So, what is the deal with L.E.A.R. and why is it more than just another hip one act play about chick bands, record producers, boy bands gone wild and teen super stars with not-so-secret secret lives?
Actually, I'm not sure that it is more than that, but I'd like to believe that beneath and between all the funny lines and satirical characters, outrageous situations and blithe social commentary, there is a bit of heart and truth, even if it doesn't add up to full fledged profundity. Call me sentimental but I've always believed that without a little meaning, entertainment is not only sort of worthless, but less entertaining too. For better or worse, I like to go to a movie or a play, or listen to music and see art, and have it transform me or teach me something or just give me a soundbite to mull over. I don't like to just consume art, I like to be affected by it; I want to be a better, wiser, more understanding person after the experience.
That said, there's no reason why we can't laugh while we learn, and I think the best way to engange someone's head and heart is through their sense of humor or their sense of empathy, and I think L.E.A.R. is full of opportunities for both. At the center of the mess of monologues and vignettes there is the story of Simone and Tim, which is the real relationship around which all the silliness of the music industry is woven, an absurd context for something ordinary but heartbreaking which is happening to these two young people who love each other but need to still prove themselves as individuals and discover who they are. It was important to me, draft after draft, that they not only really care for one another but that Simone, as the woman in the relationship, was the stronger and more proactive of the two, forcing Tim to rise to her level as opposed to in most plays and movies, where it seems to always be the opposite, and the woman either stays home and supports her man while he goes out hunting for fame and fortune, or only embarks on her own quest because she's supposed to raise herself to his standard. Which is not to say that I don't think Tim is a nice guy, because I think he is and I wrote him as sympathetic; as male leads go in my canon of works, Tim's actually among the more likeable, though he's also decidedly more simple. Essentially, he's a really nice guy who, like most nice and simple guys, doesn't know how to live up to his potential, both as an individual and as one half of a couple. The best thing about Tim is that he's willing to let Simone, in the end, draw out of him the best he has to offer, and conversely the best thing about Simone is that she does this for Tim, thus making it so that he has more or less done the same for. They give each other a reason to be good people, honest artists, and ultimately good halves of a pair, but the way they get there isn't an easy one, and it has to come through, in the beginning, going seperate ways and letting go of each other for a while. I think this is something a lot of people can relate to, myself included (especially these days, it seems), and I'd like to believe (despite the cynical elements of my nature), that the happy ending Tim and Simone get is something we all get, though the road there may be long and hard. I don't think it's impossible though, given a good foundation, enough time, and hearts that never give up.
In contrast, I think the relationship between Nikolai and Francisco is a potentially interesting exploration of an absurd relationship in the context of a real world- think of how much they effect all the other characters in the play, and yet are always much more stuck on their own drama than any of the artistic and business matters at hand. Simone, despite the angst over Tim, is still focused first and foremost on the band, where as once their relationship falls apart, Nikolai drops all pretense of being a legit record producer in order to get back at Francisco, and in the process not only helps bring about the destruction of the Cunning Stunts, but the Burger Kings as well, even as Francisco's personal motivations helps to launch the career of the even more selfishly motivated Naomi. The problem is, neither of these men have art at the top of their priority list, but they have the power to make or break artsist; and I'd like to say that wasn't pretty much how the real world works but most of us who have spent any amount of time trying to "make it" in pretty much any field of art know that there are all too many Nikolai's and Francisco's out there. If anything, I've been polite and affectionate in the creation of their characters, but despite giving them a happy ending it should be noted they don't give anyone else a happy ending: Tim and Simone have to strike out on their own at the end, and make it on their own terms. They get a happy ending not because they learn to succeed in the Nikolai and Francisco world, but because they recognize it for what it is, and realize they will be happier working outside it, even though that means sacrificing whatever it has to offer.
What it has to offer is the monumental but artistically empty success stories of Robin Swords and Naomi Finn, both of whom ostensibly represent the "wrong" in the play, but honestly, despite the "bitch" qualities to both, they aren't the villains. After all, as Robin freely admits, they wouldn't exist without the networks that create and support them, and they wouldn't act and climb the ladder as they do if they weren't being rewarded for it. Though its easy to see why we're not supposed to like Naomi, and why Robin is a laughable character at best and a kind of sinsiter one on another level, the fact is the much more lovable Francisco and Nikolai are really to blame for their existence, and it's important to recognize that beneath the charming gay boy veneer, these men are really in the business of making people over into monsters, and monsters they must become because that's the only way one can hope to survive in that world of constant exploitation and artistic compromise. When Francisco says to Naomi, "First I'm gonna fuck you, then I'm gonna cut you, then I'm gonna leave you for dead," it's funny because it's ridiculous; but when you recognize that he really does get off on this idea, it's also kind of scary. Likewise, there's something tragic about Nikolai propositioning Dimitri as a way to get back at Francisco's infidelity, but it's also kind of repulsive in the calculated way he does it, the ease with which he expects Dimitri to accept his advances, and the even more calculated manner in which Dimitri responds. That said, it's also plainly evident from the list of sexual acts they outline that Nikolai will be experiencing very little pleasure in this liason, but I'll readily admit I've always seen him as the more sympathetic of the pair.
The other characters just get farther and farther from that reality core of Tim and Simone. Phyllis and Malcolm are nice, but obviously she is mentally and emotionally unstable and he is too much of a deus ex machina to be taken seriously as anything more than a ludicrous allegorical figure (though people like him do exist in the art world as philanthropists and patrons, they are few and far between). What both represent is extreme ends of the music world that is the setting of the play- she the rabid fan, he the embittered star, she perpetually optomistic but needy, he constantly cynical but generous, she wrapped up in dreams and fantasies, he the manufacturer of celebrity myths and hooplah. Contrasted with this pair are Britney and Charlotte, so frighteningly normal and uninspired that it's absurd to suggest they make it through the two to three years of the Stunt's rise and fall- and yet the art world is full of people like these, there to do a job and collect a paycheck, somehow totally oblivious and/or apathetic to the passion plays and struggles of the Simones and Naomis that surround them. Even Britney's sympathy for Simone is the kind co-workers have for one another, which is not to say it's ingenuine though so much as it does seem to be relatively oblivious to who Simone is as a person let alone as an artist, and once Britney has passed on the problem for Malcolm to handle we never hear from her on the subject again. I don't think there is any better example of "casual aquaintance" than that. The other boys in the Burger Kings are equally as absurd- again, more involved in the very narrow world of their personal problems and gratification than in the larger world of art, personal integrity and spiritual fullfillment that Simone and Tim are dealing with.
The intellectually interesting thing about L.E.A.R. is how those abstract virtues are held up as the representatives of the real, as opposed to the absurd things in the play- the insatiable greed for money, fame, drugs, sex, etc. But that's because Simone's perspective dominates the story, even though she speaks to the audience less than any other character in the play. Still, it is her journey we are following, and since her values are more abstract, the more earthly, material greeds of the other characters are by nature absurd, and she reacts and cognates them as such. Ironically, and kind of sadly when you think about it, this also means that in the end she is the outsider, for while she may be, as Tim puts it, "the honest one," she is vastly outnumbered, and while Simone is our heroine she's not kidding when she says "I'm the foolish one," implying that to have something like artistic integrity and still desire achievement is akin to being a fool or idiot. When you are the only sane person amongst lunatics, it doesn't take long to begin to doubt that, but on the plus side Simone comes to realize that the reason why she needs Tim is because he can provide validation for who she is. On her own, she always has her integrity and the music she makes, but with Tim in her life she also has his love (and her love for him) to show for it- the integrity and music become more meaningful when he is there to share it and for all his failings and human fallibility (of which she is hardly bereft) he is the best compliment to who she is, more so once he realizes it is both his duty and a source of great personal happiness for him to be so.
It is this descent into an absurd world, and passage back to the sane through the recognition of the need for virtues such as loyalty, honesty, love and tolerance, that give L.E.A.R. both it's undertones of "King Lear" esq tragedy, and also any emotional bite it might have. The happy ending has teeth because the best happy endings always do- because they come at the end of a journey that didn't always look like it was heading towards reconcilliations, understandings and new beginnings. The fact is, of course, most people sitting through L.E.A.R. are probably much more likely to just pay attention to the wacky antics and danceing boy band kids, with maybe a wistful sigh or two for Simone and Tim, but not much more thought than that. But as I wrote above, I always like to look for more in something, even the most frivilous entertainment, and since I'm sure I won't be the only guy who wants to find something to cure heartache in even the most unlikely of places, I thought it couldn't hurt to bury some treasure for anyone interested in looking for it. And that, more than anything, is what I'm all about in the end, because my heart is in this play and the complications of my life resonate with this story in even its most absurd and outlandish moments. Beneath the thoughts and the jokes there is something genuine here that I wrote years ago and set aside for later and now I'm here and have been discovering it all over again, just in time. So I'll take the hint and keep digging deeper, and maybe I'll get lucky and maybe "One Day I Will See Everything" too.
