The Dead Gay Man: Burn This and Tom at the Farm

Choose your beefy, brooding blue-collar man
grieving his dead gay brother carefully.

When news broke that tickets were on sale for Burn This, a revival of a sexy, intense 1987 Lanford Wilson play starring Adam Driver and Keri Russell, I felt deeply envious of people who lived in or near New York. Those lucky people would be able to see film director favorite Adam Driver on the stage, where he started racking up accolades the moment he graduated from Julliard in 2009! They would get a preview of the chemistry between Kylo Ren and the new character played by Russell in Star Wars: Episode IX! Why couldn't I be like those fortunate ones? Then I remembered that planes were a thing.

So a month later I was in New York, in the Hudson Theatre, terrified that at the last minute they would announce that Driver had the flu or something. But that didn't happen, and the show began! Then a different thought came to mind. "Wait a second. Is this Tom at the Farm?"

A dream come true. That carpet, though.

Tom at the Farm, or Tom à la ferme, is a 2011 play by Quebecois playwright Michel Marc Bouchard. I was introduced to the play back in 2015 through Xavier Dolan's film adaptation. I eventually read the English translation, but found that it's a work where staging is really integral. (For this post, I'll mostly be going off of the Dolan film.)

I'm not suggesting plagiarism or anything like that. But let me explain: 

When Burn This starts, Robbie, the dance partner of Manhattan woman Anna, has died in an accident along with his boyfriend. Anna relates how she showed up at his funeral to discover her friend's conservative New Jersey family didn't know he was gay. They assumed/insisted that she was his girlfriend, and she found herself roped into spending the night at the family's house. Soon, she finds herself in a passionate yet ill-advised relationship with her deceased friend's volatile older brother, Pale, who knows his brother was gay and looks eerily like him.

When Tom at the Farm starts, Guy, the boyfriend of Montreal man Tom, has died in an accident. Tom shows up at the funeral to discover his boyfriend's conservative rural Quebec family didn't know he was gay. They assume/insist that a female co-worker, Sarah, was his girlfriend, and Tom finds himself roped into getting Sarah to come to the family's house. Tom finds himself in a passionate yet ill-advised relationship with his deceased boyfriend's volatile older brother, Francis, who knows his brother was gay and looks eerily like him.

Both stories also have creepy dying animals (butterflies, cows), gay men in advertising, dancing, a hit 1980s song ("I'm on Fire" for Burn This, "Sunglasses at Night" for the Tom at the Farm movie), and a very important handwritten note on a scrap of paper.

Pierre-Ives Cardinal (Francis) and Xavier Dolan (Tom) in Tom at the Farm

What interests me about the parallels is that Tom at the Farm feels like it took the basic situation (cosmopolitan gay man dies, more "traditional" family is in denial about his sexuality, woman pressured into posing as his girlfriend) and re-centered on the gay characters, even bringing one back from the dead.

Gay characters in Burn This are important, but on the periphery from the main action. When the play starts, boyfriends Robbie and Dominic are already dead and buried. Larry, roommate to Anna and the late Robbie, is an important and scene-stealing character, but very much of the "sassy gay friend" trope. That he doesn't come off as too cartoonish in 2019 is due to Wilson's thoughtful writing and Brandon Uranowitz's performance. (In an interview, Uranowitz describes the part as "a dream role" and not in need of "modernizing.") Still, it's hard not to notice that Larry's function is mostly to provide humor and assist the heterosexual romance between Anna and Pale.

In Tom at the Farm (at least in the movie version), the analogous Pale/Anna tryst between Francis, the dead man's older brother, and Sarah, the co-worker who has to pretend to be the dead man's girlfriend, does occur, but as a quickie in a truck. The main focus is on the relationship between Tom and Francis. And whoo boy, what a relationship it is. The Anna and Pale relationship is a series of unstable, drunken, grief-fueled hookups, but is still miles healthier than what Tom and Francis get up to. While Pale, a sleep-deprived coke addict, is unpredictable and aggressive, Francis is downright sadistic and dangerous. No one is threatened with being thrown in a pit of dead cows in Burn This!

The Hudson Theatre

I don't know if Bouchard and/or Dolan were inspired by Wilson's play at all (I couldn't find any reference to this online), but the similarities in the stories at their bases are striking. Even if there is no connection, the contrasts between the two are so fascinating to me because they show how different storytellers can take one scenario and change it so much depending on whom they decide the protagonist is, which facet they choose to look through.

Burn This was 100% worth the weekend trip across the country. Seeing Driver act onstage was just as electrifying as I'd hoped. I was expecting his vulnerability and energy, but was surprised by his flawless comedic timing (maybe because I've never watched Girls?). The aforementioned Uranowitz was hilarious. David Furr, as Anna's wealthy screenwriter boyfriend Burton, brought an approachable humanity to the role. Russell didn't seem as natural onstage as her three Broadway-vet castmates, but she was still deeply affecting and has time to get more comfortable (the show is still in previews and officially opens April 16, running through July 14). 

Image info:
Header image: promo image for Burn This, screenshot of Tom at the Farm
Pic of program: mine
Tom at the Farm screenshot
Pic of Hudson Theatre: mine

Favorites of 2018 (and 2017)

L to R, top to bottom: Annihilation, Antony & Cleopatra,
Pelleas & Melisandre, Burning

Putting together "best of" lists in these times can feel frivolous, and last year I never got beyond a perfunctory list of my favorites. 2018 was a blur of more awfulness and protests, plus getting out the vote and progress in the Mueller investigation. It was also a damn fine year for cinema, and I got the list together. Here are my favorites in various categories (and 2017's picks at the end).

Movies

L to R, top to bottom: Blindspotting, Hereditary,
Burning, The Favourite, Annihilation,
The Death of Stalin

Annihilation: This movie reminded me of Under the Skin in several ways, including the audience's love-it-or-hate-it reaction. I loved it, but there was a lot of weird laughter at dramatic moments in my screening. Great special effects, and I preferred this contemplative, ambiguous film to director Alex Garland's debut, Ex Machina.

Blindspotting: With Black Panther, Sorry to Bother You, and Blindspotting, 2018 was a big cinematic year for Oakland. Directed by Carlos López Estrada and written by and starring Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal, tonal roller coaster Blindspotting looks at a contemporary, gentrifying Oakland and police violence.

The Death of Stalin: I watched this movie twice this year. Once in theaters, and then again after Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court. Totalitarianism is a cancer, but the way its aggrandizement and increasingly ludicrous untruths inevitably paint its loyalists into corners is ripe for satire. How else to capture the whiplash of absurdities and atrocities?

Hereditary: As in other A24 horror movie The Witch, a teenager must deal with not only a malevolent supernatural entity, but with guilt, grief, and the weight of the family's blame in the aftermath of a tragedy. Toni Collette and Ann Dowd are powerhouses.

The Favourite: I went into this expecting to be wowed by Olivia Colman, and was even more wowed than anticipated. Yorgos Lanthimos takes a historic event (Britain's withdrawal from the War of the Spanish Succession) and gives us a tightly wound story of politics, power plays, chronic illness, abusive relationships, and Mad Max: Fury Road's Nux in elaborate 18th Century finery.

Burning: Based on a short story by Haruki Murakami, this slow burn by Chang-dong Lee is a master class in cinematography and tension. It's also very much of the zeitgeist. In Burning, Seoul's underemployed millennials live in cramped, dark studios or their parents' houses and compete in the marginal gig economy while their 1-percenter peers lounge in the tony Gangnam neighborhood Psy made world-famous a few years back. The three lead actors (Ah-in Yoo, Steven Yeun, and Jong-seo Jun) are excellent.

Books (I read in 2018, not necessarily published in 2018)

Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz: This twisty post-Reichenbach Falls Sherlock Holmes novel deals with whether or not math professor/crime lord James Moriarty survived that incident. Includes my new favorite Moriarty origin story. (Fans of this sort of thing might also want to check out Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D'Urbervilles by Kim Newman.)

Wonder Valley by Ivy Pochoda: Drifters, runaways, and cultists populate this contemporary Southern California noir.

The Charm Buyers by Lillian Howan: One of the highlights of 2018 was reading at Lit Crawl, an annual evening of literary readings across San Francisco's Mission District. After my group's reading, a few of us ended up at a reading where Lillian Howan read a short story so powerful that I had to look her up and order her novel. In The Charm Buyers, Marc Antoine Chen, a member of the Chinese Hakka community in Tahiti, has a loving extended family and is the heir to a fortune in black pearl cultivation. But Marc seems determined not to make life easy for himself, shunning his father's business in favor of his own illegal operations and falling for first his cousin and then an older French woman. When his cousin falls ill, Marc must decide whether or not to potentially sacrifice everything for her.

The Yonahlosse Riding Camp for Girls by Anton DiSclafani: Just squeaking in under the wire (I devoured this book over the holidays) is this Depression-set page-turner about a Florida teenager sent away to a remote girls' boarding school after a mysterious, scandalizing incident. Horses + a narrator who's a prickly but engaging addition to the "coming of age" genre.

TV

The Good Place and Kid Gorgeous at Radio City

While the movies I loved this year often starkly confronted our current times, I looked for laughs and comfort in other media. This year I finally started watching (and quickly got caught up on) The Good Place, which, despite being about death and Hell, is a warm blanket and cup of tea of a show. Honestly, few things have helped me with my anxiety as much as William Jackson Harper's Chidi.

John Mulaney's special Kid Gorgeous at Radio City is his best so far and a welcome respite as we try to deal with the horse loose in this hospital. Plus, there's a solid intro of Art Deco porn if you're into that.

Theater

The dancers of Fury

Pelleas & Melisandre: I attended all three of West Edge Opera's summer productions, and this Debussy opera directed by Keturah Stickann was my favorite with its lush, sensuous sets and costumes. For 2019, I'm most looking forward to Elkhanah Pulitzer's take on The Threepenny Opera!

Fury: A ballet based on Mad Max: Fury Road? It works!

Antony & Cleopatra: A National Theatre Live production with Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo as Shakespeare's hot mess couple? Yes, please! I bought this ticket impulsively on a Bad News day (I don't even remember which one), but it was well worth the drive to the Lark Theater in Larkspur.

Other

Randy Rainbow: Another year of the Trump Administration, another year of Randy Rainbow keeping us sane! Throughout the lows and lower lows of 2018, Randy was there with timely song parodies. My personal favorite this year was his Gilbert and Sullivan take on "a very stable genius," but other topics included Rudy Giuliani joining Trump's legal team and the ever-intensifying Mueller investigation. Can't wait to see him live with my mom in 2019!



And 2017:

Theater:
SF Ballet Frankenstein
SF Ballet Salome
Cyrano de Bergerac - Livermore Shakespeare
La Traviata - SF Opera
Girls of the Golden West - SF Opera

Books:
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
The Decameron by Boccaccio

Movies:
The Florida Project
Paterson
Call Me By Your Name

Mad Max Fury Road: the Ballet

The Mad Max crew rushes back to the Citadel

On Friday, 9/14/18, I woke up with a headache. Then my cat threw up under the bed. I managed to get to work on time. There was an exciting development, with Manafort flipping, but what really jump-started my day? A tweet from San Francisco Ballet about a performance some of its dancers were in: a ballet inspired by Mad Max: Fury Road. I love ballet. I love Mad Max: Fury Road. There were only two performances: that night and Saturday night, which I wouldn't be able to make.

I have never bought a ticket so fast. Somewhere in the digital dash for a Fury ticket I absorbed that principal Frances Chung was one of the SF Ballet dancers, but it was only after I purchased my general admission ticket that I saw that two of my other favorites, Dores André and Jennifer Stahl-Weitz, were performing as well, along with Luke Ingham and three principals from Alonzo King LINES Ballet: Adji Cissoko, Babatunji, and Michael Montgomery. How had I not known about this before Friday? I followed both Frances Chung and Dores André on Instagram, but somehow despite my social media addiction, was not paying it enough attention.

My headache continued, impervious to meds or caffeine. But I was determined, and after work I hoped on the T, stopped for a quick pizza dinner in the Dogpatch neighborhood, and then continued to the Midway SF, an arts space in an industrial area near Islais Creek.

An abandoned something or other nearby

The crowd was definitely younger and hipper than most ballet crowds, but there were plenty of older folks willing to come out in the middle of nowhere to see such illustrious dancers. (Or maybe I'm prejudiced - the well dressed Boomers could have also been hardcore fans of George Miller's dieselpunk masterpiece with zero connections to ballet.)

The doors opened at 7pm (there was no indication of when the performance would start, and a last-minute Facebook query went unanswered). Inside the dark, maze-like complex was a stage-in-the-round connected by a catwalk to a stage for the musicians. There were multiple bars. There was an attached cafe with more alcohol and food. There was a VIP room. I came alone and I'm not cool, so instead of socializing and drinking, I got a water from the bar, plopped myself on the concrete floor in front of the stage (chairs and stadium seating were strictly for those who had bought VIP tickets), and used my phone's flashlight to read a novel I had with me. My extreme uncoolness ended up being a huge boon.

Babatunji (Max) and Montgomery (Nux) on the catwalk,
with the VIP crowd behind them

I sat there on the floor for over an hour (the show finally started around 8:45pm) as my headache continued and the room filled up. Based on a few social media posts I saw afterwards, a lot of people couldn't actually see the show. Apparently some tried standing on the bars, but were made to get down. Another person on twitter said many left. I was impervious to all this.

Just how amazing my spot was didn't completely dawn on me until the dancing started. The music was by classical/pop fusion band YASSOU, and it was original, not Junkie XL's (a.k.a. Tom Holkenborg) soundtrack from the movie. YASSOU front woman Lilie Hoy (who played Capable) opened Fury with a song about memories of the world before the apocalypse while the projection screens showed lush green landscapes. The music was good, but I'll be totally honest: I was there for the dancing, and found the opening song a bit slow.

Babatunji, Montgomery, and Hoy

But then Luke Ingham charged out! Playing a much hotter version of Immortan Joe (sadly, I did not get any passable photos of him), Ingham moved around the tiny round stage with power and abandon. At one point he rushed nearly to the edge of the stage where I sat, and I realized that I was 1) sitting within arm's reach to a performance by some of the country's best dancers, and 2) that I had paid $35 for it. Yeah, I was on a hard floor and had to hunch down a little to see under the barrier, but it was still a better view than the box seats at the War Memorial Opera House (I assume).

By the time Babatunji made the most interesting, graceful crawl across a pretend desert ever, the headache receded from my awareness.

This elation only intensified as Stahl-Weitz (Splendid) and André (Toast) came out. I first fell in love with André when she danced the lead in Arthur Pita's Salome in March 2017, which I saw from a discounted dress circle seat. Her intensity can be felt from the balcony, but from a few feet away? Electric!

Dores Andre and Jennifer Stahl-Weitz

Also electric was Adji Cissoko as Furiosa. Her role as a principal at LINES is apt, considering her, well, lines. She is a live power line. And seeing Chung's (the Keeper of the Seeds) expressive face so close? Priceless (but again, $35!!!). A section en pointe with André, Chung, and Cissoko was a highlight for me.

Chung and Cissoko, VIP section in background

Although the story of Mad Max: Fury Road is obviously pared down for Fury the hour-long ballet, it gets the emotions right. You have the story of a harsh world, constant violence, and a group of various foes who come together in trust, love, and friendship to fight against evil. Hoy and Montgomery were sweet as young lovers Capable and Nux, but Babatunji and Cissoko were especially intriguing as Max and Furiosa. Their chemistry, explored in a fascinating pas de deux, was spot-on, and the audience went wild when they teamed up to kill Immortan Joe. (By jamming Cissoko's steel-like pointed leg in his face. Death by pointe shoe: it's ballet.)

Stahl-Weitz, Cissoko, and Andre

Also exciting about the show was its creative team. While ballet is having a great moment with young choreographers, many of the most famous are men (Arthur Pita, Justin Peck, Liam Scarlett, etc). Fury's choreographer is Danielle Rowe, and the composer (Kristina Dutton) and producer (Kate Duhamel) are women as well.

My takeaway from the crowd around me was that those who were able to see it loved it, but it was a disappointment for many of  those who had bought general admission and were not either tall or early enough to snag a spot on the ground. However, there was a camera crew, and the San Francisco Dance Film Festival was being promoted, so maybe it will show up there someday?

There is one more show tonight (9/15/18), and it looks like there are some general admission tickets left as of this writing. Get there early!

The stage

Image info:
All photos: terrible, mine (photos on social media tagged with #FuryShow were encouraged)

The Hunchback Musicals: A Rambling Yet Incomplete Comparison

From the Paper Mill Playhouse production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame

As a Notre-Dame de Paris/The Hunchback of Notre Dame superfan (there are dozens of us!), I was thrilled to finally get to see the updated Disney stage musical last week when it was put on by South Bay Musical Theatre. The community theater troupe pulled the show off with aplomb, mostly because of the cast's powerful voices - especially Jen Maggio as Esmeralda and Jay Steele as Frollo (Steele also had multiple roles behind the scenes, including graphic design and assistant master carpenter). The audience I sat in was dazzled, and shows sold out. Full disclosure: Christine Ormseth, who is a member of my childhood church, did the hair and makeup design and was in the ensemble. 

If you're not right on the pulse of the musical and/or Victor Hugo fan communities, you might ask what the updated Disney stage musical is. Remember the 1996 Disney movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which had almost nothing to do with Hugo's novel? If you don't, it had Frollo as a judge (instead of a priest, to pacify the Catholic church) who ended up taking in baby Quasimodo after he straight-up murdered Quasimodo's mother (rather than adopting Quasimodo to save him from Parisians who wanted to burn the ugly child to death); talking gargoyles (including one with saggy boobs); and most shocking of all, a happy ending.

No.

If you do remember it, it's probably due to two tour de force Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz songs: "God Help the Outcasts" (sung by Heidi Mollenhauer) and incel classic "Hellfire" (sung by Tony Jay). Indeed, these songs belted out by Maggio and Steele were highlights of the South Bay Musical Theatre production. 

Disney first did a stage play of Hunchback in 1999 - in Berlin, in German. This version was similar to the movie, but had Esmeralda die. Then in 2014, a new version with a book by Peter Parnell premiered that was even closer to the novel. That doesn't mean, however, that there weren't some big changes...one of which was completely whackadoo. 

The production I saw 

When I opened my program, I was shocked (and delighted!) to see Jehan's name in the first song. Jehan Frollo, Claude Frollo's rebellious teen brother, probably gets chopped from adaptations more than Fleur-de-Lys (Phoebus's fiancee - more on that later), and at least she gets a starring role in the French Notre-Dame de Paris musical (more on that later as well). Jehan gets nothing! 

I always think this is a shame, because I kind of love Jehan. Yes, he's an asshole that I'd hate in real life, and at sixteen he's already a drunk mooch who has instigated his fellow students to carry out raids on wine shops, but he's also sassy, charismatic, and a good source of comic relief in a dark book. He's the first character we meet by name, and we meet him when he's hanging out on a column and heckling people during the interminable wait for a play to begin. 

There's our boy!

I gathered from the fact that he was only in one song in the program that he was possibly going to be killed off before his time, but I never would have predicted that The Hunchback of Notre Dame musical would make him...Quasimodo's father!

This is surprising and hilarious for two reasons:

• Jehan hates Quasimodo
• Jehan is about three-four years younger than Quasimodo

I'm guessing most people watching the musical didn't care that they made a character they had never heard of Quasimodo's dad, but I care. However, I don't disapprove. Mostly because it's hilarious for the above reasons (Jehan would be so mad and then make a great joke about it), but also because I get what they were going for by having Jehan and a Gypsy be Quasimodo's parents: correcting the way-off-base explanation for Frollo adopting Quasimodo, linking Quasimodo and Jehan in Frollo's mind (in the novel, Frollo decides to raise Quasimodo in honor of fellow orphan Jehan), keeping the movie's conceit that Frollo wants Quasimodo hidden, and explaining Frollo's bigotry towards Gypsies.

Frollo: anti-baby-burning killjoy

The Jehan inclusion highlights how much stuff is in Hugo's novel, and how adaptations have to pick and choose what to keep or cut. Do you try to work in how Frollo's madness is linked to alchemy and the dark arts? What about the whole part with Esmeralda's mother, a prostitute who is erroneously told that Gypsies ate her baby? There's a plethora of characters, subplots, and themes to choose from, so not surprisingly, another musical based on the same source is much different from this one.

Notre-Dame de Paris is a 1998 French musical (available on DVD!) by composer Riccardo Cocciante and lyricist Luc Plamondon and is basically the Gallic Phantom of the Opera. Despite not bothering with Jehan, the show is hugely popular in French-speaking countries, and its original cast will never be fully freed from the expectation of reunion concerts. 

Hope you all get along, original Hamilton cast!

As an excuse for me rambling some more, here are some other big differences between the two musicals. From here on out, the Disney/Menken musical The Hunchback of Notre Dame will be abbreviated as HoND, and the French musical Notre-Dame de Paris will be NDdP. 

Garou as Quasimodo in NDdP

Quasimodo's Freedom

Something HoND carries over from the Disney movie is having Frollo keep Quasimodo hidden from public view and forbidding him to leave the cathedral. For the musical, this is a major plot point, encapsulated in the sweeping Out There. Will Quasimodo disobey Frollo and go out to the city on his own? How will he fare in the alien world outside the walls of Notre-Dame?

In the novel, this imprisonment simply isn't a thing. For one, novel Frollo lacks the social awareness to care what people think about him and his charge, and he actually has Quasimodo in the public eye way more than the public would like (when Frollo and Quasimodo go out on walks everyone talks behind their backs like they're Belle in Beauty and the Beast, except the Parisians think they're literally demonic instead of just weird).

Although disobeying an increasingly evil Frollo is still a major personal struggle for Quasimodo, he's otherwise no shrinking violet in the book; if someone makes fun of him, he picks them up and throws them. Problem solved! We don't get to see Quasimodo throw anyone in NDdP, but neither is he locked up like Rapunzel.

Point: NDdP

EJ Cardona and Josh Castille in the 5th Avenue production

Quasimodo's Deafness

The fact that Quasimodo is mostly deaf due to his lifelong love of giant bells has sometimes been left out of adaptations, but this is starting to be rectified. Not only does HoND acknowledge this by making him hard of hearing, but a current production at 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle has cast Deaf actor Joshua Castille as Quasimodo. Castille uses American Sign Language in the play, which makes sense - in the novel, Quasimodo and Frollo converse with their own sign language. For Quasimodo's songs in the musical, one of his imaginary/statue friends (played by EJ Cardona) acts as his singing voice. (Update 6/16: here's a clip of Castille and Cardona at work.)

Point: HoND

Helene Segara as Esmeralda and Patrick Fiori as Phoebus in NDdP

Phoebus

The biggest change Disney made in their movie was having Esmeralda live and have a happy ending with good guy Phoebus. In HoND, even though Esmeralda dies, Phoebus still gets a hero role. He's a soldier with PTSD who learns to buck the system to stand up for what's right. This is in stark contrast to the novel, where he is a total fuckboy.

Novel Phoebus is engaged to aristocratic Fleur-de-Lys, but he screws around and parties a lot. (Jehan is one of his drinking buddies!) He has zero interest in anything more than sex with Esmeralda. When he gets stabbed by Frollo while trying to have that sex, he decides the affair isn't worth it and bails.

Although NDdP humanizes him a bit, it still keeps him deep in fuckboy territory and even gives him a fuckboy anthem, in which he explains at length to his fiancee why it is totally not his fault that he ended up in a hotel room with a different woman, who is now condemned to death.

Point: NDdP

Jeremy Stolle as aged-up Jehan in HoND for Paper Mill Playhouse,
Julie Zenatti as aged-down Fleur-de-Lys in NDdP

Often-Cut Characters

The only characters you really need for a Notre-Dame de Paris adaptation are Quasimodo, Esmeralda, and Frollo. An adaptation with only those three main characters would be quite minimalist, while using all of Hugo's characters would be difficult to juggle: there's a goat, there's Esmeralda's mom who lives in a hole, there's a whole subplot with Louis XI, there's a very funny Flemish hose-maker, etc. Neither HoND or NDdP risk putting a live goat onstage, but they do both use other supporting characters who don't always make the cut.

While I have to give HoND credit for the sheer ballsiness of their Jehan stunt from which I have still not recovered, and they include a quick Louis XI appearance, NDdP takes the gateau here. First of all, they put historical writer cameo Pierre Gringoire to work by having him narrate (they also make him way cooler than novel Gringoire, who is a hapless dork).

More importantly, the NdDP writers give voice to Fleur-de-Lys. Instead of giving Phoebus's fiancee the "bitch" treatment, they let her be human. The NDdP Fleur-de-Lys is giddy with love for Phoebus, but she's also very young and nervous about sex. Even in what could be seen as a villain moment - her song demanding Esmeralda be hanged - what really comes through in Julie Zenatti's masterful performance is her character's anguish and immaturity.

Point: NDdP

Nothing binds men together like singing "Belle" for the 1000th time.
Garou (Quasimodo), Daniel Lavoie (Frollo), and Patrick Fiori (Phoebus)

Music

Here's the big one! And...I'm not picking sides. Sort of. This one truly is a matter of taste. For HoND, you've got Menken's score made even more haunting and grand with a choir, repeatedly calling the epic cathedral itself to mind. Then you have the aforementioned "God Help the Outcasts" and "Hellfire," both unusually mature and complex for Disney songs. There are a slew of covers of these, including this badass metal Hellfire.

And in its corner, NDdP has "Belle," in which Quasimodo, Frollo, and Phoebus talk about how much they want to bone Esmeralda. It's hard to overstate this song's popularity in the francophone world. It came on the radio when my sister and I were in a restaurant in Bruges a year ago, which was awesome. It is to Garou, Daniel Lavoie, and Patrick Fiori what "Let it Go" is to Idina Menzel or "On My Own" is to Lea Salonga. There are endless videos of them singing it in concerts and fundraisers, but this one is typical: the audience loses its shit every time one of the guys come on, and the guys gaze adoringly/awkwardly at each other.

This isn't to say "Belle" is NDdP's only great song. The whole soundtrack is worthwhile, and I will say that its song about the place of ill repute Phoebus and Esmeralda plan to hook up in is way better than HoND's version. (Probably goes without saying, but unlike the French musical, the Disney staging does not include simulated sex.)

Point: whichever you prefer! 

The original NDdP cast in what appears to be a 90s sitcom

Anyway, to sum up: I am a crazy person and please watch a musical based on Victor Hugo's 1831 novel.

By the way, now might be an exciting time to join the Hunchback fandom. Idris Elba is producing, directing, and starring as Quasimodo (???) in a modern-day Netflix version, which is possibly also a musical? But Elba's not alone. Josh Brolin also wants to play Quasimodo, as does Tom Hollander. Is Quasimodo the new "it" role, like Hamlet or the Joker? Will any of these productions include Jehan? If so, The Hunchblog will probably have the news first.

In the meantime, here is a bonus character guide:

1) Quasimodo, 2) Jehan Frollo!, 3) Phoebus, 4) Fleur-de-Lys, 5) Chantefleurie/Sister Gudule (Esmeralda's mother), 6) Esmeralda, 7) Djali, 8) Pierre Gringoire, 9) Claude Frollo. (The man in the hat above him is possibly Clopin?)


Image info:

Jehan etching: Gustave Brion
Frollo with baby Quasimodo: Luc-Olivier Merson
The guys kissing: The Hunchblog of Notre Dame
Character guide: Aime de Lemud 

De-Whitewashing the Past, Illuminating the Present: Girls of the Golden West

Davóne Tines as Ned Peters and Julia Bullock as Dame Shirley

I went on a big Nixon in China bender awhile back. Actually, I'm still kind of on it. For a long time, Bluebeard's Castle was the recording always in my car's CD player, but currently it's Nixon in China, the 1987 opera by John Adams and Alice Goodman. So I was eagerly awaiting the world premiere of Adams's latest opera, this time with Peter Sellars as the librettist and director, at San Francisco Opera.

I originally had a ticket for last week (pro tip: if you're in the Bay Area, an opera fan, and under 40, BRAVO! CLUB is the way to go for cheaper tickets), but then my cat Eponine, the best cat in the world even though she is sometimes naughty, got sick with a flare-up of pancreatitis. With an intermission, the show's run time is over three hours. Since I'd be going directly after work, I knew there was no way I'd be able to give the opera my full attention while worrying about how my special girl was doing. Fortunately, I managed to change my ticket date, Eponine got better, and I was able to at last see Girls of the Golden West on Tuesday, 12/5.

Reviews have been mixed, and I will admit there are some glaring weaknesses. However, when I left the War Memorial Opera House, I was dazed and shaking. Despite flaws, I felt I had seen something truly important and of the zeitgeist.

The special girl in question

Those familiar with opera might be asking, "Wait. Isn't there an opera already with that same name?" Sort of, and that's part of the story. Some years ago, Peter Sellars was asked by La Scala to direct a production of Puccini's La Fanciulla del West, often translated as The Girl of the Golden West. But Sellars disliked the whitewashed, corny opera about the Gold Rush. Instead, he decided to produce, with longtime creative partner John Adams, a Gold Rush opera that told the reality: that the Northern California of the Gold Rush was beautiful and diverse, but rife with racism and sexism. Girls of the Golden West, particularly the second act, focuses on the spates of white supremacist violence that broke out and the lynching of Josefa Segovia on July 5, 1851.

The cast of Girls of the Golden West is young, diverse, and mostly American. Julia Bullock stars as recent East Coast transplant Dame Shirley, and Davóne Tines is Ned Peters, a former slave she befriends and possibly has an affair with. Paul Appleby is Joe Cannon, a 49er in a violent downward spiral. Ryan McKinny is his friend, Clarence. Hye Jung Lee (who played Madame Mao in SF Opera's production of Nixon in China) is Ah Sing, an ambitious Chinese victim of human trafficking who latches onto Joe in an attempt to better her life. J'Nai Bridges is the doomed Josefa Segovia, and Elliot Madore is her lover, Ramon.

Paul Appleby as Joe Cannon and J'Nai Bridges as Josefa Segovia

Like other Sellars/Adams operas, Girls of the Golden West uses various texts to tell its based-on-a-true story. The main material is the collection of letters Louise Clappe, better known as Dame Shirley, wrote while living near the mines with her doctor husband. Passages from Mark Twain, Shakespeare, journals, contemporary reporting, and folk songs are also worked in. Tines's aria based on a speech by Frederick Douglass is a high point, but this collage of sources is uneven (obviously a composition by Douglass, one of our nation's greatest speechwriters, is going to sound better than some random dude writing in his diary). Sellars isn't Goodman, who brought her own poetry to librettos.

That Sellars is working from this patchwork means that characterizations and relationships are limited by what he happened to find, relying on the performers and audience to fill in the rest. Bullock and Tines probably do the best with this. Their charisma and chemistry make you believe they are kindred spirits. They even pull off a scene where their characters start to fall for each other while pantomiming a rocky stagecoach ride - no easy feat.

The relationship between Ah Sing and Joe, on the other hand, is much harder to "get." Lee and Appleby also have chemistry, and the reason for their coupling is straightforward: Joe needs a rebound, and Ah Sing needs a meal ticket. Obviously that is going to turn into a hot mess. But when it does, something about the train wreck becomes inscrutable. Of the titular "Girls," Lee's Ah Sing is the least knowable, and we don't get a resolution for her. Joe's fixation on Josefa comes out of nowhere.

Hye Jung Lee as Ah Sing and Paul Appleby as Joe Cannon

But the faults here could be overlooked, at least for me, due to the sheer power of the second act. With a set, tight time frame (July 4th and 5th); a built-in structure (the July 4th holiday pageant and then a hasty trial); and rapidly rising racial resentment, the hour-and-a-half second act had me on the edge of my dress circle seat. It felt like an encapsulation of 2017.

Two scenes especially stand out in this regard. At one point, the angry mob of white miners come marching out with torches. At this point, I felt my stomach drop, and heard from the audience a noise mirroring that emotion - part gasp, part moan. The image, of course, immediately brought to mind the white supremacists bearing (tiki) torches as they marched in Charlottesville, Virginia in August this year. And those marchers, of course, were purposefully bringing to mind the many marches of white men bearing torches that came before them.

While media outlets have been criticized for focusing so intently on white supremacists rather than those they aim to terrify, Girls of the Golden West never lets the audience lose sight of the victims. As the white mob rants and riles each other up and commits off-stage atrocities, Josefa and Ramon remain onstage, huddled in their home, cycling through terror, anger, hope, and despair.

Another moment that feels especially relevant in 2017 happens after Josefa has fatally stabbed Joe, her attempted rapist. In the mock trial she is put through as a prelude to lynching, the men of the town rally around the idea that the sexual predator was actually a great guy and surround his victim, intimidating and threatening her, drowning out anything she might say with their chorus of platitudes.

Josefa's "trial"

Adams was well aware of the growing real-life parallels, as revealed in this New York Times profile with Michael Cooper:

It was particularly jarring, he said, to write the opera’s climax — in which a Mexican woman is lynched — against the backdrop of the 2016 presidential race. “I kept hearing ‘Lock her up!’ at those horrible rallies,” Mr. Adams said, recalling news footage of Trump supporters chanting for Hillary Clinton’s imprisonment being shown as he wrote choruses for his opera’s angry mob.

Girls of the Golden West is not a perfect opera, but it is a powerful one, and a stark reminder that there is nothing new about a diverse America and strong women, nothing new about white supremacy as a reaction to "economic anxiety," nothing new about sexism, and nothing new about imagining an America that wasn't there.

Girls of the Golden West runs through 12/10 at San Francisco Opera, and then moves to the Dallas Opera and Dutch National Opera.





Image info:
All Girls of the Golden West photos: San Francisco Opera & Cory Weaver
Special Girl Eponine: my own photo

An Enigma in Chrome: Phasma by Delilah S. Dawson

"You'll do well in the First Order, Phasma."

"Is that a whole book about that one character?" a guy in line behind me at the bookstore asked as I handed Phasma by Delilah S. Dawson to the cashier.

One could argue whether his surprise was warranted or not. Despite the fact that Phasma was a visual standout in Star Wars: the Force Awakens - decked out in a chrome version of the iconic stormtrooper armor, played by 6'3" Gwendoline Christie - the character was a bit player. On the other hand, the choice to have an entire novel written about such a character feels like a throwback to the stories of the Star Wars Expanded Universe (now called Legends), where no character's appearance was too fleeting to merit a detailed backstory.

Still, Phasma has become a somewhat controversial character. Many fans compared her popularity with that of Boba Fett's - another character with a badass design, but with few badass feats actually accomplished on screen. Furthermore, Phasma came off as a bit of a coward - when Finn and Han order her at gunpoint to lower Starkiller Base's shields, she acquiesces rather than risk her life, leading to Starkiller's destruction. Especially considering the lack of a villainess in the Star Wars films, the character seemed like a missed opportunity.

But having read Dawson's novel, Phasma acting differently on Starkiller now seems inconceivable. Instead of ignoring that future action (Phasma is a prequel), Dawson plunges into the heart of it. While lots of stories deal with the aftermath of a moment of cowardice (the 2014 Swedish film Force Majeure, the 2011 German film The Loneliest Planet, Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch series of novels, etc), Dawson looks at what lead to it. By the time the novel is finished, Phasma lowering Starkiller's shields with a blaster pointed to her head is no longer evidence of weakness, but evidence of terrifying ruthlessness.

Her life, or the glory of the First Order? No question for Phasma.

Phasma opens with peppy, adorkable-ish (if you like that sort of thing) Resistance spy Vi Moradi's capture by the First Order. Once on the Resurgent-class Star Destroyer Absolution, she's taken to an off-the-record interrogation by Cardinal: a captain with solid red stormtrooper armor. Cardinal has one goal: to learn enough about Phasma to take her down. Vi has just left Phasma's home planet, Parnassos, on a mission to learn the same thing. Vi's narration of this information to Cardinal makes up most of the novel.

Before becoming Captain Phasma of the First Order, Phasma was part of a tribe called the Scyre in a blighted, toxic area of Parnassos, a planet that has suffered an apocalyptic event. The Scyre don't know the specifics of the disaster that happened generations earlier, but they doggedly eke out a living in their harsh coastal territory. Phasma and her brother Keldo rule the clan jointly, but there are cracks in their partnership: Phasma wants to expand their territory, while Keldo is satisfied with what they have.

Phasma's brother Keldo

That simmering conflict reaches a boiling point when First Order General Brendol Hux (father of future General Armitage Hux) and a few stormtroopers crash land on Parnassos. Imperious but diplomatic Brendol wows the clan with his stories of the First Order and how its medicine and technology can benefit them...if they help him back to his crashed ship. When Keldo refuses, Phasma rounds up some of her most trusted warriors and undertakes the task herself, abandoning the Scyre.

I've seen several readers compare Phasma to Mad Max: Fury Road, and Phasma, Brendol, and co.'s mad dash across the Parnassos wasteland warrants that. That isn't to say Dawson copies - her barren dystopia is its own place with a well thought-out history. As the group contends with the unforgiving environment and unpredictable encounters, Brendol and Phasma become closer and more conspiratorial. Soon, Phasma's followers wonder if they ever knew her at all.

Cardinal

Back on the Absolution, Cardinal must decide what to do with the information Vi has given him. He is loyal to the First Order, and he has good reasons: he was an orphan starving on Jakku (yes, Jakku!) before being taken in by the late Brendol Hux. He trains the children the First Order, um, "finds," and truly loves his young charges. With Cardinal, Dawson has given us an empathetic, moving look at "the other side" that might not be so "other" (I thought of David Schwarz's recent great essay, Burden of Empire: The Complex Relationship Between Star Wars and Fascism a lot while reading Cardinal's parts).

This novel is a must-read for those wanting to learn more about the mysterious First Order. The parts with Brendol and Armitage Hux build upon what we learned of them in Chuck Wendig's Aftermath: Empire's End (we even get insight into their different interior decorating aesthetics!). I feel particularly vindicated in my long-held assumption that the First Order is a lot like the school car in Bong Joon-ho's Snowpiercer, and Dawson throws in some Brave New World as well. There's still so much more to learn, however, that I hope will be revealed in The Last Jedi.

And thanks to Dawson, Phasma is now another reason I'm excited for The Last Jedi. I can't wait to see if Phasma's co-commanders, Armitage Hux and Kylo Ren, will learn the truth of what happened on Starkiller. If so, what will this cold-blooded killer do to continue her sole mission: keeping herself alive?

They've had better days. Sort of. A lot of their days have sucked.

Image info:

Header image and Finn & Phasma: StarWars.com
Keldo and Cardinal: promotional posters by James Zapata
Beleaguered First Order leadership: Annie Leibovitz for Vanity Fair 

Shelley Gets Her Due in Dance: Frankenstein the Ballet

A new version of Frankenstein's Creature

As someone who's been a little obsessive about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, I was ecstatic when San Francisco Ballet announced last year that they would be staging Liam Scarlett's new ballet Frankenstein, which promo pics indicated would be close to the novel, in 2017. On Halloween, I scored a $45 orchestra ticket in a special sale and guarded it as if it held the secret to life. But in the final weeks before the North American premiere, I wasn't the only one shivering with antici...pation. I've never seen this much excitement about a ballet. Co-workers, my roommate's classmates, acquaintances on twitter: everyone wanted to see Frankenstein. I finally got to see the ballet on 2/18/17, and it did not disappoint.

The biggest draw for me was that unlike the many movie versions, Scarlett's ballet is deeply rooted in its source novel. The lack of an adaptation loyal to Shelley's work is why I ended up planning my dream cast, and this ballet is probably the closest fulfillment I'll get. There are no Igors; castle laboratories; or green, bolt-necked behemoths here. Instead, even with the changes needed for three acts of dance, we get Shelley's novel. We get the stories of Victor Frankenstein, a university student who messes up big time; of his loving family and friends, whom he loses; and of the tortured life he recklessly brings into the world.

Although its world premiere was less than a year ago, Frankenstein feels like an established classic. It's worth noting that Liam Scarlett is only 30. With young choreographers like him and Justin Peck, ballet's future looks bright.

Frances Chung as Elizabeth and Joseph Walsh as Victor

I looked at casting as soon as it was available, but I accidentally looked at the matinee, the casting for which were principals Aaron Robison as Victor, Dores Andre as Elizabeth, and Luke Ingham as the Creature. When I checked again before leaving on Saturday night, I realized my mistake, and saw the cast would be Max Cauthorn, Lauren Strongin, and Taras Domitro. "Who is Max Cauthorn?" I wondered. He's a corps member - and a young one at that, being just a few years out of San Francisco Ballet School. He's also the only non-principal in the role. Likewise, Lauren Strongin, a soloist, is the only non-principal Elizabeth. (Both are also Bay Area natives. High-five!)

While disappointed that I wouldn't get to see Dores Andre again after she was such a standout in Program 1, I looked forward to seeing Strongin and Cauthorn, who are possibly under consideration for promotion [update: Max Cauthorn was promoted to soloist on 3/13/17]. It's great to see home-grown former SF Ballet School students, like soloist Wei Wang, who was an apprentice the year before Cauthorn was, rise in the ranks. And (this is where I clarify that while a ballet fan, I am not a ballet expert) I really enjoyed Cauthorn's and Strongin's performances. They were lovely and youthful together, and their early effortlessness together made the emotional impact of Victor's later distraction and avoidance all the stronger.

Meanwhile Taras Domitro, in a scarred, nude bodysuit as the Creature, brought maturity and depth to his coltish, heartbreaking, menacing character. His pas de deux with Strongin, as his terrified would-be stepmother, and then with Cauthorn, as the immature father who regrets him, are both standouts. (Domitro isn't tall, but he's like 80% muscle, and Cauthorn seemed to have zero problems tossing him around like he was a willowy ballerina.)

From the original Royal Ballet production

Other things I loved:

-Henry Clerval! Although there was one huge Henry-related problem (see below), I was thrilled that happy, doomed puppy-dog Henry made the cut in this adaptation. Soloist Angelo Greco played Henry Saturday night, and brought lots of sweetness to the role.

-Justine Moritz! One element of Shelley's novel that Scarlett kept but altered was that Frankenstein family maid Justine Moritz's mother hates her. In the novel, Justine's mother is just part of her backstory, but in the ballet she's present as the housekeeper. Even though Victor and Elizabeth see Justine (soloist Julia Rowe) as a friend, Madame Moritz (soloist Jennifer Stahl) coldly and relentlessly keeps her daughter in her place as a servant.

Scarlett's reason for this subplot becomes clear at the end of Act II, when Madame Moritz's desperation, regret, and seconds-too-late arrival to Justine's execution add an absolute gut-punch. Characters danced by Stahl, who was promoted to soloist after her starring role in 2013's Rite of Spring, just have bad luck with executions.

-Music: composer Lowell Liebermann's music is sumptuous and intense.

-Anatomy Theatre scene: the anatomy lab dance, with a dizzying array of students, medical assistants, beakers, and body parts, is a visual delight with lots of great little details (the lechery of soloist James Sofranko's professor, an assistant's curiosity, Henry's queasiness).

-Talented kids: there are a few SF Ballet School students in this production, but the child dancer with the most time on stage last night was Jonathan Yee as Victor's little brother William. It's a demanding role for a kid, with lots of acting, a duet with the Creature, and a fair amount of time playing dead, and little Jonathan did great. Good job, Jonathan!

I've got some things to say about this

Things I didn't love:

-Here is the biggest problem the ballet had: Henry Clerval's costuming. The opening scenes establish Victor as wearing a red coat. He wears a red coat in childhood. He wears a red coat as a teenager. So when Act I, scene 3 starts at the university, and we see a guy with Victor's same wig wearing a red coat, it's obviously Victor, right? Wrong! It's Henry. When Victor arrives with his red notebook, everything becomes clear, but I was confused at first, and from what I overheard at intermission, a lot of people were.

Then in Act II, Henry is wearing a green coat. I will admit to owning more than one color of coat, but I'm not in a ballet where people in the balcony need to quickly recognize me. Since other characters' clothes stay similar throughout, why not just have him wear a green coat in Act I so we can easily distinguish him from Victor and the other neutral-wearing students? But the worst is yet to come. In Act III, he's wearing another, different red coat. You're killing me, costume designer John Macfarlane!

-Henry and Victor: also, I wish Victor and Henry's friendship had been better established in Act I. I feel that would have been a better use of scene 4, rather than the "college students gonna college student" episode in the tavern. Scarlett has Victor and Henry meet as freshmen rather than as children, but they barely interact before Victor's breakdown lands him back at home, at which point Henry is living with them and practically part of the family.

Liam Scarlett featurette with the Royal Ballet
SF Ballet's Vitor Luiz on dancing the Creature

Frankenstein continues at San Francisco Ballet through 2/26/17.

Image info:
Header: Erik Tomasson and AKA
Chung and Walsh: Erik Tomasson
Royal Ballet: Bill Cooper
Corps member Esteban Hernandez in that damn Act III coat: Erik Tomasson
Programs and tickets: my own crappy photo