Paul Rudnick’s “Coastal Elites” Can Teach Us A Lot About Performance

Miriam Nessler is a retired NYC school teacher and a proud toter of many New Yorker tote bags. In Paul Rudnick’s “Coastal Elites,” Nessler (played by Bette Midler) delivers a caffeinated opening monologue — defending the theft and destruction of a bright-red cap with you know what embroidered in white thread.

Through an interrogation window, Nessler recounts her rushing up the stairs in the New York Public Theater, thrusting the MAGA cap overhead — a la Perseus and Balboa.

But, before we get here, we learn about Nessler’s life: her Judaism, left-leaning politics, affinity for the New York Times, deep-rooted hatred for Donald Trump. We learn that she’s an impressive polyglot in tote-bag signaling. And, we learn that she — unapologetically — doesn’t give a fuck.

Like many, I’ve spent many of my waking, quarantined hours catching up on classic and new movies alike. And, as I did with my college degree in English Literature and peripatetic career in food & wine, I’ve conjured up an eloquent defense to this apparent degeneratism — “but, this is meaningful.”

If you can’t tell, I do give a fuck — as much as I hate to admit it. I feel the need to defend my hours spent watching classic movies as I do my degree in reading books. As a teenager, I crafted a bulletproof apologia to my quitting sports to study jazz music. (“But, I’ll go to college for music performance!”) And the list goes on.

For 20-some years, proclamations of my passions and interests have been punctuated by contradictory conjunctions. And, in the world’s defense, this is no one’s fault but my own. Those of us who find interest in the paths less travelled — especially the arts — fall into this tendency: we feel the need to defend ourselves as if we’re under siege. Constantly.

I’m not qualified to tell you why; I am qualified to tell you it happens.

Rudnick’s film, which was originally written for the stage at the New York Public Theater, hit me like a scorching shot of espresso. I shuddered at a pleasant sourness and quickly stretched my eyes open — now glued, at attention. Maybe it was the shock of having a (sort-of) front-row seat to a Bette Midler performance. Or maybe I’ll value anything that talks shit on our president.

More likely — I was captivated by Miriam’s unpunctuated confidence. Here she was yelling about the importance of public art and The New York Times, stumbling over her own verbosity with agitation and excitement. (Rarely did she use the word “but.”)

In our lives, we all encounter the boldly audacious — those who truly don’t give a fuck. They do whatever they want; they have an understanding of themselves deeper than any of we regular people could fathom. Sometimes, we find this hard to believe. They’re too brave to be real: it must be an act.

“Coastal Elites” was met with reviews deeming it “hit or miss,” “preachy” — labeling the characters as unrelatably outrageous. The film has 55% on Rotten Tomatoes (reminiscent of my final grade in first-year Economics), designating it “Rotten.”

I told you: we find the confident hard to believe.

We find the bold unbelievable because we fear throwing ourselves at such audacity. We fear the possibility of being labeled failures, embarrassments, non-conformists — because, what if it all goes south?

More precisely, I think we fear throwing ourselves at… ourselves.

(At this point, I should let you know that I’m not qualified to diagnose deep-seated psychological tendencies. Nor am I qualified to diagnose literally anything. I’m just a writer with a hubris problem.)

I imagine Rudnick’s more aware of this fear than we expect. I imagine he’s writing directly to this part of us — the part of us discomforted by boldness and audacity. And, he’s doing so with steadfast nonchalance. The truth is: the success of Rudnick’s piece lies — firmly — in its outrageousness. His five characters, who all exist on some point of the far-left fringe, perform their selves with remarkable finesse. The key word here is “perform.”

Here’s an example:

Against a backdrop of flowers blowing in the wind, Clarissa Montgomery (played by Sarah Paulson) guides her YouTube viewers through mindfulness exercises. At the beginning of her session, she speaks directly, and with breathy poise, to the camera as it slowly pulls away from her. The frame widens, and we see her seated in an office chair (an odd fixture in vast field of wildflowers, I know) as her home becomes more apparent with every passing second.

She closes her eyes — the camera continuing to widen its frame — while embarking on one of many tangential rants. As she goes on about god-knows-what, her speech quickens and approaches a yell. And, at the moment when we expect an impassioned “storm the Bastille!,” she stops — recognizing her unprofessionalism. She opens her eyes, softens her voice, and launches back into the guided meditation.

It’s at this moment that we see the peeling apart of the performer and the performance. Throughout her monologue, Paulson’s character frequently loses her grip on the performance — drifting into verbose caveats and tangents. Each time, she realizes her mistake, readjusts her costume, mentally checks her script, and continues the show.

And continues the show.

Minutes later, her green screen comes crashing down — wildflowers flicker out of existence as if someone tripped mother nature’s master circuit — and we’re exposed to reality. She scrambles to reset her green screen, likely wondering if her viewers will pay for such a disorganized mess. Likely contemplating the ethics of gluing herself to a performance so contrived and idealistically profitable. But, the show goes on. Quickly, the flowers jolt back into illumination and regain their balance in the wind.

Toward the end of her meditation, in an almost-Shakespearean twist, her disjunct monologue turns into a soliloquy. She’s no longer speaking for an audience; she’s no longer guiding a meditation. The performance is botched.

It’s at this moment — at the very end of her performance — that we see Paulson embody a truly authentic character: a performer freed of her performance.

Rudnick and I don’t know each other personally. Though, I’d like think we’d get along. I’d like to think that, over a cup of coffee, we’d discuss the importance of performing the performance — as Hamlet did for both us viewers and the Queen of Denmark. I imagine we’d agree that a comedic mirror is the most poignant form of argumentation. I’d like to think that we’d burst into laughter, realizing how ridiculous it is we’d both committed to memory the line from As You Like It, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” I mean, who commits Shakespeare to memory these days? I mean, seriously.

I’d like to think he’d push me to pen an 800-page novel. I’d like to think he’d ask, “what are you waiting for?” (I’d thank him and, of course, quickly retort with a “but” clause.)

I’d also like to think he’d be touched by my kind words — floating to the surface amid a tumultuous sea of critical ambivalence.

But, more likely: he wouldn’t give a fuck.

And that’s the point.