Internationally Famous Rock Opera

I remember riding on a commuter train outside of D.C. with my sister when she spotted an advertisement for a coming performance of "The Internationally Famous Rock Opera CHESS!"

My sister looked at the ad and said, "I understand all of those words, but I don't understand how they can possibly go together."

I sighed, and began to explain. I think I started with the concept of rock opera, discussing Jesus Christ Superstar and Tommy. Then I explained how Chess isn't really about chess per se, but discusses the Cold War in the context of a world chess championship. Finally, I told her that the guys from ABBA wrote the music to Chess, and that the song "One Night in Bangkok" (which had been all over the radio during our childhood) was originally from the show.

Then she got it. The musical Chess is indeed famous, and in fact internationally famous. It contains legitimate rock music, but within an operatic context. Also, like so many rock operas, it began with a kick-ass concept album. I did not go into its subsequent failures on stage, though they have since become legendary.

Now, Chess is back on the stage, playing on Broadway at the Imperial Theatre. I saw it last night with the brilliant Samantha Pollino in the leading role of Florence. Her amazing voice and superb performance make it perfectly clear why Broadway producers took one look at her and decided that she and she alone could play Florence on Broadway.

Actually, she's the understudy. No matter. She's still brilliant. If you get a chance to see Chess with Pollino as Florence, GO!

Aaron Tveit plays the American chess player, Freddie, while Nicholas Christopher plays the Russian player, Anatoly. Hannah Cruz portrays Anatoly's estranged wife, Svetlana. Apparently, Russian characters in the world of Chess can hold really long notes, and both Christopher and Cruz get to show off some breathtaking vocal stamina.

The choreography by Lorin Latarro (who also did The Heart of Rock and Roll) is pretty amazing, too. The opening sequence is fabulous, and the sexy dancing in "One Night in Bangkok" is quite impressive, especially the way it is lit by lighting designer Kevin Adams. The sleek set designed by David Rockwell doesn't hurt either.

When the show premiered in London in 1986, it had a book by lyricist Tim Rice. The book was completely rewritten by Richard Nelson for Broadway, where the show subsequently flopped. The current incarnation has yet another new book by Danny Strong, who is best known for playing Jonathan on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Instead of fixing the problems of previous books, Strong's script creates new problems, including jettisoning the show's earnest seriousness in favor of some cheap jokes.

Strong gives us an ironic and self-aware narrator, played by Bryce Pinkham, who proved in Ohio State Murders that he can handle complex and disturbing material. Alas, he is rarely given a chance to do that in this production. Pinkham doubles as the Arbiter, but director Michael Mayer has him play that choice role with the same silliness as the narrator, which never quite works.

This production mostly gets the music right, though it cuts the wonderful song "Embassy Lament" (as did the infamous Broadway version with Nelson's mess of a book). The goofy remarks by the narrator render this song's comic relief unnecessary, which is precisely the problem. The new ending is another problem, but one that is best left without comment.

None of these flaws mean you shouldn't see the show. Chess is at last back on Broadway, and that is indeed something to celebrate.

Protectorate Drama

With the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1642, Parliament officially closed the theatres. Though the Red Bull attempted to put on some plays, the Globe was torn down, and drama was effectively banned.

That doesn't mean no one tried to stage dramas during this period, though. Strolling players might still attempt to perform skits at fairs and both private halls and public taverns might host actors for brief plays.

Those plays had to be kept brief, as authorities might intervene at any moment. Once Oliver Cromwell was declared Lord Protector of the Realm, the authorities had a firmer hand than ever. Rather than performing full plays, actors mined longer dramas for brief sketches they called drolls.

In 1662, after the monarchy had been restored, many of these drolls got collected together in a book called The Wits, or, Sport upon Sport. The entertainment presented by Bottom and his friends was excerpted from William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and other scenes were ripped from John Marston's The Dutch Courtesan, Ben Jonson's The Alchemist, and Francis Beaumont's The Knight of the Burning Pestle.

A famous illustration for the book portrays Sir John Falstaff, who appeared in The Bouncing Knight, a droll based upon the Gad's Hill episode in The First Part of King Henry IV. With him is the Hostess, who appears in the same playlet. Other stock characters include a Simpleton and a French Dancing Master. These sketched-in characters, often reduced to a simple bumpkin, a testy lord, or a dull college professor, had a tremendous influence on Restoration drama once the theatres were reopened in 1660.

One droll, The Humour of Bumpkin, shows not just the forbidden art of theatre, but repressed dancing as well, and even makes references to Maypoles, a tradition the Puritans must have abhorred. In it, Bumpkin makes up his mind to fall in love, and is fortunately obliged by three country wenches who pull upon him, each wanting to be his sweetheart.

The drolls that persisted during the Protectorate were hardly great art, but they prove that theatre can never be completely repressed.

The Castle Spectre

Matthew G. Lewis is best known as author of the Gothic novel The Monk, but he also wrote numerous dramas, including The Castle Spectre.

The play premiered in 1797, the year after Lewis published The Monk. While the novel featured numerous supernatural events, ghosts and spirits were frowned upon for the stage at the time. Consequently, most audience members probably didn't expect any spectre to appear, in spite of the play's title.

When the first playbills were issued, they neglected to mention any ghost in the cast. This no doubt encouraged audiences to take a more rationalistic approach to the drama. The play's fool Motley relates that there are numerous stories related to ghosts in the castle, commenting, "Had I minded all the strange things related of this Castle, I should have died of fright in the first half hour."

Toward the beginning of Act IV of the play, the conscious-stricken villain Osmond claims to have seen the ghost of Evelina, the woman he murdered many years ago. Since he is wracked with guilt, this might merely be his own hallucination, much like Lady Macbeth seeing her fair hands covered in blood. Osmond is also reminded of Evelina since her daughter Angela has now grown into a woman who much resembles her deceased mother, and Osmond in fact says he initially mistook the ghost for Angela.

Audiences had every reason to be shocked, then, when the spectre of Evelina did in fact appear on stage at the end of the act. Lewis's stage directions indicate an elaborate effect:

The folding-doors unclose, and the Oratory is seen illuminated. In its center stands a tall female figure, her white and flowing garments spotted with blood; her veil is thrown back, and discovers a pale and melancholy countenance; her eyes are lifted upwards, her arms extended towards heaven, and a large wound appears upon her bosom.

Evelina's ghost comes onstage again in the final act, coming between Osmond and her former husband who is about to be slain by him. It is then that Angela stabs Osmond, preventing the villain from committing any further murders.

Lewis's play was performed over and over again throughout the decades to come, both on real stages and in toy-theatre versions, like the one below, printed by the publisher Dyer. The drama's spooky effects apparently worked on multiple scales.

Incidentally, if you're interested in toy theatres, I recently wrote an article about them that ran in the most recent issue of Theatre Notebook.

The Plays of Charles Dickens

Today is the 214th birthday of Charles Dickens, which is as good a time as any to mention that my review of The Plays of Charles Dickens ran in the most recent issue of Dickens Quarterly.

Joanna Hofer-Robinson and Pete Orford edited this wonderful collection that includes both plays Dickens authored solo and collaborations he did with friends like Wilkie Collins, as well as prologues he wrote for plays including The Lighthouse and The Patrician's Daughter, and a closing scene he wrote for Elizabeth Inchbald's farce Animal Magnetism.

Dickens himself didn't always have a high opinion of his plays, and he came to regret writing the libretto to the operetta The Village Coquettes, which had music by John Pyke Hullah. His comic burletta The Strange Gentleman has some fun moments, but it is essentially the same as his prose sketch "The Great Winglebury Duel." Is She His Wife? is perhaps Dickens's most unlucky play, since it was after seeing it that his sister-in-law Mary Hogarth collapsed and later died. (Probably not from the play, though.)

Having all of Dickens's plays together with the in-depth notes provided by the editors is quite useful. In the early part of his career, Dickens went back and forth between the stage and the page. His play The Lamplighter, for instance, was originally penned for William Charles Macready, but after the actor rejected it, Dickens turned it into a short story for Sketches by Boz. Dickens also wrote with his friend Mark Lemon a farce called Mr. Nightingale's Diary, which included characters suspiciously similar to ones in Pickwick Papers and Martin Chuzzlewit.

Perhaps Dickens's most famous play today is The Frozen Deep, a melodrama officially authored by Collins, but very much a collaboration between the two authors. Dickens supplied the subject for the play, Collins wrote the first draft, and then Dickens substantially reworked it, tailoring the part of Richard Wardour for himself. He indeed played the role in an amateur performance, and then for a charity production, where he met his future love, Ellen Ternan. (You can read about the two of them in my own play, Capital.)

More successful in his own lifetime was another melodrama he wrote with Collins, No Thoroughfare, which was based on a tale the two had written together and published in the journal All the Year Round. The editors of The Plays of Charles Dickens note that Dickens even wrote an alternate ending to the play for a French production, though sadly it is not included in the book.

Passion

The first Stephen Sondheim musical I ever saw on Broadway was Passion, his 1994 collaboration with director and book writer James Lapine.

In spite of winning the Tony Award for Best Musical, the play closed at the beginning of the next year, earning it a less-than-stellar reputation. Lately, however, I've found multiple students talking about the piece, having seen the filmed version of the original staging that aired on PBS and has subsequently become more widely available.

Recently, I picked up a used copy of the DVD of this version, which I watched today. It was my first time seeing Passion since 1994, though I've listened to the cast recording countless times. As some of the original artists mention on the commentary track of the DVD, the recording is one of the best ever done of a stage musical, in part because it was shot on film in an empty theatre after the show closed, so it was possible to get very high-quality close-up shots.

Passion famously opened with a nude scene.  The audience got to see the characters Giorgio and Clara in bed making love, with no attempt to cover up the woman's breasts with one of those odd, L-shaped sheets that seem only to exist on network television. For the filmed version, however, up comes the sheet, sparing the viewer the sight of Marin Mazzie's breasts. Mazzie went on to greater fame, playing Mother in Ragtime and appearing in a revival of Kiss Me Kate, but she was also stunning in Passion.

The more interesting part in the show, however, is Fosca, a role originated by Donna Murphy. I loved her when I first saw her in Passion, and was greatly impressed by her range when I later saw her in Wonderful Town. (Younger fans probably know her as the voice of Mother Gothel in Tangled.) The production also boasted Sondheim veteran Tom Aldridge, who had previously played the Narrator and Mysterious Old Man in the original production of Into the Woods. In Passion he plays a doctor who induces Giorgio to take an interest in the sickly Fosca, with some disastrous results.

Sondheim wanted to write the piece after seeing the Italian film Passione d'amore directed by Ettore Scola. The film was itself based on an 1869 novel called Fosca by the Gothic writer Iginio Ugo Tarchetti. The character of Fosca is remarkable both in how repulsive she is and how fascinating at the same time. In a pivotal scene, she shows up on a train in which Giorgio is trying to flee from her. I remember how when I saw the play on Broadway, she asked Giorgio if he wanted her to leave his compartment on the train, and the man behind me uttered under his breath, "YES."

It's the play's ability to elicit that kind of gut-level reaction that makes me really admire the piece. The good news is, a whole new generation is getting to experience it now, thanks to the availability of the filmed version.

Into the Light

Marc Castle's new play Into the Light (which I'm directing) opens tonight, so get your tickets while you can!

In addition to writing the play, Marc Castle is starring as Sol, a newly departed soul who arrives in the hereafter only to find that none of the people waiting for him there are the ones he expected. Marc's previous plays have been done at EST, the Neighborhood Playhouse, and La Mama. In another age, he toured as a child actor in the first national company of the musical Camelot. He later wrote about it in his one-man show One Brief Shining Moment.

Acting opposite Marc is Terri Campion, who also wrote My Girl, one of the one-acts going up together with Into the Light. She's perhaps best known for her novel, Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow, but she also has a long list of acting credits, including Hetty in Alice Gerstenberg's Overtones at Metropolitan Playhouse and Clytemnestra in Euripides's Iphigenia in Aulis with Greeks & Company.

Ralph Pachoda appears in the play as Jake, an old acquaintance of Sol's. Ralph is a regular at ARTC's weekly developmental workshop, but he also has had a long career as a classical actor. He appeared Off-Broadway as Creon opposite James Earl Jones in Oedipus by Sophocles. He also did a national tour of Lanford Wilson's Talley's Folly with Maryanne Plunkett.

Rounding out the cast is Jeannie Dalton, who plays Sol's mother Goldie. She's a brilliant comic actress who has played everything from Dunyasha in Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard to Raina in Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man to Puck in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream to Fanny in Eric Overmyer's On the Verge to Elmire in Moliere's Tartuffe. 

After tonight, we have only three more performances as part of the Two by Four festival playing at HB Studio's 124 Bank Street Theater. We're on again tomorrow, January 24th at 7pm, Sunday the 25th at 3pm, and then our final performance is on Tuesday the 27th at 7pm. I hope to see you there!

(NO)REFUNDS

When I first moved to New York, I saw a lot of Off-Off-Broadway shows for $15. Back then, that was the going rate for independent theatre, generally performed under Equity Showcase contracts. Sometimes it was amazing. Sometimes it was mediocre. Sometimes I wanted a refund.

These days, I'm less likely to see a show on a whim. Since moving to the Bronx, it's become more of an ordeal to get into the theatre district and then back home again to get to bed at a reasonable hour. If I'm going out to see a show, I'm less willing to take chances than I was when I lived in Hell's Kitchen.

("Hmm... a show called Vampyres? Only $15? Playing right around the corner? Inspired by the theories of Antonin Artaud? How bad could it be?" Answer: very.)

Today, however, I had rehearsal in Midtown for a one-act play I'm directing. We had to be out of our rehearsal space before 6:30, which made it quite convenient to grab a slice and see a show. As I've complained recently, theatre in New York just hasn't been the same since covid, and there wasn't a lot I wanted to see that I could get a cheap ticket for at the last minute.

That's when I stumbled upon (NO)REFUNDS, a brilliant Off-Off-Broadway show playing now at TheatreLab. The piece is the brainchild of Katy Murphy, who appears onstage as Tiffany Gold, a buxom blond gameshow host who gives a "star player"--who has paid considerably more than $15--a chance to win back some of that money by playing a series of games before the live audience.

A show like this is going to be different every night, but the performance I saw was both hysterically funny and at moments deeply touching. In the midst of a play about artificiality, in which everything about the host, Tiffany Gold, appears to be fake, the audience comes to find moments of incredible sincerity.

So if you're looking to take a chance on a show playing beyond Broadway and Off-Broadway, I thoroughly recommend (NO)REFUNDS. It definitely isn't one of those shows where you'll want your money back.