More On Theatrical Intimacy

[On 26 May, I posted an article on Rick On Theater entitled “A growing theater trend: The art of staging love” by Matthew J. Palm of the Orlando Sentinel.  When I first saw the article, it was the first I heard of theatrical intimacy designers, the name of the position Palm used in his article.  I did a little poking about the ‘Net and discovered that it was, indeed, “a growing trend.”  Some months later, I got an e-mail from the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.  SDC was getting on board with this new concern, growing out of the #MeToo movement. 

[Then a few weeks later, I got my copy of SAG-AFTRA, the member magazine for the film and television union.  In it was also an article on the same subject.  (SDC uses the title “intimacy choreographer” for the job Palm had written about, and SAG-AFTRA calls it “intimacy coordinator,” but the responsibility is the same.)

[I’m posting both the SDC e-mail, which arrived in my inbox on 23 July, and the un-credited SAG-AFTRA article, from the summer issue that arrived earlier this month, because I think this is an important move on the part of the professional entertainment industry—and I applaud the unions for getting out in front of the need and engaging their memberships in the issue.]

“Stage Directors And Choreographers Society & Intimacy Choreography”

[SDC, formerly known as Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers or SSDC (until 2009), was established in 1959, representing theatrical directors and choreographers, working on Broadway and on National tours, Off-Broadway, and in various resident, regional, stock, and dinner theatres throughout the United States.]

July 23, 2019

Dear Members and Associate Members,

As theatre artists and organizations encounter a changing discourse around staging sexual content and intimate moments, initiatives that provide awareness of the issues and positively shift our language and practices are essential in creating a safer and more empowered industry. We believe it is a part of SDC’s job to educate our Members on why the field of intimacy choreography has emerged and provide resources for building higher sensitivity and awareness around what is needed to ensure a context of consent in all rehearsal rooms. SDC recognizes that every project will need different resources and every director builds a rehearsal room in their own way.

Our approach, which will roll out over the next few months, is one of in-depth education that provides many paths and possibilities to staging intimacy versus mandating or endorsing a singular policy. That is not our place. But we do want to give directors and choreographers the tools for successfully grappling with intimacy onstage in our current ‘me too’ world and in doing so begin to set some best practices and standards. We deeply respect each individual Member’s unique approach to their craft, and we sincerely appreciate the emergence of intimacy choreography and support all artists to work purposefully and intentionally when it comes to issues of consent and sexual safety onstage, whether that be with an intimacy choreographer or not. 

To provide a wealth of information and resources to our Members, we will be creating an online and offline library where directors encountering sexual content or looking for guidance around intimacy staging may go. If you stage your own intimacy, SDC will offer you access to helpful language to assist you in creating the context for artists to speak up and actively set boundaries. If you want to learn more directly about the work of intimacy professionals, we will have information about what the field is, how it can help you, and where you can learn more. SDC will continue to provide our Members with resources for getting to know the community of intimacy choreographers and how to begin a collaborative dialogue with them.  And finally, we will develop resources to help Members navigate and negotiate the addition of an intimacy choreographer onto the collaborative team, whether requested by you, your employer, or an actor.  Everyone needs access to all the tools, even if they use them differently

Intimacy Choreography, A Vital & Emerging Field

In 2006, the field of intimacy choreography emerged primarily out of academic institutions as a training tool and research field for stage artists. This scholarly work then evolved into organizations outside the higher education field, which offer tools, education, consulting, and comprehensive resources for staging theatrical intimacy. The two primary organizations who offer training and who choreograph intimacy are Intimacy Directors International (IDI) and Theatrical Intimacy Education (TIE). In collaboration with specific intimacy choreography organizations, Society of American Fight Directors (SAFD) trains their choreographers in staging sexual violence. Many of these seasoned and trusted fight directors are now crossing over into intimacy choreography.

At the core of intimacy choreography is the use of a more formalized vocabulary and practice for staging intimacy or scenes of a sexual nature. The protocols of intimacy choreography give performers a common vocabulary that allows them to communicate with each other about the work they are doing and to define boundaries. There is a practice, a codified set of guidelines, that makes the process less intimidating and gives artists more agency in their own work.

Intimacy choreographers are experts in conversations of power and consent in any space where sexual content is being rehearsed. They aim to create cultures where artists are empowered to tell the clearest story possible without violating their own personal boundaries. And they ensure that throughout a run, the actors are continuing to have an open dialogue about the sexual staging, renewing consent and opening conversations to address the live and ever-changing nature of the theatre.

Techniques used by intimacy choreographers include: teaching languages of initial consent and renewal of consent, contact improvisation, checking in and out (making a ritual of intimacy, so actors have a mental separation of the work from their daily lives), and initiating channels for actors to communicate openly through the process about their experience. All of these tools give artists more agency to only agree to situations they feel physically and emotionally safe engaging in while continuing to respect the creative team and their process of telling a specific and compelling story.

With increased public awareness and discourse on sexual harassment and consent, many theatres, universities, and leaders in our field have felt a need to respond directly. Our field is addressing a critical need to improve the working conditions of our industry, and SDC is taking action as well.

Where We Stand

SDC believes that each director should have the freedom to tell the story they want to tell in the way they want to tell it. And we recognize a growing need in our industry to dismantle abusive power structures and respond to a tremendous outpouring of concern about how, on and off stage, we engage appropriately with one another. We look forward to leading the discourse around intimacy direction and providing vital resources for directors to uphold ethical practices and accomplish their best work.

With more resources to stage intimacy, we hope to give directors concrete tools to set-up systems in the rehearsal room and beyond. When actors are unified by a director around a specific language of consent, they are less likely to take actions that will put their fellow actors at risk. This shared awareness and work will ensure that stage intimacy continues to be consensual, even when directors have left the run.

“Uncomfortable” is not “unsafe.” SDC’s goal is to provide resources for safety. We understand that art can and often must be emotionally and physically challenging. We encourage our directors to make their most daring and rigorous work. And we believe that exciting and influential art can and should be done in spaces where consent and boundaries are firmly understood. With our comprehensive resources, our repository of points of view and research, we aim to give every director the support they need to build more awareness around issues of intimacy and create their own culture of open dialogue and consent.

While our comprehensive library is coming soon, CLICK HERE [SDC Member Portal] for immediate information about intimacy choreography and to share with us your experiences and needs on this topic. We look forward to being in dialogue with you, our Members and leaders of the theatre community, about this vital and ongoing issue.

In Solidarity,

Pam MacKinnon, President

John Rando, Executive Vice President

Michael John Garcès, First Vice President

Michael Wilson, Treasurer

Evan Yionoulis, Secretary

Seret Scott, Second Vice President

Leigh Silverman, Third Vice President

*  *  *  *

“Safety, Dignity & Integrity:

SAG-AFTRA to Standardize Guidelines for Intimacy Coordinators”

[This article appeared in SAG-AFTRA 8.2 (Summer 2019),  published quarterly by SAG-AFTRA, Los Angeles, Califormia.  The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, known as SAG-AFTRA, is the union that represents film and television actors, journalists, radio personalities, recording artists, singers, voice actors, and other media professionals worldwide.  The organization was formed in 2012 following the merger of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG – created in 1933) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (created in 1937 as the American Federation of Radio Artists [AFRA], becoming AFTRA in 1952 after merger with the Television Authority).]

SAG-AFTRA has announced that it will collaborate with Alicia Rodis, the associate director and cofounder of Intimacy Directors International (IDI), the intimacy coordinators with IDI and other trained providers to standardize, codify and implement guidelines for on-set intimacy coordinators.

The guidelines will establish new, relevant policies for nudity and simulated sex and other hyper-exposed work; define the duties and standards for intimacy coordinators on productions; and specify acceptable training, vetting and qualifications of intimacy coordinators. Intimacy coordinators provide coaching for actors performing intimate scenes and ensure that proper protocols are followed while they are at their most vulnerable.

“Our goal is to normalize and promote the use of intimacy coordinators within our industry,” said SAG-AFTRA President Gabrielle Carteris, adding, “Intimacy coordinators provide an important safety net for our members doing hyper-exposed work. At a time when the industry still needs to make great changes, our initiative will ensure the safety and security of SAG-AFTRA members while they work, and it respects the boundaries of actors.”

Added National Executive Director David White, “These specifically implemented guidelines will allow productions to run more efficiently while the specialized support empowers both cast and crew. We look forward to working with our industry partners and allies to ensure these guidelines work for our members and others on set. Many productions are already using intimacy coordinators, so it is imperative to codify and standardize the work to best benefit SAG-AFTRA members and the industry as a whole.”

SAG-AFTRA’s efforts are not just limited to on-set work. The union is committed to defending the rights and dignity of its members on the job, while pursuing work and in the public sphere. It has elevated the conversation on sexual harassment and abuse through its public policy advocacy efforts, including several pieces of legislation and by hosting a groundbreaking panel discussion on image-based sexual abuse, such as “deepfake” non-consensual sex scenes.

The union continues to pursue its goal to change the culture of harassment and abuse in the industry once and for all. Over the past year and a half in particular, SAG-AFTRA has made great strides toward this vision, starting with the rollout last February of the Four Pillars of Change framework for confronting harassment and advancing equity. This comprehensive initiative strengthens protections for members and holds productions to high standards of conduct through new rules and guidelines, enhanced education and resources, and public policy advocacy.

Introduced early last year, Code of Conduct Guideline No. 1 calls for an end to professional meetings and auditions in high-risk locations such as hotels and private residences, and encourages members to bring a support peer to auditions and meetings where safety may be a concern. SAG-AFTRA has since codified Code of Conduct Guideline No. 1 into the Netflix, Commercials and Network Television Code contracts, along with provisions that provide explicit personal harassment protections.

In collaboration with the SAG-AFTRA Foundation and The Actors Fund, SAG-AFTRA has expanded existing intervention tools and survivor support services. At SAG-AFTRA, more than 100 first- and rapid-responder staff have been trained across the organization, including specialized assessment and intervention training for field representatives. Additional experts have been brought on for intake and case management of complaints, and the union’s long-running 24/7 safety hotline has evolved to include a specialized trauma hotline for members who are experiencing, or who have experienced, sexual harassment or assault.

In addition, SAG-AFTRA is leading a proactive legislative agenda at the federal and state levels that expands and strengthens sexual harassment laws, mandates training for nonsupervisory staff, aims to dismantle the legal barriers to reporting misconduct, extends protections to workers outside of a traditional employment relationship, prohibits the use of nondisclosure agreements in employment agreements, and targets image-based sexual abuse and on-set coercion.

In California, for example, SAG-AFTRA supported the passage of Senate Bill 1300, which prohibits an employer from requiring an individual to sign away their rights under the state anti-discrimination and anti-harassment law in exchange for a raise or as a condition of employment. The law also prohibits employers from requiring an employee to sign any documents that deny an employee’s right to disclose information about unlawful acts in the workplace, including sexual harassment. Senate Bill 224 expanded sexual harassment protections to explicitly prohibit sexual harassment in certain business relationships that exist outside of the employer-employee legal structure, and Senate Bill 820 prohibited secrecy provisions in settlement agreements following sexual abuse, harassment and discrimination.

In New York, the union supported the successful passage of several bills over a twoyear period. Senate Bill 6577 adjusted the statute of limitations for second- and third-degree rape from 5 years to 20 and 10 years, respectively; enhanced damages to include punitive damages and attorney fees in employment discrimination cases; and lowered the “severe and pervasive” standard in sexual harassment cases that denies many victims recourse. Senate Bill 4345 made it a second-degree felony to coerce someone to appear nude in a film. New York state and city have both broadened the statute of limitations for filing sexual harassment claims from one year to three years and have expanded sexual harassment training requirements to nonsupervisors, an essential tool to address the harassment that can occur among co-workers or co-stars.

Together, these victories take on the culture of silence that protects abusers and reflect an evolving understanding of workplace harassment and abuse. Yet, despite measurable progress, there is more work to be done.

When it comes to sexually explicit material, performers should control the use of their images. Unfortunately, sophisticated, free digital technology enables creators to depict an individual as engaging in virtually any activity without their consent or participation, including nude performances and realistic sex acts. While this technology is often used to make deepfake porn, mainstream filmmakers have also used it to create digitized performances of actors without their consent. This technology is just one example of the challenges the union faces in protecting performers from image-based sexual abuse.

In May, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-California, chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, joined SAG-AFTRA for a panel discussion on how deepfake technology can be weaponized to harass and defame individuals, spread misinformation and undermine national security. Moderated by NBC4 anchor Colleen Williams with an introduction by Carteris, the panel featured White, digital forensics expert Hany Farid, law professor Mary Anne Franks, and SAG-AFTRA members and activists Alyssa Milano and Heidi Johanningmeier.

To address the growing threat to members, SAG-AFTRA sponsored California Senate Bill 564, introduced by state Sen. Connie Leyva, which would ban the creation and dissemination of nonconsensual digitally created sex scenes and nude performances, including deepfakes. The first of its kind, this legislation would give individuals reasonable time to decide before consenting to a digitized intimate scene and the right to sue creators where no consent was obtained at all. SB 564 passed with unanimous support, only to unfortunately be shelved in the Senate Appropriations Committee a few weeks later. SAG-AFTRA continues to pursue avenues in Sacramento that would ensure these protections for members.

SAG-AFTRA also supports H.R. 2896, known as the SHIELD Act, a federal bipartisan bill that would prohibit the intentional disclosure of intimate images that the subject intended to be private, often referred to as “revenge porn.” Performers, especially women, are frequent targets of this misconduct and are at risk of having their cell phones hacked or sensitive behind-the-scenes footage leaked. The bill was introduced in May by Reps. Jackie Speier and John Katko, with support from Sen. Kamala Harris. At a press conference that day, SAG-AFTRA member and activist Amber Heard, a survivor of such a nonconsensual disclosure, spoke about the public humiliation she experienced, and White voiced the need for legal remedies.

As the work unfolds, SAG-AFTRA will continue to work with industry stakeholders, subject-matter experts, lawmakers and members to secure the right to work safely and with respect, dignity and integrity.

_______

REPORT: If you believe you have experienced workplace harassment or unlawful discrimination, call your union at (855) SAG-AFTRA / (855) 724-2387 and press 1.

FOR AFTER-HOURS EMERGENCIES: (844) SAFER SET / (844) 723-3773 IF YOU ARE IN IMMEDIATE DANGER, DIAL 911 TO CONTACT LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT.

These numbers are always available on the back of your membership card, the Help Center on the sagaftra.org website and on your member app.

SUPPORT: For workplace harassment support services, including counseling and referrals, call the number below for the office nearest you. This service is provided in partnership with SAG-AFTRA, the SAG-AFTRA Foundation and The Actors Fund.

The Actors Fund, Los Angeles (323) 933-9244, ext. 455 • intakela@actorsfund.org

The Actors Fund, New York City (212) 221-7300, ext. 119 • intakeny@actorsfund.org

The Actors Fund, Chicago (312) 372-0989 • shaught@actorsfund.org

'Measure for Measure' (Acting Company)

“This season’s repertory continues our recent practice of pairing plays that use the past to address pressing social and political issues of the present.”  That’s what the note from The Acting Company stated in the program for its rotating rep in New York City this summer, which consists of William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure and a new adaptation of Richard Wright’s novel Native Son for the stage.  I’ve just seen Measure (Native Son follows in a week) and the program note, composed by artistic director Ian Belknap, executive director Elisa Spencer-Kaplan, and founder Margot Harley, goes on to specify that the 1604 (some sources say 1603) Measure “presents an authoritative government, wrongful imprisonment, and sexual assault,” declaring that these are “all relevant in 2019.”

The Acting Company’s 47th season, presenting its first rotating repertory for an entire summer in New York City, began here on 14 July 2019 with previews for Measure at The Duke on 42nd Street (229 W. 42nd  Street) and continued with the production’s opening on 28 July.  My theater companion Diana and I saw the show at the 8 p.m. performance on Friday, 9 August; performances are scheduled to end on 24 August. 

Readers of Rick On Theater will remember that on 20 July, I ran a post on “Shakespeare, Forgiveness, and Measure for Measure” (https://rickontheater.blogspot.com/2019/07/shakespeare-forgiveness-and-measure-for.html) by my friend and frequent ROT contributor, Kirk Woodward.  (He gives quite a nice, brief synopsis of this play about a woman who is sexually pressured by a man in power, by the way, and I think I’ll let ROTters refer to it rather than recap it here.)  Kirk’s article is based on his having seen a recent production of Measure and, having reflected on what he’d seen, conceived an analysis of it and, by extension, all of Shakespeare’s “output,” as he phrased it.

For this reason, I wish Kirk had seen this Measure for Measure with me.  Janet Zarish, the Acting Company production’s director, cut the script down to an hour and 35 minutes—no adapter, dramaturg, or literary manager is credited—turning it into a no-intermission one-act.  (Measure for Measure probably runs about three hours uncut.  That would mean Zarish’s production omits almost as much text as it puts on stage.)   I don’t know Measure for Measure that well and Kirk might have been able to tell me what got cut.

My impression is that Zarish cut out everything that isn’t about Isabella, Claudio, and Angelo and can’t be made to comment on 2019 society (that is, Brett Kavanaugh/Harvey Weinstein, #MeToo, authoritarianism, unjust incarceration).  Indeed, an on-line ad for the company’s presentation (which seems to have been taken down) even asserted: “In what could be a [now-Supreme Court Associate Justice Brett] Kavanaugh biopic, Acting Co.’s play speaks on impossible moral choices.” 

(After summarizing the plot of the Acting Company adaptation, David Barbour of Lighting&Sound America reported:

There's rather more to Measure for Measure, but you wouldn't necessarily know it from Janet Zarish's stripped-down production . . . .  This is the Reader's Digest version . . . focus[ing] on the main narrative line while severely reducing or eliminating the bawds, pimps, whores, and unrepentant criminals who form the play's substructure, becoming solely the story of a lady in distress, surrounded by manipulative men.) 

If readers remember my recent posting of some archival reports on Shakespearean mountings (“Two Pairs of Shakespeares from the Archives,” 4 August), I spoke of “simile” and “metaphor” productions of classic plays.  (The reference is to Robert Brustein’s essay “Reworking the Classics: Homage or Ego Trip?” which I posted on ROT on 10 March 2011; I also wrote a commentary on the essay for the blog, “Similes, Metaphors—And The Stage,” 18 September 2009.)  Zarish’s Measure for Measure is a sort of wan simile staging—not really updated or transported to another time or place—it still takes place in Vienna—but dressed (by Jessica Wegener Shay) circa 2019. 

Little else is adjusted, though one character smokes an e-cigarette.  While the costumes are modern dress (though the nuns still wear habits), Neil Patel’s set (which also serves Native Son) is period-less (and characterless, resembling a concrete basement or fire stairs).  The cast is racially and ethnically diverse in the color-blind vein, making the look of the play less Renaissance Vienna (or even modern-day Vienna, I suspect), but more present-day urban U.S. 

Just to make sure we don’t miss that this 400-year-old tale of sexual coercion by the power of authority is to be read as a reflection of contemporary society, Zarish has the play open with the sounds of newscasters reporting the headlines of income disparity, hate crimes, climate change, and gun violence (the sound design is by Fabian Obispo).  Later, these same voices report on the fate of Claudio (Lorenzo Jackson), the brother of the novitiate Isabella (Rebekah Brockman).  Trying to free Claudio from Angelo’s (Sam Lilja) verdict, she goes to him and he offers to exchange Claudio’s life for Isabella’s chastity—the classic—if higher-stakes—coercive bargain of the sexual predator, so the reappearance of the news broadcasts is meant to link the real-life 21st-century stories with Shakespeare’s four-century-old fiction. 

There are other bald-faced reminders, too.  The revelation of Angelo’s hypocrisy and vile behavior, for example, is conducted like a Congressional hearing or, more to the point, a Senatorial confirmation with large tables and witnesses seated behind microphones.  I wonder how many in the audience would have missed the connections had Zarish not hit us over the head with them?  I, for one, would have liked the chance to see if I’d have sussed out the links on my own.

None of The Acting Company’s “reworking” of Measure for Measure did anything to resolve the pervasive problem of the play, the issue that Kirk pointed out in “Shakespeare Forgiveness”: “its characters are all to one extent or another morally ambiguous, and because although ostensibly a comedy, none of its characters are very happy when it ends.”  Whatever present-day social and political questions Zarish and The Acting Company want to address in their rotating rep, they don’t manage to clean up the fundamental complication that no one in Measure for Measure is a moral exemplar.  They’re all not only flawed, but deeply flawed—and the Acting Company Production does no more than speed through this aspect of Shakespeare’s play.  It’s as if Zarish figured that if they fly past the problem without really touching it, no one will notice the difficulty.

Diana thought the production was good, but I found it second-rate, about the level of an undergrad college production.  The actors over-enunciated words—because they were speaking “Shakespeare”!  They moved and gestured awkwardly and without motivation or emotional/psychological content.  There were lots of fluttering and wringing hands.  It all seemed to me as if none of them really knew what they were saying or doing, just going through the (directed) motions.  It felt as if everyone was trying too hard to make it all seem “natural” and “earnest,” but as a result making it all look studied and fake.  I was in the front row of the house and kept wanting to whisper Hamlet’s advice to the players to them:

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines.  Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently . . . .

This was not the Acting Company I’ve seen before (including as recently as 2015; see my report on Desire, 26 September 2015).  After I described some of this to him, Kirk dubbed the cast “the Overacting Company.”

(Someone might have wondered why the quality of this work should be so different from what I remember from my last Acting Company experience.  I think The Acting Company, whose current troupe is made up of recent acting-school grads with a majority drawn from Juilliard, works a little like a sports team.  They assemble a troupe of good to great actors over a few seasons, the actors gain a lot of practical experience, and then they move on and the company’s left with a core of newbies and they have to start rebuilding again.  It was four years ago that I last saw them, and if the turn-over’s like that, that may be what happened.)

There was one particular maneuver that stood out among the actors’ movements that I found awkward, for example.  I mentioned that one character, Lucio (Anthony Bowden), smoked an e-cig and he didn’t look natural—like someone from my day smoking a regular cigarette on stage who’d never smoked in real life.  Bowden looked both uncomfortable and clumsy.  Now, maybe the nature of the device makes a vaper look that way—I’ve never observed e-cig smokers closely, so I don’t know.  (Maybe it’s like smoking a Russian papirosa.  They look like ordinary cigarettes, but they aren’t and the smoker’s forced to hold the papirosa differently so that it looks strange to someone unfamiliar with the routine.)   But Lucio, who’s labeled in the character list in the play text as “a fantastic,” which in Elizabethan times meant an absurd, fanciful, whimsical, or eccentric person, vaped in a couple of scenes and it always looked faked.

Lucio, a loudmouth who’s all up in other people’s business and isn’t above spreading a little fake news about everyone to everyone else if it makes him think he’s impressing them with his insider access (think Anthony “The Mooch” Scaramucci without the charm), is the only male character who doesn’t wear a suit (other than Henry Jenkinson’s Provost, who wears a uniform, and Claudio, who spends most of the play in an orange jumpsuit).  Shay’s got him up like a 1980s Eye-talian lounge lizard with a loud silk shirt open to his navel and gold chains mingling with his chest hairs.  Otherwise, all the men wear the politician’s work uniform: a blue suit (including a couple of double-breasteds). 

I was bemused to see Keshav Moodliar, after he’d doffed his final disguise and returned to his blue ducal suit (say that five times fast!), that he was sockless in his black, Italianate, leather slip-ons—going commando in the pedal region, I guess.  It struck me as a little too casual-Friday in the circumstances.  But then, I’m just an old fuddy-duddy.

The costumes Shay devised for the woman are more varied, from hooker-lite for Laura Gragtmans’s Mistress Overdone (hot pants and a tight top) to a demure pale-blue shift (with about a hundred little buttons down the front) for Isabella, her hair covered by a plain, white veil.  (As Francesca, the nun who accompanies novice Isabella when Lucio comes to the nunnery to tell her of her brother’s imprisonment, Katherine Renee Turner wears a full habit.)

I’ve been wondering why there’s been so little press coverage of this rep.  As of 13 August, Native Son’s gotten eight reviews and Measure for Measure, only six.  (The New York Times has reviewed only Native Son—and that was eight days after opening.)  The Acting Company isn’t an insignificant company, and a rotating rep should have been worthy of some attention.  Now I wonder if the reviewers came and either decided not to write reviews after seeing the productions or their editors spiked the reviews as unworthy of the space.  The Times (“the newspaper of record”) is usually very conscientious about reviewing almost all Broadway and Off-Broadway productions; it even covers some Off-Off-Broadway shows.  It’s not like the summer has a slew of openings to cover, after all!

With respect to the critical coverage of Measure for Measure, ROTters know that I usually take a look at Show-Score’s surveys of published reviews and report their tally.  Well, as of 28 July, the site’s no longer scoring those reviews, though they continue to collect them.  (I’ve quoted Show-Score’s press release with the CEO’s rationale for the change below this report with a link to the document.)  Viewer reviews will be rated and the show’s average score will be calculated from those assessments, but there will no longer be number ratings for the published notices or an average score for them. 

As for the critical response to The Acting Company’s Measure for Measure, I’ll be summarizing all six of the reviews, including two Show-Score didn’t include in its collection.  (Readers should note that the notices have been tricking in over a period of over two weeks and more may be published after this report has been posted.)

In the New Yorker, Maya Phillips, reporting, “It’s no surprise that, since the inception of the #MeToo movement, ‘Measure for Measure,’ Shakespeare’s problem play about virtue and a man’s attempt to use his influence to coerce a woman into having sex with him, is seeing more productions,” asserted that “The Acting Company’s current staging makes small but notable gestures toward the play’s prescience.”  She called Angelo a “Weinstein-esque villain” and found that, “as played by Sam Lilja, [he] lacks the baseness and sleaze to counter Rebekah Brockman’s wholeheartedly earnest and virtuous Isabella.”  As for the overall production, Phillips deemed “Janet Zarish’s direction admirably holds its characters accountable for their self-righteousness and moral hypocrisies, but the comic notes fall by the wayside.”

On TheaterMania, Pete Hempstead declared, “There’s no arguing that Measure speaks directly to the #MeToo movement, and with the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings almost a year in the past, it’s no surprise that the Acting Company has chosen to keep the memory fresh and stage its own Measure, which it has trimmed to a sometimes insightful, mostly workaday 95 minutes.”  Directed with “less harrowing staging” than The Acting Company’s Native Son, thought Hempstead, the “modern-day take on Measure for Measure makes its agenda obvious from the beginning with speakers blaring headlines about hate crimes, poverty, global warming, and gun violence.”  The TM reviewer added, “What you’re going to see (the play seems to shout) is going to be relevant, damn it.”  Hempstead reported that while both plays in the rep provide “nothing groundbreaking in the way of theatricality,” together the “pairing of  Measure for Measure and Native Son does call attention to cavalier attitudes toward black and female bodies and to the white patriarchy that seeks to control them.”

Lighting&Sound America’s Barbour noted that another Shakespeare problem play, Coriolanus (New York Shakespeare Festival at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park), is on the New York City boards with The Acting Company’s Measure for Measure, and reported that in each case, the director tackles the work’s imperfections head-on, with differing degrees of success.”  The abridgement, Barbour found, “benefits from a swift pace and a clear dramatic line, building to a final confrontation that satisfyingly strikes a blow at the Viennese patriarchy.”  He added, however, that it “scrubs the play of its considerable humor and tames its unruliness, not to its advantage.”  The LSA reviewer’s “most grievous” complaint is that the adaptation

misreads Shakespeare’s intentions:  The play is marked by a frank, scalding appraisal of the world’s wicked ways and it makes an argument for moderation in both virtue and vice.  Indeed, the virtuous characters are almost as single-minded as the libertines they scorn.

“Zarish’s take on the play,” felt Barbour, “might work better with a more engaged cast, but everyone onstage seems to be in a rush to catch a train.”  He singled out Keshav Moodliar’s Duke for his “touch of authority and an urgent sense that lives and reputations are at risk,” but criticized “Rebekah Brockman’s surprisingly tough and opaque Isabella and Sam Lilja’s Angelo, who is more middle-manager than sexual predator.”  The cyber reviewer praised the design team for Measure but complained that the “production ends with a feminist twist that will please many in the audience, but which feels tacked on, as it violates the sense of reconciliation [another synonym for forgiveness that Kirk could add to his list] that is key to all of Shakespeare’s comedies.”  His final words of advice, therefore, were that “if you love this play, I’d hold out for the next revival.”

“The Acting Company’s new production of Measure for Measure . . . is crisp, precise and thoroughly entertaining,” declared JK Clarke on Theater Pizzazz.  Clarke added, “It certainly helps that a sizable chunk of the original script, including many beloved scenes with comic characters like Elbow and Pompey, are excised from this version,” making it at least an hour shorter.  “While it may not be an unabridged version, it is nonetheless a powerful production.”  

Zarish’s staging is “precise” and even in the final scene in which Shakespeare “leaves Isabella’s response to the Duke’s shocking proposal ambiguous,” under this director, “nothing is left to the imagination and Isabella’s profound reaction is both satisfying and logical.”  Comparing The Acting Company’s Measure for Measure with Lincoln Center Theatre’s current The Rolling Stone (by Chris Urch, through 25 August), the TP review-writer concluded that the two plays are “messages in lockstep with the times.”  

Mark Dundas Wood of TheaterScene.net thinks that Measure for Measure “seems as though it would lend itself to an adaptation crafted in light of the #MeToo movement,” but he cautioned, “To some extent, The Acting Company’s . . . version proves itself a good fit for such an approach, although there are elements of Shakespeare’s play that don’t quite conform seamlessly with what director Janet Zarish seems to be going for.”  Wood reported, “This rendition of the play makes Isabella a stronger, more self-reliant character than Shakespeare likely intended. She is not remotely frail or helpless,” finding Rebekah Brockman “emotionally disengaged” and wondering if “Brockman’s determination not to portray the character as victim . . . makes her seem so.”

Wood continued, “The production is more effective in its deconstruction of the duke’s motives.  Moodliar makes the character a smug sort, in love with his own benevolence and cleverness.”  The TS.net  reviewer found “Anthony Bowden as the rakish and smarmy Lucio . . .  one of the best things in the production” and he praised the design elements of the show. “The biggest twist of the evening comes at the denouement,” concluded Wood, “when Zarish and Brockman turn Shakespeare’s story on its ear, giving us a finish that defies traditional expectations.  While not true to the original ‘happy ending,’ this surprise will prove satisfying to many—perhaps most—2019 playgoers.”

On CurtainUp, Gregory Wilson explained that he’s “always enjoyed watching plays performed in rotating repertory, as even a familiar work can be seen in a new light when it's placed in proximity (and dialogue) with another.”  The Acting Company, Wilson asserted, “has tried to focus on the central themes of two well-known plays—Richard Wright's Native Son and Shakespeare's Measure for Measure—and render them more powerful through juxtaposition” in a “partially successful” experiment.  He cautioned that “the danger of this approach is that it can minimize the complexity of the works in question, and I'm afraid that happens here too.  Ultimately, Wright and Shakespeare are larger than these interpretations give them credit for.”  Wilson reported, “Both productions zoom in on what they view as the critical aspects of each play,” continuing, “The virtue of this approach, of course, is focus.” 

“The acting and directing are excellent,” the CU writer felt, but “the quality of the performances contributes to a larger problem—because it's hard not to feel like there are multiple missed opportunities.”  He explained: “Measure for Measure, after all, is about many things besides misogyny.  Religious dogma overriding common sense, love vs. law, and deep-seated hypocrisy are all just as much part of the play's thematic fabric, and stripping all of them out to go after the production's one theme flattens Shakespeare's work considerably.” 

Still, Wilson affirms that he likes “the idea of juxtaposing” the two plays, which “are [b]oth solid, well-directed and acted productions.”  Wilson concluded with a caveat:

But if it's important not to lose the forest for the trees, it's also important to avoid cutting down most of the trees for the sake of what one thinks is the forest.  Richard Wright and William Shakespeare are justly praised for their depth and breadth of thought; I wish that in the zeal to focus them on single concepts, these productions didn't reduce their works as much as they do.

I'm curious, if a little trepidatious, about how Native Son will turn out.  It's close to contemporary (1930s, assuming adapter Nambi E. Kelley didn’t up-date it), so maybe the company—it’s essentially the same cast as Measure for Measure—will be more comfortable. Cross fingers!

[For ROTters who are curious about why Show-Score has changed its review-rating policy, here’s the explanation from Tom Melcher, the site’s founder and CEO.  Show-Score issued a press release, “SHOW-SCORE ANNOUNCES CHANGES TO SCORING APPROACH: MEMBER REVIEWS WILL BE SHOWCASED; CRITIC REVIEWS WILL BE DISPLAYED BUT WILL NO LONGER BE SCORED”:

June 28, 2019 (New York, NY): Show-Score.com, the leading online community for theater fans, today announced a change to how it scores and displays reviews from members and professional critics. In an email to Show-Score’s 277,000 members (full text pasted below), Show-Score’s Founder Tom Melcher explained that Show-Score members have now written 400,000 reviews of New York City theater on the site. To further this strong community, Show-Score will now be showcasing these member reviews even further, allowing members to learn more about the reviewer and to find theater fans who share their taste.

At the same time, Show-Score will continue to aggregate the major professional critics with a brief review summary and a link out to their full review. The site will no longer be scoring and excerpting critic reviews itself, nor posting critic scores.

As Melcher said in an email, “We still want our members to access a range of professional critical opinion because we believe that critics provide useful context and commentary, and represent a spectrum of taste in theater. We would much prefer that the critics score their own reviews, since they are writing their response to the work they have experienced. However, while some critics have been sending us their scores and excerpts, we have not been able to get complete buy-in, which is necessary for a uniform scoring system to work.”

[The release includes the text of Melcher’s e-mail to Show-Score members, as it says above; both the press release and the accompanying e-mail text are available at https://www.show-score.com/pdf/Show-Score_Announces_Changes_to_Scoring_Approach.pdf.]

'Kiss Me, Kate'

by Kirk Woodward

[Longtime contributor to Rick On Theater Kirk Woodward feels much the same way about the classic musicals as I do.  I’ve copped to my inability to be critical of them many times on this blog, but in “A Broadway Baby” (posted on 22 September 2010), I spelled it out: “I can’t be very critical about those classic musicals—I love them too much from my childhood.  They’re like theatrical comfort food to me—I hardly see any faults.”  Kiss Me, Kate, the 1948 Cole Porter musical based on William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, was one of the classics with which I grew up, courtesy of my father’s original-cast recordings.  We used to listen to them all the time, particularly during dinner. 

[I’ve seen many productions of Shrew, but the only one whose report I published on ROT (on 21 November 2009) is one I saw at Staunton, Virginia’s “Shenandoah Shakespeare” in 2003.  (I saw another interesting take on the play in 2007 at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., and I have a report in my archives, but haven’t used it on the blog yet.  Maybe I will one day soon.)  I’ve only seen one stage production of Kiss Me, Kate, however.  Coincidentally, it was the National Tour of the 1999 Broadway revival Kirk mentions having missed to his regret.  I saw it in July 2001 at Washington’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, directed by Michael Blakemore with Rex Smith (replacing Brian Stokes Mitchell) as Fred Graham/Petruchio and Rebecca York (in for the late Marin Mazzie) as Lilli Vanessi/Katharine.  The interesting thing with respect to Kirk’s report below is that, except for playwright John Guare’s “only two noticeable alterations,” producer Roger Berlind kept to Sam and Bella Spewack’s original Tony-winning book.  (“Why fix what ain’t broke?” asked director Blakemore.  “Why can’t you behave?”)

[The Roundabout Theatre Company, as you’ll read, took a different tack.  I’ll let Kirk tell you about the current revival and you’ll see the dilemma the company and Kirk faced.  ~Rick]

I was excited when I heard that the Roundabout Theatre Company would be presenting a revival of the musical comedy Kiss Me, Kate beginning with previews on February 14, 2019, and opening March 14, 2019, for a limited run.

I grew up on the original cast album of Kiss Me, Kate on 78 RPM records, featuring Alfred Drake (1914-1992), Patricia Morrison (1915-2018), Harold Lang (1920-1985), and Lisa Kirk (1925-1990). I love the music of the show’s composer Cole Porter (1891-1964), both generally, and in particular in Kiss Me, Kate.

However, the only time I’ve seen the show was a production in London in the 1970’s that lacked the verve typical of a Broadway show that the original production (which opened on December 30, 1948, and ran for 1,077 performances) must have had. I also saw the unsatisfying 1953 movie, which begins with a “frame story” including a character named “Cole Porter,” who looks nothing like Cole Porter but does resemble the composer Irving Berlin (1888-1989).

For reasons I can’t understand, I missed the 1999 Broadway revival of the musical starring the magnificent Brian Stokes Mitchell (b. 1957), for which I have been kicking myself ever since. So as I said I looked forward to the Roundabout’s production with anticipation. I saw it at a preview performance on February 27, 2019.

Kiss Me, Kate is one of Broadway’s great success stories. Cole Porter’s career was at a low point in the late 1940s; he had written several undistinguished scores and a couple of outright flops, and according to a number of sources was generally considered “finished” in the business.

Most of the cast and production team for Kiss Me Kate were either new to their jobs or relatively unknown. According to George Eells’ biography of Cole Porter The Life That Late He Led (1967), it was extremely difficult to raise enough money to finance the show, which ended up with seventy-two backers, an extremely large number for that time.

Unexpectedly, the show required almost no rewriting during rehearsal, and no revisions in its out-of-town tryout in Philadelphia – an unheard of phenomenon up to that time and seldom heard of since. By the time the show reached Broadway, word was out that it was virtually perfect.

Porter was hailed for his greatest score, and the production won five Antoinette Perry Awards, popularly known as the Tonys, including Best Musical and Best Composer and Lyricist (Porter).

In Kiss Me, Kate a theater company is trying out a musical version of the play The Taming of a Shrew by William Shakespeare (1564-1616), and the strife between the leading director, producer, and actor in the play and his leading lady, also his divorced wife, mirror the strife between Shakespeare’s characters Petruchio and Katherine (Kate), the “shrew” of the Shakespearean title.

You have undoubtedly noticed the word “shrew” twice in the previous paragraph and perhaps you thought that it was inappropriate, or wondered how acceptable a word it is today, or some similar idea. If so, you are thinking along with the folks at the Roundabout, who, according to an article in the program by Olivia Clement, realized that

while the plot is alive with onstage romance, backstage passion, and a hilarious dash of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, moments in the show are still – and maybe a little uncomfortably – rooted in the era in which the show was written.

In this age of the # MeToo movement, “moments” may be an understatement. Both the “frame” story of the acting company, and Shakespeare’s play itself, present dominating males with strategies for “taming” the women they love that range from dubious to downright objectionable.

Did Shakespeare intend his protagonist, Petruchio, to be admired or loathed? Considering how many aspects Shakespeare can embody in one character, I am tempted to answer “both.”

And Shakespeare does frame his story, just as the musical frames its story: for a joke, a group of well-to-do people pick up an unconscious drunk on the street and, when he wakes up, attempts to convince him that he’s actually a Lord and has forgotten his prosperous past. The main story of The Taming of the Shrew is presented to this unfortunate for his entertainment.

I would say that Shakespeare’s frame story doesn’t help us a great deal in justifying the Punch-and-Judy violence and male presumption of his play-within-a-play. Of course we only have the words in the script, and no indication how those words were played – simply as knockabout farce, or with whatever degree of compassion?

The musical Kiss Me, Kate has the same kind of problem with its frame story. The protagonist, Fred Graham (played by Will Chase), is actually perhaps one of the less objectionable males in the story. Yes, he is a loud, domineering director and producer, and yes, he misleads his ex-wife romantically.

But his counterpart in the subplot, Bill Calhoun (played by Corbin Bleu) is a compulsive gambler who sleeps with everybody. Men in general are seen as motivated by sex (as flat-out stated in the number “Too Darn Hot”).

However, to tell the truth, Calhoun’s female counter part Lois Lane (played by Stephanie Styles) is equally problematic, apparently attaching herself to multiple men at one time, as long as they have money. And Petruchio does beat, mistreat, and “tame” Kate. A fine crew!

Amanda Green (b 1963), a composer and lyricist best known perhaps for the musical Hands on a Hardbody (which ran on Broadway in 2013), was brought in to tidy up the more controversial phrasings in the score. (The playwright John Guare made revisions in the script for the 1999 version. It should also be noted again that I saw the show in a preview performance, and that further changes may have been made since I saw it.)

Green alters one of the more blatantly sexual rhymes in the song “Brush Up Your Shakespeare,” and weaves around the line in “Bianca” that goes “You’d better answer ‘yes’ or papa spank-a!” However, she makes relatively few changes compared to those in the movie version (1953).

The most spectacular change in the lyrics comes at the end of the show. Both Shakespeare and Porter have Kate sing

            I am ashamed that women are so simple . . .

which in the current production becomes

            I am ashamed that people are so simple . . .

At this point I find myself wondering if I’m taking the whole thing too seriously – or if the Roundabout is. In any case, the temper of the times is generally unforgiving, and one does wonder why the Roundabout decided to present the show at this particular moment in history. Perhaps the decision was locked in before, say, Harvey Weinstein was forced to resign?

If I were directing Kiss Me, Kate today, I would be tempted to add one more frame story to the show, beginning with a scene (or voiceover) in which Fred Graham and Lilli Vanessi, his “Kate,” reminisce about  their earlier days in theater, when times were so different – thereby, perhaps, at least serving notice that the behavior shown in the play is not being endorsed.

And I would make the look of the show considerably more down-at-heel, and make it clear that the Shrew production at the core of the show isn’t really very good.

I believe that Porter suggests this in his lyrics – compare, for example, the performers’ genuine angst in the opening song of the frame story, “Another Opening, Another Show,” with the superficial repetition in the play-within-the-play’s “We Open In Venice,” or the wit of “Always True to You In My Fashion” with the blatant repetition of the word “dick” (which is actually over-emphasized in the current show) in the song “Tom, Dick, and Harry.”

Nevertheless, I suspect the Roundabout is typical in making the play-within-the-play look as good as the play around it. (The sets are designed by David Rockwell, and the costumes by Jeff Jahshie.)

Perhaps the changes I suggest would “distance” the more controversial elements of the show and make them more palatable. Perhaps not. Perhaps they wouldn’t be necessary! Reviews for the Roundabout production were largely positive; the website Show-Score.com reports only 3% negative reviews, for an average review score of 80.

I was particularly interested to see what Jesse Green of the New York Times thought of the show. He can be counted on to highlight the social issues of a show, and he does refer to “the elements of the original Kiss Me, Kate that rankle our sensibilities today – its gender stereotypes and wife-slapping argument for womanly submission.”

But he feels that “the authors’ take on marriage is more complex and insightful than we may recall,” and he feels that “a few changes in emphasis and one major revision [which I referred to above] allow us to enjoy it in a new light, as a two-way ‘taming,’ distorted not by malice but through the mocking filter of farce,” and he refers to the revisions as a whole as “completely successful.”

Green does suggest that the inventiveness of the production begins to flag in the later part of the second act, and I agree, though for different reasons. He feels the choreography loses its inventiveness; it seems to me in particular that the song “From This Moment On” (first added in the movie version) stops the story (although the brilliant arranger, Larry Hochman, embeds a wonderful musical joke in it), and for some reason, at least when I saw the show, the song “Brush Up Your Shakespeare,” which ordinarily stops the show in two senses, fell flat.

The Roundabout’s production of Kiss Me, Kate reminds me that the classic musicals of the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s, despite their appeal, are not “easy” to stage. They are greatly a product of their times, and the times have moved on. I believe the effort to stage one successfully today is often likely to be just that – an effort – but when (for example) it has at its heart a strong theatrical idea and a glorious Cole Porter score, we shouldn’t stop trying.

[I once interviewed for a directing gig for Shrew.  I had a devil of a time inventing a concept that would accommodate the noxious sexism of the play.  This was back in the ’70s or ’80s, long before the current #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, and I failed to come up with anything I could justify (or live with).  Needless to say, I didn’t get the job.  (I think I tried to make Petruchio a Mafioso—but that only added another layer of negative stereotyping on top of the sexism and chauvinism!  Not only didn’t I get hired, but I couldn’t commit to the Mafia concept enough to convince myself it was a good idea.)]