Erin McKeown had never written a musical, but she couldn’t turn down the offer to work on "Miss You Like Hell"; N.Y. Times theater critic Ben Brantley on the impact of the incident between the cast of "Hamilton" and VP-elect Mike Pence; composer Johann Johannsson talks about his score for the movie, “Arrival."
Was the 'Hamilton' cast right in calling out Mike Pence?
During the Nov. 18 curtain call of “Hamilton,” actor Brandon Victor Dixon encouraged its audience to pull out their phones "and tweet and post" a message directed towards Vice President-elect Mike Pence.
Dixon thanked Pence for being in attendance, but said: "We, sir, we, are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us." His remarks have sparked a spirited debate: Was the speech inappropriate and rude, as Donald Trump called it? The president-elect also said the theater should be "a safe and special place." Or were Dixon's comments — which were written by the show's producer, Lin-Manuel Miranda — reasonable and part of a robust political debate?
The Frame's John Horn spoke with Ben Brantley, chief theater critic for the New York Times, who had some thoughts about both arguments, which he shares in an article headlined, “‘Hamilton’ Duel: Addressing the President-Elect on His Own Blunt Terms.”
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
On whether the "Hamilton" cast was justified in calling out Pence
I think any work of art should express what it intends to say in and of itself. "Hamilton" is such a passionate and articulate show, you would think that just the fact that it being a celebration of immigration being watched by Mike Pence would be enough of an implicit dialogue in itself.
Once I read [President-elect] Donald Trump's comment, I thought, No, we're in an age where you can't take it for granted that people are going to read the implicit. "Hamilton" is a very passionate show, and somehow this seems to be a part of the impulse that shaped the show.
Normally, do I think [addressing an audience member] should be made a regular practice? No. If it happened to me I would be thoroughly demoralized. But in this context I didn't mind it so much. We're in highly-charged contentious times, and this actually seemed to be a fairly civilized thing to do.
On whether or not the theater is a space where political views and beliefs should be expressed
[Theater] should be a place not to have our beliefs and prejudices confirmed, but they should be challenged. It should force you to think, it should rattle you out of your complacency. Obviously sometimes you want theater that is the equivalent of a pizza. But really good theater ... that can change the way you think, that's always to be encouraged. And that kind of theater is never safe.
Why the roadtrip musical, 'Miss You Like Hell,' was ideal for Erin McKeown
"Miss You Like Hell” started life as a play called "26 Miles" by Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, Quiara Alegría Hudes.
But the stage drama, which tells the story of a mother and a daughter road-tripping through America, seemed destined to be a musical. While the mother anticipates a court hearing concerning her immigration status, her angsty teenage daughter witnesses an America that is both vast and diverse. But Hudes didn’t realize this coming-of-age story needed a soundtrack until she heard the music of Erin McKeown.
McKeown, a touring singer/songwriter for the past 20 years, has made it her life’s work to study the regional music of the United States. When she sat down with The Frame last week, she talked about why this musical in particular aligned with her writing style.
Interview Highlights:
On her collaboration with playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes:
The nature of our collaboration has evolved. I'm not married, but Quiara is. She suggests that writing a musical with someone is a sort of marriage — it's extremely intimate and long-ranging. We do a lot of listening to each other and we give each other a lot of freedom to try out ideas before we shut the other one down. It brings out the best in both of us.
On writing the song, "Now I'm Here":
What Quiara and I do is we have these conversations: What is Olivia experiencing right now? Where is she at the beginning of the song and where is she at the end? And then for this song, we did a three-page word dump of ideas. This word dump was like American modes of conveyance and literary modes of conveyance. It was everything from the Wright brothers' airplane to the Chattanooga Choo Choo to going to Graceland to the tractor in "The Grapes of Wrath." Then it's my job to take that mound of stuff and find the song in it.
What happened really was we took one thing from one page — the monarch butterflies — and then we have Duke Ellington's "Take the A Train" on the third page and we were like, What if those go together? What about the Joad Family Airshow? The Donner Party Drive-Thru? That's how we made that song.
On the variety of musical genres in "Miss You Like Hell":
Probably one of the root reasons why Quiara asked me to compose the show is because I've always been really excited and interested in lots of different genres of music. The music does change as we go across the country. But I think what our show proposes, and that I'm also really interested in, is that there is not a one-to-one relationship between ethnicity and the kind of music that someone sings or listens to; there's not a one-to-one relationship between, for example, the region of the country and what people are listening to. I think that it would be too easy a connection and it's not truthful to how I think of people experiencing music. So even though the mother in our story is Latina, she also really loves Jimi Hendrix and she loves FM radio and so she's going to sing a '70s rock song as much as she's going to sing a folk rhythm from Oaxaca.
"Miss You Like Hell" is at the La Jolla Playhouse through Dec. 4.
Song Exploder: Jóhann Jóhannsson breaks down the score for 'Arrival'
If you're a fan of The Frame you know we often air episodes from the podcast Song Exploder, produced by Hrishikesh Hirway.
In this episode, Hirway talks with Jóhann Jóhannsson, composer for the film "Arrival," starring Amy Adams. In the film, Adams plays a professor of linguistics trying to decode an alien language. The film is Jóhannsson's third collaboration with director Denis Villeneuve.
In this episode, Jóhannsson breaks down a piece from the score called “Heptapod B,” and how, like the film, his music revolves around the concept of language.