The Politics of Art & Authenticity

Feeling like I should take advantage of a certain Pell Grant, and a huge discount on behalf of a partnership between TDF and CUNY, I set out to make at least a holy pilgrimage to Broadway at least once a month. Now, the wonder of TDF is that if you check the listings at the right time, you could end up with under $50 tickets to the newest shows out there… like The Anarchist. That’s huge. I’m talking a brand new David Mamet play, and self-directed too. And it was Patti LuPone and Debra Winger. I was going to do it just for the chance to see Patti, but the whole show just seemed so perfect, so of course I had to go. (I should probably mention something else about TDF: Yes the tickets are cheap, but you’re not getting front-row seats. Try rear mezzanine. Or, in my case, the last row of the rear mezzanine all the way to the left. Whatever, that doesn’t bother me. It’s still Broadway!)

Don’t let her appearance fool you, if Patti catches you with your phone out she will snap your neck.

The show was an unusual Broadway experience for me to say the least, after all, I had gone in thinking this would be a fast-paced, explicative-ridden battle between Cathy, the prison inmate up for parole 35 years later (Patti LuPone), and an untitled superior who could set her free, (Debra Winger). It’s Mamet right? The same Mamet who wrote Glengarry Glen Ross – which was ironically starting previews just halfway down the block? Apparently not.

The Anarchist was more a discussion than a show. The action is confined to one room, and one conversation, but except for a few choice moments, I felt like I was watching two opposing philosophies argue with one another. Mamet wrote about everything from religion to politics to murder to family relationships to… it was too much for one show. Honestly, I was surprised when it ended, because it was just such a linear show that I felt it could go on indefinitely – there was nothing to make the show “a show”, which I think hurt it more than anything. Yes, the concepts brought up are interesting, and yes, the premise of the play is something I do feel would work on Broadway, but I don’t think this was it.

Luckily, I don’t have to say the fault lies on the actors’ behalf – partly because it really wasn’t, and mostly because I’d rather become an accountant than speak ill of the Lord LuPone – but instead I’d have to see fault with Mamet. In the end, he wrote (and directed) not a show, but a mind. It was intellectual, philosophical, conversational, but not a play.

I don’t regret going to see it in the slightest, but I don’t think my claims are unvalidated. The producers have already announced a closing date, and while I honestly don’t agree that the business behind closing the show so soon is the right way to run Broadway, I can kind of see why this is happening.

I guess there is a bright side in all of this: The chances of Patti landing a role in a huge musical just went up significantly now that she has the time.

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