Oh What a Beautiful Evening
I went to Oklahoma on a Friday, by Saturday I'd learned a thing or two
Last weekend we were able to indulge in a rare delight for Angelenos: an evening at the theater. A friend’s friend is in the Broadway tour of Oklahoma, and it made a stop at one of the two theaters where touring shows come to live (and die!) in this fair city. One, the Pantages, is in the downtown of Hollywood (translation: ew). Our show was playing at the Ahmanson, which is in the downtown of Los Angeles, ultimately the lesser of the two downtown evils.
The Ahmanson is tucked into a Lincoln Center-inspired complex called “The Music Center.” Despite its vague name, The Music Center is actually quite beautiful, in a Utopian mid-century way, when civic planners believed that poured concrete could save us. It takes up a city block or two (depending on what counts for a city block in Los Angeles) and consists of the following buildings: a gorgeous theater for operas and ballets (The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion), a regular proscenium for big musicals (the Ahmanson), a thrust-stage in a smaller black box for straight plays (The Mark Taper Forum), and a grand civic project where you can comfortably fall asleep to live classical music (The Walt Disney Concert Hall).
There’s also a plaza with overpriced food and drinks where patrons attending events at all venues can mix and mingle before, during, and after shows. That’s very exciting. I value any opportunity to walk between activities in this gorgeous city (never mind that to get to those walkable activities I had to take the 101 and pay ten dollars for parking).
I’ve seen varied shows at these varied venues. Some of have been wonderful, some have been fine, but there’s always something off about the experience and it doesn’t originate in the work itself.
For starters: nothing ever sells out. Even on weekends! It makes no sense. We’re not a town that’s spoiled for choice when it comes to quality live theater. The only explanation is that the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd doesn’t beat out competing activities, like drinking Mezcal or sleeping. One SATURDAY NIGHT I went to a new Tarell Alvin McCraney play (right after he won the Oscar for Moonlight) starring Phylicia Rashad (before she doubled down on cheering Bill Cosby) and sat closer than I’ve ever sat at a work of theater where I paid for my own ticket. It was almost criminal.
There’s also a distinct lack of understanding of theater etiquette. I know that makes me sound like a snob (and don’t get me wrong, I am!) but the bar for said etiquette is low. A while back, some friends and I went to see a Tracy Letts play which featured a good amount of full frontal nudity and simulated sex (two things with diminishing returns in any context, but particularly live theater). There was a lot happening on stage, but that barely made a dent compared to what was unfolding offstage, which included: a couple eating a full bag of Chicken McNuggets (and yes, they dunked); a man narrating the action of the play to his hard-of-hearing companion and by extension the rest of us; and a drunk woman who arrived twenty minutes late and then actually heckled the actors, including yelling “Dick!” at the main character when he attempted to apologize to a romantic interest.
Some might say this is in keeping with the original bawdiness of theatrical audiences. Maybe that’s why the Greeks and Shakespeare were so popular in their day (it couldn’t have been the writing…right?). Maybe theatre (with that spelling) was less about the spectacle on the stage and more about the spectacle unfolding all around you. Also, phones and television didn’t exist.
Oklahoma proceeded largely without incident, aside from struggling to transcend the horrific physics of a building supposedly designed for live theater. The wide seating area surrounds a narrow, deep stage which makes you feel less like you are participating in a shared experience and more like you are craning your neck to view a small diorama. In addition, the stripped-down take on a classic meant the actors really had to do their best to carry their performances across the dull absorption of the audience, with no flashy songs or dances to capture our constantly fleeting attention. God bless each and every one of them.
At intermission, my friends and I chatted with the woman behind us. She was a theater teacher from Canada, in town for a conference, and she and our friend Ellen had both seen the show in New York. The original production was at Circle in the Square, an extremely intimate venue as far as Broadway goes. Per the name, the shows are in the round, which means it’s the type of place where you're close enough to determine what deodorant the actors are (or aren’t) wearing. Apparently at the New York shows they had even served chili at intermission. No such luck for us.
But in a way we didn’t need “free” chili. Our triumph? Enjoying a night on the town. Dinner and a show is too much to ask for that close to rush hour—we’d settle for just one. Besides, who knows how long chili distribution takes? Stunts like that are for citizens of other cities, where you don’t have to get your car out of the garage before the whole place shuts down at midnight.
A model of what a review should be.