Liars and Saints

  Matthew Quick has just written his first memoir--and it's notable. Sometimes a memoir can seem guarded or self-serving, but Quick lets it all hang out. Having written "Silver Linings Playbook," Quick anticipates a Hollywood career. He writes some screenplays. Nothing goes anywhere. He finds himself blocked. This coincides with a period of bad eating and excessive drinking--until Quick no longer recognizes himself. He begins to consider suicide. As Quick struggles to pull himself together, he considers the life of a compelling secondary character, his own father. Quick Senior has severe panic attacks. He disrupts a theatrical performance because he believes he has dropped his wallet; he begins shouting at the ushers. Once the wallet is retrieved, he cannot offer thanks. Having started to succumb to senility, Senior begins ranting about his wife. If she visits the grandkids for one night, it must mean that she has opted for a divorce. Senior also shuts down in terror when...

  Thinking about "Hadestown," I feel it's hard not to see a debt to "Cabaret." (In fact, the leading lady of "Hadestown" went on to become the leading lady in the recent revival of "Cabaret.") Kander and Ebb took the Rodgers and Hammerstein template--two braided stories of romance--and did something disturbing. In an R&H show, we expect at least one romantic storyline (Maria/Georg, Forbush/Emile) to work out. Kander and Ebb asked, What if *both* storylines are just brutally sad? It's a grand tradition to let the supporting players upstage the leads. Persephone is more interesting than Eurydice. We fall for Ado Annie; we are less captivated by Laurey. For me, the heart of "Cabaret" is Fraulein Schneider. She is more moving than Sally Bowles. This is because--for Fraulein Schneider--love is more of a surprise. Her plainspoken words are impressive: The old despair that was often there-- Suddenly ceases to be. For you wake--one ...

  I started watching "Mindhunter" for Jonathan Groff, but it's Holt McCallany who is holding my attention. HM plays Bill Tench, whose problems are among the strangest I've seen on any TV series. Tench's little adopted son is difficult to "reach." But the son is watchful--and he is aware that his father drafts profiles of serial killers. There are photos of mangled corpses in the house. During Season Two, the dead body of a toddler is discovered on "Tench terrain"--it's found within a house that Mrs. Tench is trying to sell. It turns out that (allegedly) some kids were playing rough with the toddler--and the toddler died by accidental suffocation. The Tench boy--an observer (not a participant)--then thought it would be smart to crucify the toddler on a wooden plank. Maybe--like Jesus--the toddler would come back to life. (Parts of this make me recall the death of the boy Garrett Phillips in Potsdam, NY. There have been rumors about the invol...

  In my childhood, I had a coffee table book about the history of Broadway. The part that stunned me was a segment on Hal Prince. Having taken on "Cabaret," Prince constructed massive mirrors--mirrors that would "confront" the audience. Thus the members of the audience would stare at themselves throughout the night. Prince was saying: "Don't think you can detach yourself. You likely would have been complicit in history--if you were wearing Sally Bowles's shoes." Twisted little boy that I was, I also felt drawn to "Night, Mother." Every evening, Kathy Bates would announce her intention to commit suicide. Two hours would pass. Then, Bates would commit suicide--the end of the evening was (also) the end of her life. I had this book before I "found" Sondheim. Something in the DNA told me, You should just pay attention to this information about Liza Minnelli and Pearl Bailey. And the stats about Zero Mostel. If you're very young, ...

  "Happening" is a memoir by Annie Ernaux; I chose it at a time when I couldn't read anything lengthy. It was listed among great novellas, though I don't think it is fiction. It's intimidating to read something by a Nobel winner--why not start with a novella? Ernaux begins with an HIV test. She sits in a waiting room and listens as a biologist speaks into a phone. "No, your cell count is normal, perfectly normal." She immediately understands what is being not said but instead implied: "You have AIDS, and I can't comfort you. But  perfectly  is a word with three syllables. It takes a long time to say. So I might just say it several times." Immediately, Ernaux is sending a subtextual message: I'm a writer, and I notice things. She proceeds to make a character out of herself. In her fury and terror, she imagines that a particular man she just saw ("half-heartedly") is a villain from a comic book; he roams the streets of Europe; h...

 I'm delighted that "Hadestown" is having so much success this week. The proshot knocked me over. First, there is the witty costume design: the Earth tones of the laborers, the black/silvery style for the Fates, the seasonal shift in Persephone's "look." Second: the ending. The Pulitzer winner Wesley Morris--focusing on "Ragtime" and "Giant"--recently argued that new Broadway productions refuse to challenge or disturb a ticket-buyer. By contrast, "Hadestown" doesn't let us comfortably despise any of the characters. And it has a brutal ending--a courageous choice for the writers. Third: Patrick Page. I was not alone in watching the proshot and thinking Patrick Page deserved the Tony Award. Andre De Shields was excellent, AND Page still deserved the Tony win. My old writing teacher likes to say that she writes about "the space between the sidewalk and the curb." The liminal space. When you're neither here nor the...