Bachelorette: Partying Gone Awry

Last night I attempted to see Bachelorette at the 2nd Stage Theater. Due to lack of internet and thus, lack of planning, I arrived 30 minutes late to this 90 minute production. Sweaty and embarrassed (I had gotten the time and location wrong), the production did a great job of taking my mind off of my travels, and throwing me right into the story. The set up was pretty clear. Becky is getting married, and she has invited her maid of honor, Regan (Tracee Chimo) to use her hotel room on the eve of the wedding. Unfortunately for Becky, Regan has decided to invite two of Becky's ex-friends, Katie and Gena. While Becky's still out doing night-before activities, the three remaining girls take the opportunity to party in the hotel room. Soon, the combination of alcohol, pot, and other drugs drive the girls to destroy the room, and to call each other out for previous misconduct.

I entered the theater right when Regan, Katie, and Gena decide to play with Becky's dress, tearing it as a result. Then a blame war resumes in which each tries to prove how the other is a worse person, and therefore more responsible for destroying Becky's room. Regan brings up Gena's abortion while a hurt Gena can only dejectedly reply, "Why did you say that?"

The answer to this question is slowly revealed over the next hour as Regan takes a center role. After the next scene change, we see Regan and Katie (Gena had gone to find a tailor for the dress) re-entering Becky's hotel room, each with a guy in tow. Regan's conversations with her guy Jeff (Eddie Kay Thomas) raises questions about Regan, such as why she is hooking up with other guys when she has a boyfriend. Why does she think her job, reading to child cancer patients, is "boring?" Meanwhile, Katie (Celia Keenan-Bolger) discusses her former prom queen status with her guy Joe (Fran Kranz). She reveals plenty of secrets while in her drunken stupor, inviting audiences to reflect on their own moments of inebriation.

Though there are many plays about late night conversations leading to "meaning," or revelation, there aren't many that do this convincingly. The dialogue in Bachelorette is natural, even in the most unsurprising moment, when one character reveals that one of their friends died of alcohol poisoning--a death that they've always felt some responsibility for. The naturalness of this story can be attributed both to the superb acting and the diction. The characters are supposed to be in their late twenties, and they believably speak like today's twentysomethings. The playwright, Leslye Headland, avoids the forced "dudes," and instead gives her characters an appropriate blend of wisdom and forced casualness. Regan interrupts her conversations to check her phone. "Ugh...I can't believe these guys keep texting me," she remarks while obviously delighted by the attention.

While the drugs and revelations are not particularly disturbing, the final confrontation between Regan and Becky is. This ten minute climax towards the end is worth the entire ninety minutes of the production. As Becky tries to understand the damage done to her hotel room, you can see Regan scheming to turn this into Becky's fault. The two then torture each other in a battle of saying the most hurtful things possible. In the end, you get to decide who wins.

One Day: Best Beach Read of 2010

It's not often that a cover of a nearly-kissing-couple reveals a profound novel underneath. David Nicholls bucks the trend by combining breezy language and fast-paced storytelling with epic themes and deep character portrayals in his new novel One Day.

One Day is quite gimmicky on the surface. It's about a boy (Dexter Mayhew) and a girl (Emma Morley) who have a one night stand the evening of university (they're British) graduation on July 15, 1988. The book then checks in with the two of them on July 15 of every year for the next twenty years. But the way Nicholls does this sets it apart from typical chick-lit fare. Instead of contriving a meeting every year, say at a wedding or randomly bumping into each other at a restaurant, Nicholls deliberately checks in with them each July 15, using the opportunity to fill us in on their lives the other 364 days of the year. Nicholls makes clear that Dex and Em are part of each others' lives year round. Instead of filling us in on their lives through removed third-person omniscient, he spends equal amounts of time communicating in Dex and Em's respective voices.

Through this method, we get two fully realized characters. One chapter set in the early Nineties begins with Dexter's voice: "These days the nights and mornings have a tendency to bleed into one another. Old fashioned notions of a.m. and p.m. have become obsolete and Dexter is seeing a lot more dawns that he once used to." A couple pages later, Nicholls switches to Em: "Emma Morley east well and drinks in moderation. These days she gets eight good hours sleep then wakes promptly of her accord just before six-thirty and drinks a large glass of water." These sentences don't simply fill us in on the characters' lives, but do it in such a way that shows what the characters think of themselves. These are thoughts that they would have believably used to describe themselves.

Sure, the characters each do a few things that make you want to roll your eyes, but their big decisions are recognizable to all. Immediately after the one night stand, for example, Dexter does a stint of world traveling, going from country to country "teaching English," but also bedding various women. He is then saved from the nomadic lifestyle by a television gig, becoming rich and more dependent on drugs in the process. Though this screams cliched rich-kid story, Nicholls excellent portrayal renders Dexter as a real person who needs to reconcile luck with success. In one passage, Dexter muses on how to "dump" his friends for more successful, attractive friends. Even if you haven't faced this specific problem, everyone can relate to the idea of outgrowing acquaintances. Meanwhile, Em must ask how to find the courage to do what she really wants as she endures a thankless job while yearning to be a writer.

Though Dex and Em eventually grow out of their twenties, the early twenties is a great time to read this book. From my perspective as a recent college grad, One Day provides perspective on how one's priorities change through the ages. Obsessed with success and being other people when their young, the characters learn to appreciate family and themselves over time. In this sense, it reminds me of a much more serious book, The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard, that follows two sisters from the 1950's through the 1980's. The difference is that One Day is written in a way that's conducive to the beach.

Nicholls provides some acute social commentary throughout. From the beginning, he makes fun of Emma's type even as he creates her. Looking around Emma's progressive, hipster-ish room during the one-night stand, Dex notes that "the problem with interesting girls is that they were all the same." Later, Nicholls jabs at overblown weddings:
"They have started to arrive. An endless cascade of luxuriously quilted envelopes, thumping onto the doormat. The wedding invitations."

Current events from 1988 to 2007 take a backseat in this book. (There's no mention of 9/11, but some discussion of the subsequent war). While the cultural references--"I have tickets to the London premier of Jurassic Park"--might attract audiences of a certain age, they are entirely gratuitous. Though the situations could have only occurred in the late 20th century and first decade of the twenty-first, the story of two young people figuring out their lives is timeless.

Passing Strange Explores Questions of Identity

Aaron Reed looks a bit awkward when he first takes the stage in the musical Passing Strange at The Studio Theater (through August 8). Reed plays a young Stew, the singer-songwriter behind the band The Negro Problem, in this musical about his life. (No worries--I hadn't heard of Stew either until Passing Strange premiered on Broadway last year). Passing Strange covers the period of Stew's creative germination, from the time he leaves his LA home as a teenager through his travels in Amsterdam and Berlin. When Reed first emerges, he plays the role of the uncertain teenager perfectly. He argues with his mother about not going to church, and needing to "find himself." But Reed's affected, whiny speaking voice transforms into a robust baritone when he sings. Halfway through the first half, Stew gets his wish and leaves for Amsterdam.

Stew undergoes the typical young adult trials of love and drugs. Meanwhile, his mother (Deidra LaWan Starnes) implores him to return home. Naturally, Stew ignores these wishes and continues his adventures on to Berlin in the second act.

Narrating throughout is the appropriately named character, "Narrator." Played by Stew himself in the Broadway production, this figure can also be thought of as an older Stew looking back on his life. He is expertly portrayed by Jahi Kearse in this production. The Narrator doubles as part of the band, and serves as a tongue-in-cheek link between the fiction of the stage and the reality of the audience. He makes many comments pointing out the fact that we're watching a performance.

Most importantly, the Narrator allows The Studio Theatre to adopt a minimalist approach to Passing Strange. The Narrator can tell us what city Stew's in without any fancy sets. Studio Theatre's Stage 4 is hardly even a stage. The raised platform is only a few feet--just enough room for Stew's mother to perch when she is singing from LA.The ensemble roams about the floor at the same level as the audience. Actually, we are higher because of the stadium seating. By stripping away all gratuitous flourishes, this approach forces audiences to connect with the actors. We can focus on the story and Stew's dilemmas. The jokes are also more heartfelt when close up. When Stew explains why he can't go home to see her, his mother responds "Your deep concern for yourself is really moving."

Though it covers some traditional themes, Passing Strange is no cliched bildungsroman. It also deals with issues of black identity and reality in art. When Stew is in Berlin he embraces the impoverished black American as his true self. He tells everyone that he grew up in the ghetto, where he dealt with hate every day. An ironic duet then ensues with Stew telling these stories of woe juxtaposed with his mother's stories of the American dream. "What will I do alone in my big two story house?" she sings as Stew tries to paint a portrait of himself as someone who grew up in a crack house.

Passing Strange explores authenticity without shoving it down out throats. The questions of what make's Stew's identity authentic are asked, but not fully resolved. The Narrator wryly remarks "Aren't you shocked when you find out that your life was determined by the decisions of a teenager?" We can all relate to those moments when you think of how different you are from previous years. Sometimes it takes years--more years than the period covered in Passing Strange--to figure out what one's identity truly is.

The Imperfect Imperfectionists

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman has gotten a lot of press coverage since its debut. A "novel" about journalists working a struggling English-language paper based in Rome, it has attracted the attention of many journalists who might feel a connection. The Washington Post lauds The Imperfectionists as a novel "about what happens when professionals realize that their craft no longer has meaning in the world's eyes." This is a great idea, and could have led to profound character studies. Unfortunately, Rachman's execution of The Imperfectionists has resulted in several shallow portrayals of many instead of a more coherent examination of a few.

As many have pointed out, The Imperfectionists is more of a series of linked stories than a bona fide novel. Each chapter focuses on one employee of an unnamed international newspaper. (Rachman himself used to work at the International Herald Tribune). Each chapter explores how that employee undergoes an ironic twist as the newspaper marches towards its demise. So we've got the obituary writer who faces death in his personal life, a business writer who gets scammed, a devoted reader who doesn't know anything about current events, and so forth. Perhaps one ironic twist would be believable, but a dozen are not. As a whole, the stories make for a heavy handed way of saying "look how these characters have to confront their true selves just like how the newspaper needs to confront its true importance." Clever, perhaps, but not thought provoking.

This 280 page book consists of about a dozen 25 page stories. Rachman demonstrates that there's just not enough space in 25 pages to paint believable characters. He relies on types for most of them. There's the bitter, single middle aged woman who loves to complain about her proofreading job, but can't live without it (Ruby Zaga). There's the type-A Editor-in-Chief who must have control over her professional life, but lacks control over her personal life (Kathleen Solson). There's also the poor little soft rich kid publisher who went to Yale and inherited responsibility for the paper (Oliver Ott).

However, some segments are more original than others. The stories that do work successfully convey a person's entire life in a few short pages. The opening story is about Lloyd Burko, an aging foreign correspondent who is now short on cash, having been demoted to a freelancer. He roams the streets of Paris as he tries to rekindle with a daughter and then a son from two of four different marriages. We get the sense that he used to be a ladies man and is now reduced to watching his current, much younger wife, have affairs with the next door neighbor. Though Burko could have easily been a cliche of a washed-out asshole who everyone now loves to hate, Rachman puts us on his side immediately. We root for him as he attempts to seek redemption through his son.

Despite my criticisms, it's not like Rachman set out to write a profound, earth-shattering novel of ideas. The Imperfectionists succeeds as a light-hearted series of escapades. Funny lines are scattered about. Here is Arthur Gopal, the obit writer, trying to avoid work:

"No one had died. Or rather 107 people have in the previous minute, 154,000 in the past day, and 1,078,000 in the past week. But no one who matters. That's good — it has been nine days since his last obit and he hopes to extend his streak."

The Imperfectionists is a great beach read that will keep one's attention without creasing one's brow.

Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros: Hot Mess or Hippie Heaven?

Indie music shows have a reputation for being too hipster. Walk into the 9:30 Club on any given night and both band members and audience members alike will have on thick, plastic framed glasses, impossibly tight jeans, and intense facial hair. Last night's band, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, in contrast to the usual fare, was more hippie than hipster.

The relatively new ten member band is known for its unique sound that crosses Loretta Lynn with Jefferson Airplane. In other words, psychedelic country. The band tell relatable stories of love and family. Their most famous song, Home, has an interlude where the lead singers (Alex Ebert and Jade Castrinos) recount how they realized they loved each other after Jade fell out a window. Many of their stories have a home theme. "Janglin" is about returning home after some trials:

"Well our mama’s they left us
And our daddy’s took a ride
And we walked out of the castle
And we held our head up high"

All these stories are set to a bazaar of instruments, including the sitar and ukulele that were popular with 60's psych bands. Similar to 60's psych bands, some Magnetic Zeros were also decked out in Indian garb. Alex wore a white linen blazer, which he removed halfway through, and match pants. His hair looked like a birds nest on top of his head, and his beard would have made any Nineteenth Century woodsman jealous.

The hippie look would have been fine if it didn't carry over to the presentation of the show. Not only did he kind of look Christ-like, Alex had too much of a Messianic thing going on. He walked into the crowd three times. The last time was too close for comfort. He also dictated many aphorisms from the stage in between songs. Aphorisms about dying and such and how we should all love each other.

Jade was also a little too happy. As in so busy being happy she didn't show up for the first part of the show. She struck me as the manic pixie dream girl type. In addition to having a pixie haircut, she literally bounced around the stage, and seemed to be that person who the band has to put up with every night but always ultimately forgives. Aaron Embry (the pianist), who technically opened for the larger band, could barely do a complete set because Jade was so late. The last straw to Jade's behavior was during "Home." The audience was completely ready for the song by then and started getting excited from the first whistled notes. But then Jade went and messed up the lyrics to the second verse.

Unfortunately, my final memory of the show was ruined by Alex's insistence that everyone get on the floor for the last song. Yeah..the beer floor of the standing room only 9:30 club. This was difficult on many levels.

On balance, it was one of the least enjoyable, but more eventful concert experiences of the year thus far. If it wasn't for Gare's snarky presence, it would not have been fun.