“Galas,” a play with music that tells the story of soprano Maria Callas, is surprisingly straightforward if not entirely straight. The current revival is a fun and affordable night out under the stars. Is it the same show that Charles Ludlam wrote and first performed in 1983 for his Ridiculous Theater Company? Yes and no.
In that low-budget production on the cramped stage of his literally underground theater in a basement beneath Sheridan Square, Ludlam lip-synched to recorded music. In the sleek and sumptuous new production in the spacious outdoor amphitheater on Little Island, the actual opera star Anthony Roth Costanzo sings live, and has expanded the repertoire of arias in the show.
Yet, all the real-life characters are given the same fictional and often fanciful names as in the original production: Maria Callas is still Maria Magdalena Galas. Aristotle Onassis, who was her lover, is still Aristotle Plato Socrates Odysseus. There is also still a frequent mismatch between the gender of the cast member and of the character that they’re portraying. And judging by their undergarments, the Pope has a secretive sado-masochistic relationship with the Prelate.
There are, in other words, still moments of silliness and outright camp in “Galas.” But there is something awkwardly out of sync about the campiest of these scenes; they feel almost obligatory, as if in homage to the Ridiculous reputation of Charles Ludlam, who died in 1987 at age 44. The irony here is that “Galas” was itself more than anything an homage to Callas, who had died in 1977 at age 53. Ludlam subtitled his play “A Modern Tragedy,” and was conscientious as director, writer and performer in communicating the drama of the diva’s life – her struggle to be taken seriously by the opera establishment, her eventual celebrity, both her insistence on performing roles beyond her natural range and her extreme weight loss, both of which had a negative impact on her voice and her health, her unfortunate taste in men; her early death (which in the play is fabricated to resemble the ending of an opera)
Director Eric Ting’s production puts more emphasis on the glamor and the humor than the drama. In the very first scene, Maria steps off the train station in Verona, having traveled from America for a concert early in her career, to be met by an opera fan who soon becomes her husband and business manager (Giovanni Battista Mercanteggini — in real life Giovanni Battista Meneghini – portrayed by Carmelita Tropicana.) Giovanni expects somebody glamorous, but instead gets somebody fat and dowdy. That, anyway, is how the character refers to herself, and her escort doesn’t contradict her. But there is no effort to make Costanza look fat or dowdy, so that her weight loss and glamorous makeover in a subsequent scene don’t really register.
What does register are Costanza’s costumes by Jackson Wiederhoeft, and the other characters’ costumes by Hanhnji Jang, Mimi Lien’s set, dominated by a large “GALAS” flashing different colors atop a Roman column, Costanza’s singing, Carmen Tropicano’s impersonation, and Mary Testa’s toned-down but still hilarious turn as Bruna Lina Rasta, Magdalena’s maid, a former opera star whose voice gave out. There was an opera star named Lina Bruna Rasa, whose mind gave out, but she was never Callas’s maid; she spent the last 35 years of her life in a mental institution. And, perhaps above all, there are some prime Ludlam lines that still work:
“What do I do from morning to night if I don’t have my career?” Mgdalena says right before the end. “ I have no family, I have no husband, I have no babies, I have no lover, I have no dog, I have no voice and there’s nothing good on television tonight.”
Galas
Little Island through September 28
Running time: 100 minutes, no intermission
Tickets: $25
Written by Charles Ludlam
Directed by: Eric Ting
Additional Music Selections by: Anthony Roth Costanzo
Choreography by Raja Feather Kelly, additional music selections by Costanzo, scenic design by Mimi Lien, costume design by Hahnji Jang, Costanzo’s costumes by Jackson Wiederhoeft, lighting design by Jiyoun Chang, sound design by Tei Blow, hair and wig design by Amanda Miller, makeup design by James Kaliardos, dialect coaching by Deborah Hecht, and casting by Taylor Williams.
Cast: Anthony Roth Costanzo as ‘Maria Magdalena Galas, Carmelita Tropicana as ‘Giovanni Baptista Mercanteggini,’ Mary Testa as ‘Bruna Lina Rasta,’ Caleb Eberhart as ‘Aristotle Plato Socrates Odysseus/Statuesque Beauty,’ Erin Markey as ‘Athina Odysseus,’ Patricia Black as ‘Hüre von Hoyden,’ Samora la Perdida as ‘Pope Sixtus VII/Fritalini/Ilka Winterhalter,’ Austin Durant as ‘Prelate/Ghingheri,’ and Jeremy Rafal as ‘Franco Cogliones/Ticket Seller/Waiter in Train Station.’
