The Silence of the Lamb

Oh, my God, they didn't!

Sob. They killed Lamb!

I love me some Veronica Mars, but I'm not happy. Not happy at all. Not when the TV world's dumbest, funniest, most ridiculous and vaguely pathetic sheriff gets offed in some C-plot in the last few minutes of the latest episode. (Oh, and yeah, he was cute. OK. So sue me.)

But while Lamb was never going to be recruited by NASA, he was a great character, and I loved what he brought to the show. Not only was he a terrific counterpoint to Keith -- as the guy willing to compromise, willing to play politics, the incompetent who still wins out -- he was a wonderful and humorous foil for Veronica herself. Lamb had no compunction about questioning or arresting Veronica, and I always got the sense that it was on some level, in his eyes, truly for her own good. Veronica's gotten herself into some very dangerous scrapes, and while Lamb's brain was usually in hamster-wheel mode next to Veronica's lightspeed deductions, he was nevertheless one of the people legitimately telling her, "Be more careful or you're gonna get yourself killed."

I always thought Lamb was a necessary component to Veronica Mars's noir gallery of guys, dames and nitwits -- not least because, like everyone around him, he wasn't just a buffoon Bad-Cop cardboard cutout. The writing on this show's so good that even Lamb himself had layers. He memorably released Veronica and Logan, for instance, when he realized she had uncovered a case of child abuse -- very possibly bringing up memories of something he himself had suffered. Through just a few flickering expressions, we were allowed to see something behind Lamb's constant doltishness, that perhaps his love of order, even his preening facade, hid something wounded.

But this isn't just due to VM's smart writing, but also to the nuances brought to the character so wonderfully by actor Michael Muhney, who is one of the best actors working in television, in my book. Muhney's one of those who understands the way a camera works, and knows that even his smallest reaction will register on film.

So it was a joy to watch Lamb spar (well, sort of) verbally with Keith, or to wrestle with one of Keith's insults. Each time, if you look, you can see Lamb's eyes flicker as he registers the insult, reviews it mentally, takes it apart, completely misses its real meaning, and then shrugs, "Lame." And each time it's a little different. Sometimes he's a little slower. Other times, we think he may have actually gotten the gist. You never know. But thanks to Muhney, it was always funny, and always worth watching.

No pun intended, but Lamb was always a little lost, a little out of focus, using action to cover for indecision. I loved the fact that he was always so purposeful, as if this was a vital asset to any sheriff. Even if he didn't know what was going on, or had no evidence, or simply wanted a damn cup of coffee, he made sure to do it purposefully. If I'm going to be wrong, you could almost see him thinking, at least I'll be wrong with conviction. It was one of the hilarious paradoxes of Lamb being Lamb.

But as out of focus as Lamb could sometimes be, this made his few moments of clarity incredibly sharp. In this latest episode, for instance, he's bored, lazy, barely listening to Keith about his latest evidence in the Dean's murder. But the logic of Keith's evidence is unmistakable, and you almost see that moment in Muhney's eyes when Lamb snaps to attention. One minute, you can almost see the guy reviewing swimsuit calendars and Hungry Man Frozen Dinners in his head -- the next, his eyes snap to Keith's and he's as sharp as a laser, completely present. In that moment, he and Keith are both the same thing -- cops.

While I loved that the episode gave us a few moments of Lamb and Keith in sync, I hated the way Lamb went out, shooting at his own reflection and then getting brained with a baseball bat by a psycho Richard Grieco. I mean, really. Didn't Lamb deserve better than that? Although his last moments, muttering, "I smell bread," were all the more touching for being so random, so ordinary.

Me, I wish Lamb had gone out in a blaze of glory, chasing down the wrong suspect (a-GAIN), calling a bluff, or even bedding the wrong woman (or guy -- like many, I know I totally thought Lamb protested rather too much when it came to his heterosexuality). Anything but a thud to that poor empty noggin of his.

I'll miss Lamb, the Sugg to Veronica's Wimsey, the buffoon who never got it right. But here's wishing bigger and better things to the insanely talented Muhney, who made me care about Lamb now matter how frustrating he could be.

A Night at the Theatre

A friend of mine asked me the other day about what I felt was my greatest theatre experience thus far. I thought about it, and said, "The Weir." She said, "Huh?"

I saw it on my London trip, back in 1999, when I'd spent pretty much everything I'd gotten on a small merger to go to Europe for 3 or 4 weeks. Which also meant I got to immerse myself in London theatre, and it was awesome. I only wish I could have seen more.

One of the coolest things about visiting New York, for any theatre lover, is getting that sense that you're right in the middle of things -- right where it all happens. Well, in London that feeling is, if possible, even stronger. You're walking the streets of Shakespeare, of hundreds of years of some of the greatest plays and players ever to bring music to the English language.

When I went to London in 1999, I was on a budget that had to last me through several weeks and countries. But I had to grab some London theatre, and I started off with "Three Days of Rain," where I got to sit three feet from Colin Firth, David Morrissey, and Elizabeth McGovern at the Donmar Warehouse. The show is most famous recently for its NY performances starring Julia Roberts (and frankly it's totally a role I would cast her in).

But it all started badly. I was late to the show because my cab driver couldn't find it (I kept saying, "But it's the Donmar Warehouse! Sam Mendes!" etc. to no avail), so I had to go upstairs and watch the first act from the upstairs railing. I didn't mind -- the theatre is a three-quarter round, so the actors moved freely, and played expertly to the whole house (there wasn't a bad seat in it). We saw as good a show from upstairs as those in the front row -- something I can attest to personally, since I got to go back down to see things from my front-row bench seat for the second act.

As most people probably are when seeing movie stars acting onstage before them, I was struck by the difference in seeing an actor perform a role live, and in a different medium. People look so much younger onstage, and the physicality of theatre often adds a new grace, an unexpected beauty, that the movie camera captures in a different way. So I was struck by the fact that yes, Colin Firth is that tall. I mean, tall. Almost gaunt. But gorgeous, of course. He's more imposing, though, than he is onscreen, with sharper edges -- movies capture his face more softly, somehow. David Morrissey (whom I loved as the rather soft and easygoing hubby in the movie Hilary & Jackie as Hilary's husband) gave an absolutely electric performance -- smart and sharp as a razor playing the larger-than-life, impulsive rival, he managed to capture his scenes without a sense of showboating or scene-stealing. And then, of course, delicately, Firth would just quietly steal them back.

The most interesting thing about seeing "Rain" in London, though, for me, was how young and beautiful Elizabeth McGovern looked. It was a sharp reminder of the cruelties of film, and how film can magnify what the human eye cannot discern on its own. I had just seen McGovern in the film The Wings of the Dove, and while she was lovely as always, you could see the slight lines in her face, the crinkles at the corners of her eyes. She looked beautiful, but you could see the approach of that fortieth birthday around the edges. However, when I saw her live in "Three Days of Rain," just feet in front of me, she barely looked twenty-five (IMDb says that McGovern would have been about 36 in Wings of the Dove, and 38 when I saw her in "Rain"). She looked slender and girlish, and really stunning. It was interesting to realize how unrealistic and brutal film can be, and how it heightens or enhances things we regular folks wouldn't see at all.

My favorite theatre experience in London, though, was attending a show I'd never heard of. I'd bought a few tickets in advance -- to "Rain," and the London "Les Miz," just because I am a total sucker for that show (and it was really interesting -- I was expecting something a bit more staid than the American stagings but instead the London Les Miz was bawdier, sexier, funnier, and more outrageous. I missed seeing "Art" because I was gallivanting around Glastonbury Tor with a small sightseeing group, and our bus was late (I had a great time, so couldn't complain), meanwhile. For my last show in London, I basically just asked people, "What's everyone going to see right now?"

And the answer -- from the manager of my little hotel to the friendly cabbie driving me to Harrod's, was, "The Weir." So I did some checking, and sure enough, it was quietly seeling out almost every night. But I managed to get a great seat at the last minute (one of the advantages of geekily traveling alone), knowing nothing about the play -- and off I went.

And it was extraordinary -- a lesson for the playwright in me as well as the stagehand/director/whatever. A quiet, eerie, tense little play by Conor McPherson, "The Weir" takes place in a small-town Irish pub on a single evening. The men in the pub are in something of a tizzy over the arrival in town of a young woman, a divorcee, who will be visiting the pub that night. Old and young, each preens a bit, and plans to take her heart.

But when the young woman arrives, wrapped in some private despair, something very different happens. The men begin to trade stories -- ghost stories -- first, to entertain the woman, but also as if they cannot help it. The wild wind outside, the quietness of the pub -- it's an irresistible atmosphere, and soon the men are sharing stories they've never told anyone else. And each story is creepier than the last... until it turns out that the woman, too, has a ghost story to tell.

It was a great example of less being more. Here was the most popular play in London, and what was it? A few ghost stories told on a single set, by four or five characters, with the quiet howl of the wind outside. But it was fantastically written, in a mounting tension that stayed with me for days, and the acting and staging were all superb. The audience around me sat tense and still. I remember walking out of that theatre with a strange sense of vertigo -- that wonderful strange feeling that you have forgotten the world outside. That's what I call a great night at the theatre.