Equus

I went to see Equus a couple of weeks ago.   I knew nothing about Equus the play - nothing about the playwright - I only knew that Daniel Radcliffe, little Harry Potter, was in it and at some point, he would prance around on stage naked.

Now, it's true: it's severely creepy for a 27 year old woman to be leering at naked 19 year olds, especially tiny, young-looking naked 19 year olds like Daniel Radcliffe.  I guess there's no getting around it.  And although I wasn't attending in order to ogle him - for pure ogling potential I'm sure I could have found something better - my motives were essentially perverse.   I just wanted to see Bad Harry Potter, the same way spending four years at a Catholic high school makes me giggle at tasteless jokes about Jesus.

Actually, I just looked up perverse and here's the number one definition: willfully determined or disposed to go counter to what is expected or desired; contrary.  So I guess guess perverse really sums it up. 

Here are some observations about my perverse excursion:

1.  There's been so much press about the nude scene, but it's short, the stage is dark, and Daniel Radcliffe is not facing the audience for most of it.  Forget about the nude scene.  What about the scenes when Daniel Radcliffe is twining himself around strapping young men wearing horse-heads and showering them with big, open-mouthed kisses?  If you ask me, those were much weirder.

2.  I didn't bother to find out what it was about before I showed up and, hey, it's kind of depressing and intense.  Go figure.  The playwright said his goal was to try to make sense of a senseless crime - something he heard about, although he never did track down the real event, if it ever occured.  Namely, a teenage boy who blinded six horses at a stable where he had been working, by stabbing them in the eyes.  He comes up with a fairly elegant, and inspiring, answer; too elegant, and too inspiring, if you ask me.  Or maybe I just don't care if there's some sort of indomitable spirit motivating animal torturers; nothing good comes of it, after all.

3.  Sure, I bought the ticket for silly, gimmicky reasons.  But I didn't go see a silly gimmick; I saw a great play.  I walked in with a snicker and walk out enlightened and thoughtful.  What's the lesson there?  That sometimes even your worst instincts can send you off on worthwhile journeys?  Maybe that's not a good lesson.  

4.  I got two Harry Potter actors for the price of one: the main character, the child psychologist treating Daniel Radcliffe, was also the guy who plays Uncle Vernon in the films.  He did a truly fantastic job, really great.  

5.  On the other hand, he also kind of reminded me of what Albus Dumbledore would be like, if he were a 20th century child psychologist treating severely disturbed teenage boys.  Harry Potter Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

6.  Captain Janeway had a role too.  She has nice calves.

ALL THAT I WILL EVER BE

Melinda and I went to an amazing play last night - All That I Will Ever Be, by Alan Ball. It was great for a lot of the same reasons that people would say American Beauty and Six Feet Under, other Alan Ball projects, are great - it was dark without being despairing, topical without being preachy, simultaneously familiar and strange, funny.

I didn't know anything about it when I bought the tickets - just that it had been written by Alan Ball, and the program didn't have even the briefest plot summary, so I sat down as a blank slate. It was basically about a Middle Eastern hustler and the relationships he forms with clients. The hustler is played by this guy, Peter Macdissi:

It's a really meaty role, and Macdissi does a phenomenal job. The playhouse was pretty small, and we had good seats, so we were pretty close to the stage. A lot of the time, you see an actor in person and it's sort of disconcerting that they're so human-sized. One of the things that makes theater so special, and so difficult, is that the actors don't have huge projectors or elaborate settings to enhance their impact on the viewer... they're just people, standing a few feet above all the other people in the audience. Macdissi is a big guy but I felt like he just got bigger and bigger and bigger until he was gigantic, outsized, totally filled the stage.

I don't think that cinema can really come close to the intensity and physical charisma a good actor can project in theater - because it's so immediate, because it's a moment in time that can't be repeated or repaired, because there is a physical connection when a body is performing in front of you. Acting is physical, corporeal, and that is...thinned out, mediated, through film. This means that a bad play is ridiculous. But a good one grabs hold of you bodily and won't let you go.

There were only six actors, so several of them played multiples roles. Having the same person reappear several times in different guises, having pared-down sets with minimal props, forces the audience to to engage, to construct the dramatic world with the actors.

Meanwhile the hustler, who goes by the name of Omar, uses his clients to construct his own false realities - he tries to be whatever is wanted of him, because what he wants is to be someone else. Or because he finds his own identity as a foreigner, an alien, so slippery and unstable that he has lost track of it. We see him in several situations - in the retail job he has to ensure a regular, base income; a call to a client that develops into something like a relationship; a date with a woman who is not aware that he's a hustler; and a call to an older, male client who has spent some time in the land of Omar's birth. Although these situations are not interrelated in the butterfly-bats-its-wings-in-Malasia way, it is only by seeing the very mutable Omar in all of these situations that the viewer gains a real sense of who he is, what his life is like.

At one point, after a very touching exchange Omar offers to stay the night for no charge; his client says: Sweetheart, we don't pay you to stay, we pay you to leave.

And the last line of the play is: Why would I want to hurt you?

I wonder if the goal of the play was to investigate what it really means to give people what they want, to be what is wanted rather than what you are. Because although it seems like a compulsion for Omar, it's ultimately a self-destructive, very painful one. I also think that the play intentionally draws parallels between hustling and other relationships - retail, love, and family. It's hard to know when Omar is acting to please himself or his client; when he is in his professional or personal mode. And it's easy to see how others need Omar to construct their own fictions - less explicitly, and less consciously, than Omar himself.

I have great friends, and New York has great theatre

Some of Shelley's designs are going to be featured in Country Living Magazine. Congratulations Shelley! I think it will even be the cards that Shelley and Marisa made together, so congratulations to both of my friends. I have always had great faith in Shelley's ability to conquer the world of stationery, but it's nice to see faith give way bit by bit to empirical proof.

Also, I went to see Avenue Q the other day. It's a grown-up, dystopic, kind of rude and obscene spoof on Sesame Street - the characters are muppets grappling with early-adulthood issues of dreams vs. reality, purpose, responsibility. I didn't leave thinking or feeling anything I hadn't thought or felt before, but it's a Broadway musical that really eloquently captures a particular kind of disillusionment. Plus, there are some great songs - like "The Internet is for Porn" or "Everyone's A Little Bit Racist" or "Schadenfreude." Any musical with a song called "Schadenfreude" gets a thumbs up from me.