The Rake Magazine

As part of the Nylon's Magazine Tour, The Virgins performed at the Fine Line Music Café on Friday the 13^th. Also hitting the stage that night were She Wants Revenge, Be Your Own Pet, and Switches.

The probably-not-so Virgins, with their ‘60s vintage style, charming boy-next-door looks, and charisma, hit the stage with hits like "Rich Girls" and "Public Affair," which is now the song on my MySpace profile.

Their simple beats and feel reminded me of the Beatles when I first heard them on their MySpace page; but performing live, Donald Cumming, lead singer for The Virgins, with his sly grin and focus on getting the music inside the brains of all present, reminds me of a cross between Jack White and Rivers Cuomo.

I'm sure that there were some in attendance who had never heard these guys before, but some knew every song and lyric. Standing by the stage, next to where they loaded the equipment and where the musicians got on, I caught a glimpse of The Virgins backstage; they resembled a mini gang from West Side Story, that stereotypical old-school New York tough guy style and demeanor. My favorite in the band was Cumming, wearing rolled up skinny jeans, a buttoned up shirt with sleeves rolled up, high colorful striped socks, and some Huckleberry Finn suspenders, which is all I had in my head every time I looked at him — but, god, was he adorable.

Of course, after their performance, I honestly lost all interest and just walked back over to the bar, got a drink, met a very nice guy, and hung out there, drinking, of course. Then I made my way to another bar, eventually woke up the next morning hungover — still fully clothed, thank God — and went on a quest for strong Cuban coffee, during which I was harshly reminded that I was no longer in Miami.

After six million three hundred and seven thousand two hundred minutes, Rent's lease on life will expire in the Big Apple this fall. In the Mini Apple, aka Minneapolis/Saint Paul, it will expire in a few days. Through June 22^nd the touring company of the iconic musical will be at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts before packing up its things and leaving for good...at least until the next national tour. I'm excited to be joined by Emily Stagg who saw the show with me at the Ordway, as we dissect Rent's impact and cultural relevance 12 years later, as well as our thoughts on the traveling cast.

How is the traveling show?

B. In academia, those who can't do, teach. Apparently in entertainment, those who can't do, tour. With the American Idol everyone-can-be-a-star revolution, a symbiotic mutant sucker fish has attached Broadway to Idol and vice versa. The first time I saw Rent? Pre-Idol Constantine Maroulis. This time? Fourth season AI alum Anwar Robinson and South African Idol Heinz Winckler. It's not necessarily that bad, you get some killer voices out of the deal. If there are tickets left, I would say grab some just to hear Heinz Winckler belt through "One Song Glory." On the downside, producers just love to jam notable stars into parts whether they fit or not. Anwar's higher register is fantastic, but since he plays Tom Collins, a part written for a rumbling baritone, it's not like you get to hear it. Also, Winckler's Roger is a bit uninspired.

E. As an American Idol fan (and when I say fan, I mean scary obsessed junkie), I was excited and just a bit apprehensive to see Anwar and Heinz headline one of my favorite musicals. And, in true national tour style, both of them were....fine. As Brandon said, the worst part about Anwar's performance was his beautiful tenor/high baritone squashed into a low bass part. Memo to the casting company: just because this semi-famous man happens to be an African-American with long dreadlocks, he is not necessarily an ideal Collins. Oops. Heinz on the other hand sang like an angel, which was enough to overshadow his somewhat weak attempt at acting. Speaking of Angel, how can she have been overlooked so far in this review? Played by Kristen-Alexzander Griffith, this Angel's singing was occasionally lost in between genders, but her strutting sassy queendom elicited some of the finest and most humorous moments of the show.

B. To me, the real drain on the show is Dustin Brayley's Mark who is, conservatively speaking, fucking terrible. During the opening number I was horrified that we might have stumbled on some horrible amateurish nightmare production. Was he a replacement? Was he the replacement's replacement? Was he simply lost? No. In fact, he has the longest theater bio in the cast. He improved after the opening number, but clearly lacked the chops to complete with the vastly more talented cast like Jennifer Colby Talton's fantastically legato Mimi.

E. Brandon, my dear, you exaggerate. Mark was not atrocious--merely mediocre. If he was atrocious, we could have at least laughed at him throughout the show. Instead, we merely shrugged, and occasionally winced when Brayley took five seconds too long to get his cues. Overall, this was a perfectly good version of this classic show, worth seeing (and occasionally wincing at.) Like all other performances of Rent, what makes the musical sparkle with energy and enthusiasm is the audience-the teenage girls who know every damn word and scream when Roger and Mimi are introduced, the parents who are notably uncomfortable at every use of the word "fuck," and all the others who got dragged along without quite knowing what they were getting into (but somehow find themselves enjoying it nonetheless.)

B. Like Emily said, it's not perfect, but it's still the Rent you know and love. Though two new tours are likely to start up next year, grab tickets when you can, because Rent is definitely on the way out.

Why Rent? What is its cultural significance?

B. I would like to propose an addition to the blog Stuff White People Like. White people love Rent. Glancing around the Ordway it was impossible not to notice the word on everyone's lips. I couldn't make it out, but it was either Ikea or lutefisk. Why then is Rent so popular? After all, it's impossibly complicated, and preaches a pretty selfish way of life. It's not as if we identify with the characters--we're not Roger or Mimi, Mark, or Maureen. Let's be honest, to shell out the $80 for tickets, we're all Benjamin Coffin III. Then again, it's great music, and it actually has something to say. In an industry where Young Frankenstein: the Musical is like saying "Young Frankenstein: You See, They Sing on Stage, Which Makes it Funny," Rent does a great job of differentiating itself.

E. It was really remarkable. On the way out after the show, I turned the corner to leave the auditorium and was momentarily stunned by a sea of texting cell phones whipped out by 16-year-old high school suburbanites. What exactly is it that makes this particular audience (my suburban self included) connect with Rent's very urban portrayal of drug use, depression, illness, and death? Maybe it just so happens that the answer is in the question. Whether we are from the city itself, or from Eagan, or from Scarsdale, NY (Mark's hometown in the show), our lives intersect with sadness. We may not choose to live like the characters in Rent, but we experience similar emotions, and the show carries itself in its emotions. When Angel dances, we feel his joy. When Maureen gives her protest performance, we moo right along with her, timidly at first, and then unabashedly enthusiastic. When Collins speaks at the memorial service, I can say that even in my fourth performance of Rent, I cried. As complex as the show may be (and I think on some level, you're right about that, Brandon), I think it is the simplicity and the rawness of its emotions that fills up a 1900-seat auditorium on a Tuesday night 12 full years after it was born.

B. Is it still relevant? I would say yes and no. We don't have an AIDS cure, but it's a manageable illness now in the US. I think today it's easy to brush Rent off as "that musical where everyone has AIDS," because its not a part of our common experience the way it is in Africa, nor is it as terrifying as it was at the end of the '80s. There is a real irony having Heinz Winckler here in the states since that issue would probably resonate more in his home country. I think Rent has been—and still is—extraordinarily important for helping push GLBT issues into the mainstream. And honestly, I think it's pretty impressive to inspire shrieking 16 year olds 12 years later. Ultimately, Emily and I came to the following conclusion:

We might not live like the characters in Rent do, but in the end, Rent is a celebration of life the way we wish we could live it.

The widely-discussed flamboyant personality of Irish playwright Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900) is such that many often forget that Wilde was married and fathered two sons. It is his wife, the comparatively uncovered Constance Wilde, that gets the spotlight in Thomas Kilroy's The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde, which opened June 6 at the Guthrie Theater's McGuire Proscenium Stage. Set in a turn-of-the-century British train station version of Limbo, the play speculates on the Wildes' relationship, with input from Oscar Wilde's lover, Lord Alfred Douglas. Anchored by a mesmerizing and heartbreaking performance by Sarah Agnew (from the Jungle Theater's The Syringa Tree), the complex humanity at the base of the Wildes' marriage pulls the piece through some peculiar theatrics and an unfortunate third wheel in the cast.

The play covers Constance's marriage to Oscar Wilde in a disjointed, stream-of-consciousness manner, starting with an imaginary final meeting between the couple after Oscar's release from prison in 1897, and before Constance's death the following year. Every major incident in their relationship is covered from Constance's perspective, from his relationship with Douglas, to his trial and the unnerving revelations that were made there. But to say the unfolding of events lies only with Constance would be a gross misstatement. Rather than victimizing Constance and turning Oscar into a villain-type, the play depicts the great poet just as terrified and confused as his wife.

Agnew crafts a brilliant portrayal of Constance, a woman being torn in two by her own conflicting feelings and the injury that increasingly pains her body and mind. Constantly driven to desperation by a need to confess her deepest secrets, Constance is a strong force despite all the turmoil she hides inside. And Agnew pours that agony out to the audience with every pained step and every choked word. A picture of grace under Victorian pressure, Agnew's Constance pushes herself to determined bravery, proving to herself with each new turn exactly what their marriage means and what purpose Oscar serves in her life. Her quietly conflicted face, always a moment away from tears, never betrays itself and glues the entire audience to her whenever visible.

As the famous poet, Matthew Greer casts a very different light on the common conception of Oscar Wilde. All the sharp-tongued wit is there, but in a series of increasingly delirious monologues, the more serious side of Wilde's personality is revealed — dark, confused and barely able to comprehend the forces surrounding against him. At the close of act one, when Wilde is cast into prison, all of his underlying fears are terrifyingly ripped into reality. In these moments, the violent and nightmarish conditions are vividly brought to life by Greer alone.

 

The only misstep in the cast is recent BFA graduate Brandon Weinbrenner as Lord Alfred Douglas — affectionately called "Bosie." Weinbrenner seems to have believed that it was up to him to provide the comic relief in the show, but when one of the lead characters is Oscar Wilde, no comedic foil is really required. He plays Douglas as the most stereotypical homosexual British aristocrat around — with open-mouthed shock, plenty of foot stamps and lots of whiny shouting. With two such beautifully nuanced performances from Agnew and Greer, Weinbrenner's subtlety-be-damned approach is even the more jarring. If there were a villain of the piece, Douglas would certainly be it. But in this case, anyone ignorant enough to be fooled by such a person for so long probably deserves at least a little bit of the ridicule and torment thrown his way.

All the other characters in the piece, from Wilde's jury, to passersby on the street, to Constance's own children, are silent puppets and objects manipulated by a quartet of androgynous puppeteers who not only manipulate the surroundings but the three players themselves, trapping every character into a certain mode of action. They serve as a greater force exerting itself on the characters, whether they are fate intervening or the strict rules of turn-of-the-century society. Director Marcela Lorca stages the action as one large dance piece led and manipulated by the puppeteer ensemble; a sensible choice, given her extensive choreographic work. Several sequences are staged with an almost filmic fluidity — a mixed effect to be sure. While slow-motion movement can often be effective, here it seems present only to produce a cinematic feeling.

But the bond between Constance and Oscar is undeniable, even with all its contraptions and complexities. Agnew and Greer are at once repulsed by each other and irresistibly drawn to each other, making every interaction they share undeniably intense and impossible to look away from. What would seem to be an unlikely marriage becomes a deep love story about two people who could only find completeness in each other and the secrets they kept all their lives.

 

At the Guthrie through July 31st

All the ingredients for an experimental disaster are there: six characters on a non-elevated platform of white cardboard — a sterile space carved out in the corner of a dingy art gallery — all dressed in white, speaking in seemingly disjointed sentences, hugging the wall behind them, twisting, writhing, gasping. But Socktesting, however experimental, is no disaster. Somehow, creators Mark Abel Garcia and Megan Mayer — with the help of six very able actors — have pulled it off masterfully.

In truth, it's a simple story. Yes, there is a story. Thank goodness — for one of the dangers (my own frustration, perhaps) of experimental art is the lack of story. Socktesting has a story, and it's about a baby. A baby. A baby, perhaps. More like a paper clip. I couldn't see exactly. But a baby is a baby is a baby. And our projects are our babies. Our ideas are our babies. And we can care for them as such, or we can toss them away, neglected step-children, like dropping a load.

I am only thinking about this now, as I write. As I sat and watched Socktesting, I thought only of masturbation, of life, of pregnancy. And while I knew there was a deeper level of meaning (layers, even), what moved me, what held me, was this. I am almost 40. I have no children. I have tried. Clearly, I may have been inordinately moved by the story. But I was indeed moved.

The protagonists of this play are Lydia and Rupert. Lydia has a baby. She has a baby — something, anyhow — but she does not know if she can keep the baby. No one should know about the baby — not yet. And they must not get attached to the baby — or name it — because they may lose the baby. Everything is lost, isn't it? Perhaps "it has a curiosity aspect we must dispose of."

Another character, Darnelle, has lost her lover — perhaps her lover. Perhaps her baby. Bill. She cannot accept it, though. And she pretends he is still alive. Is Is Is. Bill Bill Bill. Baby.

There is a rhythm in the writing. In the delivery. In every element of this play. An attention to rhythm. An attention to sound. A unusual and beautiful willingness to not just accept, but use, all the organic by-products of performance. Just as Garcia and Mayer compose their symphony of meaning, they conduct the actors in a symphony of sound and movement. The sound of feet dragging on cardboard. Steps. Coughing, snoring, hiccuping, releasing air. Perfect silence. There are no coincidences here. (Even when a band playing outside the Soap Factory invades the silence, they make it work. It simply joins the symphony.)

 

The play is divided into four parts, four days over which the six characters asphyxiate. In between, they sleep. In between, they cough. In between, they lose air. They struggle. They die. Le petit mort, dropping the load. Unrealized potential.

When three white-clad figures lift Lydia — the protagonist — into the air, prostrate, with back arched, flying, and bring her down to the ground, wresting from her the baby she has hidden in her womb, however, it's the audience that experiences the asphyxiation. It's the audience who gasp.

Each of the four sections includes several scenes — interactions between Rupert and Mimi (the couple), interactions between Mimi and Darnelle (friends). Interactions between Rupert and Ethan (an over-sexed, under-satisfied co-worker of sorts), interactions with the doctor (who performs tests on the baby and determines whether it shall live or die). And the Shadow. The Shadow is always there, because even the Shadow plays it part. Nothing is left to chance.

And each of the scenes includes a coming together of all of the characters — walking, ranting, clustering into a moving circle, chaos, shouting, screaming, bitching, moaning. And the most impressive thing about these scenes is, again, the symphony. Only in music (and perhaps in nature) have I heard sounds come together in perfect unison, to create an entirely new sound. It's not easy to turn six voices into one indistinguishable sound — clearly composed of multiple elements. Somehow, they pull it off. You hear the chaos. You hear the shouting. You know it comes from multiple sources — though it sounds like many more than it is. But you hear no one voice over the others. They are using words, and you hear none, only chaos, shouting. Perhaps I make too much of this, but I am impressed.

Though I am initially disturbed by the seemingly disjointed dialog between Lydia and Rupert — expecting them to begin hopping on one leg, repeating "fish sandwich, fish sandwich, fish sandwich" — this is not dada. Schizopolis, in fact, is what it brings to mind (and if you haven't seen this Steven Soderbergh masterpiece, you must). It's the perfect lack of affect in Mats Sexton's delivery to which I am reacting. It's the meaningless, stale interaction of day-to-day life, empty relations — a Stepford couple placed in an ascetic, sterile universe — a lab almost, where we can examine life through a microscope, an autopsy of sorts. It's Andy Warhol's version of Pleasantville, without the commodification.

Lydia, played by Mimi Holland, is perfection, sweet. She is the mother. She is possibility. She is life, affect, genuine engagement — and entirely nonexistent in masturbation. Holland pulls off a superb performance, drawing you in with a childlike smile in the beginning, and paving the way for a most powerful ending with nothing but her silence and her gasps. While her face is turned away from me, I notice the streak of tears upon her cheek.

Heather Stone, as Darnelle, is extraordinary, truly disturbed, jumping effortlessly from one emotional reaction to another without missing a beat. And Samuel Van Wyk, as Ethan, plays the perfect sex-crazed boy — who shines when he's getting his dick sucked.

Somewhere between metaphor and reality, Socktesting delivers a powerful commentary on... well... I could say masturbation (which the title alone declares the interpretive lens); but I'm going to say life, affect, potential, latency, even waste. What turns us on? What makes us engage, move forward? What breathes life into us and gets us out of the inherent inertia of day-to-day existence? Perhaps I'm reading too much into it. But any work of art that makes me think this much (while remaining entertaining), I say, is a success.

Socktesting runs at the Soap Factory, June 5-8, 12, 13, and 15, 2008.

I walked outside The Cedar to wait for my ride after the Wendy Rule show last Wednesday night, when a group of passing guys stopped and one said, “I ‘aint neva’ seen no ass like that on a white girl befo’.” I expected them to break out into song and dance around me like Chris Brown in his music videos, but luck wasn’t with me, as it hadn’t been earlier that night. Holding back my laughter, and any possible sass-backs, I tried to conjure up some kind of protective force, and my brother soon rounded the corner. “Yeah, well, I bet you neva’ seen no witch in a tutu befo’, either.”

There had been nothing at all typical about my experience that evening. I had stood at the wrong bus stop for 30 minutes. I had unknowingly gotten directions from a deaf man. And I had ended up in St. Paul—the wrong city—on a bus with a driver at the end of his shift.

Luckily, before going home, the driver gave me a ride to my stop. I walked some blocks in my five-inch tall boots, stopping into two bars to ask for directions, and finally arrived at The Cedar an hour and a half late.

I was sitting by the door, listening to the opening act, when a lady beside me threw me a smile. This was the coolest looking chick in the house — wearing a black tutu, boots, bustier, and a red blouse. It was bewitching sensation Wendy Rule.

Having started her career in music many years ago, as a jazz vocalist, Rule has since gained notoriety for her amazingly broad vocal range, her visionary lyrics, and her use of ritual in her performances.

As I waited for Rule to go on, I noticed a wide variety of audience members: a man resembling a lumberjack, a suburban housewife, geeky Goth kids who reminded me of a distant generation from The Smith days. Everyone was present — eager and excited.

The presenter finally came on, with his plastic hair, kilt, and boots, and aptly introduced Australia’s own ubiquitous witch: “Yes … she is among us.” Everyone applauded and roared while Rule took the stage. With all eyes on her, she dusted a thick powder into the air with a fan while singing melodies and calling out to the East. She even evoked the energies of Earth, Air, Water, and Fire; and I waited for Captain Planet to fly in.

As she grabbed her acoustic guitar and began to sing, Rule embodied the ideal witch with all her power, seductiveness, sex appeal, articulation, intelligence, and musical capabilities. With cute stories of kangaroo chasing, songs for ex-lovers, and references to the Australian Wolf Sky — topped off with charm and charisma — this was definitely the sweetest witch ever.

To top off the evening — and cement her good-witch status — Rule ended her performance with a spell to help audience members move forward in life. She asked we consider this for a moment and seek help from the four energies. The crowd eagerly responded with foot stomping, which further excited Rule and extended her ritual. She said she felt a great heart connection to the Americas and loved coming here, and this reaction from the audience confirmed her feelings. Of course, I — having irresponsibly evoked a recent lot of misfortune — tried hard to deny my skepticism and avail myself of the moment. I almost walked up to the stage and asked her to lay hands on me.

Despite how my night had unraveled, the show did not let me down. Rule’s voice sounded beautiful, and the performance was great. The audience awarded her with a standing ovation and zealous applause. Some left wanting to dress like her, be like her, or sleep with her, but everyone definitely left loving her — the siren-songed witch in the tutu.