William Hutt, 1920-2007

Word reaches us that William Hutt, a mainstay at Canada's Stratford Festival, died on Wednesday. Little known to Boston audiences, Hutt was a legend in the Canadian theatre, playing at Stratford (which I regularly attend) for a staggering 39 seasons and 130 productions, essaying virtually every major role in the repertory. His most famous performances included Prospero, King Lear (he also played a memorable Fool to Peter Ustinov's Lear), and Falstaff; he was also remembered for a hilarious turn in drag as Lady Bracknell in Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest. Perhaps his best recent performance was as James Tyrone in O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, opposite Martha Henry; the production is available on DVD. Despite his official retirement, the Stratford Festival had asked Hutt to return for a production of A Delicate Balance this season; he at first accepted, but then withdrew as his health worsened. Hutt can also be seen in the final season of Slings and Arrows, as an actor in declining health who is invited to attempt King Lear one last time - a poignantly fitting capstone to a great career.

Reigning men

He's here, but is he queer? Xerxes rises in 300.

There's a fun article over at slate which attempts to answer the rhetorical question, "If you liked 300, are you gay?" Its author, Matt Feeney, answers "no" - a point with which I agree; he's quite right that celebrations of "heroic masculinity" are willfully misread these days (by "clueless film critics" - and, of course, Andrew Sullivan) as gay. Feeney is likewise quite right to insist that the animating principle of these and similar displays (he has a specific jones for surfer flicks) is not homo-erotic attraction but sexual narcissism - although Feeney makes these points with a petulant passion that's a little amusing in and of itself ("If Point Break is homoerotic . . . then so is Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit," he cries, sans irony - which only makes me want to cue up White and Nerdy).

Now I didn't see 300 (and I'm gay!) - but I have to admit images like the ones above and below seem to undermine Feeney's thesis (at least in regards to this particular movie). Apparently Xerxes - and the pierced, bejewelled Persians in general - are styled here as gayer than the Spartans (some have seen the movie as a battle between "butch queens" and "bar queens"), but still, the digital airbrushing of the images hints at a certain feminization - or at least subconscious onanism (compare the sweaty images from Ben-Hur, and you'll see what I mean). The fact that in ancient Greece the warrior culture did spill over into homosexual culture (rather than being in tension, as depicted in 300) also gives one pause - could 300, despite its evident stupidity, map out this intersection fairly well in its images, if not its action?

The problem with Feeney's thesis, then, is that he doesn't really address the boundaries of the phenomenon he's discussing - he never ponders when or how narcissism/onanism might morph into actual attraction, despite the fact that in the ancient Greek culture, it evidently did. This topic is of particular interest for me because I witness the same tension between gay and straight culture in our own society - straight culture is constantly absorbing gay influences, as long as there's some fig leaf of denial available ("metrosexuality," etc.). Does that fig leaf, essentially, serve as the dividing line between narcissim and homo-eroticism? Do the two modes operate as twins in today's culture, serving each other's needs but never really overlapping? If this is the case, it's worth pondering why the boundary should be so impermeable - and my guess is that it has something to do with the status of women. In ancient Greece, of course, women were chattel, and no sexual practice could ever transform a boy into a girl; in modernity, however, the rise of gay rights has roughly paralleled feminism. Perhaps it's women's rights - or rather the modern permutation of sexism (which, stripped of its reliance on status and power, is based largely on sexual practice) - that's holding the gay/straight line.


Leonidas and Xerxes get in touch with their inner Hegel.

Post-apocalyptic cabaret

Ta-da! It's the end of the world, with Kiki & Herb!

Time is short (I'm on va-kay this week), so I must only sketch in my thoughts on "Kiki & Herb, Alive from Broadway" (through June 30 at the Calderwood). You might be surprised to learn there's a lot to think about - drag cabaret is constantly being pulled in new directions, but no one has driven the form quite so far as Justin Bond (Kiki, an aging, booze-hound chanteuse) and Kenny Mellman (Herb, her equally ancient accompanist). Certainly the show is being misleadingly sold - it's hardly the wacky, witty bitchfest one might expect to see on Saturday night in Provincetown; instead it's brimming with cultural disgust and haunted by a tone of incipient horror. It's hard to believe, but this strange little lounge act may be the most accurate barometer of the zeitgeist we've got.

It turns out that Kiki & Herb aren't just survivors - they're actually so old they knew Jesus (get ready - they drank milk from a cow that chowed down on the immaculate afterbirth, so now they're immortal). Alas, said miracle didn't include a vocal upgrade - Kiki doesn't have much of a voice, and generally either belts or wails while Herb jack-hammers the ivories. Even this doesn't really matter, because their material (which wends its twisty way through Public Enemy and Scissor Sisters, for starters) isn't very good, either, so there's not much melody to be squandered by their approach.

But don't make the mistake of thinking Kiki & Herb are trying to conjure one of those they're-so-bad-they're-good camp tributes; they're far too perversely sophisticated for anything so straightforward. They are, in fact, above all, cool saboteurs of everything that's already been accorded an accepted, affectionate cultural niche, be it campy, conservative, high- or low-brow (even William Butler Yeats, via "The Second Coming," makes a brief appearance). The n-word gets tossed around, Herb is repeatedly called a "gay Jew-tard," ("We own that word!"), and there's generally a sense of assault on all norms of civilized behavior, coupled with a rueful sense of their disappearance. (The demented structure of their act - which tries to deliver cabaret versions of brain-dead rock and rap, is just the first of their many counter-intuitive gambits.) In the end, this is a go-for-broke wail of pain at the fact that our insane religious manias (not for nothing are Kiki & Herb as old as Christ) combined with the market-driven drivel of our culture are driving us swiftly to ruin. It's the end of the world as we know it - you can tell that from the twisted, plastic tree next to the piano, which is itself sinking into what looks like magma on some kind of blasted heath - and Kiki & Herb hardly feel fine; no, they're just too drunk to care (by the finish, you may need a stiff drink, too). This pair may make you howl with laughter - but they also make you want to howl.

Life with Father

O
tell me all about
Lucia Anna! I want to hear all about Lucia Anna.
Tell me all. Tell me now. You'll die when you hear. Well, you know, when the old chub went futt and did what you know. Yes, I know, go on. Tell me all about Alice and Ada and Fanny and Clara too. Tuck up your sleeves and loosen your talktapes. And o yes Cosima and Eva two no wait forget about THEM!

Okay, okay, you get the idea. If you're like me, that famous pyramidal paragraph was as far as you got in Finnegans Wake before skipping ahead to the ravishing babble of the River Liffey. Those durabelle moments, after all, are what everyone loves about Master Joyce's lasterpiece - a wild attempt to commodiously recirculate all the world's language and myth into an occihystorical knightbook of Death and res-errection (there I go again - I'm beginning to see why that logorriver ran over sex hoondred pages). Of course we've all been trained to bow before Sham and Shaun and Here Cummz Everypun, etc. - but we only adore that pale soft shy slim slip of a thing, Anna Livia Plurabelle.

But who's really behind those lovely, impacted rushes of feminine song? For years we might have assumed Joyce's wife, Nora, but lately post-feminist interpreters have excavated the sad history of Lucia Joyce, the lonely, promiscuous daughter (at bottom right, in a family photo by Berenice Abbott) - whom James himself once described as the inheritor of his genius - and begun edging her out of her long-acknowledged role in Finnegans (as goddess-daughter "Issy") and more to center stage.

Alas, after dabbling in dance and free love - Samuel Beckett was one rumored recipient - Lucia slid slowly into instability (no doubt being dumped by Beckett will do that to you). She was institutionalized at the behest of Joyce's son (after she attacked Nora), and was ministered to by Jung himself - but after her father's untimely death, poor Lucia remained institutionalized (and forgotten) until her own death decades later. But during the construction of Finnegans, Joyce seems to have looked on her decline almost as raw material - which either intrigues or disturbs you, as the case may be - and her ramblings and inspired "portmanteau" words are credited as a major influence on the novel's collective-stream-of-unconsciousness style.

Of course this opens the door to Lucia's canonization in the sisterhood of suppressed muses who may (or may not) have been the true inspiration for various geniuses (move over Fanny Mendelssohn, Alice James, Ada Lovelace, et. al.). Or, on the other hand, Lucia may also be responsible for making so much of Finnegans Wake incompresensible (and thus frighting editors from later mammoths like Gravity's Rainbow and Giles Goat-boy). To me, you should be able to take your pick of these interpretations - but recent ham-handed attempts by the Joyce estate to control (some have said even destroy) Lucia's and Joyce's private papers have turned the situation into a minor cause célèbre, and now the venerable Mabou Mines theatre troupe has developed yet another mournful, multi-media performance, Lucia's Chapters of Coming Forth by Day, to insinuate, but never quite insist, that this abused Anna was the true spring of the River Liffey.


In the end, as you might expect, Lucia's Chapters (which seems to be a revision of an earlier work, Cara Lucia) isn't so much a play as a thesis, and theses tend to make me sleepy. So I'm afraid I drifted during a few stretches of Mabou mainstay's Ruth Maleczech's monologue (don't worry, much of it was repeated - and her occasional screams, coupled with the Charlestown Working Theater's Irish-rectory seating, kept me awake). I admit that Maleczech (at left) was in solid form, however, from her calm opening announcement of her own death (the conceit of the text, by director Sharon Fogarty, is to structure itself á la the Egyptian Book of the Dead, itself an influence on Finnegans) to her final dance - or descent - into the sparkling Liffey. In between, of course, her addled, curious, sexualized-yet-infantile perspective was haunted by the literal shadow of her mad old feary father (Paul Kandel, a physically plausible "Mr. Joyce"), while we were haunted by the incipient shadow of cliché.

The psychosexual mood of Fogarty's script (which I get the impression has been tightened and de-jargonized since its last outing) feels a bit dated in that downtown way (of course, Joyce and Jung do, too), and the whole modernist Beckett-goes-to-the-movies "environment" was likewise predictable. Still, it was elegantly rendered (on a shoestring, no doubt, at CWT), and Julie Archer's projections were lovely and evocative. The evening's best moments, indeed, depended on the overlay of live performance with projected images, be they the snow-laden branches of a Hokusai (oh, don't ask why), glittering ripples in the Liffey, or steadily encroaching columns of text (which Lucia eventually haunted).

Still, whomever one credits for these tableaux (director or designer), visual metaphor alone does not a full performance make, whatever the Mabou Miners think. And Fogarty's text, perhaps out of a subconscious will to always sympathize with Lucia, never dramatizes the harrowing episodes of conflict and misbehavior (on both sides) which might have gripped us. At least for this viewer, murmured hints of repression and Daddy's dark side - which may (or may not) have included actual incest - don't cut it. Without anything in writing, it may be time to close the book on Lucia's Chapters.

Another Critical Darwin Award Nominee!

The field is getting crowded. I may have to narrow my criteria: from now on, quotes must not merely be stupid and pretentious, but must also make me laugh out loud. The latest from Manohla Dargis of the NY Times, however, certainly qualifies:

“Rise of the Silver Surfer” is an existentially and aesthetically unnecessary sequel to the equally irrelevant if depressingly successful “Fantastic Four.”

Did I read that right? The Silver Surfer is existentially unnecessary???? Them's fightin' words!

That was fast . . .

The North Shore Music Theatre has just announced they have found a successor to outgoing Artistic Director Jon Kimbell in director and choreographer Barry Ivan (looking overjoyed at left). From the press release:

“It is with great pleasure and sincere commitment that I accept this position,” said Mr. Ivan. “Under Jon Kimbell’s direction, NSMT has gained an outstanding reputation for artistic achievement, specifically in the areas of developing new works and providing outstanding theater arts and education programs. My overarching goal in moving forward is to work with the Board of Trustees and staff to build on these considerable accomplishments and further develop and implement the artistic vision of North Shore Music Theatre.”

A nationally recognized director and choreographer, Mr. Ivan’s versatile career includes work in New York City theater, television and film. His accomplishments range from directing and choreographing over 20 musicals at NSMT to being a guest director at Yale University; and his international credits include directing and choreographing West Side Story at the German State Opera. A four-time Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE) nominee for Best Director and Best Choreographer, Mr. Ivan’s productions of The Full Monty and Hairspray at NSMT both received IRNE awards for Best Musical.

Highlights from Mr. Ivan’s extensive regional theater career include directing and choreographing Company starring Malcolm Gets and Michelle Pawk; Anything Goes starring Carolee Carmello; and several productions of Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, including a recent production starring Dee Hoty and Tony Award winning actress Beth Leavel. Actively involved in the development of new works, Mr. Ivan staged Tony Award winning composer Maury Yeston’s new musical, In The Beginning, and recently directed Tales of Tinsel Town for The Director’s Company in New York City.

Through the end of the 2007 season, Mr. Ivan will work closely with Jon Kimbell to ensure a smooth transition of the day-to-day Artistic Director and Executive Producer responsibilities. In February, 2008, Mr. Ivan will assume the full-time Artistic Director and Executive Producer role. In addition, Mr. Ivan plans to direct and choreograph at least one musical each season.

History

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming simply to note that history was made today at the State House. And I was there, for what I hope will be the last time, hollering my guts out. Ten years ago, I never would have believed I would someday be a full citizen of this country. And of course I'm still not. But I'm a full citizen of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We're getting there.