Review: The MAESTRO Returns at 59E59

MAESTRO

By Hershey Felder

59E59

Is there anything left to be said about Leonard Bernstein that hasn't already been said? The answer is: plenty. In his one-man biographical play with music, MAESTRO, currently playing at 59E59 Theater, actor/musician/ playwright Hershey Felder invites his audience to an intimate tête-à-tête with the legendary conductor. Part biography, part examination of influences and elements that molded the artist, and part exploration of the technical aspects of his music, Felder's loving study of Bernstein offers the audience an insightful and unapologetic chronicle of a true genius and a truly flawed man.

The show covers a lot of ground in its 100 or so minutes, from his formative years in Lawrence, Ma., right through his final years in New York. Along the way, the audience is treated to a healthy helping of Bernstein's most important compositions as well as a number of pieces that helped form, inform and inspire his own musical growth - all performed with virtuosity by Mr. Felder. It's widely known that Bernstein led an almost mythical life, hob-nobbing with presidents, popes and princes, however, Mr. Felder chooses to eschew the grand public persona of Bernstein, in favor of a far more intimate and often painful examination of the fragile artist that few saw and fewer got to know.

The play begins with a delightfully nostalgic tour of his childhood and a father straight out of central casting who vigorously, often hilariously, tries to dissuade young Leonard from a career in music. His mother is portrayed in a far more positive, almost saintly light, as the one who encourages her son's artistic passion and growth. We immediately see that money is his father's primary fear, but the ever-industrious young Lenny quickly dispatches any such concerns by teaching the neighborhood kids piano lessons, in order to pay for his own. Through just such anecdotes, Mr. Felder - the playwright - prevents the story of Lenny's childhood from becoming a doleful, joyless cliché. Rather, he imbues this young Lenny with something immensely likeable, and in the process reveals to the audience that famous Will Power and drive that became Bernstein's trademarks.

The young adult years, in which Lenny meets a veritable who's-who of the great composers and conductors of his time could be a play unto itself, because as his brilliant talents are maturing and coming to the surface, so is his sexual ambiguity. Mr. Felder handles the subject with grace and tact. His simple description of conductor Dimitri Mitropoulos' "cobalt blue eyes" speaks volumes about Lenny's inner workings and hints at the presence of a deep-rootEd Moral and ethical dilemma. This is where Mr. Felder - the actor - really achieves the transcendent. At particularly critical, sensitive or uncomfortable moments, plaintive dramatic pauses - often for only an instant - invite us into Lenny's personal world, his pain, his uncertainty. In these moments of almost breath-taking tension, Mr. Felder illustrates how the worlds in which we grow up and the choices we make, define who we are and who we will become. In Lenny's case, the line between 'awe of genius' and sexual attraction is a blurry one. He more than merely professes his love for the great men in his life, he states that he was indeed "in love" with them.

Lenny's sexuality comes front and center again when he falls in love with, marries and has children with Felicia, but it is hinted that all along he continued to have illicit relationships with men. Only Lenny's sister, Shirley, has the honestly and directness (and perhaps enough love) to confront Lenny about "the other part of his life," when he announces to the family his impending marriage. Lenny's professed need for a conventional family situation, to be a father, to have that kind of stability, stands in stark contrast to his behavior. These apparent contradictions are what makes Lenny such a consistently interesting and complex character. Given his myriad internal conflicts of religion, sexuality, etc., it's really a wonder he was able to achieve anything at all let alone achieve the highest heights of virtually every endeavor he attempted - and achieve them all seemingly with the greatest of ease.

Yet, despite the success, the fame, the money, he remained restless and unfulfilled, and his one true goal, of becoming America's next great composer, never fully materialized - at least not in his view. His personal agony, that his compositional legacy will forever be defined by one musical theater piece that he considers merely "juvenilia," drives him on to create work after work of increasingly complex character, none of which, unfortunately, ever capture the public's fancy. While one might argue that anyone capable of such a work of genius as "West Side Story" should be content with just that, Mr. Felder deftly uses this great irony to expose the ultimate truth about Lenny: he is destined never to be content.

His desire to reach that unreachable plateau results in an excruciating level of self-examination which manifests itself in Lenny's obsession with Wagner. In a tortured moment, Lenny questions how he can love and be so moved by the beauty of music created by such a reprehensible human being who is the embodiment of everything Lenny hates and has spent a lifetime fighting against.

His conclusion, that Wagner was "an anti-Semitic son of a bitch, but he knew precisely who he was, and he was never ashamed of it," leads Lenny to a turning point in his life. He decides he must abandon all pretense and facade to reveal himself as he truly is and accept and embrace it. The manner in which Mr. Felder actualizes this epiphany is nothing short of pure theatrical magic and the dramatic zenith of the play. The audience watches Mr. Bernstein on screen conducting Wagner's "Liebestod" from Tristan und Isolde, as Mr. Felder furiously plays the Liszt piano transcription right along with him. As the pulsating waves of the "Liebestod" grow and grow and eventually arrive at the majestic climax, the entire audience lets out its breath in a collective sigh of release. It is a riveting piece of stage-craft. Moments of this kind of singular beauty have become increasingly rare in contemporary theater.

The play is not without its flaws, but they are largely insignificant. It spends a disproportionate amount of time on Lenny's early years, and more time spent on the mature years would have been welcome. When he relates the incident of the infamous Tom Wolfe, New York Magazine article about the Black Panthers, Lenny states that he was at the Met conducting, "Fidelio" - but Lenny never actually conducted "Fidelio" at the Met. And perhaps most curious was the playwright's decision to forego any mention of Lenny's life-long rivalry with Herbert Von Karajan, his professional arch-nemesis for half a century. Still, these are more "sins of omission," probably owing to time constraints, than actual flaws.

At the beginning and the conclusion of the play, Lenny states that composers are always looking for God and for love. He follows: "We have the tools to find them, but the question is, which one of us really knows how to use those tools?" It's clear at this point in time, there are few performers before the public capable of wielding these tools quite like Hershey Felder. He and his team, renowned director Joel Zwick, visionary set designer François-Pierre Couture, lighting designer Christopher Ash and Sound Designer Erik Carstensen have created a theatrical genre unto itself. Their musical-bio-dramas make history come alive in a humorous, thought-provoking and enormously entertaining fashion. This writer, an admitted Bernstein fanatic who was already fully aware of all the important events in Lenny's life story, still found himself sitting on The Edge of his seat as events unfurled before him...and that is just great theater.

- Peter Danish

Classical Editor-in-Chief

MAESTRO

Book by Hershey Felder; music by Leonard Bernstein and others; directed by Joel Zwick

Produced by The Town Hall with Samantha F. Voxakis and Karen Racanelli at 59E59 Theaters

Wednesday August 31 - Sunday, October 16

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