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Theatre Awards Season: It's Better Than Not

As certain as the flowers that bloom in the spring—though perhaps which flowers are in bloom is a bit less certain these days, thanks to global warming—the mad whirl of theatre awards season is again upon us. The Lortels, the Outer Critics Circles, the Drama Desks, the Obies, the Drama Leagues, the New York Drama Critics' Circles, the Theatre Worlds, and, of course, the granddaddy of them all, Broadway's Tonys are being bestowed in close proximity to one another, just after the Pulitzers and just ahead of the Emmys. In cities with multiple groups making awards, nominees and recipients will overlap, and the wealth is likely to be spread around a bit; nevertheless, it will acknowledge only a small fraction of the work being done.

The plethora of prizes available can lead to the unspoken corollary that anything that doesn't snag a statuette is somehow less than the best. So we think it's a good time, in the midst of all the anointing, to point out that good work will inevitably go unrecognized, some of it of equal or perhaps even superior quality. Indeed, that's the nature of the awards game. After all, Alfred Hitchcock never won an Oscar, and the original Broadway productions of Gypsy and Chicago went 0 for 8 and 0 for 11 at the Tonys.

That's not to say there's anything wrong with giving or receiving awards. As Charley Kringas sings about money in Merrily We Roll Along, "It's better than not." In a society much more impressed by commercial success than artistic success, it's a good thing whenever an artist is recognized for the latter.

But it's also good to remember that it's probably humanly impossible to give all the work being done out there equal consideration: There's just too much of it. Most of the organizations listed above have rules significantly limiting eligibility. But, as an example, let's consider the one that's arguably the most inclusive: the Drama Desk. The Drama Desk is noble in its desire to recognize Broadway, Off-Broadway, and even Off-Off-Broadway work. The nominating committee will journey to a north Bronx basement at midnight if need be. That's great in theory. But consider the following facts: Back Stage East reviews over 700 shows a year on the New York City theatrical scene and still misses a significant number we would like to cover. With only 365 days in a year, the five- to seven-member Drama Desk nominating committee (it numbers six members this year) can't cast its net as widely, even with flexible mechanisms—such as a weighted voting system that allows shows to be considered even if the full committee hasn't attended—meant to ensure that short-running shows in small venues aren't overlooked.

To its credit, the organization implicitly acknowledges the logistical obstacles in its path by stating on its website: "The Awards Committee is not constrained to determine the 'best' production or performance. It is nominating 'outstanding' productions and performances." In other words, there's bound to be good work out there that we're missing.

And with that in mind, it's time to enjoy awards season. If you're fortunate enough to be a voter, be conscientious about seeing all the nominees and vote for excellence. Root for your favorites, throw Tony parties with your friends, and join in the office Emmy pool. Be glad for everyone whose work is recognized with a nomination or an award. But don't lose sight of the vagaries of the process or inflate the importance of the outcome. It's the work that matters, not the awards. Or, as Vanessa Redgrave recently put it when asked on CBS's Sunday Morning if she was worried about the reception for her current one-woman Broadway show, Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, "You can't be striving to please. You have to be striving to get to the heart of the matter." 

-- Back Stage Staff

Women Behind the Camera at Tribeca

On Thu., April 26, the second day of the sixth annual Tribeca Film Festival, The New York Times published an article in its Arts section ("Hollywood's Shortage of Female Power") noting a decrease in the number of female executives in Hollywood, as well as a decrease in the overall number of films dealing with women's issues.

But despite the grim forecast and the statistics illustrating the declining number of women directors, writers, producers, and editors in this "male-driven world," as one male industry exec put it, along comes a film festival that brings a glimmer of hope for the distaff side.

No, the Tribeca Film Festival, which ended May 6, does not negate the facts so carefully pointed out by the article. But it has enabled a number of women to showcase their talents both in front of and behind the lens. It has also provided an opportunity for women (and some men) to tell stories from a woman's perspective.

Among 144 feature films and five short-film programs, 62 films told stories about women, according to my own count based on their titles. Though the number of women directors (between 6 and 7 percent) and women executive producers (an even smaller percentage) was relatively low, the festival has given many of these first-timers a chance to get their feet wet. I can state with confidence that those low numbers will soon change.

Women in the industry was the subject of a panel discussion on Fri., April 27, as part of the Tribeca Talks series, which took place at the Borough of Manhattan Community College's Tribeca Performing Arts Center. "Bringing Home the Bacon" featured five women actors, all of whom were represented by films in the festival that they wrote, directed, edited, produced, and/or acted in: Rosario Dawson (Rent, Sin City), who produced and stars in Descent; award-winning and Oscar-nominated Julie Delpy, who wrote, directed, edited, produced, and stars in 2 Days in Paris, with co-star Adam Goldberg; Mary Stuart Masterson (Fried Green Tomatoes, Nine on Broadway), who stepped behind the lens to direct and produce The Cake Eaters; Eva Mendes (Training Day, Hitch), who stars in and produced Live!; and Julia Stiles (10 Things I Hate About You), who wrote and directed her first film, Raving. Jacob Weisberg, editor of the Internet magazine Slate and former editor and writer at The New Republic, moderated.

In response to Weisberg's first question, about how each actor chose to become a multitasker, Stiles noted that she learned a great deal from the process: "I learned a lot about acting -- what reads on screen and what doesn't, and when an actor is not focused. I learned about editing and postproduction that I didn't have a clue about before. I learned that I have to monitor everything."

Weisberg asked Delpy how she ended up wearing so many hats. She blamed it on her obsessive-compulsive behavior. "It's either that you have the kind of budget where you can hire people in which you have 100 percent trust, or you take over everything," she said. "If you leave [the crew] alone without any monitoring, you will end up with something that you don't know what it is. You have to be on top of everything all the time. Direction is all about details."

Dawson met colleague Talia Lugacy when they were both in their teens and studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. They knew they wanted to work together, with Lugacy writing and directing and Dawson acting and producing. Dawson even helped Lugacy fund her thesis at NYU with the money she earned acting in The Adventures of Pluto Nash. They shot five short films together; Descent is their first feature. "It's a raw exploration of violence and abuse, both on the male side and female side," Dawson explained. "It explores sexism, racism, and just what people can do to each other when they're pushed.

"Most of the movies I've worked on could happen with or without me. This is something we birthed ourselves," she stated emphatically. It took Dawson and Lugacy 12 years to make the film. And because they raised the money themselves, they were able to have complete creative control over it.

Mendes read the script for Live! a year and a half ago. She fell in love with both the character and the subject matter. When she found out through her agent that the film was being shelved, she did everything she could to make it happen. She got financing, found a director, and shot it in a month's time. "You can go out and seek those projects that speak out to you for whatever reason and make them happen," she asserted. "This is a real labor of love for me. I never produced anything before. I now have a production company. My goal is to tell these stories that otherwise wouldn't get told. I produced the film in order to make it happen. It speaks to my soul."

When Masterson was first handed the script for The Cake Eaters by her agent, she thought she was being considered for an onscreen role. "It turned out that they were interested in my directing it," she said. "My agent knew that for the past 20 years I've been writing projects, or developing other people's writing, getting the financing together. And then if the projects fell apart, I would take an acting job. He knew that I would be interested in doing an already-financed picture. I thought the script had a beautiful heart, a sweetness about it and an innocence that I don't see very often." Masterson worked with writer Jayce Bartok for about eight months and then shot the film on location in upstate New York.

When asked if she was tired of acting, Masterson responded that she loved acting as well as producing, writing, and directing, "but what I like about producing, writing, and directing is the opportunity to express myself in the breadth of all my capacities."

Weisberg commented on the dearth of acting roles for women and the even greater scarcity of women directors. "There's still this traditional assumption of male authority," he emphasized. In fact, during the question-and-answer session, one member of the audience made light of the fact that the American Film Institute recently sent its members a nomination list for the 100 best films. Of the 400 titles on the list, only 4.5 were directed by women. (The 0.5, the audience member explained, was a woman who co-directed.)

Stiles agreed with Weisberg about a director's job being stereotyped as "authoritative" and "masculine." "Women can be stereotyped as nurturing," she said. "We're uniquely qualified to organize things, make sure everyone's okay, make it feel safe to do good work, feel included -- these are totally feminine qualities. The best producers I've worked with have been women. But you do need to be comfortable with being the final arbiter of every decision. A democratic process does not work on a film set."

Delpy remarked, "It doesn't necessarily come out that women are tough or strong enough to handle a movie. When people say they're looking for a female director, what does that mean? That they need someone to breastfeed?" Delpy noted that in her next film, "people are getting killed left and right. I also want to do a Japanese war movie and a comedy about the media.

"Women have to be better than men at everything," she continued. "We're not equal yet. Much work has to be done at that level. If a woman director has one failure, it's over for her. It will take her 10 years to make that up." Delpy quoted European director Agnieszka Holland, with whom she has previously worked: "We'll know when women are equal to men when a mediocre woman has an important job." 

-- Sherry Eaker, Editor at Large

Jason and Goliath

Consummate showman Jason Graae, in what should have been a small character role as a minor court functionary in the Los Angeles Opera production of The Merry Widow, manages to neatly fold, pack, and walk away with the show. Evidence of this can be seen here, but you do have to sit through a clip of a curiously reticent Rod Gilfry as Count Danilo, singing "I'm Off to Chez Maxime," as well as lovely snippet of Susan Graham, in the lead, warbling "Vilia," before you get to Mr. Graae stealing the number "Girls, Girls, Girls." Those who don't know Jason will correctly assume him to be the ham stage right.

It may not have been entirely fair to allow a musical theatre fixture such as Jason to run amongst the opera set, however. When they meet on the middle ground of operetta it's clear who has the advantage. Susan Graham plays her role almost as a subdued Dolly Levi (blame her Harmonia Gardens first entrance, I suppose) in exceedingly good voice, while Gilfry, who has done his fair share of musical theatre on the side, gets a bit angstian. Graae, however, is all about selling the number, each and every moment of it. He also gets a great deal of mileage out of his accent, officially "Pontevedrin" but, in fact, a cheerful amalgam of just about everything east of the Urals. Jason is soon to appear in a brief run of Graae's Anatomy at the El Portal in North Hollywood but one day, and soon, I hope, we'll be seeing him in a stirring tribute to another eminent scene stealer, Danny Kaye. It's high time.

--Wenzel Jones

What Mike Daisey Does or Does Not Deserve

One little-known historical fact is that book burning did not originate with the rise of anti-Semitism in Germany during the 1930s. Rather, it's a symptom of tyranny as old as the Bible, occurring over the centuries on every continent. The image of book burning is what many First Amendment advocates call to mind whenever a political, ethnic, or religious group tries, through demagoguery and ideological hectoring, to prevent artists from the sacred act of self-expression.

Thus the bewildered and emotionally charged reaction of popular monologuist Mike Daisey when a group of 80-odd students from California's Norco High School abruptly departed a performance of his work Invincible Summer on April 19 at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass. In theatre circles and the liberal blogosphere, the incident has become a cause célèbre, no doubt because it was captured on video, with more than 117,000 views recorded to date on YouTube.

In the first minute of the tape, Daisey clearly appears thrown off his game. But he doesn't move, sitting quizzically instead, letting things unfold. What infuriates him happens one minute and 11 seconds into the video: A man deliberately pours the contents of a plastic water bottle on Daisey's script, then dumps the bottle into a glass of water on the desk at which Daisey is performing, causing it to overflow. It's a cowardly, malicious, reprehensible act; you can feel Daisey's upset as you hear him, out of the camera's view, beseeching the group to explain not just its departure but why someone felt it necessary to take a metaphorical match to his art.

Initial press reports erroneously suggested this was a Christian group offended by Daisey's language: In the video clip, he is seen using the word "balls" once and "fucking" five times. We now know this was a high school choir -- and that another high school group in the theatre remained. It has also emerged that the person pouring the water was an adult. Talk about a terrible example being set. That man should be ashamed.

Yes, there is also some question as to whether the box office was clear when selling the tickets that Daisey's work contains mature language; certainly, if there was miscommunication on this issue and the adults felt the material was too blue, they had a right, like it or not, to limit the students' access to Daisey's work. But that debate evades the issue: A man felt it within his rights to physically assault Daisey's art.

An essay on Daisey's website talks about how the monologuist called the school and asked to speak with the water pourer, suggesting there could be legal action unless he had the dialogue with the culprit that was so rudely denied him at his performance. This man, Daisey writes, "has three kids -- one is 21, and two are 17 -- and he's terrified of the world. Terrified by violence, and sex, and he sees it all linked together -- a horrifying world filled with darkness, pornography, and filth that threatens his children, has threatened them all his life. They're older now, but he says he still sees things the same way -- and that the only way to protect his children and himself is to lock it all out of his life.

"He also said he's had anger-control issues for years," Daisey adds, "and sometimes acts of rage come over him -- he explodes, and then has to apologize, and doesn't know why it happens. He tries to lock it down, but it happens, and he's ashamed of it. I told him that regardless of where we both stand, I felt very strongly that the repression of walling off everything in the world and viewing it all as filth is connecting with these outbursts, and that it isn't going to work -- until you deal with the root causes, and deal with the world, his anger and rage would keep using him."

Indeed, unless we face that kind of rage together as one nation, our freedom of speech will remain vulnerable.

-- Back Stage Staff

'Blonde' Ambition; OCC vs. DD

OhmyGodyouguys! I knew that Ben Brantley wouldn't like Legally Blonde! It's just too, you know, happy and fun for him. I seem to be in minority in totally enjoying it. Most of the critics who gave it a wavering thumbs up were classifying the show as a guilty pleasure--something they really shouldn't be savoring--like the tower of candy Brantley compared it to in his review.

The Drama Desk nominations came out last Thursday and took a totally opposite tack than the Outer Critics Circle nods. DD lauded the serious and esoteric LoveMusik with 12 nominations while OCC favored kiddie-friendly Mary Poppins with the most at 10. It looks like neither will win big for the awards themselves. I predict Spring Awakening will take Best Musical from both groups and at the Tonys.

--David Sheward