The Imaginary Invalid

Molière's final play, The Imaginary Invalid, is difficult to perform as written. Prior to last night, the only time I'd seen the piece on stage was in a creative re-imagining by Mabou Mines.

One of the biggest challenges of the play is that its plot-based scenes alternate with balletic musical sequences in the pastoral style. How on earth do you stage those interludes, especially when love-lorn shepherds no longer have the cultural power they used to enjoy?

The solution playwright Jeffrey Hatcher came up with for the adaptation Red Bull Theater Company now has playing at New World Stages is kind of brilliant. The play's characters end up singing some of the most stereotypically French songs ever composed with re-written lyrics all about sheep.

This goofiness is right at home on Beowulf Borritt's ridiculously fanciful set. The result is not exactly Molière, but very much in the comic spirit of the original play. Molière famously collapsed on stage while playing the hypochondriac lead Argan, later dying without receiving last rites, thanks to the controversy surrounding his earlier play Tartuffe. In the current production, the leading role goes to Mark Linn-Baker. (Who, unlike Molière, will hopefully outlive the run of the show!)

In many ways, though, the best role in the play is Argan's maid, Toinette. Red Bull's production features the tremendously talented Sarah Stiles as the put-upon servant who understands things far more clearly than her master. Stiles, best known for her performance as Jessica in Hand to God, finds comic gold in a messed-up medical system, as does Arnie Burton, who plays not one but three different doctors, each with their own unique quirks.

Argan's daughter Angélique was originally played by Molière's wife, Armande Béjart. Emilie Kouatchou, most famous as the final Christine in The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway, takes on that role in the current production. (When Kouatchou sings re-written Phantom lyrics to extoll the virtues of sheep, those in on the joke go into hysterics.) Equally hilarious in this production is Angélique's stepmother Béline, played by Emily Swallow (whom you will not recognize as the Armorer on The Mandalorian).

The show, directed by Red Bull's artistic director, Jesse Berger, is only playing through June 29th, so see it while you can!

Strindberg's Wives

The Swedish dramatist August Strindberg had a complicated relationship with women. That comes across in the new adaptation of his play Creditors by Jen Silverman.

As I just saw Creditors this afternoon, now is a good time to go over Strindberg's rather tumultuous marital history and how it impacted his plays. It was in 1875 that he first met Siri von Essen, a married baroness who likely provided the model for Tekla in Creditors.

Von Essen had always wanted to be an actor, and in 1877 she began performing at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. That same year, she married Strindberg, having secured a divorce from her first husband only the year prior. She appeared in Strindberg's historical drama The Secret of the Guild, and after his turn toward Naturalism she originated the title role in Miss Julie.

Together, Strindberg and von Essen founded the Scandinavian Experimental Theatre which premiered his play The Stronger with her as Madame X. That play premiered together with Creditors and a third Strindberg one-act play, Pariah. Unfortunately, the theatre failed, as did their marriage. The author was plunged into a depression he later referred to as his Inferno Crisis. Strindberg ultimately abandoned both his atheism and his embrace of Naturalism.

Emerging from his Inferno Crisis, Strindberg met the 20-year-old Frida Uhl, whom he married the same year he wrote his comedy Playing with Fire. Uhl had lots of ideas about how to market his plays internationally, but Strindberg wasn't big on women having ideas of their own. To absolutely no one's surprise, the couple ended up divorcing. Uhl went on to become the lover of another playwright, Frank Wedekind, and a pioneer in cabaret performance.

After the hurricane of his relationship with Uhl, Strindberg turned back toward religion. This was reflected in his three-part play To Damascus, as well as the history plays he returned to writing with the Vasa trilogy: The Saga of the Folkungs, Gustavus Vasa, and Erik XIV. As he returned to productivity as a playwright, he also met a young actress, Harriet Bosse. He chose her to play the role of "The Lady" in To Damascus as well as Eleonora in Easter.

The two were married in 1901, and the following year, Bosse appeared as the Daughter of Indra in Strindberg's A Dream Play. His jealousy, which seems to have crossed over into insanity at times, doomed this marriage as well. They separated, and then divorced. Strindberg began writing a grand cycle of history plays based on world-changing figures like Socrates and Jesus, but he had greater artistic success with smaller works.

In 1907, Strindberg co-founded a new theatre in Stockholm to perform chamber plays, including The Ghost Sonata. Like pieces of chamber music, these dramas were smaller in scale but still ambitious artistically. The works were meant to be performed without intermissions and to an audience of no more than 160.

Even in the late chamber plays, you can still see the influence of the powerful women in Strindberg's life. It clearly wasn't easy being married to Strindberg, and the theatre owes a debt to the women who inspired him.

Catching the Bus

For a while now, I've been meaning to see Bus Stop, the William Inge play currently showing at Classic Stage Company, which is a co-production with the National Asian American Theatre Company and the Transport Group.

Well, today I finally caught it. Director Jack Cummings III has cast some of my favorite New York actors, including David Lee Huynh, who plays the town sheriff, Will Masters. The play takes place in a small town about 30 miles west of Kansas City, and the appropriately named Masters aims to make sure no trouble happens when the passengers on a bus to Topeka have to stay over at the town diner due to bad weather.

One of those passengers is Dr. Gerald Lyman, a drunken former professor played by the wonderful Rajesh Bose. Lyman avoids the sheriff but flirts dangerously with a young waitress, Elma Duckworth. Delphi Borich, a powerhouse talent I saw on Broadway in Into the Woods, plays Elma's naive optimism with believability and charm. When she refuses to believe anything bad about Lyman, it's hard to want her to change her mind, even as ever-greater warning signs emerge.

Elma's boss is the middle-aged waitress Grace Hoylard, played by Cindy Cheung. Married, but with a husband who disappeared and is hardly missed, she deftly manages a tryst with the bus's driver, Carl, played by David Shih. The two think they're being subtle, but they fool no one. Their careful navigation of mutual consent for their rendezvous upstairs contrasts sharply with the bickering couple Cherie and Bo, played by Midori Francis and Michael Hsu Rosen respectively.

Francis has the unenviable task of playing the role made famous by Marilyn Monroe in a 1956 film adaptation of the play. Admirably, she holds her own, particularly in tender scenes with Virgil Blessing, the best friend of the man who wants to marry her. Today, Inge is widely believed to have been a closeted homosexual, and it's difficult to imagine how Virgil could be interpreted any way other than gay, particularly as he is compassionately played by Moses Villarama.

Bus Stop is only running until Sunday, so catch it while you still can.

Shielding AI Thieves

One provision currently in Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" would strip states of the right to regulate Artificial Intelligence for the next 10 years. That would be a disaster for artists like me.

Personally, I have already been adversely affected by illegal actions by technology companies using AI to steal my work. Both my book Romantic Actors, Romantic Dramas and a review I wrote for Theatre Journal have been confirmed to have been stolen by Meta in order to train AI systems without my consent and without any compensation.

Yup, not only did Meta mine copyrighted material to train AI, but they never even paid for that material. Given that the federal government has done nothing to stop tech companies from pillaging intellectual property, the states remain perhaps our most valuable line of defense against high-tech thieves using trendy terms like "AI" as a cloak to hide their blatantly illegal actions.

This is not a partisan issue. The blocking of state regulation of AI would seem to be a direct attack on red-state Tennessee's ELVIS Act, which was designed to protect vocalists (including Nashville stars) from the use of AI to clone voices and likenesses without people's consent. That law was passed just last year with backing from the actor's union SAG-AFTRA, the Recording Industry Association of America, and the Music Artists Coalition, among others.

Actors and vocalists--as well as directors, choreographers, dancers, teachers, audio book narrators, and countless others--use human talent to inform, educate, and entertain people around the world. When we allow AI to steal their work and replace human performance with a computerized simulacrum, we debase what it means to be a human being.

The federal government didn't prevent authors like me from being ripped off by AI-powered plagiarism machines. Now, it is trying to prevent the states from protecting any of us from high-tech theft. Congress needs to strip this provision from the small-minded and ugly bill now being considered in Washington. 

Last Bimbo of the Apocalypse

When my friend Natalia came to visit, I suggested we see a show together and gave her some options. She chose The Last Bimbo of the Apocalypse.

I'm sure she chose it for the title, but she loved it for the clever lyrics, driving pop music, and engaging storyline. (As did I.) The new musical by Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley produced by The New Group is definitely worth seeing.

About that title... it comes from a headline in the New York Post labeling a photo of Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, and Paris Hilton the "3 Bimbos of the Apocalypse." There were only three young women in that photo, but what if there had been a fourth?

In the play, three teenagers living in a nightmarish post-apocalyptic hellscape (a.k.a. the United States in 2025) notice a hand in the photo wearing a bracelet with beads spelling out COCO. This leads them down a path uncovering a one-hit wonder named Coco (played by Keri René Fuller) who disappeared leaving hardly a trace other than an obituary and a mysterious last selfie.

The audience then gets to watch this trio of sleuths, Brainworm (Milly Shapiro), Earworm (Luke Islam), and Bookworm (Patrick Nathan Falk), try to puzzle out what happened, all while dealing with their own online fans. Their Internet journey is hysterical and horrifying at the same time.

Rory Pelsue does a great job directing this Off-Broadway production, which manages to feel both intimate and epic at the same time. The show is playing until June 1, so see it while you can.

New Comedies Festival Semifinalist

I received word that my play The Love Songs of Brooklynites was named a semifinalist for B Street Theatre's New Comedies Festival.

Unfortunately, the play did not advance to the next round, so it will not be produced in Sacramento in the near future. Still, it's a good sign, I suppose.

The Love Songs of Brooklynites tells the story of Chuck, who has just moved in when his neighbor Abbie harasses him for mail misdirected to his apartment. As Abbie falls into his life, she introduces him to stress baking, computer coding, and the poetry of a city that's still trying to revise itself. 

The piece had a staged reading as a part of Emerging Artists Theatre's New Work Series. Its first act subsequently received a workshop by the Theatre of Western Springs, which more recently presented my new play After an Earlier Incident.

A full-length version of the piece had a reading by Vivid Stage in New Jersey, and it's ready for a full production. If you're interested in the piece, let me know!

Versailles Impromptu

After the critical reception of his comedy The School for Wives, the French dramatist Molière wrote two one-act defenses of himself, The Critique of School for Wives and The Versailles Impromptu, the latter of which shows the playwright's own company attempting to rehearse a play for the king.

Molière, who originated the role of Arnolphe in The School for Wives, appears as himself, attempting to wrangle a troupe of actors into finishing the rehearsal on time. He is annoyed by a group of busybodies who constantly interrupt the rehearsal. The one-act comedy shows not just the rehearsal, but a play-within-the-play, in which characters discuss Molière's work, much as they had in The Critique of School for Wives. Silly characters speculate on who is being attacked in Molière's plays, while sensible ones take his comedies for being mere fictions.

To say all of this is a bit meta is perhaps an understatement. Molière had only recently married Armande Béjart, a young actress who had also appeared as Élise in The Critique of School for Wives. She appeared on stage as herself in The Versailles Impromptu, berating her husband (playing himself), who had also written the play. When he calls her names in exasperation, she remarks quite reasonably, "you wouldn’t have said that to me a year and a half ago" while he was still courting her. Though Molière wrote the play, he appears to give his wife the better argument.

Also appearing in the play is Mademoiselle Du Parc, an actress known more for her tragic portrayals than her comedy. When Molière tells her she is to play an affected young lady, she responds (presumably in an affected manner) "How could that be, when there’s nobody in the world less affected than I am?" I imagine that Du Parc was in on the joke, even if it was at her expense. Historically, she thrived as a part of Molière's company, though she later left (at the instigation of the tragic dramatist Jean Racine) to join a rival company at the Hôtel de Bourgogne.

The whole play is filled with in jokes. Most of the major actors in Molière's company make appearances as exaggerated versions of themselves, including Catherine de Brie, who originated the role of Agnès in The School for Wives, and Brécourt, who was the original Alain. We probably don't get half the jokes today, but it's still fun to read the play and envision what one of Molière's rehearsals was really like. I imagine they were quite dramatic, even if not quite as outrageous as the one in the play!