In this morning's version of this e-letter, the video of "The Ladies Who Lunch" wouldn't play — which is ironic since I had titled that item "The Ladies Who Launch."
I had double-checked the link, of course, and it was working fine when I composed the e-letter, but it was subsequently blocked.
This update has a working video link — at least it's working now. :-)
Best,
C
In 1985, Joel Grey performed in The Normal Heart, even though he thought he was risking HIV infection by doing so. He came out as gay in 2015, when he was 82.
In this essay in The New York Times, he writes, “Some people might say that, even in good times, looking toward the future at my age is an act of optimism. But a life in the theater is built on exactly that kind of blind confidence, and I’ve spent my life pretty much always looking forward to whatever was the next thing: the next role, the next milestone, the next great show to see.
“Now, because of the coronavirus, we’re facing a future that sure feels more tenuous and fragile than ever … These are hard times, for sure, and in hard times I, like so many others, have always turned to the theater for comfort. Where do we turn now?”
Movingly, Grey remembers toughing things out in the face of AIDS: “When ‘The Normal Heart,’ Larry Kramer’s dramatization of the early days of that crisis, premiered at the Public Theater, it was 1985, near the height of paranoia about AIDS. Shortly after the play’s opening night, the actor playing the role of Ned Weeks, Brad Davis, found out he was positive and fell ill.
“Joe Papp, the producer, called and asked me to take over the role, which called for an onstage kiss between Ned and his lover. My doctor — who did not yet know exactly how the disease could and could not be transmitted — advised me not to take the job because of it. I’ve never been particularly good at following doctors’ orders, and in this case, for me, the notion of backing out was unthinkable; I was already committed and felt an urgent need to be a part of telling this story. But the fear that came from that misinformation was there nightly.
“The fact that ‘The Normal Heart’ was chronicling these horrific events more or less in real time made it so much more than a play. It was a coming together of the actors and the audience to talk about it, cry about it, cry some more about it — to connect. Up until then, I had never been in a play where the audience’s weeping would become part of the mise-en-scène.”
So where’s the communal release, the collective healing, this time?
To a significant extent, we have to wait for it.
Grey imagines that, “at hundreds — maybe thousands — of desks around the world right now, great playwrights with too much free time on their hands are unleashing their wisdom, their fury and their boundless compassion upon the challenges we face.”
“When that important work arrives,” he says, “I’ll be ready … Maybe, at 88, I’ve finally learned a little patience.” ...
Don't give up. Look up. And look around.
2. BE HERE NOW
COVID-19 is presenting us with a rare collective opportunity to slow down and contemplate mortality.
Theatre — and poetry — have always done a fine job of that.
In this six-minute video All the World’s a Stage, a handful of professional actors join folks with no theatre training or experience, but a lot of love for the art form — amateurs — to perform three Shakespearean monologues: “All the world’s a stage” from As You Like It, “To be or not to be” from Hamlet, and “Our revels now are ended” from The Tempest. Everybody’s performing solo, but Noah Payne-Frank has edited the contributions, giving each speaker a couple of lines or phrases so that, combined, they make a whole.
Hearing Zawe Ashton discover the meaning in As You Like It or Adrian Lester think his way through Hamlet awakens your ears. Some of the amateurs overact, and that’s touching in its own way — like an adolescent declaring adoration. But, for me, the essential beauty in this project derives from its combination of ordinariness and universality: the depressed woman slumped on her bathroom floor coolly considering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, the little boy and the deaf woman contemplating the seven ages of man, and the old guy who's lying in his bed with his old dog beside him joking about his mistress’s eyebrow.
In its ephemerality, theatre has always mirrored the transience of human existence: “We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”
There’s melancholy in this, but mostly it’s an invitation to notice how exquisite it is to be alive. ...
THIS TIME, THESE LADIES WHO LUNCH SHOULD LAUNCH
3. LADIES WHO LAUNCH
If you’ve ever doubted the importance of acting in singing, or even if you haven’t, check out the trio of Christine Baranski, Meryl Streep, and Audra McDonald as they deliver — by which I mean launch — “The Ladies Who Lunch” as part of Stephen Sondheim’s online 90th birthday party. (It aired on Sunday, April 26 and you can watch the full two hours and 22 minutes here.)
Keep an ear out for Streep’s reading of “And one for Mahler.” I’ll drink to that. ...
Choose your monster. In the National Theatre’s production of Frankenstein, Benedict Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller take nightly turns playing Victor Frankenstein and the Creature.
4. CORVID CORNER
Party like it’s 2021?
If you only looked at our theatrical behemoths, you might conclude that all of Canada's theatres will remain shuttered until next year.
As reported in The Globe and Mail, the Stratford Festival announced on Monday that “it was putting its entire 2020 season on hold – just an hour and a half after Toronto’s Mirvish Productions revealed it was pushing back the start of its subscription season until January.”
These shutdowns aren’t absolute: Stratford offered “a flicker of hope that special fall or holiday programming might take place if circumstances shift, and producer David Mirvish did say his ready-to-go Canadian production of Come From Away could reopen in the fall.”
Still, these extended closures will have a huge impact. Stratford had planned a 15-show season that was meant to include the celebratory opening of its new Tom Patterson Theatre. Stratford’s executive director Anita Gaffney estimates the pandemic will cost the company $40 million, about half of which will have to be raised from government sources and half from donors.
But smaller companies might have the advantage of greater agility.
As reported in the Globe article, “In Halifax, Christian Barry of 2b theatre, a creation theatre company without a set season and therefore more flexibility, is imagining a gradual return to operations – perhaps workshop presentations or shows presented to smaller, separated audiences in the fall and then a return to the stage of its hit touring musical Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story in 2021.”
In Vancouver, Rumble Theatre has relaunched its spring season with new digital programming. That includes Rumble’s deeply tender production of Christine Quintana’s Good Things To Do, which I took part in last weekend and loved. As I'm writing, there's a handful of tickets remaining for performances this weekend. They’ll probably be gone by the time you read this, but here's where to give it a shot.
There are other models, too. According to The New York Times, Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Massachusetts has laid out a detailed plan for reopening this summer. Among other strategies, the company will remove 70% of its seats, including every other row, eliminate intermissions, require audience members to wear face masks, and program small-scale productions only.
Artistic director Julianne Boyd says she doesn’t expect to make money with this approach, but she hopes to break even, given the lower operating costs.
I’d attend a physically distanced performance in a minute; it’s got to be less scary and more fun than grocery shopping.
Frankenstein, my dear
I’m calling it: the Benedict Cumberbatch Frankenstein will be the best traditional theatre video streaming this week.
Actually, it’s not just the Cumberbatch Frankenstein. In this 2011 production, which you can view free on the National Theatre’s YouTube channel, Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller alternate the roles of Victor Frankenstein and the Creature. Cumberbatch starts off tonight as the Creature, which is the featured role, and Miller’s Creature will take the stage tomorrow. Frankenstein is streaming until May 8.
Comparing the two actors’ performances as the Creature, The Guardian's Michael Billington says that there is an “epic grandeur about Cumberbatch. As he quotes Paradise Lost, his voice savours every syllable of Milton's words … Miller's strength, in contrast, lies in his menace. Stockier than Cumberbatch, his Creature makes you believe in the character's Satanic impulse and in his capacity for murder: when he hoists Victor's brother on to his shoulders you instantly fear for the boy's life.”
Resources
If you’re looking for information about emergency funding, advocacy groups, online training resources, health and mental health resources, and temporary/remote job opportunities, the CBC is providing a constantly updated resource guide for artists and others.
One of the most responsive resources is the Facebook group I Lost My Gig.
...
Hi friends,
As I mentioned in last Thursday’s scaled-down FRESH SHEET, I’ve been sick for several weeks; I took some time off last week and this to give myself a chance to recover.
I want to thank FRESH SHEET’s readers for giving me permission to do so. Several folks wrote to encourage me to take as much time as necessary. That permission has been seriously helpful. Thanks.
I’m proceeding cautiously, but I’m definitely a lot healthier so today’s FRESH SHEET should look pretty normal. The process of putting it together wasn’t the one-man OCD festival it usually is, but I’m happy with the content and hope you are too.
As the Buddhists say, may you be safe, may you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be at peace,
Colin
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