Transition #6 - Live Theater, Sort Of
Returning live works have a feeling of halfway-ness, only sometimes deliberately
One great relief of April 3rd’s NYC PopsUp’s event, the first performance in a Broadway theater since March 12th 2020, was Savion Glover’s gentle underplaying of its opening image.
As he stepped onstage, Glover removed the ghost light which, for over a year, had stood watch over an empty St. James Theater. I imagine it was tempting to play this as a grand, applause-seeking moment. But it’s appropriate that Glover did not, since the show he was kicking off was not some grand re-opening. It was, rather, a short taste—a promise of more to come.
Coverage focused on the show’s logistical and safety procedures. But in watching both this event and a few other shows springing up across New York since restrictions were eased on April 2nd, I was struck by another question, challenging in its own way: As audiences begin to return to theaters, what is it they want to see?
One common refrain directed at theaters during the shutdown was: “Do not program any plays about this pandemic.” Few seem eager at the idea of reliving this nightmare right after they’d lived it.
So, of course, the first full-fledged production back is about an epidemic of blindness. Based on José Saramago’s novel, the “sound narrative” Blindness is said to “pinpoint the current state of our nerves” in Simon Stephens’ immersive adaptation.
Though Blindness was a sell-out hit at London’s Donmar Warehouse, some audience members struggled. The show has a 20-minute section of almost total darkness, save for occasional flashes. Patrons got small flashlights they could use to indicate they were overwhelmed and needed to leave.
I’m sure Blindness is superbly done, but it also sounds like a parody of how to greet audiences following a pandemic-forced shutdown: “Keep that double-mask tight while you relive the trauma of the past year— oh, and if you feel a panic attack coming on, just let us know!” Early sales have been slow, and while safety concerns are probably chiefly to blame, the content can’t help.
I realize that realistically, of course artists are going to create work about the pandemic. They have a lot to unpack, same as the rest of us. I’m not opposed as a rule. The other tough question artists face, though, is if they can possibly add anything new.
That struggle was evident in Mike Daisy’s What the Fuck Just Happened?, which he performed to a small, vaccinated audience at the Kraine Theater on April 2nd. (I watched the livestream - yes please to more livestreams, by the way.) I’m not a huge fan of Daisy’s, having never really gotten past the Steve Jobs fiasco, but What the Fuck... was enjoyable enough. The tone was warmer than typical Daisy, and he’s an undeniably involving storyteller.
When he tried to close on a profound note, though, Daisy hit up against this challenge: Everything has already been said. He observes that the pandemic, awful as it is, can also be an “opportunity” if we act on the warnings it brought to light around both our climate and our democracy. That is certainly true. But, it’s also nothing we haven’t already read in a million viral Instagram stories.
On a lighter note but in the same vein, Paul Rudnick’s monologue Playbills, performed by Nathan Lane following Glover’s opening act at the St. James, was a flimsy rehash of quarantine groaners we’ve heard a million times: “Online, no-one can smell the doritos”; Zoom plays are “like Streetcar performed by the Brady Bunch,” etc. Lane made it work, pro that he is, but there was nothing new here.
Maybe it’s unfair to judge since, like I said, this event was intended only as the briefest of baby steps. Maybe it’s best to view Playbills, and What the Fuck…?, and even Blindness not as the return of anything, but as a weird transition phase while everyone figures their shit out.
Only Glover baked that halfway-ness into the very structure of his piece. As he tap-danced, Glover intoned fragments of lyrics from classic Broadway musicals, jumping quickly from one to the next: “God I hope I get it,” into “Meeemooories,” into “I got fabulous feet!” He mostly muttered the words, trailing off after each fragment. Each time he denied us the full emotion. It was, in its very form, a transitional work, somewhere on the way to something, but not yet really anywhere.