Rapture Blister Burn at The Goodman

Took my mom to see Rapture, Blister, Burn at The Goodman this weekend. It was the perfect play to see with one's feminist--yet of a different era-- parent. One thing that struck me before I even entered the theatre was how "womany" this play was. It was billed specifically as a piece by a woman. The promotional materials featured Rose the Riveter. There was even a little extra option at the bottom of the purchase order that explained The Goodman wants to keep making works by women, so would I consider an added donation? It pains me that this is necessary. It shouldn't be exotic to feature women playwrights, but at the same time, the extra push seems to be important. After all, this play was nominated for a Pulitzer, but I had never heard of it until it showed up on my Goodman emails. Look at Tonys last year, Oscars this year--women writers are invisible. It's been said before.

During the play there were times I thought, "No wonder people don't see plays 'for women.' A huge chunk of Act I was literally a feminism class. Sure, there were some quips and personal character views inserted in, but largely, we were all in a lecture class getting the history of women's rights. That said, the characters were interesting, relatable, lovable, intriguing. And at intermission, immediately my mom had a lot to say. Furthermore, the woman next to us chimed in. The three of us talked for the entire break about what was compelling about each view of feminism, the history, our experiences. I think that is the truest mark of an important and interesting play--the audience discusses it at intermission. The most interesting things to arise from our talk: the woman next to us was a dentist and explained all the guys she went to school with were serious dummies, my mom said if she could have stayed at home and just been a housewife, she would have--instead of having a very successful career in education, and I explained that when Catherine explained if people are equal in a relationship they can't both go first I didn't really find that true anymore because couple my age do a great job of compromising jobs, location, etc.

I was pleased by the major and surprising action that kicked off the second act. Things got GOING. For those who don't know, the play is about three graduate school friends meeting up after many years. One went on to have a lucrative career in writing, teaching, talk shows. The other two got married and didn't. The wedded woman didn't even finish her degree. Ron (wedded male) is in a rut romantically and career-wise. The huge HAPPENING was (SPOILER AHEAD) the two women decide to switch lives. They each are so "I wished I had had a family"/"I wish I had a career for myself." So they walk the talk. At first it's fun, but quickly, so quickly, I was very very delighted by the married characters' conclusion. It was not rosy, but they wanted to be together. They had ended up in life as they were because they didn't want challenges. So when Catherine comes in and says, "Here, Ron, I'll support you and help you write a book, Gwen, I'll set you up in my New York apartment, they just run home." Home. A whole other can of worms. Catherine comes home to be with her mother at the outset of the play. She preaches how you can't outsource a home, and yet she tries to by taking someone else's husband and child. In the end, we all want to be home meaning family but for many of us that involves have a certain stability of money meaning a good career too. Hence the whole reason we're still seeing plays about this difficult balance decades after women's rights allegedly happened.

The crux of the play to me was that people will be what they set out to be. Avery has my favorite monologue from the play. She tells about how she ice skated when she was a child and quit. When she sees the Olympics she says, "That could have been me." Not only do we look at the "greener" grass on the other side of the fence, we typically look at a magazine picture of the plot of land. Yes, if we had made different choices along the way, things would be different, but why on earth would we expect to be at the perfect end of different? I like how quickly Gwen and Ron are like, "Nah. We liked using our What Ifs as excused, but we're truly average." They chose to see themselves as losers and poor, when really they had enough money. It's not like Gwen couldn't have worked part-time retail. For goodness sake, they have enough money to get a custom birthday cake made for a toddler.

I do also want to note that at first glance, it seems Catherine was almost perfect. She was successful and tried to "have it all" with Ron, but Ron sucked and wanted to be average. But the next day over a Field's salad at The Walnut Room, my mom and I decided Catherine wasn't really much better than the other two. She didn't want to work for her life to improve either. She tried to gank a guy she dated a million years ago who she knew was lazy and a pothead. She didn't put herself out to the world to find a real true companion. She didn't attempt to find an equal partner who loved and cherished her. She went for a near warm body for comfort. It's really no better than Gwen realizing she has no interest in working for a Masters.

In the end, every one is okay. They have learned, and even if they are not totally happy, they can no longer use outside sources for their unhappiness. They know who they are--which is more than most of us can say and a thrilling resolution to a piece of literature.

My one itsy bitsy complaint is that Avery crumbled so quickly when her boyfriend, whom she was merely exclusively hooking up with, left. She painted herself as some warrior lover and fell back on whining to him on the phone when he strayed. My mom says it proves that women who say they don't care about relationships really do. We're all sensitive. I don't buy it. I think sometimes you do have fun relationships. I think sometimes you don't really care. I understand Avery is ONE twentysomething, but of course I couldn't help but feel she represented us all. And I don't think she did it rightly.

I felt I was corned into seeing the whole story as representative pieces by the text. I was forced to see representation by the constant discussion of theory very literally plotted over the play instead of things just happening and those in the audience who know theory making the connections or not. (Like most plays). But then I wondered...is it possible to be a woman these days and not have a strong understanding of that theory? Yes, of course, but not in middle class college-educated society. It's just not. Everything you do, there are the hanging skulls of Friedan or Butler above you, asking of you, "Are you doing it right?" 

The Qualms at Steppenwolf

Saw Bruce Norris's new play The Qualms at Steppenwolf on Wednesday. Much enjoyed the production while I was watching it. It kept me thoroughly entertained on a philosophical and comedic level. The acting was superb. The design appropriate. (Side: It might be my ignorance to what goes into design that makes me think this, but doesn't it kind of seem "appropriate" the only compliment for design 99% of the time? The 1% is for The Lion King and, like, reboots of Shakespeare done underwater.) Anyway, I was happy to be seated, not at all willing this play about swingers to be over before it had run its 90 minute course. Nor after really. And yet, what I left with was very little.

Norris's most famous work Clybourne Park is still nestled in my ribs when I consider the city of Chicago, gentrification, and the times that are generally a changin'. I left the theatre after Park with new opinions and questions, an open brain, and a lot of respect for the script itself. This summer night it was all too easy to pass the Crate and Barrel with Bisque and spend the entire walk from theatre to red line gabbing about how much we covet the blocky parsons table we pretended to be interested in there when we were really just trying to use the bathroom but then actually fell in love with the dang thing. It wasn't until we were downtown about to make our connection I was like, "Oh yeah, what did you think of the play?"

Here's what I thought of it: P. lazy. Keep in mind, there were parts that were masterful, and who am I to talk, right? I know "everybody's a critic" but everybody's also in the audience, and can't help having opinions.

Some characters were truly charming, yes, but what did it all add up to? I'm a champion for plays that are a lot of talking and not much of getting somewhere, but this was a lot of talking that wasn't particularly new. Maybe that's my bias as a 20something who knows a bunch of polyamourous people/couples. I've thought about it all before. I've asked the questions, shared my qualms (har) and nodded carefully. There was not a single viewpoint brought up in TQ that I hadn't heard at least a few dozen times before.

To be fair, in the program interview, Norris mentions how kind of dumb it is people think of this play as "dirty" when all other art forms have launched so much farther down the contemporary sordid path. Theatre is being left in the dust of what is taboo relevant. So, maybe I'm tapped into other comedy pipes that make this play's themes snoozy for me alone. Everyone around us was 30s and up--mainly 50s/60s. (WHICH leads me to a whole other question: when will my demographic being represented in mainstream theatre? Is it always going to be a waiting game? Actually I am okay with this? Like maybe there SHOULD be an art form where middle-age is the median for writers to offset Twitter?)

More re: lazy.

There could have been such better choices. So much was so petty, which, on one hand is part of the life of rich Californians, but, come on, make me care. A huge hinge of the play is an itty bitty lie. While representative of true life's complications (maybe), it was just so inconsequential. The climax was an outburst of huge ignorance...by the most (up until that point) correct person on stage. I don't buy it. It was too simple. Make a better choice.

There's a lot more I could say. But I will leave with this. In the talkback a woman noted that the play didn't take a bold stance. (See: much talking, not much getting anywhere). On the surface, perhaps. However, the arithmetic of the piece was completely lopsided. A room full of people on one side, one man on the other. That's fine. That's most drama. Except the one man was so terribly small-minded and ugly. So, like, the only person on team monogamy was utterly gross. In writing this I suppose you could argue the literature shows the lilliest-white attitudes can still be hateful--and which is worse? But in playing that game, you still accidentally call anyone who doesn't want to swing stupid. Funny because Norris says he wrote this play in response to being uncomfortable with "the lifestyle." Perhaps in an attempt to provide a fair fight, he fell much too hard on one side. NOT that I think falling too hard on the swinger side is wrong, it's just done, I think, accidentally, and rather clunkily.

Well this was boring, wasn't it? But it's nice and terrifying to know the greatest Pulitzer winners add lame mugging-gags and half-baked beginnings of dramatic choices to their new work with dynamite resources. Writing is hard, you know.

Binders of Tony Women

Obligatory blog post about the lack of female representation at the 2014 Tonys. I didn't watch The Tonys, mainly because I don't have TV and secondly because I didn't hear about literally anything that even piqued my interest on Broadway this year. So I just read the results the next morning. Of course the lack of women was obvious. Like, where the woman at? Especially playwrights. Especially because the Pulitzers were female playwright bonanza.

A positive outcome from the whole kerfuffel is how many people are cognizant of the inequality. Jason Robert Brown publicly dissed Broadway, the internet exploded etc. etc. But I'm just so tired of women being counted all the time. One one hand, apparently we have to keep doing it. Because there aren't women in things women need to be in. You know, little things like Congress and national artistic awards. But, like, EVERY TIME  thing of importance happens I feel like these really imporant (and rare) ladies are just numbers. (Only one woman in this category, only one previous winner in this category, this many seats in the House, and so on). So, like, yeah, since it;s ridiculous, we need to keep reminding people women are supes underrepresented. But on the other hand what kind of solution does that really inspire? Vote for for women based on the fact we're missing women? I'm annoyed there aren't many women on Broadway, but what can I do about that? Producers can certainly from now on feel they must at LEAST nominate a woman in each category every year, but then it's sort of a pity game instead of a talent game. Or at least it can feel that way.

What are the actual answers to these unfair numbers? I can't accept the answer is simply repeating the numbers over and over and pretending that's part of a solution or even the most useful data. Everyone laughed forever at Mitt Romney's "binder full of women" slip-up, but actually what he was even saying was highly idiotic. (Not trying to rip on Romney here, the most progressive people do this stuff.) Someone questioned his gender equality, so his first attempted answer is "All is good, a employ so many women." AKA Look at these numbers! I'm fulfilling the numbers!

I don't know how many college ads are based on the concept, "You're not a number here at Blerg Blagh University. You're a name/student/person/Chia Pet!" And yet, all of humanity cannot stop treating women as numbers alone. I am not a number!