Bright Ideas

Creatures of Light: Nature's Bioluminescence at the American Museum of Natural History (Central Park West at 79th Street)

                Who but the Museum of Natural History, one of New York City’s greatest and longest-existing institutions, would begin an exhibit that is patently about light in the silent, unabashed dark?
                Yes, perhaps for our enjoyment more than anything else, the darkness at the entrance to the museum’s new exhibition, Creatures of Light: Nature’s Bioluminescence (running through January 6th), is all-encompassing, but for the glow, at the end of the metaphorical tunnel, of a ten-foot honey mushroom, glowing proudly as if to welcome us, with great pride in its surroundings, to its less-than-humble abode.
                Creatures of Light is, unexpectedly, relaxing, and bears resemblance not only to the pinnacle of scientific research that it undoubtedly is but also the quieted office of a psychiatrist. The lights, as mentioned, are dimmed, the better to bring the quiet luster of the surrounding plants and animals (live or otherwise) into focus, and a simple, elegant soundtrack of harp and piano plays unobtrusively over the loudspeaker. It is a symphony for the night, or for the depths of the ocean—the realms that Creatures celebrates, and its subjects seem to flourish within almost as much as, if not more than, they would in their respective natural habitats. The information is fascinating, detailing, as would be expected, the scientific processes, benefits, and flaws of the bioluminescent and fluorescent systems of the world’s living and close to nonliving things; as well as their uses in the natural world. Light, evidently, can serve any message from “Mate with me” to “Don’t eat me, I’m poisonous.” And so many things in the animal world seem to convey both messages.
                The Museum of Natural History never fails at whipping up, near from nowhere, special exhibitions that document subjects too diverse to be imagined and yet getting each exactly right. So many museums can try and only succeed occasionally, but it is amazing that there is one that exists—and so close to home, too!—that always, always puts on a show worth visiting, seeing, and recommending to whatever passers-by you may manage to stop on the street post-exhibit and, of course, post-quick brunch jaunt to Isabella’s.  Creatures is no exception.
                Intricately worked and thrillingly accurate models of jellyfish, overinflated fireflies, millipedes and fish are rendered, immobile but appearing always in motion, overhead. Interactive touchscreens allow tours of the Bloody Bay Wall, a drop-off in Little Cayman, using both white and fluorescent light to detect the beautiful reactions of the coral and fish. And speaking of fish, the museum has no lack of them, either, as the exhibit boasts two tanks full of tiny flashlight fish with eye-pouches full of bioluminescent bacteria. In the darkness one can only see the two “headlights” at the front of the fish’s lithe bodies, darting around uncertainly as if unsure what is expected of
                But this is only among the most beautiful displays Creatures has to offer. Near the portion of the hallowed, dark hall exploring Mosquito Bay in Puerto Rico, a so-called Bioluminescent Bay filled with miniature dinoflagellates (millions of which would fit on the head of a pin) that glow when disturbed, there lies a long portion of gently sloping ground immersed in the light show originating above. The dinoflagellates, as tiny points of light, flow down the slope, making it appear a long stretch of shallow water—one that invites wading. (Completing the illusion is the wooden bridge used to enter this section and an overturned boat towards the wall.) Wherever the visitor steps, there the dinoflagellates follow with gusto, glowing brightly and creating a halo around the feet of whomsoever deigns to step on them. Perhaps the folks at the museum could be subjected to a metaphor based on the phenomenon they’ve created here. All they want is for willing learners to flock to their doors and spend a blissful day within. In return, they’ll create something almost unbelievably entertaining and informative—but above all, beautiful.

It's in the Name

The Museum of the City of New York

            It can be to no one’s surprise that I declare New York City a metropolis worthy of study.  But then, it can be to no one’s use either, as historians even today, with or without my say-so, would go so far as to clamber over each other for glimpses of the rust from Peter Stuyvesant’s peg leg, if they knew it would teach them something about the greatest city on Earth, a city that has been built by and, in turn, inspired the greatest minds of our time.  It is a city that has raised majesty to the next level, convenience to an art form, and incorporated the accumulated brilliance of generations into its every move.  And the city that never sleeps, as one could imagine, spends very little of its time immobile.

            It is because I love New York City so much that I love equally altars to its greatness.  One such altar is the Museum of the City of New York, at 103^rd Street and 5^th Avenue, in a beautiful neo-Georgian mansion overlooking Central Park.  Within, MCNY contains some of the most interesting and diverting exhibitions one is likely to find anywhere up and down Museum Mile.  For just a few examples, the museum details the inception of the New York City grid, a triumph of engineering and metropolitan planning almost universally rejected in its earliest stages but, of course, coming to successful fruition despite the almost impossible task of leveling hills and chopping up farms for miles around in an attempt to modernize New York.  The exhibition dedicated to the grid is itself separated into blocks in a room with mirrored walls, creating the illusion that one is in the center of a smaller network of streets within the larger one outside.

            The museum deals with this and other topics with nimble and tasteful precision.  Stories of the activist causes of New York’s history are displayed, ideas for improving both the grid and the East River Esplanade are shared, and unabridged histories of the city are exhibited in multimedia.  NYC’s past is recreated through transportation toys from all eras, as well as recreated furnished rooms to represent all imaginable family styles and classes from the four-hundred-year history of the city. 

Art, too, is given a fair place.  Hyperrealist paintings by New York native Stone Roberts adorn the walls of a small but aesthetically pleasing gallery.  Roberts lays out bustling street corners, a somehow peaceful, brightly lit Grand Central Station, and New Yorkers hailing cabs with equal exactitude, and there is something calming about the utter quiet that accompanies them, as if Roberts has frozen moments in a New York day and put them on display.  His beautiful works certainly do look almost photographic.

But photographs share space with all the rest, in this case the work of video and pictorial artist Neil Goldberg, who takes New York moments most take for granted—the elbows of truck drivers protruding from their windows, the uncertain faces of visitors to a salad bar and the same anguished faces of those missing their trains—and increases them, makes them more visible, to the point where it’s clear that they are the true souls of New York City: the people.  The people who built it from the ground up just as much as the people who live in it, embodying it, becoming it, until they, too, are New York, and their hustle and bustle is its.  No other city in the world can claim that kind of connection with its inhabitants.  Maybe, as they say, it’s something in the water.

Works of a Kind Decidedly Other, if Not Unfamiliar

Art of Another Kind at the Guggenheim Museum

            Abstract art is a revolution against the status quo.  It is a rejection of art as a method of representing life in an exact, cardboard form, and a celebration of the idea that the beliefs of the artist can be transferred to the canvas without a model, without any set of rules, or, often, without a brush.  And indeed, the pieces collectively making up Art of Another Kind: International Abstraction and the Guggenheim, 1949-1960, the new exhibition at said museum, which runs through this September, originated in periods of national strife in which more actualized revolution seemed imminent—dictatorial Spain, or oppressive, vehemently anti-Marxist Italy, or France finding its shaky footing post-World War II.  In any of these cases, restless artists coalesced into groups like the French Art Brut, founded by Jean Dubuffet, or Scandinavia’s Cobra, and created and maintained (for as long a period as they could coexist) a new form of expressionism, or what French art critic Michel Tapié called, in his book discussing the movement, Un art autre, or art of another kind.

            The work displayed in the gently descending halls of the Guggenheim (located, incidentally, at 1071 5th Avenue) is certainly of another kind, though of what kind it is difficult to pinpoint.  The artists on each floor come from different countries, different walks of life, and different philosophies on art.  In fact, artworks on view in the exhibit range from wide, bold paintings by Yves Klein (created by covering naked women in blue paint and smearing them across the canvas) to small, unobtrusive squares built by Jean Tinguely covered in tiny white strips of metal that just happen to move, by clockwork, every half hour until they are noticeably different than they were only a moment before.  But what links this art together, at least according to the museum, is that it has no predestined form or meaning, that it was brought together to convey little meaning without careful scrutiny, or perhaps no meaning at all.  In a way, the true meaning of abstraction may be that we, the viewers, never find out.

            The exhibit is organized so subtly that, like an abstract painting, one might fail to realize that it has any order at all.  Few paintings are described in detail, and one is given only a brief overview as to the period and reasoning from which each set of paintings spring.  With the Guggenheim as one’s only informer, the artists behind the works presented seem enigmatic and mysterious, far back into the shadows in comparison with their works, which are little analyzed and detailed blatantly, without pondering meaning or motivation. 

The real attraction at Art of Another Kind is, as the name might (or should) reveal, the art itself, and the pure visual enjoyment derived from it.  Abstraction may seem to be a form of art that invites further speculation and introspection as to the precise reasoning behind each painting.  But with further study, or rather little of it, one can concur that an artwork can mean nothing if one chooses it to—it can simply be visually pleasing, or not.  (Very little of the artwork at the Guggenheim, thankfully, is not visually pleasing.)  What it means or doesn’t mean is truly up to the viewer, unless one is up against a particularly vocal artist who insists upon the true significance of two circles and a square.  That is the true beauty of abstract art—that the inference of the aesthete is the only real validity.  It may be the artist’s revolution, but it is the common man’s art.

Merely Players

As You Like It at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park

            Is there any quote of William Shakespeare’s that more defines him than the monologue of the Seven Ages as humbly pronounced by Jacques, depressed courtier in As You Like It (playing through June 30 as part of Shakespeare in the Park)?  In the somewhat cynical but certainly accurate summation of the lives and purpose of the ambling human race, Jacques (a name pronounced, like “Rosalind,” an infinite number of ways) proclaims, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts.”  (This Jacques, incidentally, is played by a heavily disguised and appropriately funny Stephen Spinella.)  It would of course be cliché and redundant, perhaps even too much so to bear in any critical explanation of a work by Shakespeare, to explore the relation of the nuances of this speech to the Bard himself and his outlook on life.  So I’ll just remind you, as you take in this new production, to eat, drink, and be merry!  This is a comedy, after all.

            And there is little introspection, to make way for good tidings, dance, and happiness all ‘round at this version of As You Like It, the first production of this summer’s Shakespeare in the Park.  The woods feature prominently in the summer’s chosen entertainments (Sondheim’s Into the Woods is to follow in August), and As You Like It is, of course, no exception, as it deals with the government-in-exile of the good Duke Senior (Andre Braugher of The Wire fame), banished from his dukedom by his wicked, top-hatted brother, Frederick (also Braugher).  Senior’s new court is to be found in the Forest of Arden, where unrequited love flourishes, takes hold of any willing participants, and eventually (spoiler alert) is requited after all.  The onstage antics are accompanied by a rousing and extremely entertaining bluegrass score by Steve Martin—with lyrics by an unknowing Shakespeare, whose rhyming prose is employed by a jubilant troupe of performers.   Yes, bluegrass, for in this incarnation As You Like It takes place in the Civil War-era American South.  Costumes and locations (designed, respectively, by the Tony-nominated Jane Greenwood and the Tony-winning John Lee Beatty) are changed, but the prose remains the same, and most theatergoers wouldn’t have it any other way.  The comedies, and As You Like It in particular, are uncomplicated, joyous, and entertaining, not to mention funny, and when delivered with a cast of players like Lily Rabe (daughter of David Rabe and the late Jill Clayburgh and veteran of the original cast of Seminar) as a feisty Rosalind; Oliver Platt portraying a sly Touchstone the clown; and as many other talented Shakespeareans as can fit on a stage at one time, such a play as this can be transcendently good.  It’s no surprise that this one is.

            A play like this one, that can survive the test of time and remain appropriately comical, deserves recognition and performance.  It especially deserves the kind of performance that whips the audience into a frenzy, hands clapping, feet stomping, and funny bones tickled at the loves between Orlando (David Furr) and Rosalind (or Ganymede), Silvius (Will Rogers) and Phoebe (Susannah Flood), Touchstone and Audrey (Donna Lynne Champlin)—Well, there’s a lot of love onstage.  And the audience, too, can feel it wash over them.

            It’s a wonderful thing to watch dedicated actors perform Shakespeare, because it’s obvious that they love it so much.  To speak the words of the greatest writer ever to live is a privilege, and the actors at the Delacorte Theater embrace that.  They speak with passion and power, and when watching them one gets the feeling that every audience member, too, is merely playing a part in a long and extensive Shakespeare work; that he has written your life, so to speak, and that your parts, your exits and your entrances, are only an extension of the work you’ve just seen performed.  A play as all-encompassing as that, one that manages to mirror real life from over four centuries in the past, could only be written by William Shakespeare.  Who better to celebrate?

"Nice Work" Indeed

Nice Work If You Can Get It at the Imperial Theater

            There were few musicals during this Broadway season—or any other, for that matter—that seemed larger than life, glitzy and glamorous and resplendently reminiscent of a bygone age of laughter, joy, and enforced black-tie dress code.  I am happy to say that after the experience of viewing the new musical Nice Work If You Can Get It, with an assembled score of singles by the Gershwins, that I have seen the Promised Land.  That is to say, I’ve seen the possibility that every musical can exude the pure jubilation that washed over me from this marvelous production, starring (memorably) Matthew Broderick and Kelli O’Hara, with a book by Joe DiPietro (Memphis) and directed/choreographed by the brilliant stage-mistress Kathleen Marshall (who performed the same duties for one of my recent favorites, Anything Goes).

            DiPietro plucked classics from such musicals such as “Oh, Kay!,” “Lady Be Good,” and various Gershwin-scored films for Nice Work, then linked them in an impressive display of talent and created the story of a wealthy playboy, Jimmy Winter (Broderick) who falls for a bootlegger in disguise, Billie Bendix (O’Hara), whose pseudonyms include Gertrude and Bobbie Billie, all while she’s storing her ill-gotten booze in the cellar of Broderick’s spacious Long Island beach house.  Judy Kaye makes an appearance as a tightly wound Prohibitionist who clashes hysterically with Billie’s co-conspirators, Cookie McGee (a supremely talented Michael McGrath) and Duke Mahoney (Chris Sullivan).  All this while singing and dancing to some of history’s greatest songs (the title number; “Sweet and Low Down;” “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off;" “S’Wonderful;" “Fascinating Rhythm," and “They All Laughed”, to name a few) —not bad for only two acts.

            While Matthew Broderick is not exactly a dynamic stage actor (nor is he, as his character proclaims, “very good-looking”), that’s part of his appeal and part of what made him so great in 2001’s The Producers.  His unthreatening and slightly goofy style is endearing, and he has a sweet and quiet voice not unlike that of the great singers of the Gershwins’ time.  Kelli O’Hara, meanwhile, is a fantastic, belting whirlwind up on stage, with a readiness to do anything the script might ask.  And it asks a lot.  The great thing is that the cast delivers.

            Even supporting characters have their star turns.  Michael McGrath is a superb Cookie McGee, who shines in his duet with Judy Kaye’s entertaining Duchess Estonia Dulworth, a mash-up of “Sweet and Low Down” and “By Strauss.”  Stanley Wayne Mathis portrays a police chief after the bootleggers’ blood who sings, quite beautifully, parts of “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” and “Delishious.” The dancers are nimble, quick, and beautiful to look at, and Marshall has instilled the fast-paced steps of the Roarin’ Twenties into their routines.  Flapper dresses are prevalent; pinstriped suits even more so.

            The book, while it is fun and ties the numbers together especially well, does have some weak points.  The jokes are rather repetitive and seem to pile up, especially at the end, when DiPietro makes a ten-minute scene out of humdrum references to a stalled Congress and the utter uselessness of American government, as well as some ill-placed swipes at prohibition, which understandably go right over the audience’s head.  If Joe DiPietro had as good a taste in humor as he did in music, he’d keep it simple and subtle, as actors like Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly did in films with scores by the Gershwins.  Just let the songs speak for themselves.

            But even above the din, they do.  Nice Work is a fantastic musical with an inspired cast and creative team, and makes brilliant use of every Gershwin piece imaginable.  Even as the curtain falls, the orchestra triumphantly blasts the electrifyingly perfect strains of George Gershwin’s magnificent masterpiece Rhapsody in Blue, which not only makes the audience happy to be in New York City, but happy to be watching Nice Work If You Can Get It.  As the title song asks, “Who could ask for anything more?” I certainly couldn’t.

A Troupe of Candidates Quite Unlike Our Own

Gore Vidal's The Best Man at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater

            One’s first thought upon the end of the first scene of Gore Vidal’s The Best Man, playing through July 1^st at the Schoenfeld Theater, is the wish for a presidential candidate like Secretary of State William Russell (the absolutely brilliant John Larroquette).  Russell is intellectual, open-minded, cares about policy first, and gives off the impression of being an all-around good guy.  But perceptions are warped and everything changes throughout our journey through the worlds of the candidates and Vidal’s brilliant expose of American politics.

            Russell, a capable Secretary of State under former president Art Hockstader (James Earl Jones), is cautious yet astute, and, with the help of the superior script, comes off just as smart as Gore Vidal himself.  His opponent, Senator Joseph Cantwell (Eric McCormack), is a classic politician: evasive, smooth, and with just a hint of a Midwestern accent.  Both crave Hockstader’s endorsement at the national convention at which the play takes place, and each has a line of dirt on the other (both of which may or may not be true) so inflammatory that mutually assured destruction seems imminent.

            But aside from Best Man’s captivating plot, it also boasts a script chock-full of beautiful use of the English language coming to us courtesy of its brilliant playwright, a co-writer of the 1959 film version of Ben-Hur.  As the candidates slowly destroy each other, and, eventually, themselves, the audience is drawn in by deep and real interest, and the viewer develops stakes in the happenings and intricate twists and turns of the storyline, until it eventually comes to its deeply satisfying conclusion.

            The play is delivered by what can only be described as a veritable pantheon of a cast.  Besides giants Jones and Larroquette, and Will and Grace star McCormack, Candice Bergen plays Russell’s estranged wife, Alice, who agrees to pose as a devoted wife to help him get elected.  Michael McKean appears as Russell’s campaign manager, Dick Jensen, so desperate for his man to win his party’s nomination that he digs up an nearly blasphemous accusation of Cantwell.  And—for who could not mention her?—Angela Lansbury, in a laudable and exquisite performance, is the Southern belle Chairman of the Women’s Division of the party.  (What party it is exactly is never explicitly stated, and Russell and Cantwell are on such opposite sides of the aisle that it’s difficult to tell.)  These godlike thespians bounce off each other with such perfection that sparks seem to fly, and the stage becomes their own, corrupt world wherein nothing is off limits when the presidency is on the line.  Perhaps this isn’t so different from our own world, but what is changed is human interaction.  That, perfect fodder for a political satirist like Vidal, is transformed into something infinitely more entertaining than our own conversations.  Even if Gore Vidal, in his infinite wisdom, had left the intrigue out of the play, I for one would be satisfied only to watch the characters converse over copious amounts of alcohol in their hotel rooms.  But the intrigue’s still there along with the conversation, and most theatergoers, myself included, could do with a bit of both.

            All in all, The Best Man does not disappoint.  With Tony nominations both for Best Revival of a Play and Best Leading Actor in a Play for James Earl Jones, patrons of the arts in New York will no doubt run, not walk, for seats to this masterpiece of modern theater.  If you’re interested in an evening you won’t soon forget, I’d suggest you do the same.

The Gershwins Drag Some Dead Weight

The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess at the Richard Rodgers Theater

George and Ira Gershwin, authors of such theater as Oh, Kay!, Of Thee I Sing, and Lady Be Good, and of such singles  as “Embraceable You” and “I Got Rhythm,” most famously composed, along with playwriting team DuBose and Dorothy Heyward (DuBose wrote the novel Porgy, and he and his wife wrote the straight play that would later be adapted by the Gershwins to the 1935 opera), Porgy and Bess. The non-operatic musical version made its return to Broadway last August.  And why shouldn’t it?  It has always been my firm belief that the appeal of any musical—and, indeed, any show—should be its creative team and not its cast (except on rare occasions when the two work perfectly together), and this production certainly takes that to heart, as the stylized name you’ll  see on the marquee isn’t Porgy and Bess but The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess. 

The Gershwins were that rare phenomenon—a Gilbert and Sullivan; a Kander and Ebb; or any other duo: a match so perfect they would seem to be made in heaven.  And for that team to be brothers is even rarer.  George and Ira worked better with each other than anyone else, and when George Gershwin died of a brain tumor two years after Porgy and Bess’s debut, at the age of 39, Ira and his lyrics were never the same.  That syncopation is evident in this production, where the less than inspiring  cast allows you to look past stage presence and into the heart of the music.  While it would be easy to blame the production for its faults, more easily than the classic show, I have to mention that when DuBose Heyward contributed his lyrics to George’s jazz-inspired score, as he did in songs including “My Man’s Gone Now,” “What You Want With Bess,” and “Oh, Doctor Jesus,” the result is lackluster.  The rhyme scheme, when there is one, is sparse and ill-placed, and you can tell DuBose is much more comfortable writing novels and plays, where he can say whatever he likes without worrying about his cadence.  What you notice are numbers like “I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’” and especially “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” a song with some of the best lyrics in musical theater, and, it must be noted, the most accurate explanation of religion ever written.  Is it coincidence that these songs had lyrics by Ira Gershwin? I think not.

But the Heywards’ lyrical contributions aren’t my only beef with this opera.  Though I was thoroughly impressed by the performances of most of the male leads, including Norm Lewis as a dedicated Porgy, Joshua Henry as Jake, Philip Boykin as the possessive murderer Crown, and especially David Alan Grier as Sportin’ Life (whose smile brightens and step becomes lighter during “It Ain’t Necessarily So,” as if he too can tell it’ll be the best part), I was less blown away by the females.  Bess (Audra McDonald) and Serena (Bryonha Marie Parham), to name two of the offenders, are more suited to classical opera than they are Broadway, as evidenced by their operatic beltings of some of the Heywards’ more mundane numbers.  Whatever it is they’re saying is unintelligible beneath their doubtlessly beautiful voices.  This is an opera that was written to be heard, not to impress.  The music is most of the story, and McDonald and Parham can’t help but detract from that.  What’s more, McDonald seems nervous and jumpy throughout, as if something more than Crown and the drug dealer Sportin’ Life is stalking her, and we can’t get behind her character because we can’t seem to figure out what she wants.

Don’t misunderstand.  All in all, Porgy and Bess was a success (excuse my rhyme, Mr. Heyward), despite being stripped down by a new trio of editors (director Diane Paulus, playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, and composer Diedre L. Murray) and losing most of the greatest parts of its score.  But it's only made it so far, and achieved whatever success it has, in my mind or those of the public, because it’s a Gershwin musical, and it can’t help but succeed.  If you’re headed to the Richard Rodgers Theater, do it because of the thing the producers are counting on to bring in sales, the element that’s printed the largest on Porgy and Bess’s monochrome posters: the Gershwins.