The 2026 Tony Awards: On 'Ragtime,' 'Death of a Salesman' and Broadway’s Safe Season

Añadido: 2026-06-04

[00:00:00]A show truly ends when the conversation that night finishes.

[00:00:04]>> Oh, I just got a little I just got a little tear in my eye. I'm Wesley Morris and this is Cannonball. Today, Tony Tony Tony.

[00:00:19]Every spring I do this nutty thing where I try and see as much theater as I can in about two months. like one day at the end of every March, this alarm goes off and I'm like, "Oh, right. I kind of miss going to shows." For me, it's a convenient way to do things since the Tony's are usually somewhere on the horizon. And it's kind of nice to know what the theater industry likes. I spent one of my first nights on this spree at Lincoln Center watching the latest revival of Ragtime. The show is set at the dawn of the 20th century and it's a tragedy with sweeping songs and some tension between like lefty politics as represented by socialist Jews and radicalized black people and these more conservative racist forces trying to arrest and suppress them. It opened on Broadway in 1998. It's based on a novel that Eel Dootoro wrote and you know it's a novel that on no occasion that I have read it ever said make me a musical.

[00:01:17]There's just too much going on. But Terrence McN, one of our finest playwrights, Lynn Arens, one of our great lyricists, and Steven Flity, who did the music, which is really good, they all beg to differ. And so from the opening number, the grandeur of this show is already bowling you over.

[00:01:42]skipping sing >> and it's clear that this is a musical.

[00:01:53]That opening number is in the key that just seeps into your marrow. It's got a little bit of showbiz and a little bit of gospel.

[00:02:09]>> One of the main characters is this musician. His name is Cole House Walker.

[00:02:12]He's like a shoulders back, chest out monument to dignity. He loves his car and a woman named Sarah. And when terrible things happen to both, Cole House comes basically undone. And the show culminates with his last number.

[00:02:29]It's called Make Them Hear You. and say to those who blame us for the way we chose to fight that sometimes there are battles that are more than black or white.

[00:02:45]>> The way Joshua Henry performs this thing like from the soles of his feet and the bottom of his soul, you you just kind of have to shake your head at the pure force and control of his singing.

[00:02:59]near you.

[00:03:01]I'll be near you.

[00:03:12]I mean, I shook my head. The rest of the room, they leapt to their feet and they applauded. They weren't at a musical anymore. They were they were at a concert. They were at a campaign rally.

[00:03:30]I mean, it was a rousing night at the theater and the art that got made that night felt good to everybody. It made us feel powerful and this show, I mean, it had people talking back to the action.

[00:03:43]It had white people talking back at the action. Lock him up, this woman next to me said about the racists who were definitely not locked up.

[00:03:52]And it's a little wild to be sitting in a room full of mostly white people feeling congratulated for knowing what injustice looks like. I mean, I get the appeal of being at a show that knows where you live, but this I don't know.

[00:04:08]This isn't why I go to the theater to have my values reflected back at me.

[00:04:13]Ragtime is a big capital eye important show that also I mean at least in this production kind of takes it easy on us.

[00:04:25]And that ease is for me what defined the Broadway season this year. I saw a few things I liked a lot, but as a collection of shows, everything seemed to want me to feel great, to give me my money's worth, to appeal to my goodness or dignity or love of famous people. And you know, I am not here to argue with getting what you paid for. You've seen the prices. But I also missed work that made me uncomfortable in a good way.

[00:04:55]that that challenged what I thought the theater could be to be wild and weird or tamed but challenging. What I what I missed was difficulty. So with the Tony's all set to be handed out this Sunday, I wanted to think through what I even mean by difficulty with the New York Times theater critic Helen Shaw. She knows a lot more than I do about the theater and how shows are made and the power they have to affect us.

[00:05:28]Helen Shaw, welcome to Cannonball.

[00:05:31]>> Thank you so much.

[00:05:32]>> Um, okay. I do this thing every year. I don't know if I had mentioned this to you. I do a stupid thing mostly because I am a poor planner.

[00:05:41]>> Mhm.

[00:05:42]>> And I wind up spending I see all my theater for the year in two months.

[00:05:48]>> It's not good. I just I don't have my act together enough to like get get the tickets >> to know when I'd be able to go. But anyway, the the reason to mention this is >> I doing it in this in this sort of spree format >> really does crystallize some things. There are things about a season that start to make a kind of sense or not make sense to me.

[00:06:16]>> There are themes that emerge. Um, so I'm actually curious to talk to you a little bit about like what you think has been going on for the 2025 2026 theater season in New York City.

[00:06:31]>> Well, the interesting thing about collapsing it into these eight weeks is that it means that you are missing some shows that I missed a couple things, right?

[00:06:40]>> And I know that some of the shows that you missed therefore are are really mood setters. So you missed >> Edipus.

[00:06:48]>> Edipus >> liberation >> liberation waiting for God and also >> the Ke Reeves.

[00:06:55]>> Yes. Yes. Yeah.

[00:06:56]>> I've seen I've seen that.

[00:06:57]>> You've seen it. I've seen that.

[00:06:58]>> Did you see the one with Kiana Reeves?

[00:07:00]The >> waiting for I've seen Kiana Reeves and Alex Winter sort of do fan service.

[00:07:04]>> Yes. Okay. Harsh. Harsh, but real. And um criticism can be practiced in these short pathy ways. But um so the reason we're talking now is because we're about to have the Tony's, right?

[00:07:17]>> And I think we're all pretty familiar with the idea of recency bias that we have this belief. Yes. That if you if you back your show right up to the Tony deadline, then you have a better shot at the Tony.

[00:07:29]>> So things that think that they could win a Tony >> are going to hit April so hard, like perhaps a cannibal. Use a phrase.

[00:07:38]>> Oh boy. And so you want you know that you're going to get maximum razledazzle.

[00:07:43]>> I don't think that for the 10,000 reasons they did waiting for God which is um a challenging and beautiful piece of existentialist.

[00:07:54]>> This is not about what Samuel Beckett did. This is >> those people are not doing that show in order to get Tony's. No.

[00:08:00]>> No. They're doing it for strange and beautiful reasons of their own. Are they doing it strangely and beautifully? We can argue. But they are definitely not doing it to get Tony's.

[00:08:08]>> So if you watch all your shows in April, what you are going to get is a sense that this is a super commercial, super populist, super touristoriented season. And I don't know if that's fair >> uh to me, Helen. Is it fair to me?

[00:08:26]>> I mean, you made your choices.

[00:08:27]>> Uh I did make my choices. Um but I I the the sense that I got in my little spree was I mean I just my question was where is the ambition?

[00:08:38]>> Where is the difficulty?

[00:08:41]>> Uh is my mind being expanded? Is my understanding of a work being expanded?

[00:08:48]Um do I have to keep up with this thing in a way that I find exciting and challenging and healthy? And I would say by and large that did not happen to me.

[00:08:58]>> So all right. So difficulty and and we mean difficulty as a positive attribute.

[00:09:05]>> I just want to be clear. I I want difficulty. I want to be difficultized.

[00:09:12]>> You want to be difficult just all over.

[00:09:14]>> Your difficulty all over me. Yes.

[00:09:16]>> And if I can't keep up that's on me, Tom Stoppppard. You know, I might have to see Arcadia 17 times.

[00:09:23]>> That's right. You better. I'm better for it.

[00:09:25]>> That's right. That's right.

[00:09:26]>> Um, theater was designed and I I swore to myself I would not mention Aristotle, but theater is designed to >> not you can't I mean I've doodled him all over every page, but he is. So the idea of theater as a forum is right at the heart of why we go to shows is you get your whole team together, your whole voting body together and you sit in a room and someone goes up on stage and is like feminism. What's with that? And then we all think about it together.

[00:09:57]>> Right. Right.

[00:09:58]>> And when a play is or a musical is brave, they don't close the loop.

[00:10:05]>> Right. Like it trains us in negative capability. It uses, "Hi, I'm an emotionally difficult play.

[00:10:18]I've decided to bring up an issue for you." And then I watch it close the loop >> and I'm like, "Oh, you found an answer."

[00:10:24]>> Or you knew I needed to get home. I had a cab to catch.

[00:10:26]>> I exactly how did you answer feminism in just an hour and a half? No intermission.

[00:10:31]>> Yeah. I find one of the pleasures of the theatergoing experience of any art is that I don't have all the answers >> and I have more questions than anything.

[00:10:45]What I want is more I want new questions, right? I want a work that is also going to maybe >> have the questions I have >> and give them a forum for exploration and dramatization.

[00:10:58]Um, I can be more specific, but I'm just wondering, uh, even in So, I'll tell you some things I saw, by the way. Um, Catch the Jelical Ball. I've seen Becky Shaw. I have seen >> You saw Proof.

[00:11:14]>> I've seen Proof. I've seen Joe Turner's Come and Gone.

[00:11:17]>> Um, I've seen Ragtime and Giant.

[00:11:22]>> I just I was underwhelmed at every possible turn. Um, just about there were a couple things I saw in this in this in this batch of like maybe more than a dozen shows that I that I loved.

[00:11:34]>> Okay.

[00:11:34]>> Um, >> start from love. What was the thing you loved most this season?

[00:11:42]>> I mean, so the lift of a show like Jellico the cat's musical.

[00:11:49]>> Um, Jellico Ball the Cats musical.

[00:11:50]>> Apologies to Lord Andrew Lloyd Weber.

[00:11:53]Yes. Yeah. No, there be no apologies necessary. This is what that man needed.

[00:11:58]Yeah.

[00:11:58]>> Um I think what I loved about that show is it's ambition happens before we get to it, >> right? This is taking the people who made this show basically I assume have experienced cats in numerous ways, modes, states of of sobriety and in sobriety >> and have wondered >> what the [ __ ] is going on with this show >> and how can we make it make sense because it seems like he's tapped into something >> that I recognize in my own life and that is the ball scene, the drag ball scene.

[00:12:36]>> Um, gay culture >> and the collision of of these of these queer balls >> and Andrew Lloyd Weber's cats is ingenious.

[00:12:56]Uh, I had a really good time experiencing the ingenuity of this show um as an adaptation.

[00:13:04]>> Mhm. Yeah, I think you know because we've been you had been talking about this word ambition >> and I think that um there are that one of the types of ambition which is the slightest and most difficult to identify is camp ambition, right? Because camp deliberately underplays >> because camp is going to use the materials of trash and kit in order to make its kind of splendor, >> right? And so this is a show that for me at least sitting in the room with it, it is really splendid. There are moments in this cats that really overwhelm me. So for instance, you have uh Junior Leia is in it who I first saw in Paris's Burning >> ball legend. ball legend >> and is there and is not just there is not just trotted out and is saying oh look let us not forget >> treated treated royally >> treated like royalty >> and has a function within the world of the show >> and and we all take this time to to not just sort of drape this person in literal splendor right is wearing these astonishing robes and sort of jewels on every finger >> they're taking their time walking around prancing around this not prancing is wrong >> there's no prancing It is a really I mean just a courtly walk from one end of the of the situ of the I mean it's a stage the stage to the other. Um, yes.

[00:14:27]And yes, it is a real celebration of forgotten, dismissed, um, degraded, um, sort of legally harassed to to say the least, >> uh, people. And there is something very powerful about this interaction between the work and the room.

[00:14:47]>> Yep. the audience is there to to verify and in the case of like this adaptation having happened ratify uh this production.

[00:14:56]>> I agree and I but one of the things about Cats the Jellico Ball is that it is not self-s serious.

[00:15:02]>> No.

[00:15:03]>> And so yes, this is a great point.

[00:15:04]>> Right. And so I feel like there is this when we talk about things that are uh excellence because we're we're trying to talk about different types of excellence and I think I think what you're saying is that it was hard for you this season to find the kind of excellence that asked something of you.

[00:15:20]>> Yes. Right.

[00:15:21]>> Yes. Helen. Yes. Wait. I'm sorry. Yes.

[00:15:26]>> And so this is a show that it is it is asking things of you but it is doing it in such a soft way. I mean it is it is doing it in such a it is giving you so much. There is an overabundance. The only complaint I have ever heard about this cats is wow there is a lot of it right the portions are so big and so it really is it's like you come out of that thing and you are just like my lord I am just overwhelmed.

[00:15:55]And I I think that that is easy to mistake for >> for ease and it's not. I don't think it is. I don't think that cats I don't think the jellical um iteration of cats is easy.

[00:16:09]>> Okay.

[00:16:09]>> I do think that >> it's got a different kind of ambition is what I would say. Right.

[00:16:17]>> It's ingenuity is it straightens out a work that made no sense previously.

[00:16:23]Correct.

[00:16:23]>> And now it makes more sense.

[00:16:26]>> Yes.

[00:16:26]>> Um in the hands of of these of these of these drag ball >> Yeah. which is which which is strange.

[00:16:34]Which is really strange, right? It it does feel like, oh, this is what it was supposed to mean all along. And I I actually cannot think of a revival I've ever been to where I thought, "Oh, oh, that's what this is about."

[00:16:45]>> So, okay. So, if Cats is your pinnacle this season, >> dare I ask what your low point was?

[00:16:52]What's What's the hardest time you've had in a room this this season?

[00:16:56]>> I mean, there's a few, but I would say I would start with I would choose Dog Day Afternoon. Okay, >> because this is a this is the adaptation of the Sydney Leette movie that came out in 1975. It is consider I mean it is a it is a great American movie.

[00:17:10]>> Um Al Puccini uh John Kazelle the stars of this film uh Chris Sandon >> uh I mean Charles Durning I mean you know it's it's one of the great New York movies. Um two men rob a bank for money for one of the men's partner wife. They're married at this point >> to go through with a transition surgery.

[00:17:35]>> That's the plot of Dog Day Afternoon, >> released in 1975.

[00:17:41]>> This show is a set in one of a reason for anything else that happens in this show to exist.

[00:17:50]Uh John Bernthal and Eban Moss Bakarak are the stars of this thing. Jessica Hec has a small part. She's the best thing in the show besides the set itself. Um, the thing that makes the the production design great is that the the movie is set both in a bank and on the street outside the bank. And so what what the the ingenuity here is like the the the the bank can lever outward into the or inward into the street and outward to become the bank.

[00:18:20]>> It's it's very smart.

[00:18:22]>> Um, but that's all it is. And by the time you've seen this thing go from bank to street three or four times, I'm like, "Call it a day. I'm done. I've had enough."

[00:18:32]>> Well, I mean, so >> did this work for you?

[00:18:37]>> So, let me put it this way.

[00:18:43]>> Okay. So, I I teach and when my students hit a piece of art or or I take them to a show, uh, one of the things I tell them is they're supposed to uh that they shouldn't actually do the thing that is the most common for us when we see a piece of art, which is to ask ourselves, did we like it?

[00:19:03]>> Right? That's what we say on the subway going home is, did you like it? Did you like it? Did you like it?

[00:19:08]And I am not sure that's a super interesting question.

[00:19:13]>> No, I never ask that question.

[00:19:15]>> It's not right. It doesn't because first of all, also uh I'm I am 49. I mean, I've watched myself like and then unlike and then reike things my whole life.

[00:19:27]>> That's the journey. That's the journey that we're on as people who watch and listen to any cultural any culture. We all change in in relation.

[00:19:33]>> I loved cats as a 10-year-old. I hated cats as a 17-year-old. I love cats as a 49year-old. What the hell happened to me? So the the thing that I ask when I'm thinking about a show is um Gerta's three questions. This is something you'll hit if you for instance have a dramatur on your team. So the three questions >> dramatur of course being the person who saves your show from going like saves saves the show from going any further south than it's going and finds the brilliance in an already brilliant work and emphasizes that >> the world of dramaty thanks you for that definition. Yes, it is the person.

[00:20:06]>> It's criticism. It's onset criticism.

[00:20:08]>> It's onset criticism. Exactly. It's the person who's sort of like who their task is the text. They're supposed to be in there looking at the text. Okay. So, G has three questions. Number one, what is this piece of art trying to do? Number two, how is it executing that attempt?

[00:20:23]And number three, and only after you've answered those first two questions are you allowed to ask this third question, was it worth the attempt? Okay. So, what is this dog day afternoon trying to do?

[00:20:35]We know that this starts from the stars.

[00:20:37]We know that it starts from the extraordinary relationship between Eban and John who are friends and colleagues uh going back to the bear and I think possibly before they are um uh they're excited by the theater. They're people who both are involved in the theater.

[00:20:55]And so is there something that has the kind of ripe um vaguely Alpuccino energy that Bernthal has and the slippery um vaguely John Kazal energy that Eban has?

[00:21:11]Is there something to do with that excitement that at the same time brings a conversation about masculinity and trans rights into the modern era where you can get a whole lot of butts and seats to talk about how beautiful these men are together, their friendship, and also be asking about um whether or not capitalism is crushing these lives. Like I so to me when I look at it, I don't think it's succeeded. I really don't think it's succeeded. And I think a big reason for that is because it the adaptation was written by Steven Edley Gerggas who's a playwright who needs a lot of iterations. Who needs a lot of >> You mean his process of iterations?

[00:21:51]Yeah.

[00:21:51]>> So many. And I feel like >> a drama >> tur may I mean >> just maybe two.

[00:21:56]>> I mean possibly two. And this feels like a show that got adapted halfway and then it was like I guess it's go time.

[00:22:04]>> And if you read any of the process pieces >> Yeah. It does feel undercooked. It feels >> feels undercooked to me. But I don't know. I kind of like treasure the ingredients. So, I'm not as mad as you are about it because I was like, "Hey, I think I know what they were trying to do here."

[00:22:17]>> Um, >> see, now I'm all positive. I I'm actually I have a heart like a raisin.

[00:22:22]I'm a critic. I hate everything. But now I'm all like, "No, >> you don't hate everything." Helen, I read you. You're like a very You're extremely It's not even that you're fair. I mean, you just I think there's a real sense of like what all is going on in a show >> and some things work and some things don't. And I just love the comprehensiveness of the way you approach the work, right? Like these these works of art, you know, they're not they're rarely completely perfect.

[00:22:54]>> Um and they're rarely completely terrible.

[00:22:56]>> Yeah. Um, anyway, I actually want to talk about something that really didn't work for me that worked for lots and lots of other people that I think is kind of in a weird way taking it easy on us somehow.

[00:23:08]>> Um, and it's giant >> interesting.

[00:23:11]>> It's a play.

[00:23:13]>> And it's a play essentially about I'm going to put it this way. That time Rald Doll said some terrible things about the Jews.

[00:23:23]>> Yes.

[00:23:24]And the entire play, as far as I'm concerned, is I understand what it wants to do, right? This is a show that is is trying to sort of resituate our thinking about how we talk about Israel's sort of activities in the Middle East, right? um its relationship to the Palestinian people um its its mission of self-preservation um and self-defense and in whose name and against whom it's taking those conversations and you know can you talk about can you criticize Israel and also not be anti-semitic when you do it >> all of those questions those fights we are having now are taking place in this play about Ronald Dah set in 1983 >> in his house which is under construction. And the show is essentially about, you know, him responding to the arrival of his agent.

[00:24:28]Is it >> and his publisher?

[00:24:30]>> Um or maybe it's >> it's a woman from his publisher, >> right? It's a woman from his publisher.

[00:24:34]And essentially, they're worried about his next book coming out, which is The Witches. um and its ability to attract sales based on some some anti-Semitic things he wrote in a review of a book about Israel's relationship to Beirut in 1982. Not even Israel's uh siege on Beirut in 1982.

[00:24:56]>> Uh that's a lot.

[00:24:57]>> Yeah.

[00:24:58]>> Yeah.

[00:24:58]>> Um and the show is trying to wrestle with these questions.

[00:25:04]>> Yeah. My problem with it >> is that I think that the only interesting person in the show is the monster.

[00:25:14]>> The other characters don't matter to me.

[00:25:16]I mean, they're not as interesting as he is.

[00:25:18]>> None of the actors is as good as John Lithgow, who plays Rald Doll.

[00:25:22]>> Um, so there's a real They're not kidding about the giant part.

[00:25:27]>> Yes.

[00:25:27]>> Lithgal looms large. Rald Doll looms large. And I think the way the show is built in some ways is kind of an ingenious contraption, right? Like the first act ends with the thing you've been dreading happening. You know why you're there.

[00:25:41]>> Yep.

[00:25:42]>> Um and it it gives it to you almost the way a musical would give you like >> the big number that brings the curtain down. Except in this case, the big number is >> is >> Hey, I mean I know Hitler sucked, but I mean the Jews couldn't have been all that good.

[00:25:59]>> Yeah. Yeah, >> I mean I'm paraphrasing, but that is essentially what he says.

[00:26:03]>> So I So this is written by Mark Rosenblat, who was a >> he's a director, right?

[00:26:08]>> He's a director and this is his first play and he worked on this play for years, but he it is his first play.

[00:26:13]>> And I do think that you you feel that a little bit. Not I'm not saying it's not accomplished, but I think that it doesn't, you know, >> I don't think it's accomplished.

[00:26:22]>> Well, here's why I think it's accomplished. I think I think that writing any character that is as complex and ugly as the one as the doll in this play is is a strength.

[00:26:35]>> I think what he does not square what Rosenlot does not square is what do I do with a lot of people on stage and I think you would forgive him for saying like that's the basic job. You have to know why there's four people in a room and if there's no reason for those four people to be there then you better reduce it to a two person scene. But the real thing that's in the room with Rald Doll is um his legacy. What you really are fighting with is your love of the books, your uh decision of whether or not you're going to separate the art from the artist. Right. Is he a monster?

[00:27:11]Yep. Like that question is answered awfully quickly.

[00:27:15]>> Yes. And the play is a bit koi about it's like I have this really gross carrot and I'm going to dangle it here at the end and you know what it's it's you know what it's going to eat the gross carrot >> you and then they came back from intermission >> and so it's sort of like it's deliberately feeding us the poison.

[00:27:33]>> But I think the thing that brings you back from intermission is John Lithgow, right?

[00:27:37]>> Oh god. Yeah.

[00:27:38]>> And I don't know Helen I don't know I don't know if that was enough for me. I mean he's very good obviously but I mean >> I think the reason I think the show is taking it easy on us >> is that >> it's I mean I think all of us going to this show know what is what is morally abhorent about his views >> y >> and I don't know I just wish that it had I wish the show had made me uncomfortable at all. I was not uncomfortable >> at all by this. Well, so I was uncomfortable a couple of times, but partially because there are a couple of phrases that I literally won't even repeat that that he says in the play that just are like, you know, you hear them and they kind of stick to you. They are real, it's really awful.

[00:28:26]>> And then the second thing, >> the thing that makes me angry about the show >> is >> and angry at the show when the show succeeds at like >> No, no, I this is angry at the show is that it implies to me it implies that there's a cost. It's like the wife >> hears him say something and she's like, "I don't know about that." There's a beautiful maidcook who listens to him say the really bad thing and she's like, "I don't know about that."

[00:28:53]>> This is It's doing the work for us. It's doing the work for us.

[00:28:56]>> It is. And there's this promise that maybe you know what, he did this bad thing. Don't worry. Don't worry audience. There will be a punishment.

[00:29:03]Guess what? There wasn't he stays beloved until he's in the ground. he stays beloved until he to 2016, right? There's no there is no cost. And so for me, the the problem with shaping it into a play is that in order for the play to do the shape that a play has is it has to end with rut row, they hurt him, something bad will happen to him.

[00:29:29]>> And then you know because you live in the world that's not what happened to Rald Doll. When I grew up reading James and the Giant Peach, no one was like, >> well, you know, you know, he's a terrible anti-semite, but good luck with the peach situation. You know, don't eat any big fruit. And you know, it's so there's a >> I don't know. It doesn't trust me. It doesn't trust me.

[00:29:50]>> The social network problem. You know, the movie The Social Network where it's like, and you know what, girls in school didn't like him and you think, "Sorry, he married his college sweetheart."

[00:29:58]>> Right. Right. Okay. Enough about me. I mean le let's actually just talk about you know I am always curious about how people who practice criticism practice the criticism not so much the thinking and the synthesizing that we do in our work but how do you physically do the job so for instance you know I you know I don't like to I don't like to watch a lot of movies after I eat lunch right these are like things like this like I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm going to fall asleep.

[00:30:34]>> Um, so I'm wondering what your I mean some of your just procedural methodology is when you are out in the world and watching things. Do you see things more than once? Do you have a rule against watching them more than once? What? Talk to me.

[00:30:49]>> So um it is very handy in the theater that most of that is decided for you. Uh curtains at 8 and so that's where I should be. Uh, and so a lot of what I I would never see a show twice simply because of the practical um project of trying to see everything in New York.

[00:31:10]>> So if you're trying to see every show that's happening in New York, you need to see eight shows a week and you need to do that 52 weeks.

[00:31:16]>> So you working like you're on Broadway or in the in the theater. Okay.

[00:31:19]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have a powerful ho hoofers mentality and so uh so I don't really see shows more than once but so this actually gets to the question of like practically how is theater criticism done differently from other kinds of criticism a lot of times you're looking at something that you have a very long relationship with >> so right half of the time I'm seeing a show uh if I see Our Town on Broadway I have seen 12 Our towns starting in high school and going until now I've also might have been in our town.

[00:31:51]>> I have not. No, no. My my powerful acting career is luckily in the pre-cell era and um but the but you have these long relationships with plays. So you come into the space and you sort of simultaneously you do this little trick where you simultaneously remember everything you know about it. So what do I know about Henry IV?

[00:32:11]>> Okay. And then you also try and forget it at the same time because you're supposed to be there with the art that's in front of you. So, it's a little bit of a sort of zen practice like you are.

[00:32:21]You you try to make yourself a neutral slate.

[00:32:24]>> And then, uh, practically what I do is I take a ton of notes. I I write down almost everything that's happening while I'm watching it. Uh, because otherwise I tend to start to dream a little bit. You know, I do start to think about the last time I saw Henry IV. And so, you see the notebook keeps you grounded.

[00:32:40]>> You It keeps you there. It keeps you in the moment. It's like snapping your fingers and saying, "No, it's right now.

[00:32:44]Helen, you're looking at this Henry IV."

[00:32:46]And that's very handy.

[00:32:48]>> I mean, sometimes you might be watching this Henry IVth and wish you were watching one from five Henry IVs ago.

[00:32:53]>> But you can't let your mind do that.

[00:32:54]That's not what But I'm just saying.

[00:32:56]>> Yeah, that's what that's what a civilian >> Okay.

[00:33:01]>> Um All right. So, let's talk about what is happening this year. You went to a bunch of shows.

[00:33:06]>> Talk to me about some things that worked and didn't work for you.

[00:33:10]>> Okay. So, one thing that really worked for me was uh nostalgia. So it was a >> nostalgia worked for you.

[00:33:18]>> Yes. And here's how. So you would think so there are shows like Schmegadun which is a musical which is entirely nostalgic.

[00:33:25]>> Purely nostalgia. It's like do you remember the golden age of musicals? If not we will cram them down.

[00:33:30]>> Regular people. Yes.

[00:33:32]>> Who like musicals. Oh maybe one of them does and one of them doesn't. A couple.

[00:33:36]>> That's right.

[00:33:36]>> Uh she loves them. He hates them. They get trapped. They get trapped brigadeon style in the world of a musical.

[00:33:44]>> Yes. And then every everybody they encounter is sort of like a figure from the music man or a figure from Carousel or whatever.

[00:33:51]>> Classic musicals.

[00:33:52]>> Classic musicals. And it so it has this sense of if there has been a secret part of you that thought you know why can't musicals just be like carousel >> just be Rogers and Hammerstein all day.

[00:34:04]>> I know exactly why no take don't play so many sharps and flats. And so this is deeply uh pleasurable for that for that kind of you know >> I haven't seen it. I saw the television show >> warm bath. Warm bath.

[00:34:18]>> Okay.

[00:34:18]>> Now um but the the part of nostalgia that really worked for me and this is something that was just fantastic for me was the Rocky Horror Show.

[00:34:27]>> Oh >> and do you have a relationship to the Rocky Horror Picture? You know, I have a relationship to the time warp as a music video. That was just a clip from the movie that got played. Yes.

[00:34:42]>> On MTV.

[00:34:43]>> Yes.

[00:34:44]>> It was just Tim Curry. Yes.

[00:34:46]>> Just from they just ripped it from the movie, put it on video video city. Just pick your video channel. There was the time warp.

[00:35:02]And for I I'm trying very hard not to overshare, but for a person of a certain >> You're on cannonball, ma'am. There's no such thing as oversharing.

[00:35:13]>> Oh man, >> what do you what do you want to tell us?

[00:35:16]>> So I just feel that in the world of creating a sexual identity. Oh, >> that if you take the Phantom of the Opera and cross it with Frankenferter, you're pretty close to a young Helen Shaw's ideal man. And I am sorry that that is >> Helen. Let me get my phone. I've got about seven phone numbers for you.

[00:35:41]>> Are you available? Do you need Do you need a >> No, I I >> Do you need a Franken Frankenfer?

[00:35:48]>> This is not a call for help. This is a call for action which is people should go to see Luke Evans in this production.

[00:35:55]>> Definitely should. He is I just never think about him is having this performance in him >> and he is >> I don't know where this this is, you know, this one of those things that like just seems like it's been living in him this whole time and nobody asked him to do it.

[00:36:13]>> Agreed. Absolutely. And that I think um is what I had a good time with this season. So you were saying like what are the things I liked? I did like so those two aspects of nostalgia really worked for me. And then also another show. So we were talking about difficulty is one of the shows that I think had the highest level of difficulty this season was a show called Liberation.

[00:36:34]>> Oh I missed it. I missed it.

[00:36:36]>> Which was a very very beautiful show and uh it won the Pulitzer. So, you know, it has been like it's not exactly like a well-kept secret, but it is about a woman interrogating both her own feminism and her mother's feminism. So, it's sort of a memory play and she takes us back to the 70s encounter group where her mother and a group of women tried to sort of do some consciousness raising together.

[00:36:57]>> Best wall.

[00:36:58]>> It's Bess Wall written by Bess Wall who is a very very um delicate deft touch.

[00:37:06]And that was a play that was done in a very, you know, there was no outrageous moment. There was no uh sort of explosive climax. Instead, it was sort of like this is what conversation can do. So when I was talking about how much I love that theater is a forum, this was like >> structurally seems built to be exactly >> a classical Greek forum.

[00:37:31]>> Yes. And so there they are in chairs in front of us echoing the chairs that we are sitting in the audience and it's like oh are we in a consciousness raising group together. Don't mind if I >> I picked it up I picked up a copy just to like like I didn't you know I I I've read some of it but also it was a show for me that I just heard people talking about it and it seemed initially like it was like I shouldn't see this and it's very you know I'm going to it was it was obvious what it was doing and it wasn't working for some women in my life. Mhm.

[00:38:01]>> And then about 2 weeks later, I was part of this other conversation where the women talking about it were like, "It was fantastic. This is exactly what I needed and like this this fight >> between the generations."

[00:38:15]>> Yes.

[00:38:16]>> About what feminism even is and is good for. I was like, "God damn it, I've got a week to see this thing." Yep.

[00:38:23]>> And I'm not going to make it.

[00:38:24]>> And you're out of time. Now look, Peter Cers, who's a great opera director, I once saw him give a talk and he said, "A show ends, a show truly ends when the conversation that night finishes."

[00:38:36]>> So a show may take two hours in the theater.

[00:38:39]>> Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, I see what he means.

[00:38:41]>> When you stop talking about it that night, that's actually when the curtain comes down.

[00:38:45]>> Oh, I just got a little I just got a little tear in my eye.

[00:38:50]>> Peter Sers, you can't you can't turn your back on him. He'll get you. And so I think that um so for me shows like Liberation, Giant, all the things that we talked about that were limitations of Giant, I kept talking about it that night, right? And so >> I'm still talking about it. My boyfriend, we go back and forth about I mean we agree, but then we're like >> it is trying to do something though, >> but it just does it didn't it's not it's not it's doing it in the wrong way. And I feel like I should turn to camera and be like, "And that's difficulty."

[00:39:23]>> It's right there.

[00:39:24]>> Hi. That's difficulty.

[00:39:26]>> Yeah.

[00:39:26]>> Um, so, uh, what else?

[00:39:29]>> Okay. Other shows I love. Can we talk about it? Can we talk about The Big Dog?

[00:39:32]>> What's The Big Dog?

[00:39:34]>> Death of a Salesman.

[00:39:35]>> Oh, yeah. Okay. We could talk about The Big Dog. Um, I will say personally as I as I explain what this play is, it's a play that a lot of American kids encounter in school for reasons.

[00:39:48]>> I I don't want to say I don't understand. I commend the teachers who put it in front of me and I commend the teachers still trying to put it in front of lots of other students.

[00:39:58]>> Um, but it is also a play also. Have you seen a high school performance of Death of a Salesman? Because I have.

[00:40:06]I've seen 13-year-old Willie Roman.

[00:40:08]>> Yeah. Oh, man.

[00:40:09]>> But this is a show about a family whose patriarch is at the end of his career essentially, but but can't afford to be >> and his pride won't allow him >> to be there.

[00:40:25]>> And so he's trying trying trying to just I don't know. I mean, I'm going to say one last goround in the in the in the sales business >> and this production. Anyway, that's that's the setup basically. That's the setup. So, what >> what uh talk to me about what what you felt, what you thought.

[00:40:45]>> So, so for me, this play So, there are >> there is nothing that's aesthetically difficult about this play, right? No.

[00:40:56]>> You can go to this show.

[00:40:57]>> You mean as a as a as a text? Yeah, as a text you uh it is what is I when I was trying to define difficulty for myself when I was thinking about coming here to talk about it. I was thinking well what's the opposite of difficulty? Is it accessibility? Is that the is that its opposite?

[00:41:14]>> It's an Juliet.

[00:41:15]>> It's well >> no shots to an Juliet but that is >> and yet a shot has been fired. Um but I think that that >> it's just a candy shop. It's a very delicious candy shop.

[00:41:27]>> That's true. But when you have Death of a Salesman, Death of a Salesman's serious I mean it's super serious. It's about a guy who is and this is a spoiler going to die and he and his sons in Death of a Salesman Death of a Salesman the selling isn't going to work out and he is going to disappoint his sons. His sons will disappoint him. It's like this terrible terrible confusion of generations. And the reason why kids get it in high school is because it allows teachers to assign an essay on the American dream and how the American dream isn't a dream, but it's a nightmare. And so those sort of simple thoughts have kind of attached themselves to this >> obfuscated. Yeah, >> exactly. These simple thoughts have been tied to this difficult play.

[00:42:12]>> And so it's not difficult. It's not difficult to understand. You watch the guy, he whines, his sons disappoint him, he disappoints them, death, sadness, denimal. Okay. But what is hard about it is that in fact the more times you see it, the older you get.

[00:42:32]>> This is crazy true.

[00:42:34]>> Yeah. And it gets harder and harder.

[00:42:36]>> Oh my god, Helen. I I don't need to be crying today, but it is it is actually true. Um, go on. So for me, this production, so it stars Nathan Lane, and Nathan Lane is all he has to do is walk out on stage and and you can see the song and dance man who doesn't know what song is up next.

[00:42:56]>> That is that is so beautiful.

[00:42:59]>> It's so sad.

[00:43:00]>> Yeah. What you just said is beautiful.

[00:43:02]and Nathan Lee performance beautiful it and he's and in this production >> the sorrow that we have for the generation that missed it that is a sorrow that resets every 10 years >> at every generation >> and this is the time for that show >> and this is the time for that show >> um it's uncanny how um punctual this thing is Right. Like it just it knew >> it knew it knew we it knew gas prices would be would be crazy.

[00:43:39]>> Yeah.

[00:43:39]>> Right. It knew that >> all we do all day if we're so inclined is to be on an object where like the new Willy Lommans are pushing pushing pushing pushing.

[00:43:50]>> Yeah.

[00:43:50]>> Um but we're also at a point where like there's another set of actual Willy Lmans, right?

[00:43:57]um who are being dis and some of those willy lommens it's going to sound crazy to say Helen are like 30 >> 35 being displaced by AI I mean there just so many considerations just on that front >> and this this to me it's may may not be a difficult play >> but it is a difficult production to me >> um do you feel I mean how do you feel about it as a as a work >> I mean I love it. I have to say I love it because to me it is just distilled sorrow and I I uh like I'm a little bit of a sicko. I go to theater to be reminded that I'm dying.

[00:44:38]>> I mean this is the difficulty. This is part of what I'm asking, right? This is part of what I'm asking with this ambition difficulty question, right?

[00:44:45]Like remind us remind me that I am human but in all the ways I am human. Y >> and don't be af don't cut any corners.

[00:44:53]>> Don't don't spare my feelings. Make it hard. Yeah. And if you have ever disappointed a parent, >> this show is unbearable. If you've ever disappointed your child, this show is unbearable. I really like that for me is why I watch it is that it is it's almost not different from my life. Do you know what I mean? Like it's so close to the things that I feel sorrow.

[00:45:16]>> Like your actual like Helen Shaw's life.

[00:45:19]>> Well, no. Oh, I mean my parents are very proud. But what I mean is that it's like every it it it has there >> theater is great at creating emotions.

[00:45:29]>> It's very good at turning up the volume and making you feel like you can kick up your heels. It's very good at making feel anger. That happens in Giant. It's very good at making you feel uh a certain kind of way. That's in Rocky Horror. But it is also it has this one emotion that I actually don't think you get in other media. I don't think you get it from books. I don't think you get it from film. Is regret is you are watching it unfold in front of you and you can't stop the play from happening.

[00:45:58]You can't get up out of your seat. You can't put the book down on the coffee table. You can't stop Willie from doing what he's doing.

[00:46:05]>> And so you regret with him the way that life begins.

[00:46:10]>> It didn't have to be this way. It didn't. Maybe it didn't have to be this way. But also the tragedy of the play is >> Yes, it did.

[00:46:16]>> Yes, it did.

[00:46:16]>> Yes, it did. cuz you know, look at this place. Look at this country.

[00:46:20]>> And that's I feel like Yeah. And that's difficult.

[00:46:27]>> Okay, Helen. Um, listen, Pink is going to like supervise some Tony's this weekend.

[00:46:34]>> Yes, Pink is.

[00:46:35]>> Um, >> yes.

[00:46:36]>> I don't know. I mean, we talked about some shows that are up for some Tony's.

[00:46:39]I mean, do you do you care about I mean, Car that's not the right way to do it, but like like what is the value of giving these out? Um, is there a show that's up for some Tony's that deserve to win them?

[00:46:57]>> Um, >> just as a seal of their excellence.

[00:47:00]Yeah.

[00:47:01]>> Um, >> I So, for me, what the Tony's are, number one, it's the most attention that the country ever pays to the theater.

[00:47:09]This is how I found Audrey McDonald was the Tony's. I had never heard of her before. Audrey and McDonald when I found Right. You just explained why the Tony's are important, right? Is they find people who don't know that the theater is going to be there for them yet and they're like, "Wait, what's that?"

[00:47:26]>> Mhm.

[00:47:26]>> And so on this production, on this Tony Awards night, you're going to have production numbers from That Cats we're talking about, which is a sacred space right now. we are going to have whoever either Lithco or Lane or whoever win this award and and it is going to sort of I don't know for me it's a the big PR moment which is look what you started this conversation with was there was a lot that was disappointing the point of awards is that we get to the end of a season and there is too much to love there's too much to award there are several races here that I can't call because I want them both to win, >> i.e. Nathan Lane and John Lithco, >> i.e. Ragtime and Cats.

[00:48:11]>> Yeah.

[00:48:12]>> So, you have this situation where >> which are both up for best revival of a musical >> of a musical. And I think that's what I love about the Tony's is it says no matter what kind of like I don't know sulky, brooding attitude one might have had during the season, one realizes no wait a minute, it was an abundance of riches and aren't we lucky. Helen, I'm lucky to have you.

[00:48:37]>> I really enjoyed this. Thank you.

[00:48:38]>> Thank you for having me on.