by Richard Oxman

Special note: *Ridders* don’t have to have seen the New York production of Tennessee Williams’ “The Glass Menagerie” to get something from this piece. In fact, they don’t have to know the play at all, or get all the references herein. Neither do they have to like plays or gay playwrights…or understand that “ridders” means *readers*. They just have to be capable of caring about cruelty. Caring for its opposite.

> “This is doubtless the worst of them.” — Critic Jacques Le Sourd of *The Journal News*, judging the current Broadway production relative to previous revivals of “The Glass Menagerie.”

> “If activists can’t appreciate the beauty of a Du Bois or a Degas, they’re probably better off not talkin’ shop…and just tellin’ jokes.” — Anonymous

At the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York, where Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” debuted in ‘48, Jessica Lange and Christian Slater…are making a huge mistake. They’re letting David Leveaux direct them (and a couple of others) down a road which reinforces the nation’s current popular genre: Humiliation Drama. And they’re doing it at the expense of an artistic vehicle which was expressly created to support sensitivity…and delicacy among us.

Winner of the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play, “The Glass Menagerie” premiered on Broadway in 1945, and was the playwright’s first great success. Set in St. Louis in the 1930’s, the memory play centers on the economically (and otherwise) devastated Wingfield family. [1a]

Tom, modeled to a great degree on Williams himself, is torn between obligations to his family and his desire to break away. He narrates much of the action (primarily in *flashback*) which spotlights the play’s key figures: his overbearing mother Amanda, and his frail sister Laura, whose memory he cannot escape.

When I first met Williams at the Mayfair Hotel in New York City in the sixties, he was all gussied up as his real (lobotomized) sister Rose, drunk with the pain that had never left him. But that’s another story. [1b] It’s enough right now to lament the “Reality TV” version of Williams’ masterpiece which is crossing the boards (and us) at the Barrymore.

No more, please. We’ve had enough Jerry Springers sprung on us. And that has much to do with why other delicate souls have been hardened enough by life to not only be cruel, but to think of themselves and others as being *forced* to be cruel by *circumstances*.

Like the soldiers in Iraq and elsewhere. And their families. And their fellow-citizens.

Williams was very tipsy –but clear as chrysolite– when he told me what he has conveyed to millions of others: “The one inexcusable act is deliberate cruelty directed by one person to another.” We have *totally* lost our appreciation of that sentiment. A good litmus test for those who need it most can be found in what we find funny. An excess of today’s humor is centered on humiliation, yes? [1c]

And when I use the word *totally*, I’m not choosing my words cavalierly. It all reminds me of when I was chasing my dad’s doctor down at Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, New Jersey so many sad years ago. My pop was riddled with cancer, and his doc was warding me –his only kid– off…off…off…his back, as he entered an elevator. I had been following the busy med man around the corridors, trying to get in a word, *edgy*, wise…about dad’s immune system. But *God* got on the elevator, offended by the suggestion that I might know something, feel something. As the doors closed, he arrogantly advised me: “Don’t worry about your father, get yourself checked.”

This is not just another disquisition with regard to how far we’ve fallen. No, this is another call by yours truly…to do something about the insensitivity you observe in others. To demand better behavior. And to encourage the development of sweetness in yourself in the face of brutality.

For without the nurturing of nice qualities, a blossoming within the arts…political activists, righteous and rife with analysis…analysis…analysis will put an end…to zero. No rape, no rotting riffs will be ameliorated, terminated…without being able to appreciate Amanda Wingfield’s cruelty.

That mother in Williams’ work tears us apart because she is not a vicious soul, but rather a well-intentioned being, one who wants to help. Blind to herself. And others. As Daniel Mendelsohn says, in his review of the Barrymore production, “Much of the poignancy of the play, its great emotional subtlety, is that the cruelty of which Laura is the victim comes not from the stranger, Jim, but from those who profess to be protecting her — Amanda and Tom.” [2]

Does any of this ring Iraqi bells?

The hells of Afghanistan, Colombia, etc. are wrung dry with our good intentions. In the spirit of the Halls of Montezuma, I guess.

Mother Amanda’s hardened optimism is coupled with pathetic incompetence in Williams’ play. And “crippled” daughter Laura deals with the realities of life by resorting to a beauty that is real to her: art. The lovely, delicate collection of figurines which she cherishes…protect her –if only for a moment– from the road to hell paved with *good intentions* by her family.

But none of this comes across, apparently, in the New York production. [3]

A wisecracking, street tough Christian Slater (Tom) cannot communicate a sensitive and tormented creature, rushing *just a bit too much*, honoring a damnable “devil’s pact” with his manipulative parent. And Jessica Lange, playing Amanda as a proto-feminist heroine, strong –not vulnerable at all– cannot cut the mustard for what Williams has put on the table.

Get a gentleman caller for his sister Laura, insists Amanda, and Tom will have his mom’s blessings for leaving the house, and joining the merchant marine, his dream.

The rush to get away contributes to Tom’s overlooking the fact that the young man he drags home for dinner *is already taken*. The unseemly and selfish haste written into the drama are missed…because the casting and direction make the characters callous in their confidence… too in control of their destinies.

One can’t have Southern charm –putrefied during a life of hard knocks into vanity and ugliness– played by a Lange who is characterized by physical beauty and intrepid machinations. According to more than one critic I’ve come across, she plays the mother according to type. The wrong type. Cliched impersonation.

Amanda’s character requires a desperation…a frantic clinging…manic repulsiveness…poignant dreaminess, not an interpretation embodying personal self-sufficiency, admirable dominance.

That only appeals to the bland ideology of our popular culture, as Mendelsohn suggests. Yes, we cannot embrace vulnerability. The fact of it. The need for it. To see an Amanda lost on stage, trying to avoid eye contact with her daughter’s handicap…trying to foolishly, dangerously deny its reality might be a learning experience. A catharsis for one and all. But to see a Lange doing a take-charge Madonna, has to be quite depressing.

The monstrous scope of the mother’s domineering streak (born of denial) must be starkly contrasted with the tiny, glittering glass animals of Laura’s menagerie. But that’s impossible to portray if the play’s direction insists upon playing down the frangible icons of beauty.

If one didn’t *wish* better, one might very well think that the desire for having a “star vehicle,” and a strong appeal to current tastes, overrode the integrity of this version of Williams’ dramatic, compassionate offering. Actually, I think that’s clear. [4a]

For the descriptions of Slater’s rendition of Tom make me think the director presented him as an insensitive soul, a brute. Not capable of being truly tormented, as the character is clearly intended to be (as per the guilt-ridden epilogue). The *being above it all* –so in vogue today– has apparently infected this production. Strutting about the stage substituted for sensitivity.

And the “Reality TV” syndrome touched upon above is echoed in the performance of the gentleman caller. Mendelsohn says, his “obtuse interpretation misses the point of Jim: he’s a heartbreaker not because he’s seamy, but because he’s simply normal — ‘an emissary from a world of reality that we were somehow set apart from’….” Apparently, he’s played as malicious, and as a disingenuous oily slickster. A narcissistic manipulative suitor a la those many movies and sitcoms which pit unsuspecting females up against men who’ve placed bets on their vulnerability. [4b]

Crippled Laura is a victim of the selfish fantasies of her (otherwise feeling) mother and brother, and the gentleman caller must be portrayed as such too. Unless we want a drama of unnecessary cruelty, devoid of eipiphany…not pregnant with a single seed of hope.

Sickening shards of broken glass fly through the air with the greatest of ease today, splinters from our fragmented lives. Underscored by The Cult of Humiliation…like a score for the movie *Ridicule*. [4c]

Laura’s delicate creatures are much like we are, in need of careful handling, loving engagement. Our features feature furrows born of insufficient stroking. Lacking the proper…touch.

When the tender unicorn is broken…many gorgeous symbols fly around potentially. With much marvelous mileage maintained. But not if the heart of a director is lodged in the popular mania, the crazed callousness of our current culture.

The hope held high by political activists will never be realized unless the dashing of hopes on America’s stages is acknowledged for what it is: precious opportunities missed. Ops we can ill-afford to lose, to put it verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry mildly.

It is in that sense that Jessica Lange, Christian Slater and director Leveaux, among others, are our enemies as much as Bush/Cheney, Hillary/Obama & Co.

That doesn’t mean I turn my back on them in any absolute sense. Senseless, that.

I mean, if George or Jessica wanted to come over for dinner, I’d have either one over in a heartbeat. In the case of the former, I might try to find a window of op to say something that would cripple him for the rest of his life. Or push him out of (once the cameras were killed). With the latter, I might simply show her clips of Sally Field’s performance as Amanda…at the Kennedy Center last year. One where poignant physical limitations spoke (spot-on-target) volumes. Or, better, read reviews of Laurette Taylor’s original portrayal out loud over wine.

It’s just a matter of choosing the right kind of treatment for a particular kind of *enemy*.

In both cases, though, over dessert…I’d stay away from jokes based the humiliation of others. That wouldn’t be hard for me. Even with the most pregnant of social pauses.

I learned a long time ago that you can tell a joke without having to hurt anyone. Perform a play showing vulnerability at its core, not paying the slightest attention to what’s…fashionable.

Humiliation and torture have much in common. Torture, contrary to what Naomi Klein’s recent foray would have us believe, does *not* work. Not in any sense. Not even for the jokesters we must clash with daily. Ditto for humiliation in this menagerie. [5]

Fancy Footworked Footnotes:

[1a] It’s highly instructive that the current production goes out of its way to establish the Wingfield residence –by design (in more than one sense)– as…anything but poor. Ditto, apparently, for Lange’s wardrobe. That’s all very much in conflict with Williams’ purposes. One of the great misconceptions today is that *all* interpretations of a given work of art are valid. That’s soooo *American Democracy*.

[1b] You’d think that this encounter alone would have publishers knocking down the door, but…I guess Michael Jackson’s makeup is more *meaningful* today.

[1c] See the Hedberg comedy on the Ox to Grind Jukebox here for a contrast with what’s popular. And PLEASE read Scott’s *SPECIAL* SPECIAL NOTE BELOW FOOTNOTE FIVE.

[2] The May 26, 2005 “Victims on Broadway” article (pp. 23-25) in *The New York Review of Books* served as my inspiration for this piece. As I often am wont to do, I *plagiarized* up the kazoo. But only in the spirit of my hero Blaise Cendrars.

[3] I’ve read tons of reviews. And after several decades in and out of the theatre, I can delve between the lines…and come up with what’s up. And down.

[4a] Lange’s stints as Blanche DuBois in “Streetcar”, Frances Farmer in *Frances*, and other deranged Southern women would seem to make her eminently qualified. However, her proclivity for the predictable portrayal is…a problem for this particular piece. As per Williams’ very specific instructions warning against cookie-cutter approaches. And passive audiences love stock images.

[4b] If anyone knows the name of that relatively recent film in which two twenty-somethings make a wager involving the sexual seduction of an office colleague…let me know. I thought that the title began with a “C”…but I must be mistaken; I can’t locate it, remember it.

[4c] Actually, quite a classy French number, the ‘96 fish-out-of-water film by Patrice Leconte.

[5] I really was inspired to write this article because of the conclusion of Mendelsohn’s review. It truly clarifies what we’re up against:

“As the audience at the…theater…leapt to its feet for the by now ritual standing ovation at the conclusion of this meaningless production of a play that is, more than almost any other in the Williams canon, about the destruction of beauty and the inevitability of failure, I wondered whether the delicate emotions of such a play are beyond current audiences — whether great drama’s demand that we identify with the helpless victims, and with the strident suffering made visible to us on stage, makes us so uncomfortable that it can only be played for laughs. As I got up to leave, a teenaged girl sitting behind me turned to her parents and said, ‘But I thought this was supposed to be *sad*.’ So did I. The only heartbreak in the theater that night was that there was no heartbreak at all.”

—–

Mitch Hedberg: Style of Silence

By Scott

> “To make one’s language stutter, face to face, or face to back, and at the same time to push language as a whole to its limit, to its outside, to its silence…” –Gilles Deleuze, He Stuttered

> “I think Bigfoot *is* blurry. That’s the problem. It’s not the photographer’s fault” — Mitch Hedberg

There is something about Mitch Hedberg. I didn’t know of him until Richard pointed him out to me. It’s not that he was just a funny man, lightening our hearts and filling the air with mirth and his mumblings. It’s not that he died, or that he perished before the pope. After hearing his cds of one-liners and just plain stupid-silly humor, I can say with and without humor that Hedberg is the funniest funny man I’ve ever heard. The lessons in his humor are so small and subtle. There are two qualities I hear in Hedberg’s on stage presence that I think are worth pondering.

The first is his *Style* of comedy, not just in the way he says the word “style” in his bit where he says, “God Bless Her” [1], but in the fact that he never pokes fun at groups or individuals. There is no class division, name calling, racism, or intentional hurting of anyone in his *routine*, unless you think making light fun of tightrope walking and juggler friends is inclusive of the above. No malice, no resentment, no vengefulness. Hedberg is the anti-Bill Hicks. [2]

What also shook me was his mumbling, stuttering, his starts and stops. Hedberg is like the writing of Beckett, not like the characters of Beckett, but the style of Beckett’s actual words, his sentences, his shaking and stuttering of language. The starts and stops of his comedy are also akin the work of poet Charles Péguy. Like Péguy, Hedberg sometimes starts in the middle and adds and fattens the whole mess as he goes along. This is no trick of linguistics. Hell, throw away that whole Chomskyan mess and we’d be better off. This is more about rattling the frame, shaking it, murmuring it out of shape. If Hedberg is anything he is a pulsator and destroyer of the frame.

Hedberg’s jokes that *fail* also stammer, but without loss of composure.

> “Say… … …. Get your priorities crooked …. That’s my sister. That’s what I tell her. She’s too straight laced. I say, Get your priorities crooked… Alright …. ahm stoned right?”

> “A guy told me he likes cherries, bu… I waited to see if he was going to say tomato… ’til I realized he liked cherries, just…. HaAlright, that jokes’ ridiculous… That f’n shit… That’s like a carbon copy of the previous joke… with different ingredients.”

Like any good comedian it is Hedberg’s pauses that make the punchline, but it is his murmuring that makes him like “…a large, out of focus monster roaming the countryside. Run! He’s fuzzy. Get out of here.” [3] Or, maybe he’s just a stoner dude who cracks me up.

Fuzzy Focus Footnotes:

[1] You can listen to a sampling of Hedberg’s standup right here on the Ox to Grind Jukebox.

[2] Bill Hicks is another comedian (also dead). Hicks’ is a ranter, a railer against the powers that be, someone who makes fun of Jay Leno and rips his heart out, and not only stomps on it, but sets it on fire and then pours rubbing alcohol over the charred remains of his comic onslaught. Both Hedberg and Hicks have no respect for authority, but stylistically they are *like* poles of a magnet.

[3] Everyone should own and *use* Hedberg’s *Strategic Grill Locations*.