The Weekend Special

Pieces are given up to three Ellises (for fiction), McClellands (for essays), or Whitakers (for random picks). As with restaurant stars, even one Ellis, McClelland, or Whitaker indicates a generally positive review.

⏰ Fiction

“Rate Your Happiness” by Catherine Lacey. One Ellis. pain, pasta, passing out. Definitely succeeds in capturing the depressive, dissociated, ambiently furious vibe of its central character, who finds “clarity” by the end without resolving anything. It’s a bit of a grab-bag of elements, and the child characters didn’t work at all for me; their differentiation felt too much like a device, their existence in the story justified solely by the effect they had on the speaker. In other words, they weren’t allowed to be actual characters. The material with Bruce and the father worked better, and the idea of coincidence, along other instances of subtle “messiness” and rule-breaking, suggests that the narrative is the skeptic author’s approach to writing about a higher power. Some sneakily potent philosophy about the impossibility of self-definition here, deliberately buried beneath lots of fiddly plot happenings. But don’t expect fun!

⏰ Weekend Essay

“My Unrequited Love Story with J.F.K., Jr.” by Jeffrey Eugenides. No McClellands. fatherless, faultless, fathomless. Did you know he was charming? Because that’s all you’re going to find out. Just sort of a blog post, with a smattering of justification of fealty to elites. The connection between Eugenides’ father’s death and JFK Jr’s is a tragedy (I would say a tragic ‘coincidence’ but possibly that flight school was just really bad?) but not quite a story. And this is all old news; Eugenides hasn’t even seen the TV show that provides the ostensible relevance to the present moment! I don’t know why we’re meant to care. There’s also just a weird imbalance between the comically heightened descriptions of the man and the utter mundanity of anecdote on display (excepting the final anecdote, which is rendered distastefully lurid). It’s definitely weird writing, which is almost, but not quite, reason enough to recommend it.

⏰ Random Pick

“Diversity” (Books) by Robert M. Coates. (September 10, 1932). Three Whitakers. arabesque, artistically, are. What a great gag: A review of Time Regained that just tells you to read the rest of Lost Time first! Followed by a reminder that book censorship extended to the canon (Lady Chatterly’s Lover, Ulysses) not so long ago; and then by two delightful reviews of now-faded-from-history novels. There is only one long line strict opinion about either, but those lines are good enough to sum things up: “Miss Undset relates this narrative of uncertainty and self-questioning with such art and with so sure an understanding, and she so enfolds it — may I say? — in the sombre tranquillity of those Northern landscapes where the action takes place, as to make it one of the most moving and convincing novels I have read in some time.” (a Perfect Sentence contender, and a reminder that the style guide around here has never been tranquill.) Here’s the other, just as good: “Nevertheless, such suckers are we all for just such sentimental nonsense, especially when it’s related, as it were, out of the side of the mouth, in the hardboiled manner—and also, it must be added, so great is Mr. Burnett’s gift for vivid description, and so thorough his understanding of his characters—that one ends by quite believing the impossible story.” And after blurbing some other notable books, Coates cuts things off with “I think that’s about all” – given its own paragraph, no less.

⏰ Something Extra

Oh man, I saw a whole bunch more stuff! The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee revival at New World Stages is perhaps the least ambitious show ever to reduce me to a blubbering mess. There are no pyrotechnics whatsoever, the book has received a fairly cursory (though certainly successful) edit, the image on the don’t-call-it-a-Playbill is low resolution; it’s a real “regional theater in New York City” experience, but you know what? The show works exquisitely, with Jasmine Amy Rogers providing a superlative, canonical rendition of Olive, and everyone else doing their jobs as needed. I cried a lot; I still have the songs stuck in my head; it gave me that great-musical jolt – it really works.

In a tiny space on a residential block in Bushwick/Ridgewood, I caught Moonshiner right before it closed (sorry!) and was fairly blown away. The script is a sort of Zoomer riff on an Ed Albee show; a toxic friendship curling in the LA rooftop sun. The mix of realistic dialogue and poetry is well-calibrated, even if some of the poetry is iffy. This is really an acting showcase, though, and all four performers did intense, nuanced work, managing to calibrate characters who are, in fact, performing as they interact with one another, so that all these layers of affect and artifice were visible to us without being overindicated. Raina Soman, in particular, gave what will surely end up being one of my favorite performances of the year, as the striver who forms half the central duo, her upspeak and twitchy self-consciousness masking deeper needs. Her ability to convey the character’s sense of worthlessness and desperation for affirmation through a mask of standoffish levity is fairly astonishing. Keep an eye out for Soman.

Tristan und Isolde at the Met Opera was, undeniably, five straight hours of superb craft. But I just didn’t care. None of the themes resonated for me emotionally at all, and five hours is a very, very long time to exist in continuous disembodied aesthetic admiration, so while I was not bored exactly, I did feel reality breaking down around me. Glad I saw it anyway.

Tru was almost exactly what I expected, but the fourth-wall-breaking was a real treat, foregrounding the careless upper-east-side wealth of the audience in ways that felt genuinely Capote-esque. Jesse Tyler Ferguson is surprisingly bad at doing That Voice, ending up somewhere around Paul Lynde, but because he nails the physical embodiment, one can go along with things.

Bughouse, the other queer-elder-in-a-room-monologuing-at-you show, was considerably less successful; there was way too much Darger-on-Darger and way too little Darger-on-Realms of the Unreal. The projections varied from horrid (deepfake faces, ugly fake rainfall) to very strong (solid animation; really almost everything that broke out of the flatscreen-TV-esque “windows” was convincing, and the show ought to have abandoned the windows and just kept those moments of transformation.)

The less said about the stunningly low-energy The Adding Machine, a show with no perceptible raison d’être, the better. The legend Jennifer Tilly alone acquits herself, singlehandedly keeping me awake.

OK, at last: My Lortel picks! (Click that link and follow along with the nominations.)

Best play: saw all but Kyoto, and all were excellent, but my favorite by some measure is Prince Faggot.

Best musical: didn’t love any of the three I saw; I suspect Mexodus will win, which won’t upset me, but I’d choose Night Side Songs.

Best revival: Only caught Weir and Playground Injuries; preferred the latter.

Best solo: saw Greenspan and Haddad. I’ll take the former over most anything.

Director: it’s Chowdhury for me, but happy to see Oliphant here for Practice, which would be a close second, and really ought to also be up for more. (Saw all but Kyoto.)

Choreography: The Monsters deserves this so hard. Saw that and Mexodus.

Lead performer Play: I’m a Kara Young stan and she was just great in Playground, and would be my pick on the merits, though also, I mean… she won last year, she has two Tonys, she really doesn’t need it. Both Monsters were excellent; Galvin was bad in the first act but great in the second; but I suspect this may go to Ireland or Perkins, for shows I missed. (Still hoping to snatch a ticket in my price range to Antigone in its last few days.)

Featured performance play: Greenspan also has enough furniture, but he’s my pick here too. Felicia Curry was an absolute dervish in Bowl and is a really close second. All these performances are superb (missed only Kyoto) and this’ll be a fun category to watch.

Lead performance musical: of the two Mexodusians, I preferred Quijada. Miles did what she could; Bengson… is also nominated in this category. Missed the others.

Featured performance musical: Kuhn was, indeed, the best part of Baker’s Wife. Natalie Walker is wonderful, and if Bimbo was only the third best Walker performance I saw this year, that’s not exactly a bad thing. Only caught those two, so can’t render judgement; also seeing Heathers on Thursday.

Ensemble: Initiative earned this; the cast brought so much nuance that it was shocking when the script revealed, three hours on, that it didn’t actually have any. Spelling Bee, as discussed, is magical and would also deserve a win; the degree of difficulty is just a lot lower. Ensemble and individual-performer shows can’t overlap, but I’d rather have seen a few individuals picked from Bee and an ensemble nomination for Practice.

Scenic Design: Saw all five. The Bowl EP set was so critical to that show; that’d be my pick.

Costumes: saw Seat and Prince; would pick Prince, only sort of by default.

Lighting: The Prince F lights rocked.

Sound: Mexodus, and it isn’t close.

Projection design: I’d pick Mexodus for not overdoing things. Bughouse and Joy were mixed bags; some lovely work and some very distracting or just ugly aspects.

Sunday Song:

I listened to Getting Killed again the other day and it really is just so good.