Obstructed View

Reggie Miller never won a title for the Indiana Pacers, but he did win the love of Billy Crystal. In I Love Being The Enemy, he recounts the 1994-1995 NBA season, his rivalry with Spike Lee, and trash talk prowess, including a sick burn of Maury Povich. Jonathan Braylock (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) reads as Reggie.

Follow basketball legend Larry Bird from his humble beginnings playing basketball in denim, to hitchhiking away from Bob Knight, to becoming disgusted at the very concept of doing drugs. Along the way he never stops complaining that his high school teammate missed some free throws in the early 70's. Matt Dennie ("How Sh*t Works") reads as Larry Legend.

Wesley's analysis of Hamilton and the act of performing history, through a Brechtian lens. 

Show notes and transcripts at www.obstructed-view.com. Find us on Facebook at  facebook.com/obstructedviewpodcast, on Twitter @obstructed_view, on Soundcloud at soundcloud.com/obstructedview or email us at [email protected] .

Bruce Bochy has lived an incredible life, from his birth in France, to his career as a Major League catcher, and then his three World Series rings earned as manager of the San Francisco Giants. But when it came time to write a book, he wrote one exclusively dedicated to his love of walking around. Whether it's a haunted Milwaukee hotel or the pedestrian bridge connecting Ohio to Kentucky, Bruce knows the approximate location of the nearest bar & grill. Sydney Hollis (The Knick) reads as Bochy.

Wesley: Hi I’m Wesley.

Robyne: And I’m Robyne.

Wesley: And this is, Obstructed View.

Robyne: And today we will be discussing Company XIV’s Snow White at the Minetta Lane Theatre.

Wesley: Company XIV’s Snow White follows the traditional German tale, rather than the Disney version of the Snow White story. If you don’t know the original tale, it is in which a vain queen consults her mirror “Who is the fairest in the land?” The mirror responds, “Snow White.” Who she then orders to have killed. Snow White flees to the woods where the queen gives chase after her, intending to kill her. Snow white finally dies by eating a poisoned apple but is revived by a handsome prince. At the prince’s wedding ceremony with Snow White, which the queen attends, the queen is punished to death by being forced to wear red-hot iron metal shoes.

Robyne: Our design team for Snow White was Zane Pihlstrom for set and costumes, Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew for lighting and projection design, and makeup design by Sarah Cimino. The only addition that has been made to the in house set Company XIV has been using this season was the addition of a small pop up puppet theatre.

Wesley: The way that they interacted with the set, it didn’t have the sense of going up and down, up and down, all over the place that Cinderella did, where it really utilized every corner at all times. But there was such a full bodied vision for all these different stage elements. They really saw a much larger picture than I think they did in the two previous pieces, where it was really all about this three ring circus where you look at this one then you look at this place and this place, this was a much more open dance space. And you really got a good sense of that during the pre-show, in which the actors were just walking around on the stage going about their business. I loved the pre-show for this one because everyone seemed so calm, and ready to tell the story, and you were able to access all aspects of the space without treating it like an “I Spy” game.

Robyne: There was so much air. There was so much space. You could breathe in this production, and in this design, and in the treatment of the space, that I found to be the real hinderance in Nutcracker Rouge, it was just so fast paced and frantic, and this was just so much more relaxed in its pre-show, and its staging, and all of that franticness was gone.

Wesley: Yeah, this was a much more constructed, and much more patiently delivered piece.

Robyne: And that was really paralleled in the lighting design by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew. It was a lot more along the lines of Cinderella, but where Cinderella was that warm amber color of champagne feeling, this was much more of a bright neon, techno-colored mixed drink. Like a cosmopolitan or an Appletini.

Wesley: Yeah … uh-

Robyne: Lighting wise-

Wesley: okay

Robyne: ...you know it’s true

Wesley: So, Cinderella had this hollywood golden age feel to it. Nutcracker Rouge was a ... jewel toned Pollock painting. But this, this had that beautiful haze to it. Almost as though you were looking at an overcast day inside this jewel toned box. It was so beautiful how all these different colors mixed together, and how they really took advantage of what I think was the season. I think that this was very much a play that belonged in the heart of winter, in February. I think they really understood the mood of this audience walking into this play. I didn’t want me to be confused and think I was in summer, but they made a beautiful atmosphere with this lighting, and there were even moments where the lighting was hitting the chandelier that was so new, it was such a new idea with lighting and its interaction with set.

Robyne: And it felt present. You mentioned that Cinderella felt like the Hollywood golden age, but something about this lighting design really helped this production feel young, and capture Snow White’s youthfulness.

Wesley: And, we’ll get into this further later in the podcast, but while the other two productions felt like Company XIV first and their story second. I really saw this as a continuation of the Snow White mythos. I saw this as a continuation of the world of Snow White. I think they had a lot of respect for the source material.

Robyne: It felt so true to form, and it was completely narrative in that sense. Something I really loved in the lighting design was that in the creation of Snow White’s glass casket which was this really beautiful scene, very slowly placed, of them unraveling cling wrap, essentially, a giant roll of cling wrap over the previously used false proscenium framework, in which she is laid on a box

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and it is slowly, by four people, just rolled and rolled and rolled. The lighting inside of that scene work painted it this very light, almost neon, blue that was gorgeous, it worked so very well. And there is something about that tint of blue that is glasswork and that felt like that Disney style and that-

Wesley: And furthermore in that moment there was something that I saw, that I didn’t witness in the other two pieces, which was a part of melancholy. This moment of meditative melancholy with its combination of this totally out of the blue Dance Theatre Pina Bausch moment with them taking the cling wrap around and around the proscenium, which I loved, and also just committing to the mood first.

Robyne: That is one of the two moments of stillness in this production, that really just stuck out, and I don’t recall seeing in Cinderella, because even in moments of calm and quiet, for instance the Fairy Godmother’s entrance, there is still a very slow, decadent movement to that. Whereas, in this Snow White is dead and not moving, frozen, and Snow White lost in the snow storm was a beautiful, calm, very still moment.

Wesley: It was expansive and cinematic in a way that I had not seen from this company before. It was a sense of wonder, and it made evident this sense of a German expressionist film, I had not seen in their previous work.

Robyne: Hands down, maybe my favorite moment  in theatre that I’ve seen this past year. That snowstorm scene. Completely transportive. And I’ve nothing else to say. It was fantastic.

Wesley: And furthermore in the other two pieces by them, the quiet moments felt like spaces between the things you’re supposed to see. They felt like the “...” between scenes, rather than feeling like stand alone scenes that are supposed to be taken in on their own account. And in this, those quiet moment felt like moments that are supposed to weigh as much as the stunt, as the singing, as anything else.

Robyne: And it really helped us follow Snow White’s travels. It brought us into her mind and we were allowed to breathe with her, and be afraid with her, as opposed to being shown all these ridiculous things as we were in the Nutcracker... or, almost, forced to feel in Cinderella. Along those lines restraint, something I really appreciated about this production, in comparison to the other two, was a much healthier display of the leather BDSM, which they are so fond of- which was in this instance so more properly used in the simple use of ball gags with the queen’s mirror bearers. The opening scene has the queen enter and really gorgeously displays her vanity and her cold cruelness, as opposed to the wicked stepmother in Cinderella’s very hot cruelness. With sharp whips. And while the wicked queen came out with a whip at some point it always felt like a very blue flame.

Wesley: The costuming in this piece, while I agree their use of the BDSM was much better in this, I would like to start to see some more variation in the costuming that they use.

Robyne: I completely agree. I love the use of near nudity. I loved the Prince’s outfit in this, it was newer than I’d seen in the other productions. But it’s still mostly corsets and nude forms, and that is absolutely fine if that is your basis. But a little more flavoring would be really appreciated.

Wesley: And I remember saying, I’d like to see something on that stage that doesn’t look like it would hurt to the touch. A lot of it just seemed uncomfortable at this point in time with this level of character, and this level of world building, I’d like to see some sense of comfort in this world that they’re making.

Robyne: I would love some version of Cinderella where we see her in something much simpler, like a cotton blouse. And really have an everyman be taken into this exquisite world.

Wesley: A thing they added in Snow White, which we hadn’t seen in Company XIV before, was the use of projections. Projections are brought in every time the queen asks the mirror “Who is the fairest of us all?”

Robyne: And I really loved that concept. I loved that the mirror was really reflecting her face, and so we saw in various forms, one time beautifully projected onto her back, the mirror which would be her face responding to her question.

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It happened a little too often and they went a little too long, but it was great. It worked very well and they were using it to supplement some missing part of the production, like set, and the use of projection I loved.

Wesley: I agree, I think the use of projection was phenomenal, especially, as you said, when it was on her back. A lot of variation and innovation with how it’s projected. I’ll give them that this is how it works in the original piece, that these were the questions asked, and these were the responses from that source material. However, I just think it took too long to get into, and too long to get out of each of those moments in terms of streamlining the question and answer periods between her and the mirror.

Robyne: Agreed.

Wesley: And lastly we have sound design by the director Austin McCormick.

Robyne: There’s a lot I liked about the sound design in this production. There’s a lot I loved about it. I’m a little tired of operatic singing at this point, I felt a little too much of it in this production. But the mashing up of “Toxic” with a tango flamenco dance number was, was visionary. That song, the choreography, in line with it, that music just worked perfectly for me.

Wesley: I, in terms of choice of music and what’s being used, I really liked their commitment to the baroque style and classical music in this. I felt that the other two got caught in a PostModern Jukebox that was starting to bore me. But when I was ready to roll my eyes at them reconstructing Toxic, it became one of my, if not my favorite moment of the show.

Robyne: Absolutely.

Wesley: It was so much fun, it was not trying to be anything that it wasn’t. The costumes worked, the moment worked, and it was committed to a moment of story.

Robyne: That was a climax.

Wesley: Yeah, it absolutely was. I liked the use of baroque, I liked the use of classical music throughout.

Robyne: Solid sound design.

Wesley: Yeah, yeah, solid choices made in music and sound.

Robyne: Let’s move on to cast.

Wesley: So in our cast we have as Die Königin or The Queen, Laura Careless. As Schneewittchen or Snow White Hilly Bodin. As the Showgirls Marcy Richardson, Lea Helle, and Marisol Cabrera. As the Könglicher Hofstaat or The Queen’s Men Davon Rainey, Malik Shabazz Kitchen, Mark Osmundsen, and Nicholas Katen and as Der Prinz or the Prince Courtney Giannone.

Robyne: Disclaimer: As previously mentioned in Cinderella, I know Hilly Bodin well and it was fantastic to see her in such a leading role so early in her career.

Wesley: So something that they do in this cast that I really appreciate is that they reduced it. As much as I enjoyed seeing everyone on stage all the time in the other two pieces, more in Nutcracker Rouge than in Cinderella in this case, I liked the sense of everyone having an equal hand in telling this very simple story.

Robyne: It was intimate where the others were not and the size of the cast and the amount of stage they took up helped the production breathe.

Wesley: The production helped everybody have a very calm personality from having a very simple concept for themselves when they walked on stage. They’re allowed to be their own selves. The showgirls were allowed to be so calm and so goofy and fun. And the Queen’s men were so at ease. They were all so calm on stage being themselves in the moment.

Robyne: And as fun as the stepsister’s one-upmanship game was in Cinderella the space and air really allowed for the characters to come through without the characters needing to fight to be heard or seen. And just having the juxtaposition of Laura Careless’s often terrifying queen and Hilly Bodin’s pure and naive Snow White, just coming into her own and discovering her power and discovering her sexuality was really beautiful. And having those two very distinct personas on stage, was fascinating to watch.

Wesley: Yeah, this play really, I keep saying play because more than anything else this felt like a piece of drama, I was astonished with Laura Careless as The Queen. Having seen her simper through Nutcracker Rouge, to see her have essentially a monologue in dance form in the beginning was incredible.

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Robyne: And her transition out of the circus scene, which replaced the farmer’s life witch scene, in which she hands the apple off, and seeing her victory in killing Snow White and reckoning with that for just long enough, some people might say too long, but it- she was so grounded and lost in that to moment, to have her immediately shift into this terrifying nineteen fifties esque cartoonish dance number.

Wesley: It was- it was actually- it was a real star turn for her to take a role like that and to find all the fun you can get out of it. And she is, she was able to fascinate me with dance on the same level that other performers were able to fascinate me with singing opera upside down on a stripper pole.

Robyne: And her introduction was just phenomenal. The way that her character was made completely evident by that first moment was fantastic.

Wesley: Right and this really felt like a collaboration between her and Austin McCormick, in a real development of that monologue through dance. Her introduction with her queen’s men with their light up ball gags, I thought was going to be a bit much, because it was in all their advertising materials, and I thought it was going to be a bit garish and like we really jumped the shark. But she really grounded it in the world of this is a woman in charge. And then in “Mirror mirror on the wall,” her first discovery that she is not the fairest, it was done with such intensity, and such refinement, it perfectly catapulted us into the plot that followed and into the mind of a woman that would try to kill a young girl multiple times to make sure she’s the fairest.

Robyne: Yeah, there was near Shakespearean loss of power by a monarch, that was handled so beautifully.

Wesley: And it feels more than just bland vanity. You do get a sense that this is something this woman derives all of life’s power from. This isn’t just “Oh there’s a mole over here,” this is her work.

Robyne: And to have that contrasted by Hilly Bodin’s Snow White, was beautiful, then having the trifecta of the prince arriving and being this super suave creature with that Cyr Wheel, and that Cyr wheel work, I’ve seen a Cyr wheel used so often in the downtown, off off, avant-garde scene to poor effect, but this is incredible. This made me feel like the 1950’s movies where the lead jock comes in and he’s just so cool and everyone wants to be his friend and Courtney just had that, had whatever that thing is, that charisma, that machismo that just attracted every audience member’s focus.

Wesley: And I think one of the good comparisons between Laura Careless and Hilly Bodin in this performance is that Hilly’s performance, it came more naturally, in terms of how it was presented. The choreography of the queen, the way she treats people, all comes with an air of practice, and Hilly’s performance, it felt like it came to her with ease. Like she didn’t even have to try to be the “fairest in the land,” it’s just something that she was born with. And that’s not to say she doesn’t do a great job of putting in performance, putting in ballet, but a contrast there between The Queen, who has fought and has refined and refined and refined and Hilly, who’s able to just breathe into her own beauty, made for a great dynamic.

Robyne: There was just so much smoothness, and litheness, and grace in Hilly, where The Queen was such sharp edges, it was incredible to have those two things together.

Wesley: Right, and also looking at costuming, so at the end of the piece, when you have The Prince and Snow White, their costuming is sort of like a tapestry. Still burlesque, still showing some skin, but it’s a tapestry work. And it gives a sense to a kind of a warmth to them, and comfort, as compared to the almost drag elements of The Queen.

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Robyne: Laura Careless’ final dress is this really gorgeous sequined evening gown that reminds me of BeBe Neuwirth or Eartha Kitt, in this kind of smokey ‘all fingernails pulling you towards her and you know you’re being manipulated but you want it anyway’. Yes?

Wesley: Right, and her three torments that she pulls on Snow White, the first being the corset that’s pulled too tightly, the second being the poisoned comb, and the third the poisoned apple, which now is this bauble that’s put in the circus brought from person to person to person, they were done with inventiveness as well.

Robyne: The beat structure of this production was absolutely wonderful, it fixed the issues I had with Nutcracker... in the narrative structure. The moments were very clean and clearly defined, from the queen’s entrance, to Snow White’s entrance, to The Queen ordering the woodsman to get the heart of Snow White, to that gorgeous orb of ice with the beating heart at the center the queen attacked with a knife and shot ice everywhere, which was probably unsafe for the first row, into the puppet show, without having to probably offensively solve for having seven little men, Austin McCormick has staged this puppet show for the meeting of The Dwarves every time, into the torments, the first being the corset, the second being the comb and the third being the apple which was given to her through this circus, which worked far better than the circus moments in either of the first two productions. And there was- I keep on saying there was so much space and air to breathe, during that circus performance everyone had a moment to shine without everyone being given a moment to shine, for the audience to recognize their skill and their talent. They were simply all happening, it was paced so well that the audience was given that moment.

Wesley: And there was always a focus, it was never just there for stunt work. It was there to center around the apple that Snow White was doomed to bite into.

Robyne: And we went immediately from there to the funeral scene with the seran wrap glass coffin into the-

Wesley: The Cyr wheel

Robyne: -into the cyr wheel, into The Queen’s punishment by death by dancing in the smoking hot coal red shoes as she danced to death.

Wesley: The ending was-

Robyne: was a little weak.

Wesley: While her dancing was excellent, just in the way of framing the moral it’s trying to state something got a little bit muddled in having Snow White curious as to who is the fairest in the land. Or, for some reason, that being offered again. Rather than showing two clear viewpoints on vanity: Snow White who’s happy with her natural beauty and The Queen, who’s obsessed with her constructed beauty, and that being her doom while Snow White is able to be in love. It was all muddled, and it didn’t end with the sense of finality that could really have helped this be a piece of some poignancy.

Robyne: And I’m all for corruption feed into the next generation as a moral for these kinds of stories, but there was something about not ending with the light not solely focused on the queen as she danced her death with the projection of the mirror- once Snow White was introduced to that ending instead of having her live “Happy Ever After,” it was just muddled, it got a little confusing.

Wesley: Because he did do similar things in Cinderella, and Nutcracker Rouge, where they wake up from the dream, or whatever happens, and they kind of are supposed to leave mentally this bad tang in your mouth of not everything is well. There isn’t a “Happy Every After.”

Robyne: It’s this tint of realism he tries to bring on to that, it, it just never lands well.

Wesley: No, it worked decently in Cinderella, however here it just felt muddled as to what is this statement supposed to be. That didn’t deride in any way shape or form the power of the performance, off of its hinges. The performance still resonated very very well. But just, for a last moment, I would have preferred a bit more clarity with a piece that was just so incredibly well structured.

Robyne: Agreed, so Wesley I guess the last question is, is it worth the 65 dollar full price ticket?

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Wesley: It’s weird ‘cause, while this is my favorite of their pieces, it isn’t as easy to recommend at that ticket cost as Cinderella, or Nutcracker Rouge, because those featured stunts that were so much easier to define. However, yes I think it’s absolutely worth the cost of admission to see this. Robyne-?    

Robyne: Yes! It is. Spend the money. Go see the show. It’s fantastic! As always, you can find us and join in on the conversation at obstructed-view.com, or on facebook, or twitter. I’m Robyne.

Wesley: and I’m Wesley.

Robyne: and remember -

Wesley: Everything’s perfect at the ballet.

Wesley: Hi, I’m Wesley.

Robyne: And I’m Robyne.

Wesley: And this is Obstructed View.

Robyne: Today we’ll be discussing Hir at Playwright’s Horizons, written by Taylor Mac, and directed by Niegel Smith.

Wesley: Hir follows Isaac, a dishonorably discharged soldier coming home from the war, to discover that his father had suffered a debilitating stroke, and that his mother, Paige, took over the household turning everything he knew upside down.

Robyne: The design team for Hir was, scenic design, David Zinn, costume design by Gabriel Berry, lighting design by Mike Inwood, and sound design by Fitz Patton.

Wesley: The play setting is in contemporary lower middle class America and the design team really reached for a sort of hyper realistic presentation of this world.

Robyne: The attention to detail in this design was exquisite. The designers all worked together to create this very detailed hyper realistic world. The sound design was sparse. I can only really recall two cues: It was the sound of crickets in act II, and the sound of a car driving away in act I, and that was all that was needed. The silence that filled the room when silence was called for was great. Everything else was practical sound.

Wesley: What Fitz Patton’s sound design was able to do for me in those rare moments they used sound design, it gave this great sense of this expansive world outside this home we know. It was a vague, not so much foreboding, as it was expansive world of the unknown outside this home. She goes out in the car and you’re left to your imagination what this city looks like. It kind of makes this “everywhere America” kind of feel to it.

Robyne: And in conjunction with Mike Inwood’s lighting design, which was discrete and subtle, this world became so defined. The restraint on the part of the designers really created this wonderfully realistic world.

Wesley: Something that I initially disliked, which grew to be one of my favorite parts of the piece was this photo-realism, and the subtlety and the refinement with which these designers, including lighting designer Mike Inwood’s work, where it was so small in detail, and in presentation that these people were then grounded as people in a real setting, in a real social structure, and with real personalities and histories.

Robyne: From the moment that the curtain went up David Zinn’s set and Gabriel Berry’s costume designs just- you immediately knew who these people were and where we were, within two seconds. Even the slightly absurd opening of this production, you got a very clear sense: who was in control, what the living situation was, what the financial situation was of this family. And, it was gorgeous, it was claustrophobic almost, how trapped the designers made us feel in that moment, in the chaos of the set dressings on this wonderfully detailed set by David Zinn.

Wesley: Yeah, so David Zinn’s set, when the curtain opened, it really had this feeling of one of those “Eye Spy” books I had when I was little. Everything was everywhere. Nothing but color. Nothing but handmade mess happening, and the costume design by Gabriel Berry, they were both matched, the same level, which is not abstract mess, but concrete. These were people with a financial background, with an ability to create this sort of mess they have in front of them. This wasn’t generic mess. This wasn’t even high abstract mess. This was a concrete, people creating the world around them. And, as much as I thought those initial moments with Isaac coming into the home were manic and- I thought I was in trouble with the show- it really gave a good background to what this show was going to be about. Isaacs difficulty of getting into this world and his ultimate departure from it.

Robyne: The set dressings beautifully illustrated the chaos that was going on at home, beautifully demonstrated the intentional chaos that Paige had decided to exert on her home. Wesley: And there were a couple reveals in act II in the space, once the place gets cleaned up, once you start to see that this home is just a place where these people are able to project themselves, and their personalities, and their desires onto it. Even if it is, the father punching holes in the wall. And these sorts of moments became so grounded with this world being photorealistic.

Robyne: Overall I thought that the design for this piece was exquisite.

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It was a lot of high detail work, and designers getting out of the way, to allow a piece of this nature to happen.

Wesley: Right, as I said before there was something about it that I didn’t care for in act I, mostly because the writing style, and the nature of this world we were in felt more archetypal, it felt more abstract. But come act II, with the grounding of all these characters and their histories, and their lives, it became one of the most important things to make this production a success for me.

Robyne: Taylor Mac’s writing in this piece is, in my opinion, a little hit and miss. There are many instances of things being brought up, and immediately dropped. There are moments where reveals happen to no end. It was simply more information that was piled on and contrary, I feel, to the design which was very concrete and hyperrealistic and, as I said, claustrophobic, in a sense, the actual writing and concept of the play felt even slightly farcical, in an unintentional sense. The play occurs over fourteen hours, and we see the first and the last of those two hours. I feel there were a lot of logical fallacies in the reality they had created.

Wesley: Absolutely, so we are loaded with a lot of history in this family the second they start, but none of those are revealed very organically. There was a great deal of information we as audience members needed to get really quickly in this piece to understand the complexity of this family and what they’re going through. Often it came off with this sort of improvisational air to me. I think one of the reasons so much of the information is given so ham fistedly in the beginning is that there’s so much to get. We, like Isaac, are dropped in the middle of this insane world. So, Isaac had been dishonorably discharged for using drugs, and was sent back home. Not only had his father, Arnold, suffered this stroke, but his mother, Paige, is drugging him (Arnold) with estrogen pills in order to keep him docile and not only that but his sibling, Max, previously his sister is going through transition and is now going by the pronouns Hir and Ze. Which is something brand new to Isaac and which is where the piece gets its title from. His mother Paige is excited about all of these changes, and all this power she has in the household. Isaac does his best to regain some control in the family, and a great deal of this information is developed in this improvisational air of “here’s this new piece of information, we’ll play with it for thirty seconds, until the next piece of information”, just keeping it on rotation like that, rather than keeping it organically developing a conversation.

Robyne: For a world where there seems to be so much consequence for your actions, there seems to be very little consequence for your dialogue, in this world. And I found that very troublesome. The play felt like a divide between wanting to be this hyperrealistic kitchen drama where you see all these people as people, as separate individuals, interesting, quirky human beings. And on the other side, it felt like it wanted to be a very important philosophical conversation. Now to Taylor Mac’s credit the piece did not feel preachy in the least. There was a brief lesson on pronouns, that when looking around the audience I felt was really necessary, but was not exhaustive, and had a beautiful coda where Isaac, not knowing what to do with Max, simply stared and Max said “Hug me, just hug me.” And there was this gorgeous moment where they embraced and Isaac said something about how Max smelled different and Max said, “I know isn’t it cool?” And that was wonderful, and there was a number of these moments in the dialogue, most of them Paige’s, where you see the nonsensical, farcical airs she puts on break in these gorgeous moments of honesty. For instance, when Isaac goes to remove Arnold’s mumu, and clownish drag makeup, and Paige immediately snaps “We will not rewrite his history with pity.” Gorgeous. The underlying structure of the story is fascinating and gorgeous and the conflicts these characters go through are fascinating and it’s so fast. A lot of the reveals are so fast. The amount of time this play is supposed to happen is so fast. If this was a miniseries on HBO, if this was a new “Angels in America” for this generation. If this wasn’t a play, but the structure was longer and we were given more time for these reveals and to get to know these characters. A play is the wrong format for this story I think.

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The conversations around gender and trans community would be vastly different than how they are handled in this play in which we only had two hours and it would relieve a lot of the time constraint stress and it wouldn’t seem so farcical.

Wesley: That moment you discussed earlier, when she says “we will not rewrite his history with pity,” that was the first moment in this play when I thought to myself, “here is a drama.” Everything up ‘til that point, I thought I was in trouble. I thought it was mania. But when that moment hit it became clear that these characters are to be understood as being people. I think that a lot of the transitions that happen during it, do happen too quickly for the time allotted. They feel shoehorned into this time span of the fourteen hours. Between act I, and act II Isaac refuses to give Arnold Arnold’s smoothie and the results of that are just so extreme.

Robyne: He was immediately from this docile invalid, who for all intents and purposes is pity able, because what this woman is doing to him is inexcusable abuse, to a much more functional man, after being off of these drugs twelve hours later, and you can see in him the abuser he was. You can see in him the fun, rebellious kind of energy he used to have. And that is nonsensical over that amount of time. Another issue I had with this piece was Paige’s treatment towards Max versus Paige’s treatment towards Isaac. Paige is willing to go to the ends of the earth for Max, and wants to create this new world for her and Max to live in together. Whereas she has already written of Isaac. She is totally unwilling to put in any effort to save or even care for her son who comes home from the war broken with PTSD. Simply because he was born a man and has been adopted into the patriarchy which just feels wrong for this character.

Wesley: I disagree, I feel that Paige’s treatment of the two of them, Max versus Isaac, makes a great deal of sense. Max is in communication with Paige. They’re working together to make this world inside their house. They’re working together to create a new society. Isaac comes in with his version of reality and with his earlier indoctrination by his father, a man who he still, although he has misgivings, he can esteem to the point of humanization. Which is something that Max and Paige have lost both the will and ability to do. And while I agree Paige’s treatment of Isaac’s PTSD, it comes off as horrifying at times, I think that Isaac needs to show a similar respect for Paige’s PTSD, which he is almost never doing. Her PTSD of living with an abusive man who raped her. Who did terrible things to her. It makes sense that she would want this lack of compassion for her to no longer exist in her home.

Robyne: I agree, both of these points of view are valid to me. Isaac returning back home and seeing the chaos this home has created, attempts to impose a little order, a little cleanliness. There are dishes everywhere. There’s no food. There’s clothes thrown about willy-nilly. There’s no cleanliness. And his argument is ‘You can’t live like this.’ And coming right from the military, that’s a very strict world he comes from and the shock of coming home to this must have been extreme. Paige’s point of view on the other hand is that they no longer worry about order and cleanliness and they’re free to be the people they want to be, but that goes so far as to extend into their finances, where they no longer keep checkbooks, and if you’re coming from the world of being an adult that is not tenable. That is not a reality you can live in. And the fantasy that she creates is so extreme that that’s how she thinks it should be.

Wesley: Something that you’ll notice throughout the production is Max’s moving back and forth between Paige and Isaac, in terms of allegiance. Whenever Isaac demands for the bed to be done in a military style, Max is all for it. Yet, when Paige says it’s time to don wigs and dresses, Max is all excited for that too.

15:00

Hir ability to go back and forth between hyper masculine and hyper “matriarchy” perspective, and I’m putting that in air quotes, it shows the nature of this conflict happening in America between old patriarchal style and this sort of “new age” aesthetic.

Robyne: And again the time in which Max switches. The time in which Max goes from one side to the next, in the dialogue is justified, my issue is Max switches so quickly. The changes are excused and reasoned for in the dialogue but, the switching of sides occurs in a matter of seconds due to a single instance of pulling out some wigs, and while that’s fun, it’s, again, just nonsensical, and it makes this world farcical, especially when it’s juxtaposed against a hyperrealistic set.

Wesley: And it turns the conflict from being a family drama to an archetypal drama, this back and forth. It was one of the reasons I wanted an abstract set in the first act is -these didn't feel like they were supposed to be People first, they were supposed to be archetypes first. We have the fallen patriarchy we have the new found matriarchy, we have the person being pulled between the two sides, and we have the son of the patriarchy trying to reinstall it. We have these archetypes fighting for control, rather than a household trying to remain in peace. And in Act II, something that happened especially towards the ends was these masks of these archetypes were revealed to be just that, masks. That, this person who is supposed to portray the “patriarchy” might have more compassion and forgiveness than this person that is supposed to display the matriachy. That this person who was previously in power and lost it might not deserve this treatment. Every moment that I loved in this play was when people would just stop and understand each other as individuals, and recognize that the battles that they’re waging in terms of these archetypes, in terms of order vs chaos, are the veneer they put on, it’s their drag, in order to fight for just their piece in this household.  

Robyne: I think that goes a lot towards what Taylor Mac is trying to do with this piece, it just gets clunky at the end, in my opinion. The signals seem to get mixed. I, again, have a huge issue with Paige’s treatment of Isaac and Paige’s treatment for Max. I can’t speak for being in an abusive spousal relationship, in my mind, Paige’s actions towards Arnold are completely justified, whether they are right or wrong I can’t say, she is abusing him, however it is revenge, and it is justified, whether it is morally correct it is neither here nor there. Her treatment of Max is justified, and Max’s treatment of Paige is justified, in this world, in this dialogue. Paige’s treatment of Isaac, in my opinion, is not justified, in the realism, in the kitchen drama that this piece strives to be. I Understand her, but it is not- there is not enough evidence, there;s not enough reason for her to treat Isaac as shittily as she does. And the moment of violence that happens from Isaac is completely justified, because that is what happens when you ignore someone’s PTSD. And then she removes him from the house. And for someone who is so warm and caring and compassionate to one child, to not be that for the other child, is just so illogical.

Wesley: I, I totaly disagree with that. I think that her treatment of Isaac as this person who is an infection on the household, this person that is trying to restore a balance that had caused her almost nothing but pain. While I don’t agree with her to kick him, I would like to think that if I were in her situation, I would be able to extend myself further to his situation, but it just gets at what I think all great political theatre gets at which is I understand and I disagree are not mutually exclusive concepts.

20:00

And her kicking him out, she did it with a lot of cruelty. But I think it just went further to show her damage. This is a broken person too. We’re not suppose to agree with her, I think, when she kicks him out. I think we’re supposed to be wanting him to stay. But I’m not sure if it’s best for Isaac, as much as it is I’m not sure if it’s the right thing for her to do. She does it with a great deal of cruelty, she gives this horrifying monologue towards the treatment of soldiers when they come back from the wars. And I think a lot of made me okay with it was in Max’s decision to stay, Max’s decision to take care of hir father. I think that in this, in this choice to be compassionate against the person who caused hir such harm, something was learned from Isaac. And the idea that the learning of compassion could come from the person in the patriarchal society, and the cruelty could come from somebody with the veneer of the matriarchal, is the exact kind of discussion I like to hear from these sorts of archetypal presentations.

Robyne: I agree, i think those are beautiful moments, and in Act I Isaac is the audience surrogate, the audience’s avatar into this world, where as in Act II the story shifts to being all about Max and Max’s experience and the audience sees the world through Max. I just feel that there are so many ghosts of darlings from previous drafts in this, like the drug use, like the puppet show, that it needs a good cleaning, and could do with a much longer run time, whether that is an extra half hour in the dialogue or - … it does not feel like a two act play, there is too much in it. And these conversations are wonderful, and these lessons are wonderful, it’s just too much and it loses itself in the absurdity.

Wesley: Well I agree, that moments of this piece, such as, this puppet show that happens in Act II where we discover more of the father’s cruelty, and the drugs and the, and the sort of Abbott and Costello Routine with turning off and on the air conditioner, they were Vaudeville, they were not realism acting, they were not suppose to give us this sense that these are people. And I agree, they derailed the piece whenever they came in. They might have been decent ideas, and they, a lot of them, were fun, but they did very little to show us the full force of what is happening within this family. And as much as I love abstract theatre, I think this piece works best when it was at its most Chekov, when it was at its most American Kitchen Sink Drama. I like the ornaments on the wall, the handmade feel of everything, the idea that paige and Max created this world, not archetypal “Matriachy”, not archetypal “New Generation”, but Paige and Max created these things, which we got from the design, and which we got any moment there was silence and people looking each other in the eye. But at those points of absolute theatricality, it became dissipated into the playwright’s dreation.

Robyne: What made this production extraordinary was the voyeurism we were allowed into these people's’ lives, and that got lost when the play needed to happen. Any issues I may have with characters, I did not have with the characterization. All four of those actors were phenomenal.

Wesley: It was some of the best acting I’ve seen on a New York Stage.

Robyne: Kristine Nielsen was a Triumph.

Wesley: Yep

Robyne: She was an absolute titan in that role. While again I may not agree with the character’s decision, her portrayal of that woman, her portrayal of that pain and the fight for that facade and the ability to switch into that fantasy she had created for herself, while being totally grounded in that background was exquisite.

Wesley: I think that this is what it must have felt like to see the role of Amanda performed for the first time in Glass Menagerie.

25:00

She was an absolute force of nature, her joy, her eccentricities, and yet at the same time, the second she went down, to being crumbled, to being angry, it was done with such determination, and such certainty, it’s hard to describe this performance, it’s beautiful. It’s so beautifully rendered, and this Paige is treated with such humanity, but with such an objective sense of the  morality of this woman, that it really was one of the things that made this performance for me.

Robyne: Agreed.

Wesley: Something that could have easily gone very sour very fast was the portrayal of the father Arnold by Daniel Oreskes. But once again, he was incredible, he was incredible. The way he was able to perform somebody with so few lines and so little dramatic internal anguish on the same level as the nuance in Max and Isaac, but to hold his own and not turn it into this Jar Jar binks atrocity or Minstrelsy was phenomenal.

Robyne: The restraint and detail work that went into his characterization was phenomenal. The issues I have with character are in writing, in his being an invalid and within just a few hours blossoming into a much more functional human being, and while those were slight illogical fallacies for me, Daniel Oreskes was fully committed to every moment of that. Whether he was much more functional and aware or whether he was being yelled at fifty times to close the door. And his understanding, it never felt farcical and it never felt false. And that’s incredible to do.

Wesley: Yeah, it - there was something about it that could have very easily been disrespectful, it could have been played for laughs, and with Paige fighting for laughter so often, it was nice to see this character grounded in his loss of mental cognition.

Robyne: Cameron Scoggins Isaac was great, was a far more physical role than I was expecting. A lot of the physical comedy came from him and it felt a little puppet like from the director and playwright. But the honesty, the naivety, the love he has, the fight for what he thinks is right is all prevalent throughout the production.

Wesley: His determination throughout the piece and his consistency in what he’s looking for created such a great contrast to characters such as Max and he performed it with such a heart and with such an understanding that this person, who a lot of us could easily dismiss as an archetype of a soldier comes home from the wars, he did it with such nuance and understood that in this insane situation that Isaac is dropped in, a real conflict is created within the character themselves, and a real grounded sense of need to find-  to fight for organization, to fight for this household. I never got the feeling that he hated anybody in this house, but at the end when he punched her, when he punched Paige, that seemed to fit as much in the character as him hugging Max, and that speaks very much to Cameron Scoggins skill.

And then lastly we have Max performed by Tom Phalen. I’m so glad that his character wasn’t treated by either the playwright or the actor as our voice of reason, as our audience, “Let’s stand in with this character”. This was treated as a teenager, this was created as a kid.

Robyne: And beautifully so, the dialogue and the performance were both exquisitely adolescent, there was a lot of righteous indignation and narcissistic self certainty tied together with a complete lack of self-confidence and a self awareness of hir standing in the world. There were a number of times where Max talked about how all ze wanted was to go live with the radical fairies in this farm and how ze didn’t know what the future held for hir, but that that was what ze wanted. And that is so adolescent and gorgeous and it was, it was some wonderful full-bodied textures to this character.

Wesley: Yes, and the understanding that while the battle was between mostly Isaac and Paige, knowing that ze was the battlefield.

30:00

More than the house more than the air conditioning, the battle was over Max and the future of Max. And to see that there was no clear victor at the end, Max stays with Paige but commits to the compassion of Isaac, was so beautifully rendered, never seemed wise beyond hir years, but still had a wisdom to learn. Incredibly rendered.  Incredibly - all these performances gave an idea of a family going through a paradigm shift at their core.

Robyne: Agreed. So Wesley, is Hir worth the $65 non-member ticket price?  

Wesley: I would say absolutely so. If you know this doesn’t sound like your thing, then fine, probably don’t attend, but I do agree when you say this could be the start off a kitchen sink Angels in America. It’s beautifully performed it’s beautifully written and it tells an incredible story of this era.

Robyne: Agreed. This is a great piece of theater. Catch it in the next rendition, ‘cause it will surely be back.

Wesley: Yeah.

Robyne: As always you can find us and join in on the conversation at obstructed-view.com or on Facebook or Twitter. I’m Robyne.

Wesley: And I’m Wesley.

Robyne: And remember.

Wesley: Please, don’t nod.

Art Donovan was an NFL champion, a part time liquor salesman, and the son of an accidental murderer. But what he'd most want you to know is that he never worked out, thus earning him the nickname "Fatso." Dan Chamberlain (Above Average) reads as Donovan. 

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Steven Trumon Gray and Laura Careless

Robyne: Hi, I’m Robyne,

Wesley: and I’m Wesley,

Robyne: and this is, Obstructed View.

Wesley: Today we will be discussing Company XIV’s production of Nutcracker Rouge.  It is a loose adaptation of Tchaikovsky’s classical ballet, The Nutcracker.

Robyne: We will link to a plot synopsis of The Nutcracker in our show notes.

Wesley: So let’s begin with design.

With set and costume design we have Zane Pihlstrom.  With lighting design we have Jeanette Oi-Suko Yew.  And with makeup design we have Sarah Cimino.

Robyne: As with Cinderella the design elements of this show were beautiful.  The production reused the set from Cinderella. So the false proscenium that is set at an angle halfway upstage was used as a curtain system for the show.  There was a traveling carousel piece, that has a mounted pole dancers pole on top of it, that is used in the production.  As well as various dressing table backstage, that are seen through the curtain at certain points of the production, and various onstage lighting elements including a chandelier. 

Wesley: There is very little variation in set construction from Cinderella to this production, which is to be expected.  The main set pieces remain the same.  I found though to be a bit underused in comparison to Cinderella where it felt like an essential player in the performance.

Robyne: Agreed

Wesley: One of the things that you will notice in this production, as compared to Cinderella, or my previous experience with Nutcracker Rouge, is that there was a lot more illusion happening in terms of use of curtain blocking scenic shifts, and blocking your access to backstage action.  Maybe it’s just a difference from where we were seated, but I found there to be a lot more reveals happening of the special effects, rather than the effects just walking onto stage. 

Robyne:  It felt like the curtain separated us from the world they were creating, as opposed to Cinderella, where the world was outside of this proscenium that they had created on stage.  There was a lot less of an interaction with it, with the dancers, in that ethereal sense.  To be fair, this piece was much more frantic and fast paced so it was a lot less of a lounge feel for that.

Wesley: The points at which aspects of lighting and set were allowed to take center stage were great.  Certain aspects have been enlarged for this production, given the Minetta Lane Theatre allows for that, but it was so fast paced.  Whereas in Cinderella I could find certain aspects of it and really let them sit with me for a moment.  I could become just as enthralled with the way the light touches a chandelier as I could with a person’s body.  Here, if I wanted those moments of stillness, those moments of quiet, I had to scrape for them. 

Robyne: Right.

Wesley: They were there! They were there in design.  But we weren’t given much access to them as audience members.

Robyne: The costume design was the only aspect of this production that I enjoyed more than I did in Cinderella.  It was absolutely exquisite and completely in my mind justifies the lack of additions to the set because that is not where their energy and financial resources went clearly.  The costumes were gorgeous.  The dresses, the various candy pieces were all beautiful.

Wesley: I totally agree.  I think this was better than the previous Nutcracker Rouge I saw. Better than Cinderella.  The costumes were divine. They found that edge between baroque operatic, and drag, and they ran across it and it was beautiful.  The narrator, her various looks, I don’t know how she got into dress after dress after dress but she did and it looked like it was done with such ease.

Robyne: The only benefit I give them to the speed of the production and the franticness is how impressive Mrs. Drosselmayer’s costume changes were.  Because at a number of times her stripping down in the burlesque style to bareness and coming back fully dressed in a completely new gown was astounding. 

Wesley: And the masks.  The mask work I think they were pieces of artwork.  They were absolute, unqualified, pieces of art.

Robyne: And while I don’t necessarily agree with moment, which we will discuss later, of being in the woods with the wolf, the creation of the wolf masks with glowing eyes was really cool.  It was just a really cool moment of theatre magic. 

Laura Careless (on floor) and cast members of Nutcracker Rouge

Wesley: I just would have really liked more time to really ogle.  That’s all.

5:00

Robyne: Agreed.  One of the things we’re going to talk about a lot is the amount of time we as the audience were given to indulge.  Something I absolutely loved about Cinderella was how much it felt like I was drinking champagne throughout the production.  It was leisurely, it was gorgeous, it bubbled, it gave you this warm sense and you were allowed to lose yourself in this production.  A fault I found in Nutcracker Rouge, was how frantic and frenetic all of the energy on stage was.  The story telling was completely different in this piece than it was in Cinderella. 

Wesley: The lighting played such an important part of Cinderella.

Robyne: -Yes

Wesley: In Cinderella so much of the magic they were creating wasn’t through smoke and mirrors as much as it was the tangibility of the light of where you see it.  It wasn’t so much about hiding the thing, it’s about what it’s showing what it’s revealing and the way it dances off the people.  Here, nothing was able to sit long enough for the lighting to have the effect it deserves. 

Robyne: Agreed, the art of lighting design is re-sculpting the space on stage and I loved how in Cinderella how they created stillness and small spaces and confinement through lighting alone and that was completely lost in this production. 

Wesley: I don’t think it’s that we know what we’re looking for now.  It’s not just this element of surprise we got from Cinderella, (where) we had random bursts of neon, and oh light would come from a weird angle and hit a chandelier.  When I saw the light hit a chandelier in this performance I had a very similar experience. It wasn’t just that it’s new, it’s that this world should be new and still invite these things to create a new texture.  I wasn’t brought into this world to really experience them.  In Cinderella, in the previous Nutcracker Rouge I saw, there was always enough room on the stage for both myself and the light to take up space.  There just wasn’t any of that in this. 

Robyne: Except, I would argue, the one moment where the performers were all backlit.  I can’t remember what number it was exactly.

 Wesley: There is one moment when the lighting design is very much allowed to take a tangible force in the design elements.  And that was a great moment, because it was done with subtlety. 

Robyne: Really the piece was just so frantic that Austin never gave the designers enough time to be recognized.  When the carousel was brought out in this number it was very impressive, but it was not the breathtaking moment it was in Cinderella, because it happens so fast and so soon.  It felt a lot more stunty this time.  And without that space to breath, without that light touch, it was overwhelming. 

Wesley: And not only that, let’s look at when they brought that in.  Because that was prologue right?

Robyne: I believe so-

Wesley: Yeah, so they had the two marionettes, which is a part of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker, but they were done before we were introduced to anything in this world.  These were parts of a prologue, and this cold open, it does more to baffle than intrigue I think.  And that’s a consistent aspect to this production.  Is its adaptation was was more convoluted than it was delicate. 

Robyne: The real issue I found with this production was that Austin Mccormick’s concept really got in the way of his storytelling.  Rather than approaching The Nutcracker through a narrative, they approached The Nutcracker through a vaudeville/cabaret by means of burlesque/baroque ballet.

Wesley: Which, to be fair, a lot of the original Nutcracker does commit to.  But the issue here is also that he didn’t adapt it in a way that showed a unification of thought.  His adaptation of The Nutcracker I found to be very convoluted. 

Robyne: There was a moment where I turned to Wesley and said “I really need to refamiliarize myself with The Nutcracker because clearly I don’t remember the story.” There was shoehorned into The Nutcracker a version of The Little Red Riding Hood.

Wesley: And not only that but we begin with this cold open with two marionettes and Clara just walks in from the house which was lovely, it was a lovely moment because we had the Tchaikovsky ballet music happening behind it.  She is handed the nutcracker doll that we all know and then she gets lost in the woods.  And...

10:00

Robyne: And that number on its own is beautiful.  I personally loved the use of Vivaldi’s Winter underscoring the march of the animals.  The confusion in the woods.  This almost 1950’s Disney Snow White version of a girl in the woods lost and seeing eyes everywhere through this use of wolf masks.  I absolutely loved all of that it just did not sit in this productionbecause it was not a part of The Nutcracker. 

Wesley: It might have just been tainted for me as an audience member because I was sitting there searching for The Nutcracker.  I just thought that the use of Vivaldi’s Winter was obvious.  I had seen this previously in a different space that was much too small for this ensemble piece, so it was nice to see these performers get enough room, but I was just too confused as to why what was happening in front of me was happening to actually appreciate it on an aesthetic level.  Of course the masks, and the wigs, and the headdresses were all fantastic, but I was just too baffled as to why is Clara was running through the woods with a nutcracker doll and why is Mdm. Drossellmayer watching her do this?

Robyne: Yeah

Wesley: And then she goes to the world of sweets.  Which is when we finally get to The Nutcracker we all know.  The story of her basically going from Alice in Wonderland style one vignette to one vignette to one vignette, until she wakes up.

 Robyne: The issue here was that became the sole focus of the production.  This production lacked any Rat King that I saw and the nutcracker hero, the Nutcracker Cavalier, doesn’t show up until the very last dance number. 

Wesley: Were they to not have used Tchaikovsky’s score, include the word "Nutcracker" in its title, or not show that doll at the very beginning, nobody would have probably known that it was The Nutcracker. 

Robyne: If this production would have been taken out of the framework of “The Nutcracker,” it would have been great.  But because I went in with the understanding that I will be seeing Austin McCormick’s version of The Nutcracker, and I did not see what I consider to be the story of The Nutcracker, it lost me.

Wesley: It was a bit of what I was saying about our previous review of Dracula, there has to be something about this that you like.  Something about this story that engages you.  Now something we didn’t get from this Nutcracker Rouge that I had gotten from the previous Nutcracker Rouge, was throughout the performance Marie Claire was getting more and more enticed by this world of sweets until by the end she had taken off all her of clothes and is ready to be with the Nutcracker Cavalier in their final pas de deux.  The problem here is she remains mostly clothed throughout the piece with probably only once or twice taking off a garment of clothing and she doesn’t really give us a sense of her willingness, or unwillingness, or her joy in being in this world because we don’t see her.  Because we’re so focused on the incredible performances happening on the stage.  

Robyne: In previous conversations you have explained the Nutcracker Rouge you saw last year as Marie Claire’s coming of age as shown through the art of burlesque.  The unwrapping of her stuffy values and the joy she finds in her sexuality and sensuality and beauty.  Whereas this felt so much more like Gulliver’s Travels, discussing how strange the natives of this land were but very much so that idea of foreignness and alienation. 

Shelly Watson and Laura Careless

Wesley: I don’t think that she ever really enjoys the place that she’s visiting.  Or when she does it’s despite herself.  There’s not a sense of a gradual progression that I got from the previous Nutcracker Rouge which was also aided by the fact that the presence of the Cavalier was more tangible, in this previous iteration I saw.  Or at least in my mind it was.  Whereas in this production we kind of got a half hearted mention towards it in the first act and then at very end he comes in and dances with her.  And I was thinking to myself “Who are you?” “What are you doing” “How did we reach this point?” and “What do you mean to her?” and then she wakes up with the nutcracker doll.  Now this is a very obvious statement, a very great allegory for sexual awakening that could be put through this vaudeville of burlesque in the sweets but it was done so manically and its foundation wasn’t strong enough to really give it a sense of sustainability. 

Robyne: It just felt more like a Shelly Watson cabaret with burlesque background dancers that was flavored with Nutcracker. Rather than a fully formed world and a single idea of a production.

15:00

Wesley: The thing about Cinderella was that it had all of the look and aesthetic of frivolity but it was founded on something so beautiful that it had that sort of substantiality to it. 

Robyne: And this feels like a giant step backwards.  This feels like everything I promised Cinderella wasn’t.  That this is.  It does have that “fun as aesthetic,” as you like to say.  And the key moment for me that completely turned me off from this production, I will parallel with the godmother coming to Cinderella, where you see this beautiful transformation and you see her feeling whole.  You see her feeling beautiful.  She is dressed and she has this power.  Whereas in this production, while it was partnered with my favorite moment of this production, which was Marcy Richardson on a hoop singing Chandelier in French with the mirrorpulled upstage and framed so that light is reflecting off of it and it gives the world a very otherworldly beauty.  Marie Claire is undressing behind it in what feels like shame, and comes out in this skimpier version of what she was wearing that was gold, and it feels like the opposite of what champagne is supposed to do.  And the approach that Mdm. Drosselmayer has in it just comes off as very rapey.  It just feels like an older family friend offering alcohol to the young just starting to come into her own pubescent daughter of a friend in a very smarmy very uncomfortable feel.  It just lacks that heart that Cinderella had.  That lacked that fun exploration.

Wesley: I totally agree.  I think she was very much not in control.  And her undressing was very much something that wasn’t the goal, it felt like it was a side effect to the things that were happening. 

Robyne: It didn’t feel like you could see her fingerprints on the world as she went through it.  As you can in something like Alice in Wonderland.  You can see the world reflecting her presence, just as it reflects in her.  This was much more sort of a feeling of contamination. 

Wesley: As you were saying earlier, a lot of performers seem to look at her with some disdain in the performance.  I know that might have been a part of the schtick, but she wasn’t really welcomed by anyone into the world of the sweets besides Mdm. drosselmeyer.  Everyone else kind of looked down on her.  Shunned her.  Or she was just supposed to look at in awe.  Rather than actually let her play around with them.  And all of this just goes back to pacing.  We weren’t able to sit in this world at all.  It was a whirlwind.

Robyne: The production only had one intermission.   Which seems silly to say, but something about the structure of Cinderella worked very well.  It breathed.  There were entr’actes.  There was room to play, and have fun, and indulge.  And this just felt frantic.  This felt like a poorly managed drag show in its pacing. 

Wesley: And that goes right to the execution of a lot of the dance.  I’m going to say that if I had seen this performed with a different company I wouldn’t be giving benefit of the doubt, cause a lot of the performances were not synchronized in the places they were supposed to be synchronized and a lot of it felt very haphazard in delivery.

Robyne: We were spoiled for expectation because of Cinderella.  The refinement and the restraint that Austin McCormick showed.  This production just felt so rushed and unprepared

Wesley: And what makes it all the odder for me is that I have seen this done before. I’ve seen this production before.  I’ve seen it in a different space, and it worked beautifully.  I keep on thinking of reasons something might have been lost in translation between the two spaces.  But at the end of the day, this was not of the same quality that I’ve come to expect from Company XIV and the work of Austin McCormick.

Robyne: My fear is that because of the new space, and because of the new space’s location it feels as Austin’s aiming the productions more towards a very specific type of audience.  Which is fine, but it feels as if he is going down the channel that Bravo did when Bravo stopped showing Cirque du Soleil and stopped showing opera and went full reality television and campy and trashy in my opinion.  Which is just to say how gorgeous Cinderella was, and this piece fell short.  But that’s not to say that the choreography was in any way shape or form bad.  It was all beautiful still.

Lea Helle, Marcy Richardson (on hoop) and Laura Careless

20:00

Wesley: Absolutely, so many of the acts were drop dead gorgeous.  So many of the performers, beautiful incredibly talented people.  The choreography, especially in, I believe they were Candied Violets, I remember they took my breath away.  The ensemble work, especially with the candied violets, which was just a baroque ensemble piece with masks was so beautiful and so lovingly created and it took my breath away much more than any antic or any stunt work did.

Robyne: There were times as an audience member you could feel the entire audience turn in anger towards a single person who had started to applaud because we were not done sitting in awe of what we had just seen.  And that is so intensely powerful. And to be a part of that. And to witness such artistry is incredible.  To feel that an artist deserves silence to indulge in what they are doing, as opposed to stand and applaud, is an achievement in itself.

Wesley: And it’s very rare, especially for a New York audience that’s paying top dollar and they want to make very verbal what they’ve paid for.  And when you’re able to actually just indulge, those rare moments in this production where we’re actually able to indulge rather than just stuff our faces, was fantastic.  But rather than a jewelry box, rather than a little chocolate box full of nice sweets, this felt gluttonous.  This felt nauseating by the end.  Too many flavors.  Too many notes.  And all at the expense of what could have been a very simple, and very beautiful heart. 

Robyne: Absolutely, and before we go on any more we have to introduce the cast: Hilly Bodin as the ballerina doll, as cherry, and as part of the corps de ballet, Lea Helle as cherry and corps de ballet, Jacob Karr as the marionette doll, cake, and corps, Nicholas Katen and Ross Katen as the turkish delights, candy cane, and corps, Malik Shebazz Kitchen and Mark Osmundson, both corps members, Devon Rainey as chocolate, candy cane and corps, Marcy Richardson as the poll doll, and champagne, Nichole von Arks as Cherry and corps, Stephen Trumon Grey as the Nutcracker Cavalier, Laura Careless as Marie Claire, and Shelly Watson as Mdm. Drosselmeyer. All incredible.

Wesley: Undoubtedly some of the best performers in the city.

Robyne: I threw away a comment earlier that it felt like a Shelly Watson cabaret.  I would love to see a Shelly Watson cabaret.

Wesley: Yeah, that wasn’t derogatory in any way.  That is totally fine most of the time.

Robyne: She feels like a missing sister between Molly Pope, and Bridgette Everett.

Wesley: Absolutely, her talents, her vocal prowess, matched so beautifully with her ability to go one on one with the audience members.  Which was something that I thought was very much missing from Cinderella, was that sort of audience interaction which she really made very important in this piece and I could have used more of it honestly. 

Robyne: Absolutely.

Wesley: Also, her costumes, her quick changes, her commenting on what was happening, were rare moments of self awareness as to what was going on in the performance, that were very much needed by us as audience members.

Robyne: I just didn’t understand who she was in this world other than the narrator, until after we left, and I read the playbill and saw that she was replacing the magician. 

Wesley: Right, and in the previous production of Nutcracker Rouge I saw the Drosselmeyers were actually a couple.  There were two of them performing as Madame and Monsieur Drosselmeyer.  In this production it was very clear that she was the only Drosselmeyer of importance, and that too, seeped too into the manipulativeness of Marie Claire. 

Robyne: Agreed.

Wesley: Though once again, that was not her.  For what she had to work with, this is one of the highlights of the evening. 

Robyne: Her voice is exquisite.

Wesley: Yeah.

Robyne: Her persona was incredible, was fun, sexy, ridiculous.  She was somebody I wanted to run back stage and get a drink with. 

Wesley: Absolutely.

25:00

Robyne: Stephen Trumon Grey, is a phenomenal dancer.  I am actually upset that I only saw him perform in the final number.  When he was the prince in Cinderella he was a joy to watch on stage.  Every moment.

Wesley: While he is a great dancer, in this performance I was left utterly cold by him.

Robyne: Agreed, that final number between Laura Careless and Stephen Trumon Gray, between Marie Claire and the Nutcracker, felt like- felt as if it did not belong in this cabaret world.  It felt like a piece that was from an earlier rendition of this production that had a lot more heart and it, while being impressive, lacked beauty because it was so frantic and rough. 

Wesley: So in this previous production of Nutcracker Rouge I saw this whole piece kind of ramped up to that.  You know.  It wasn’t just the cherry on top, it was the whole piece was arching towards her finally getting with the prince.  Here, we already had the whole sundae and we have an empty bowl in front of us and they just plop this cherry in the middle.  And it really didn’t- it didn’t fill us any more.  And that was compared to the- frantic, yes- but warmth of the rest of the piece.  It was out of this world, and I got no sense of personality from either of them.

Robyne: She was suddenly there with a stranger on stage.  It wasn’t clear that he was the Nutcracker at all unless you know the story of The Nutcracker.  It wasn’t the culmination of this coming of age experience for her, it kind of felt like being college in your first semester and hooking up with the first person who shows interest in you after a three year relationship in high school.  It just felt empty. 

Wesley: And, while he is a very attractive man, there was the sense that that was all there was to this.  Whereas the prince in Cinderella has a personality.  You get the sense that there is chemistry between them.  I only got the sense of physical want rather than real sensual chemistry between these two performers.  Which isn’t the fault of these two performers, it’s the structure of the piece.

Steven Trumon Gray and Laura Careless

Robyne: Right.

Wesley: Now Marie Claire, as performed by Laura Careless, this is a stereotype character.  A damsel.  An ingenue.  And it is a very fun character to play with but only in so far as she is able to develop.  When you have this wandering swooning girl from beginning until she appears seminude at the end, it’s more baffling than anything.

Robyne: Yeah and the-

Wesley: And it just becomes redundant.  You know, there are only times you can see her not alternate before we finally get tired of her. 

Robyne: I found that a lot of the short comings of Marie Claire came in how she was treated by the rest of the world.  It wasn’t that her naiveté and interest and fascination in this world was welcomed and they showed her how they exist how their culture works.  It was so much more looked on as she was a silly little girl.  That there was a lot of as you said disdain in the sweets towards her.  So it was perplexing as to why she was suddenly undressing in champagne and mostly nude in the final number.  It, again, lent itself towards a cold, very uncomfortable, forced alcohol, sex with a stranger situation. 

Wesley: And the thing is a lot of what make great fantasy so effective is how much it makes its audience think to themselves “what I would give to go there.”   And how easy is it to make us want to go to a land of sweets.  A land of champagne, and cookies, full of beautiful people doing beautiful things.  But when they are just mean to her sometimes, or rude, or prudish to her, it doesn’t become enticing anymore.

Robyne: And we weren’t ever given a moment of longing after she had those interactions.  The next one just started and we weren’t allowed to see her mourn the ending of the encounter and desire for more.  We as the audience were never given that, we were simply given the next thing. 

Wesley: And she never really seemed in charge of where we were going.  In The Nutcracker you really get the sense that each person comes out and does their thing for her, much like a court.  Here, we’re not sure if she is walking through part of this Garden of Versailles where she’s meeting all these things like Dante’s Inferno, like you were saying, or if we’re maintaining this ball/court structure. 

Brett Umlauf (on left wearing black boots) and Laura Careless (on right) with cast members of Nutcracker Rouge.

30:00

Robyne: It did not feel as though we were one of the lucky children that stumbled into Narnia and found Aslan, and were shown all the wonders of this land.  It felt like we had met the White Witch and she was shoving Turkish delights down our throat. 

Wesley: Right-right.

Robyne: And Turkish delights are delicious, but sometimes you need to breathe.  Again, Brett Umlauf and Marcy Richardson did not disappoint. 

Wesley: They killed it.

Robyne: They were incredible and their pieces, their pieces themselves, did not necessarily fit into the world that was created.  It felt that a venue was necessary for those two powerhouses to demonstrate, and so it was, and it was incredible and it didn’t make sense. 

Wesley: And furthermore, one of the things that made the performances by Brett Umlauf and Marcy Richardson so impressive and so enthralling in Cinderella, is the structure of one-upmanship.  The reason that they’re getting more extravagant, more crazy is that they are trying to better the other.  And it’s not just how great the performances are, which they are, it’s that we have this enticing characterization pulling us towards it.  That actually did so much.  Which we didn’t realize maybe, but that did so much to help the level of enjoyment in these experiences.

Robyne: The idea that there is a woman on a pole on top of a piece of a deconstructed carousel pole-dancing and singing opera is incredible.  The fact that she has done that to upstage her sister to win the prince- is- just ups the ante that much more, and allows the performers to really indulge in their characters, and give us an amazing performance.  Because then you have all of that characterization.

Wesley: Now to be fair that’s not so much the fault of Austin McCormick here as much as it is just the structure of The Nutcracker.  Which is flawed there by any stretch of the imagination. 

Robyne: Absolutely.

Wesley: The Nutcracker- it’s basic use is to teach people how to watch ballet.  I think Nutcracker Rouge is a way to teach people how to watch burlesque. These things can go right back and forth with each other.  But, there should have been some sensuality, there should have been some framework in Marie Claire that allowed us to go even further into this world, and further into the experience of watching her, rather than just pure stunt and aesthetic creation.  Which they’re great at. 

Robyne: Absolutely.  Going off that it’s much easier to play a character with wants and desires than it is to play Chocolate, or Cherry.  Those then- those pieces then lent themselves much better to a choreographer being able to have a lot of fun on stage.  Which he did, at the expense of the narrative.

Devon Rainey’s Chocolate performance as a flamenco pasodoble piece with a lot of hard shoe work (which I personally love hard shoe work.) It had personality, it was a lot of fun, it was sexualized without being seductive, which was a lot of what I found in this piece.  The “Turkish Delight” piece was fun.  The “Cherry” piece was fun.  I for the life of me have no idea where the “Cake” number came from.  It rang false in this world for me.  It was fun but it wasn’t as tasty as the rest of the piece was.  “Candy Canes” were fun, there was a lot of fun.  There was a lot of beautiful performances.  There was a lot of great dance.  It just didn’t all fit together. 

Wesley: I just felt so disconnected from so much of the performances and the joy I saw on stage felt synthetic. 

Robyne: Yeah.

Wesley: Because it wasn’t grounded in a statement.  It was grounded in fun.  It was grounded in synthetic entertainment.  And, as I told you before, I’ve never seen any piece whose sole goal was fun, that achieved that goal, because there has to be something more that we’re grasping at.  And while the mask, the big bull mask in “Chocolate” was fantastic.  And the exuberance of “Cake” was great fun.  But there was no substance to so much of it.  And so many of the music choices just lacked any structure.  Going from one “Sugar-Plum Fairy Suite” to the next “Sugar-Plum Fairy Suite,” with no-

Davon Rainey and Laura Careless

Robyne: To a techno version of the “Sugar-Plum Fairy-”

35:00

Wesley: Yeah! It was all of these different confusing choices that never really meshed.  One of the things that happened in the previous Nutcracker Rouge, as well as Cinderella, is you saw aesthetics of many worlds come together into a cohesive whole.  I never questioned why someone might be singing a contemporary pop song in an operatic fashion.  I never questioned why this person was dressed in Louis XIV garment, and that person in flapper garment, but here, every once in a while I thought to myself, “wait, why are they doing that?” “Why do they look like that?”  “That doesn’t-what is this doing here?” Instead of feeling sutured into this world, it felt thrown on. 

Robyne: It did not feel as though we were able to sample all of these delights.  It felt like we were shoving candy into our mouths after Halloween.  It just felt like endless gluttony, and we felt stuffed at the end, and bloated, and disgusting.

Wesley: It wasn’t flavor, it was saturation. 

Robyne: A lot of this harshness comes from our expectations being so high.

Wesley: I would have to say I have never been more disappointed. Simply because of where I knew this could be. I haven’t just seen Company XIV better, I’ve seen Nutcracker Rouge be better, and that’s all. I look forward- I am so looking forward to seeing Snow White.  

Robyne: Oh absolutely.

Wesley: I- There is no doubt in my mind that a lot of these issues have to do with “this is their blockbuster.  People are going to be coming to see this.  A lot of them this is their first burlesque work.  A lot of people are coming in not sure what to expect, not wanting The Nutcracker, but maybe not wanting Cirque du Soleil.

Robyne: But part of it I think might be the fear that people returning want something new from the Nutcracker Rouge, when, if anything, if there is something to be learned from The Nutcracker itself, it is that people will come every year to see the same exact production because of what it means to them. And I would see Cinderella next year. And I would see Cinderella every year, because it’s astounding. 

Wesley: Absolutely, I agree, I think this might have been their game of one upsmanship with themselves.  And I think they might have gone a little bit self conscious here trying to up the ante in their new space,

Robyne: - and trying to appease the audience base that they have built in this neighborhood. 

Wesley: Rather than attempting to really get to the core of what they have been about in previous productions.

Robyne: So I guess Wesley, the question is, is Nutcracker Rouge worth the $75-$100 ticket?

Wesley: I believe if you are looking to just see something zany, something of high quality in terms of construction with a nice bow on it, this could still be worth the cost of that admission.  But- but, if you are looking for the best of Company XIV, and the best work in New York City, it’s best to pass and just wait for Snow White.  

Robyne: I agree, if you are looking to see incredible performers perform some great dance, and have a lot of fun, totally worth the price of admission.  If you are looking to bring your mother on her first trip to New York to see the best dance in the city, this piece is not Cinderella.  The Nutcracker Rouge runs until January 17th at the Minetta Lane Theatre.  Tickets can be purchased at companyxiv.com.  As always you can find us at obstructed-view.com on facebook at facebook.com/obstructedviewpodcast, on twitter @obstructed_view, on soundcloud at soundcloud.com/obstructedview or email us at [email protected] .

Wesley: I’m Wesley

Robyne: and I’m Robyne

Wesley: And remember

Robyne: Curiosity is gluttony - To see is to devour.

*Photography by Mark Shelby Perry.