Category / Theatre

by Edward Champion

New Directors/New Films: Every Little Step (2008)

[This is the third in a series of dispatches relating to the New Directors/New Films series, running between March 25 and April 5 at MOMA and the Film Society of Lincoln Center.]

everylittlestep

An actor friend and I recently entered into a heated but civil disagreement about his career. My friend insisted that it was now the time to self-promote and self-aggrandize like there was no tomorrow. I pointed out to my pal that he had talents that simply hadn’t yet been recognized by the right people, and that getting noticed simply wasn’t something he could calculate. He had the goods, but I had grave concerns that his work would be marred by solipsism, whether real or perceived. He had the obligation to stay working — whether it be dinner theater, off-Broadway, or top-notch production — and to practice as much humility and tenacity and dignity as he could under the circumstances. The acting business involves a lot of waiting, many nos, and an array of judgments which simply do not exist in any other occupation. Small wonder then that, when an actor does manage to secure himself a top perch, he is granted an unprecedented amount of assistants and press protection. For by the time an actor has made it this far, the relatively anonymous artist who struggled for years has capitulated his relative obscurity. But isn’t the acting profession something of a devil’s bargain? You entertain a crowd, but you do so at the expense of presenting your true self. And you do so knowing that you will have to fight tooth and nail to keep the rent paid and the work coming. Not many people can do this, but so many are driven to expend every ounce of spare energy into seizing a small scrap of the stage.

The documentary Every Little Step examines these often underreported realities with the casting sessions for the 2006 A Chorus Line revival. Filmmakers James D. Stern and Adam Del Deo were apparently granted backstage access as the casting stretched into endless callbacks over many months. I do not know if there were any quids pro quo arrived at during this documentary journey, but there’s certainly a meta irony given the show in question. As audience-friendly as A Chorus Line and Every Little Step both are, Stern and Del Deo are to be commended for exposing a handful of the profession’s ugly little truths. There is, for example, some concern about an actress up for the role of Connie. She was born in Japan, but can she nail the right dialect if she wasn’t born in the States? A cocky dancer and choreographer named Tyce Diorio boasts to the camera that he wants his own television show. But his clear hubris is immediately observed by the casting team and he is dumped. One dancer is asked to reproduce what she did last summer, but cannot recall specifically what it was and is too nervous and shell-shocked to ask.

The film is careful to expose what lies in the future for these young and hungry gypsy aspirants, but it doesn’t always present its mini-narratives holistically. One dancer’s father describes a moment in his early forties when both of his knees blew out. He still tried to dance anyway and found himself backstage with his boots soaked in blood. But what did he do when he knew he couldn’t dance? That might have been another documentary altogether, but this intriguing yet unfulfilled story demonstrates the film’s weakness in trying to tackle too much.

Of course, as every good Broadway aficionado knows, A Chorus Line was one of the first major Broadway productions to be workshopped, with Michael Bennett leading a recorded series of confessions after midnight that served as the transcribed template. The film does not quibble with the controversial claim that Bennett was the sole man behind the show, nor does it quite expose Bennett’s tendency to control every project that he was involved with.

I likewise found myself wondering how much Bob Avian (the revival’s director) was playing up his kindness before the cameras. He is presented here as a gruff, no-nonsense, barrel-chested administrator, his team shuttling around and encouraging prospective applicants. But Avian is capable of being genuinely moved. When Jason Tam delivers his gut-wrenching monologue as Paul, both the show’s production team and the audience watching this film know that he will get the part. So perhaps Every Little Step functions on three levels: the Broadway audience who will see the show is “entertained” by dancers begging for their parts (lightened somewhat by the Marvlin Hamlisch’s famous bouncer, “Dance: Ten; Looks: Three”), the audience who will see this film is “entertained” by dancers begging for their parts (lightened somewhat by crowd favorites getting the role), and the director being photographed is “entertained” by prospective dancers while making often brutal decisions (his duties lightened somewhat by a few on-camera moments that suggest he’s not that bad of a guy).

I was less taken with the film’s clear promotion of A Chorus Line, but quite engaged by the process of auditioning itself. Hearing a director describe the ideal Val as someone with “a truck driver’s mouth, but who’s really a sweetheart” is a sentiment you might find on any promotional pamphlet, as is Hamlisch himself describing yet again how the title “Tits and Ass” transmuted into “Dance: Ten; Looks: Three.” But seeing a director quietly beseech an actor on stage to get a performance right, because there may very well be some rejection that he must uncomfortably come to terms with, is the mark of a decent documentary. I wished Every Little Step had pursued more moments in the latter category. But a struggling actor may find some of the film’s quiet revelations engaging — in large part because the actor doesn’t always see himself from a camera’s third-person perspective.

by Edward Champion

Theater Review: Queens Girl

Queens Girl is a one-woman show written and performed by Lauren LoGuidice. It is playing here in New York at a venue called Stage Left on January 29, 30, and 31st. From there, it moves on to San Francisco. I was contacted out of the blue by a publicist and opted to attend. My +1 had to back out. My alternate +1 likewise found himself busy. I was frankly too lazy to enlist a third +1. So I attended alone. I was one of two press members in the audience. I am still not entirely sure why I was contacted.

I am informed by Ms. LoGuidice’s website that the show was once called Skinny Girl, but there is no specific reason given for this title change. My own titular preference is Queens Girl. And having seen the show, my own preference would have involved less multimedia and more performance. I suppose the idea here was to suggest distractions which present one from being true to one’s self, but bombarding the audience with often needless visual information and regrettably obvious musical cues (e.g., The Godfather theme playing when we learn about the Italian neighborhood Ms. LoGuidice grew up in) only succeeded in this reviewer wondering why the real Ms. LoGuidice was still hiding, and why she cared so much about appealing to the crowd. The show’s truest moment came with Ms. LoGuidice impersonating a homophobic ruffian shrieking at “Ms. LoGuidice” to leave the neighborhood. That such a moment comes from the portrayal of another figure reveals the show’s central problem. We learn that Ms. LoGuidice has spent all of her adult life running to other places. Bombay, San Francisco, the Meatpacking District. But to what end? We never know. The multimedia proves too intoxicating.

Now ancillary information is sometimes a regrettable obstacle that hinders an individual from telling the truth. I can tell you that the show’s running time was sometime between 32 and 37 minutes. Had my cell phone battery not expired, I would be able to give you a precise figure. The other journalist attending the show, who was diffident about revealing his name and outlet to me, informed me that the show was 37 minutes. But he had determined this fact from looking at his own cell phone once the show had concluded. It read 8:37 PM. There was then a minor but conciliatory point of argument between us in the elevator ride down over whether the show started at 8:00 PM or 8:05 PM. I advocated the latter time, even though I truthfully wasn’t paying attention and suspected I was wrong. This was not what I would call a prevarication. I was merely being jocose. The idea here was to present a possibly erroneous piece of temporal information for this gentleman to correct me on. But I apparently conveyed my position to him with some entirely unintentional authority, a deadpan confidence that had him believing that the show had started at 8:05 PM. And even though I began to get the sense that I was probably wrong, I politely agreed that the running time might possibly be 32 minutes instead of the 37 minutes he had initially estimated. We both agreed that it was a bit unusual to attend a theatrical presentation that lasted considerably shorter than our subway ride to Stage Left.

Stage Left itself is located on the fifth floor of an edifice located on West 37th Street. There is nothing, aside from the space’s proximity on the western side of the building, that suggested a possible origin for the name. Perhaps there was another imputation behind the name: fringe theater that came out of left-field. But none of this really matters.

I can also report that I was one of only five men in the audience. My audience estimate was 25 people, most appearing to be friends of Ms. LoGuidice. I took notes in a five subject notebook — a knockoff that I had purchased two nights before for $2.79 from a small shop in Tribeca that was something between a bodega and a pharmacy. The pen I used to take notes — a black Uniball — was on its last legs. In looking at the eight pages of notes I took, I am struck by two things: the gradual waning of the ink and my own fierce efforts in the dark to force more ink on the pages. Given that I also took notes on Wednesday night during the Barnes and Noble New York Times event and did not use any of them, I think that I will do the same for this piece. But I will present one note, picked entirely at random, that might give you some sense of my theatergoing experience: “Relies too much on music.”

Those last three paragraphs may be interesting to my friends, but they don’t really tell you anything.

by Edward Champion

Fringe on the Horizon

About three years ago, when I talked with fellow theatrical producers at the San Francisco Fringe Festival, many of them told me that they had serious reservations about the New York Fringe scene.

“It’s all money over there,” said one. “They’re just looking for the next Urinetown.”

I was a bit skeptical about this charge back then — perhaps because I’m naive or perhaps because, if you have any ambition, it’s extremely difficult to make money at micro-theatre. (It’s worth noting that my own show cost around $3,000 to make, which I was able to generate after selling off most of my music collection — and that’s not even counting volunteer time. Even if I had filled every seat, there was simply no way to break even. But it was worth it.)

But next month, I’ll be able to confirm the veracity (or paucity) of these charges at the New York Fringe Festival, which occurs between August 10th and August 26th. Are these shows designed to catch the eye of off-off-Broadway producers? I’d like to think — at $15 per show — that the Fringe scenario here is fairly comparable to what I experienced in San Francisco.

I’m hoping to offer some coverage here.

by Edward Champion

Mike Daisey Update

The Boston Globe‘s Geoff Edgers has done some reporting on the Mike Daisey walkout mentioned here on Saturday. It seems that, contrary to Daisey’s claims, there was no religious affiliation with the group. As Edgers reports (in a message received from Principal John Johnson of Norco High School):

It is a choir made up of 15-to-17 year-old students who were in town singing at a festival. As for the chaperone who poured water on Daisey’s notes… Johnson flat out apologizes. “I agree with Mike Daisey,” says Johnson. “With everything that’s going on in the world today, to have somebody come up on stage and take the water and pour it on his script was very inappropriate. I want to make this very clear, I apologize for that happening.”

Now by Johnson’s own admission, we still only have third-hand information to go upon here. But Johnson claims that Daisey’s show was intended as a theatrical experience for these kids and that Daisey’s ample use of “fuck” was one of the motivating factors behind the walkout. But if this is the case, I find it highly implausible that these kids have lived such sheltered lives that they haven’t heard profanity.

As for the man who poured water onto Daisey’s script, he was apparently one of the adult chaperones.

(Thanks, Geoff, for the update.)

[UPDATE: Mike Daisey offers an explanation on his blog:

The group responsible for the incident is from a public high school, though they identified themselves to me as a Christian group as they fled the theater–it’s barely audible on the YouTube clip, as an adult tells me they are a Christian group, then flees for the door, refusing to engage with me. Then in the lobby of the theater and on the phone to the box office they identified themselves again and again as a Christian group–I don’t know what that says about the division of church and state in Norco, California. As a group, the people in charge freely identified themselves as a Christian group, until reporters call and they remember they are from a public high school.

He’s also talked with the man who destroyed his outline.]

by Edward Champion

Mike Daisey Hijacked Mid-Show

I briefly interrupt my two and a half day hiatus with some important and shocking news:

If you care about the arts, and if you want to see how truly despicable some purported “Christians” are, check out Mike Daisey’s blog. Apparently, as Daisey was in the middle of performing, eighty-seven members of a Christian group walked out en masse and spilled water on Daisey’s ONLY copy of his outline.

Daisey also has a YouTube video of this.

As a person who has written, staged and performed theatre, my greatest empathy goes out to Mike Daisey, who should never have experienced such rampant cruelty. The faceless cowards who did this are no better than the ghouls who burned the Great Library of Alexandria. And I hope that he can comes to terms with this horrible event in the best manner possible. Fortunately, as seen on the YouTube video, he responded to this incident with good humor.

[UPDATE: The Boston Globe‘s Geoff Edgers has done additional reporting. Contrary to Daisey’s assertions, the group was not a Christian one.]