Straight From The Arts

Random thoughts about watching and working in the arts, from HMS Media co-founder/executive producer Scott Silberstein

September 11, 2011

Attend The Tale of 9/11

New stagings of classic Stephen Sondheim musicals reveal poignant truths about our post-9/11 psyches

“Off to work with a heavy heart,” read today’s facebook status update from the wonderful actor and my new friend Danny Burstein, written as he prepared to head to the Marriott Marquis Theater in Times Square to perform in the new revival of Stephen Sondheim's "Follies." His heavy heart is understandable. It’s September 11, 2011.

I’m just getting to know Danny, but I’ve been a fan of his work for a while. He’s a remarkably generous actor, a truly responsive artist who listens and responds beautifully to the show in which he’s performing and to the artists and technicians with whom he’s working. Danny is often given very “showy” moments and roles – “There Is Nothing Like A Dame” in the recent “South Pacific” revival, for example, which he knocked out of the park; or the chance to create one of the most hysterically showy characters in recent memory, “The Drowsy Chaperone’s” Adolfo, one of the funniest performances I’ve ever seen. Danny owned those moments to be sure, but he somehow never seemed to be showing off. That’s rather remarkable in a day and age where it’s never been more about “me” and less about “us.” Most actors would leap at the chance to chew at the scenery; Danny seems to understand that when you do that, the scenery tends to fall apart at the seams, and that this serves no one. Instead, Danny does what the show asks of him, and both he and the show are better for it. Would that more performers took a page from Danny Burstein’s playbook.

“Off to work with a heavy heart,” he writes today, as he heads off to play one of many confused and yearning souls in “Follies,” which I found to be an elegant, haunting, surreal, unnerving and unforgettable experience. (Visit HMS Media's facebook page or Broadway.com for a look at the clips HMS produced for the show.)

Danny plays Buddy, a genuinely good soul who, over the years, has become infected with disappointment and regret. Danny displays Buddy's good heart and poisoned soul beautifully and memorably. In a show filled with wonderful performances, I found his to be the most moving and unsettling, and the best reason (among many) to see this darkly beautiful production.

“Off to work with a heavy heart,” Danny Burstein declares, because it’s the 10^th anniversary of one of our country’s worst days, which affected his city more than any other. It’s a day from which, if we’re being honest with ourselves, we have yet to fully recover, collectively and in many cases individually. I empathize with Danny’s heavy heart, and I wonder if he fully knows what a wonderful thing he’s doing for the audience today.

When the curtain comes up on "Follies," Danny’s going to dive in, headfirst as always, to play a guy who begins his life’s journey with stars in his eyes, with the highest of hopes and with the most beautiful of dreams. But Buddy’s also a guy whose attachment to an ill-conceived outcome, and whose unwillingness (or perhaps inability) to confront both his mistakes and the part of his nature that led to the making of those mistake in the first place, have created a profound personal darkness. These are things that will keep Buddy down, and in pain, and lashing out in anger with as much wit as venom, unless he can face up to who he is and what he’s chosen. And Danny’s going to lay that out for us in the context of a Stephen Sondheim musical, where we can safely explore this corner of our psyche.

It sounds dark and painful, and Buddy’s journey is absolutely both of those things, but Danny’s performance is laced with such humanity and forgiveness that watching him, and this show, is neither dark nor painful for the audience. Quite the opposite. And how wonderful is that? Danny – and, to be fair, everyone having anything to do with “Follies” – will do the heavy lifting. We get to sit safely in the dark, and feel, and think, and reflect. And, believe it or not, enjoy. Deeply.

To me, post-9/11 America feels like Buddy. Our ideas were largely right, our dreams were noble, our hopes pristine. Then we got hurt, by forces from the outside and by demons from within. The hurt was real and justified. And then we got angry, and righteous, and vengeful, and we lost track of ourselves and that which injured us in the first place, so that we're not quite sure what we're feeling or where we're going.

“Something was unleashed 10 years ago that bears our scrutiny,” wrote Kathleen Parker in The Washington Post earlier this week. “It damaged our collective soul and seems to have released a free-ranging hysteria that has contaminated our interactions ever since.” Those words, written by a conservative columnist to whom this liberal pays close attention, resonated deeply for me. “No matter how many prayers uttered; no matter how many hands held or pledges made; no matter how many bombs dropped or coffins draped, a nation cannot heal itself without self-awareness. On this score we have fallen short. We seem not to want to recognize that we don’t have a problem; we are the problem.” Parker’s one of many columnists, including people like EJ Dionne, Joan Walsh and David Brooks – who are getting the 9/11 commentaries right. Our might and majesty are no longer the point, and anyone who says they are is engaging in misdirection. We are mighty, to be sure. And no question, we are a majestic nation. We’re also a wounded one. As a country and as individuals, after 9/11, we went at least a little insane, perhaps a lot. There are many who don’t want to accept, much less address it. We desperately need to do both, and are struggling to find a way.

May I suggest a little art therapy?

Last night I saw Drury Lane’s production of “Sweeney Todd.” It’s another Sondheim show, one that just about anyone in the world would describe as a timeless classic, but I didn’t realize how timely it remains until I watched in the shadow of 9/11. Many have been writing about the dearth of powerful art about or inspired by 9/11; perhaps that’s because Stephen Sondheim nailed it a quarter of a century earlier. “Sweeney” certainly works when played to the melodramatic hilt; it is, after all, billed as a musical thriller, and essentially everyone in the show is more than a little insane with love, revenge, power, you name it. But director Rachel Rockwell populated Drury Lane’s “Sweeney” not with characters who were just plain nuts, but with full-bodied people whose path to insanity was steeped in genuine loss, humiliation or some other profound deficit. These weren’t stock types; these were damaged souls for whom it was possible to have deep compassion.

Don’t get me wrong, Sweeney Todd himself is still a psychopath, but in Gregg Edelman’s performance, you can still see the Benjamin Barker inside him, Barker being the sweet young man Sweeney was before his unjust incarceration and subsequent transformation into a killing machine. I was more keenly aware than ever that before he became one of the more toweringly vengeful figures in musical theater, Sweeney was a good guy. That makes his current state – being so caught up in revenge that he not only has lost his moral compass but also his ability to recognize his loved ones when he sees them – more purely tragic. By anchoring Sweeney to his humanity, the Drury Lane production aches as much with loss as it does rattle with terror.

Judge Turpin – the villain of the piece, who sets Sweeney’s misfortunes in motion – is still an awful guy in the Drury Lane production, but he’s not unduly elevated to All-Time-Evil status (surely an All-Time-Evil judge would be too busy corrupting Parliament to have time to spend obsessing over one inconsequential working class family?). In Kevin Gudahl’s skillful hands, Turpin isn’t especially bright, or good at his job, or even wildly powerful; he’s just smart, good and powerful enough to mess with a few helpless and vulnerable working class folks, and this makes him all the more infuriating and hateful. Kevin’s Turpin is a big fish in a small cesspool, a nasty little man who wants what he wants, feels entitled to it, rewrites the law to get it, and then is too busy trampling over anything resembling a moral compass to notice he’s charting his own course for destruction.

Heidi Kettenring’s Beggar Woman is the clincher. This character is often treated as a plot device – comic relief until the very last beats of the story, when she provides its most heart-wrenching tragedy. That’s fine, because it’s a fantastic plot-device character, and the role almost always works, in any production I’ve seen. But Heidi embodies not just the madness but also the genuine sadness. This Beggar Woman’s pain and loss – caused by Benjamin Barker’s naiveté, Judge Turpin’s abuse of the law, and Sweeney Todd’s blind rage – fill Heidi’s eyes and flow through every movement and sound she made, and it is staggeringly heartbreaking. It occurred to me on the drive home that her Beggar Woman’s sad, insane, tragic state embodies America right now. Like her, we were naively caught off guard, attacked, and poisoned, and we are still recovering. We say and do inappropriate things, sometimes in the extreme. We are still in pain. We are still angry. We are still staggering through our lives, trying to make connections, trying to better our lot in life, not seeing much in the way of positive results, and wondering if we ever will.

Nothing ends well for anyone in “Sweeney Todd.” and that’s a good thing. Given the storyline, nothing could or should. “Sweeney” doesn’t advertise itself as a cautionary tale (a good thing, because any show that does usually isn’t), but it most certainly is. Stay naïve to the ways of the world, it warns, and trouble is on its way. Abuse the law of the land to satisfy your own ends, and you will pay the price. React to the world with rage and vengeance, even (perhaps most of all) when you can justify it, and bad things will happen, to everyone, perhaps especially those you love. “To seek revenge may lead to hell,” Sweeney warns from the grave. And the chorus reminds us that the raging seekers of vengeance are in our midst. “There… there… there… there… Isn’t that Sweeney there beside you?”

On this day, many people are saying, “We will never forget.” Well, of course not. How could we? "We will never forget" hardly seems like a noble or meaningful statement, given the givens. Danny Burstein’s facebook profile photo, on the other hand, is a picture of a banner that more simply says, “Never forget.” That's different from "we will never forget." "Never forget" is plea, and an invitation to consider not just what happened that day but on all the days that followed. It is an exhortation not just to recall, but to commune, process and heal.

Our artists and arts organizations provide opportunities to do all of these things, in ways that no politician, governing body, military force or therapist can do. They feel on our behalf; they invite us to share an empathic connection with them; and they provide the opportunity to grieve and heal as individuals and as members of a community. Few of them want our thanks or feel they deserve any; they’d simply prefer audience participation. They’re healing too, and they’d like us to heal with them. They need us just as much as we need them.

So whether it's "Follies" on Broadway, or "Sweeney Todd" at the Drury Lane Theater in Oak Brook, IL, or any number of other dance, theater and music performances... go. To steal a phrase from Pete Townshend, See, Feel, Touch and Heal. Maybe even hang out after the show. Introduce yourself to the performers. Talk with them about what they made you feel, and listen to what they're feeling in return. You might be surprised at how good it feels.

And to Danny, and Heidi and Kevin and Gregg and Rachel, and Mr. Sondheim, and all the other wonderful artists out there who are bringing their heavy and overflowing hearts to work with them today and every day: Our world is better when you do what you do, never more so than on days like today. Thank you.

"Follies" opens on Broadway on Monday September 12; for more information, visit http://ppc.broadway.com/shows/follies/

Gary Griffin directs another take on this fascinating show at Chicago Shakespeare Theater beginning October 4. Details at www.chicagoshakes.com

Drury Lane's production of "Sweeney Todd" runs through October 9; for more info, visit http://www.drurylaneoakbrook.com/live_theatre/now_playing.php

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