Caroline, or Change (Broadway) (2021)

We were supposed to go see Caroline, or Change last year before it got postponed due to the pandemic. Despite the rise of the Omicron variant in New York, Roundabout Theater Company has avoided having to cancel any performances. Fortunately, the indomitable Sharon D Clarke, who won an Olivier for playing the role of Caroline on the West End, has remained in good health and she was phenomenal. You would never know she was British as she nails the Louisiana drawl. 

Jeanine Tesori's music is a mix of many genres, ranging from Motown to spiritual to klezmer. The dialogue is sung through opera style. Many of the lyrics are actually spoken, kind of reminiscent of Sondheim in that there are no hummable tunes but yet the music is melodic in its own way. The opening chord on the piano gave me goosebumps. The music is haunting. It is accompanied by a low cricket's buzzing that greets you as you enter the theater; you see a confederate statue at center stage and reeds of tall grass on the sides. It transports the audience to the bayou immediately. I did have difficulty understanding the lyrics spoken on stage; only Clarke's diction was clear from the balcony. I otherwise had to concentrate really hard to hear the distinct words that are really crucial to conveying the meaning in the plot.

Caroline is a maid for a Jewish family who does laundry all day in the stifling basement. The radio keeps her company. The appliances and radio and moon and bus are all personified as singing beings. Among them Caroline can let her guard down. She is otherwise rather brusque with her white employers, including the child Noah, who stands in for Tony Kushner himself. The play alternates between Caroline's perspective and Noah's. Noah is young and naive; he doesn't understand the value of money nor the power it holds. He carelessly then purposefully leaves change in his pockets. To teach him a lesson, his stepmother lets Caroline keep the spare change, call it a tip. She puts Caroline in an uncomfortable position. She obviously needs the money but she a grown woman is literally being asked to steal loose change from a baby. The stepmother understands not what value dignity holds for a woman demeaned as a maid. It's good intentions not well thought out, performative at best (reminds you of the present). The story pits against each other two historically marginalized groups who would otherwise typically commiserate. When the stepmother's father comes to visit for Hanukkah from New York, he reveals a more radical perspective, advocating violence, skeptical of Martin Luther King's non-violent methods. It is Caroline's daughter, the next generation, who can afford to be hopeful to Dr. King will deliver them from Jim Crow. 

The ending did leave me a little wanting. The plot doesn't really resolve. Or maybe it resolves cynically. It's very real, quite challenging to analyze--not bright, commercial Broadway stuff. It's a corrective of sorts to the nurturing portrayal of the Southern maid in The Help. It is left ambiguous to me whether Caroline returns to work. I think she is resigned to herself, too old to change. But she allows her children to be hopeful? And even that is a kind of change enough. The kids get the final word, though I'm not sure of the significance that the daughter participated in the removal of the statue. Is that hope for the next generation? Does Noah learn anything? Is the play itself what he learned?

Insecure (2016-21)

Issa Rae's breakout hit Insecure closed out its fantastic five season run. She succeeded in writing contemporary black life on screen. She personified the side of Los Angeles that portrays neither the glamor nor the ghetto. She depicted that in-between period of life in your late twenties/early thirties that Friends put on screen when you are still trying to figure out your life and your "friends are your family". Perhaps it's fitting that the finale sees Issa's best friend Molly getting married. It is their friendship that sits at the center of the show. It's what makes season 4, the one where their friendship is on the rocks, the strongest. Their romantic relationships with a rotating cast of eligible black men (and Alexander Hodge) revolve around Molly and Issa's love for each other. While Lawrence was the emotionally earned choice (though maybe abrupt for the finale), I don't think it's the most adult choice. Yes, Lawrence has grown but Issa has too. And following her heart is the more immature option, and I think she has grown into a new phase of her life in which she would have been able to move on. Overall though, I loved the time-jumping finale. 

It is a beautifully shot show, with lighting and makeup befitting black skin tones. It was sometimes uneven, but Insecure took big swings. It was at once funny, endearing, moving, raunchy and authentic. And it all evolved from a little web series featuring Issa rapping to herself in the mirror. Certainly, by the end she is no longer the insecure girl pumping herself up in the mirror anymore--the final shot is the empty mirror. The music supervision was always really good. They find the right song for the moment, while serving as a platform for new black talent, doing exactly as Issa Dee does in the show. That goes not only for the musicians, but also the cast of supporting actors (a standout discovery in Yvonne Orji) and in Issa Rae's real post-Insecure life with her production company Hoorae. 

City So Real (2020)

Steve James's Chicago docuseries is a fascinating look at a wild jungle primary for the mayor's office. I knew very little about Chicago politics but I feel like I know all the players now. It's very long but never boring. James has incredible access to the candidates, likely contenders and giving equal credence to also-rans who nonetheless exercise some influence in the city, benevolent or otherwise. James does not insert himself in the film, he gives no personal opinions, though his editing does sometimes betray his loyalties. He gives equal weight to both sides, Democrat and Republican, North Side and South Side, black and white. What he does brilliantly is juxtaposes shots from the North Side with reverse shots from the South Side giving a different perspective to the same issue. There are many pertinent topics to the election, and James tries to cover all of them. Chicago is a collection of neighborhoods, and he explores them all, looking at the nitty gritty of daily life in the city. He interviews people of all classes, all walks of life. He returns to the same subjects in the pandemic to check back in. There is some irony that the winner of the election was gifted with the treachery of 2020. The original cut probably would've ended at Episode 4 but he could not resist a revisit in the pandemic. It's all the better for it to demonstrate what they're running for. Lori Lightfoot goes from very popular in Episode 4 to very unpopular in Episode 5. That's politics for ya.

Freestyle Love Supreme (Broadway) (2019-21)

 I snagged two center orchestra tickets from work. Amex sponsors Freestyle Love Supreme. They were giving out tickets to colleagues who volunteer. I actually missed the deadline given in the email because I was in Maine and off work. But luckily they still had tickets available. And alas there were some empty seats at the performance. The theater was full of Amex colleagues and so they made a bunch of Amex jokes; play to your audience. 

I'm not going to give this a rating because it's a different show every night. I don't know if Broadway has ever seen anything quite like this. Freestyle hip hop, essentially improv comedy in the form of hip hop. Like watching Whose Line Is It Anyway? There are two keyboards, a beat boxer, and three freestyle rappers who also sing melody.  They're very good at what they do. And they're lots of fun. Aneesa Folds is especially funny, definitely the standout member of the cast. The show is short, 90 minutes without intermission. Would have been great if they had a special guest appear but I guess they don't do that when no one in the house paid for tickets.

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021)

The second TV show in the MCU is not nearly as ambitious or creative as Wandavision. For the most part, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier plays it safe. It does what Marvel does sufficiently; unlike the movies, however, it doesn't stand alone as well because it relies on you to remember details about two secondary characters from the Captain America series. And so there are many call-backs that went right over my head. It's par for the superhero genre. It attempts to do what Watchmen did a few years ago. It asks a serious question about what it means to be black in America. Most profoundly it questions whether America is worthy of a black Cap. But it handles this weighty theme with less deft than the masterful HBO miniseries. Maybe you need the freedom of HBO to really do it justice, to be able to cynically say no. This is too constrained by the MCU to explore it honestly. I think it actually starts out pretty well, but it lost my interest in the latter half. The Flag Smashers are an interesting enough villain group. They're not evil and they're often sympathetic.And their cause ties in sort-of to the broader theme but it's kind of forced. And I have no idea what to make of Julia Louis-Dreyfus's character.

Merry Wives (The Public Theater) (2021)

Live theater is back! It's a pretty lightweight choice as far as Shakespeare goes, but maybe that's just the type of lighthearted comedic fare that the moment calls for. Saheem Ali adapts the Merry Wives of Windsor to a west African community in Harlem. Ali astutely notes that the social mores of Shakespeare's time are still alive in the traditional African immigrant community. I didn't realize that the original relies heavily on French and Welsh accents. Here, the African accents are quite strong, such that it is quite difficult to understand sometimes. But it doesn't matter too much. The actors are still able to convey physical and emotive comedy. It's surprisingly funny and timeless for Shakespeare. And what I appreciated was that it was relatively simple to follow compared to his other comedies that rely on misunderstandings. The set is really great (the angles for 3D perspective, the way the storefronts open up, Falstaff's pimped out room) and the lighting in the final scene against the beautiful trees of Central Park is breathtaking.

Mare of Easttown (2021)

5 stars for Kate Winslet and the whole British cast (and non-Brits alike) nailing the notoriously difficult Delco (Delaware County, PA) accent. The glamorous Winslet totally inhabits the decidedly unglamorous Mare. The production design and setting are supremely specific, and the show is all the better for it, bathing the show in realism. In this depressing, small rural town, rife with teenage pregnancy and drugs, Mare knows everybody and everybody knows her. In some ways, she is like the "mayor", a detective actually. People come to her with all their problems, and they expect her to solve them. Her methods are unconventional, those of someone policing her friends, rather than one who is strictly bound by the law. Her main claim to fame was a basketball championship in high school. But when it comes to a serious, big case, she's kind of in over her head. She lacks the objectivity to do serious detecting. Very strong character development and as a result deeply felt emotions. The plot is a whodunnit, with plenty of red herrings. Even the ones that don't pan out still feel like valuable additions to the plot. Every episode ends with a cliffhanger. I was kept guessing til the very end. The suspenseful pacing is palpable. HBO strikes again.