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Thank you very much. That's all. But we have a great dramatic finish. I'm sure you do, but Mr. Grad, We've missed it. So we're leaving soon and taking June to star her in a show right by. Hello all you theater lovers both out and proud and on the DL. And welcome back to Broadway Breakdown, a podcast discussing the history und legacy of American theater's most exclusive address, Broadway. I am your host, Matt Koplik, the least famous and most opinionated of all the Broadway podcast hosts. And it is our second to last review episode. It's going to be a little bit of a quickie one today, despite the fact that it is Techn 2 shows that we are recording. We just have a lot of depth going down and I want to get sort of the nitty gritty of it all and really, you know, get to the meat for y'. All. Since I've been known to talk a little much on this podcast, a couple little bits of business we should get into. First off, the last review that we read on ZIP Podcast I it got cut off right before the final sentence and the lovely individual who wrote the review said, I don't know why that my King of Versailles 5 star. Our review got cut off, but the last sentence was simply, dear Matt, don't you dare take vacations from us. But I need vacations. That's what. It's what keeps my skin so glowing. Which if you're watching this on YouTube, you'll know that my skin, she's glowing. You never guess that I'm 57, right? Look at this top. Firm and nice and pale. Next up, we actually have another new review that we gotta read, so let's quickly queue up. The Light and the Piazza Overture, please. This is from Always a New Yorker. Five stars. Informative and entertaining. I eagerly await new episodes each week, especially when Matt does reviews like this one and Deep dives, which you will get back to when the Tonys are over. I moved away from New York several years ago, but I feel like I'm still plugged into the new season by listening to Matt's podcasts. His podcasts. I appreciate how thorough and thoughtful he is in stating his opinions and making recommendations for what would make shows better. His deep knowledge of the history of Broadway has taught me so much and I know his information is credible. Oh, and the sass and fun personality are an added bonus for listening. Thank you, Matt. Your devotion is appreciated. Heart emoji. Thank you. Always a New Yorker. I appreciate your appreciation and yes indeed, we are quite Sassy here. Next up on the agenda, we have a couple of bits of Broadway news. Fun fact. It's been officially announced Evita starring Rachel Zegler coming in next spring at a Shubertheater to be announced. Now, what Schubertheater will that be? Who's to. But it seems like it's gonna be the Winter Garden, but we're gonna hold our tongue about that officially. Right now it's just allegedly until they say a little something something about that. So that's exciting. We're gonna be eating pretty well on musical revivals next season because we've got Evita and the Full Monty fully confirmed. We have Dreamgirls pretty much confirmed. It's been announced, but no theater has been announced. The rumor right now is the Majestic, but we'll see about that. So that's three full mon. Damn Yankees has been announced. And then there are R. After the Tony Awards, they will announce Next to Normal with Casey Levy. So we'll see about that. And if that's true, then we're gonna be munching, munching, munching really nicely. They also announced the new season for the Public Theater, at least leading up through the winter, which includes the New York premiere of the Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Seems like they're going for the Girl from the north country route of doing an Off Broadway run, which will most likely sell out if it gets good reviews. If word of mouth is strong, they will move it to a Broadway theater that spring, which is very exciting for them. And I do have it on very good authority that Paddington will announce their Broadway transfer around the time of the Tony Awards. So that's next season's already shaping up quite nicely. We also have Drama Desk nominations that came out today on the day that we're recording this. And similar to Outer Critics Circle and Drama League, y', all, you ask, how does this affect the Tony Awards race? The bottom line is that it doesn't. You know, we had a couple of shows that weren't eligible for Drama desks this season, like Liberation, like Cat's Jellicle Ball, like Titanique, elements of those productions were eligible, like, you know, new designs or staging or certain performances that weren't from the Off Broadway runs. So for, like Titanique, Leighton Williams is nominated because he was not eligible for the Off Broadway run. He's new to the Broadway production. For Cat's Jellicoe Ball, they were nominated for costumes and set and I believe, sound, maybe no wig and hair. And then they were nominated for choreography because even though a lot of the choreography is actually quite similar to Off Broadway. It's a new space, so a lot of it had to be reshaped for the Proscenium House. So it is, technically speaking, new choreography, so they were eligible. Other shows did quite well. Ragtime did pretty well. Chess got a revival nomination and Nick Christopher got a nomination, which ultimately just continues the narrative that I've been saying of best actor in a musical. We got four slots and five guys really competing for it. I maintain that Josh Henry and Sam Tutty for Two Strangers in Ragtime are our locks in that category. And then Brandon Uranowitz, Luke Evans and Nick Christopher are duking it out for those final two slots. So it could be any of those three men. We'll see what happens. Um, I mean, Casey Levy, once again, kind of just keeping the good times rolling. I don't think she was nominated to the Auto Critics Circle. She might have been, I can't recall. But yeah, I mean, it's just. It's a different voting body. It's a different nominating body. It's same thing as Drama League and Outer Critics Circle. Off Broadway is eligible as well as Broadway. So there's cross pollination with those nominees, really. Mexidus and Bo the Musical were really the big nomination winners today for the Drama Desk, which more tells you that whatever the Tonys shape up with new musicals, however those nominations roll out, they people in New York are not really thrillingly motivated by any of them there. Each show has its fan base, but there's no groundswell of support for any specific one like there was for, say, maybe Happy Ending last year or Kimberly Akimbo or things like that. So these nominations, again, they don't really matter. There's no overlap in voting bodies. This is once again not like the Oscars where precursors can matter because sag, AKA the Actor Awards, has a nominating body that also nominates for the Oscars and also votes for the Oscars. BAFTA has nominating voting bodies that vote for the Oscars as well, as does the Directors Guild, as does the Writers Guild. Golden Globes don't really, but they can give you sort of some momentum. So all that Drama Desk and Outer Critic Circle can really do is provide opportunities for people to win and give speeches and help propel their campaign as they head towards the Tony Awards. But even that doesn't always work out. I talked about this two seasons ago, right? That was no, three seasons ago. 2023 was the year when Sean Hayes won for Goodnight Oscar because. Stephen McKinley Henderson was nominated for Between Riverside and crazy. And I was in the room for the Drama Desk Awards, I was in the room for the Drama League Awards. And. And when he was announced at the Drama League Awards, he did not win. Annaleigh Ashford won. But when Henderson was. When his name was announced as the nominees on the. On the dais, he got by far the loudest applause and the longest applause and there was really such support for him. And then at the drama desks, he won. And again in the room, it was just. It was so powerful. And I thought, like, oh, my God, I think. I think he really could win. People really want to see him win. And then Sean Hayes wonder. And so that's. There's no real tangible way to figure out where the wind is blowing with these awards. They're fun, they're nice little pre Tony nominations and awards and they can give you sort of a bit of insight into, like how some bodies in New York are feeling. But also like outer critics circle drama desks, they will throw random curveballs in there. Like they really. Drama desk, it's like I think eight or nine nominators. It's a small body again, like we're talking like a seventh the size of the Tony nominating committee. They really loved Seat of our Pants. Not the case for a lot of other people. So here we are, moving on. We have two shows we have to review today. The second Broadway revival of August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone and the premiere of David Lindsay Hebert's the Ballisters, which is at Manhattan Theatre Club. I'm going to start with Joe Turner's Come and Gone, go into the balusters, and then we're going to wrap things up on the quicker side today. So y' all can discuss on either Discord or Instagram or Substack if you have any other questions or things that I didn't cover or even on YouTube Joe Turner's come and Gone. I should start up front with saying that unfortunately my opinion on this production is. Is a little corrupted because I had the worst audience experience I've ever had at a Broadway show. I've definitely read about people having terrible audience experiences on Broadway and I have for sure had my experiences that have been annoying. When I was at Oedipus, you know, it was an older crowd and there were definitely one or two cell phones that went off at the most inopportune times. And Studio 54 has a hardwood floor, so cell phones dropping out of people's coats would hit the floor at inopportune times. But it overall was still a respectful audience. Even if we are living in an age where people are just so fucking stupid. People have the most knowledgeable opinions, they claim about politics or gender or whatever. And then when they get to a theater, they don't know how to turn their phones off. They go, oh, I'm just a sexy little baby. I don't know how to do this. Bitch, you know how to do this. My 102 year old grandmother knows how to turn off her cell phone and she knows that she needs to turn off her cell phone before she goes goes to see a Broadway show. So what is your goddamn excuse? You don't have one and you don't want to have one. But this is to say, Joe Turner's coming gone. This audience was on another level for me. Yes, cell phones going off. I counted up to 13 cell phones going off in Act 1 alone. I stopped counting in Act 2 because I was really trying to focus. But it just, it was so egregious. People also just taking out their phones to text, to take photos of the stage. People were consistently late. I think by the time the last person I saw enter the theater, we were at like the hour mark of the play. People talking throughout the show. There was a gentleman who got out of his seat to sit in the aisle so he could watch the show more comfortably. He got reprimanded and had to go back into his seat. People eating, people moving around, their plastic shopping bags and, and paper shopping bags. Just like constant, constant disruptions. And I don't have misophonia, but I do have a sensitivity to things like noises like that at a show when I'm really trying to stay connected to the piece. So all of that was really making it very difficult for me to properly assess the production. So everything I say from here on out, please, if it takes after all that, you're like, I don't trust Matt's opinion, by all means, don't trust my opinion. Take it with a full grain of salt. Before I get into spoilers, I'll say this is a play that I do really enjoy. Of August Wilson's Fences remains my favorite Wilson play. Which is kind of a basic answer because it's such a straightforward play of his. It's like on the more traditional side, I would say Joe Turner's come and gone, at least in the sequential order of his plays premiering on Broadway, is the first one where he got weird and existential and a little mystical. And that carried over to plays like the Piano Lesson and so they're bolder swings and they're weirder shows, but there's also something really powerful and magical about them. And I had seen Joe Turner's Come and gone in 2009 via Lincoln Center Theater. That production was infamously directed by Bart Sherril, which had a massive uproar at the time. Still is kind of a little side eyed today, which I understand. It did ultimately get really strong reviews, a great deal of Tony nominations, a few wins, and is mostly looked on fondly. Despite the social and political gray area of that production, it did really capture my interest and helped me really understand and enjoy that play. So I came into this production not wary. I knew that I liked the show. I was interested to see what they did. I have never really been super enamored with Debbie Allen as a director before, but I do think she's a talented and smart woman. So I was interested to see what she brought to it. I thought the cast, the assembled was really strong. I overall was kind of mid to slightly negative on this production. There are things about it to enjoy, but it never really congealed for me. Now again, take it with grain of salt because my audience experience was such that it absolutely could have impacted my view of this production. But I really tried to kind of take away what I saw on stage and apply it to here. So the plot. Now we'll get into the spoilers of it all, I suppose. The plot takes place in a boarding house, I believe, in Chicago circa the 1910s. It's like 1911. I want to say. Sorry, not Chicago, Pittsburgh. What am I saying? It's the Pittsburgh series that Wilson does. I'm. I'm an idiot sometimes. Guys ignore me. But yeah, it's a boarding house in Pittsburgh circa the 1910s, I believe. Specifically 1911. And it follows all the different souls that are residing there. You have Bertha Holly and Seth Holly, a married couple who run the boarding house. Seth is the grandson of a freed slave, I believe. So he's. And he lives in the north. And so he's grown up in the north, so all he's ever known is freedom. But that is a theme that is very prominent in the show of black individuals who have always known freedom and those who have had their freedom given to them later in life or taken away somewhere in life and then. And then given back to them. Because other boarders in the house are Bynum Walker, who's sort of like a mystical medicine man played by Ruben Santiago Hudson. And he tells a story of having a vision of a shiny man who gave him the meaning of life, but he can't really remember what that meaning was. So he's always sort of in search for the shiny man. And as a mystical man, he also has a power to bond individuals together. So a lot of people come to him so they can be bound to a loved one or a lost one. Which brings us to Harold Loomis, who's played Harold Loomis. Sorry, that's played by Joshua Boone. He is a very dark and mysterious man who shows up at the boarding house with his daughter Zhonya. And he has been spending the last couple of years roaming the country in search of his missing wife, Martha, because Harold got married to a woman named Martha. They had their daughter Zhonya, and then Harold was kidnapped by a bounty hunter named Joe Turner, and was then basically on a slave gang for the better part of a decade, I want to say like 7ish years. And when he was finally freed from this unjust slavery, Martha had disappeared. And so he went. So he took his daughter, and now they've been searching for her, and so they're residing in the boarding house while they look for her. And then there are other people in the boarding house, a young man named Jeremy, a young woman named Maddie, another young woman named Molly, and they all sort of intersect and intertwine. And everyone is searching for something and. And that something ultimately is a purpose and a freedom. And everyone has different opinions on what that means for them or how to go about it. And that is impacted by their own history with enslavement. Someone like Seth Holly has never known slavery, and he's a major capitalist. He is believes in the American dream, and he believes in the power of money, your hand, and what it can do for you. And he does not necessarily have. He's not necessarily beholden to his brethren because his. He. He belongs to the clergy of money, and that is. And. And so his relationship with his wife is interesting because they have a respectful relationship, but it's definitely a working relationship. Bertha is of the mindset of life is to be enjoyed and life is to laugh and to love and to live. And so anything that happens to you that impacts you negatively, that it's a trauma, let's say it's best to let it wash off of you so you can continue to dance and sing in the face of oppression. And she tells this to, you know, young women like Mattie in the show who arrives at the boarding house because the man she loved has abandoned her and she wants Bynum to bound her, bind her to her man. But he doesn't do this because he thinks that this is not the right thing for Matty. Maddie then falls in with Jeremy in the boarding house. They start to have a thing, but then Jeremy falls for the. She's not a lady of the night so much as she's a. Like a professional party girl. Molly Cunningham. Molly doesn't work. Molly is taken care of. That is, that is Molly's memorandum for her life. And Jeremy likes the polish and the prettiness and the sheen of Molly, so he fully abandons Maddie for Molly, which Maddie then learns the lesson for herself of she needs to not put all of her faith and all of her value into the love and support of a man, which. This is such a random side tangent, but I do not actually watch Love is Blind on Netflix. I watch people talk about Love is blind on YouTube. I really am the worst because I just don't want to give Netflix the. The views. I don't want them to think that I know care, because ultimately I don't care. I care about people's opinions about Love is Blind. Like Trixie and Katya watching all the different seasons. And there's a bachelor Love is Blind YouTube channel that covers all of it in a very, very snarky way, which I appreciate. But I think it's the most recent season, or it was two seasons ago, where there was a very smart, very lovely, very empathetic young black woman who really gave her all into this relationship and gave the benefit of the doubt to the man that she had tied herself to and got engaged to. And they made it to the altar, and even though he gave her all of the reasons to doubt him, she said, you know what? We've made it this far, and I believe in you, and I believe that we can work on whatever problems come our way. And he basically said, that's really sweet of you, but I'm out. And she learned. She said, you know, it was so sad, but, you know, she's in her wedding dress in her confessional, and she was like, I'm tired, and I'm done giving these men the benefit of the doubt. I am going to just focus on me, and anyone who can appreciate that can come along for the ride. And I'm like, that's right, bitch. You do that. And that's ultimately where Maddie Campbell is. And Joe Turner's coming. God, by the end, she's like, I should probably just focus on Mattie. Because ultimately, that's what Molly Cunningham does. She focuses on Molly and she gets Men. Anyway, they're sort of like a nice benefit. To quote Charlotte Yorke. They're nice guys to have fun with. But this is to say in the end, Harold Loomis does reunite with his wife Martha, because there is a. Another sort of. He's not really a bounty hunter. They call him like the people finder. He's a like the only white. The only white character in the show. What's his name? Sorry, I'm. I'm blanking on this. It's not. Is it Jeremy? No, it's not. No. Trip Taylor is Jeremy. So then wait, it is Rutherford. Rutherford Selig. Like Kyle Selleck. That's an easy one to remember. The one white guy in the show has the same last name as Kyle Selig, who is a white guy. See these six degrees of separation? See how my brain is broken? Rutherford is basically like a people finder and Harold hires him to find his wife. And Rutherford is often there because he hires Seth Hawley to make him pots and pans for his business endeavors. So that's extra income for Seth. Basically, buyers who would not buy from a black individual, a black maker like Seth. Seth uses Rutherford as like a middleman to sell his stuff. So Otherford finds Martha and we find out that the reason why Martha showed up is because Martha had hired Bynam Walker to bind her to her daughter Zhonja so she could find her again. And that is when Harold finally releases the pain of the seven years he was on that he was in enslavement and frees himself from the ties that he has of Martha of his. Of zhonya. And spoiler alert here stabs himself or slices himself because it's not a mortal wound. He does not die from this. But he bleeds and the blood turns him shining. And that is when Bynum says the last words, which is Harold Loomis. You shine in like new money. And that's when the play ends. It is a odd play. And there is some. As I said, there's some mystical elements in there. Especially at the end of Act 1, there is a scene where the members of the boarding house and Bertha and Seth have a congregation where they sing and dance and chant all over the kitchen and living room. And they. And. And. And Seth. Harold Loomis shows up and puts a stop to all of this. Why are we singing? Why are we dancing? And goes into tongues and has a vision of skeletons walking across the ocean and having this vision of Africa and God and going into this dark tunnel of his emotions and of his Trauma that lashes out against the joy and the optimism of everyone else and their faith in their religion and of and of God. Because the other turn is that while Harold was enslaved, Martha, his wife, found Jesus, specifically found white Jesus, and is trying to heal and save Harold from all of his pain and all of his sins so he can be washed clean and either join Martha or at least join Martha in heaven at some point. And when you're doing Joe Turner in the same way when you're doing the Piano lesson, you need to have a deft hand of one foot in this world and of these emotions and this pain, while also having a foot in the mystical and tying the two together in a way so they flow in and out of each other. There's also been a trend lately with August Wilson of finding the humor in Wilson plays, which I deeply appreciate, because if you just leaned into the weight of them all, it would be insufferable, because Wilson is a poet, but he also was that bitch who could find humor in even the darkest of subject matters and really turn a phrase on its head that caught you off guard. And so in some ways, if you just sort of allow the play to unfold, you are playing with house money. But you do need to have a sleight of hand in order to navigate an audience through the odd corners that Wilson plays, like Joe Turner's come and gone walk through. I rightfully cannot say that Debbie Allen, for me, did that. What she does have is she has a solid control of her ensemble. It's a good dynamic that everyone has. I think some performances are slightly better than others. Part of this is because some roles are meatier than others. I mean, the number one MVP is Ruben Santiago Hudson as Bynum. But that's also because Hudson is like the living interpreter of Wilson. He's just that his Wilson text lives in Hudson's bones and he just can go off for hours. And it just. It flows freely from his lips while also living deep in his soul. And doesn't feel flowery, doesn't feel forced. It's just. It's the perfect embodiment of what a Wilson text can do. As I said, I don't think there's anyone in the adult company who's necessarily a weak link, but I do think some people are not on the same page of tone as everybody else. I won't speak about the. The child actors. There are two child actors. One is Zhonya Loomis. The other one is Reuben Scott. Ruben Scott is like a neighboring boy who has two separate Scenes with Zhonya. There are the. And there's two sets of child actors for those roles at different performances. I am not one for child actors for the most part. This production didn't really do anything to convince me otherwise of that. That's. I'll sort of leave with that. But I do think that the actress playing Martha Loomis, her name is Abigail Unwonali. I'm sorry if I butchered that, but I just wanted to give her her due. She comes in sort of with a lived in history with Harold again played by Joshua Boone. They have. You can sort of feel the history between them and part of it is because the scene is that they are speaking different languages to each other essentially. But it was a scene that I felt was a little at a disconnect. It felt like Joshua Boone was in a bit of a different play from Abigail Tripp Taylor, I thought was on the same page as Maddy Campbell played by Nemeni Sierra Worra. But that play is a different play from the one that Taraji and Cedric the Entertainer are in. I will say Taraji P. Henson and Cedric start off really strong. They have a really good first act. And then I found that their second act wasn't weak so much as it kind of just stayed where it was. It didn't evolve from the first act. And Joshua Boone is Harold Loomis. He gets the brooding and he gets the dark and stormy energy. But there's also. There's like one foot that's wrong in his performance and I can't rightfully say what it is. Part of it is that Harold is written to not know how to be with other people. And it's hard to play that and not feel like you, the actor yourself are sticking out like a sore thumb. It's a really tricky role and Boone really gets the troubled elements of Loomis for me. But when it comes to the interacting with other people, it is hard not to feel like it. Is he having trouble being on the same page as his fellow actors. It doesn't feel like trapeze artists catching each other. It feels like actors clashing, which fortunately benefits the text because of what Loomis is going through. But it still doesn't really blend for me in that kind of way. I also don't feel that Alan has a great sense of pacing. The production is very choppy. The scene transitions are slow and. And cumbersome and they don't. And scenes will sort of just end. They won't flow into a transition which will then flow into the Next scene, it's very sort of stop and start, stop and start. I also find aesthetically the set is not really beholden to what the actors need now. In the Cher production, when Loomis has his vision at the end of Act 1, there was a great moment where the furniture of the boarding house sort of melted into the stage and it became this more abstract no man's land of the boarding house that then kept on into the second act. And then when Loomis has his confrontation with Martha and cuts himself and starts shining like new money, gold started showering onto the stage. Not a lot, but like a little bit. And some critics were not really into that. They thought it was putting a hat on a hat. My 19 year old basic self really loved it and found it effective. And I think about it to this day. Alan keeps both moments sort of in the real world, which just makes the moments feel a little bit off. Alan ultimately does not get in the way of the play, but I also don't think she helps the trickier parts when the play is more sort of earthbound and people interacting with people. It's fine, it works. The actors are good, the text is strong when it needs a more assured hand is where I feel like she is a bit weaker. And it's strange because she comes from the world of dance. She's also a choreographer and I was actually surprised how little rhythm and movement there was in this production. So that was sort of for me where I was with Joe Turner. That said, it is still strong play. This production is not bad, but I was sort of a little mixed on it. But as I also mentioned, my audience experience was so terrible that that entire. That it could be that. That just fully impacted my enjoyment of it. I do think Tony Wise will see this nominated for revival. I do think that Ruben Santiago Hudson is going to be in featured actor. Everyone else, Boone is definitely a contender. He has such a meaty role. Featured actor is both like really crowded and a bit of a no man's land at the same time. So it could be that Ruben is like the sole nominee here in that category of everyone else. Taraji could get in. She's good. She equips herself really nicely. I don't. I think featured actress in a play is simply so crowded. Unless she and Cedric somehow get put into lead, which really shouldn't happen. It's an ensemble piece. Every role has always been deemed featured. So it would be strange for them to be put into lead for this. And if they're put in lead, then Cedric could get in because there's like one or two slots. An actor, lead actor, that's up for grabs. Taraji could too. But I ultimately think that Rose Byrne and Kelli o' Hara are getting in for Fallen Angels. Yeah, that's sort of where I'm at with this. I don't necessarily see Debbie Allen getting nominated for director. I think we have Joe Mantello and Whitney White and Robert as Lockes for director of a play. And then Trip Coleman and Ann Kaufman and Kenny Leon are all sort of like duking it out for those last two slots. But you know, Alan hasn't been nominated for director before. It would be nice to have another woman in there, to have another woman of color in there in addition to Whitney White, but she doesn't really have a strong track record as a director or as a creative at the Tony Awards. She's been nominated as a performer, but I don't think she's ever been nominated as a choreographer or director before. So while this could be her first, there's not really a precedent for people to go, oh, well, we've done it before, we should do it again. But that's where we are. With Joe Turner, the Ballisters. I will go rather quickly on this. The Balusters is the premier play by. I'm sorry, it's the Broadway premiere of David Lindsay Hebert, who is a Tony winner and pulitzeranos. This is not his Broadway premiere, but it's the play's Broadway premiere. It follows a homeowners association in a random suburb. It is implied that it's, you know, potentially Pennsylvania or it could be straight out of close to New York City. They talk about the suburb being close enough to a major city that any people who work in a city can get to their town rather, rather quickly. But it's not so close that it still doesn't feel like a really nice suburb. And I'll start up front and say my feeling on this play was I loved it and I did not expect to. I went into the Balusters actually in quite a shitty mood. I had had an experience after Shmooga Doon that was not my favorite the night before. And I woke up that morning just like really fucking bummed and just not happy to be going to a two show day. It was the Balusters followed by Beaches. So I went into the Balusters going, okay, well, let's see. And I hadn't heard much about it. And I'll tell you, by the end, I was just so happy. It made me so happy to see a really strong play with an impeccable ensemble. Kenny Leon has had a really nuanced hand with this, you know, strong work with his actors, strong comedic timing, good sense of tone, beautifully designed. I just, I was, I was on board from start to finish. There are bumps you could find in it for sure. I think almost no work is really objectively perfect. Everyone can find fault with anything. But it's also. But it comes down to does it work for you? And the balusters worked for me. And I'll talk about why in a hot second. As I said, to follows a homeowners association in this suburb. The new member of the association is Anika Noni Rose, who plays a character named Kira. She is new to the neighborhood. She and her husband, who's I believe a lawyer, just bought this beautiful, beautiful home. And they've hired a well known housekeeper in the neighborhood named Luz, who up until now was working for the president of the homeowners association named Elliot, played by Richard Thomas. But she left working for him and started working for Kira. And this is a, you know, Chekhov's gun that's used later in the play. The inciting incident is that Kira lives right outside of an intersection that is, that is prone to accidents because a traffic light was put on a neighboring street where there are a lot of businesses and a lot of cars to avoid said traffic light. Now go through Keira's street and because of a hill and a sort of hidden curve, a lot of cars don't stop and they don't see each other. And there's no stop sign or a traffic light there as well. And so there are lot of accidents and Kira would like something to be done about it before somebody gets killed, whether that's a stop sign or a traffic light. And the president, Elliott, kind of keeps shutting that down. And Kira starts to get more people from the association on her side. But Elliot still finds ways to shut it down. And then there becomes questions of loyalty, of motivations. We find corruption within the association. Surprise. A structured government entity has, you know, toxic malpractice in there. But without giving too much away, ultimately Elliot has his own reasons for wanting to keep the street as it is, plus to keep the traffic light where it's at. Elliot's whole ideal is this town is landmarked, the homes are preserved to look a certain kind of way. He wants to preserve the history of the town, to preserve its aesthetic. And he even uses this as a point to Kira. Part of the reason why she wanted to live in this town is she loved the aesthetic. It felt so safe. It felt so traditional. It looked so beautiful. This. It's a very prized community. People are often clamoring to live there. And while, you know, Kira keeps on trying to find compromises, Elliot keeps shutting off those compromises in not an aggressive way. What makes Elliot such a wonderful villain is he's genuinely acting how he think is thinks is best. And with a smile on his face like he's a soda jerk from the 1950s. And he is always talking, in his opinion, incredibly rationally about why things can't happen. And then it's revealed that, oh, he has a connection with this person who can make that decision and that person who can make that decision. And he feels like he's being undermined left and right by the group. And while he thinks he's not being vindictive, he thinks that he's just having a conversation with his cohorts. He is being vindictive and he is being bratty and about not getting his way. And a lot of things start to come to a head and a lot of people in the association start to reveal their own gripes against each other. Microaggressions of racism and sexism and homophobia and of woke performative heroism. And it all kind of comes to a crashing head. And in the end, no one is right, but everyone is more right about one thing than another. It is ultimately an extraordinarily funny play. Amazing one liners. If you can make some arguments against it. You could say that David Lindsay Aber leans a little heavily on certain stereotypes to make certain points. Everyone is always like one shade worse than you might see them in the real world. But ultimately this is theater and we do heighten things a little bit to make a larger statement. Everyone in the. There's really nobody in the play who is fully a hero and no one who's fully a villain. Some people are more a villain than others. Ell Elliot is absolutely the most villain of everyone in the show. But Kira is not a perfect warrior. She has her own microaggressions. She, you know, Luz is her housekeeper, but. And she treats Luz with kindness and respect. But also, we see that, like, there's a moment where Margaret Cullen, who plays Ruth Ackerman, who has known Luz for years while she's worked for Elliot and asks her, like, how her son's doing. Oh, how's, how's his job? Oh, that's so great. He's such a go getter. We're so proud of him. And Kira's like, oh, I didn't know you had his son. You didn't tell me. And Luz is like, yeah, I told you. You just don't remember. I've told you a few times. And Luz doesn't say it to be a bitch, but she's like, it's just a matter of fact. She's like, yeah, no, I've told you, I told you a few times. And walks away. And when Kira eventually asks Luz why she stopped working for Elliot, it's not because she genuinely cares about Luz's well being. She uses it as a pawn against Eliot in the final meeting. And I don't want to give away necessarily why Luz didn't work for Elliot, but it has to do with the house that Kira bought. If anyone is like maybe the most pure in the show, it is the character of Luz, the housekeeper. There is a bit of a narrative in this show of like the working class is pure. The working class is the most innocent. They're the most saintly. You know, the sort of like the richer you are, the more corrupt you are, the more power you have, the more corrupt you are. Which, let's be clear, like there's absolutely a major truth to that. But it is like the one maybe after school specialty thing about the play is that the most working class character is the one with the least amount of flaws. And it's. It sometimes it feels more for narrative purposes than because of. Loses an actual human being. Everyone else has their own shades of toxicity. For example, there is the extremely progressive, like overly progressive, I would say character in the show Will, Willow Gibbons, who is vegan and uber, uber liberal. She has a partner who's trans and I think Willow even identifies as non binary. I can't recall. And there's a moment where Willow and Willow like kind of has one major punching bag which is a member, Alan, who is outside of Elliot, the only other white cisgender heterosexual male in the, in the group. Everyone else is either a woman or a person of color. And Willow really makes Alan her punching bag. And Alan kind of finally snaps and, and explains all the ways in which he finds himself to be a good person and, and trying very hard. And it's something that I think a lot of his, his diatribe is something I think a lot of people can relate to. But his eagerness to be absolved is something that is something. It's something that I think a lot of people feel, but it's cringe to say it openly so earnestly. And it also falls on Deaf ears, so it doesn't even matter. But then when Willow kind of goes back in on Alan about his privilege and whatnot and not being and not speaking for everyone in the group, she is then corrected on this by a character in the show, Isaac, who is a Latina man. And he says to her, like everyone in this group who is not white has the ability to speak for themselves. And if we have a problem with Alan, we can say so we do not need you to speak for us and be our savior. Which then of course causes Willow to go in full victim mode and feel like she has done the absolute worst thing. And she cries to absolve herself of any guilt. But this falls on the deaf ears of the BIPOC members of the group who have. This is not a super spoiler. They have this clip online of them all putting their money together because they had a bet on the white girl tears of when Willow was going to finally cry. So it shows you that even, even the members of the show who have a point about their issues with microaggressions on their race with the white members, they then take bets against the white members of their own idiosyncrasies. And you could argue is that an aggression itself. Is that something that is justified based on the historical balance, imbalance of power racially in the group? That's that these are, these are discussions that the Ballisters wants to have through the power of theatrical comedy. It is ultimately a satire of a group of intelligent, relatively like minded people who are. Are enabled to or unable to have compromises with each other. And how everyone wants to be the good guy, everybody wants to be right. And because everybody wants to be right and nobody wants to overstep, no change ever really happens. Because then you have someone like Elliot who sees the bad and change not necessarily in equilibrium of people's rights, but just in his mind. With every small change we make, it is us letting go of the past and of who we are. And I am a big believer that you should not be forgetting the past. Because to forget the past is to repeat it in the future. But you can't hold onto it, especially not tangibly. It's not. Nothing was ever perfect in the before times. There was always something that was bad for somebody that is better for that somebody now. Which is something that Kira points out to when Elliot tries to show her pictures of the neighborhood when Elliott was a boy and showing her how beautiful it was and how safe it was in these thriving businesses. And Kira's. But every person in the photo you showed me is white. I would not have lived here back in the day. You know, there is still like, there is a gatekeeping in this community that is still active. Elliot enforced it on Kira's house. But nobody wants to think of themselves as the villain. Everybody wants to think of themselves as the warrior for what is right. And the more they get rebuffed, the harsher and meaner and crazier they become. They feel like they're not being heard. They feel like they're the only ones standing up for what's correct. And there is something to be said for how much of the past should we let go of because everything is tied to something. Should we let go of all the things that brought us joy because it's tied in some way to something negative? Not completely, but also the world moves forward. It only spins forward. So you do have to make. Make changes. You do have to make compromises, especially when there are legitimate concerns. Kira's concern about the intersection outside of her house, it's not a, oh, I can't sleep because people are noisy. It's. People are gonna get hurt. People have been getting hurt. Why aren't we trying to fix this? And Elliot's only rebuttal is will aesthetic. That's. And that's not a correct answer. Right? But as I said, Kira herself is not perfect. Nobody in this show is. And everyone has their own secrets. And you learned that not everybody who causes a microaggression does it intentionally. You see the people who are trying to do the best they can. Character of Mary Louise Burke playing Penny, she is an older woman who is doing her best and has genuinely made mistakes. There's a long standing narrative of her mixing up the spouses of two different people in the community who both have the same name but also happen to be Asian. And when Penny finally learns that she's been making this mistake, her response is sorry. In the narrative up until now, we've been told that Penny's making this mistake because she thinks that all Asians are interchangeable and she thinks they're, you know, the same person. Penny goes, no, that's not what it was. I learned about this spouse from a friend at a function whose name was Miranda. And I thought that was you, so I thought that was the name of your spouse. And I thought that the other Miranda from across town thought that she was the spouse of this other person I had never known and nobody corrected me. So you're all just thinking that I'm sitting here racist. But I genuinely thought that you were married. I. I know who you are. I know who that other Miranda is. Not Miranda. Melissa. Sorry. I thought I knew who that other Melissa was. I thought you two had. I thought you two had opposite spouses. I did not. I never confused you two. I thought the spouses were opposite. And she eventually, Penny takes that information and she applies it correctly in the future and makes it a point to address Melissa and her spouse correctly. And I think that is a way to. That. That David Lindsay Baer has shown that people can learn and people can change. People don't respond well to confrontation or condescension. And empathy can let you go a long way if you let it, but also it can walk all over you. So you have to find that balance. And the only way you find that balance is by making mistakes. Right. But the only way someone can learn is if you inform them that they're incorrect and why they're incorrect. You don't necessarily have to teach them, but you do have to. But they do need to be made aware of what they're incorrect about. And so while the Balusters, which gets its name, by the way, from these, like, support beams that hold up handrails for, you know, staircases, which is a weird metaphor and not a great name for the play, which is maybe another ding against it, but overall, I don't care. A bear, I think, really has his cake and eats it, too, with this show of. He pokes fun at everybody while also showing that everyone has the capability to be better and change and that. And that. That really can be applied to anyone. It's ultimately why Carousel is my favorite musical. The message that people don't seem to get across is what Hammerstein gets out of it is anyone can find redemption if they ask for help, and we give them help in return. You know, it's. And I think there's been so much pain and so much hate over the last few years that has. That has existed always, but has really exposed itself in the last 10 years that a lot more people are getting more guarded and holding and tending to their own lawn instead of helping others, because help has now been relabeled as doing the work for other people. And I don't think that's always necessarily the case. No one can do it alone. You always need a little bit of help. And who's to say that at the end of the play that this homeowners association will be better down the line or if more corruption will happen to the new people in charge? But you can only have you can only have optimism, right? It's what gets you out of bed in the morning. And that's ultimately where I feel like the Balusters ends. Whilst again, still having a satirical tone to how we're all not necessarily fucked, but we're all necessarily slightly broken. So that's me on the Ballisters, a play that I once again fucking adored. I see this absolutely as a lock for best play. I don't think it's going to win. I still ultimately think that Liberation will win, but I, I can see a world in which the Balusters can make a play for it, especially since they can win at a lot of the earlier awards, which, as I said, don't have the same voting body, but it can drive a narrative of, oh, it's, it's in the. It's in Playbill and on Broadway world that they won. David Lindsay Bear one. Well, he has a Tony. He has two Tonys for Kimberly Akimbo. He's yet to win for best play, so that's something to be said. But I do think this is the best play nominee. I think they'll get in for set. I could see Kenny Leon getting in for director. I'll be interested to see what the Tony administration thinks of Richard Thomas and Anika Nony Rose if they are deemed featured or lead. Anika, I think, really is the lead of the play, even though it is a strong ensemble piece. So Anika could be deemed lead and if so, she could get in there if she's deemed featured. I think she's got a strong case to be nominated here, as does Mary Louise Burke, who has a really strong character and it's just like the ultimate voice of David Lindsay Aber and has yet to be nominated, which is helpful. Richard Thomas, I think, also has a really good shot at getting nominated for featured as well. Oops, sorry about that. So that's where we are with the Ballisters and with Joe Turner's coming gone. We've got one last review coming up, which is the Lost Boys, which I'm actually seeing in a little bit. I'm seeing the Frozen version right after I finish recording this episode and then I will do that review and talk a little bit bit more about the upcoming episodes for the Tonys. And yeah, that's really it. I've got nothing else to say. I'm spent. Remember when I said this was gonna be a tight one and it's now like 50 minutes. Uh, if you guys like the podcast, give us a nice 5 star rating or review give us a rating on Spotify. It always helps with the algorithm. Again, if you write a review I will read it on the podcast. You can follow me on Instagram Acoplik Usual spelling. You can join the Discord or the Substack. You can join the YouTube channel if you haven't yet. Make sure you get your ticket for the Broadway Breakdown live show at Green Room 42 this coming Sunday at 7 o'. Clock. You can even buy a live stream ticket. If you are not in New York City in person or if you can't watch the live stream on the day, you can still buy the ticket and you can watch it later that week. You have up until a week, I think after the date of the show to watch the live stream. So that's fun. For this episode, I am going to close this out with Ms. Anika Noni Rose because goddamn, we love her and she's back on Broadway and that's a wonderful thing to see. So yes, we will see you guys for the Lost Boys review after this one. Take it away Anika. Bye.