Obama’s Evita Moment

Last week, I was asked my opinion of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address by co-workers, friends and family.  While I found the speech to be populist fluff, I couldn’t articulate why I felt this way until I read this quote by Tony-award winning director Harold Prince on politics and theater, “I find Evita herself to be absolutely relevant to contemporary politics, where glamour can mask bad deeds.  I wanted the audience to examine what they worship.”  In those 25 words I found my rebuttal to what I am calling Obama’s Evita moment.

While Prince’s comments were used to defend Evita’s subject matter, my comments are geared towards the substance of the speech.  I’m not attacking Obama for his policies, rather his lack thereof.  Mandated by Article II, Section III of the US Constitution, the State of the Union is significant, because it is the one night where civics, and not cynicism, has the ability to rally the country. 

This year’s speech was seen by more than 37 million viewers.  What they saw was a president, who just four short years ago advocated a different politics, using the pageantry of the moment to provide a false confidence on our economic “recovery.”  Additionally, they saw a president whose rhetoric championed his electoral base, more than the American citizen.

If you think I’m taking cheap shots, I’ll remind you that 3 days after the speech America’s GDP rate was announced at 2.8% for the 4th quarter of 2011.  This is a pathetically weak number, which shows the economy, stumbling, not strutting to recovery.  Couple that with a 8.5% unemployment rate and a $15 trillion national debt, and I doubt most Americans could fully declare, “Morning in America again,” as one Democratic friend did following the speech.

Before Obama’s supporters rebut my opinion, I ask that they go back and re-read the president’s 2008 victory speech from Grant Park, and his first inaugural.  Was this the “change” he championed, and that you hoped for?  Is populism, rather than policy, the correct track for America in the 21^st century?  And this brings us back to Evita!

The iconic scene in the show is the Act II megahit, “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.”  While Evita’s supporters are chanting to hear her dreams for Argentina, she instead uses the moment to defend controversial actions and ask for their continued support.  Sound familiar?  All of this is going on while Argentina, once a model for success in Latin America, heads towards bankruptcy and domestic strife.

In writing the show and defining it as cautionary tale, Evita’s lyricist Tim Rice said, “No country today can claim with confidence that ‘it can’t happen here.’” All I ask of my Democratic friends is to read the speech text, and look for specifics.  Then seriously ask yourself, “Have we chosen glamour over substance in the qualities we demand from a leader?”  As the character of Che says in Evita’s opening number, “Oh what a circus, oh what a show!”

For more information on Evita, or to buy tickets for the upcoming Broadway Revival, please visit: http://evitaonbroadway.com/

How Electroshock Therapy Reaffirmed my Faith in the American Musical

I’ve witnessed exhilarating moments onstage but perhaps none were more exciting than seeing a character receive electroshock therapy in the musical Next to Normal. For the first time in more than two decades of theatergoing, I saw a show which dared to challenge an audience and not be afraid of their response. If art is society’s conscience, than Next to Normal was a reminder about why great theater can be more than just the hum-able show tune.

By now the mere mention of electroshock therapy should confirm that Next to Normal is not your convention musical. The show is about a father, his teenage daughter and how they both struggle to deal with their bipolar wife/mother. While such a topic would be considered taboo for the tourist-friendly sidewalks of Broadway, Next to Normal is not a downer. The beauty of the show is that it tells an age old story. A family suffers a tragedy. Together they grieve, struggle, learn, accept and move forward.

Next to Normal’s poignancy is that it is performed in a nation where 1/5 Americans is on an anti-depressant/anxiety medication. In an over stimulated country dominated by 24/7 connectivity and vente-grande-double shot-super-mocha-skim-Starbuck’s lattes, the show compels us to think about the cultural and personal affects these drugs are having on our lives. Think about how many people you know who see a mental health professional, are on anti-anxiety meds, or both. How have they changed, and how has your relationship with them changed?

A mother(Diana played by Alice Ripley) and daughter (played by Jennifer Damiano) come to terms with the illness that has dominated their lives.

A few weeks ago I overheard a conversation where two people compared the total number of psychologists they have both seen. It was surreal, and knowing both people, made me wonder whether they really needed to see someone. While I don’t diminish the fact that some people actually need help, it made me pause. Have we as Americans surrendered our natural ability to cope and feel to chemically altered pharmaceuticals and the mental health profession?

I’ll concede the topic of mental health treatment in many societal circles still remains a taboo. The show’s author must be congratulated for raising questions that needed asking. Above it all, Next to Normal doesn’t editorialize its’ message. Rather, it tells a realistic story and reaffirms the human soul’s ability to overcome life’s challenges. Its message is never lost and the evening leaves the audience thinking as they applaud the curtain call. An even greater complement is that all this is done by combining a well-written book, richly illustrative lyrics and a fantastic rock score.

I know, seeing a show in which the main character suffers from bipolar disorder and depression does not sound like a fun night at the theater. But that’s where you’re wrong. Think about the last time you saw a show and couldn’t guess the ending at intermission. Or think about that the last time a song’s lyrics created such an image in your head that without even thinking about it, you cried. As with all mental illness, there is no happy ending, however as the closing song “Light” says, “And you find some way to survive. And you find out you don’t have to be happy at all, to be happy you’re alive.”

Great art, great musicals challenge us. Don’t think so? Remember it was Rodgers and Hammerstein South Pacific who reminded us that hatred and racism are taught, and not naturally born qualities. Also, remember this was first being sung right as President Truman was desegregating the military. It is this wonderful spirit in which Next to Normal has finally catapulted the American musical into the 21st century and why this show is positively electric!

For more information on Next to Normal please visit: http://www.nexttonormal.com/

The Follies of My Ghost

Every week I walk past the White House.  It’s not on purpose, just usually en route to some event.  However, every time I walk by, I’m poised to stop and think.  I worked at the White House for the final 18 months of the Bush administration.  It was, and remains, my dream job. Yet, whenever I stop to look I swear I can almost see the ghost of a junior staffer from Pittsburgh, coasting through the halls in his Macy’s suit, Van Heusen shirt, and black DKNY tie, wide-eyed with wonder and amazement.

Our memories of the past are ever present and in a slightly cynical way dictate our future.  Perhaps there is no greater illustration of this than in the Kennedy Center’s hauntingly beautiful, Broadway bound, revival of the Stephen Sondheim and James Goldman musical Follies.  The show is both an homage to a long gone era in American theater and a cautionary tale about the effects of not making peace with one’s past.

Follies is about a group of Ziegfeld-esq showgirls who reunite at their old theater on the eve of its demolition.  It focuses on two former follies girls, Sally and Phyllis, their husbands, Buddy and Ben, and each couple’s crumbling marriage.  At the reunion they are joined by former costars, old stagehands and ghosts symbolizing the memories of their youth.  For many characters, their return to the theater is an attempt to rectify, relive or revisit the past.

What makes this production of Follies so powerful is the overwhelming reminder that ghosts, or the memories of our past, are ever present.  From the first note of Sondheim’s epic overture, the ghosts, dressed in the costumes of yester-year, aimlessly wonder the stage.  In the Act I showstopper, “Who’s that Woman?” the women reenact an old follies number.  As they dance, their every move is mimicked, literally, as if in a mirror, by the ghosts of themselves from 30 years ago.  The scene is an unbelievable expression of just how deep each character’s memory is embodied in their soul.

Ben(Ron Raines) and Sally(Bernadette Peters) dancing with the memory of lost love. Remembering an affair 30 years in the past.

In the second act, the two couples confront their ghosts and are almost startled when they fail to receive a response.  It serves as another reminder that memories, however alive in our minds, are just that, only alive in our minds. The emotional toll memory can take on one’s self, is underscored in the character of Sally, wonderfully portrayed by Bernadette Peters.  Sally attends the reunion hoping to find happiness by rekindling an old love affair.  Her second act solo, “Losing My Mind”, sears the audience’s soul in watching Sally’s attempt to bring herself closure to an event that occurred in the past.

Follies is a tough show to stage for numerous reasons and any revival becomes a major theatrical “Event.”  The show often sells out in advance, and fans of the show will follow it anywhere.  The irony of it all is that for a show about memory, many critics, and fans alike, say that no production will ever top the grandeur of the glorious 1971 original Broadway company.  It’s an unthinkable statement considering how Follies is about moving beyond the past.

What makes Follies compelling is its honesty in showing how crippling the past can be in our attempt to live in the present.  Everyone is guilty of living in the past.  We lament over lost lovers, ambitions, dreams, and hopes, and that is the common link shared between the characters on-stage and the audience.   It is also that connection which makes live theater so powerful, and allows Follies to take its place in the pantheon of great American dramatic works.  The Kennedy Center should be commended not only for producing a fantastic revival of a Sondheim classic, but for also not get bogged down in trying to replicate previous productions of Follies.

Watching Follies I empathized with the characters who view the reunion as one last chance to relive their dream.  Anyone who has ever lost their dream, understands the feeling of pain associated with it.  Walking past the White House, there was time when I was bitter that my dream only last 18 short months.  Every time I walked by the White House, I was haunted by that ghost.

However, the great lesson of Follies is not about loss, but of survival.  One of  Follies signature anthems, “I’m Still Here,” embodies this message.  It’s sung by the character of Carlotta, portrayed in the Kennedy Center’s revival by Elaine Paige.  Carlotta is a movie star who has bounced from theater, radio, burlesque, film and television.  All while having been poor, rich, in love and out of love.  And yet, she doesn’t resent anything or anyone.  For her, life is about surviving and living to dream another day.

I’d like to think that out of all the characters in Follies I’m the most like Carlotta: a survivor, someone who will continue to both dream and accomplish.  Our memories, our ghosts, will be ever present and assert their presence at certain moments in life.  Whether it’s at a reunion of follies girls or walking by the White House, the ghost of that junior staffer will always be apart of me.