It's the Way That it Always Was: What I Liked This Week #32
Siri play Fireflies by Owl City
Hey dudes sorry for the brief hiatus. I was busy and also feeling uninspired! But never fear, I’ve found inspiration again, courtesy of the most adorable musical. The world (Prospect Park, New Jersey, democracy, etc) is on fire but don’t worry, one thing remains: I love musical theater. Here’s some thoughts on a few, plus various other things I’ve liked.
Theater: Maybe Happy Ending, Bad Kreyòl
Despite a general disdain for AI and a fear of uncanny, humanoid technology, I kind of like stories about robots. Or maybe that’s an understatement, because actually, I have been known to eat up stories about robots. The robots in Westworld were brutal and brutalized, but I was invested in their well-being, I had favorites (Maeve!!). Wall-E and EVE were adorable and tragic and I will forever associate Peter Gabriel with them1. Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara (of Klara and the Sun) was too passive for me to love her story, but I liked her perceptiveness.
When well done, a story about robots finding their own kind of humanity can be deeply moving. Beautiful even. Maybe Happy Ending is done really really well. In fact, it might just be my favorite new musical on Broadway in years. Set in Seoul in the year 2064, Maybe Happy Ending follows Oliver and Claire, aging Helperbots tucked away in a robo-retirement home. Oliver (Starkid’s Darren Criss) is largely content with “the world within [his] room,” a pile of jazz records and a small plant (Hwaboon, in a strong bid for the Special Tony for Best Plant) to keep him occupied as he waits for his owner James (Marcus Choi) to return. Claire (Teeth’s Helen J. Shen) is resigned to life in her 10x10 space — “it’s the way that it has to be,” — she doesn’t hold onto any hope that her owner will return for her. Oliver is a model 3, with jerky movements, a love for routine, and a long battery life. Claire is a model 5, moving more smoothy, demonstrating a greater capacity for critical thinking, but with a weaker battery. When her charger breaks, she has no choice to knock on Oliver’s door for help.
Anxiety and animosity turn to a kind of friendship as Claire and Oliver realize that maybe they’ve been a little lonely all those years cooped up in their rooms. And maybe they can help each other. Oliver wants to go find James on Jeju Island. Claire has a car, can drive, and wants to see the fireflies on the island. Thus begins a charming adventure filled with humor, romance, and yes, many many lightning bugs.
Will Aronson and Hue Park’s script for Maybe Happy Ending is touching, silly and at times kind of devastating, Pixar meets Never Let Me Go meets The Memory Police. Their score isn’t the most memorable, but it is very very pretty, the mix of jazz (performed with a Frank Sinatra flair by 4th cast member Dez Duron) and string quintet + piano numbers perfect for any girl who likes listening to the Bridgerton soundtrack. Just the orchestrations gave me goosebumps, and there may or may not have been a quintet moment that almost made me cry, something that Naomi may or may not have made fun of me for.
If my description of story or music hasn’t grabbed you, then hopefully the production itself will. Director Michael Arden (Parade, Once on this Island, etc) has done really fine work, treating the silly little robots with such reverence and tenderness. And the design? OH MY GOD. Simply put, Maybe Happy Ending has one of the most dazzling, surprising sets I’ve seen (scenic and additional video design is by Dane Laffrey). Every single scenic shift was smooth and futuristic and therefore dramaturgically sound, and every single scenic shift made my jaw drop in absolute delight. It reminded me of a music box or a pop up book, the way each set piece slid into something new, and the way each made me smile.
As you may know I’m a projections hater — Maybe Happy Ending made me throw away my anti-video stance. Laffrey and video & projection designer George Reeve’s work projecting 20 foot tall videos of Claire and Oliver’s ‘memories’ onto semi-sheer panels was striking and once again, a brilliant dramaturgical choice (I’m know I’m overusing this word, shut up). It’s fitting that a show set in the future, about robots, would have the smartest projection work I’ve ever seen. I won’t even talk about the firefly scenes or I will in fact cry. But know they were lovely and reminded me of Mary Poppins in multiple ways (another musical that had one of my favorite sets2). Hair and makeup? Also good - Darren Criss really does look like a robot.
I’ve talked before about shows that just feel like buried treasure, or gems that you get to discover before everyone else does. (Hadestown in its early days always comes to mind.) It’s special to feel like you’ve “discovered” a show, that a little piece of it is yours. But its even better when a show you love finds a larger audience and gets a long and full life. Maybe Happy Ending is certainly a gem of a show, a big story in small packaging (there’s only 4 performers after all). It hooked me in, it received critical acclaim across the board, and now it needs butts in seats. And I know Broadway is in crisis and more importantly the world is in crisis but if you’re going to go see a musical, I’d pick this one.
Bad Kreyòl is the final play in Dominique Morisseau’s residency at Signature Theatre, and it’s a lovely production to finish with. Simone (Kelly McCreary), a Haitian-American, travels to Haiti to visit her cousin Gigi (Pascale Armand) and fulfill their grandmother’s dying wish for them to reconnect. Simone is a fish out of water, unsure of where she belongs in America or Haiti, and while Gigi clearly wants to help her, she is perhaps too proud and too stubborn to meet Simone halfway (this isn’t entirely her fault - Simone is often difficult). When the two characters are most brought together and most pushed apart, it is partly because their affection for Pita (Jude Tibeau), a restavek who works for Gigi (you can/should learn more about the world of the play here. I wrote most of it).
It’s Gigi and Pita’s relationship sits at the heart of Bad Kreyòl for me. Pita is Gigi’s servant, yes, and his role in her house is a product of a problematic system, but more so, he’s her friend, her fanmi. They tease each other, bicker, and love each other fiercely. As Gigi says, “Pita is gold. Platinum.” It’s rare to see any kind platonic relationship depicted with such care, and Dominique and director Tiffany Nichole Greene have done a really wonderful job, as have the actors (Tibeau in particular lights up every scene he’s in).
I’ve read the script of Bad Kreyòl so many times that I may have accidentally memorized part of it. This meant that when watching it, I could really focus on the aspects of the play that were new to me: the production itself, and the audience response. Dominique encourages her audiences to react to the play however they’d like to, welcoming noise and all forms of enthusiasm. I loved hearing the audience gasp when the stage began to turn — I gasped along with them, having never fully seen the set in motion (scenic design is by Jason Sherwood). I laughed when a woman in the audience called out “60 percent!” when it seemed like Gigi might settle for a bad financial deal, and cheer when she held firm to her original number. Dominique has talked about how she wrote this play so that Haitians and Haitian Americans could see themselves onstage, and it has been moving to talk to audience members who are thrilled to be at the show. It’s running through December 1st, and while many of my NY friends have seen it, if you haven’t yet, please come by!
TV: Agatha All Along
I don’t have anything particularly groundbreaking to say about this show except that you should watch it. If you are someone who perhaps fell out of love with Marvel/superhero projects because they took a nosedive in terms of quality, and/or if you are someone who likes (gay) witches, you will enjoy Agatha All Along and it might even restore your faith in Marvel. It’s got everything you could want: a good mystery, a different aesthetic and different puzzle every episode, Patti LuPone giving a steller performance, the little dark haired one from Heartstopper… all in all, what a fun show and what excellent fall vibes.
Books: A Love Song For Ricki Wilde, Intermezzo
It’s so nice to be surprised by a book. I’d heard good things about Tia Williams’ A Love Song For Ricki Wilde, but the cover made me assume it was going to be a steamy sultry romance and then the first chapter made me think it might actually be too quirky and childish for me. But it turned out to not really be either of those things. Instead it was a delightful piece of magical realism, with a nice romance on the side. I’d say the romance was what I liked least - it didn’t feel particularly believable (I don’t buy love at first sight/soulmates3). But what I loved was how Tia Williams wove Black history and and the history/atmosphere of the Harlem Renaissance into the book. It made an already rich and vibrant story into something slightly more, and I thought it was smart! Get it from the library or please borrow my copy!
Intermezzo is featured in this newsletter because I love to have my finger on the pulse of pop culture. I’m willing to overlook Sally Rooney’s refusal to use punctuation, and her fondness for having her characters’ inner monologue sound vaguely like Yoda (or should I say, sounded like Yoda, their monologues ). I’m not quite willing to overlook the fact that the brothers at the center of Intermezzo were so SO annoying and often SO misogynistic. However, by the end of the book, I was rather touched! Sometimes you have to read 350 pages about men agonizing over whether to have sex or kill themselves or play chess, and then you get rewarded with a really lovely meditation on grief and human connection. Overall, an interesting enough read, and an oddly perfect companion piece to Sam Hunter’s Grangeville, starring The Mummy’s Brendan Fraser, and starting performances February 4th at Signature Theatre (tix available here).
That’s all for now, folks
It’s quite possible I’ll go back and write about the SLEW of other plays4 I saw earlier in the fall, and it’s also possible I won’t. Either way, stay tuned for Wicked (DUH), Swept Away, and mostly importantly the ultimate diva off. That’s right, I’m seeing Sunset Boulevard and Gypsy 6 days apart. It’s gonna be awesome.
Talk more soon xoxo bye!
There’s actually a whole other essay about how I think I saw Wall-E at a deeply formative time and it shaped my belief that we WILL in fact kill the planet and end up in floating chairs in space, but that’s a downer.
In another life I was a set designer. I think set design may be my one true passion actually.
This is why West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet didn’t work for me as a child. Sorry Rachel Zegler!
SOOO many things. The Hills of California (LOVED) Job (DID NOT LOVE), Yellow Face, Vladimir, Ragtime, Teeth again… plus Walden and King Lear next week.
And the critics continue to love Maybe Happy Ending!!