When I was a kid, I saw the PBS telecast of The House of Blue Leaves by John Guare on American Playhouse. The production, a Lincoln Center revival, starred John Mahoney and Swoosie Kurtz. I didn’t know it at the time, but it was one of the seminal moments of my theatre life. There was something in that play, the combination of mad comedy and deep despair, that expanded my sense of what theatre could do. Later, when I became a playwright, I think I spent most of my early career trying to write my own House of Blue Leaves.
So when the recent Broadway revival was announced, I was thrilled. A friend of mine worked for the production, so I got free tickets to a preview.
I was resistant to the new production at first. It sputtered out of the gate, and lacked the manic comic energy I remembered. But eventually I fell under the play’s spell. Edie Falco was brilliant as Bananas, and Christopher Abbott and Alison Pill were wonderful in smaller roles.
More than the specific actors, however, what I reacted to was the staggering beauty of the play itself. It is outrageously comic, bitterly angry, and hauntingly empathetic. It is an absolute knockout; a masterpiece, by my reckoning.
On the train ride home, I texted my friend warm thanks for letting me experience that beautiful play again.
A few weeks later I was standing outside Naked Angels with another friend. She asked me if I’d seen the revival of House of Blue Leaves. Before I could respond, she rolled her eyes. She listed off all of the production’s faults: Ben Stiller’s cramped and angry Artie, the spectacularly miscast Jennifer Jason Lee, the diffident staging of the nun’s mad breakout scene in the 2nd act. She thought the revival was a disaster.
Displaying all my usual courage, I said nothing in response.
Thinking about it later, I realized that it wasn’t fear of confrontation that kept my mouth shut. It wasn’t even the futility arguing about aesthetic opinions (if someone makes a really good argument, does that mean you actually disliked the play and just didn’t know it?). It was for a far more simple, yet baffling, reason.
She was right.
Jennifer Jason Leigh made a noble effort, but she was totally miscast as the unstoppable life-force Bunny Fingus. Ben Stiller was an opaque and unpleasant Artie. The nuns breakout wasn’t even particularly funny, and that is a scene of pure comic genius.
But here’s the thing – I didn’t care.
That’s wrong. I did care. And I did notice all those flaws in the moment. But the play itself is so wonderful it didn’t bother me. I was so happy to experience House of Blue Leaves again, especially to see it on Broadway , for free, I think I turned my critical brain off. And I’m really glad I did.
How much joy do we lose out on by being too critical? How much art washes off our backs while we nitpick the flaws? As a member of the Writer’s Guild, I used to see screenings of films before they were released. I was surprised how often I liked movies that got trashed by the critics, or loathed movies that won Oscars (Crash, anyone?). I think most people would be surprised how open they are before a critical consensus has been reached. I myself was shocked at how knowing even the slightest bit of information before I went in - this actress is really great in it, the production went way over budget – affected my response.
I say this not as a finger-wagging judger from the outside. I say it because I am one of the most critical people I know. I’m not sure what to do about it. I can’t just turn my brain off. Or can I? Perhaps it’s simply a matter of appreciating what’s there more than dissecting what isn’t.
Take The Firm, a film directed by Sydney Pollack, starring Tom Cruise, from the John Grisham novel. The Firm is not a particularly good movie. It’s a perfectly decent little thriller, but as a whole it’s nothing special. In its parts, however, it contains some of the most moving film acting I’ve ever seen.
There’s Terry Kinney mourning his dead friend, not looking up as a sprinkler sprays across his chest. There’s Gene Hackman, at absolute peak power, playing a man whose compromises are eating him alive from the inside. And most of all there’s David Straithairn and Holly Hunter, playing an ex-con and a chain-smoking libidinous secretary who fall in love. Their love is instant, magical, and utterly convincing. They are like a white-trash Papageno and Papagena. You practically expect them to sing arias. They have only a few minutes of screen time, but those minutes are pure joy.
You can dismiss The Firm as a mediocre film. You’d be absolutely right. But if you don’t see it, you’re missing magic.
I suppose we’re all critics in the arts. And we shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss all that accumulated knowledge that our inner critic represents. It is an important part of developing our own aesthetic and voice. But I think that it is equally important to know when to turn that voice off. You can miss out on so much.
