Up-to-Dating

I enjoy seeing photos of kitchen re-dos. It’s so nice that SOMEONE has the time, interest and money to tackle these things! Our kitchen has not been touched, really, since shortly after our 1989 move-in. Oh sure, we planned to replace those horrible wooden cabinets someday, install decent flooring—at one point we even thought of taking down a wall so that we’d have more than five square feet of space (that dream died when our architect friend Mark gave us the sad news that it was a “bearing” wall, without which the ceiling would collapse). 

But renovation has its pitfalls. An obvious one is the fact that everything surrounding the new part immediately looks old and decrepit—a whack-a-mole situation, where the freshly painted family room highlights the really ancient windows, and the arrival of a new chair instantly causes the neighboring sofa’s upholstery to fade and rip—which makes the new chair look shabby too, and so on.

This also holds true with many revivals of movies and plays. Bringing an old favorite into the present day tends to either spotlight the weaknesses of the original, or remind the viewer that the original really was better and shouldn’t have been tampered with. I was reminded of this phenomenon during our last two New York shows—a revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Company, and a bold reworking of the classic Cyrano de Bergerac.  

We had loved Company in its first incarnation back in the early 1970s. It was smart, funny, and perfectly captured the energy of New York City at exactly that point in time. But for whatever reason, it was decided to make bachelor Bobby and his hovering married friends, bachelorette Bobbie and hers. It strained credulity when the husbands were the ones who fretted about Bobbie’s single status (my hub, like most others, wouldn’t have noticed had she grown a third arm). As we watched “Another Hundred People” whipping out their iPhones as they sang and danced (hey look! It’s gotta be 2022!), it just served to remind us that we vastly preferred the premiere production.

Cyrano, which was written 130 years ago, and set in 17th century France, would seem to be another case of a revival that couldn't work. Instead, though, it was such a significant re-imagining that it totally worked (for me; Steve, who has played Cyrano twice, wasn’t 100% on board). While allusions were made to Cardinal Richelieu and Molière, one character also referenced Roxanne, Steve Martin’s movie from 1987. The cast was in modern dress, and tossed mics around as they ably rapped many of the lines. Heck, star James McAvoy wasn’t even sporting the huge nose that is always THE prominent feature of the title character. By excavating the play down to its bones and rebuilding, the show felt thrilling and new, and not an awkward attempt to modernize.

Moral: when updating, either go big or go home.

So instead of new curtains, I guess it’s time for a bulldozer!