Preview Thoughts on All My Sons and Tootsie

Perhaps I'm having end-of-season ennui, but I didn't especially love the most recent Broadway shows I've seen.  I probably shouldn't complain, since both tickets were free, but I will share some thoughts about them.  Both shows have officially opened, so I'm guessing there won't be any changes from now on; I saw them early-ish in the preview process, so there could've been changes of which I'm not aware...

from the 1997 production

I saw Roundabout's Off-Broadway revival of All My Sons in the late 90s, when I first moved to NY.  I was working at a pager company and was fortunate to get quite-large quarterly bonuses.  You can probably guess how I spent that bonus money: yes, on theater subscriptions.  I had a subscription to Roundabout and saw everything.  Ah, those were the days.  I don't miss the pager company but I do miss quite-large quarterly bonuses.  Moving on.  The production of All My Sons featured John Collum, long one of my favorites, as the father and Michael Hayden, who became a new favorite that night, as the son.  I was also very taken with Angie Phillips as Ann; I thought the production was terrific and very moving.  I'm ashamed to admit I didn't really know All My Sons before I saw that production, but it moved to a nice high spot in the pantheon of my love for Arthur Miller plays.  I didn't go to see the most recent revival with Patrick Wilson and Katie Holmes - when I read the reviews, I thought that production didn't seem like my cup of tea, so I skipped it.  I do regret missing Dianne Wiest on stage, though...

I'm very grateful to have received a free ticket to the current production starring Tracy Letts, Annette Bening, and Benjamin Walker.  Interestingly, Michael Hayden plays the supporting role of the doctor next door in this production; it was hard for my brain to not see him as the gleaming young man.  But that's on me.  This production is nicely produced, attractively designed, straightforwardly directed, and clearly acted.  But I was never really engaged and never moved, even at the last terrible moment.  I don't know if the cast was having a bad night, or if I was, but I was rather disappointed all the way around.

For me, I just couldn't see the reason for this play to be produced now, though I guess I often wonder at the programming of the Roundabout's Broadway stage.  I mean, All My Sons is rather timeless, with its ideas of fathers and sons and war and reckoning.  And the line (paraphrased) "You can be better! Once and for all you can know there's a universe of people outside and you're responsible to it,” resonates now.  It seems to me that everyone now is so selfish and won't think about how they're responsible to everyone else.  Anyway.  This production itself didn't make itself distinct, in my opinion, to illuminate more about the play and about the world right now, other than maybe that isolated moment.

photo credit: Sara Krulwich

I'm a big fan of Tracy Letts' and he was, as usual, terrific, though I did feel he underplayed a little too much.  Probably to balance the overplaying by Annette Bening.  Again, maybe it was an off night, but I found Bening to be pushing so hard.  She was too shrill, too strident, too nagging and I can't imagine anyone ever having any pity for her.  I needed a little balance, something to show me why everyone loved her and wanted to protect her.  Her reviews were excellent, though, so maybe it was nothing more than an off night.  I thought Benjamin Walker was very good at walking the tightrope of playing a character who can come off as too perfect.  The supporting actors were all fine as well and Michael Hayden's complex characterization in a relatively small role was welcome.  I guess I just wanted more...something - the play has often been compared to Greek tragedy and I could've used more of that lift across the board (though maybe not from Bening).  Or maybe my days of simply enjoying a handsomely produced war horse of the American theater doesn't really do it for me anymore.  I just don't know.

After a very fun week with my family in Pensacola (a post about that will hopefully arrive soon), I was treated to a free ticket to Tootsie, the new Broadway musical.  I'm a huge fan of the film and can pretty much quote the entire thing to you right now.  I actually was avoiding seeing the musical because of my love for the movie, but I'm never one to turn down a free ticket.

Again, maybe I was having an off night.  I was sitting next to horrible horrible people (thankfully, I had purchased a big cocktail on my way up to the mezzanine) and my seat was pretty high up, but I didn't love the show.  I was moderately entertained (though mainly during act one), I laughed here and there at some jokes that were pretty good, and performances that were committed, but basically I thought: why?  Even with inserting various #MeToo kinds of dialogue, I just didn't understand why we needed to be seeing this musical right now.  The whole thing felt glib...surface...as if they thought "Oh, the title Tootsie is enough."  (Which, of course, it probably is.)  Could the fact that most of the production team is male have had something to do with my struggles?

I understand why they moved the milieu of the piece from soap opera to Broadway/musical theater, but maybe it would've made more sense to leave the show in the 80s instead of doing it in a contemporary time period.  Just because a character mentions it's a bad idea for a man to take a role from a woman doesn't make the entire premise ok.  And the fact that the older white guy is the one to give everyone permission to live however they want was...bothersome.  I also found in this version that it took much too long for the character of Michael Dorsey to learn anything.  He was pretty much an entitled asshole for the entire show, who loved the attention and behaved in exactly the same obnoxious way, except for the last ten to fifteen minutes.  And the women characters were such heightened caricatures...I don't know.  Even when I laughed at a well-turned phrase, I was sort of mad at myself because I was uncomfortable throughout.

I know this is a Broadway musical and not a documentary, but I just couldn't wrap my brain around how the stuff surrounding the musical-within-the-musical was handled.  There is NO way, none, zero, that the plot points that happen would EVER happen.  And there is NO way, none, zero, that the ending would be resolved in the way it was resolved.  If we're expected to believe that this man learned something by 'being' a woman, shouldn't we be able to believe the way that he learned it?

photo credit: Matthew Murphy

The cast is certainly working hard (I always adore me some Reg Rogers and Julie Halston) and they seem to be having a blast.  I just wish I had had as much fun as they seemed to.  The overture and entr'acte were fantastic, though my expectations for the songs were probably too high; they were mostly fine with no real standouts for me on first hearing.  I walked out humming songs from The Band's Visit and/or Women on the Verge, which probably wasn't what the creators had in mind.   

I could say a lot more, I guess, but why yuck other people's yum.  The show got rapturous reviews, so congrats to them.  As I've struggled before, maybe I'm just not in the frame of mind right now to watch these shows glorify the white male gaze, even when they pretend to be in service of the female gaze.  The rest of the audience seemed to be having a great time and really talented people are working hard.  I guess I just need to step aside and acknowledge that I don't have to be on board with every single piece of theater that's out there right now.  And the smaller stuff is where my heart is at the moment - I recently saw a reading of a new play that was so odd, so out there, so bold, and so fascinating; it may not ultimately succeed, but that's the theatrical sandbox I want to play in right now.  I'm sure the big, brassy Broadway show will capture my heart again some day...