change has come

On November 5, 2008, the NY Times used 96-point font across the front page, declaring one simple word: "OBAMA". The paper has used the large font size only three times before - for Nixon's resignation, for the first man on the moon, and for the attacks on September 11th.

I have been finding it very challenging to just wrap my head around this moment. It's inspiring, daunting, and surreal to even try to take in the ramifications of this historic time. The simple headline decision by the Times reflects the weight this will have in the history books - this is a true landmark moment in our country's history.

Oprah had a good show yesterday, interviewing prominent political and media figures and getting their take on this new America we live in. Gloria Steinem said that in the 60's, so many people felt that true democracy was so close. Then when they killed two Kennedys, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr, it was "as if the future died, and now I feel as if our future has come back in an even better form." You can watch the clip here.

Brantley hates The Little Mermaid

Oh dear.

Loved the shoes. Loathed the show... O.K., I exaggerate. I didn’t like the shoes all that much.

And the real humdinger:

Directed by Francesca Zambello, this “Little Mermaid” burdens its performers with ungainly guess-what-I-am costumes (by Tatiana Noginova) and a distracting set (by George Tsypin) awash in pastels gone sour and unidentifiable giant tchotchkes that suggest a Luau Lounge whipped up by an acid-head heiress in the 1960s. The whole enterprise is soaked in that sparkly garishness that only a very young child — or possibly a tackiness-worshiping drag queen — might find pretty.

Theresa Rebeck's response to Jon Robin Baitz on the HuffPo

Several bloggers are discussing Jon Robin Baitz's excellent piece in The Huffington Post. The piece goes a long way in explaining why it's so hard for playwrights nowadays, why they go to television and film, and why nobody lets Chuck Isherwood sit at their lunch table. It's definitely a must-read, and you should certainly check it out.

BUT I'm interested in a response in the comments. A mysterious commenter named only "Rebeck" (who could it be?) responded:

HILARIOUS. your posting cheered me right up, Robbie. it has never been clear to me why they get so mad when we make a little money from the big old evil TV machine. would it be better for our craft if we jus sat around in crummy overpriced New York studios, worried about how we were going to pay the rent?

my experience has been it helps to have a little money in your pocket, when the New York Times whacks you on the head because of some utterly inane new rule they've come up with as an excuse to dismiss your play. Ben Brantley suddenly decides he likes David Mamet and uses his review of my play to express this fact? Oh brother. Maybe I should dip into my savings and go to Italy for a few days...

Theresa Rebeck's response is interesting, but also sadly unsurprising. She obviously has a point about how it helps to actually get paid, but her mention of the critical response to Mauritius is whiny and embarassing. It's one thing when Brantley and Isherwood carelessly eviscerate work that deserves at least a little respect, but Brantley's review of Mauritius didn't read as a discovery that he likes Mamet - more like an acknowledgement that Rebeck's play (as many, many others said) is just like American Buffalo - only less interesting.

Frankly, I find it difficult to place Rebeck in the same category as those playwrights who would really benefit from a bit more kindness from the critics. With a very few exceptions, her plays aren't really challenging the form. Don't get me wrong, she's written plays I've enjoyed, particularly Bad Dates. But Theresa Rebeck is not.. oh, Will Eno, Adam Rapp, Adam Bock, or the many other playwrights whose work sometimes gets trashed because they're taking risks, and that makes people uncomfortable. Nobody is calling Theresa Rebeck a hipster from Williamsburg in their reviews.

Isherwood says there are no stage actresses who could play Eliza Doolittle.

In tomorrow's Arts & Leisure section, Charles Isherwood discusses his enjoyment of Roundabout's current staging of Pygmalion. He describes Claire Danes, "making her adventurous, her admirable first foray onto Broadway," and goes on to say "I'm hard put to name a single New York stage actress who could handily pull it off, with the possible exception of the up-and-coming Lily Rabe." Yeah Lily Rabe would be good, but, wait - what?

I'm so tired of Isherwood acting like just because he can't come up with ideas of his own, that means that something just doesn't exsist. He recently did it about playwrights, basically saying that there are no young playwrights concerned with politics. Which is obviously hogwash. And there are totally a bunch of actresses who could play Eliza Doolittle! Just because he can't think of any doesn't mean they don't exist.

Here's my hypothetical casting list, with a little help from the theater think tank over at All That Chat. I'm not saying every one of them could "handliy pull it off" as Isherwood says, but there are OPTIONS, people.


-Yes, Lily Rabe would probably be pretty great.
-Lynn Collins, duh.
-Lauren Ambrose
-Bryce Dallas Howard
-Paige Howard - pictured above. Did anyone see Mary Rose? I think she'd be remarkable.
-Aya Cash
-Samantha Soule
-Lisa Joyce - would fucking rock.
-Alison Pill - please Alison, just do something different already.
-Amy Rutberg
-Maggie Siff
-Wynn Everett
-Celia Keenan Bolger
-Elizabeth Moss
-Kerry Butler
-Maria Dizzia
-Zoe Kazan (think outside the box! She would be awesome!)

And there have to be more! Post them in the comments if you have more ideas.

(Thanks to Jesse21 of All That Chat!)

Celebrity Deathmatch: Theater Edition - Hare vs. Abramson

Did anyone see Page Six this weekend? Playwright David Hare got into a "screaming match" with NY Times managing editor Jill Abramson. Apparently Hare was pretty pissed that Brantley had savagely attacked his play, The Vertical Hour, like a sabre-toothed tiger on a pile of rib-eye steaks.

In case you don't recall, Brantley called Vertical Hour "soggy" and put it admittedly bluntly by saying that Bill Nighy mopped the floor using both Julianne Moore and the play itself. Brantley even accused Hare of committing "crimes against dialogue". Ouchie.

Well, the critics pan of Vertical Hour didn't stop it from recouping, but it still pissed David Hare off enough to flip out at Jill Abramson at a recent screening of (pacifist) Richard Gere's new movie The Hoax. He said, "You must be kidding. The Times has contempt for the theater, especially Broadway, and especially plays." Saucy Abramson replied, "Listen, it is not our obligation to like or care about the theater. It's our obligation to arbitrate it. We are the central arbiter of taste and culture in the city of New York." To which Hare countered, "What are you talking about? If you believe that, you are even more out of touch than your newspaper appears. You have a critic who despises the theater."

Moxie wonders what Abramson initially said to incite Hare's anger - doubtless it was something with some stingers attached. It's hard to believe that Brantley actually hates theater - if he did, he would probably go crazy from having to see so much of it, and that would make his reviews a lot more fun to read. At any rate, there are some more money quotes in the full article, which you can read here. Moxie tends to agree with producer Scott Rudin - it takes guts for an artist to stand up against the critics, so good for him. Plus, screw the "central arbiter of taste and culture". They may, in fact, be just that, but the statement is so arrogant you can't not side with Hare. But you know what? At the end of the day, The Vertical Hour was really bad.