Amadeus (2017)

This is the last National Theatre Live free stream that was available on YouTube, and The Shows Must Go On is on haitus as well. However, it’s not the last theatre stream I have to review. In June, I stopped posting my reviews in order and started jumping around more, giving priority either to productions that spoke meaningfully about race or that had Black actors in prominent roles. In the coming weeks, I’ll backtrack and hit the productions I haven’t talked about yet.

On the eve of his death, Antonio Salieri tells the story of his life, which was indelibly marked by his intense, all-consuming jealousy of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He cannot speak about himself without speaking of Mozart, Mozart’s talent, and the way that he, Salieri, could be content in nothing as he realized he could not measure up to the mercurial young genius.

While I saw the movie adaptation of Amadeus many years ago, this is the first time I’ve seen the actual play. I enjoy the theatrical touches that you don’t get with a filmed costume drama, like the ensemble members who give voice to Salieri’s envy and the way the onstage orchestra sometimes takes on aspects of Salieri’s personality when they’re not playing – for instance, when he informs us that his chief sin is gluttony, the members of the orchestra lick their fingers in the background.

Where the production achieves its best moments are in how it depicts Salieri’s deepest reckonings with Mozart’s genius. As the orchestra plays and the lighting dances overhead, Salieri’s moving monologues seize you by the throat – he’s infuriated that the coarse, obnoxious Mozart has the capacity for such beauty, even as he’s so affected by the melodies that he literally drops to his knees, overcome by how exquisite they are. Each of these scenes hits home perfectly.

Other than that, though, I’ll admit that I find this production a little rote. It’s undeniably good, and all of the actors perform their roles well, but in comparison to other productions I’ve seen throughout this National Theatre Live smorgasbord, it’s maybe a bit like Salieri himself: capable but largely unremarkable.

At the center of the proceedings is Lucien Msamati as Salieri. I recognize him best from the Eleventh Doctor story “The Vampires of Venice” (it’d be interesting to go back over all my National Theatre Live reviews and count up just how many Who alum appeared in these 16 productions,) although he also showed up in a few episodes of Game of Thrones. He’s very good, slipping easily between serving as our narrator and diving into the scenes, and he anchors all of those excellent scenes about Mozart’s music. Meanwhile, Mozart is played by Adam Gillen, another Who alum (he was in “The Eternity Trap” on The Sarah Jane Adventures.) I’m less impressed with him – I’m aware that part of it is just the fact that Mozart, especially seen through Salieri’s eyes, isn’t a very likeable character, but I feel like it’s more than that, that his portrayal is a little lacking. One final familiar face I’ll mention is Hammed Animashaun, who plays one of the “whispers” who are constantly in Salieri’s ear. I only know Animashaun through these National Theatre Live plays, but while he doesn’t have much to do here, he’s also featured in Barber Shop Chronicles, and get ready to hear a lot more about him when my Midsummer Night’s Dream review goes up!

Warnings

Sexual content (including sexual coercion,) drinking/smoking, language, brief violence, and thematic elements (including suicide.)

The Book of Rannells: Welcome to the Wayne: Season 1, Episode 13 – “Swap Shop Hop & Bop” (2013)

Andrei isn’t as big a focus in this episode as he’s been in the last few, although the end adds another layer to his mystery.  For the most part, though, this is a side adventure, and while Andrei’s not precisely part of the gang, he’s certainly gang-adjacent and is around even when the story isn’t immediately about him.

Everyone is geared up for the Wayne’s annual Swap Shop Hop & Bop, a building-wide swap meet and dance.  While Ansi dreads the prospect of selling his stuff, Olly looks forward to starting some kind of collection and Saraline relishes the idea of closing the most audacious deals possible.  When a seemingly-useless hunk of old metal reacts strangely with some old clothes Andrei is selling, the kids realize it may not be so useless after all – now, if they can just get it back.

Another fun episode, somewhat of a detour from the more arc-based recent episodes, but as I said, it moves the needle a bit during the climax.  I enjoy the kids’ reactions to the comparatively-mundane event of the swap meet.  Everyone is immediately in character – of course Ansi would be twitchy, Saraline would be eager to show off her bargaining superiority, and Olly would have no idea what he was looking for but perfectly sanguine that he’ll find it anyway.  There are fun details thrown in, like one of the spy’s henchmen selling carved replicas of famous animal sidekicks or a running joke about an old man hawking “overpriced disco balls.”

I continue to be impressed with how quick the humor is on this show.  “It’s so selfish of you to think only of yourself!” – “How else am I supposed to think only of myself?” is a terrific exchange, and I’m also fond of this great summation:  “That thing is after this thing, so this thing must be something” (with, of course, the response, “It’s good to be specific!”)

Andrei is reeling from the revelations of the last episode, which have him feeling depressed and nihilistic – a prime state of mind for deciding to unload all his old stuff.  Rannells’s dejected performance is funny here, with Andrei lugubriously lamenting the meaninglessness of existence while trying to flog his clothes, harpoon, and “sharp pillow” (an awesome sight gag.)  I love him telling a resident to “just take them all [his old clothes] – they smell like loneliness and vampire.”  But even as he’s dismally draping himself across his swap-meet table, there’s still a little of the old Andrei blasé reaction to ridiculous things – another great line of his is, “Someone told me you have to take the past and turn it into a laser, or something, but we’ve already had like three pep talks, so just go do that.”

And yeah, the ending adds a new wrinkle to the proceedings, one that could potentially put Andrei at odds with the kids; I’m curious to see what happens next.

A Few Thoughts on Will Byers (Stranger Things)

Some Will-related spoilers.

Stranger Things kicks off with Will’s disappearance, so while season 1 revolves around the mystery of what happened to him and the fight to recover him, Will himself is more of a figure than a character. We see glimpses of him in the Upside Down and snatches in flashbacks, and we learn about other characters’ connection to him, but it’s not until seasons 2 and 3 that we get more of a sense of the person who was at the center of that mystery.

These subsequent seasons of the show have made me realize just how much we missed out on by having Will AWOL throughout much of the first season. Even if we already knew a lot of details from those earlier glimpses – he loves to draw, he’s bullied because people think he’s gay, he’s a good friend – it makes a difference to actually have him there. And while the Upside Down is far from done with Will after his initial abduction, we know him much better now than we did as the missing kid from season 1.

What I want to look at today, specifically, is the talk and speculation over Will’s yet-to-be-confirmed orientation. Although the show is still dancing around the idea, it’s been dropping hints for a while that Will isn’t straight like the other boys in the group. Like I said, we knew back in season 1 that Will gets bullied for his perceived sexuality, due to things like his sensitivity and his taste in music. These things come to more of a head in season 3, even though the show still isn’t clarifying it – Will gets fed up with the other guys’ constant obsessions with their girlfriends, and in the middle of a heated argument, Mike shouts, “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls!”

Plenty of fans have jumped onto the Gay Will train, while others speculate that Will just hasn’t caught up to the other boys yet, either because he’s a run-of-the-mill late bloomer or because his trauma in the Upside Down means he’s a little behind in his development. But man, Will’s storyline gives me so many baby-ace feels!

Yes, “It’s not my fault you don’t like girls,” seems to imply that Will likes boys, but 1) it doesn’t have to mean that, and 2) we’ve never seen evidence of that. While the other boys are out here kissing girls or constructing elaborate radios to communicate with their long-distance girlfriends, we haven’t seen so much as a lingering look from Will, directed at anyone. And Will being jealous of Mike, Lucas, and Dustin’s attentions to their girlfriends could indicate an attraction toward one or more of the boys, but it’s framed to me much more as missing their friendship, which is totally ace-relatable. Why is everybody so obsessed with kissing when we could just be playing D&D like we used to? Why does it feel like everybody’s leaving me behind? Throughout season 3, Will’s position relative to the other boys reminds me quite a lot of the excellent Jughead issues #7-8, where Jughead and Archie get into a fight about Archie constantly prioritizing girls over his friendship with Jughead. What’s more, we also get a scene in which Joyce talks to Will about growing up/falling in love, and he very simply replies, “I’m not gonna fall in love.” While that could support a late-bloomer theory, an, “Oh, just you wait, kid!” moment, it could also be Will understanding himself as aromantic and giving voice to it.

I wouldn’t be mad if Will’s gay, but I’d love it if he’s asexual/aro (I’ll only be mad if the series ends with the show still playing coy about it.) We need all the representation we can get, and this would be a story I’ve never seen before for an ace character. It would be a little tricky just because asexuality wasn’t really on most people’s radars in the ‘80s (hell, it’s barely on most people’s radars now,) but I don’t need the word – Varys on Game of Thrones and Raphael on Shadowhunters are both unambiguously ace, and neither of them ever say “asexual.” It would be enough for me to have Will realize, “All this stuff that I see other people being into, it’s not for me and that’s okay.”

We don’t know what future episodes will bring, but in the meantime, I’ll fly my ace flag for Will until the show feels like telling us anything more.