Theater for all seasons

When I first moved to New York after college, I saw more theater than I’d ever imagined possible. I was devoted. I arrived at the Ford Center at 7:00 a.m. countless times to get tickets to Jesus Christ Superstar (a guilty pleasure; I know Andrew Lloyd Webber has his faults, and lines like “God, thy will is hard. But you hold ever card” are laughably bad. But somehow I love it); I became obsessed with an off Broadway show called Tick, Tick...Boom and started volunteer ushering at the Jane Street Theater so I could see it twice a week. I had a membership to Play by Play and, since their tickets costly only $3 a piece, I saw just about anything they were offering.

Since then I’ve gotten old. It’s been only nine years and somehow I’ve become an old lady. Sit on the sidewalk for three or four hours before the box office opens? No thanks. Watch something that’s frankly kind of bad just because it was cheap and I felt like seeing a show? Pass.

Couple my new high standards with my recent old lady-ness, plus the move of my bestest theater going friend, and it’s resulted in a shortage of plays in my life lately. Somehow, I ended up on Roundabouts mailing list, though, and when they offered me a really good price on a subscription for the season, I decided to do it. I spent a chunk of money on it, but now I know that I’ll see at least five Broadway shows this season. It reminds me of my Chicago days when I got subscriptions to the Goodman and Steppenwolf. Without someone to do things with, I can easily submit to a hermit’s life, so sometimes I just need to make the big commitment upfront.

Last night I saw A Man For All Seasons, starring Frank Langella. It was good but not a total success in my opinion. The play, which dramatizes Sir Thomas More’s rise under King Henry VIII and then his subsequent fall, is very timely. Thomas Cromwell is played as some sort of Karl Rove/Dick Cheney hybrid, which is to say that he’s manipulating, full of machinations, and all about gathering more and more executive power for the man in charge with very little regard for how legal, ethical, or warranted it is. Viewing it with the Bush administration so tantalizingly close to being over provides a very interesting context, but the show still never soared. Langella was very good, mining small moments of comedy while still presenting More as something of a saint (the show neglects to mention the people More had burned at the stake for heresy). But clocking in at just under three hours, the show did drag in parts. I was especially impatient during More’s trial and sentencing. I’m sure it was meant to be climactic, but we were well past the second hour and I knew what the outcome was going to be. There was no suspense there at all. And the finale sort of hits you over the head.

Even with all those nitpicky complaints, though, it was a good production with a good leading man. And it was great to be at a the theater again.