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- [00:00]
Ariana Grande
Hi, I'm Ariana Grande. Hi, I'm Cynthia Erivo and you're listening.
- [00:04]
Cynthia Erivo
To the Broadway Podcast Network.
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You can Venmo this or you can Venmo that. You can Venmo.
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Cynthia Erivo
This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Knowing you could be saving money for the things you really want is a great feeling. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state.
- [02:02]
Ariana Grande
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 Koblick, the least famous and most opinionated of all the Broadway podcast hosts, and we've got a review episode today. Kind of 1.5 reviews in this episode and it's mostly going to be focused on the new Broadway play Call Me Izzy starring Jean Smart, which has officially launched the 2025-2026 Broadway season. But I'm also going to do a quick little review of Makinal, which is the premiere production for the New York Theater Company, which is a new theater company in New York City so aptly named run by Talina Kennedy, she of beautiful and Jesus Christ Superstar and Paradise Square fame. It's not the premiere production, it's the inaugural production. Words are hard. It's been a long week post Tony's and on top of all of this, he launched a substack for Broadway Breakdown, which you can join by clicking the link in the episode description. If you missed out what the substack is, it's just another venture for us to expand the outreach of the podcast. I'll also be doing a lot more writing on there, so if you've missed my writing, you can join the substack and view my new writing pieces. I'm in the middle of a piece right now that was supposed to go up later this week. It's a little delayed because, as is this episode because Friday morning my laptop decided to be an asshole and all of the keys decided to jam or not work. Or work, barely. And so I went to Apple to see if they could fix it, and they said, we can replace the keyboard, we can replace all these other things, but it's gonna cost you a lot because your warranty's expired because you have had this laptop for 12 years. And I'm like, right, Shouldn't I be rewarded for taking such care of my baby? And Apple's like, oh, sweetheart, no. This is a capitalist society. You get penalized for not buying new more frequently. So I had to buy a new laptop, but on top of that, my credit card froze because they messed up and did not have my latest payment installed. And so rather than have me pay on the day, they're like, well, you can pay today, have the payment go through in two days, and then your credit card will be unfold, frozen, unfreeze, whatever the word is. So it was two and a half days until I could buy the new laptop, which means I'm recording this two and a half days later than I intended to. And on top of all that, my brain is just completely, completely fried. So apologies for however this episode turns out. But that's kind of the fun of it, is it not? To hear not only my tangents and my brain just sort of spill out onto the sidewalk, but sometimes it's nice for you guys to hear me wounded, right? Keeps us all humble a little bit. But my brain will be less wounded in my written pieces on Substack because, you know, editing and thinking it through and actually writing out complete sentences and not just saying what first comes to mind, really crafting a piece. It's fun. So if you liked my reviews on Instagram and missed them, my little, you know, interest pieces on Instagram and miss them, you can join the substack and start to see those we already have a few articles up there. They're mostly recaps of content on the podcast already, but they are, you know, they're not like a regurgitation, they're a summarization. But also there's some new insight there. It's, it's not just a copy paste job. Like we actually did a point to summarize them and recap them in a, in a new way. So definitely join that. It's also a way to support me. You will not be charged yet. There is no paywall for the substack. It's completely free. Eventually there will be a tiered payment system which will incor that will include more exclusive content than what will be readily available right now. But you know, if you want to pledge early, you won't be charged just yet. But it's a way to kind of show that you're supportive of me and of my endeavors so I can continue doing things like this podcast for you today. That's all well and good in that hood. Before we jump into the actual review review, we have a review for the podcast ourselves. We've gotten a couple of new ratings and reviews. It's wonderful. As of this moment of recording this on Sunday, June 15th, we have 328 ratings on Apple podcast. And the latest review we got was this past Tuesday, which was June 10th. So cue the light in the Piazza Overture. One star Tony Predictions. You both, meaning me and Sam Ekman, were hilariously wrong on Nicole's in parentheses obvious win. I'm a casual theatergoer and admittedly a fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber, but Jamie Lloyd's masterful take on Sunset along with Nicole's life changing performance to me then in parentheses again obviously couldn't be denied another gypsy yawn. Well, J. Donovan71, I don't know what you want from me because Nicole did win and it's easy to seem pompous about it two days after the fact. Sam and I recorded our predictions the week before the Tonys and two days after we recorded I immediately regretted like half of my predictions. And if you are on the sub stack and you know saw my live stream commenting on the Tonys, you would know that I openly said that I took back my predictions for actress in a musical choreography. I think I even said costumes and play. And in my recap with Robert W. Schneider, which you should still listen to because it's a wonderful episode, I talk about that. It became very clear to me that purpose was going to win play about two days before the Tonys and When the New York Times poll came out, polling 25% of the Tony voters who had submitted their ballots the week before the due date, which was the Friday before the ceremony, it was apparently at the time, neck and neck between Audra and Nicole. And this was in the thick of the Patti LuPone profile that everyone assumed was going to throw a lot of support behind Audra. And many of the voters I had spoken to assumed as such, even though they admitted they themselves are probably not going to vote for Audra. And that's when I realized, oh, if it's neck and neck in the thick of this article and there's another week to go before voters submit their ballots, because a lot of voters don't submit their ballots until, like, the absolute deadline that Friday, because once they submit that ballot, they can't get any more Tony tickets to shows. But so in that week, as things are going to simmer down and there's less, you know, heat behind supporting Audra, in the wake of this article, it's probably that favor is probably going to go to Nicole. And I had said in past Tony episodes, I found it very difficult to understand how one would vote for Sunset for Revival and not for Nicole, and then to not vote for Gypsy for Revival, but vote for Audra. Now, some people were willing to do that. I could not understand that mentality. But I hope you feel good about that, because she did win and I'm happy she won. I really loved Nicole's performance. I'm sort of half loving this production of Sunset Boulevard. I think it's a lot of fun. It's fascinating. I don't always think it's brilliant. Some of it only makes sense to Jamie Lloyd. But hey, it's part of the cultural zeitgeist now. And if it makes you feel any better, Mr. Casual Theatergoer and admitted fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Sir Lloyd Webber does not care for this Sunset Boulevard. Little bit of hot tea from me to you. He fully hated it in London, and the only reason he moved it to Broadway was because it ended up being a sellout success and winning a bunch of Olivier Awards. And while Andrew Lloyd Whipper has a lot, a lot of money, the one thing that's always eluded him is critical praise in the States. Now, this Sunset was not greeted with a ton of critical praise. It had some rave reviews. The Times was very negative on it. But also, Jesse Green just hates Sunset Boulevard. Can't say I blame him, but he very much is chasing critical approval here. So Sunset winning the Tony for Revival does that, but also, Jamie Lloyd did not win director. So you don't really have two legs to stand on. You only really have one. But also, I hope with everything going on in the world, you feel really good that you took the energy, you took the time to tell me and Sam Ekman, a week after we recorded our predictions, two days after the ceremony, how hilariously wrong we were. We were wrong. Were we hilariously wrong? Many people predicted Audra. Sam predicted Audra at the time. I was predicting Jasmine at the time. And as I said two days later, I regretted that and wanted to predict Nicole. But, yeah, you know, everyone can write whatever review they want for this podcast. Right? It's all in the sake of transparency. And I will also say on Spotify, y' all have been a lot kinder these days. So thank you for that. But, yeah, I'm so glad you took the minutes you have on this earth to do that, to write a one star review. Not because you hated the content, not because you hated me, but because we were both wrong with our predictions. Yeah. Moving on. Machina, the inaugural production for the New York Theater Company, which is currently being performed at Stage 2 at New York City Center. I've never been to that theater before. It was a lot of fun to see it. This is where Choirboy premiered and Proof premiered. And it's a fun, intimate space. Machinal. I only sort of, kind of knew. It's written by Sophie Treadwell from 1928. It was inspired by a true life crime of a woman who had murdered her husband. So, spoiler alert, that's what happens in Mackinaw. And it's considered one of the prime examples of the expressionist theater movement of the mid 20s through the mid 30s. 30s expressionism. To sort of put it into a nutshell. If you want to get a better idea of that, think of cradle rock. Think of Bertolt Brecht. A lot of playing with the idea of what theater can be, what linear storytelling can be. There's a lot of characters that are manifestations of tropes, of ideas, of themes. You know, Cabaret & Company. These concept musicals are the commercial Broadway musical results of the expressionist movement in a lot of ways. And I never seen Mackinac. It had a revival in 2013, I believe, at the Roundabout Theater starring Rebecca Hall. And I didn't get a chance to see it. It was mostly positively received. It was really positively received for its production design. It was apparently very elaborately produced with a very large cast and a revolving set of many, many rooms. And there was I was doing research on the play after I had seen it, because I didn't know it super well. I wanted to get an idea of how different this production was. There was also a very critically acclaimed production at the public in, I believe, 1990 that really launched Michael Greif's career as a director. And the only other time I knew it was when Emerson College, my alma mater, a student company, produced it the same season that I directed Carousel. And both shows were up against each other at the Evvy Awards, which is Emerson's student awards, at the end of the year. And they swept. They won just about every category, whereas we just won actor, which is fine. Max Engerman is very talented man. And you can catch him sometimes in Dead Outlaw, as he is an understudy in Dead Outlaw. So Mackinaw follows the story of the character Young Woman. I believe she's referred to as Helen in the show. But the playbill and all credits, whenever you read about it, always just refer to her as Young Woman. And when the play begins, she's working as a stenographer for some large corporation. She then is proposed to by her boss. She is sort of pressured into marrying him, even though she doesn't really want to. They get married, she immediately has a baby. Everything just sort of is crowding in and crushing in around her. Years go by, and then during the flapper era, she takes a lover for the better part of a year, that lover. Then, not intentionally, but because of her relationship with her lover, she is motivated to kill her husband, goes on trial, and then gets electrocuted for it in the electric chair. That was the thing is that the murder trial that inspired this case, I believe, is the first time in American history that a woman was sentenced to death by the electric chair. And so that really inspired Sophie Treadwell. So, yeah, you know, this is a real fucking upper of a show. And ultimately, what the play focuses on and what Treadwell said she wanted to focus on was what leads someone to do this. And I feel like in modern days, the only pieces of entertainment that are willing to kind of take this mentality of writing a piece and focusing on why someone would kill would be a miniseries, because you are allowed the kind of time to really delve into that nuance and allow audiences to get on. Not on board with the action, but get on board with the character. It's harder now in theatrical works, plays, musicals, what have you, even movies, to focus on someone who's going to commit a murder. And it's not out of self defense. It's not out of revenge, it's simply out of something else. And Mackinaw focuses on the character of Young Woman and creates this narrative of a woman who is not built for the modern world, a world that is spiraling towards progress and she is submerged in it and can't get her head above water. And again, from what I read, one of the major things of the play when it was written and how it's been produced is sound effects. There's always a lot of imposing sound in Mackinaw. And in this production they chose to do that by incorporating a lot of tap dance, sort of like a percussive sound that is always sort of nagging at you and, and giving you this undercurrent of dread and drive that would lead this young woman to eventually snap and kill her husband. She lives in New York City and everywhere she goes there's just always noise. There's the noise of her office with the typing and the filing and the elevators. And then when she's at her home with her mother, who she has to support before she marries her boss, there are all the neighbors around her and the paper thin walls and people on the street. And then she and her boss finally get married and they go on their honeymoon to a hotel room in, let's say, Atlantic City. There's the noise of the people outside. And then she gives birth to her baby. And there's the noise of the construction of the new wing of the hospital. And not until she meets her lover does the noise subside. And she's able to be present in that moment and be with someone and be happy and be calm and be peaceful and you can sort of understand how a person, when finally all of the clutter and intrusive vibrancy from outside goes away, they will. They might be driven to do anything to get that tranquility back. And to the character of Young Woman, it all stems from her husband. Or rather not. Doesn't stem from him, but rather he is the most imposing figure closest to her. She doesn't love him. She's actually kind of repulsed by him. Part of her might even think that she's repulsed by everyone until she meets her lover. And in this production of Machina, the other thing they do as a bit of casting, is the only major player that's a cisgendered man. He plays the husband. Everyone else is either female identifying or non binary trans. There's one other, from what I understand, cisgender male. In the show, he plays more of an ensemble role and also does mostly percussive work. But I think he has one or two scenes where he plays like a small character, but everybody else is played by a female identifying actress or non binary or trans. And so I would imagine that what they are trying to do with this is sort of have this sort of web of less imposingly violent or violently imposing presences around young woman to give the contrast between everyone else and her husband. I think that's an interesting take. And I could also be projecting that could not be the meaning behind it at all. But that is sort of what I got from it was everyone else. Even if this young woman feels like an outlier, she can identify with almost everyone else in the world but her husband and her husband, who especially terrifies her, sickens her, and ultimately makes her crush in upon herself. Everyone else is a cog in the machine of progress, but they are not intrusively at her. And so I would also suppose perhaps maybe to soften the violence of her crime by having it be the only male in the company. Now, that's not really, from what I understand, what Machinalla is getting at of the battle of gender, because in the text, everyone other than young woman is really on this treadmill going forward, as, you know, as the world keeps spinning. And it's everyone but her, male or female. And it's interesting that this play premiered in 1928, towards the end of the Roaring Twenties, right before the Great Depression, there's been an industrial boom. Everything is. Every decade there's like this giant amount of progress. And it feels like we kind of forget that because the last 20 years, when you look at 2005 and 2025, it doesn't feel like we've made that much progress. There has been cultural progress, societal progress, as well as many cultural and societal setbacks. But when you think about the difference between 1935 and 1955 and then 1955 and 1975, that's the amount of time between 2005 and 2025, or even 1995 and 2020 25, that's 30 years. So think of, you know, 1960 to 1990, the movie the Apartment versus the movie Ghost. Think of how different the world has become in those 30 years. Whereas the English Patient to today, again, there's change, but it's not a whole different world in a lot of ways. So for this young woman, everything feels like it's too large, too heavy and too fast. And she can't catch up, she can't catch her breath. And there's no safe haven for her until she. And in a lot of ways that could make anybody snap. But for her, what ultimately makes her snap is finding that there is a place where she can be at peace, and that's with the young man, the lover. And once she realizes that there is a world where she could be happy, she can't really go back to what she's known. And that is ultimately what makes her snap. And it's an interesting idea. The production itself has a lot of creativity behind it. There's some strong performances I've always felt, you know, if you're going to take a more stylistic and bold approach to casting, whether that's gender inclusive, racially inclusive, or no age restrictions or what have you, you know, have a point of view behind it, see if it makes sense with the text. But then also just make sure that you cast performers who can nail the role. Because the ultimate defense against anybody who says, oh, well, you can't do that is having them deliver a performance that you just can't deny. And I will say, if there's a performer in the show who really kind of made me go, oh, they could make a case for this. It's Soph Metcalf as the. The lover. And they go by they, them, their pronouns. And Metcalfe, I think, plays other, I would suppose, female identifying roles, but also plays the male lover and really kind of has that great balance of masculine energy that doesn't feel put upon. It's just lived in and has a charm and, and a swagger and a little bit of a sexiness to how they do the role, where it's just the ease of living, of the calm and doesn't play for seductive, just plays for connection, which I think also could go into the idea of this kind of casting where I think a lot of men, if they were to play this role, Clark Gable famously played this role in the original production in 1928, and then Morgan Spector did the Broadway revival. Those of you who are Gilded Age fans, or if you're like me, a Gilded Age smooth brain watcher, and a lot of men who have that kind of charm don't play seduction necessarily. Elaine May always says, when in doubt, as an actor in a scene, just try to seduce. But sometimes seduction doesn't mean, like, I want you to know I want to fuck you. It's just I'm looking at your face and we're going to have a moment and we're going to talk and you're going to know that I am present with you.
- [24:18]
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- [24:48]
Ariana Grande
I think you're on mute.
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Ariana Grande
It's why a lot of actors I know actually get work because they're so good at having that connection with you. And you walk away and you're like, oh, am I about to date this actor? I would argue that's kind of how Jonathan Groth's charm usually works, right? It's not necessarily that he gives off sexual energy, but he gives off entirely present energy. When you're in front of him, it's so easy to think that you're the only one who matters because when he looks at you, he's very good at looking at you. Not through you, not past you, but at you. And I think that's what Soph Metcalf's portrayal of the lover really does quite well. There are other strong performances, but Soph was really. Soph Metcalf was the one that I really enjoyed the most. There were swings that didn't really do it for me. It's a very presentational production. They really lean into the expressionism of the piece of again, very stylized performances using tap dance for a lot of the sound effects. So there's a percussive element to the piece. There's a musical theater. A lot of musical theater buttons to a lot of scenes, which I think is again a double edged sword. Again, it gives you a sense of release for each climax. But also audiences then start to whoop up at the end of any scene just because after a really impressive piece of dance they go woo. And that's not really what Machinal's doing. Machinal is this train going to impending doom. So that was just interesting to me. Would I recommend it? Sure. Take a look at the City Center's website or New York Theater Company's website to look for tickets. I'm always a big fan of just seeing things outside of your comfort zone, seeing things that you're not always familiar with. And sometimes they mean seeing a classic work you've never seen before. Sometimes it's seeing a performance style you're not often seeing, even if it's something you don't always like. It's good to kind of go back to that, to figure out why it is you don't like it or what it is about it that doesn't jive with you. So yeah, it's not that I don't recommend it. It's not my favorite thing I've seen this year. I can't say I cared for it, but I did appreciate going to see it. So if you're interested in seeing something outside of your comfort zone, take a chance to Machinal Call Me Izzy the first Broadway show of the season, Again starring Jean Smart. Written by Jamie Wax, directed by Shorna Lapine. Currently at Studio 54, where it's playing until August 17th, call me Izzy follows the character of Isabel, who lives in Louisiana circa 1989, and she is in an incredibly abusive relationship with her husband, Ferd. Yes, you heard that correctly, Ferd. When I went with a friend of mine, we were making a joke with Call Me Izzy. We're like, oh, is, you know, call Me Ishmael, like Moby Dick. And of course the play opens with a very similar joke. So we're like, oh, we're not that clever. One person shows are very tricky because you have to rely very much on the stage presence, the engagement and the craft of the performer at hand. And if you don't have a strong enough performer, it can really go to pot. And if the script isn't good enough, then you really have to rely on the performer and you kind of have to throw a bunch of bells and whistles to to make up for everything else. Now there have been some one person productions that have really done this for me. There's been I Am My Own Wife with Jefferson Mays, who is a chameleon and really dynamic stage performer. But also that production allowed Jefferson Mays to play a whole bunch of different roles. It was a very theatrical piece in terms of its storytelling on stage with its stagecraft and whatnot. There was I Love youe so Much I Could Die, which actually didn't rely on the performer. It relied on the technology of a computer voice for it, which actually meant that the playwright wrote a lot of it with that cadence in mind, which led to a lot of humor in the piece and ultimately was led to be a very intimate and touching and human and very specific piece of storytelling. Call Me Izzy is a piece where I can't tell you that I think the play is terribly good. It isn't bad. It's not the worst piece of writing I've seen. I mean, it's. Listen, it's no smash, but. And it's no left on 10th. It, I think, does a lot of things that you should be doing when you're writing a play. It focuses on the story of its character, which is Isabelle and her journey as a 17 year old bride to present day. Her discovery of her love of writing poetry, her talent for it, her need to keep writing and her resourcefulness to hide it from her husband. The journey of figuring out just how much danger her husband can be, as well as then providing background information on her stories, the story of her life. And it, you know, incorporates some humor, incorporates anecdotes and wants to show us the dangers of domestic violence. Not preach on it again through the filter, through the lens, I should say, of this personal story of Isabel. I can't say I found it was terribly successful. Everything that it's trying to do, I think is very admirable. You, I would not tell the playwright, like, oh, you shouldn't have done it this way. You had all the wrong instincts. Like their instincts were correct. It's ultimately the execution for me, that didn't work. And now part of it could also be the production itself. There wasn't a lot of craft in the production. It was pretty by the note, sorry, by the numbers. A lot of Jean Smart sort of getting up off of a toilet seat, getting back on the toilet seat, the toilet seat moving up 5 inches, down 5 inches, using a psych with some trees on it to create like a bit of a tableau every now and then. It wasn't focused, it wasn't precise, and it didn't really flow. There was a lot of stopping and starting in the, in the production. Not like technically, the show itself did not stop for technical difficulties. But like Smart would have to go offstage to change into a new costume and then come back on and there would be these 30 to 1 minute long pauses in between her pieces. And I think if the production allowed Smart to make those costume changes on stage, continue speaking as she's making the changes. It keeps us engaged, it keeps the whole thing flowing and it makes it feel like we're a bit more on. To borrow my image from the last review, but like on this train towards a specific conclusion rather than it feeling as choppy as it does all of these things. It sort of like would be waxing on something that's not a foundation that's not terribly strong to begin with, but it just. It would boost everything about 15% better and make it a little more engaging rather than just relying all on Jean Smart's talents as an actress. And the truth is that Smart is extremely good in this. If you've watched Hacks, if you've watched Designing Women or Samantha who. Smart is a wonderful actress. She's very funny, she's very charming, she's very honest on stage. We were talking about this in a past episode, right? There's a difference between earnest and honest. There are actors who really mean what they say. They're not commenting on it. But we as an audience don't necessarily believe them. The Disney Channel acting of it all, or the Nickelodeon acting of it all, if you will. And we said, you know, that's sort of the thing about Audra McDonald is whatever she's doing on stage, whether you like it or not, you always believe it's coming from a place of honesty. And the same is true of Smart. Smart is such a smart actress, but she's such an honest actress. It feels so incredibly organic to watch her on stage and play this role. And even if the story itself zigzags and you find your mind wandering from time to time and the pacing can be a little choppy, it's not hard to watch her. It's not hard to be on her side. She provides all the pathos and all of the gregariousness that I don't think is necessarily there in the writing. I think it would be a lot easier for people to fall into the trap of making this a super boo hooey drama about domestic violence. Because, you know, domestic violence is a very terrible and sad reality of our world. But not everyone gets wrapped into it in the way that you would see in a Lifetime movie. There's sometimes a surprise to it that the person involved in the relationship doesn't realize, or it becomes their normal for so long that they don't realize just how bad it gets. If you ever watch what's Love Got To Do with it, the Tina Turner bio starring Angela Bassett, that's one of the things like the Tina Turner is such a. Was such a strong woman. And it was a major shock to a lot of people when she revealed in her memoir how incredibly abusive Ike Turner was to her. It's like, how could this icon this diva be in that kind of situation, and you watch the movie and you see how it happened, and you see her continually make excuses for it. And in calling Izzy, she makes excuses a little bit at the beginning when it. Before it gets too deathly violent. But then when it gets to the point of truly her fighting for her life on more than one occasion, the character stops making excuses and starts to kind of revel in the disparity of her situation as written. That is Smart as an actress tries to counter that with a bit of a laissez faire, well, this is my life kind of toughness and ruggedness. And I think it's very admirable of her to do that. I don't think that the play helps her very much. I don't think the production helps her very much. But it is fascinating to watch an actress navigate all of this and really channel every tool in her toolbox to make a mountain out of a molehill. And I would stop short of saying that she's great in the show just because she's not being supported by anything else. She's putting in a great effort, and it is a great achievement that she's as good as she is, considering I don't think the rest of the show is up to her standards. But I don't know if I would say that she herself is great just because it's really hard to do that. I talked about this before with, you know, Baquina Kala Congo and Paradise Square, and people, you know, lose their shit over of her performance of Let It Burn on the Tonys and when they saw the show. And, you know, I think she's an incredible singing actress and gave everything she had into that song. But I'm not going to say she's great because I think that the song's not great. It's an agility test of her being able to endure from the beginning to the end of that song and watch her map out an emotional arc that doesn't exist, and watch her survive a vocal test that shouldn't have to be so difficult. And the same is true of Jean Smart in this. Of the agility of lasting all that long alone on stage is already impressive. And then watching her map out, excuse me, this journey for a woman, that it's not that it doesn't exist in the text so much as that it's a lot sketchier in the text. And you watch Jean Smart connect the dots as an actress in moments that aren't in the text, in between lines from one scene change to Another. And the final moment of the show is probably the most interesting. And I won't spoil it so much, but it has nothing to do with words. It is a moment of story that is staging and lighting. And Smart's face. You watch Jean Smart's face and actually similar to Wakina in Slave Play, depending on how she feels on the night, I'm sure it changes what she's looking at, how she's feeling and what's going to happen next. I had a very specific feeling of what it was and what she was going to do. The friend I went with had a very different feeling, and that's sort of the beauty of Smart. And I said this to Helen J. Shen, too, about maybe happy ending, about the ending of that show and how people have different ideas of what's going on with Claire. And she's like, yeah, it's interesting because to us, you know, we. We all talked about it in the script and with Michael and. And with me and Darren, like, we all know that final moment, like. And it's. And it's the same every night. So it's always interesting how people have different interpretations. And I said, well, Helen, it's because your face is so expressive. So even though you're sitting there staring at Darren, probably thinking about what you're gonna order on grubhub that evening, the audience is seeing your face, and they're seeing all the wonders of the world in those eyes. And the same is true of Jean Smart. You see all of the warrior in those eyes and you see all of the fear in her mouth, and you see all of the tension in her shoulders, and it could mean absolutely anything. And that is what makes her such a wonderful actress. And I'm so glad she's back on stage. I would love to see her do other roles now. I would love to see Jean Smart and maybe Jessica Chastain do Night Mother. I'm trying to think who I would like to see in a revival of Night Mother starring Jean Smart. Like, who would. Who should play opposite her? How to be someone like their early, late 30s, early 40s. In the past, it's been played by Kathy Bates, Inky Falco. It was Sissy Spacek in the movie. Who could it be? Because it's. I mean, it could be Mary Louise Parker. They have enough age between them that Jean Smart could play her mother. But I want someone a little. I hate to say that, a little younger than Mary Louise Parker. Like someone who's hitting 40. I don't know. You guys tell me in the comments, either on the Discord Channel or on Substack, who you'd want to see in their revival of Night Mother opposite Jean Smart. Because now that she's back on Broadway, and, you know, I'm sure they're about. They're probably about to film season five of Hacks once she's done with this. But once they're done filming season five of Hacks, she should come back next summer and do Night Mother, I'm just saying. And have it be directed by Donya Taymor. Yeah, I really love that. Or Joe Mantello. Those. Those are the two. I would want to direct Night Mother for Jean Smart. Yeah. The thing about Call Me Izzy is it's a perfectly fine start to the season because while the play itself for me is not embarrassingly bad, like left on 10th, nor is it crushing like Hills of California, it's sort of, you know, perfectly fine with a really lovely performance at the center. And we had a very similar start to the season last year when we had Roundabout Survival of Home, which was a perfectly. Okay, I'm starting to forget it as I'm watching it. Production of a play that should be brought back to our consciousness. And then immediately after that, we had Omar into Job in Hills of California and maybe Happy ending. And it was really an interesting start to the season. So I'm interested to see how this takes off for the rest of the season, because as of right now, not a lot has been confirmed. There are a lot of rumors that. And I'm telling you guys right now, buckle up. There are going to be a lot of shows closing over the summer, and then Labor Day and then a couple more at the end of the year. Some shows that opened this season, some shows that have been running for a few years, part of it is, you know, the financials of Broadway, the economy. But also sometimes shows just reach the end of their run, and that's all we can do. And it's okay because we have a finite number of theaters and we need new stories all the time. And Broadway is the only ecosystem where the loss of jobs begets new jobs. So just saying that now, but despite the fact that we don't have a lot of shows confirmed for this upcoming season, I think we're going to see a lot more shows announced when theaters start opening up at the end of the summer and through the fall. Just letting you know, that's really it. All I can say on Call Me Izzy, it's not really something to write home about, which I didn't want to say that, because the whole show is about writing. The thing about Izzy is she is always writing her poems on toilet paper and then stuffing them in a Tampax box to hide it from her husband because he's anti her writing this poetry. She had a poem that was published in the local newspaper, and it was very much about her abusive situation with her husband. And that sort of made him put a stop to her writing for a while. And so she now does it in secret because ultimately she is a writer, and it's what gives her joy, it's what gives her purpose, and it's just how her brain functions. And I wish that the play actually explored that a bit more of, you know, this is how the world makes sense to Izzy, and this is just sort of what her brain knows how to do. It's not that she thinks it's the most beautiful thing in the world. It's not that she thinks it makes her important. It's just what her brain understands. There's a moment in Amadeus where Mozart sort of talks about the world that way. Like he says, I'm a vulgar man, but I assure you my music is not. And it's because the only way he can make sense of everything and the only talent he really has is music. It's not that he's a better person than anybody else. It's not that he's been trained in any way. It's just. It's a divine gift that he has. And it's the only thing thing he knows how to contribute. It's the only thing he knows how to do. And he just keeps doing it. It just keeps pouring out of him. And same way with Izzy. And I would like to have engaged that a bit more and a little less of stories of her class and her professor and things like that. We gravitate towards the joy of characters, of what they like to do, of what they're fighting for. And we only get snippets of that in Call Me Izzy. And I would have liked to seen a bit more of that. And I think that Jean Smart would have really nailed it, and it would have soared her performance to new heights to see more of that. We see her come up with poems in real time, and that's nice, but we don't really revel in the joy of it. I would have liked to have had that a bit more. But that's it. Yeah, that's really just it for Call Me Izzy. Recommend it? Sure. Sort of. Why not? I can't say it's super memorable. Honestly, I had to write down a couple of notes on the piece before recording to remind myself about the show. In fairness to me, it's been a week since I saw it and there was a lot that happened since then. I had to record a Tony's episode, I had to launch at the Tonys, I had to get a new computer, I had to unfreeze my credit card. But all of that is, you know, that's high octane drama. And for a show that deals with pretty heavy subject matter, Call Me Izzy is weirdly not high octane drama. It's a wonderful performance and I do recommend seeing it if you want to see like actual dropped in beautiful, haunting acting. Because I feel like again, too often people see perfectly okay performances and go, oh God, the acting's so good. I'm like, if you want to know what really good acting is, check this out. So for me, I would say Jean Smart is an example of extremely good acting and even more impressive considering the material itself is not really quite up to her level. That's it for now. I'm trying to think of who I would like to have close us out for this episode again. If you like the podcast, give us a nice 5 star rating or review. If you don't like the podcast and you're really compelled to write a review, by all means do it. I am going to read it on the podcast. If it's a dumb review, I will read you for filth like this one. But we've had one star reviews in the past that I've read that weren't totally dumb. They were mean. They really, they were reviews that really hated me, but they weren't dumb. People have been incredibly articulate about my about what they don't like about me. And I get it. Believe me, I get it. If you want to join the substack, if you want to join the discord, those links will be in the episode description. Please continue to do so again this summer we're mostly on hiatus. There will be a couple of bonus episodes that'll pop up, so just keep your ears open for those. But Broadway Breakdown in Earnest will start up again around August with more regular episodes every week. So you know we're not going away. And even on this hiatus we still have a couple of things that'll be dropping in. So you're not fully away from me. But if you are craving more regular content, you can join the substack and you'll see more regular written content on there. Or you can follow me on Instagram utkoplick Usual spelling. Huh? Who should we close out with today? I think we should close out with. I'm gonna do a deep dive. I just. I went through a rabbit hole in my brain about Gypsy and I went Gypsy. My favorite Gypsy is Tyne Daly. And, oh, Krista Moore was Louise in that. We're gonna close out with Krista Moore and one of her songs from Big the Musical. So that's it. We'll see you guys soon enough. Take it away, Krista. Bye. Bye. On a bunk in stars he just gave me stars? I've been looking down for too long but since I've left the ground all around are a million stars?
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Venmo Ad
I have had a night that awesome.
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Ariana Grande
Thank you for the.
- [47:27]
Quincy
Can you identify an Elphaba just from her defying gravity war cry?
- [47:31]
Kevin
Can you name every actress in the Wicked to Waitress pipeline?
- [47:35]
Quincy
Or does the phrase witch switch mean anything to you?
- [47:38]
Kevin
Well then, good news. My name's Quincy.
- [47:45]
Quincy
And my name's Kevin, and we're the.
- [47:47]
Kevin
Hosts of Sentimental Men. We're here to talk and maybe scream.
- [47:50]
Quincy
About our favorite women in musical theater, the Witches of Wicked. So if spending a Friday night in a no good deed Rabbit hole on YouTube sounds like your idea of a good time, then Sentimental Men is the podcast for you.
- [48:03]
Kevin
And with guests like Jessica Vosk, Lucy Jones, and Stephanie J. Block, chances are we've already got an episode with you.
- [48:09]
Quincy
Your favorite Elphaba or Glinda, like Laura Bell Bundy, Brittany Johnson, and Mackenzie Kurtz.
- [48:15]
Kevin
So pause your Riff compilations, put down your copy of the Grimory, and give Sentimental Men a listen.
- [48:20]
Quincy
You can find us on the Broadway Podcast Network or wherever you listen to podcasts.