Attended the performance of "Kingdom" at the VFW Theater in Asbury Park on Sunday night. On the whole I think the cast and the production team did a great job and I applaud ReVision Theatre for bringing an ambitious new musical on a sensitive topic to our little shore town. I was impressed by the acting, although I think some of the leads were playing to a bigger theater and could have done more by lowering the intensity and upping the nuance. My favorite performance of the night was Dell Howlett, who plays Cano, a key character in the plot. Cano is complex and commanding and Howlett was totally at ease and convincing in the role. The lighting was flawless. The orchestra--keyboard, guitar, bass and drum set--was great, although the score didn't ask much of the musicians.
As a musical however, "Kingdom" is a disappointment. The best part is the lyrics: Basically the entire play is done in rhyme, most of it in rapping rhythms. Within the conceit of constant rhyming, the poetry is well crafted and often clever. The melodies and raps that set this text are mundane, but at least they don't get in the way. There aren't any memorable musical moments (although there are some memorable dramatic ones). Most depressing for me was the lack of imagination in the band's accompaniment. There was just nothing there. I'm certainly glad the ReVision producers saw fit to use live musicians. I wish they had had something worthwhile to play.
The music also never seems to alter mood--the tension and melodrama of the opening just continues unabated throughout. Every song is another opportunity for searing emotional trauma--some variation would have made at least some of those moments more meaningful.
Along with being the vehicle for Howlett's performance, Cano is also the most interesting character in "Kingdom," from a literary point of view. As the head of the local chapter of the fierce gang, the Latin Kings, he advocates self-discipline, conflict resolution through dialog and working for the betterment of the community. Once deprived of his leadership, the gang chapter becomes a rabble, descending immediately into spiral of pointless, vengeful violence.
Like the mafia of old, Cano's Latin Kings are a crude blend of social support group, religion, militia and criminality as a means to noble ends. The character of Cano, who sees only the good the Latin Kings can do and tries to cultivate the good in those around him, makes the story more complicated and worthy of discussion than it would be otherwise. In all other respects, the play is a two-dimensional portrait of gangs or ghetto life. Marisa's plea against violence at the end is well-written but predictable. A little too noticeably, it is also a recreation in aggressive modern vernacular of Maria's speech at the end of "West Side Story."
--C.
Showing posts with label Broadway. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Broadway. Show all posts
Monday, April 20, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Bloomer Girl
I need to talk about my Dad. It comes up periodically. He loomed larger than life and his spirit still does. But in order to get to there, we have to start somewhere else--up the Great White Way and the stagelights of Broadway.
OK, now, I'm not one for musicals, generally. But it's not because the form itself is bad. In theory, a staged story with songs built in seems like a great idea and, approached with real creativity, it could be a powerful medium. But instead, musicals generally follow a tradition rooted in vaudeville that has little or nothing to do with either a good story or good songs. At the same time, they tend to cowtow to our basest artistic instincts by mimicking the monumentality and mythos of opera like a beggar at ... well, an opera. By aiming at the masses the medium misses the opportunity for meaning. But Broadway isn't about meaning; its about money. And so, musicals, on the whole, are a waste and I avoid them.
As with pop songs, however, smashed within the tight little fist of Broadway producers you can occasionally find a real diamond, formed and harbored there as if by accident.
And that brings me to my Dad. He was a disciplined ex-Navy pilot and an executive of a small steel corporation. He read books. Hundreds and hundreds of books. Usually novels from once-recitable Western canon but also history, poetry and philosophy. His taste for culture emphasized the nobility of the common man--the works of Lincoln, Shakespeare, Hemingway, the poetry of Robert Frost and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Vladimir Horowitz (guileless, pure talent) playing the music of Beethoven (self-made genius-overcomes-debilitating-hardship) was to be found on the stereo console's tall spindle piled atop LPs of the torch songs of Edith Piaf and "West Side Story" of Leonard Bernstein. The thread that bound them was the nobility of mundane experience, the idealization of simple humanity, the elevation of the our day-to-day stories and concerns onto a white marble throne. Dad was the American Dream incarnate and he knew it and celebrated it, toasting it with Manhattans by the fireplace with a good book.
After he died, I slowly began exploring some of the musicals that he subjected us to when we were kids. "Oklahoma", "Camelot" and "Gypsy" were certainly among them, but you can find as many detractors for those as you can admirers. The others were more significant: in addition to "West Side Story" there was Lerner and Lowe's "My Fair Lady", Wasserman/Darion/Leigh's "Man of La Mancha," Meredith Wilson's "The Music Man," Gershwin's "Porgy & Bess" and Stein/Harnick/Bock's "Fiddler on the Roof." Inarguably classics of the genre.
I've gained new respect for my Dad's taste in music as a result of this Broadway inquiry. Just last year, as a gift to my siblings, I went hunting for a couple songs he used to sing: "Free as the Sun is Free" and "I Got a Railrood Song." I had no idea where they came from, but I knew most of the words. We could not take a family car ride anywhere before, within a mile or so, he would come busting out with one or the other. If my father were a sitcom, these were his theme songs.
Turns out, they are both from the same musical, a largely forgotten flower of a work called "Bloomer Girl" with music by Harold Arlen, that was first staged in 1944. A revival was mounted in 2001 and got a tepid, if not sour review from the New York Times, a dissatisfaction that had more to do with the direction than the writing, I think. The original 1944 review, available in the NYTimes online archives, was much more favorable.
Set at the start of the Civil War, the story is a totally contrived blend of romance with commentary on both feminism and race issues. The political positions weren't exactly radical, but they were political positions and that in itself was a little radical for 1944. The authors never lose sight of the charm factor, an almost obsequious pandering to their audience. But still, they manage some great moments, including the women's rousing anthem "It Was Good Enough for Grandma" and a moving little auction block chant, "Man for Sale". And, of course, "Free as the Sun is Free" a song that, for better or worse, will haunt me to my dying day.
You can't find "Bloomer Girl" on iTunes. But, you can get it for $4.99 on CD at Amazon. A bargain. As you listen, just think of my Dad, comfortable in his armchair on the sidelines of the Cold War. My Dad would quote over and over a line from a speech by Faulkner (who, by the way, was referencing himself--and that's not nobility, that's hutzpah): "Man will not only endure; he will prevail."
Will we prevail because of musicals like "Bloomer Girl"? Probably not. But here's what my Dad would say: take enough simple acts by individuals like the composers and actors of that musical--add them all up and the result might just be something heroic.
--C.
OK, now, I'm not one for musicals, generally. But it's not because the form itself is bad. In theory, a staged story with songs built in seems like a great idea and, approached with real creativity, it could be a powerful medium. But instead, musicals generally follow a tradition rooted in vaudeville that has little or nothing to do with either a good story or good songs. At the same time, they tend to cowtow to our basest artistic instincts by mimicking the monumentality and mythos of opera like a beggar at ... well, an opera. By aiming at the masses the medium misses the opportunity for meaning. But Broadway isn't about meaning; its about money. And so, musicals, on the whole, are a waste and I avoid them.
As with pop songs, however, smashed within the tight little fist of Broadway producers you can occasionally find a real diamond, formed and harbored there as if by accident.
And that brings me to my Dad. He was a disciplined ex-Navy pilot and an executive of a small steel corporation. He read books. Hundreds and hundreds of books. Usually novels from once-recitable Western canon but also history, poetry and philosophy. His taste for culture emphasized the nobility of the common man--the works of Lincoln, Shakespeare, Hemingway, the poetry of Robert Frost and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Vladimir Horowitz (guileless, pure talent) playing the music of Beethoven (self-made genius-overcomes-debilitating-hardship) was to be found on the stereo console's tall spindle piled atop LPs of the torch songs of Edith Piaf and "West Side Story" of Leonard Bernstein. The thread that bound them was the nobility of mundane experience, the idealization of simple humanity, the elevation of the our day-to-day stories and concerns onto a white marble throne. Dad was the American Dream incarnate and he knew it and celebrated it, toasting it with Manhattans by the fireplace with a good book.
After he died, I slowly began exploring some of the musicals that he subjected us to when we were kids. "Oklahoma", "Camelot" and "Gypsy" were certainly among them, but you can find as many detractors for those as you can admirers. The others were more significant: in addition to "West Side Story" there was Lerner and Lowe's "My Fair Lady", Wasserman/Darion/Leigh's "Man of La Mancha," Meredith Wilson's "The Music Man," Gershwin's "Porgy & Bess" and Stein/Harnick/Bock's "Fiddler on the Roof." Inarguably classics of the genre.
I've gained new respect for my Dad's taste in music as a result of this Broadway inquiry. Just last year, as a gift to my siblings, I went hunting for a couple songs he used to sing: "Free as the Sun is Free" and "I Got a Railrood Song." I had no idea where they came from, but I knew most of the words. We could not take a family car ride anywhere before, within a mile or so, he would come busting out with one or the other. If my father were a sitcom, these were his theme songs.
Turns out, they are both from the same musical, a largely forgotten flower of a work called "Bloomer Girl" with music by Harold Arlen, that was first staged in 1944. A revival was mounted in 2001 and got a tepid, if not sour review from the New York Times, a dissatisfaction that had more to do with the direction than the writing, I think. The original 1944 review, available in the NYTimes online archives, was much more favorable.
Set at the start of the Civil War, the story is a totally contrived blend of romance with commentary on both feminism and race issues. The political positions weren't exactly radical, but they were political positions and that in itself was a little radical for 1944. The authors never lose sight of the charm factor, an almost obsequious pandering to their audience. But still, they manage some great moments, including the women's rousing anthem "It Was Good Enough for Grandma" and a moving little auction block chant, "Man for Sale". And, of course, "Free as the Sun is Free" a song that, for better or worse, will haunt me to my dying day.
You can't find "Bloomer Girl" on iTunes. But, you can get it for $4.99 on CD at Amazon. A bargain. As you listen, just think of my Dad, comfortable in his armchair on the sidelines of the Cold War. My Dad would quote over and over a line from a speech by Faulkner (who, by the way, was referencing himself--and that's not nobility, that's hutzpah): "Man will not only endure; he will prevail."
Will we prevail because of musicals like "Bloomer Girl"? Probably not. But here's what my Dad would say: take enough simple acts by individuals like the composers and actors of that musical--add them all up and the result might just be something heroic.
--C.
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