The Seafarer

The theater season is back with the start of the spring. The seafarer is a story about Sharky, an Irish chauffeur who now lives with his alcoholic blind brother and the scene is set on Christmas eve.  The story starts off very slowly with an excessively long dialogue between the brothers and their neighbor. It seemed that the dialogue had no greater purpose other than revealing the characters of the people and they would have done well to cut it into half. I was so bored that  I was ready to leave midway during the play. However, things suddenly pick up when Richard's friend turns up at their house along with a mysterious Lockhart for a card game, who reminds Sharky about a night 25 years ago.

As the story unfolds, it is revealed that Sharky was arrested 25 years ago, and won his freedom by winning a card game in prison with Lockhart. Lockhart had a different form and face then, for he (it can be surmised) was just Satan in disguise.While Sharky won his freedom, it was on the condition that he would have to give his soul to Lockhart  if he lost in any future game. Sharky was forced to play this card game to save his soul.

The drama was quite exciting overall, and had a great classic ending with a hint of surprise, however the downfall of the play was the dialogues. It was too long winded in parts, and were sometimes redundant. On a personal note, I found it a little distasteful that all the characters were drunk and unclean and swearing all day even though it was the morning of Christmas eve.However, I happened to watch the play with my friend who is part Irish and she told me after the play that it was very reminiscent of her part family who were always so rugged and drunk albeit being good people at heart. So, I am forced to concede that was authenticity on the playwright's part, no matter how distasteful. She also noted that Lockhart did not have a convincing Irish accent at all. I however thought that he was a good actor.

Overall, it was worth watching once, but it should have been better executed.

Spoiler Alert:

 I am a sucker for happy endings, and it always makes me feel good to know that life throws second and third chances at you. I'd rather witness an unbelievable happy ending than see a repentant man give his soul to the devil.

Where Dreams are Born

“I’ll teach you how to jump on the wind’s back- and if there are more winds than one they toss you about in the sky- they fling you miles and miles- but you always fall soft into another wind- and sometimes you go crashing through the tops of trees, and scaring the owls, and if you meet a boy’s kite in the air you shove your foot through it.

The stars are giving a party tonight. Oh Wendy, when you are sleeping in your silly bed you might be flying about with me…”

“Oh, please teach us to fly!!!”

“You just think happy thoughts, and they lift you in the air”

            It was a play clearly meant for children, for it is they who believe…that anything and everything is possible, they who believe that “dreams do come true, if only we wish hard enough”. Growing up is the reality of life, where one loses faith and trust in magic and guardian fairies, where we are so armed with certainty, and yet feel only lost in life’s infinite maze? We are caught in a prison within our own minds, believing we have lost the ability to believe. And that I believe was really the message J.M. Barrie was trying to leave beneath all the fantasies and magic in the air.

Yes, the set really looked like this

Peter Pan is a well known story, however the story has seldom been told as per Barrie’s most original script where the idea of an obstinately young boy and Neverland was born. More than 50 prose versions and several film versions have all brought different meanings to Peter Pan, and the concept behind the boy who never grew up. However, this play I watched was straight from Barrie’s diary and his original notes and dialogues. This play had a narrator who walks amidst frozen scenes and talks about the bigger picture behind the action and the complexities of thoughts lurking inside the characters. The idea behind the narrator evolved from the necessity to include Barrie’s notes in the margins of his work.

            The sets and costumes were outstanding…simple, elegant and outrageous. Every actor right from the most insignificant pirate to the silliest “lost boy”, every “animal” from Nana the dog(nanny) to Starky, the crocodile were perfectly adorable. I could find no complaints there. I loved the part when there was a kid flying 5 feet over my head and the clouds were all around me.(This was due to the fact that I had scooted into an empty gold circle seat once the play had started)The most praise-worthy aspect of the play however was the script. The dialogues were heartfelt, cute, thought provoking, and above all very witty. I have always been a fan of harmless sarcastic humor, and this play had plenty of it. Some wit I only understood a few seconds too late, but appreciated them more for that very reason. I wished I could have recorded the dialogues alone just to hear some of them again. Well, but I do not think I would do so, even if I could.

            My one complaint against this play was that it was too long. Neverland even with all its pirates, mermaids, lost boys, and Starky was getting a bit too much to humor as we were getting close to the two and a half hour mark. But, it might also be due to the fact that I had lost the ability to believe. I was one of the few who un-sportingly did not clap when Peter cries to the “people out there” to clap if they believed in fairies, for only then would the life of tinker, his fairy be revived. It mattered not…the spirit was felt.

“ I am youth, I’m joy, I’m a little bird that has broken out of the egg”

A be-heading from Spokane

                Finally a mediocre Broadway play with raving reviews…to say that “A Behanding in Spokane” fell short of the mark is an understatement. Why did the newspapers think it was hysterically funny? Did they take any special precautions to avoid a headache?

The play is unmistakably American. I mean this in context of the presiding language. The cast consisted of a behanded racist lunatic, a dim witted hotel receptionist and a petty thieving “black” guy- “white” girl couple.

The plot was not un-promising. The lead character whose left hand (below the wrist) was brutally cut by a bunch of hooligans when he was a kid 27 years before, and since then he has been on a mission to retrieve it. His offer of $500 to the person who brings him back his hand is seen by the couple as a quick way to make an easy buck. They steal a displayed hand from a local museum and try to pass it off as his. But since the stolen hand was that of an Aborigine, the scheme needless to say fails miserably. However, they did not count on the behanded man being a deranged maniac who would see this as a personal insult and have his heart set on killing them. The plot unfolds as he imprisons them in a hotel room and tries to kill them at the hotel, which is manned by the extremely dim-witted man (read unbelievably stupid and hence extremely annoying to a person of ordinary intelligence).

I give the play credit for occasional moments of mirth and its short duration. It lasted a little over 90 minutes, and I was very glad when it was over. The actors had gotten on my nerves by being extremely loud and overly enunciating every dialogue. Harder to forgive or comprehend was the extreme usage of swear words thrice every sentence (M—F--), even with the extreme situation of stress the young couple was under.

And that made me think as I walked out...If this is what humor has descended to, God save all those holding a smile on their faces.

The Mousetrap

Another play, another experience. Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap” was all it promised to be. First produced in 1952, The Mousetrap is today known to be the longest running play in the history of theater. I shall be presumptuous enough to say “English play”, for undoubtedly “Ram-Lilas” and “Hari-Kathas” have been enacted for centuries in India.

The play is set in a fairly typical Christie plot. A snowed-in guest house with no entry/exit route, a possibility of a murder (or two murders), the idea that anyone in the house could be the murderer or the victim... While a seasoned Christie reader(like me ;)) may have a fair chance of guessing the ending, the play did still manage to captivate the audience till the very end.

The drama and suspense with rightly worded and rightly spaced out humor is praiseworthy. The lighting direction is subtle and flawless. It manages to draw one’s attention to a particular character’s expressions and actions just as the author had intended. The actors themselves are annoying, funny, suspicious and unpleasant to the best of their abilities. It was definitely refreshing to see Sherlock Holmes, a butler, a professor and an air hostess (from previous plays) enacting very different roles to equal perfection. The original in 1952 had Richard Attenborough cast in the lead role of sergeant Trotter. Trotter does an amazing job of making it plausible how any one the guests or the owners themselves could be the murderers and seeds suspicion among a couple of each other’s guilt.

The background score is not as ghastly as in some horror movies. Although the music is not very memorable in character, it does effect the right amount of spookiness. As far as the sets and costumes go, I am now resigned to the fact that good plays do not need fancy sets or costumes like the Broadway musicals.

Following the 60 year old tradition, at the end of the play, an announcer comes out and requests the audience to not reveal the ending to friends and future audiences. On the same note, you would enjoy the play better if you have not read the book already.

Boeing Boeing

The story was cliché. The set comprised of 2 couches, a bean bag, a desk and chair, a flower vase and a table , three hanging lights and four doors that supposedly led to different rooms in the house- it was the same scene throughout the 2.5 hours- no curtains, no lighting changes. (Well, the color of the flowers changed often). There were no costume changes for 5 out of the 6 actors. So was there anything special about it? Or any reason why the audience as one would proclaim the play as the best comedy of the season and give the crew a long standing ovation?

I loved the play, I laughed non- stop along with the rest of the crowd but it really takes some introspection to figure out what were the ingredients of it’s success really. It was unlike all other ones I had loved so far! It was the script, acting and dialogue delivery all throughout and really the only components the play ever had.

Boeing Boeing is a story about Bernard, an American settled in Paris who has his blissful life all figured out. He claims he has all the joys of marriage without the fading of excitement or the stress of being hen pecked after the exchange of vows. He is simultaneously engaged to three very beautiful and different air hostesses- a chirpy American, an Italian in nationality and in spirit and a very passionate German. The key to his success is in the pages of his book of flight schedules and the women are picked so that they are never in Paris together and quite on different points of the globe.

Act one begins with the American about to leave for her flight after breakfast when Bernard’s semi-bald, nervous single friend, Robert arrives from Wisconsin. Bernard explains how his life works and is very complacent that nothing can go wrong and has a neatly worked out strategy for every unpleasant circumstance that Robert suggested may occur.

The story follows predictable lines...before the end of the night all three women are in the house at the same time, still miraculously out of each other’s sight with different doors opening and closing with clockwork precision. (This is a wonderful thing about plays- there is no room for error). This also keeps the suspense up along with the laughter with the viewer wondering exactly when the anticipated climax was going to occur.

The American is the first to depart with the arrival of a letter. She bids a sad farewell to Bernard that another one of her fiancés settled in the US has earned his target of 1 million dollars and she was going to be married to him. She declares amidst roars of laughter (from the audience) that she has had three fiancés all this time, and why America is such a great country!

The German meanwhile declares her new found love for Robert and guiltily confesses that to Bernard. Before he can feign anger, the baton passes to the Italian who walks into the room and behold the vivid scene. Everything ends well without the Italian being told exactly how long he’d known the German and making it seem to the German that he’d just been engaged to the Italian as well.

It was Bernard’s butler, Berthe who holds the show together with her perpetual complaining of the happenings in the house and her self-adulation of her optimism.

The play was originally written by a French man and directed by an English in 1960s. since thn it has undergone a number of director and actor changes, but this version has apparently been the most successful one yet. Kudos to the crew! Keep the theaters alive!

The 39 Steps and the Imagination of One Man

How interesting would you imagine a play with a cast of four to be, if you have never seen one? How tiring would you imagine it to be if you knew that 3 of the four actors were going to play the other 30 characters the script demands? From my experience, watching movies with even great actors in more than 4/5 roles gets a little too tiring, even if I can acknowledge the great display of screen talent. If your imagination is also shaping like mine, I can understand why the reviewers of the play skip these details in their report, and give the director a chance.

I read the book – 39 Steps by John Buchan last week leaving out the last 30 pages to retain the suspense. After all, what good is watching a murder mystery and thriller if you know how it is going to end? But, the book did me no good at all. While it was an interesting read, my qualm about how it would look on stage was put to rest by a genius. Alfred Hitchcock was revealed in a whole new light to me, for it needed an imagination of a genius to do what he did.

The plot of the Tony award winning play revolves around a man Richard Hannay who is chased out of London and all around Scotland by the Scotland Yard who believe him to be a murderer (A beautiful woman was murdered in his apartment) and a group of spies who believe that he is privy to their elaborate plan to betray the country and could consequently sabotage their mission (the beautiful woman gave the secret away before she was murdered). Ok, so does it sound like a regular run of the mill thriller? Well, think again and let your imagination run astray. This was as much a suspense thriller as an out and out comedy, however the comedy had nothing to do with the plot..just the way the plot was enacted. Alfred Hitchcock beautifully adapted the book when he introduced his own characters and new twists in the story when he made his 1935 classic. Patrick Barlow brilliantly adapted the film in to a stage play.

While it is very interesting to note the different accents, costumes and demeanor of early 20th century men and women in Scotland belonging to a wide range of social classes, (a milkman, a newspaper man, a theater artist, a policeman, a farmer, a politician, a professor, a thug, an aristocrat, a cheap hotelier, the list goes on…) what is really noteworthy is the performances of the three actors who were not Richard Hannay. While he played his role to perfection, he only had to live one character. The woman, and the two thugs/ policemen/ secret keepers were simply mind-blowing! They left nothing to be desired in their portrayal of any character. It was almost as if they had Multiple Personality Disorders. How they switched back and forth in to the souls of such varied dispositions with amazing fluidity! If I wore a hat, I would take it off! The audience gave them their due…we laughed and applauded at all the right places and marked the extent of our appreciation by giving them twice the standing ovation.

Absolutely everything was funny…the beautiful woman with a knife sticking out her back, the hero being chased inside a train, on it’s roof, his capture in a car and his escapade on a motorbike and over streams and waterfalls, the way the play began and ended inside a theater... To bring this kind of imagery on a stage without the illusions of a graphic program, and all with the use of the simplest of props consisting of two trunks, one door, one window frame and one sofa is a wholly different art. I, for one, am glad that this art has not yet died albeit the grossly high numbers of people who do not particularly enjoy sitting 25 feet from an actor and watch him actually bring cellulose to life.

Ride through Wonderland

Chim chim cher-ee, non stop applause and periodic foot tapping...I cant believe that my only motivation to go to this extravaganza was the memory of my first Broadway show, Lion King. I was sitting tired after an 8 hour exam and a 24 hour empty stomach tossing my mind between sleeping and watching Mary Poppins, when I suddenly knew that if I did not go that day, I wasn't going to go at all.

Toe tapping music, catchy dances, beautiful sets, playful lights, lovely costumes , heart warming dialogue delivery, cute kids..I could go on... The show would have been very endearing for any single element, for each was done to impeccable perfection but the culmination of all these perfect renderings in every scene made it an absolutely stupendous and unforgettable experience.

Bert was easily my favourite character. His familiarity with both reality and the impossible...his closeness to Mary and his approach to life beneath all his act was something beautiful and thought provoking. Mary of course had the best dialogues to deliver..some hilarious, some serious and some reminiscent of grandma's tales. One scene where she sets the audience roaring was when she measures each kid with a tape and gives his/her character verdict. When one kid asks for Mary's measure, she breaks into this song of how "I am practically perfect, from head to toe". Mary tells the kids how anything can to happen to us if we let it happen. All we should do is not question the possibility. I thought it was a beautiful thing to say to kids and encourage them to expand their imaginations. I was reminded of how old the Mary Poppins's story was when she tells the kids to be careful about what they wish for. My grandmother used to tell me the same thing adding that there are spirits in the air making rounds and if you happen to make a wish when they are around, they get granted!
And yes, the audieince never failed to appreciate it each time she flew in and out of the stage.

The continuity and the complicacy of the sets made me wonder how this could be happening live without even a single curtain drop. Although it was obvious to the mind that Mary was held by a rope, the fairy tale effect was inevitable when she flew in and out of the stage with wind and lightning and kites. I was even toying with the idea of a hologram (after all the show was produced by Disney) until she actually flew(glided rather) into the audience waving at the end and alighted among the stands. Much more mouth opening was Bert's dance on the walls and the roof, never skipping a beat even when dancing upside down! I had to keep reminding myself that this was part of no elaborate video manipulation scheme. Some sets were so surreal that I forced myself to look away from the actors and focus on the background to discover why. On one particular background I noted that although the background itself was only painted, the clouds alone appeared to be gently moving! It made me want to stand and clap.

What good is discussing a musical without discussing the songs?! Like everyone else, my favourites were Jolly Holiday, Never Need a Reason and of course Supercalifragilisticexpiadilocious! I loved "Jolly Holiday" for the imaginative sets and the beautiful colors. I haven't tapped my feet as much as I did for "Never Need a Reason" in any recent memory. "Supercali..." was enjoyable purely for its outrageousness :). The play of lights in each of the songs is definitely worth mentioning. I can never forget how the angle of the lights kept changing in perfect synchrony with the music during "Never Need a Reason" such that not only were two dozen actors dancing but their shadows were dancing separately as well! Just two days before I watched the musical I was thinking to myself how sometimes no words in any language I know are adequate to express some emotions in full. I was delighted in the least to hear Mary give the same excuse to make up a word like supercalifragilisticexpiadilocious rather than browse through one lexicon after the other!

For all these reasons and even more intangible ones this show was a truly magical experience. I think that what made it truly magical was not just the world of fantasy it was set in but the underlying heart warming story. It reminded me of whats really important in life and the values we seem to have forgotten in this fast paced money oriented world we have built for ourselves.
To sum up...Mary Poppins was supercalifragilisticexpiadilocious!!!

Update - April 15, 2012:
Watched it again at the Bass Concert Hall in Austin with two friends...loved it ! Again! :)