Opus 11/4/09

  Bickering into Beauty

The Seattle Repertory Theatre

2009

The first sound in Michael Hollinger’s play, Opus, is the sound of strings tuning—a preparatory, evocative sound, a sound that readies an audience for a relaxing evening at the orchestra. And part of that is true. Opus is a musical work indeed. The set includes mere music stands, chairs, and wood backdrops embossed with notation. The play takes poetic interludes for its characters to rhapsodize about music together in separate spotlights, speaking a monologue in four parts as if it were a piece they were playing. The play is full of these lyrical moments, where realism is suspended for an underscore.

 

But that’s only part of it. The lyrical gives way to the colloquial. At the end of a beautiful piece of music, we see the quartet explode in quarrels and nitpicking that an audience never gets to see during their night at the philharmonic. It’s an interesting take, and one that will resonate with any artist. That painting, that dance routine, that scene may seem moving and effortless. But the audience doesn’t see the dark underbelly, the hours of frustration and ugliness that go into creating something lasting and beautiful. I commend Hollinger for taking on such an intriguing and untapped subject for his play. 

The play’s protagonist is not any one character, but instead it is a string quartet. The author asks us to root for the group as a whole. Individual character conflicts serve the arc of the quartet. They have recently lost their most brilliant (but unstable) member, and the story begins as they replace him with a pragmatic violist named Grace. Grace, as new to the group as we are, serves as our guide to the delicate social dynamics unique to a creative community.

The “quartet as protagonist” ploy might have come off better if the group was more cohesive. The chemistry took a while to emerge, as if the actors were warming up like they would with an instrument. Especially perplexing was Todd Jefferson Moore’s portrayal of the fired violist, whose presence hangs over the play like a ghost. It seems as if he never found the right tone for his mentally ill character, unconvincing in his histrionics. Notable was Allen Fitzpatrick, who was able to infuse energy and believability into the over-the-top, antagonistic Elliot. Throughout the play, I found myself feeling like an outsider, peeping in through a window; it was far into the performance before I began to feel any personal attachment to the lives before me. 

Awkward silences, broken relationships, bickering, small personal tragedies. These are the language that Opus speaks in. Don’t go if you’re looking to get caught up in a great human drama. It’s there, but that’s not what the show is about. It’s about music. It’s about how messy, petty humans can come together to make something great. Perhaps most telling is a scene where the quartet finally gets a piece of the success they have been looking for. They come out of a performance, glowing with the high of accomplishment and applause. They laugh, giddily. There is a pause, a stop for breath. Their leader says, “Another day.” They reply, “Yes. Another day.” Opus is all about the pitfalls along the way to making art: the boredom, the frustration, the questioning of why you started making it in the first place. All they want to do “create an opus: something worthy of posterity.” So what do you do when you get there? Was it worth it? Ultimately, the questions posed in the play are not just questions of “Why art?”—it is a question of “Why life?” Why do we put ourselves through so much to accomplish something, when in the end it is just “another day”? Opus offers few answers, but it asks the questions in a language we can understand. Like a piece of music, there are refrains that haunt the mind for days after the final notes. 

The Blind Side

 Meat and Potatoes

Dir. John Lee Hancock, 2009

 Football. Fast food. Religion. Southern hospitality. Nuclear families. "The Blind Side" may be the most All-'Murrican film of the year. That doesn't mean it doesn't accomplish what it sets out to accomplish. It's sweet, well-crafted, and strikes few false notes. But its unchallenging story leaves its viewers with nothing but the fuzzy affirmation of the American dream.

"The Blind Side" is tells the true story of Michael "Big Mike" Oher, an undereducated, inner city black kid given a second chance by the upper class Touhy family. I say the story of Michael, but the film tells us a lot more about Leigh Anne Touhy, Sandra Bullock's plucky savior character. The film is hers from the beginning, and Bullock rises to the challenge, admirably filling out her manicured character with a believable soul. Leigh Anne, in a burst of determined altruism, decides to take homeless Michael back to her family's Tennessee mansion. From there, it is assumed, the family embarks on a journey of understanding and sparks a warm relationship with this underprivileged young man. 

But we actually see very little relationship grow between Michael and his adoptive family. Much more screen time is devoted to the Touhys: attractive teen daughter, wisecracking kid brother, Leigh Anne's various crusades on Michael's behalf, Tim McGraw's quiet, benevolent presence as husband Sean. Perhaps The Blind Side thinks it is the story of Micheal Oher's salvation, but its focus is on the saviors. "Is this some kind of white guilt thing?" a character asks Leigh Anne about halfway through the film. The question is met only with shocked reproof-- but we could have done with an answer. What does it mean for a family that owns 85 Taco Bells to show mercy to this young man? Is it merely "what Christians do"? 

The question is a relevant one for a few reasons. For one, the film spends a great amount of its running time depicting a family in the act of altruism. Not only that-- it is altruism in the face of adversity. Throughout the film runs the odd yet familiar trope of good white/bad white. The school board refuses to give Michael a chance until one good man speaks in his defense. Nobody will believe in Michael's football talent until Leigh Anne speaks up for and inspires him. Michael's football opponent pitches racist taunts at him, while his coach and family encourage him. It appears as if Michael would flounder were it not for the kindness of a very special few. So where does that kindness come from? What makes Leigh Anne Touhy any different from her rich, prejudiced girlfriends at the lunch table? What drives the "good" and "bad" people in the story-- what's at stake, morally? As in Christ's parables, there are clear-cut "wise" and "foolish" archetypes at work here. But those parables are meant to make the listeners see the fools in themselves and hope to one day become the wise. The Blind Side aspires to no such subtlety; there are merely good whites, doing what any decent American would, and obviously prejudiced bad whites. "Am I a good person?" Leigh Anne asks, in a rare pensive moment. Her loyal husband replies, "You're a great person." And that is that. The question of the nature of a good deed is invoked, but never fully addressed. 

About half way through the film, I was wondering if any stakes were going to show up. It seemed as if the story was completely about the Touhys gaining a sense of personal fulfillment. "You seem happy," Sean tells Leigh Anne as she falls asleep with a smile. "It has everything to do with Michael," she replies. Thankfully, The Blind Side finally decides to explore the Touhy's motives in the final quarter of the film. Leigh Anne says to Michael, "You know, we don't know too much about you." No kidding. The conflict at the climax of the film addresses this central problem with the film up to that point: have the Touhys missed caring for Michael, the person, in the midst of caring for Michael, the football player/vessel for generosity? The heart of the problem is expressed in one of the film’s final scenes. In the scene, Michael essentially says that everyone has only asked about him in relation to the Touhys, without asking him what he really thinks and feels. It is noble that the film finally lets him speak for himself, but it probably should have happened more than five minutes before the ending.

As a vehicle for Sandra Bullock’s talent, The Blind Side works. Her heroine sashays delightfully into situations and gits-er-done like an upper-class Erin Brockovich. The kid is adorable, the message is valuable, the ending satisfactorily redemptive (and true). There is a great movie inside The Blind Side, one that explored deeper character connections, more complex moral dilemmas, and higher stakes (for examples of these goals accomplished, look to films like Freedom Writers or Finding Forrester). As it is, the film is merely a pleasant entry into the inspirational genre, a Thanksgiving film that leaves audiences full, happy, and ready for that long, forgetful nap.