My first week in New York-Adventures in the Theatre

Monday, December 1, 2008
I cannot imagine my first week going by so quckly. A week that seemed slow while it was happening, event after event, but one that now in retrospect seems way too fleeting.

First I arrived in the city with much enthusiasm, knowing that I would need to strategically plan my days so that I can find the necessary time for friends and movies and writing and even eating between shows. It's been over a year and a half and I was feeling the need for this kind of stimuli.

I scheduled a show at every available opportunity even when I tried to resist the thought of it. But at the end my passion, maybe even obsession, won out and I just couldn't do it knowing that something even of some or little value may be playing somewhere and that I would have neglected it. It's a magnetic attraction I just can't deny.


My other compulsion is the one for the camera in hand and the endless flickering of the flash - even if I prefer natural lighting over flash. Yes, my goal to set out daily in New York and take photos of the city was challenged when my incredible and incredibly expensive Leica camera died on me a day before I arrived. Luckily I had twenty-four well spent days overusing it in Montreal but sadly being in this city without the camera left me a little anxious. Well instead of fretting too much I found a Leica repair shop in New Jersey and sent my lovely camera for maintenance. It should be here soon and before you know, my words may have accompanying images. In the meantime, uninspired by my underwater camera on land, I hardly use it but do have it ready in the event of an emergency. Although I cannot think of what type of emergency would warrant my use of an underwater camera in such a metropolitan. But I can always pretend.


One of the beauties of being in New York, and in the Upper West Side, Doug's place, in particular, is that there are plenty of laundromats and dry cleaners that will do the wash and fold for you - so one of my first projects - even before visiting the theatre district - was to get all my clothes down the block - only a half a block, really - and not have to think about it ever again. Call it living in the shadows of a spoiled ship life but it sure does save time and energy, just not money.

Of course seeing Doug every day is a lot of fun especially having known each other - being friends - for just over twenty years. I would like to think that we haven't changed in all these years but truth be told physically we are both looking slightly older - twenty years slightly - but also mentally much wiser. Still there's plenty of kid inside of us and we sure know how to have fun.


Another blast from the past - but a not too distant past - is Royce whom I met in Montreal five years ago and who now lives and works in the city for the famed Joseph Papp Public Theater - home of talent and art development projects where many a plays began their lives. I got me a visit and a look behind the scenes and was very thrilled to get that chance. I actually felt very comfortable, at ease and at home.

I walk everyday as much as I can - even in the colder days - mostly about forty some blocks from 88th Street down to the Theater district in the forties. I enjoy my walks and my mind often wanders into some thought - deep thought - about life and the appreciation that I have for it and for every experience that I get to thrive on. I realize that nothing and no one should be taken for granted and that I must be grateful for every opportunity. Naturally I do all this thinking in a good pace with a latte in hand courtesy of Starbucks. Not sure if it is the caffeine that causes me to do all this walking and thinking or just my mind that never stops working, processing and thinking so much.


My first production was SHREK: THE MUSICAL in which my friend Justin is Dance Captain. I enjoyed the show for what it was but realized how much compromising must take place with a blend of so much talent on and off the stage and as the week went, with show after show, I recognized Broadway to be an endangered species where it is tough to produce and present a show without sacrificing something rather or another. It was also the show were I sat next to Idina Menzel and Taye Diggs and noticed that they too - just like all real people - like to enjoy their Broadway shows. I have written a full recap of my SHREK: THE MUSICAL experience which can be found in my blog.

Living with Doug during the first week was fun in what I can truly call a full house. First came Wesley, Doug's Toronto friend, who made a stop on business and was staying over as well. Wesley is a very nice guy, very easy to talk to and connect with and we had a very pleasant time together especially as Doug had to go to work and left us together so we decided to spend the day talking [thinking] and walking. One of my big draws for shopping was to find myself a warm coat in preparation of my upcoming Montreal winter. I think Wesley and I spent way too much time at North Face trying to establish that a puffy coat can only make me look like the Pillsbury Dough Boy, in any size.



My second play, IRENA'S VOW with the great stage actress Tovah Feldshuh was a harrowing play about Holocaust survival and it nearly broke my heart. My eyes swelled and I got this lump in my throat, watching the intimate play up close, on its last night, no less. Feldshuh gave an emotional and funny farewell speech at the end and let everyone know that Gerald Schoenfeld, owner of the Shubert Theaters, passed away during the night, just after spending his last hours with Feldshuh. It was a poignant moment. What Feldshuh saved for last was an announcement that her play will be transferred to Broadway come spring.

On Wednesday I rushed to an eleven o'clock first screening of MILK and was not disappointed. It is a beautiful movie that is even more so an important document of gay struggles in America and the importance of embracing human rights for everyone. As a Sean Penn fan I was in heaven watching him deliver one of his finest performances as a Jewish, gay man, something I should know a little about.

I then went to catch the John Patrick Shanley musical ROMANTIC POETRY, co-written with DREAMGIRLS' Henry Kreiger. It was universally panned by the entire theatrical community and critics alike and yet, despite a tacky set and musical revue feel, I did not mind it a bit. Perhaps there was way too much expectation from the Pulitzer prize winning writer of DOUBT and Oscar winner for MOONSTRUCK but honestly POETRY was mostly fun.


Then Doug and I went to see the world premiere run of Stephen Sondheim's ROAD SHOW with Michael Cerveris - a fifth and final attempt at making this musical work - and we were both underwhelmed as, despite its merits, it sounded overly fmailiar and offered little new other than a different plot that could not have interested me less. The gold rush as a setting for a bleak musical is not so much, trust me. Close your eyes and the music feels rehashed. There a few really impressive songs and top notch production values at the Public Theater but this is far from a Sondheim one highly anticipates.

Doug, myself and another visiting friend, Dominic, went to the legendary Townhouse where the young and older crowd mingles and, with a couple of Malibus and pineapples in hand ,had us a laugh chatting up some guys in this very very strange city. Naturally, if I say so myself, Doug and I attracted the best looking crowd around us. However I can honestly say that they were mostly the usual suspects and we just weren't sure what they or us, for that matter, were doing at the Townhouse.


The next day was Thanksgiving in the States. I never experienced the biggest of holidays in the city before. It was quite exciting. I sent the troupe, which by now also included Helen, Doug's best friend from Montreal - whom I've known for years - to check out MILK while I sat next door and took in this year's extraordinary masterpiece SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE. I was overwhelmed by Danny Boyle's latest artistic achievement and wanted to stand up and applaud by the end but unfortunately had nobody to share my enthusiasm with. As it turns out, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE has not only become my favourite movie of the year but looks like it's on its way to nabbing the Best Motion Picture Oscar.



In the evening, Doug and his next condo door neighbour Eddy were hosting an elaborate Thanksgiving dinner party - traditional home-made turkey [by Eddy] , untraditional catered sushi [by Doug] and all. The party began at six and was attended by many men, mostly men, and a few women and was a grand success of drinking, chatting and laughing out loud. I met some really nice people, guys who work in the theatre in New York, and truly enjoyed myself, celebrating happily, cosmos in hand, until two in the morning.



On Friday, on my walk to the theatre in the afternoon, avoiding Broadway traffic and taking an alternative street, I bumped into Justin, who was going to his show SHREK. It was quite funny as I passed him and then he called, "Eyal?" But he was wearing a tuque, scarf and sun glasses so I hardly recognized him the frist second. Anyway, to make a long story short, we shall be meeting on Monday for dinner and the Opera. It'll be my very first Metropolitan Opera live with a Mozart's DON GIOVANNI. Cannot wait.


Then sat down to watch GYPSY with Broadway's leading lady Patti LuPone. I initially heard that she was great and, later, from Doug, heard of the disappointment of watching her chew the scenery only a few years after Bernadette Peters did such a good job in the role of Mama Rose. Still I kept an open mind and knew that with Boyd Gaines as Harvey and Laura Benanti as Baby "Gypsy" Louise, I could not go wrong. I was not disappointed. This is true Broadway, a revival of something that is bigger than life. GYPSY is an old show, a staple, that has a successful built in formula that always seems to work. By the end Benanti makes an impressive transition from shy tomboy to notorious stripper and LuPone's devestating big finale illiicts shivers down my spine.

THE SEAGULL that followed that very Friday evening, was slighly more problematic. Featuring Kristin Scott Thomas and Peter Sarsgaard, this Chekhov, newly translated by Christopher Hampton [Liaisons Dangereuses] has an intriguing premise about artists and their need to fulfil their egos by getting the attention they seek. It is also about the love for art and artists and is filled with much promise but almost none of it was exciting on a large stage and with many characters walking on and off the minimal set. Long ago in London, I caught an astounding production of THE CHERRY ORCHARD, another similar Chekov, with Vanessa and Corin Redgrave in a tiny space at the Royal National Theatre and I could only wish that THE SEAGULL had a little more intimacy and perhaps I would have felt connected with the play. As it stood, I was mostly left cold if nonetheless intrigued by the content. And yes, Scott Thomas was radiant [and stunning] while Sarsgaard was stiff and unconvincing. THE SEAGULL is highbrow theatre and one would expect people to speak of it as some groundbreaking work but when you see as many shows as I have in such a short span of time you can easily tell what works and what doesn't. Most importantly you can tell if live theatre has any connection with its audiences. I have to say that THE SEAGULL was cold and distant a production.


On Saturday I started with PRAYER FOR MY ENEMY, a brand new Craig Lucas play - at the off-Broadway Playwright's Horizon - a workshop company where many great plays were born - Lucas, mostly famous for PRELUDE TO A KISS, conceived a modern play about Iraq, American soldiers, the family unit, and repressed homosexuality - yes, all rolled into one - and then added a major subplot on guilt, anger, resentment and, ultimately, forgiveness. At talented cast featuring Victoria Clark [LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA] and Jonathan Groff [SPRING AWAKENING] work beautifully together but the play has way too many ideas to make one coherent narrative flow. Still, it is a play with merit but not one that can easily expand beyond its workshop. It may get produced at regional theaters throughout the states but this is due more so to the reputation of its playwright than the play itself.



Yet nothing, absolutely nothing, prepared me for the powerhouse jolt of AUGUST:OSAGE COUNTY - a sprawling three hour, twenty-minute play about the crazy family in all of us. An unexpected funeral brings a family together and threatens to tear it apart as well after secrets are revealed skeletons uncovered and deep seated nasty hatred is spewed from one mouth to another before everyone kisses and makes up - well almost everyone. Not a single minute is dull nor wasted in this Pulitzer proze winning play that is more entertainment than art and where the ideas are clearly spelled out for us. Still it all works magnificently well. Estelle Parsons and Johanna Day as sparring mother and daughter deserve a medal of honour for functioning so truthfully as characters on stage and for enduring such verbal punishment from one another. Everyone else is wonderful as well including my long-time BEGGARS AND CHOOSERS favourite Brian Kerwin. After the show Kerwin was standing by the door soliciting donations for Broadway Cares Equity Fights AIds charity and we started a conversation. His eyes lit up when I told him that second to SEX AND THE CITY, BEGGARS AND CHOOSERS was my favourite television show. He was more then thrilled to chat up with me and told me how the DVD release has been shelved because marketing executives could not figure out who this series would appeal to. Funny when you think of how much garbage is really being released on a weekly basis.


This morning I got me a visit from Lauralie when the Explorer was docked in New jersey and she grabbed a whole bunch of the trains in the pouring rain to get here for a wonderful lunch. It was so nice of her to make the journey and then maximize the time with me before heading back by taxi. We ate at SPICE, a thai restaurant and had a blast for two.


Then I spent the rest of the day with Doug, first catching Richard Griffiths and Daniel Radcliffe in Peter Shaffer's revival of EQUUS. Radcliffe not only strips, as is commonly rumoured, but performs a significant portion of his disturbing role in the flesh. Shaffer's work, although not as fluid as his AMADEUS, nonetheless works for the most part. The second act really picks up and the powerhouse finale is breathtaking, if not visually shocking in a way that you cannot look away. John Napier, who created the original set design, returns here with slight alterations and the play still comes across as imgainative if a bit outdated. Griffiths gives the play class through his subtle performance and he is capably abetted by Kate Mulgrew. It is a strong play for which I have one reservation and that is, a play that makes us think should be clear at what it wants us to think about. EQUUS, itself, is an enigma of many abstract ideas.


After a delicious Mexican dinner at Arriba, Arriba, Doug and I finally got to Studio 54 and the most anticpated musical for me during this trip, a lip smacking new revival of PAL JOEY starring Stockard Channing, Martha Plimpton and an understudy who just happened to be lucky when the original lead bowed out after the first day of previews. This guy's name is Matthew Risch and he is rather dull in a role originally introduced on stage by Gene Kelly and on film by Frank Sinatra. The show needed star power and electrifying charisma for it to work and Risch has a smile and a decent voice and dancing feet but not the best voice or the most graceful moves. So without a strong male lead it is difficult to have a show titled after its main character.

But then it gets worse, Stockard Channing, Broadway's finest dramatic actress, wonderful talent, can't really sing, she sounds numb, and yet she not only gets to sing the show's signature song, BEWITCHED, BOTHERED AND BEWILDERED, but she does so three/four times! She speaks the song more than anything but when she tries to hit a note or two you can hear her falling off key. It is kind of sad, even disgraceful for such a reputable actress to be put to the test like this when she clearly is not up to the vocal challenge. It's been thrity years since she sang her big solo in GREASE the movie. She must have not had much practice in all these years. On the other side of the spectrum is Martha Plimpton, who shocked me in that she cannot only act her part as a crude nightclub singer with the chops [that she can really act, i already knew] but that she can sing her heart out and make every single number be the best number in the show. I say Bravo to Plimpton and hope that come Tony time she gets a nomination for making this old fashioned Rodgers-Hart show, with a book rewritten by Richard Greenberg [TAKE ME OUT] rise above mediocrity whenever she's on stage.

Other than that, I am heading to bed for a a little snooze before starting my second round, to feature Justin, Chris, Marsha, Royce, Etti, Roy, Mary, Kathy, Adam, Eric, and more of Doug, who know whom else I may meet along the way. I also hope to catch a few more flicks from DOUBT to FROST/NIXON, maybe AUSTRALIA and a couple of independent films playing exclusively in the city. Of the shows, coming up, are DON GIOVANNI at the Met, ALL MY SONS, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS, IN THE HEIGHT, LIZA'S AT THE PALACE, THE LITTLE MERMAID, SATURN RETURNS, FORBIDDEN BROADWAY, DIVIDING THE ESTATE, SOUTH PACIFIC and BILLY ELLIOT. After all of that I think I'm set to return to planet Earth and deal with real life.

For the time being - keep in touch - :-)E