This year, I’ve seen three plays: Groundhog Day: The Musical, Tiny Beautiful Things, and Gloria. I don’t watch that many stage productions generally, and this volume over two months is even more unusual. But as a result, I’ve had three very different experiences to Form Opinions About.
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Groundhog Day
San Francisco Playhouse
Book by Danny Rubin; Music and Lyrics by Tim Minchin
Directed by Susi Damilano
I had previously seen Matilda the Musical (also composed by Minchin) during SHN’s production in 2015, but was mostly excited for this one because the 1993 Groundhog Day remains a favorite movie, though it’s probably been over fifteen years since I last watched it.
Within the first five lines, I bought Phil Connors (played by Ryan Drummond)—Drummond nails both the “weatherman voice” and the “curmudgeonly grumble.” The production makes use of a turntable in the stage floor, similar to Hamilton, that allows Drummond to walk through set changes (while really it’s the hotel room, city park, or cafe rotating out). As Connors finds himself stuck in the time loop and progresses from disbelief, to rage, to depression, to hedonism, Drummond’s walk between sets reflects this (reminiscent of “100 Ways to Walk”), making for some moments of utter fun. But the turntable also provides some poignant opportunities for ensemble to “fade out” while the cyclical nature of the day literally repeats.
Also:
Watching the non-Connors, timestuck cast perform their same lines “day” after “day” makes you very aware of ~what stage actors do~.
Rita gets more character development than she does in the movie, which was appreciated.
There was about 50% more penile humor than necessary.
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Tiny Beautiful Things
San Francisco Playhouse
Based on the book by Cheryl Strayed
Adapted for the stage by Nia Vardalos
Directed by Bill English
Even if I didn’t like Wild so much, Cheryl Strayed’s writing in Dear Sugar has moved me, in particular her infamous “Write Like a Motherfucker” column. I went into this one expecting to see Strayed’s wise loving-kindness brought to life, and to cry my eyes out. Well, cry I did, in the first 15 minutes even—but not for the reasons I expected.
The stage adaptation places newly appointed columnist Sugar (played by Susi Damilano, the Playhouse’s co-founder and producing director) in and around her apartment while three supporting actors, taking on the voices of her readers, entreat her for advice. In response, Sugar monologues her columns, delivering Strayed’s original words almost unchanged. One would think this an appropriate way to let the source material shine. And yet…
One of the first columns/scenes was “Like an Iron Bell.” I hadn’t previously read this one, but hearing the lines out loud:
I would never be with my mother when she died. She would never be alive again. The last thing that happened between us would always be the last thing.
Yeah, that did me in. I immediately started tearing up.
But I wanted a moment to sit with it. Not just to feel my feelings, but to savor the writing. Like much of Strayed’s prose, that last sentence is so simple, so powerful, so powerful for its simplicity—yet by the time Damilano delivered it, she was already moving on to the next.
That lack of pause, that lack of quiet, never let up. In Strayed’s columns, it’s clear that she mulls over her readers’ questions for weeks or months, and that when she finally answers, she’s meeting them from a place of humility and empathy. In Damilano’s interpretation, no more than a few seconds after her readers ask does she answer, placing her hand over theirs in a vaguely unsettling/patronizing “bless your heart” gesture. When she speaks, the effect is even worse: she turns Strayed’s searing quietness into Oratory. It was as if none of the ways she voiced Strayed’s lines were the way I’d heard them in my head.
On top of that, the stage adaptation (perhaps the book as well?) prioritizes the columns most likely to pack an emotional punch: progressing from subjects of romantic uncertainty to, at climax, coping with the death of a child. (There were, in fact, multiple references to child death.) I cried again, yes, but in combination with the overacting, I found it all a bit emotionally manipulative.
The titular line from “Like an Iron Bell” appears as a refrain throughout: “My mother’s last word to me clanks inside me like an iron bell that someone beats at dinnertime: love, love, love, love, love.” For some reason, director Bill English chooses to have both Damilano and later the supporting cast echo “love, love, love, love, love” in an accelerating crescendo, almost like: “Love, love, loveloveLOVE!” Which is not at all how I imagine a steadfast, resolute iron bell sounds, and is perfectly symptomatic of everything I thought was a poor choice in this production.
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Gloria
American Conservatory Theater
by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Directed by Eric Ting
A coworker said this one had a first act full of crunchy, witty banter, so I went to see it with my wit-loving friend…
But, surprisingly, the banter was just okay? There was a lot of it, and it was snarky, and delivered impressively quickly by the cast with almost no mistakes… but 95% of the time, the characters were saying exactly what they meant; very little of it was indirect or subtle. And in the remaining time, they were trading jabs that did nothing to further plot or characterization, which was fairly boring.
Act 2 focuses much more on serious and interesting questions of who owns trauma and who gets to tell stories. As Jacobs-Jenkins’s motive, this part is pure drama, receives no unnecessary frills, and shines for it. I appreciated his subversion of several expectations from Act 1, in particular around Miles (played by Jared Corbin), the young black intern whose savviness is invisible to most of the other white characters.
The set design was fantastic. In Act 1, I enjoyed the small details visible on the cubicle walls—playbills, a framed Audrey Hepburn photo, “INTERN” in bubble letters—and the way characters inhabited the space. The set change at the beginning of Act 2 is sublime. The set change in Act 3 is insane.
Aside from that, I most enjoyed the physical acting from Martha Brigham, who plays Ani, Sasha, and Callie. As Ani, her “tech neck,” silly dancing, and hiding behind the cubicle wall were all believable, but her starry-eyed intern moments as Callie were particularly endearing.