Tag Archives: politics

Arts & Entertainment, Film & TV

Gyllenhaal’s Grassroots Puts the “Polar Bear” Back in Politics

June 22, Grassroots opens at the Harvard Exit on Capitol Hill, after having had its world premiere at SIFF. That’ll make the Harvard Exit a Gyllenhaal & Gyllenhaal establishment, since Maggie Gyllenhaal stars in Hysteria, which is running there right now, and Grassroots was directed by Gyllenhaal père, Stephen. Gyllenhaal will be at all showings of his movie from Friday, June 22 to Sunday, June 24.

As Stephen Gyllenhaal sees it, Grassroots is meant to be an inspiring film about the little guy pushing back–“even though ‘too big to fail’ wasn’t around when I started making Grassroots,” he writes at HuffPo, “the idea of a bully rationalizing his right to run a playground was.”

There’s a curious tension in Grassroots between this urge to broad-brush a heroic uprising against some suitably powerful figure, and the movie’s smaller-scale personalities, their tinpot aspirations and quixotic conflicts. As an example of tender rapprochement, there’s a late scene where one character accepts a ride in another’s car. In another director’s hands, that could be farce, or satire, but from Gyllenhaal, it feels like an implicit admonition for us all to grow up and work for the common good.

The story of Grassroots hews in reworked-for-movies fashion to the actual history of Grant Cogswell’s surprisingly unthought-out, one-issue run for Seattle City Council in 2001, against sitting Councilman Richard McIver. As the movie tells it, Monorail monomaniac Cogswell has no traction in his race, until his handler Phil Campbell hits upon the idea of getting free publicity by suing the City of Seattle. Chutzpah!

That plus Grant’s penchant for roaming around town in a polar bear suit–now part of a Twitter marketing strategy–is the sort of thing that energizes disaffected youth, who come out of the hipster woodwork to get involved in Cogswell’s campaign. Gyllenhaal gets, for what’s being called a comedy, a remarkably sober-sided performance from Jason Biggs as Campbell, the man who has to wrangle his obstreperous candidate, try to keep his relationship on life support, and ride herd on a gang on campaign volunteers.

Joel David Moore, though, never really hits his stride as Cogswell–he’s either fired up or sulky throughout much of the film, and he’s not very good at “fired up.” Cedric the Entertainer, as McIver, is far more congenial, thoughtful, and open to discussion, and you can’t shake the feeling that, yes, he’s a better politician than this crank.

Despite turning famed watering hole the Comet Tavern into a coffee house, Gyllenhaal otherwise keeps the movie’s visual sensibility fairly indie; people look suitably scruffy, the streets cold, the crisp mountains and early fall sunsets beautiful. Even Tom Arnold fits right in as a grumpy, harried bartender.

As Gyllenhaal points out, his set-in-2001 film points to much that would lie in the future: Even when he started work on it, he writes, “I couldn’t have predicted an Occupy Wall Street Movement and the issues it’s raised, nor the surreal Republican debates, Romney’s etch-a-sketch journey and the Democrats’ gentle drift towards the Tea Party.”

I’m not so sure prediction is the right word–these preoccupations, the tendency to construe events to fit a narrative, seem woven into Grassroots. Yes, Seattle and populism go together (we founded the Tea Party, after all) but when you look at what Gyllenhaal ignored from Phil Campbell’s book, Zioncheck for President, there’s a consistent up-with-youth-activism theme that came from somewhere besides burnt-out-wreck Campbell. He had penned a cautionary tale about being caught in the grip of charismatic ideologies and not dealing constructively with mental problems.

As he told Seattlest back in the day: “What did we accomplish? Nothing. We lost. Grant quit politics and I left town, end of story.” (That said, Campbell is equable when it comes to the distance between his and Gyllenhaal’s take: “Hollywood Gutted My Book, But That’s OK.”)

Personally, I like Campbell’s flamethrower approach, and miss the spectre of Marion Zioncheck, who hovered over Campbell’s tragicomedy to provide proof that as bad as things get, there’s usually someone out there who’s got it worse. It gave context to Cogswell’s rantings about the Monorail’s purity v. other modalities (this cannot play especially well with today’s hipster Seattleites who can’t wait for the  fatcats’ gold-plated lightrail to be extended). Besides, Campbell implicated himself in “going off the rails on the crazy train” that was the Cogswell campaign–and, by extension, the idea of being fired up too much by a charismatic or forceful leader.

For all its faults, Campbell’s book undertook to tell you the truth–about many things, including starting a campaign from scratch, the symptoms of bipolar disorder, transportation infrastructure, and the history of Northwest populism. Grassroots seems to want to dispense with the messiness in favor of a “small is beautiful” parable. It pulls this off, mostly (though, the introductions and exits for a few too many characters seem to have hit the editing room floor). With distance and time, it may even improve. It’s just hard not to imagine–knowing of the real-life Cogswell’s move to Mexico City–that that’s Gyllenhaal in the polar bear suit, shouting about things only beginning.

Arts & Entertainment, Theatre

Sex Life is the Highlight of Balagan’s “Death, Sex: Election Season”

With news coverage cutting from the farcical carnival of American partisanship to the unbearable struggles and atrocities of Syria, Death, Sex: Election Season, (through April 14 at the Erickson Theatre Off Broadway; tickets: $20) Balagan Theatre’s annual local playwrights showcase, fits the times to a tee.

Sex and Death are the constant in this series, with election season as this year’s theme.

There is little depth or insight in this evening of ten-minute plays beyond the conviction that politics makes fools of both leaders and electorate, and we’re all just playing at ridiculous and dangerous games. There are quite a few laughs in this and even a couple poignant moments of excellent writing.

The set is promising. A screen dominates the back wall, low platforms connect to the main playing area via steps, with furniture staged visibly at the sides and a band (Jake Groshong on guitar and vocals, Zac Stowell on drums) parked in the back corner. The simplicity and transparency suggest knowing forethought in the staging.

Simplicity is the strong suit in this form. The ten-minute play, the haiku of theatre, is a proving ground for playwrights. Every minute, every word and action, has to count in order to convey distinct lines, character, relationship and the changes that events bring to them. Alternatively a playwright might slap a disjointed wad of wackiness on the stage and at least keep the audience from boredom. Let deus-ex-machinas abound–and when all else fails just kill everyone on stage.

In Blood in the Water, Nik Doner manages to create both a hopeful vision and an impressively subtle depiction of some of the most faddish types in pop culture. Its goofiness remains a constant through much of the evening. Recount, by Ben McFadden, brings in the other dominant themes: paranoia and misperception.

Kelleen Conway Blanchard’s Amphrite is one of the weaker plays in the evening but Blanchard’s lush language (“…eyes like a monkfish and heads the size of Cadillacs”) almost makes up for it. Matt Smith wins on props alone with Mitt Romney meets the Sphinx.

The highlight of the evening is Wayne Rawley’s contribution, Sex Life. This tidy two-hander is a symphony, all but literally. A very efficient introduction sets off an A-B-A form that borders on repetitive but just manages to justify these two people remaining in one another’s company for as long as they do. It’s a risky piece, especially in its third movement, but playwright, cast and director hold it together.

Sex Life is remarkable in this line-up in that the politics element is not the politics of elections but the politics of the interpersonal. Rawley lays out a battle for sympathy in the utter simplicity of organic revelations. This is what makes all theatre political. It’s not activism, but the power of inspiring empathy for another. Seeing the world through another’s eyes rearranges our power structures and makes new realities tangible.

The second half of the evening largely dispenses with depth as the wacky factor increases. The deep end of the second act comes with Emily Conbere’s The Seeping, which has moments of poetry in its words, actions and relationships. Sadly Conbere undercuts her achievement by relying on obvious and clichéd metaphors. It’s Almost, Maine by way of the Berliner Ensemble.

Jesse Lee Keeter might be aspiring to depth with Election but the result is mostly just overwrought. There’s a lot of killing, stripping, and seduction and little of interest is said. As yet another murder became imminent at Thursday’s performance an audience member was heard whispering “Kill me, too!”

The final act, D.S.R. by Eric Lane Barnes, is an amusing riff on a curious statistic that feels like a dramatization of a stand-up bit. This seems buttoned-down and staid compared with the second act’s opener.

In Slim Pickings Lenore Bensinger seems to be channeling the Duke and Prince of Huckleberry Finn, which is not all bad. There is something appealing about a man portraying Ben Franklin by wearing a shirt, boxers and dildo belt while dancing to Hava Nagila like Arlecchino in Anatevka. It was all the more appealing on Thursday night in that the audience had to imagine hearing Hava Nagila (one presumes) due to technical difficulties—or possibly due to ingenious dramaturgy.

Given that the focus of the evening is on the work of the playwrights, it’s sufficient to say that the acting is never less than adequate and often is quite good. Standouts include Ahren Buhmann, Colleen Robertson, Curtis Eastwood, and Allison Standley.

Also notable is Mark Fullerton’s costume in D.S.R.—a model of efficient understatement—and a prop cat carrier in Mitt Romney Meets the Sphinx. While technical difficulties plagued much of the show, the band did lovely work. Not only did they cover the set changes with comically earnest takes on pop hits, they also provided sound effects. These were most effective in Recount. It’s enough to make one wish the many guns on stage had fired rim shots.