J.B.

Until the nineteenth century, nearly all tragedies were written in verse. Even at the beginning of the Victorian era, some dramatists, including Robert Browning, John Westland Marston, and Thomas Noon Talfourd, were still writing verse dramas.

The "New Dramas" that became prominent in the second half of the century introduced greater levels of realism while also probing important social issues. Verse dramas fell out of favor, but with the dawn of the twentieth century many poets attempted to return to the old format, albeit with a modern twist.

Following the lead of such writers as Edna St. Vincent Millay, the American poet Archibald MacLeish, attempted numerous verse dramas, at last penning a major hit with J.B., a dramatization of the Biblical story of Job that in 1959 won both the Pulitzer Prize for drama and the Tony Award for Best Play.

In addition to taking inspiration from the Bible, the play also draws on Goethe's Faust, which is itself indebted to the Book of Job. After a dedication, Faust has a prelude in a theatre, in which a playwright, a director, and a comic actor have a discussion about the piece they are about to perform. Similarly, MacLeish begins J.B. with the following exchange:

MR. ZUSS:    This is it.

NICKLES:                    This is what?

MR. ZUSS:    Where they play the play, Horatio!

NICKLES:    Bare stage?

MR. ZUSS:                    Not in the least.

The old actor Mr. Zuss (whose name sounds suspiciously like Zeus) then takes on the role of God while his companion Nickles (or perhaps "Old Nick") plays Satan. This is similar to the Prologue in Heaven that Goethe provides for Faust in which Satan and God discuss a good man much as they do Job in the Bible, and of course in J.B. as well. MacLeish has the two actors put on masks and ascend to a platform before they set the scene for Job, now known as J.B.

Rather than being a figure from the distant past, J.B. is a successful American businessman with a large family, all of whom are thankful for what they have. In fact, the play even stages a traditional Thanksgiving meal, with J.B. carving a turkey for his family. His wife worries, though, that his gratitude in only superficial. She tells him:

                A child shows gratitude the way a woman

               Shows she likes a pretty dress --

               Puts it on and takes it off again --

               That's the way a child gives thanks:

               She tries the world on. So do you.

As in the Biblical story, J.B. then loses everything. His children are all killed, his body is afflicted by disease, and the whole world becomes a hellscape not unlike the earth after World War Two. J.B. is visited by three friends, like Job, but they are dressed like tramps who formerly were a clergyman, a doctor, and perhaps a historian.

Though the action of the play closely follows the Biblical story, MacLeish links it to his own audience, which had gone through a Great Depression, a global war, and even the nuclear annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It's a play that might be ripe for a revival in 2025.

The Battle of Life

I was browsing some playbills in the online collection of the British Library, when I came across an interesting poster advertising a stage adaptation of the Charles Dickens novella The Battle of Life and the melodrama The Black Doctor, a play later made famous by Ira Aldridge.

It's been the season for Dickens, who followed up A Christmas Carol in 1843 with a new Christmas book, The Chimes, the following year. After The Chimes was likewise a bestseller, Dickens wrote The Cricket on the Hearth to be sold at Christmastime in 1845 and The Battle of Life in 1846.

A Christmas Carol is divided not into chapters but five staves, like the staves of a poem or song. The Chimes is broken up into four quarters, like the quarters of an hour, and The Cricket on the Hearth has three chirps. Perhaps Dickens had grown weary of this humorous conceit, as The Battle of Life is simply divided into three parts.

Those three parts do correspond well to the three acts of a play, which might have made the piece ripe for adaptation to the stage. The playbill from the Theatre Royal in Bath announces the closing of both shows on January 7, 1847, which means the adaptation must have been written soon after Dickens had published the book the previous month.

Dickens purposely set The Battle of Life about a hundred years in the past. As with Robert Browning's play A Blot in the 'Scutcheon, which Dickens had championed, the 18th-century setting was necessary to portray certain values that had already become obsolete by the Victorian era. Rather than being set in the city, like many of Dickens's novels, the story takes place in the countryside, in a town near a famous battle site.

After setting up the action, the story moves forward three years. It is this second part that takes place around Christmastime, and in fact the main event of the narrative occurs during a Christmas ball, when the beautiful Marion mysteriously disappears. She does not return until the third part, which occurs another six years later. Though The Battle of Life is by no means Dickens's most famous work, I can see why it would be tempting to adapt it for the stage, since the three parts correspond so well to the three-act structure preferred in many plays of the period.

The Black Doctor, however, was originally divided into seven acts when it was written in French by Auguste Anicét-Bourgeois and Philippe François Pinel Dumanoir under the title Le Docteur Noir. It was later turned into a four-act play translated by John Vilon Bridgeman and further adapted by Thomas Hailes Lacy. It is this version that seems to have been advertised on the playbill, rather than the adaptation by Thomas Archer that Aldridge later appeared in and made famous.

I would have liked to have seen that evening of plays produced in Bath! Having just read The Battle of Life and having a long-standing interest in The Black Doctor, I would be intrigued to see how the company handled both works.

Best Shows of 2024

When New York theatre shut down in 2020, I had to come up with a list of the top shows I missed due to the pandemic.

Since then, theatre has come back... very slowly. Each year I've hoped that the next year would be better, but sadly theatre in New York--and in the United States in general--is in a sorry state, less diverse, less original, and less interesting than it has been in a long time.

That doesn't mean there haven't been any good shows this year, and I've been fortunate enough to see a few of them. (Though some of the best plays I saw, including Mrs. Warren's Profession and Fable, were far from New York.) Here's my list of the top productions that opened in New York City in 2024:

10. The Heart of Rock and Roll - Yes, jukebox musicals are way overdone, but this delightful romantic comedy featuring the songs of Huey Lewis and the News won me over, in part due to the comic acting of McKenzie Kurtz.

9. Stereophonic - Even when it was Off-Broadway, Stereophonic was getting incredible buzz, much of it deserved. It's true that if you're not a Fleetwood Mac fan you won't be able to appreciate it as much of some of your neighbors in the theatre, but it's still worth seeing.

8. The Hills of California - Similar to Stereophonic in theme and scope but more ambitious in terms of its use of theatricality, Jez Butterworth's The Hills of California was a must-see play for me. Though not as successful as some of his previous work, it still packs an emotional punch.

7. A Wonderful World - I went into this bio-musical about Louis Armstrong somewhat skeptical, but I was pleasantly surprised to see how deftly the show treated its subject, one of the transformational geniuses of popular music in the 20th century. Also, having Tony-Award-winner James Monroe Iglehart play Armstrong didn't hurt.

6. Blood of the Lamb - If this Off-Broadway drama wasn't on your radar, it should have been. Arlene Hutton's eerily prophetic play about the human costs of increased legislation over women's bodies took medical and legal discussions beyond abortion to the multitude of cases that arise when pregnancies, wanted or not, go differently than planned.

5. Cabaret - Speaking of politics, this year's revival of the John Kander and Fred Ebb classic Cabaret felt more relevant than ever, not so much due to tinkering with Joe Masteroff's book as from a fresh interpretation by director Rebecca Frecknall. The immersive nature of the performance brought in a lot of press, as did some star actors, but the highlight of the show is Bebe Neuwirth's portrayal of Fräulein Schneider.

4. The Devil's Disciple - Bernard Shaw's comedic melodrama about the American Revolution is one of my favorite plays, but its large, mostly male cast makes it tricky to get staged. Director David Staller came up with an intriguing solution in adapting the play for a cast of five women. Oddly enough, it worked, in part due to an amazing ensemble led by Folami Williams. With a run straddling a controversial presidential election, this production gave audiences plenty of food for thought.

3. Suffs - If anything, Shaina Taub's musical about the women's suffrage movement was a bit too politically relevant this election year. It can be infuriating to watch a group of well-meaning activists fight one another rather than join forces to achieve something, but that's exactly what happened at the beginning of the 20th century, just as it happens all-too-often today. Taub's catchy songwriting provided the perfect medium to tell the complex story of how the 19th amendment was finally passed. Sadly, the show is now closing.

2. La Forza del Destino - If you missed the Metropolitan Opera's production of Giuseppi Verdi's rarely performed La Forza del Destino, you might have a while to wait for another chance. The opera has been said to be cursed ever since the baritone Leonard Warren died on stage during the show while singing at the Met in 1960. This year's production was instead blessed by amazing performances by Lise Davidsen as Leonora and Judit Kutasi as Preziosilla. If the Met announces the opera's return in its next season, definitely try to go.

1. The Great Gatsby - Though it was snubbed by the Tony Awards this year, the best show I saw in New York in 2024 was Kait Kerrigan, Nathan Tysen, and Jason Howland's new musical adaptation of The Great Gatsby. The lyrics are delightful, and the elaborate sets and musical numbers are impressive. Jeremy Jordan, Eva Noblezada, Noah J. Ricketts, and Samantha Pauly all give strong performances, but the real star of the show is F. Scott Fitzgerald's story, which is presented in a manner that is both faithful to the original novel and still relevant to audiences today.

Sadly, there weren't a lot of runners-up this year, but these shows prove it's still possible to make great theatre in New York.

Hannele

Gerhart Hauptmann is best known for Naturalistic plays such as The Weavers, but later in life he turned toward Symbolism. The play that combines both styles and can be seen as a transitional work for Hauptmann is Hannele.

The German title of the play is Hanneles Himmelfahrt, which roughly translates as Hannele's Heaven-Journey or Hannele's Ascension. The piece tells the story of a young, abused girl with all the bleakness and crudity one would expect from Naturalism.

When Hannele asks a woman tending to her during a fever if the woman comes from the Lord Jesus, the woman responds that she's just Martha. The girl has a hallucination of her abusive stepfather, and then a vision of her dead mother. It is then that three angels become visible onstage. Are they another hallucination, or is Hannele really seeing angels?

We're never quite sure, but in the second act, Martha seems to think they were all a dream. Hannele claims to have been given a primrose (which in German is known as a Key to Heaven). More frightening is an angel she sees dressed in black, who seems to be a clear symbol of death. A woman dressed in Martha's clothes then appears, but according to the stage directions, she is "more beautiful and younger than she, with long white wings."

Clearly, we are no longer in the realm of Naturalism, though all of these mystical figures could still be interpreted as hallucinations or dreams. That changes after Hannele dies and a real primrose appears in her hands. Not only does the audience see the primrose, but the other characters on the stage apparently do, too, as they declare that she must be a saint.

Toward the end of the second act, a stranger who is a Christ-like figure gets Hannele to awaken and promises to lift her beyond the stars. The play also shifts from prose to poetry. At last, angels sing:

               We carry you yonder in silken silence,

               Hush-a-by, by-by to heavenly rest,

               Hush-a-by, by-by, to heavenly rest.

Once the singing stops, though, Martha and a doctor confirm that Hannele is dead. After rising to a poetic Symbolism, the play slips back into Naturalism again.

Don't Feed the...

At the end of the iconic Off-Broadway musical Little Shop of Horrors, audience members are entreated, "Don't feed the plants!" At the end of another camped-up Off-Broadway film adaptation, Teeth, the audience might be wary of feeding... something else.

Little Shop was inspired by a cult horror/comedy film. Similarly, Teeth is adapted from Mitchell Lichtenstein's 2007 cinematic tale of a young woman who discovers vagina dentata are more than just an ancient legend. (She later decides to embrace her newfound biological "gift" from Mother Nature.)

The musical was penned by Anna K. Jacobs, who also composed the score for the Andy Warhol musical POP!, and Michael R. Jackson, best known for writing A Strange Loop. From what I've read, it departs significantly from the film, but I'm not a fan of blood-and-gore movies, so I confess to not having seen the original.

Blood-and-gore stage plays, on the other hand, are a favorite of mine. I loved, for instance, the production of Tamburlaine I saw in Brooklyn where they had to mop up the stage blood at intermission. Teeth has no intermission, but it does have a "splash zone" where audiences are warned they might get covered with blood. All audience members should also watch out for falling phalli.

The world of Teeth is filled with Promise Keeper Girls who slut-shame anyone who engages in premarital sex and Truthseeker incels who are intent on bringing down the "feminocracy" by any means necessary. That there is no middle ground is probably the point, but this makes it difficult to sympathize with any of the characters, unlike Little Shop, where we fall in love with the leads.

Teeth is currently playing at New World Stages. Jacobs's score is tuneful, and some of Jackson's lyrics are quite clever, but if you have an aversion to stage blood, you might want to bring a poncho.

Stereophonic

David Adjmi's new drama Stereophonic, now playing at the Golden Theatre on Broadway, bears more than a few resemblances to Jez Butterworth's The Hills of California.

Both plays show musical artists in the 1970s struggling with the choices that brought them fame as well as heartache. Both show talented Brits bumping up against a music industry controlled by Americans. Both present us with characters making... questionable sexual choices.

However, it isn't Stereophonic's resemblances to Butterworth's play (which are probably coincidental) which have gotten Adjmi in trouble. Rather, the show's producers got sued by former Fleetwood Mac producer Ken Caillat (and his co-author Steven Stiefel), who wrote a 2012 memoir called Making Rumours about the origin of the rock band's most celebrated album.

Is the fictional band onstage a thinly veiled version of Fleetwood Mac? When I went to see the show last night, many of the people in the audience seemed to think so. I overheard a couple discussing which Rumours songs were paralleled by original music composed by Arcade Fire member Will Butler for the stage production. The audience also went into hysterics when a character onstage said he didn't want to be spreading rumors.

This isn't the first time Adjmi has gotten into a copyright tussle. He was also sued over his play 3C, which reimagined the sitcom Three's Company in order to deal seriously with social and political issues that emerged during the 1970s. In that case, most dramatists were on Adjmi's side. The piece was truly transformative, and should have been protected by the same fair use rules that allow satire and parody.

Fortunately, Stereophonic's producers came to an agreement to resolve the lawsuit earlier this week, so if you see it on Broadway now, you'll know it's no longer under legal threat!

The Holidays Begin

I'm pleased to announce that my short play Burns Night has passed into the semifinalist round of the Holiday Playwright Contest held by Kinsman Quarterly.

The play premiered in 2019 at the Secret Theatre in Queens, which is now one of many companies doing productions of A Christmas Carol throughout the five boroughs of New York and beyond.

While I don't know that I'll be able to get out to see that production before it closes on December 22nd, I plan on going to see another production closer to home. On December 3rd and 4th, Sean Coffey will be performing his one-person adaptation of Charles Dickens's story at the historic Van Cortlandt House Museum in the Bronx.

John Kevin Jones will be performing his own one-person version of the tale in Manhattan at the Merchant’s House Museum in Manhattan through December 29th. If you're in the mood for a larger production, head over to Staten Island, where Sundog Theatre is producing a large-cast musical version of the tale on December 7th, adapted by Cash Tilton, with original songs by Susan Mondzak.

Most exciting to me, though, is a puppet version of A Christmas Carol performed by Drama of Works on December 19th at Rubulad in Brooklyn. Drama of Works founder Gretchen Van Lente is sponsoring a “XMAS CAROL” puppet slam, breaking up Dickens’s story into six parts, each performed by a different puppetry troupe. Gretchen designed the puppets for my own adaptation of the story in 2007, so I'm expecting great things.

Across the river, the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey is producing a stage version of A Christmas Carol in Madison, adapted by Neil Bartlett, which plays until December 29th. Yes, that's a lot of Carols! It so happens, I am regarded as enough of an expert on these things that I will be co-hosting the last episode of the Rosenbach Library's "Monsters and Ghosts" online program on December 16th, discussing the legacy of a Dickensian Christmas.

So however you celebrate this month, I wish you a very merry holiday season!