A Big Muck Breakfast

I know there are people who think musicals don't require "real" acting -- and believe me, they're not shy about telling me that -- and they're full of actual shit.

The opposite is true. The real challenge, the real tightrope, is the kind of truthful, honest, but highly stylized acting called for in musicals like Bat Boy, Urinetown, Little Shop, Cry-Baby, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, and many other shows of this new Golden Age. These are shows that seem to hold us at a Brechtian arm's length, while they sneak up on us and get us emotionally engaged before we realize what's happening.

It's a mantra I quote constantly, coined by Keythe Farley, co-author and original director of Bat Boy: "the depth of sincerity, the height of expression." I remember when we produced Bat Boy (in 2003 and 2006), we had the audience laughing out loud much of the evening, but also crying real tears at the tragic climax of the story. That's some skillful writing, and it requires skillful acting and directing.

It means taking the acting, the characters and relationships, as seriously as we would if we were doing Virginia Woolf or True West. As with many of our shows, the wonderful but bizarre premise of Yeast Nation makes that harder, although the excellent writing takes us right where we need to go. Kotis and Hollmann have been working on this show for a number of years, and they've been honing it all that time. This newest version we're working on is lean, taut, suspenseful storytelling -- even as it's also patently absurd and ridiculous.

That's that tightrope I'm talking about. Neither side dominates -- the ridiculous is perfectly balanced by real emotional honesty. It's hard for actors (and directors) to pull that off, but when they do, it makes for genuinely thrilling theatre.

As Greg Kotis writes in his Author's Notes on Yeast Nation:

Yeast Nation (the triumph of life) is a comedy, but what kind of comedy? There aren’t too many jokes, and it’s not all that witty. The script and score actually seem to take themselves rather seriously -- which is actually the key to how to attack the show. For the comedy (and therefore, the show) to succeed, the production must commit whole-heartedly to the grim, ominous, brutal, terrifying reality of the world of the play.

So as we work on Yeast Nation, I've asked my actors to think about their big arcs in terms of three questions.

When does love infect you, and how does it change you?

When do you first eat muck, and how does it change you?

All the characters either fear or hunger for change -- which side are you on?

As I wrote about in my last blog post, the one central through-line in our story is the destructive power of Love. Each of the main characters gets corrupted -- infected? -- by Love, as it spreads like a deadly virus through this community, bringing tragic endings to several of them. You can actually chart the spread of the virus through the story.

All the problems our Yeasts face in our story come from outside forces. First, Love is introduced to their world, but as single-celled organisms, they're not really equipped for Love. Then, when Jan-the-Second-Oldest ventures up to the surface to find a new source of food, he discovers Muck, a much richer, more nutritious food source that plays havoc with the Yeasts' biology (or lack thereof).

In the script, Kotis writes in his Notes:

The Muck is another important mechanism of the story. In practical/real-time terms, The Muck is like speed, or meth, or ecstasy, or Red Bull, or any of the powerful, mood altering drugs that temporarily fills people with energy and purpose and delusions of grandeur while also allowing the user to remain lucid and present.

So we have two powerful, mood-altering drugs playing havoc with our Yeasts -- Love and Muck -- and they have no experience with either. And what do they bring with them...?

The other major theme running through our story: Change. Almost every character changes, most drastically, many physically as well as psychologically. But also, every character either fears Change or hungers for Change. Jan-the-Second-Oldest and Jan-the-Wretched want Change to save their community. Jan-the-Sly and Jan-the-Wise want Change because they want power. Jan-the-Eldest fears Change -- exactly like today's Trump voters. Change is scary, but sometimes the inability to change can be tragic or deadly. That's the central point of Fiddler on the Roof.

We see that Change manifested in the flesh with The New One. I can't really say any more about her without some spoilers, so just take my word for it.

Though Yeast Nation's first production was in 2007, the story is now an obvious metaphor for our freaky, fucked-up politics today.

Jan-the-Eldest (the king) stands in for older (though not always), more conservative Americans, who fear Change, who fear The Other, who want to return to the safety of a time past, which wasn't really all that "safe." Even in the face of crisis, these folks resist Change. Jan-the-Second-Oldest stands in for the progressive movement -- which frequently takes huge missteps. The conspirators, Jan-the-Sly and Jan-the-Wise stand in for the cynical politicians who care nothing for the well-being of the country, only for their own accumulation of wealth and power.

And maybe The Muck stands in for social media, an intoxicating super-charger of all our worst impulses and emotions. Like Muck, one could argue that social media is as necessary to our lives as it is destructive.

Or maybe we can see The Muck as Fake News -- it satisfies the immediate hunger for relentless bias confirmation, and it makes you feel GREAT -- vindicated, reinforced, reassured -- even though it totally fucks up your morality and analytical abilities. Watching people gleefully spew vicious lies about political figures on Facebook doesn't feel that different to me from the meth-like reaction our Yeasts experience when they ingest The Muck.

Look at this conversation between Second (intoxicated by Muck) and Sweet. It almost sounds like they're talking about cocaine...

SWEET: And...how is this stuff supposed to save us, exactly?
SECOND-OLDEST: (Euphorically insistent) Taste of it and you shall know!
SWEET: Taste of it?
SECOND-OLDEST: That’s right! Do so, you’ll be happy you did!
SWEET: No, I don't think so.
SECOND-OLDEST: You're frightened. Don't be.
SWEET: I have but a primitive digestive system!
SECOND-OLDEST: Not as primitive as you think!
SWEET: Please, Second One, I don't want to- !
SECOND-OLDEST: You will taste of it! (Second catches her and forces her to eat.)

Maybe any story that really gets at the truth of human behavior and emotion can act as a metaphor for nearly any time and place. The show seems so particularly relevant to our politics and culture right now, but maybe the same will be true forty years from now...

All we need to know is that this story, despite its inherent wackiness, tells the truth about us, and our job is to make sure we communicate that truth as clearly as we possibly can. If we trust the writers and the material, we just have to go where they lead us.

It's a hell of a wild, funny, creepy, silly, ridiculous, insightful, wise, wonderful ride. I hope you'll come join us.

Long Live the Musical!
Scott

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