back for updates!

~ T

The main reason this show fails the moment it begins is because of the framing device used to tell the story.  The curtain comes up on a chaotic chase through Miami International Airport, where hangdog federal agent Carl Hanratty (played by Norbert Leo Butz) has finally apprehended young Abagnale (played by Aaron Tveit).  Before Hanratty can close the cuffs, Abagnale has convinced the curious witnesses to listen to his story.  Butz is forced to deliver some horribly baiting line along the likes of, “No more song-and-dance for you, buddy!”, and suddenly we’re being dragged against our will into The Frank Abagnale, Jr. Variety Hour.  Flanked by flapping chorines, Frank invites us to hear his story, “Live in Living Color”.

Tveit and his sexy stewardesses

The real Frank Abagnale, Jr. insinuated himself into a lot of professions.  He ran his schemes in fields like travel, law, and medicine.  Do you know what professional world he never once had anything to do with?  Television!  Television was never a part of Frank’s life story.  He didn’t do what he did to be famous.  There is no reason for his story to be told anyway but straightforward.  It’s already an outrageous and singular tale.  It doesn’t require any help in standing out from the way you tell it.  My guess is that this decision is partly because book writer Terrence McNally and the composer/lyricist duo of Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman could think of no other way to turn this story into an integrated musical, and partly to cash in on the completely misplaced 1960s nostalgia that is so in vogue these days (and which I plan to systematically dismantle in a forthcoming post).

My heart goes out to the members of the cast, Butz and Tveit especially, because they do have genuine talent.  Sure, Butz’s big number in Act I devolved into a vaguely minstrel-like gospel/R&B frenzy, and Tveit may be easy on the eyes and ears even though he lacks serious stage presence, but they deserve better.  The score by Shaiman and Wittmann is terribly underwhelming, with lazy lyrics and derivative melodies.  Jerry Mitchell must have passed this off to his latest associates, as there was nothing remotely memorable about the choreography.  And director Jack O’Brien fails to make proper use of the space available, or to create any character with depth besides the male leads, who are already admittedly quick studies.  Save for McNally, this is the same creative team that gave us Hairspray, one of musical theater’s most infectious confections.  What the hell happened, guys?

Norbert Leo Butz, looking pretty much like how I felt during the show

Don’t let the hype around its Labor Day closing con you.  Catch Me If You Can should not be caught.

~ T

Team Turquoise continues to go undefeated!  Our record stands at 5-0-2 as we head into the final weeks of regular season play.  Week 6 was apparently a tight contest that saw our heroes eke out a victory.  Week 7, however, was epic, in Jill’s words.   According to George, the final score was 27 – 6!  Amanda confirms this, and reports that the referee (who may or may not have been long-suffering Jerry) tried to invoke a non-existant mercy rule, not once but twice!  Team member emeritus Erin came out of retirement to fill the female quota, and broke down the highlights for me over e-mail: Volpe hit a genuine, over-the-fence home run; Brandon took a line drive to the testicles; and one opposing player was suspected of fondling himself in the outfield.  That’s our gang: putting the “ball” in “kickball”!

A more thorough recap will follow, providing we can get back on to the fields after Hurricane Irene!

~ T

Still in previews at the Marquis Theater, right in the heart of Times Square (an appropriate location given the story), this production of Follies comes straight from a lauded run at the Kennedy Center in Washington.  Follies takes place in the early 1970s, and is set in the fictional, decaying Weismann Theater in New York.  On the eve of its destruction, the performers who once sang and dance across its stage and chattered in the wings have gathered for a final reunion.  Chief among them are four friends: former roommates and famed “Weismann Girls”, Sally and Phyllis, and their respective husbands, Buddy and Ben.  There’s over forty years of history between these characters, and among many others, and in the course of a single evening it all catches up to them.  Leave it to Stephen Sondheim to be the one to have assigned physical and emotional side effects to simple nostalgia.

Sally (Bernadette Peters) and the ghosts of the Weismann Theater

The core plot of Follies, as much as I’ve just described it, may seem muddled by the book, by James Goldman, which fleshes it out.  But taking a step back from what seems to be an increasingly disjointed musical, you can see that Follies is actually rather clever.  It uses two framing devices to tell the story of Sally and Phyllis and Buddy and Ben, both perfectly suited for the piece.  The rest of Weismann’s starlets may not seem as deeply characterized, and their songs may seem to come in from short left field; but when you consider them more as commentaries on the four principals than as narrative necessities, it brings even more shading to thoroughly textured characters.  And in Act II, when past regrets combine with present mistakes, we find ourselves in the imaginary Loveland of Weismann’s famous Follies; only now the older characters perform warped, bitter versions of the vaudeville routines that were the mainstays of their youth.  Follies, perhaps more than any other of Sondheim’s musicals, spends plenty of time getting into its characters’ brains, and subsequently into the audience’s.

Phyllis (Jan Maxwell) in Loveland

It is not, by any real appraisal, a happy story.  A particular directing decision on the part of production leader Eric Schaeffer had me convinced that when Sally sang the lovelorn ballad, “Losing My Mind”, she actually had.  Still, that isn’t to say that it isn’t a good story.  What Goldman’s book lacks in smooth transitions, it makes up for in efficiency and brevity.  It only takes six bitchy bon mots between surly Ben and vivacious Carlotta to convey decades of complicated history.  In fact, the show’s full of great zingers; but one-liners do not  a great script make.  Sondheim’s wonderful music buoys the book, and Schaeffer’s all-star cast brings both to vivid life.  Ron Raines cuts the perfect figure of the empty suit that is elder Ben, and his booming voice was a great surprise.  Jan Maxwell fully embodies Phyllis, the statuesque socialite who’s been slowly crumbling inside.  Danny Burstein shows he’s every bit as adept at drama as he is at comedy (I’m still not sure which is harder) as the broken-hearted Buddy.  And Bernadette Peters gives a tremendously interesting performance as Sally.  She may not look as faded as Sally as supposed to, but she still appears every bit as fragile.   Standing out among the large ensemble are Mary Beth Peil as Solange, Jayne Houdishell as Hattie, Terri White as Stella, and Elaine Paige as Carlotta.  Special mention should also go to the younger ensemble members who float spectrally across the catwalks, and to the positively luscious twenty-eight piece orchestra below the stage.

The women brought the house down with "Who's That Woman?"

There’s one last thing that I wanted to mention about this production of Follies, because it really caught my interest.  The score for Follies contains some of Sondheim’s more legendary songs, songs which have been performed since by any number of vocalists.  Two in particular, Phyllis’ furious “Could I Leave You” and Carlotta’s defiant “I’m Still Here”, are both musically and lyrically outstanding.  Yet it seems that Eric Schaeffer’s choice as director has been to put the onus on the latter over the former.  He has directed Jan Maxwell to treat “Could I Leave You” as simply a continuation of the no-holds-barred argument between Phyllis and Ben which precedes it, and has Elaine Paige nimbly tripping over the rhythms of “I’m Still Here” with a lounge-y, devil-may-care attitude.  As such, your first impression is that Maxwell appears to be racing through “Could I Leave You”, while Paige appears to have at times forgotten the next verse of “I’m Still Here”.  Schaeffer hasn’t directed them to perform these musical numbers so much as to inhabit them.  It’s a bold choice.  I’m still deciding whether or not it worked (especially when considering that both ladies, especially Elaine Paige, have solid voices that would be better showcased in a more straightforward approach), but it was interesting to see that the director made his choice and stuck with it.

For these geeky reasons and more, I recommend Follies to you, dear readers.  Get in while you can; it’s a limited engagement through early next year.

~ T

~ T