BLOG: Is It Really Real?

Dum Spiro Spero Last week, I ended News and Notes with a sad, stupid story from South Carolina about a bunch of legislators pressing a college into canceling a lesbian comedy because they literally thought it was an attempt to recruit young people into being gay. As it turns out, South Carolina is the gift that just keeps on giving, and each gift is even more perplexing than the last. As part of the 2013-2014 school year, College of Charleston provided to its students copies of the comic book memoir Fun Home, about author Alison Bechdel's childhood, her eventual coming out as a lesbian and her relationship with her father, a closeted gay man. Unfortunately, a member of the South Carolina state legislature took this as another insidious act of the homosexual agenda and proposed a cut to the public college's budget in retaliation. However, theatre is striking back! As it happens, Fun Home was adapted into an Off-Broadway musical that has become popular enough that it may soon be transferring to Broadway itself. After hearing of the incident in South Carolina, the cast of the show decided to head down to College of Charleston for a concert performance of the show. Just to make absolutely clear to the state legislature: the performance is being paid for by a non-state grant and the school's private foundation, so I'm sure they'll have no problem with it. By the way, did you notice the title of this section? That's the South Carolina state motto, which translated from Latin means "While I breathe, I hope." While I breathe, I hope the South Carolina state legislature can figure out just what their real issue is with lesbians. What Is Real? Authenticity is kind of an obsession with our culture. We're always on the hunt for the rapper with the most street cred, the politician who's just like us regular folks, the gluten-free non-GMO vegan soy bacon that is "100% natural"; but our world is awash with glitz and spin and outright lies (like "100% natural"), and we still put fake woodgrain on far too many things. How do you know when something is "authentic"? Chinese shadow puppeteer Annie Katsura Rollins writes in Hippo Reads this week about the explosion of machine-made shadow puppets in China that are passed off as authentic hand-made originals and even antiques. Sure, this is the kind of thing that has been manufactured for tourists since the Medieval relic trade, but in this instance, even the locals are losing the ability to tell the difference. The fast pace of change has made the people more nostalgic for their history, while at the same time making the actual history inaccessible. Speaking of inaccessible, have you noticed that guys in movies seem bulkier than they used to be? (And I don't just mean the greenscreen-tweaked abs of 300) Body sculpting has always been a natural past-time for image-obsessed Hollywood, but the pressure to get absolutely ripped for that one scene where the actor takes his shirt off has escalated dramatically in the past few years. According to a recent article in Men's Journal, Hollywood is in the middle of an insane arms race to bulk up and chisel out its leading men to the point at which they barely look like real humans anymore. But the grand prize in the Authenticity debate this week goes to Japan, a land that exists teetering on the edge of the uncanny valley. In that country, one of the current biggest pop stars is a hologram with a computer-generated voice that real people go to see in concert. Remember when the Tupac hologram debacle made everyone feel a little weird? Maybe the problem was that it just didn't go far enough. Forget trying to fake authenticity. Just embrace the artificiality! Meanwhile, On Broadway This being a theater website, I suppose I should talk about the artificial world of Broadway from time to time. The Tony nominations are coming soon, which I learned from an article that tries to pass off Lucy Liu as having "a certified theatre pedigree". Even though the nominations haven't even been announced, that hasn't prevented people from speculating about who will win the coveted Best New Musical award, which I guess is easy to do when there are only twelve possible choices. The standing ovation is kind of a given on Broadway. After all, you just dropped $190 for a back-row seat at Book of Mormon. It damn well better be good. Earlier this year, Minnesota Playlist published a pair of opinion pieces about whether we should or should not support this kind of behavior. I can't speak as to the "should" or "should not" of the situation, but the people at The Producer's Perspective did a survey that can start to tell you why. (Hint: 36% said, “Everyone else was standing, so I did too.”) You know who's not getting a standing ovation right now? James Franco. (Who am I kidding? He most certainly is. It's Broadway.) The film actor and Shia LaBeouf defender made his Broadway debut in a revival of Of Mice and Men recently. The New York times reviewer didn't much care for Franco's performance, so Franco, posted a thoughtful, intelligent response befitting of a man who doggedly pursued his doctorate degree while still at the height of his fame… oh, wait, no… he posted on Instagram that the reviewer was "a little bitch". Can I reiterate how much I hate covering silly, vapid, bloated, self-absorbed Broadway? Instead of griping about who gets what award or bitching about how much tickets cost or sniping at critics, why can't it ever supply me with a story that contains some kind of interesting metaphor about the evolution of American history and culture? I mean, wouldn't it be cool and a little surreal for our nation's first black president to sit down at an expensive Broadway space and watch one of the watershed moments for black American theatre? Something that on its surface seems dated, but is still weirdly, sadly of our time. Maybe a play that speaks to struggles and hopes not just of black Americans, but of all Americans. Something like A Raisin in the Sun, maybe? Now, see, that would be cool to write about. Too bad something like that will never… What? Oh my god, it totally happened.