Under the Radar Festival
January 4-15, 2018
The Public Theater’s recent Under the Radar Festival—an annual two-week theater immersion at various venues—included two wildly different one-man shows: How to Be a Rock Critic, about the long-lamented Lester Bangs, and The Gates, New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik’s monologue about life in New York City.
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| Erik Jensen in How to Be a Rock Critic (photo: Craig Schwartz) |
Lester Bangs was the first (only?) rock reviewer whose writing seemed genuinely honest, unlike such snobby poseurs as Dave Marsh and Robert Christgau. Bangs’ reviews in Rolling Stone, Creem and Circus magazines were often stream-of-consciousness and full of nasty put-downs, but they were articulate and came from the heart, whether he crapped on corporate rock (Styx, Boston, etc.) or extolled real rock (The Clash, Lou Reed, etc.). My own favorite Bangs review, fromCircus, was of Kiss guitarist Ace Frehley’s great 1978 solo album: after raving about the songs and their punk-rock edge, he ended the review in inimitable fashion: “Of course the lyrics suck. Who cares?”
In the cheekily titled How to Be a Rock Critic, Erik Jensen holds forth for 85 often riotously funny minutes, as we see Bangs in his own element in his messy East Village apartment in 1982—perfectly rendered by set designer Richard Hoover, complete with LPs and magazines lying all over the place in heaps. As he holds forth on his musical likes and dislikes, blasting his favorite tunes, Bangs is also chugging cough syrup, among other things, and we realize that we’re witnessing the last blissful moments of a self-destructive man (Bangs died in his apartment in April 1982).
Jensen makes an amusingly slovenly Bangs, and the snippets of music we hear throughout—Black Sabbath, Otis Redding, the Troggs, Lou Reed, and most memorably, Van Morrison—provide some sense of how Bangs defined rock’n’roll authenticity. Jessica Blank (who co-wrote the play with Jensen, based on Bangs’ own writings) directs savvily, bringing Jensen’s performance into sharper relief.
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| Adam Gopnik in The Gates (photo: Jason Falchook) |
The Gates is Adam Gopnik’s illuminating, heartfelt performance piece about family; specifically, about how a Montreal couple moved to the Big Apple in 1980 and made a home for themselves and their two children. If that seems dull, don’t worry; a fine essayist, Gopnik is a delightful spinner of tales about quotidian characters and events that glisten with wit and insight.
The Gates refers to several passages in Central Park, which Gopnik sees as both literal and symbolic for those coming to New York for the first time. His stories—which describe the absurdity in the everyday, like his losing the pants to the first suit he owned in the city or the laugh-out-loud bit about his misunderstanding what LOL means—are told in a chatty, easygoing manner, and Catherine Burns directs with no unnecessary flourishes. It’s just Gopnik at a microphone for 100 minutes, throwing open his gates for us to listen.
Under the Radar Festival
Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, New York, NY
publictheater.org