I have several vacation days I have to use or lose by the end of the year, so I’ve taken the last two Wednesdays off in order to see Broadway matinees. Last week I saw Craig Lucas’s Reckless, starring Mary-Louise Parker, and yesterday I saw Michael Frayn’s Democracy, starring James Naughton and Richard Thomas (John-Boy from “The Waltons”).
Democracy was particularly meaty. It’s about West German politics, a description that’s enough to drive most people away. It was very cerebral and dry, and rather long for a play — 2 hours 40 minutes — and I nearly nodded off a few times. But I liked it. I had a great seat, fourth row center. The overriding theme of the play is the notion of split identity. In this play you’ve got:
* Two Germanys, East and West.
* A West Germany containing two or three major political parties vying for control.
* A particular political party, the SDP, containing officials with competing motives.
* Characters who are divided internally — divided consciences, conflicting impulses.
Walt Whitman is quoted — “Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”
With so many levels of internal conflict, it’s amazing that anything gets done.
I’ve long been interested in the notion of conflicting impulses, probably because it describes me well. I think that the more self-aware you are, the more aware you are of different motivations, desires, and feelings inside yourself that are often at war with each other — or at least in tension with each other. I guess that’s one of the reasons I enjoyed the play.
Anyway, in addition to the past two Wednesdays, I’m also taking the entire last week of December off, in order to create a nice little buffer zone between the old and the new year, and also to celebrate my birthday. There are a few shows I want to see, although I don’t have the money to see them all in one week: Twelve Angry Men, La Cage Aux Folles, Dame Edna, and I still haven’t seen Hairspray. I’d also like to see a few shows again, because of casting changes: Wicked, Wonderful Town, and Fiddler on the Roof.
It’s gonna be a busy winter.