Have Yourself a Merry Little Turkey

Christmas does not start until Black Friday. Call me stubborn, but I do not want to weave through Hallmark decorations or sit in coffee shops hearing "Chestnuts roasting..." unless Thanksgiving has come and gone. This year, as is appropriate, we will have exactly one month for carols. November 26 through December 25. And if you croon "Away in a Manger" or "The Twelve Days of Christmas" after the New Year, more power to you. Epiphany (when the Wise Men met Jesus) lies twelve days later, on January 3.

I had "Silver Bells" stuck in my head this week; what a nuisance. Octogenarian Santas may already be jingling outside Wal-Marts, and the weather's turning toward the chill. But the lyrics state, "It's Christmastime in the city," and that is a falsehood before Turkey Day. We are about to endure thirty days of full-frontal, last-chance-for-holiday-shipping, buy-it-now marketing. Unnecessary to jumpstart the madness.

Greeting card vendors and music sellers need some product to carry them after Halloween, in the waning days of autumn. I propose we compose some Thanksgiving songs. A holiday stuffed with food and family deserves some musical dressing as a complement. (Perhaps from the Cranberries.) Forging new Thanksgiving songs this late in the game would be impractical. Let's reconstitute the Christmas songs already trapped in our heads so that they will be seasonly apropos:

O Come All Ye Family (to "O Come All Ye Faithful")
O come all ye fatties,
Gorge on mashed potatoes,
O come eat, O come eat
All Aunt Bea's kitchen.
Come and we'll roll thee
Home, you king of gluttons.

Happy Turkey to You (to "The Christmas Song")
Turkey roasting on an open fire,
Jack, your uncle, nibbling on your yams.
Tiny tots with their seats at the kids' table,
And folks dressed up like anachronistic pilgrims.

No More (to "The First Noel")
The first Thanksgiving, Columbus did say,
Was to certain poor Indians in slaughter as they lay.
No more, no more, no more colonization,
Born is the king of eradication.

Good Vibrations

Review: In the Next Room or the vibrator play
Lyceum Theatre, New York
November 11, 2009

Women of the 1880s who showed symptoms of hysteria went to their doctor to induce a paroxysm. In the new age of electricity, no longer illuminated by candles, these women experienced a newfound sensation, or even two at once. A new scientific invention, ridding their womb of hysteria confined within, invoked in tandem pain and pleasure.

So it was that the vibrator came into existence. Sarah Ruhl's new play In the Next Room paints this scene to forward her views of women's progress. When plans changed during my day trip to New York, I scooped a ticket on the basis of the actors, Lincoln Center Theater, and indubitable curiosity. Ruhl's previous play Dead Man's Cell Phone dealt with metaphysical questions of life, love, and limbo. In the Next Room, I hoped, would ground her in the specifics of time and place.

But her main character, Mrs. Givings, jars with the costume drama around her. Laura Benanti's housewife, unable to feed her newborn properly, yearns to connect with her child and with her husband, the paroxysm-curing doctor. Though her character harbors proto-feminist desires, Benanti acts like she's just stumbled in from Mad About You. Ruhl encourages this modern portrayal with choice vernacular: Wednesday is "smack in the middle of the week"; Mrs. Givings loves to "walk walk walk" through the garden. She is a lifeforce but an anachronistic one.

As Dr. Givings, Michael Cerveris stays period. In his steady portrayal of a scientific mind, he does not wink at us like Benanti, even when he calmly times his patients' three minutes of paroxyical ecstasy. He unveils a boyish vulnerability as he gradually warms to his wife's need for intimacy. Chandler Williams makes an impression as a European artist given new sight with the Chattanooga Vibrator. (Yes, men received medical stimulation too. Don't ask where.)

Ruhl's strengths are comedy and sentiment. Benanti's charming monologue on her child's birth ("and then he tried to eat me") manages both. But Ruhl's play overall is a provocative outline of ideas. She doesn't know how characters should enter, so they all misplace their scarf or gloves, as in a farce. And she nudges characters to reveal truths more modern than their setting. Did women really open up to each other about the vibrations? Why would the midwife, once a God-fearing woman, connect the machine to sexual relations with her husband?

In the Next Room is rooted in whimsy and screwball comedy; don't think too hard about its social implications. Like its electric star, the play induces sensations of both pleasure and discomfort.

Come Fly with Me (But Not Too Closely)

Review: Up in the Air

Jason Reitman's finally making movies for adults. His first directed feature, Thank You for Smoking, had the pow-zam-bop energy of a comic book. He moved from that cheeky and deliciously adolescent film to Juno, an ode to hipsters, and a cult hit before it left the editing room. Thankfully, he achieves a more substantial follow-up than screenwriter Diablo Cody did (Jennifer's Body).

Now, before I talk about Up in the Air, which comes out on Christmas, I'd like to thank loyal Twitter followers for access to a test screening this past Sunday. We were almost ousted for counterfeit passes, but Twitter saved the day. Funny that the film finds technology distancing, when it brought us into the theater.

Up in the Air is not coated in the glossy sheen that energized Thank You for Smoking. George Clooney's management consultant, sent across the country to fire other companies' employees, connects with the men and women he's just unemployed. Why not set this mundane office existence aside and search for your passion? he tells them. He's just like Aaron Eckhart's Nick Naylor: he doesn't mean it. But there's less artifice to his journey because Clooney's weary traveler can't control the direction he takes.

Reitman's script, now aiming for adult audiences, strays in the second half down familiar territory. Some of the punches he pulls, without the zing of his other films to steady him, are expected and unsurprising. A heart-warming montage revisiting childhood memories; surprises lurking behind closed doors. To its credit, the film stays aware of the economic climate and ends on a dimly hopeful ambivalence. Recently laid-off residents of Chicago lend verisimilitude to the characters who are fired.

Reitman plays the topical card well; it's nice to see awards buzz around a film made for compassion rather than prestige. He gathers a cohesive ensemble: Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Jason Bateman (deliciously wry), Zach Galifianakis, and Amy Morton (who was vigorous on Broadway in August: Osage County) among them. J.K. Simmons's cameo, as a recently fired employee who wants more out of life, is the most poignant moment. Anna Kendrick's work as the firing company's protege--a rigid, PhD-wielding automaton--is clever. She keeps her guard up, exposing cracks in the veneer and a growing sensitivity without blossoming into a pageant model.

Reitman's script and direction are best when they let the humor and pain coexist: a screwball comedy set in modern times. It's reassuring to see a movie reach modest heights rather than serve up manufactured feelings that taste of airline food.

When Actors Take the Mic: Part II

At long last... the actors who will not be taking home Grammys. Note the predominance of women. (Be aware, Nine ladies.)

Before I launch into the list, a true oddity: Clint Eastwood. Paint Your Wagon, 1969. He has this surprisingly folksy voice, but honestly, the film ain't Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

The Bad.

Gloria Grahame. Oklahoma!, 1955. A film noir seductress singing Rodgers and Hammerstein? "Singing" is generous; it's said they stitched her tracks together note by note. "I Cain't Say No" is the sore thumb in an otherwise sprightly performance. (Yes, it's a comic song. But she's not playing deer-in-the-headlights; she just has no idea how to perform a number.)


Vanessa Redgrave. Camelot, 1968. Lerner and Loewe wrote a easy-sing for Julie Andrews, after the vocal challenge of My Fair Lady. But Guenevere's not easy for Redgrave. She's a sensuous siren, a tigress in the role, until the music starts. Now we realize why Audrey Hepburn and Natalie Wood were dubbed... and why the movie musical suited the glossy 1950s better than the realism of the 1960s New Wave.


Helena Bonham Carter. Sweeney Todd, 2007. Her performance diverged from Angela Lansbury's comic, Dickensian Mrs. Lovett. Yet her weary, haunted demeanor is touching. Still, it's hard to ignore her breathy, hesitant higher notes, and the disappearance of harmonies in "A Little Priest."


Susan Sarandon. The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 1975. Damn it, Janet. It's like you're under sedation.

The Ugly.

Pierce Brosnan. Mamma Mia!, 2008. New York: "the best imitation I've heard of a water buffalo." Palm Beach Post: "a drunk walrus singing through a foghorn." The voice that won him a 2009 Razzie for Worst Supporting Actor:


Lucille Ball. Mame, 1974. Another score written for Angela Lansbury's warm middle register. Ball has no warmth or middle register. She recorded "open a new window, open a new..." one night, but couldn't handle the interval; they had to save "door" for the morning. Watch "It's Today" (starting at 6:40) and cringe:


Sophia Loren. Man of La Mancha, 1972. Just because she's a prostitute doesn't mean she should croak like a strangled bullfrog. And just think--Maury Yeston wrote a new song, just for her, in Nine.


Movie musicals could be worse off. Cary Grant wisely turned down Harold Hill for Robert Preston. Michelle Pfeiffer almost portrayed Evita. Goldie Hawn and Madonna were originally set for Chicago. But on the horizon... Keira Knightley in My Fair Lady. That might not be so loverly.

When Actors Take The Mic: Part I

I'm on a Nine kick. Daniel Day-Lewis, Penelope Cruz, and Marion Cotillard are joining an austere club of movie stars coaxed into singing on the silver screen. How risky! In a movie musical debut, one could pull a Julie Andrews, Barbra Streisand, or Jennifer Hudson and nab an Oscar. But they were established vocalists. Actors-turned-singers, though, have also gained award buzz. Some with Oscars, some with Razzies. Let's start with actors who surprised us:

The Good

Antonio Banderas. Evita, 1996. Though Madonna was the musician of the cast, her delicate performance impressed (maybe for the first time) more than her vocals. Many keys were lowered and harmonies rewritten to keep her voice within about an octave. The surprise was how Banderas lent gusto to folk and rock ballads.


Jimmy Stewart. Born to Dance, 1936. Back when vocal standards were not terribly great on film--let's face it, Astaire and Rogers were dancers first, charmers second, and singers to get by--Jimmy Stewart proved he could carry a tune. He has a light, pleasant tenor, on-par with many screen singers in the 1930s.


Catherine Zeta-Jones. Chicago, 2002. Following Chita Rivera and Bebe Neuwirth, both fantastic Velmas, Zeta-Jones's rendition of "All That Jazz" is even more electrifying. No doubt her West End musical experience helped. And she took home an Oscar for proving she's got the stuff.


Meryl Streep. Mamma Mia!, 2008. To be fair, her first on-screen singing was in Postcards from the Edge, and she performed in Broadway and off-Broadway musicals in the 1970s. She counteracts the sleek, Swedish ABBA glean with a coarser "acted" sound. At 59, she's probably past her vocal prime. Her belting is solid at times, strident at others. But Streep emotes like mad, grounding a beach-party romp in occasional sincerity. "The Winner Takes it All" uses her first take.


Ewan McGregor. Moulin Rouge!, 2001. The vibrato quivers, but there's a solid pop tenor in there. Unlike his leading lady, he's not afraid to sing louder than pianissimo. Check out this link to "Luck Be a Lady" in Guys and Dolls... and his B-flat at the end!


Johnny Depp. Sweeney Todd, 2007. The original Sweeney on Broadway, Len Cariou, was no Don Giovanni; he had a light, everyman baritone. So Depp's quirky, David Bowie take on Sweeney--while not as punk rock as he wished--satisfies more than the rest of the cast (save Ed Sanders, the boy who plays Tobias). He commits musically, and despite some contorted vowels, he finds a nice balance between raspy and lyrical.


James Cagney. Yankee Doodle Dandy, 1942. The greatest performance on this list (also winning an Oscar). He talk-sings, his footwork favors spirit than technique--and yet he's a true-blooded song-and-dance man.


On Friday, the Bad and the Ugly!