Arts In LA
Arts In NY
Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812
Kazino
Reviewed by David Sheward
It sounds like a recipe for disaster: a sung-through musical adaptation of a section of War and Peace employing a contemporary pop-rock vocabulary and preceded by a dinner service in a nightclub atmosphere. But this challenging immersive experience manages to capture the raw universal emotions of Tolstoy’s sweeping classic in an intimate setting. It’s as if each audience member is in the opera box next to naïve Natasha Rostov when she first catches a glimpse of the devastatingly handsome Anatole Kuragin or in the sweaty, vibrant club where cerebral Pierre Bezukhov challenges the arrogant Dolokhov to a duel.
After a limited run at Ars Nova, the production has transferred to a specially constructed tent site near the West Side Highway. Patrons are squeezed together at tables and receive a preshow traditional Russian meal complete with borscht and vodka shots. The action, staged with dexterity by Rachel Chavkin, unfolds all around the audience and focuses on a few chapters in the massive novel—specifically, those concerning Natasha’s aborted romance to the already-married scoundrel Anatole and the efforts of Pierre, Anatole’s brother-in-law, to save the young girl from ruin. Mimi Lein’s colorful set, Paloma Young’s period costumes, and especially Bradley King’s poetic lighting contribute to the authentic atmosphere.
Dave Malloy’s score and orchestrations run the gamut from pop to rock to country and western, all in the modern vein. One might not think 21st century sounds would be effective in telling a 19th century story, but they succeed in delineating the passions and urges of Tolstoy’s characters, making them as real and immediate as any found in a hit HBO series or current box-office blockbuster. The harsh backbeat behind the tense first meeting of Natasha and Mary, her fiancé Andrey’s sister, perfectly conveys their animosity. Helene, Pierre’s sluttish wife, is given a Beyoncé-like anthem to the joys of Moscow nightlife; while Sonya, Natasha’s devoted cousin, delivers a soulful, country ballad that one can imagine Taylor Swift crooning.
Malloy also plays Pierre; his sandpaper baritone and bearish demeanor are ideal for the awkward yet tenderhearted would-be philosopher. The magnificent Phillipa Soo passionately depicts Natasha’s conflicting desires, first sentimental attachment for Andrey who is off fighting Napoleon, then intoxication for the devilish Anatole, and finally crushing despair when both desert her. The final scene between Natasha and Pierre where the latter confesses his love for the former, is accompanied by a simple piano progression. Malloy and Soo give it an equally direct rendition and it left me sobbing. Kudos as well to Brittain Ashford’s moving Sonya, Amber Gray’s sassy Helene, Lucas Steele’s charismatic Anatole, Gelsey Bell’s appealing Mary, Blake Delong’s sensitive Andrey, and Grace McLean’s haughty Marya D., Natasha’s godmother.
Along with Here Lies Love and Murder Ballad, Natasha and Pierre is charting new territory in musical staging, and adventurous theatergoers will want to make the journey.
Kazino
Reviewed by David Sheward
Photo by Ben Arons
It sounds like a recipe for disaster: a sung-through musical adaptation of a section of War and Peace employing a contemporary pop-rock vocabulary and preceded by a dinner service in a nightclub atmosphere. But this challenging immersive experience manages to capture the raw universal emotions of Tolstoy’s sweeping classic in an intimate setting. It’s as if each audience member is in the opera box next to naïve Natasha Rostov when she first catches a glimpse of the devastatingly handsome Anatole Kuragin or in the sweaty, vibrant club where cerebral Pierre Bezukhov challenges the arrogant Dolokhov to a duel.
After a limited run at Ars Nova, the production has transferred to a specially constructed tent site near the West Side Highway. Patrons are squeezed together at tables and receive a preshow traditional Russian meal complete with borscht and vodka shots. The action, staged with dexterity by Rachel Chavkin, unfolds all around the audience and focuses on a few chapters in the massive novel—specifically, those concerning Natasha’s aborted romance to the already-married scoundrel Anatole and the efforts of Pierre, Anatole’s brother-in-law, to save the young girl from ruin. Mimi Lein’s colorful set, Paloma Young’s period costumes, and especially Bradley King’s poetic lighting contribute to the authentic atmosphere.
Dave Malloy’s score and orchestrations run the gamut from pop to rock to country and western, all in the modern vein. One might not think 21st century sounds would be effective in telling a 19th century story, but they succeed in delineating the passions and urges of Tolstoy’s characters, making them as real and immediate as any found in a hit HBO series or current box-office blockbuster. The harsh backbeat behind the tense first meeting of Natasha and Mary, her fiancé Andrey’s sister, perfectly conveys their animosity. Helene, Pierre’s sluttish wife, is given a Beyoncé-like anthem to the joys of Moscow nightlife; while Sonya, Natasha’s devoted cousin, delivers a soulful, country ballad that one can imagine Taylor Swift crooning.
Malloy also plays Pierre; his sandpaper baritone and bearish demeanor are ideal for the awkward yet tenderhearted would-be philosopher. The magnificent Phillipa Soo passionately depicts Natasha’s conflicting desires, first sentimental attachment for Andrey who is off fighting Napoleon, then intoxication for the devilish Anatole, and finally crushing despair when both desert her. The final scene between Natasha and Pierre where the latter confesses his love for the former, is accompanied by a simple piano progression. Malloy and Soo give it an equally direct rendition and it left me sobbing. Kudos as well to Brittain Ashford’s moving Sonya, Amber Gray’s sassy Helene, Lucas Steele’s charismatic Anatole, Gelsey Bell’s appealing Mary, Blake Delong’s sensitive Andrey, and Grace McLean’s haughty Marya D., Natasha’s godmother.
Along with Here Lies Love and Murder Ballad, Natasha and Pierre is charting new territory in musical staging, and adventurous theatergoers will want to make the journey.
May 19, 2013
May
16–Sept. 1. Kazino, W. 13th and Washington sts., NYC. Tue 7pm, Wed 2pm
& 8pm, Thu-Fri 8pm, Sat 2pm & 8pm, Sun 2pm & 7pm. Two hours
and 30 minutes, including intermission. $125-175 (including meal).
(866) 811-4111.
www.ovationtix.com
www.ovationtix.com
Here Lies Love
The Public Theater
Reviewed by David Sheward
Ruthie Ann Miles
Pop, rock, disco, politics, and stunning theatrical imagination combine in this innovative musical now at the Public Theater. This bracingly original event—one hesitates to call it something as ordinary as a show—stretches the musical genre in form and content. Conceived by David Bryne of Talking Heads and employing a richly evocative score by Byrne, Fatboy Slim, Tom Gandey, and J Pardo, Here Lies Love tells the story of Imelda Marcos’s relentless rise to power as first lady of the Philippines. It’s significant that Byrne does not indulge in an obvious comedy number about his subject’s famous shoe collection. Neither he, his musical collaborators, nor the ingenious staging of Alex Timbers stoops to such clichés.
Timbers, who has done similarly creative work with such productions as Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and Peter and the Starcatcher, and set designer David Korins have reconfigured the Public’s LuEsther Hall into a disco floor. Moving platforms are taken apart and fit together like jigsaw puzzle pieces to provide multiple playing areas for the story of Imelda’s progression from small-town beauty queen to ruthless queen bee of her husband’s brutal administration. Peter Nigrini’s graphic projections and Justin Townsend’s flashy lighting augment Timbers’s ingenious staging and Annie-B Parson’s 1980s-flavored choreography. The small audience—the space only holds 160—remains standing throughout the piece’s 90 minutes and becomes a part of the action as the actors move through the crowd, involving them in dance patterns, political rallies, and finally, an unspeakably passionate and simple tribute to the slain opposition leader Aquino and a celebration of the eventual overthrow of the Marcos regime.
The lead role is given complexity and depth by Ruthie Ann Miles, who manages to make this monster of privilege somewhat sympathetic. Her Imelda is not the usual Cruella De Vil stereotype with a shoe fetish but an entitled, attractive brat who believes what’s best for her is best for her country. The score’s catchy Top 40 sound makes ironic commentary on Imelda’s narcissistic relationship with her adoring public. Like a softer, gentler Evita, she seduces the population with tender, soothing melodies and caressing lyrics, while Ferdinand Marcos, her ruthless spouse, is made into an equally charismatic, deceptively romantic figure by the glitteringly handsome Jose Llana. Aquino (a dynamic Conrad Ricamora) is given more intense, forceful rallying cries, and Imelda’s childhood friend Estrella (a soulful Melody Butiu) delivers yearning ballads imploring her former pal to return to her modest roots.
Along with a vibrant ensemble playing multiple roles, these principals create a shattering, highly stylized history of a national tragedy, which somehow leaves you singing and dancing as you exit the theater. That’s a rare feat and one that deserves to be experienced by as large as an audience as possible. Hopefully, Here Lies Love will rise and have a life beyond its limited run.
The Public Theater
Reviewed by David Sheward
Ruthie Ann Miles
Photo by Joan Marcus
Pop, rock, disco, politics, and stunning theatrical imagination combine in this innovative musical now at the Public Theater. This bracingly original event—one hesitates to call it something as ordinary as a show—stretches the musical genre in form and content. Conceived by David Bryne of Talking Heads and employing a richly evocative score by Byrne, Fatboy Slim, Tom Gandey, and J Pardo, Here Lies Love tells the story of Imelda Marcos’s relentless rise to power as first lady of the Philippines. It’s significant that Byrne does not indulge in an obvious comedy number about his subject’s famous shoe collection. Neither he, his musical collaborators, nor the ingenious staging of Alex Timbers stoops to such clichés.
Timbers, who has done similarly creative work with such productions as Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and Peter and the Starcatcher, and set designer David Korins have reconfigured the Public’s LuEsther Hall into a disco floor. Moving platforms are taken apart and fit together like jigsaw puzzle pieces to provide multiple playing areas for the story of Imelda’s progression from small-town beauty queen to ruthless queen bee of her husband’s brutal administration. Peter Nigrini’s graphic projections and Justin Townsend’s flashy lighting augment Timbers’s ingenious staging and Annie-B Parson’s 1980s-flavored choreography. The small audience—the space only holds 160—remains standing throughout the piece’s 90 minutes and becomes a part of the action as the actors move through the crowd, involving them in dance patterns, political rallies, and finally, an unspeakably passionate and simple tribute to the slain opposition leader Aquino and a celebration of the eventual overthrow of the Marcos regime.
The lead role is given complexity and depth by Ruthie Ann Miles, who manages to make this monster of privilege somewhat sympathetic. Her Imelda is not the usual Cruella De Vil stereotype with a shoe fetish but an entitled, attractive brat who believes what’s best for her is best for her country. The score’s catchy Top 40 sound makes ironic commentary on Imelda’s narcissistic relationship with her adoring public. Like a softer, gentler Evita, she seduces the population with tender, soothing melodies and caressing lyrics, while Ferdinand Marcos, her ruthless spouse, is made into an equally charismatic, deceptively romantic figure by the glitteringly handsome Jose Llana. Aquino (a dynamic Conrad Ricamora) is given more intense, forceful rallying cries, and Imelda’s childhood friend Estrella (a soulful Melody Butiu) delivers yearning ballads imploring her former pal to return to her modest roots.
Along with a vibrant ensemble playing multiple roles, these principals create a shattering, highly stylized history of a national tragedy, which somehow leaves you singing and dancing as you exit the theater. That’s a rare feat and one that deserves to be experienced by as large as an audience as possible. Hopefully, Here Lies Love will rise and have a life beyond its limited run.
May 12, 2013
Apr.
23–June 30. Public Theater, 425 Lafayette St., NYC. Tue 8pm, Wed 2pm
& 8pm, Thu-Fri 8pm, Sat 5pm & 9:30pm, Sun 2pm & 7pm. Running
time 90 minutes. $80.50-95.50. (212) 967-7555.
www.publictheater.org
www.publictheater.org
Orphans
Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Tom Sturridge, Ben Foster, and Alec Baldwin
It’s easy to see why the 1985 Off-Broadway production of this Lyle Kessler play launched the reputation of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company, had such a long run, and inspired so many productions across the US and around the world. It has both economy and excitement: three characters, one set, a running time of less than two hours, and lots of opportunities for the kind of pyrotechnic dramatic violence that Mamet and Pinter have made famous. In its Broadway premiere, we get to see some of those thespian fireworks, but the full impact of Kessler’s shattering tale of little boys lost is lost amid the craving for audience affection.
The simple plot entails the kind of power plays and sketchy relationships seen in Mamet’s American Buffalo and Pinter’s The Homecoming. Siblings Treat and Philip, abandoned by their parents and having fallen through the cracks of the system, live a feral existence in a rundown North Philadelphia row house. Overprotective and sociopathic Treat steals to supply his animal-like kid brother with tuna fish and mayonnaise. Gentle Philip is terrified of leaving this hovel (designed with ramshackle artistry by John Lee Beatty) because Treat has convinced him he’s allergic to everything outside.
The dynamics in this dysfunctional, makeshift family change when Treat kidnaps blustering businessman Harold, who turns out to be a gangster. The seemingly benevolent Harold is a cold, calculating killer who could eat these boys for breakfast. But, being an orphan himself, he longs to become a father figure to them and moves in. Gradually, Treat becomes jealous of Harold’s role as Philip’s mentor and protector and he rebels with catastrophic results.
For this new production, director Daniel Sullivan strives to balance the potentially hilarious Tarantino-like antics of the characters with their heartbreaking yearning to connect with each other. But he’s thwarted by the real muscle of the venture, Alec Baldwin. As Harold, the popular sitcom star and Capitol One pitchman cravenly plays for our laughs and love. Baldwin seems to saying, “Look at this guy, isn’t he a kook?” with his obvious performance.
Fortunately, Ben Foster and Tom Sturridge sink into their roles of Treat and Philip rather than standing aloofly outside of them as Baldwin does. Foster is truly frightening as the powder-keg elder brother, ready to go off at the slightest provocation. But he’ll rip your heart out when Treat’s fragile support system is pulled away and he has nothing to hold on to. Sturridge is equally moving, and he gives Philip a fascinating physical life, a combination of monkey and cat as he leaps from couch to chair to stairway. These two actors give rich life to Kessler’s work and almost make up for Baldwin’s mugging.
Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Tom Sturridge, Ben Foster, and Alec BaldwinPhoto by Joan Marcus
It’s easy to see why the 1985 Off-Broadway production of this Lyle Kessler play launched the reputation of Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company, had such a long run, and inspired so many productions across the US and around the world. It has both economy and excitement: three characters, one set, a running time of less than two hours, and lots of opportunities for the kind of pyrotechnic dramatic violence that Mamet and Pinter have made famous. In its Broadway premiere, we get to see some of those thespian fireworks, but the full impact of Kessler’s shattering tale of little boys lost is lost amid the craving for audience affection.
The simple plot entails the kind of power plays and sketchy relationships seen in Mamet’s American Buffalo and Pinter’s The Homecoming. Siblings Treat and Philip, abandoned by their parents and having fallen through the cracks of the system, live a feral existence in a rundown North Philadelphia row house. Overprotective and sociopathic Treat steals to supply his animal-like kid brother with tuna fish and mayonnaise. Gentle Philip is terrified of leaving this hovel (designed with ramshackle artistry by John Lee Beatty) because Treat has convinced him he’s allergic to everything outside.
The dynamics in this dysfunctional, makeshift family change when Treat kidnaps blustering businessman Harold, who turns out to be a gangster. The seemingly benevolent Harold is a cold, calculating killer who could eat these boys for breakfast. But, being an orphan himself, he longs to become a father figure to them and moves in. Gradually, Treat becomes jealous of Harold’s role as Philip’s mentor and protector and he rebels with catastrophic results.
For this new production, director Daniel Sullivan strives to balance the potentially hilarious Tarantino-like antics of the characters with their heartbreaking yearning to connect with each other. But he’s thwarted by the real muscle of the venture, Alec Baldwin. As Harold, the popular sitcom star and Capitol One pitchman cravenly plays for our laughs and love. Baldwin seems to saying, “Look at this guy, isn’t he a kook?” with his obvious performance.
Fortunately, Ben Foster and Tom Sturridge sink into their roles of Treat and Philip rather than standing aloofly outside of them as Baldwin does. Foster is truly frightening as the powder-keg elder brother, ready to go off at the slightest provocation. But he’ll rip your heart out when Treat’s fragile support system is pulled away and he has nothing to hold on to. Sturridge is equally moving, and he gives Philip a fascinating physical life, a combination of monkey and cat as he leaps from couch to chair to stairway. These two actors give rich life to Kessler’s work and almost make up for Baldwin’s mugging.
April 30, 2013
Apr.
18–June 30. Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, 236 W. 45th St., NYC. Mon-Tue
7pm, Wed 2pm & 8pm, Thu-Fri 8pm, Sat 2pm & 8pm, Sun 3pm. Running
time 1 hour and 45 minutes, intermission. $67–132. (800) 432-7200.
www.telecharge.com
www.telecharge.com
The Trip to Bountiful
Stephen Sondheim Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Vanessa Williams, Cicely Tyson, and Cuba Gooding Jr.
“How did we get to this place?” Carrie Watts asks her son Ludie as they stand before the ruined house they used to live in. It’s a shattering question, as both have arrived at miserable stations in life through unlucky circumstances. Since her farming land played out, the elderly Carrie has turned into a quarrelsome crone, confined in a stuffy city, while Ludie is just now getting back on his feet after a long-term illness cost him his job. In the new revival of Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful, the question has added resonance because the Watts family is cast with African-American actors. The weight of racism is subtly suggested in Michael Wilson’s moving staging of this 1953 drama, yet it’s definitely there. But the nontraditional casting is just one element in a splendid revival that provides a triumphant return to Broadway for Cicely Tyson, whose age has been reported as anywhere from 79 to 88. No matter what her true age is, Tyson gradually sheds years as Carrie rediscovers her dignity on her journey.
The role has proved a showcase for such luminous stars as Lillian Gish (the 1953 original TV version and Broadway adaptation the same year), Geraldine Page (an Oscar winner for the 1985 film), and Lois Smith (an Obie and Drama Desk winner for the 2005 Signature Theatre revival, also helmed by Wilson). It’s no wonder. Carrie gets to comically spar with her disagreeable daughter-in-law, reveal her tragic girlhood romance in a long monologue, physically confront a sheriff, and undergo an epiphany of understanding as she accepts her situation and makes the best of it.
Not much happens in Foote’s poetic evocation of ordinary lives. Carrie cannot stand sharing a two-room Houston apartment with Ludie and his self-absorbed wife, Jessie Mae. With her pension check safely secured in her bra, Carrie takes a bus ride to Bountiful, the now-deserted town of her youth on the Gulf of Mexico. Along the journey, she meets a lonely Army bride and that sheriff who turns out to be sympathetic, and finally confronts her past dreams. At the bus station, we encounter the signs of the segregated South where Carrie must wait in the “colored only” area and purchase her ticket from a separate counter from white passengers. Wilson and his set designer, Jeff Cowie, wisely downplay these elements and let them just be a natural part of the Watts’s world.
Tyson overplays the comic aspects of Carrie early on—hiding her pension check with an elaborate flourish, for example. But she gradually abandons this tact (as Wilson does in his staging) and allows Foote’s simple eloquence to seep into her performance. When she directly delivers the soliloquy explaining why Carrie never married the man she really loved, you can feel her heart breaking, and yours will too. By the end of the trip, Tyson is truly luminous, radiating Carrie’s joy after redeeming her self-worth. Cuba Gooding Jr., in his Broadway debut, fully exposes Ludie’s sorrow at his perceived failures, but he also remembers this man really loves both his burdensome mother and his selfish wife. Vanessa Williams keeps the contentious Jessie Mae from becoming a villain. This is a woman in middle age who was a beauty queen and is still used to be treated like a princess because of her looks.
Condola Rashad has many sweet and understated moments as Thelma, Carrie’s traveling companion, as does Tom Wopat as the sheriff with an unexpected love of birds. Veteran Arthur French makes the small role of a train station attendant memorable. Along with Cowie’s evocative setting and Rui Rita’s romantic lighting, the cast and director weave a tapestry of ordinary Americans, seeking home and making due when dreams are no longer sustainable.
Stephen Sondheim Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Vanessa Williams, Cicely Tyson, and Cuba Gooding Jr.Photo by Joan Marcus
“How did we get to this place?” Carrie Watts asks her son Ludie as they stand before the ruined house they used to live in. It’s a shattering question, as both have arrived at miserable stations in life through unlucky circumstances. Since her farming land played out, the elderly Carrie has turned into a quarrelsome crone, confined in a stuffy city, while Ludie is just now getting back on his feet after a long-term illness cost him his job. In the new revival of Horton Foote’s The Trip to Bountiful, the question has added resonance because the Watts family is cast with African-American actors. The weight of racism is subtly suggested in Michael Wilson’s moving staging of this 1953 drama, yet it’s definitely there. But the nontraditional casting is just one element in a splendid revival that provides a triumphant return to Broadway for Cicely Tyson, whose age has been reported as anywhere from 79 to 88. No matter what her true age is, Tyson gradually sheds years as Carrie rediscovers her dignity on her journey.
The role has proved a showcase for such luminous stars as Lillian Gish (the 1953 original TV version and Broadway adaptation the same year), Geraldine Page (an Oscar winner for the 1985 film), and Lois Smith (an Obie and Drama Desk winner for the 2005 Signature Theatre revival, also helmed by Wilson). It’s no wonder. Carrie gets to comically spar with her disagreeable daughter-in-law, reveal her tragic girlhood romance in a long monologue, physically confront a sheriff, and undergo an epiphany of understanding as she accepts her situation and makes the best of it.
Not much happens in Foote’s poetic evocation of ordinary lives. Carrie cannot stand sharing a two-room Houston apartment with Ludie and his self-absorbed wife, Jessie Mae. With her pension check safely secured in her bra, Carrie takes a bus ride to Bountiful, the now-deserted town of her youth on the Gulf of Mexico. Along the journey, she meets a lonely Army bride and that sheriff who turns out to be sympathetic, and finally confronts her past dreams. At the bus station, we encounter the signs of the segregated South where Carrie must wait in the “colored only” area and purchase her ticket from a separate counter from white passengers. Wilson and his set designer, Jeff Cowie, wisely downplay these elements and let them just be a natural part of the Watts’s world.
Tyson overplays the comic aspects of Carrie early on—hiding her pension check with an elaborate flourish, for example. But she gradually abandons this tact (as Wilson does in his staging) and allows Foote’s simple eloquence to seep into her performance. When she directly delivers the soliloquy explaining why Carrie never married the man she really loved, you can feel her heart breaking, and yours will too. By the end of the trip, Tyson is truly luminous, radiating Carrie’s joy after redeeming her self-worth. Cuba Gooding Jr., in his Broadway debut, fully exposes Ludie’s sorrow at his perceived failures, but he also remembers this man really loves both his burdensome mother and his selfish wife. Vanessa Williams keeps the contentious Jessie Mae from becoming a villain. This is a woman in middle age who was a beauty queen and is still used to be treated like a princess because of her looks.
Condola Rashad has many sweet and understated moments as Thelma, Carrie’s traveling companion, as does Tom Wopat as the sheriff with an unexpected love of birds. Veteran Arthur French makes the small role of a train station attendant memorable. Along with Cowie’s evocative setting and Rui Rita’s romantic lighting, the cast and director weave a tapestry of ordinary Americans, seeking home and making due when dreams are no longer sustainable.
April 24, 2013
Opened
April 23 for an open run. Stephen Sondheim Theatre, 124 W. 43rs St.,
NYC.
Tue 7pm, Wed 2pm & 7pm, Thu 7pm, Fri 8pm, Sat 2pm & 8pm, Sun
3pm. Running time 2 hours and 20 minutes, including intermission.
$37–142. (880) 432-7250.
www.telecharge.com
www.telecharge.com
The Assembled Parties
Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Jessica Hecht, Jeremy Shamos, and Judith Light
“It’s like the sets of those plays you love with the breezy dialogue,” says Jeff, an earnest young man describing the elegant and cavernous Upper West Side apartment belonging to the parents of his school friend Scotty, in The Assembled Parties, Richard Greenberg’s sweet but ultimately uneven new play on the yearning for familial connection. Jeff, who is visiting for Christmas in 1980 and on the phone to his mother, is attempting to capture the enchantment the apartment and its inhabitants, the Boscovs, have for him. The playwright is also self-consciously referencing a style of theater—long gone even in 1980—where patrician characters exchange scintillating quips over martinis. Greenberg, like Jeff, longs for that kind of world and mourns its passing in this play, as he has in others such as The American Plan and The Violet Hour, which were also presented by Manhattan Theatre Club.
The main source of Jeff’s idolization is Scotty’s graceful mother Julie, a former film star who seems to effortlessly glide through life, thanks in part to her wealthy husband, Ben. Her biggest disappointment is charismatic Scotty’s noncommittal attitude toward his future, but even that doesn’t upset her too much. Not so lucky is Ben’s sister Faye, saddled with an unhappy marriage to the brutish Mort and a terrible relationship with her intellectually challenged daughter Shelley. As the clan gathers for the yuletide feast while Scotty’s little brother Timmy is in bed with the flu, additional strands of plot involving blackmail, prostitution, and intrigue between Ben and Mort are revealed. After intermission, we jump ahead 20 years to Christmas 2000, and seeds planted in the first act bear fruit. Jeff, now a corporate lawyer, has assumed the role of family caretaker, Julie and Faye are widows, Scotty has died (apparently of AIDS from a tainted blood transfusion), and the grown-up Timmy has a pregnant girlfriend. Despite financial troubles, the survivors resolve to live together in the huge apartment as ends are tied up a bit too neatly.
Greenberg delivers numerous dazzlingly funny bits of dialogue (“Republican Jews? What is that—It’s like skinny fat people,” complains Faye), but there are an equal number of stilted lines. The multiple plots, especially one involving a mysterious piece of jewelry, and the arched references come across as pretentious and contrived. The author touches on the characters’ conflicted sense of identity and their attitudes toward their Jewishness but fails to develop this theme. The question of their celebrating Christmas rather than Hanukah is never quite addressed. Jeff, the emotional core of the play, is underdeveloped. Other than the one phone call to his mother, we find out very little about him. Does he really have nothing else going on in his life other than the tribulations of a school chum’s family?
Greenberg is primarily interested in his leading ladies, Julie and Faye, and fortunately, they are brought to warm, vital life by reliable veterans Jessica Hecht and Judith Light respectively. Hecht manages to make Julie’s obliviousness endearing, and Light expertly delivers Faye’s numerous wisecracks. Jeremy Shamos endows Jeff with reams of subtext the playwright fails to provide and almost succeeds in getting us to care about him. Lauren Blumenfeld gives the dim Shelley a welcome nasty bite. Jonathan Walker and the excellent Mark Blum are largely wasted in the roles of Ben and Mort. Jake Silberman does differentiate his dual roles of Scotty and Tim, and strongly peruses the latter’s objective—hiding his girlfriend from his family.
The production, directed with a sure and loving hand by MTC’s artistic director Lynne Meadow, is gorgeously realized by set designer Santo Loquasto and costume designer Jane Greenwood. Meadow skillfully paces and blocks the family on Loquasto’s set, which revolves in Act 1 and remains stationary in Act 2. Sensitively lit by Peter Kaczorowski, the world of the play is indeed seductively beautiful, suggesting a society based on faded but alluring chic. But when a stage apartment is more interesting than the people in it, that’s a problem.
Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Jessica Hecht, Jeremy Shamos, and Judith Light
Photo by Joan Marcus
“It’s like the sets of those plays you love with the breezy dialogue,” says Jeff, an earnest young man describing the elegant and cavernous Upper West Side apartment belonging to the parents of his school friend Scotty, in The Assembled Parties, Richard Greenberg’s sweet but ultimately uneven new play on the yearning for familial connection. Jeff, who is visiting for Christmas in 1980 and on the phone to his mother, is attempting to capture the enchantment the apartment and its inhabitants, the Boscovs, have for him. The playwright is also self-consciously referencing a style of theater—long gone even in 1980—where patrician characters exchange scintillating quips over martinis. Greenberg, like Jeff, longs for that kind of world and mourns its passing in this play, as he has in others such as The American Plan and The Violet Hour, which were also presented by Manhattan Theatre Club.
The main source of Jeff’s idolization is Scotty’s graceful mother Julie, a former film star who seems to effortlessly glide through life, thanks in part to her wealthy husband, Ben. Her biggest disappointment is charismatic Scotty’s noncommittal attitude toward his future, but even that doesn’t upset her too much. Not so lucky is Ben’s sister Faye, saddled with an unhappy marriage to the brutish Mort and a terrible relationship with her intellectually challenged daughter Shelley. As the clan gathers for the yuletide feast while Scotty’s little brother Timmy is in bed with the flu, additional strands of plot involving blackmail, prostitution, and intrigue between Ben and Mort are revealed. After intermission, we jump ahead 20 years to Christmas 2000, and seeds planted in the first act bear fruit. Jeff, now a corporate lawyer, has assumed the role of family caretaker, Julie and Faye are widows, Scotty has died (apparently of AIDS from a tainted blood transfusion), and the grown-up Timmy has a pregnant girlfriend. Despite financial troubles, the survivors resolve to live together in the huge apartment as ends are tied up a bit too neatly.
Greenberg delivers numerous dazzlingly funny bits of dialogue (“Republican Jews? What is that—It’s like skinny fat people,” complains Faye), but there are an equal number of stilted lines. The multiple plots, especially one involving a mysterious piece of jewelry, and the arched references come across as pretentious and contrived. The author touches on the characters’ conflicted sense of identity and their attitudes toward their Jewishness but fails to develop this theme. The question of their celebrating Christmas rather than Hanukah is never quite addressed. Jeff, the emotional core of the play, is underdeveloped. Other than the one phone call to his mother, we find out very little about him. Does he really have nothing else going on in his life other than the tribulations of a school chum’s family?
Greenberg is primarily interested in his leading ladies, Julie and Faye, and fortunately, they are brought to warm, vital life by reliable veterans Jessica Hecht and Judith Light respectively. Hecht manages to make Julie’s obliviousness endearing, and Light expertly delivers Faye’s numerous wisecracks. Jeremy Shamos endows Jeff with reams of subtext the playwright fails to provide and almost succeeds in getting us to care about him. Lauren Blumenfeld gives the dim Shelley a welcome nasty bite. Jonathan Walker and the excellent Mark Blum are largely wasted in the roles of Ben and Mort. Jake Silberman does differentiate his dual roles of Scotty and Tim, and strongly peruses the latter’s objective—hiding his girlfriend from his family.
The production, directed with a sure and loving hand by MTC’s artistic director Lynne Meadow, is gorgeously realized by set designer Santo Loquasto and costume designer Jane Greenwood. Meadow skillfully paces and blocks the family on Loquasto’s set, which revolves in Act 1 and remains stationary in Act 2. Sensitively lit by Peter Kaczorowski, the world of the play is indeed seductively beautiful, suggesting a society based on faded but alluring chic. But when a stage apartment is more interesting than the people in it, that’s a problem.
April 18, 2013
Apr.
17–June 2. Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, 261 W. 47th St., NYC. Tue 7pm,
Wed 2pm & 8pm, Thu-Fri 8pm, Sat 2pm & 8pm, Sun 2pm. Running time
2 hours and 30 minutes, including intermission. $67–120. (800)
432-7250
www.telecharge.com
www.telecharge.com
Motown the Musical
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Brandon Victor Dixon and Bryan Terrell Clark
The song list alone is staggering. More than 50 titles are crammed into Motown the Musical, the new retrospective jukebox musical celebrating the legendary R&B entertainment giant. If this were a revue, there would be no problem with the embarrassment of riches. But it’s a book musical purporting to tell the story of Motown’s founder Berry Gordy Jr., from his early days as a struggling songwriter to his final triumph as head of a multimillion-dollar brand. Gordy is not only the main character, he’s also the author of the book, which is based on his memoir To Be Loved: The Music, The Magic, The Memories of Motown. His libretto, dotted with dozens of hits from the label’s stunning history, comes across as an antidote to Dreamgirls, the fictional version of the label’s rise and that of its biggest stars Diana Ross and the Supremes. In that fabulous show, the Gordy character is conniving and manipulative. Here he’s a saint whose worst flaw is his tremendous work ethic.
The story starts with the conventional choice of a TV special commemorating Motown’s 25th anniversary. An embattled Gordy, fighting to keep his company from being swallowed up by conglomerates, refuses to attend. As his numerous co-workers and artists including Smokey Robinson attempt to persuade Gordy to make an appearance, he naturally flashes back to his Detroit childhood in 1938 and we’re off on a memory tour. We race through the beginnings of Motown, tours through the segregated South, guest shots on The Ed Sullivan Show, Gordy’s stormy romance with Diana Ross, the turbulent ’60s, race riots, the discovery of the Jackson Five, movie production with Lady Sings the Blues, reinvention with funk, and on and dizzingly on.
So much music and incident is stuffed into the show’s two hours and 45 minutes, it’s like one of those PBS fundraisers on which hot groups from the past alternate with testimonials on how wonderful the producing entity is. But Motown’s main audience probably will not be musical theater purists but fans of the catalogue who will want to relive their youth. That’s the appeal of still-running smashes that include Mamma Mia! and Jersey Boys, and Motown will probably be joining them on the hit list.
Thanks to a spectacularly talented cast, efficient direction by Charles Randolph-Wright, Peter Hylenski’s superb sound design, and the flashy choreography by Patricia Wilcox and Warren Adams, even though the book falls short, Motown does not disappoint musically. The re-creation of gold-plated standards “Stop in the Name of Love,” “My Momma Told Me,” and “Do You Love Me” at least evoke the originals. There are a few moments that are more than just “Greatest Hits” retreads, though. Bryan Terrell Clark channels the aching despair of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Goin’ On,” while young Raymond Luke Jr. (who alternates with Jibreel Mawry) delivers an amazing Michael Jackson on “I’ll Be There.” Marva Hicks, Saycon Sengbloh, and Ariana DeBose also display impressive voices. The sequence depicting the Motortown Revue’s 1962 performance in a hostile Birmingham, Ala., imparts simmering racial tension and breaks out of the show’s breakneck, “Let’s hit all the high points” pattern.
Valisia LeKae has Diana Ross’s vocals down pat, but in her extensive book scenes, LeKae is imitating Ross rather than playing her. As Gordy, Brandon Victor Dixon has the onerous task of carrying the heavy storyline while the rest of the company gets to cut loose and just sing their lungs out. An experienced professional, Dixon pulls his difficult assignment off with flair, endowing this cardboard version of a real-life showbiz icon with grit, passion, and some of the complexities Gordy left out of his book.
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Brandon Victor Dixon and Bryan Terrell ClarkPhoto by Joan Marcus
The song list alone is staggering. More than 50 titles are crammed into Motown the Musical, the new retrospective jukebox musical celebrating the legendary R&B entertainment giant. If this were a revue, there would be no problem with the embarrassment of riches. But it’s a book musical purporting to tell the story of Motown’s founder Berry Gordy Jr., from his early days as a struggling songwriter to his final triumph as head of a multimillion-dollar brand. Gordy is not only the main character, he’s also the author of the book, which is based on his memoir To Be Loved: The Music, The Magic, The Memories of Motown. His libretto, dotted with dozens of hits from the label’s stunning history, comes across as an antidote to Dreamgirls, the fictional version of the label’s rise and that of its biggest stars Diana Ross and the Supremes. In that fabulous show, the Gordy character is conniving and manipulative. Here he’s a saint whose worst flaw is his tremendous work ethic.
The story starts with the conventional choice of a TV special commemorating Motown’s 25th anniversary. An embattled Gordy, fighting to keep his company from being swallowed up by conglomerates, refuses to attend. As his numerous co-workers and artists including Smokey Robinson attempt to persuade Gordy to make an appearance, he naturally flashes back to his Detroit childhood in 1938 and we’re off on a memory tour. We race through the beginnings of Motown, tours through the segregated South, guest shots on The Ed Sullivan Show, Gordy’s stormy romance with Diana Ross, the turbulent ’60s, race riots, the discovery of the Jackson Five, movie production with Lady Sings the Blues, reinvention with funk, and on and dizzingly on.
So much music and incident is stuffed into the show’s two hours and 45 minutes, it’s like one of those PBS fundraisers on which hot groups from the past alternate with testimonials on how wonderful the producing entity is. But Motown’s main audience probably will not be musical theater purists but fans of the catalogue who will want to relive their youth. That’s the appeal of still-running smashes that include Mamma Mia! and Jersey Boys, and Motown will probably be joining them on the hit list.
Thanks to a spectacularly talented cast, efficient direction by Charles Randolph-Wright, Peter Hylenski’s superb sound design, and the flashy choreography by Patricia Wilcox and Warren Adams, even though the book falls short, Motown does not disappoint musically. The re-creation of gold-plated standards “Stop in the Name of Love,” “My Momma Told Me,” and “Do You Love Me” at least evoke the originals. There are a few moments that are more than just “Greatest Hits” retreads, though. Bryan Terrell Clark channels the aching despair of Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Goin’ On,” while young Raymond Luke Jr. (who alternates with Jibreel Mawry) delivers an amazing Michael Jackson on “I’ll Be There.” Marva Hicks, Saycon Sengbloh, and Ariana DeBose also display impressive voices. The sequence depicting the Motortown Revue’s 1962 performance in a hostile Birmingham, Ala., imparts simmering racial tension and breaks out of the show’s breakneck, “Let’s hit all the high points” pattern.
Valisia LeKae has Diana Ross’s vocals down pat, but in her extensive book scenes, LeKae is imitating Ross rather than playing her. As Gordy, Brandon Victor Dixon has the onerous task of carrying the heavy storyline while the rest of the company gets to cut loose and just sing their lungs out. An experienced professional, Dixon pulls his difficult assignment off with flair, endowing this cardboard version of a real-life showbiz icon with grit, passion, and some of the complexities Gordy left out of his book.
April 14, 2013
Opened
April 14 for an open run. Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, 205 W. 46th St., NYC.
Tue 7pm, Wed 2pm & 8pm, Thu-Fri 8pm, Sat 2pm & 8pm, Sun 3pm.
Running time 2 hours and 45 minutes, including intermission. $57–142.
(877) 250-2929.
www.ticketmaster.com
www.ticketmaster.com
Tackling the Assassination of an International Icon
Anna Khaja tells the story of Benazir Bhutto and the Pakistani people’s complex struggles while exploring her own roots and culture ambivalence.
By Simi Horwitz
Anna Khaja moves seamlessly from character to character in her solo show, Shaheed: The Dream and Death of Benazir Bhutto. It’s set on Dec. 27, 2007 when the two-time prime minister of Pakistan was assassinated. Khaja evokes eight discrete figures—some fictional, others historical, including Bhutto—bringing to life a complex, contradictory, and corrupt society. Depending on viewpoint, Bhutto was a democratic savior, the victim of Muslim fundamentalism, an American puppet or, perhaps, a combination thereof.
Shaheed, meaning martyr in Arabic, had a sold out run in Los Angeles in 2010 at the Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre and is now enjoying an extension at Off-Broadway’s Culture Project, a theater dedicated to addressing social and political issues. The intense and thoughtful Khaja acknowledges that Bhutto and, indeed, the evolution of Pakistan are open to interpretation. If nothing else, she hopes theatergoers want to explore the topic more fully. “I love it when people say to me after seeing the show, ‘I’m going home to Google Bhutto,’” Khaja says.
Allan Buchman, founder and artistic director of the Culture Project, explains what drew him to Shaheed: "In the psyche of the American global awareness, Pakistan is perhaps the least understood of all the major powers. The more we become familiar with a culture other than our own, the greater the likelihood of our ability to build bridges of understanding.
He notes Khaja, though half Pakistani, had no fundamental understanding of her culture as she grew up without the benefit of the presence of her Pakistani father. “Therefore,” he says, “the intensity and urgency of her quest to grasp her roots bring a unique and compelling insight to the subject."
A League of Her Own
The genesis of the piece was long in the making. A Castro Valley, Calif., native, Khaja was raised without any religion, despite her father’s Muslim background and her American mother’s Catholicism. Indeed, her parents were children of the ’70s and far more interested in native cultures than in their own traditions.
“My dad was not forthcoming about his family or culture,” Khaja recalls. “He really embraced Western culture and raised me with little exposure to his culture. I was brought up with zero attention to gender identity and that was a good thing.”
At the same time something was missing. Khaja recalls experiencing cultural ambivalence throughout much of her life, feeling connected to her Pakistani origins and simultaneously cut off. “I was the ‘other,’” she says. “I felt foreign to myself. I had a cousin who said I had the mind of a Westerner and the soul of an Easterner. The day after Bhutto’s assignation, I felt compelled to tell her story.”
Initially, Khaja planned to play only Bhutto. But as her research and writing evolved, the other characters simply materialized and took on a life of their own. “It just felt right to include them,” she notes. “They emboldened the story I wanted to tell about the soul of the Pakistani people’s struggle for freedom and democracy. But, of course Bhutto, who was an iconic figure, was certainly the center of the struggle.”
Taking on multiple characters in a solo show is daunting, most pointedly the internationally recognizable Condoleezza Rice who makes a none-too-attractive appearance. With a pleasant veneer, she is nonetheless brittle and conniving. Khaja says she hopes to capture the former secretary of State’s essence without impersonating her.
“She’s friendly, but we have to sense her manipulation of Bhutto,” Khaja notes. “Part of my problem is that Rice is nebulous. I’ve tried to find her essence, her energy, and I still keep hitting walls.”
Also doing a one-person piece “is incredibly lonely,” Khaja says. “What most prepared me was David Hare’s advice that when you’re doing a solo show, it’s all about the audience, and it’s my job to envelop that audience even if I’m not addressing the audience directly. It’s very different from the traditional actor’s approach.”
Make no mistake, Khaja is well-versed in traditional acting, having appeared in a host of plays, including Hare’s Stuff Happens and an array of TV and film roles—including appearances on House M.D., Private Practice, Criminal Minds, The Closer, Weeds, and a recurring role last season on True Blood, among others. Khaja still defines herself mostly as an actor and dreams about playing Hedda Gabler on Broadway. But she also has her sights set on a screenwriting career and is currently working on a script about a female Arab-American drone pilot who is surveying a militant combatant in Pakistan and then ordered to assassinate him, eliciting complicated emotions. Khaja dreams of playing the lead, she says.
Claiming Her Power
Like most actors, Khaja’s journey has not been smooth sailing. After earning her B.A. in theater at UCLA, Khaja worked as a schoolteacher for a number of years—saving money and fortifying herself emotionally—before launching her acting career at age 27. The late start didn’t help, she admits.
Despite limited opportunities, Khaja was not open to every role that came her way. Frequently cast as a Latina or Middle Eastern woman—“never a regular unidentified Caucasian”—she was keenly sensitive to ethnic typecasting and turned down roles she found stereotypically offensive.
“I was cast as a Palestinian mother who sent her children off to be martyrs,” Khaja recalls. “Because she lacked depth and the explanations for her behavior were black-and-white and racist, I refused to play that part. I believe a character like that could be depicted in an interesting way, and I might play it if the message was acceptable.”
An artistic turning point was learning to trust her own instincts and to “stop giving my power away to those who ‘knew better,’” she says. “I had to stop allowing teachers and directors to dictate how to play a role or what was valuable or not valuable in acting. I made a conscious decision to let my excitement and journey guide me.”
Equally important, she says, was perceiving of herself as a business entity who makes contacts and creates work for herself. Recognizing the element of luck, Khaja nonetheless believes determination plays a role in one’s success. Either way, “I think about being on my deathbed and wondering, ‘Did I do everything I could? Did I give it my all or did I let fear stop me?’”
At the moment her thoughts are centered on Shaheed and her hope that audiences “have their hearts opened up to the struggle of the Pakistani people and not just see them as ‘the other,’” she asserts. “That’s what I love about theater and story telling [as opposed to essays and works of non-fiction]. It travels through the brain, but its aim is the heart and triggers compassion.”
First photo by Maia Rosenfeld
Second and third photos by Hunter Canning
Anna Khaja tells the story of Benazir Bhutto and the Pakistani people’s complex struggles while exploring her own roots and culture ambivalence.
By Simi Horwitz
Anna Khaja moves seamlessly from character to character in her solo show, Shaheed: The Dream and Death of Benazir Bhutto. It’s set on Dec. 27, 2007 when the two-time prime minister of Pakistan was assassinated. Khaja evokes eight discrete figures—some fictional, others historical, including Bhutto—bringing to life a complex, contradictory, and corrupt society. Depending on viewpoint, Bhutto was a democratic savior, the victim of Muslim fundamentalism, an American puppet or, perhaps, a combination thereof.
Shaheed, meaning martyr in Arabic, had a sold out run in Los Angeles in 2010 at the Stephanie Feury Studio Theatre and is now enjoying an extension at Off-Broadway’s Culture Project, a theater dedicated to addressing social and political issues. The intense and thoughtful Khaja acknowledges that Bhutto and, indeed, the evolution of Pakistan are open to interpretation. If nothing else, she hopes theatergoers want to explore the topic more fully. “I love it when people say to me after seeing the show, ‘I’m going home to Google Bhutto,’” Khaja says.
Allan Buchman, founder and artistic director of the Culture Project, explains what drew him to Shaheed: "In the psyche of the American global awareness, Pakistan is perhaps the least understood of all the major powers. The more we become familiar with a culture other than our own, the greater the likelihood of our ability to build bridges of understanding.
He notes Khaja, though half Pakistani, had no fundamental understanding of her culture as she grew up without the benefit of the presence of her Pakistani father. “Therefore,” he says, “the intensity and urgency of her quest to grasp her roots bring a unique and compelling insight to the subject." A League of Her Own
The genesis of the piece was long in the making. A Castro Valley, Calif., native, Khaja was raised without any religion, despite her father’s Muslim background and her American mother’s Catholicism. Indeed, her parents were children of the ’70s and far more interested in native cultures than in their own traditions.
“My dad was not forthcoming about his family or culture,” Khaja recalls. “He really embraced Western culture and raised me with little exposure to his culture. I was brought up with zero attention to gender identity and that was a good thing.”
At the same time something was missing. Khaja recalls experiencing cultural ambivalence throughout much of her life, feeling connected to her Pakistani origins and simultaneously cut off. “I was the ‘other,’” she says. “I felt foreign to myself. I had a cousin who said I had the mind of a Westerner and the soul of an Easterner. The day after Bhutto’s assignation, I felt compelled to tell her story.”
Initially, Khaja planned to play only Bhutto. But as her research and writing evolved, the other characters simply materialized and took on a life of their own. “It just felt right to include them,” she notes. “They emboldened the story I wanted to tell about the soul of the Pakistani people’s struggle for freedom and democracy. But, of course Bhutto, who was an iconic figure, was certainly the center of the struggle.”
Taking on multiple characters in a solo show is daunting, most pointedly the internationally recognizable Condoleezza Rice who makes a none-too-attractive appearance. With a pleasant veneer, she is nonetheless brittle and conniving. Khaja says she hopes to capture the former secretary of State’s essence without impersonating her.“She’s friendly, but we have to sense her manipulation of Bhutto,” Khaja notes. “Part of my problem is that Rice is nebulous. I’ve tried to find her essence, her energy, and I still keep hitting walls.”
Also doing a one-person piece “is incredibly lonely,” Khaja says. “What most prepared me was David Hare’s advice that when you’re doing a solo show, it’s all about the audience, and it’s my job to envelop that audience even if I’m not addressing the audience directly. It’s very different from the traditional actor’s approach.”
Make no mistake, Khaja is well-versed in traditional acting, having appeared in a host of plays, including Hare’s Stuff Happens and an array of TV and film roles—including appearances on House M.D., Private Practice, Criminal Minds, The Closer, Weeds, and a recurring role last season on True Blood, among others. Khaja still defines herself mostly as an actor and dreams about playing Hedda Gabler on Broadway. But she also has her sights set on a screenwriting career and is currently working on a script about a female Arab-American drone pilot who is surveying a militant combatant in Pakistan and then ordered to assassinate him, eliciting complicated emotions. Khaja dreams of playing the lead, she says.
Claiming Her Power
Like most actors, Khaja’s journey has not been smooth sailing. After earning her B.A. in theater at UCLA, Khaja worked as a schoolteacher for a number of years—saving money and fortifying herself emotionally—before launching her acting career at age 27. The late start didn’t help, she admits.
Despite limited opportunities, Khaja was not open to every role that came her way. Frequently cast as a Latina or Middle Eastern woman—“never a regular unidentified Caucasian”—she was keenly sensitive to ethnic typecasting and turned down roles she found stereotypically offensive.
“I was cast as a Palestinian mother who sent her children off to be martyrs,” Khaja recalls. “Because she lacked depth and the explanations for her behavior were black-and-white and racist, I refused to play that part. I believe a character like that could be depicted in an interesting way, and I might play it if the message was acceptable.”An artistic turning point was learning to trust her own instincts and to “stop giving my power away to those who ‘knew better,’” she says. “I had to stop allowing teachers and directors to dictate how to play a role or what was valuable or not valuable in acting. I made a conscious decision to let my excitement and journey guide me.”
Equally important, she says, was perceiving of herself as a business entity who makes contacts and creates work for herself. Recognizing the element of luck, Khaja nonetheless believes determination plays a role in one’s success. Either way, “I think about being on my deathbed and wondering, ‘Did I do everything I could? Did I give it my all or did I let fear stop me?’”
At the moment her thoughts are centered on Shaheed and her hope that audiences “have their hearts opened up to the struggle of the Pakistani people and not just see them as ‘the other,’” she asserts. “That’s what I love about theater and story telling [as opposed to essays and works of non-fiction]. It travels through the brain, but its aim is the heart and triggers compassion.”
March 31, 2013
First photo by Maia Rosenfeld
Second and third photos by Hunter Canning
Ann
Vivian Beaumont Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Holland Taylor
Texas governor Ann Richards is probably best-remembered for her powerhouse speech at the 1992 Democratic convention in which she attacked then-President George H.W. Bush for being “born with a silver foot in his mouth.” Her no-nonsense demeanor and down-home delivery helped fire up the Democratic base for Clinton, defeating the incumbent and earning the wrath of the Bush family. The son George W. trounced Richards in her bid for re-election and was in a prime position to reclaim his father’s position as chief executive. But Ann, the snappy, crackling solo play written by and starring Holland Taylor, does not even mention the Bushes or that famous speech. It’s as if that episode and her defeat were mere interludes in a life of public service and political excitement.
Taylor, best-known as the sharp-tongued mother on Two and Half Men and the sexually aggressive judge on The Practice, is letter-perfect as Richards right down to the Texas twang and the jiffy-pop coiffure (designed by Paul Huntley) referred to as “her Republican hair.” The play begins rather conventionally with the former governor addressing graduates at an imaginary college. After a few wisecracks and anecdotes, she launches into a biography tracing the subject’s journey from Depression-era small town to the executive mansion in a state the size of France.
Then the play breaks the mold and ventures into imaginative territory. The bulk of the evening is now given over to a typical day in Richards’s life. With the marvelously tart Julie White providing the offstage voice of a secretary, Taylor’s Richards deftly juggles a dozen phone lines. She switches from discussing the sentence of a death row convict for murdering and raping a nun to joking with President Clinton to corralling her difficult children for a weekend fishing trip and choosing up sides for charades, all without missing a beat.
This whole sequence is directed with precision and attention to detail by Benjamin Endsley Klein and flawlessly executed by Taylor both as author and performer. The play could have ended right there and I would have been happy, but she adds an unnecessary epilogue on Richards’s post-political life and even throws in a memorial service wrap-up, delivered from beyond the grave presumably. That’s the only bit of fat on the otherwise lean and mean Ann.
Vivian Beaumont Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Holland Taylor
Photo by Ave Bonar
Texas governor Ann Richards is probably best-remembered for her powerhouse speech at the 1992 Democratic convention in which she attacked then-President George H.W. Bush for being “born with a silver foot in his mouth.” Her no-nonsense demeanor and down-home delivery helped fire up the Democratic base for Clinton, defeating the incumbent and earning the wrath of the Bush family. The son George W. trounced Richards in her bid for re-election and was in a prime position to reclaim his father’s position as chief executive. But Ann, the snappy, crackling solo play written by and starring Holland Taylor, does not even mention the Bushes or that famous speech. It’s as if that episode and her defeat were mere interludes in a life of public service and political excitement.
Taylor, best-known as the sharp-tongued mother on Two and Half Men and the sexually aggressive judge on The Practice, is letter-perfect as Richards right down to the Texas twang and the jiffy-pop coiffure (designed by Paul Huntley) referred to as “her Republican hair.” The play begins rather conventionally with the former governor addressing graduates at an imaginary college. After a few wisecracks and anecdotes, she launches into a biography tracing the subject’s journey from Depression-era small town to the executive mansion in a state the size of France.
Then the play breaks the mold and ventures into imaginative territory. The bulk of the evening is now given over to a typical day in Richards’s life. With the marvelously tart Julie White providing the offstage voice of a secretary, Taylor’s Richards deftly juggles a dozen phone lines. She switches from discussing the sentence of a death row convict for murdering and raping a nun to joking with President Clinton to corralling her difficult children for a weekend fishing trip and choosing up sides for charades, all without missing a beat.
This whole sequence is directed with precision and attention to detail by Benjamin Endsley Klein and flawlessly executed by Taylor both as author and performer. The play could have ended right there and I would have been happy, but she adds an unnecessary epilogue on Richards’s post-political life and even throws in a memorial service wrap-up, delivered from beyond the grave presumably. That’s the only bit of fat on the otherwise lean and mean Ann.
March 26, 2013
Mar.
7–Sept. 1. Vivian Beaumont Theatre, Lincoln Center, 150 W. 65th St., NYC.
Tue 7 pm, Wed 2pm & 8pm, Thu 7pm, Fri 8pm, Sat 8pm, Sun 3pm.
Running time 2 hours including intermission. $75–125. (212) 239-6200,
(800) 432-7250.
www.telecharge.com
www.telecharge.com
Hands on a Hardbody
Brooks Atkinson Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
What a challenge for director Neil Pepe and choreographer Sergio Trujillo! The central action of Hands on a Hardbody—the twangy, gritty, and just-plain-wonderful new musical—consists of 10 people standing around. Originally produced at the La Jolla Playhouse, the show is based on a 1997 documentary focusing on an endurance competition at a Texas Nissan dealership to win a new pickup truck. The contestants must keep their hands on the prize with only brief bathroom breaks every six hours. The last one left standing wins the truck. How are you going make a Broadway musical with singing and dancing out of a static event like that?
The great news is Pepe and Trujillo, who is credited with musical staging rather than choreography, pull it off, as do book-writer Doug Wright (Grey Gardens) and Amanda Green and Phish front man Trey Anastasio who are responsible for the eclectic and vibrant score. The stagers solve the problem by moving the truck all around Christine Jones’s spare but versatile set, as Trujilo invents infinitely variable movements around the four-wheeled focus of attention. Kevin Adams’s lighting also aides in creating multiple moods and states of mind from blazing noon to dreamy twilight to exotic fantasies. The writers address the problem by giving us three-dimensional, identifiable characters for whom to root. There’s nary a redneck stereotype in the bunch.
Each has a believable stake in the contest, mostly motivated by the harsh realities of a souring economy. Hispanic veterinary student Jesus plans to sell the vehicle in order to pay his tuition. Churchgoing Norma needs transportation for her husband and kids. Scrappy seniors Janis and Don are barely scraping by. Even the dealers Mike and Cindy desperately require the publicity to generate sales for their failing lot or they’ll be out of work.
Wright’s compassionate book and the lively score (lyrics by Green who collaborates on the music with Anastasio) paint a canvas of achingly real middle-class, everyday Americans, people rarely seen on Broadway. The score’s sounds of country, rock, and gospel are also welcome visitors to the Main Stem, tangily orchestrated by Anastasio and Don Hart.
Almost every number is a show stopper, but particularly good is Norma’s a cappella “Joy of the Lord,” accompanied by the cast beating out rhythms on the cherry-red truck; “I’m Gone,” a sweetly yearning ballad of longing to escape the confines of a UPS job; and “Used to Be,” an ode to the long-gone uniqueness of small towns, now swallowed up by the national uniformity of Starbucks and Wal-Mart.
The 15-member cast couldn’t be better. It’s difficult to single out any one of them, but Keala Settle (a gospel-shouting Norma), Hunter Foster (the obnoxious and rowdy past winner Benny Perkins), and Jacob Ming-Trent (a candy-loving contestant whose sweet tooth does him in) should be remembered at Tony time.
Brooks Atkinson Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Photo by Chad Batka
What a challenge for director Neil Pepe and choreographer Sergio Trujillo! The central action of Hands on a Hardbody—the twangy, gritty, and just-plain-wonderful new musical—consists of 10 people standing around. Originally produced at the La Jolla Playhouse, the show is based on a 1997 documentary focusing on an endurance competition at a Texas Nissan dealership to win a new pickup truck. The contestants must keep their hands on the prize with only brief bathroom breaks every six hours. The last one left standing wins the truck. How are you going make a Broadway musical with singing and dancing out of a static event like that?
The great news is Pepe and Trujillo, who is credited with musical staging rather than choreography, pull it off, as do book-writer Doug Wright (Grey Gardens) and Amanda Green and Phish front man Trey Anastasio who are responsible for the eclectic and vibrant score. The stagers solve the problem by moving the truck all around Christine Jones’s spare but versatile set, as Trujilo invents infinitely variable movements around the four-wheeled focus of attention. Kevin Adams’s lighting also aides in creating multiple moods and states of mind from blazing noon to dreamy twilight to exotic fantasies. The writers address the problem by giving us three-dimensional, identifiable characters for whom to root. There’s nary a redneck stereotype in the bunch.
Each has a believable stake in the contest, mostly motivated by the harsh realities of a souring economy. Hispanic veterinary student Jesus plans to sell the vehicle in order to pay his tuition. Churchgoing Norma needs transportation for her husband and kids. Scrappy seniors Janis and Don are barely scraping by. Even the dealers Mike and Cindy desperately require the publicity to generate sales for their failing lot or they’ll be out of work.
Wright’s compassionate book and the lively score (lyrics by Green who collaborates on the music with Anastasio) paint a canvas of achingly real middle-class, everyday Americans, people rarely seen on Broadway. The score’s sounds of country, rock, and gospel are also welcome visitors to the Main Stem, tangily orchestrated by Anastasio and Don Hart.
Almost every number is a show stopper, but particularly good is Norma’s a cappella “Joy of the Lord,” accompanied by the cast beating out rhythms on the cherry-red truck; “I’m Gone,” a sweetly yearning ballad of longing to escape the confines of a UPS job; and “Used to Be,” an ode to the long-gone uniqueness of small towns, now swallowed up by the national uniformity of Starbucks and Wal-Mart.
The 15-member cast couldn’t be better. It’s difficult to single out any one of them, but Keala Settle (a gospel-shouting Norma), Hunter Foster (the obnoxious and rowdy past winner Benny Perkins), and Jacob Ming-Trent (a candy-loving contestant whose sweet tooth does him in) should be remembered at Tony time.
March 23, 2013
Opened
Mar. 21 for an open run. Brooks Atkinson Theatre, 256 W. 47th St., NYC.
Mon-Tue 7:30 pm, Wed 2pm & 7:30pm, Thu 7:30pm, Fri 8pm, Sat 2pm
& 8pm. Running time 2 hours and 20 minutes, including intermission.
$49-142. (877) 250-2929.
www.ticketmaster.com
www.ticketmaster.com
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella
Broadway Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Laura Osnes
You would think Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella on Broadway would be a slam-dunk. One of the most beloved television programs of all time with the iconic team’s loveliest score—in my humble opinion, anyway—on the Great White Way for the first time, what could possibly go wrong? Overthinking, that’s what. The creative team behind this elaborate fairy-tale couldn’t make up its collective mind as to how to treat the material, and the result is a beautiful-looking and beautiful-sounding mess.
Rodgers and Hammerstein first adapted the traditional folk tale as a 1957 TV vehicle for Julie Andrews, then the hottest thing since sliced bread thanks to My Fair Lady. It was restaged for the small screen in full color in 1965 with Lesley Ann Warren and again in 1997 with teen idol Brandy. New York City Opera mounted stage versions in 1993, 1995, and 2004 with a script that hewed to the TV version.
For this Broadway mounting, witty playwright Douglas Carter Beane has come up with a whole new book. Carter has proven himself adept at giving a campy fresh spin to overly familiar or unpromising material such as the grade-Z movie musical Xanadu and an updating of the Greek comedy Lysistrata. But he seems to have lost his way here. While there are some witty lines, the book erratically shifts gears among the satiric, the sentimental, and the political.
To flesh out the story, a pair of secondary lovers has been added. Cinderella’s gawky but basically good-hearted stepsister now has a suitor, the bumbling but lovable social activist named Jean-Michel. There’s also a silly plot thread involving the Prince’s chief advisor, the flamboyant Sebastian, acting like a Republican and stealing the peasants’ land, which clumsily introduces a sort of Afterschool Special lesson on democracy. Cute woodland creatures and a cartoon-ish chase scene are thrown in for good measure. Beane and the usually adept director Mark Brokaw fail to balance these kiddie-friendly Disney elements with the more adult Into the Woods themes and the satiric edge that keeps cutting in. We’re supposed to think these characters are cute caricatures; and then, all of a sudden, they get all real-world on us. For example, Harriet Harris is as campy as hell as the wicked stepmother (referred to here as “Madame”) for most of the evening. But, after the disappointment of both of her daughters losing the Prince’s hand, she instantly transforms into Joan Crawford from Mildred Pierce, without the irony.
The humor doesn’t quite work either. Though in Brothers Grimm territory, the characters often spout contemporary jargon (“Thanks for the heads-up,” “Quit that, you!”). This is perfectly acceptable in small doses, but the gag soon wears thin after multiple uses. Beane and Carter should have chosen one tone and stuck with it.
On the plus side, Laura Osnes manages to be sturdy yet winsome as the plucky heroine, and Santino Fontana gives us a quirky, unconventional prince who is not a cardboard cut-out. Victoria Clark doubles as a daffy beggar and a glamorous fairy godmother with professionalism and sweetness. Peter Bartlett as Sebastian and Harriet Harris give it their best comic shtick but the mixed messages from the book and direction work against them. As the nicer stepsister, Marla Mindelle reprises her awkward nun bit from Sister Act, which Beane also worked on, and Greg Hildreth does a nice job with the schlubby but earnest Jean-Michel. Best of all is Ann Harada as the nastier of Cinderella’s siblings (not the one with the boyfriend). She steals the show with a hilarious delivery of the “Stepsister’s Lament,” which is now a solo number with chorus rather than a duet.
So this is definitely a mixed bag, but man does the show look gorgeous. Tony-winning costume designer William Ivey Long would win hands down if this were a Project Runway challenge to create dresses that could switch from rags to riches in a blink of an eye. Plus, Cinderella’s wedding gown would fly off the racks at Vera Wang or David’s Bridal. Anna Louizos’s woodland set is charming and versatile, lit like a dream by Kenneth Posner. Kids will probably not have a problem with the confusing libretto, and all will love hearing these marvelous R&H songs again, but don’t expect a perfect Cinderella.
Broadway Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Laura OsnesYou would think Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella on Broadway would be a slam-dunk. One of the most beloved television programs of all time with the iconic team’s loveliest score—in my humble opinion, anyway—on the Great White Way for the first time, what could possibly go wrong? Overthinking, that’s what. The creative team behind this elaborate fairy-tale couldn’t make up its collective mind as to how to treat the material, and the result is a beautiful-looking and beautiful-sounding mess.
Rodgers and Hammerstein first adapted the traditional folk tale as a 1957 TV vehicle for Julie Andrews, then the hottest thing since sliced bread thanks to My Fair Lady. It was restaged for the small screen in full color in 1965 with Lesley Ann Warren and again in 1997 with teen idol Brandy. New York City Opera mounted stage versions in 1993, 1995, and 2004 with a script that hewed to the TV version.
For this Broadway mounting, witty playwright Douglas Carter Beane has come up with a whole new book. Carter has proven himself adept at giving a campy fresh spin to overly familiar or unpromising material such as the grade-Z movie musical Xanadu and an updating of the Greek comedy Lysistrata. But he seems to have lost his way here. While there are some witty lines, the book erratically shifts gears among the satiric, the sentimental, and the political.
To flesh out the story, a pair of secondary lovers has been added. Cinderella’s gawky but basically good-hearted stepsister now has a suitor, the bumbling but lovable social activist named Jean-Michel. There’s also a silly plot thread involving the Prince’s chief advisor, the flamboyant Sebastian, acting like a Republican and stealing the peasants’ land, which clumsily introduces a sort of Afterschool Special lesson on democracy. Cute woodland creatures and a cartoon-ish chase scene are thrown in for good measure. Beane and the usually adept director Mark Brokaw fail to balance these kiddie-friendly Disney elements with the more adult Into the Woods themes and the satiric edge that keeps cutting in. We’re supposed to think these characters are cute caricatures; and then, all of a sudden, they get all real-world on us. For example, Harriet Harris is as campy as hell as the wicked stepmother (referred to here as “Madame”) for most of the evening. But, after the disappointment of both of her daughters losing the Prince’s hand, she instantly transforms into Joan Crawford from Mildred Pierce, without the irony.
The humor doesn’t quite work either. Though in Brothers Grimm territory, the characters often spout contemporary jargon (“Thanks for the heads-up,” “Quit that, you!”). This is perfectly acceptable in small doses, but the gag soon wears thin after multiple uses. Beane and Carter should have chosen one tone and stuck with it.
On the plus side, Laura Osnes manages to be sturdy yet winsome as the plucky heroine, and Santino Fontana gives us a quirky, unconventional prince who is not a cardboard cut-out. Victoria Clark doubles as a daffy beggar and a glamorous fairy godmother with professionalism and sweetness. Peter Bartlett as Sebastian and Harriet Harris give it their best comic shtick but the mixed messages from the book and direction work against them. As the nicer stepsister, Marla Mindelle reprises her awkward nun bit from Sister Act, which Beane also worked on, and Greg Hildreth does a nice job with the schlubby but earnest Jean-Michel. Best of all is Ann Harada as the nastier of Cinderella’s siblings (not the one with the boyfriend). She steals the show with a hilarious delivery of the “Stepsister’s Lament,” which is now a solo number with chorus rather than a duet.
So this is definitely a mixed bag, but man does the show look gorgeous. Tony-winning costume designer William Ivey Long would win hands down if this were a Project Runway challenge to create dresses that could switch from rags to riches in a blink of an eye. Plus, Cinderella’s wedding gown would fly off the racks at Vera Wang or David’s Bridal. Anna Louizos’s woodland set is charming and versatile, lit like a dream by Kenneth Posner. Kids will probably not have a problem with the confusing libretto, and all will love hearing these marvelous R&H songs again, but don’t expect a perfect Cinderella.
March 3, 2013
Opened
Mar. 3 for an open run. Broadway Theatre, 1681 Broadway, NYC. Tue 7pm,
Wed 2pm & 7:30pm, Thu 7pm, Fri 8pm, Sat 2pm & 8pm, Sun 3pm.
Running time 2 hours and 15 minutes, including one intermission.
$45–137. (212) 239-6200.
www.telecharge.com
www.telecharge.com
The Revisionist
Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre at the Cherry Lane Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
In her Playbill bio for The Revisionist, Vanessa Redgrave states she is “immensely excited by the script…which she accepted as soon as she read the play.” That’s perfectly understandable. Her role of Maria, a Polish Holocaust survivor, affords plenty of juicy theatrical opportunities. She gets to tells her harrowing story, crack jokes, mangle English a bit in a heavy accent, fuss over and then yell at her visiting young American cousin. But the play containing Maria is a predictable sketch that comes across as an exercise for a college playwriting course.
This is actor-writer Jesse Eisenberg’s second play for Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre in which he is also starring. He’s essentially playing the same character as in his first effort Asuncion: an intelligent, condescending young man, who harms a female relative through his insecurity. In that play, Eisenberg was a jittery college student assuming his new Filipino sister-in-law is a prostitute. This time he’s David, a blocked writer staying with his elderly cousin Maria in Poland. In a credulity-stretching plot point, he’s there in order to finish revising his science-fiction novel, a follow-up to his debut work that was published when he was in his early 20s. David fears he will never be able to repeat his previous success and ignores the doting Maria who idolizes her American relations. It’s as if the playwriting class assignment were to put two opposite characters in the same small space and see what happens (John McDemott designed the cramped, lived-in apartment set). Naturally, they come into conflict, get drunk on vodka, and reveal deep, dark secrets. At first, it appears the title refers to David, but during the drunk scene, we discover it really describes Maria. Without revealing too much, she has altered her history as a result of her harrowing childhood experiences.
To mix things up a bit, Eisenberg brings in Zenon, a gruff taxi driver who likes to shave Maria’s legs. Yes, this stage business is as ridiculous as it sounds and feels like Eisenberg jammed it in to provide some comic relief.
Eisenberg is a talented playwright and actor. He has a sharp sense of dialogue and basic structure. Plus he provides some fascinating, life-like details such as an endless series of phone calls from a charity for the blind. But there are too many plot holes to ignore. (Would David really not know the names and connections of his distant relations so that Maria has to explain them?) As a performer, he plays David as such a whining brat (“Poor me” is his whole subtext), it’s difficult to sympathize with him.
Fortunately, Redgrave creates a living, breathing woman out of melodramatic clichés. As Maria retells her tragic story, Redgrave doesn’t go for the obvious weepy histrionics. Like a wound that has never healed, Maria’s past is painful to touch, and Redgrave skirts around the sore, coughing and pausing, then after knocking back several shots of vodka, she rips the scab off and relives the agony. Then she quickly covers it back up by asking David to recite a comedy routine. You can almost see Maria’s thoughts forming on Redgrave’s eloquent features as she caresses family photos, fights with David, scowls at a plate of tofu, or just watches CNN. Dan Oreskes creates a zesty and swaggering Zenon, though the role is small and almost entirely in Polish. Kudos also to Kip Fagan for staging the contrived action at a steady clip.
The main fault here is Eisenberg’s underdeveloped and unbelievable script. Ironically, this Revisionist is in need of revising.
Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre at the Cherry Lane Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
In her Playbill bio for The Revisionist, Vanessa Redgrave states she is “immensely excited by the script…which she accepted as soon as she read the play.” That’s perfectly understandable. Her role of Maria, a Polish Holocaust survivor, affords plenty of juicy theatrical opportunities. She gets to tells her harrowing story, crack jokes, mangle English a bit in a heavy accent, fuss over and then yell at her visiting young American cousin. But the play containing Maria is a predictable sketch that comes across as an exercise for a college playwriting course.
This is actor-writer Jesse Eisenberg’s second play for Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre in which he is also starring. He’s essentially playing the same character as in his first effort Asuncion: an intelligent, condescending young man, who harms a female relative through his insecurity. In that play, Eisenberg was a jittery college student assuming his new Filipino sister-in-law is a prostitute. This time he’s David, a blocked writer staying with his elderly cousin Maria in Poland. In a credulity-stretching plot point, he’s there in order to finish revising his science-fiction novel, a follow-up to his debut work that was published when he was in his early 20s. David fears he will never be able to repeat his previous success and ignores the doting Maria who idolizes her American relations. It’s as if the playwriting class assignment were to put two opposite characters in the same small space and see what happens (John McDemott designed the cramped, lived-in apartment set). Naturally, they come into conflict, get drunk on vodka, and reveal deep, dark secrets. At first, it appears the title refers to David, but during the drunk scene, we discover it really describes Maria. Without revealing too much, she has altered her history as a result of her harrowing childhood experiences.
To mix things up a bit, Eisenberg brings in Zenon, a gruff taxi driver who likes to shave Maria’s legs. Yes, this stage business is as ridiculous as it sounds and feels like Eisenberg jammed it in to provide some comic relief.
Eisenberg is a talented playwright and actor. He has a sharp sense of dialogue and basic structure. Plus he provides some fascinating, life-like details such as an endless series of phone calls from a charity for the blind. But there are too many plot holes to ignore. (Would David really not know the names and connections of his distant relations so that Maria has to explain them?) As a performer, he plays David as such a whining brat (“Poor me” is his whole subtext), it’s difficult to sympathize with him.
Fortunately, Redgrave creates a living, breathing woman out of melodramatic clichés. As Maria retells her tragic story, Redgrave doesn’t go for the obvious weepy histrionics. Like a wound that has never healed, Maria’s past is painful to touch, and Redgrave skirts around the sore, coughing and pausing, then after knocking back several shots of vodka, she rips the scab off and relives the agony. Then she quickly covers it back up by asking David to recite a comedy routine. You can almost see Maria’s thoughts forming on Redgrave’s eloquent features as she caresses family photos, fights with David, scowls at a plate of tofu, or just watches CNN. Dan Oreskes creates a zesty and swaggering Zenon, though the role is small and almost entirely in Polish. Kudos also to Kip Fagan for staging the contrived action at a steady clip.
The main fault here is Eisenberg’s underdeveloped and unbelievable script. Ironically, this Revisionist is in need of revising.
March 1, 2013
Luck of the Irish
LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater at the Claire Tow Theater [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
Kirsten Greenidge examines racial and class divisions across the decades in her intelligent but slightly flawed play Luck of the Irish, now at Lincoln Center’s intimate rooftop space, the Claire Tow Theater, after a run at the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston. Shifting back and forth from the 1950s to the early 2000s, the story centers on a familiar theme in theatrical literature: possession of a house and what it symbolizes. In the present, an African-American family has moved back to a home in a predominantly white suburb after the death of both grandparents. But as the family soon discovers, the house was “ghost” purchased by an Irish-American couple to avoid discrimination. The “real” buyers, now in their 70s, are claiming the property. The current tenants cannot find the deed and the ambiguous circumstances of the sale are played out in flashbacks.
As the play switches time settings—smoothly handled by director Rebecca Taichman—we discover that despite all the apparent progress in race relations, there is still a lot of prejudice in America. Hannah, the owner in 2000, hates feeling like a token and anxiously worries about her young son who is constantly misbehaving at school. The uncertainty about the house parallels her feelings of not belonging as she deals with subtle forms of racism. Meanwhile, back in the ’50s, her grandparents the Taylors—Rex, a prosperous doctor, and the refined Lucy—are struggling with more blatant discrimination. They reach out to the working-class Donovans to act as a front for the purchase of their dream house in return for $1,500. Joe Donovan is content with the sum and sees the deception as a means of striking a blow for equality, but the angry wife, Patty Ann, refuses to give the Taylors the deed until the Donovans get more compensation.
Much of the play is strong, particularly the scenes in the past in which the Donovans and Taylors clash over the ownership of the house. The most powerful vignette takes place in a restaurant where Patty Ann lets her economic resentment pour out in a barely contained explosion, which Lucy meets with icy disdain. There are some lapses in writing, mostly in the modern segments. Hannah’s husband, Rich, and her sister, Nessa, are barely developed and seem to be onstage mostly to feed Hannah cue lines. In addition, some of the sentiments come across as those of the author rather the characters.
Despite these flaws, Irish is an insightful portrait of the changing American landscape through the experiences of one group of people who must work around the barriers of racism. There are many solid performances in the expert ensemble, particularly Marsha Stephanie Blake’s confused and conflicted Hannah and Amanda Quaid’s bitter and exhausted Patty Ann.
LCT3/Lincoln Center Theater at the Claire Tow Theater [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
Kirsten Greenidge examines racial and class divisions across the decades in her intelligent but slightly flawed play Luck of the Irish, now at Lincoln Center’s intimate rooftop space, the Claire Tow Theater, after a run at the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston. Shifting back and forth from the 1950s to the early 2000s, the story centers on a familiar theme in theatrical literature: possession of a house and what it symbolizes. In the present, an African-American family has moved back to a home in a predominantly white suburb after the death of both grandparents. But as the family soon discovers, the house was “ghost” purchased by an Irish-American couple to avoid discrimination. The “real” buyers, now in their 70s, are claiming the property. The current tenants cannot find the deed and the ambiguous circumstances of the sale are played out in flashbacks.
As the play switches time settings—smoothly handled by director Rebecca Taichman—we discover that despite all the apparent progress in race relations, there is still a lot of prejudice in America. Hannah, the owner in 2000, hates feeling like a token and anxiously worries about her young son who is constantly misbehaving at school. The uncertainty about the house parallels her feelings of not belonging as she deals with subtle forms of racism. Meanwhile, back in the ’50s, her grandparents the Taylors—Rex, a prosperous doctor, and the refined Lucy—are struggling with more blatant discrimination. They reach out to the working-class Donovans to act as a front for the purchase of their dream house in return for $1,500. Joe Donovan is content with the sum and sees the deception as a means of striking a blow for equality, but the angry wife, Patty Ann, refuses to give the Taylors the deed until the Donovans get more compensation.
Much of the play is strong, particularly the scenes in the past in which the Donovans and Taylors clash over the ownership of the house. The most powerful vignette takes place in a restaurant where Patty Ann lets her economic resentment pour out in a barely contained explosion, which Lucy meets with icy disdain. There are some lapses in writing, mostly in the modern segments. Hannah’s husband, Rich, and her sister, Nessa, are barely developed and seem to be onstage mostly to feed Hannah cue lines. In addition, some of the sentiments come across as those of the author rather the characters.
Despite these flaws, Irish is an insightful portrait of the changing American landscape through the experiences of one group of people who must work around the barriers of racism. There are many solid performances in the expert ensemble, particularly Marsha Stephanie Blake’s confused and conflicted Hannah and Amanda Quaid’s bitter and exhausted Patty Ann.
February 13, 2013
The Other Place
Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
When I saw Laurie Metcalf’s searing performance in Sharr White’s The Other Place presented Off-Broadway by MCC Theatre in 2011, I didn’t see how it could have been better. But in a Broadway transfer from Manhattan Theatre Club, Metcalfe has done the difficult feat of improving upon perfection. As Juliana, a brilliant, sharp-edged research scientist, she goes even deeper into the dark realm of dementia and loss. Although the MTC's Samuel Friedman Theatre is larger than the Lucille Lortel where it played two years ago for the MCC production, Joe Mantello’s staging is more intimate and immediate, allowing us to get closer to Juliana’s desperate plight.
As you enter the Friedman, Metcalf is onstage, seated in the center of Eugene Lee and Edward Pierce’s jungle-gym set depicting the spooky labyrinth of the human mind, while Fitz Patton’s ominous music plays. Once the lights dim, she stands and takes us on Juliana’s torturous journey through darkness and confusion. It begins with a sales pitch for a drug to treat senility at an island resort. She sees a mysterious girl in a yellow bikini in the audience of doctors and then slips into a jangled world where nothing is as it seems. She recalls her daughter who ran away 10 years ago and now seems to be reappearing. She has paranoid visions of her loyal husband, Ian, cheating on her. And who is the woman in the bikini? What’s real and what’s a product of Juliana’s degenerative mental condition, which ironically could be treated with the very drug she has developed and is selling?
Perhaps it’s because Metcalf’s real-life daughter Zoe Perry is now playing all the other female roles, but Metcalf now makes a makes a stronger connection with the material. She vividly portrays Juliana’s devastating wit, white-hot rage, formidable intellect, and dumbstruck confusion over what’s happening to her. In the space of 80 minutes when she never leaves the stage, she goes from a self-assured, take-no-prisoners captain of the pharmaceutical industry striding the stage in high heels to a shattered, blubbering child huddled on the floor.
The rest of the cast is new to the play. Daniel Stern feelingly taps into Ian’s frustration, sensitively portraying his deep love for his wife and his overwhelming sense of powerlessness to help her. John Schiappa makes the most of his multiple male roles. Perry lends distinction and flavor to three separate roles, including a bitter divorcée. In a wrenching scene with Metcalf near the play’s end, Perry delivers a true supporting performance, giving full life and subtext to a seemingly minor character yet ceding the stage to the star. It’s a dazzling and moving mother-daughter act.
Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
When I saw Laurie Metcalf’s searing performance in Sharr White’s The Other Place presented Off-Broadway by MCC Theatre in 2011, I didn’t see how it could have been better. But in a Broadway transfer from Manhattan Theatre Club, Metcalfe has done the difficult feat of improving upon perfection. As Juliana, a brilliant, sharp-edged research scientist, she goes even deeper into the dark realm of dementia and loss. Although the MTC's Samuel Friedman Theatre is larger than the Lucille Lortel where it played two years ago for the MCC production, Joe Mantello’s staging is more intimate and immediate, allowing us to get closer to Juliana’s desperate plight.
As you enter the Friedman, Metcalf is onstage, seated in the center of Eugene Lee and Edward Pierce’s jungle-gym set depicting the spooky labyrinth of the human mind, while Fitz Patton’s ominous music plays. Once the lights dim, she stands and takes us on Juliana’s torturous journey through darkness and confusion. It begins with a sales pitch for a drug to treat senility at an island resort. She sees a mysterious girl in a yellow bikini in the audience of doctors and then slips into a jangled world where nothing is as it seems. She recalls her daughter who ran away 10 years ago and now seems to be reappearing. She has paranoid visions of her loyal husband, Ian, cheating on her. And who is the woman in the bikini? What’s real and what’s a product of Juliana’s degenerative mental condition, which ironically could be treated with the very drug she has developed and is selling?
Perhaps it’s because Metcalf’s real-life daughter Zoe Perry is now playing all the other female roles, but Metcalf now makes a makes a stronger connection with the material. She vividly portrays Juliana’s devastating wit, white-hot rage, formidable intellect, and dumbstruck confusion over what’s happening to her. In the space of 80 minutes when she never leaves the stage, she goes from a self-assured, take-no-prisoners captain of the pharmaceutical industry striding the stage in high heels to a shattered, blubbering child huddled on the floor.
The rest of the cast is new to the play. Daniel Stern feelingly taps into Ian’s frustration, sensitively portraying his deep love for his wife and his overwhelming sense of powerlessness to help her. John Schiappa makes the most of his multiple male roles. Perry lends distinction and flavor to three separate roles, including a bitter divorcée. In a wrenching scene with Metcalf near the play’s end, Perry delivers a true supporting performance, giving full life and subtext to a seemingly minor character yet ceding the stage to the star. It’s a dazzling and moving mother-daughter act.
January 17, 2013
Golden Boy
Lincoln Center Theater at the Belasco Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
It’s a knockout, a kayo, a roundhouse right, an upper cut. Pick your ringside cliché. The Lincoln Center Theater revival of Clifford Odets’s 1937 boxing drama Golden Boy fits them all.
There is a danger with this play and all of Odets’s work to lean on the stereotypes of noble progressive proletariat oppressed by Depression-era economics. As he did with his LCT production of Odets’s Awake and Sing, director Barlett Sher handily slugs these tired tropes to the mat in the first round. His production is a powerful portrait of three-dimensional citizens struggling against the temptations of gilt-edged success and its accompanying brutality.
The story is a familiar one, popularized in the 1939 Hollywood version starring William Holden and Barbara Stanwyck, and dozens of ringside films since. Scrappy Joe Bonaparte is a rising young fighter, but he also has a magnificent gift for the violin. In the desperate 1930s, he must choose between making millions with his fists and starving for his art. If he pursues a fighting career, Joe will most likely damage his hands and never play his beloved fiddle again. Odets’s symbolism is more than a bit heavy handed (mob-fueled sports versus long-haired music), but Sher acknowledges it, staging the play as a Shakespearean epic. Played against set designer Michael Yeargan’s imposing backdrop of grim tenement edifices and poetically lit by Donald Holder, the play becomes a titanic battle for one man’s soul rather than a naturalistic kitchen-sink melodrama.
The cast couldn’t be better. From Seth Numirch’s white-hot comet of a Joe to Vayu O’Donnell’s no-nonsense fight official who only appears for a few minutes, each performer is at the top of his game, rattling off Odets’s somewhat dated but still-tough vernacular like a crack squadron of sharpshooters. Numrich is a ball of energy as the conflicted fighter, adeptly conveying Joe’s interior war while convincing he can knock out any opponent. Yvonne Strahovski is a perfect sparring partner as Lorna Moon, the girl who is just as impossible to possess as the satellite that bears her name. The actor endows Lorna with a keen set of street smarts and an even sharper sense of self-preservation. Strahovski also makes it clear that Lorna is truly in love with Joe and with his much older manager Tom Moody (a blunt and yet sympathetic Danny Mastrogiorgio), making her dilemma that much more intense.
Tony Shalhoub is passionate and loving as Joe’s immigrant father, and Dan Burstein is flinty and feisty as a trainer. Ned Eisenberg is explosive as a club owner, while Anthony Crivello is full of dark menace as a gangster with more than a financial interest in the young fighter.
Early in the play, Lorna describes Joe as being “full of fireworks.” She could be talking about this spectacular Golden Boy.
Lincoln Center Theater at the Belasco Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
It’s a knockout, a kayo, a roundhouse right, an upper cut. Pick your ringside cliché. The Lincoln Center Theater revival of Clifford Odets’s 1937 boxing drama Golden Boy fits them all.
There is a danger with this play and all of Odets’s work to lean on the stereotypes of noble progressive proletariat oppressed by Depression-era economics. As he did with his LCT production of Odets’s Awake and Sing, director Barlett Sher handily slugs these tired tropes to the mat in the first round. His production is a powerful portrait of three-dimensional citizens struggling against the temptations of gilt-edged success and its accompanying brutality.
The story is a familiar one, popularized in the 1939 Hollywood version starring William Holden and Barbara Stanwyck, and dozens of ringside films since. Scrappy Joe Bonaparte is a rising young fighter, but he also has a magnificent gift for the violin. In the desperate 1930s, he must choose between making millions with his fists and starving for his art. If he pursues a fighting career, Joe will most likely damage his hands and never play his beloved fiddle again. Odets’s symbolism is more than a bit heavy handed (mob-fueled sports versus long-haired music), but Sher acknowledges it, staging the play as a Shakespearean epic. Played against set designer Michael Yeargan’s imposing backdrop of grim tenement edifices and poetically lit by Donald Holder, the play becomes a titanic battle for one man’s soul rather than a naturalistic kitchen-sink melodrama.
The cast couldn’t be better. From Seth Numirch’s white-hot comet of a Joe to Vayu O’Donnell’s no-nonsense fight official who only appears for a few minutes, each performer is at the top of his game, rattling off Odets’s somewhat dated but still-tough vernacular like a crack squadron of sharpshooters. Numrich is a ball of energy as the conflicted fighter, adeptly conveying Joe’s interior war while convincing he can knock out any opponent. Yvonne Strahovski is a perfect sparring partner as Lorna Moon, the girl who is just as impossible to possess as the satellite that bears her name. The actor endows Lorna with a keen set of street smarts and an even sharper sense of self-preservation. Strahovski also makes it clear that Lorna is truly in love with Joe and with his much older manager Tom Moody (a blunt and yet sympathetic Danny Mastrogiorgio), making her dilemma that much more intense.
Tony Shalhoub is passionate and loving as Joe’s immigrant father, and Dan Burstein is flinty and feisty as a trainer. Ned Eisenberg is explosive as a club owner, while Anthony Crivello is full of dark menace as a gangster with more than a financial interest in the young fighter.
Early in the play, Lorna describes Joe as being “full of fireworks.” She could be talking about this spectacular Golden Boy.
December 22, 2012
Glengarry Glen Ross
Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
It’s the Al Pacino Show at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. The attraction may be advertised as a revival of Glengarry Glen Ross, David Mamet’s 1983 Pulitzer Prize–winning ensemble piece about ruthless real estate salesmen, but the star and his director Daniel Sullivan have shifted the balance to Pacino and his character, Shelley Levine, a broken-down hustler desperate to remain on top of the sales board. The original Broadway production and a 2005 restaging evenly disturbed the playwright’s profanity-laced opportunities for dramatic pyrotechnics. Here, Sullivan has placed Pacino squarely center stage, figuratively and literally, and given the actor a free pass for his excesses—lengthy pauses, mugging, overreacting , etc.
It’s a very uneven performance. Despite these self-indulgent stretches, there are also moments of shattering honesty. When Levine realizes his career is over, Pacino visibly deflates like a tire with a slow leak. You can see the light vanish from his eyes as he stumbles off. Yet in the first act, Pacino throws away his opening scene, never making eye contact with office manager John Williamson, played with just the right amount of desperate jitteriness by David Harbour (Williamson is usually portrayed as a blank-slate idiot, so it’s refreshing to see him given some dramatic life).
In previous incarnations, Joe Mantegna, Liev Schreiber, and Pacino in the film version stole the show as the shark-like Ricky Roma. Here Bobby Canavale opts for a smoother Roma, pouring on the charm in his Act 1 sales pitch to pigeon James Lingk (a suitably wimpish Jeremy Shamos). It’s an interesting choice but fails to reveal Roma’s gargantuan hunger for dominance and closing the sale. Canavale kicks up the volume in the second act, but he still cedes the spotlight to Pacino. Thus, Act 1 is taken over by John C. McGinley’s explosive Dave Moss, a nasty nefarious colleague of Levine and Roma. His scene with the Richard Schiff’s dyspeptic and frustrated George Aaronow is the only one to full capture the complexities of Mamet’s labyrinth of double talk and macho bravado.
The second act captures some of the testosterone-fueled conflict, but too much focus is given over to Pacino’s mannerisms. With the author’s below-par The Anarchist shuttering just a few doors down at the Golden, it’s not been a merry holiday season for Mamet fans.
Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
It’s the Al Pacino Show at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. The attraction may be advertised as a revival of Glengarry Glen Ross, David Mamet’s 1983 Pulitzer Prize–winning ensemble piece about ruthless real estate salesmen, but the star and his director Daniel Sullivan have shifted the balance to Pacino and his character, Shelley Levine, a broken-down hustler desperate to remain on top of the sales board. The original Broadway production and a 2005 restaging evenly disturbed the playwright’s profanity-laced opportunities for dramatic pyrotechnics. Here, Sullivan has placed Pacino squarely center stage, figuratively and literally, and given the actor a free pass for his excesses—lengthy pauses, mugging, overreacting , etc.
It’s a very uneven performance. Despite these self-indulgent stretches, there are also moments of shattering honesty. When Levine realizes his career is over, Pacino visibly deflates like a tire with a slow leak. You can see the light vanish from his eyes as he stumbles off. Yet in the first act, Pacino throws away his opening scene, never making eye contact with office manager John Williamson, played with just the right amount of desperate jitteriness by David Harbour (Williamson is usually portrayed as a blank-slate idiot, so it’s refreshing to see him given some dramatic life).
In previous incarnations, Joe Mantegna, Liev Schreiber, and Pacino in the film version stole the show as the shark-like Ricky Roma. Here Bobby Canavale opts for a smoother Roma, pouring on the charm in his Act 1 sales pitch to pigeon James Lingk (a suitably wimpish Jeremy Shamos). It’s an interesting choice but fails to reveal Roma’s gargantuan hunger for dominance and closing the sale. Canavale kicks up the volume in the second act, but he still cedes the spotlight to Pacino. Thus, Act 1 is taken over by John C. McGinley’s explosive Dave Moss, a nasty nefarious colleague of Levine and Roma. His scene with the Richard Schiff’s dyspeptic and frustrated George Aaronow is the only one to full capture the complexities of Mamet’s labyrinth of double talk and macho bravado.
The second act captures some of the testosterone-fueled conflict, but too much focus is given over to Pacino’s mannerisms. With the author’s below-par The Anarchist shuttering just a few doors down at the Golden, it’s not been a merry holiday season for Mamet fans.
December 8, 2012
The Anarchist
John Golden Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
“I thought this meeting would go differently,” says Patti LuPone as Cathy, a former radical confronting Debra Winger’s Ann, a rigid prison official, in David Mamet’s The Anarchist. Audience members may have a similar reaction to this brief new play at the Golden Theatre. From American Buffalo to Glengarry Glen Ross to Oleanna to Race, Mamet’s previous works have always given off intense heat. It wasn’t just the profanity-laced dialogue; there was always a vital connection and conflict. You may not have liked the characters or agreed with the playwright’s point of view, but the plays were always engaging. While almost all the earlier Mamet plays are hot and juicy, The Anarchist is icy and dry. The author stages it with all the excitement of an Ethical Cultural Society lecture, and it feels far longer than its intermissionless 70 minutes.
The basic premise has potential for dramatic fireworks. Cathy has been in prison for 35 years for shooting two guards when she was a young counterculture warrior and is now asking for parole based on her professed conversion to devout Christianity. Ann, her warden, has the power to grant Cathy’s freedom, but she remains unconvinced of the ex-anarchist’s sincerity unless the prisoner is willing to inform on a former conspirator who was also her lover. That’s the crux of the play, and it could have been a fiery mash-up between authority and nonconformism.
But Mamet’s script is so stilted and heady, it’s totally passionless. Cathy and Ann could be chatting about the weather instead of a life-or-death decision. Religion, politics, homosexuality, philosophy, and redemption are all touched on, but since there is no personal connection made to any of these topics, the weighty words fall flat. In addition, the abrupt ending, which will not be revealed here, doesn’t make any sense given the characters’ behavior.
LuPone in a rare nonmusical role at least supplies a measure of devious guile to Cathy. You can see the wheels turning in this crafty woman’s head beneath her calm and well-coiffed exterior. But Cathy’s burning need is buried so far beneath the surface, it fails to light a spark under the play’s dry wood. Winger, making her Broadway debut after a long hiatus from her film career, is stiff and uncomfortable as the upright Ann. She occasionally stumbles over Mamet’s intricate sentences. In this play they sound as unnatural as those in his other works sound remarkable realistic, so the actor is not entirely to blame. Winger also fails to convincingly pursue Ann’s objective: to find out the truth behind Cathy’s motives. It seems like Ann doesn’t care what happens to Cathy, and therefore it’s not important to us.
Mamet appears to be expressing rage here at the excesses of 1960s radicalism and killers who use religion to escape justice, just as he railed against political correctness in Race. That’s a worthy subject, but his arguments are dully expressed and unfeelingly played. He’s an important enough figure in the theater to merit a Broadway production for even a weak play, but don’t expect to see The Anarchist in many venues outside of acting classes.
John Golden Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
“I thought this meeting would go differently,” says Patti LuPone as Cathy, a former radical confronting Debra Winger’s Ann, a rigid prison official, in David Mamet’s The Anarchist. Audience members may have a similar reaction to this brief new play at the Golden Theatre. From American Buffalo to Glengarry Glen Ross to Oleanna to Race, Mamet’s previous works have always given off intense heat. It wasn’t just the profanity-laced dialogue; there was always a vital connection and conflict. You may not have liked the characters or agreed with the playwright’s point of view, but the plays were always engaging. While almost all the earlier Mamet plays are hot and juicy, The Anarchist is icy and dry. The author stages it with all the excitement of an Ethical Cultural Society lecture, and it feels far longer than its intermissionless 70 minutes.
The basic premise has potential for dramatic fireworks. Cathy has been in prison for 35 years for shooting two guards when she was a young counterculture warrior and is now asking for parole based on her professed conversion to devout Christianity. Ann, her warden, has the power to grant Cathy’s freedom, but she remains unconvinced of the ex-anarchist’s sincerity unless the prisoner is willing to inform on a former conspirator who was also her lover. That’s the crux of the play, and it could have been a fiery mash-up between authority and nonconformism.
But Mamet’s script is so stilted and heady, it’s totally passionless. Cathy and Ann could be chatting about the weather instead of a life-or-death decision. Religion, politics, homosexuality, philosophy, and redemption are all touched on, but since there is no personal connection made to any of these topics, the weighty words fall flat. In addition, the abrupt ending, which will not be revealed here, doesn’t make any sense given the characters’ behavior.
LuPone in a rare nonmusical role at least supplies a measure of devious guile to Cathy. You can see the wheels turning in this crafty woman’s head beneath her calm and well-coiffed exterior. But Cathy’s burning need is buried so far beneath the surface, it fails to light a spark under the play’s dry wood. Winger, making her Broadway debut after a long hiatus from her film career, is stiff and uncomfortable as the upright Ann. She occasionally stumbles over Mamet’s intricate sentences. In this play they sound as unnatural as those in his other works sound remarkable realistic, so the actor is not entirely to blame. Winger also fails to convincingly pursue Ann’s objective: to find out the truth behind Cathy’s motives. It seems like Ann doesn’t care what happens to Cathy, and therefore it’s not important to us.
Mamet appears to be expressing rage here at the excesses of 1960s radicalism and killers who use religion to escape justice, just as he railed against political correctness in Race. That’s a worthy subject, but his arguments are dully expressed and unfeelingly played. He’s an important enough figure in the theater to merit a Broadway production for even a weak play, but don’t expect to see The Anarchist in many venues outside of acting classes.
December 2, 2012
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike
Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre [show moved to Golden Theatre]
Reviewed by David Sheward
In a program essay, Christopher Durang describes his new play Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, now at the intimate Mitzi E. Newhouse at Lincoln Center, as Chekhov in a blender. That makes it sound as though this wacky yet touching work is a parody, but as the playwright goes on to explain in the essay, it’s not. The inventive author of such wildly funny pieces as Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You and Betty’s Summer Vacation employs numerous references to all four of Chekhov’s major plays, but these are only a starting point for an insightful and compassionate profile of a family coping with loss and confusion in the digital age. But, don’t worry, it’s hilarious too.
Just like their Chekhovian namesakes, depressed siblings Vanya and Sonia may have their Bucks County home sold out from under them by an unfeeling well-off relative: their sister Masha, a glamorous movie star who has just arrived with her boy toy, Spike. Meanwhile, the cleaning lady Cassandra lives up to her moniker by foretelling disaster every five minutes, and a lovely visiting neighbor, Nina, much like the ingénue in The Seagull, forms an attachment with this troubled clan.
There are wild and woolly take-offs on the Russian master’s tendency to feature sad protagonists, but Durang’s mixed-up characters are far from caricatures. The performances by a splendid cast and even-handed direction by Nicholas Martin wisely avoid overplaying the funhouse-mirror aspects of the script and keep the emotions honest.
In two heartrending monologues, Vanya and Sonia expose their aching, unfulfilled souls. Set off by Spike texting during a reading of Vanya’s play (based on the abstract piece written by Treplev in The Seagull), the unhappy brother launches into a tour-de-force diatribe on the shallowness of the Facebook age and his longing for the simpler pleasures of his 1950s childhood. Middle-aged Sonia’s aria of despair comes during a one-sided phone conversation with her first potential boyfriend as she takes frightened, tentative steps out of her shell.
Both these shattering vignettes are delivered with just the right combination of subtlety and flash by David Hyde Pierce and Kristen Nielsen, respectively. Both create real people with wants and desires existing in a bizarre literary-reference universe. Nielsen, a frequent Durang collaborator, is especially proficient at conjuring up these dual realities, knowing just when to drop her voice an octave or raise an eyebrow for maximum effect. She makes Sonia both a giggle-inducing Debbie Downer and a complex, lonely woman.
Sigourney Weaver, another Durang favorite, does a screamingly funny portrait of an exaggerated version of herself—a narcissistic film star battling aging and self-doubt as she clings to Spike and pushes away the admiring and much younger Nina. Billy Magnussen’s Spike is a gloriously clueless stud, intoxicated with his own beauty, and Genevieve Angelson makes for a charming and sweet Nina. Squeaky-voiced Shalita Grant cleverly keeps Cassandra from being a one-joke pony. Similarly, this show could have been an extended skit, skewering vodka-drenched depressives, but the inventive Durang hasn’t settled for easy comedy. Instead he has written a winking tribute to Chekhov and a piercingly moving family play.
Lincoln Center Theater at the Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre [show moved to Golden Theatre]
Reviewed by David Sheward
In a program essay, Christopher Durang describes his new play Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, now at the intimate Mitzi E. Newhouse at Lincoln Center, as Chekhov in a blender. That makes it sound as though this wacky yet touching work is a parody, but as the playwright goes on to explain in the essay, it’s not. The inventive author of such wildly funny pieces as Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You and Betty’s Summer Vacation employs numerous references to all four of Chekhov’s major plays, but these are only a starting point for an insightful and compassionate profile of a family coping with loss and confusion in the digital age. But, don’t worry, it’s hilarious too.
Just like their Chekhovian namesakes, depressed siblings Vanya and Sonia may have their Bucks County home sold out from under them by an unfeeling well-off relative: their sister Masha, a glamorous movie star who has just arrived with her boy toy, Spike. Meanwhile, the cleaning lady Cassandra lives up to her moniker by foretelling disaster every five minutes, and a lovely visiting neighbor, Nina, much like the ingénue in The Seagull, forms an attachment with this troubled clan.
There are wild and woolly take-offs on the Russian master’s tendency to feature sad protagonists, but Durang’s mixed-up characters are far from caricatures. The performances by a splendid cast and even-handed direction by Nicholas Martin wisely avoid overplaying the funhouse-mirror aspects of the script and keep the emotions honest.
In two heartrending monologues, Vanya and Sonia expose their aching, unfulfilled souls. Set off by Spike texting during a reading of Vanya’s play (based on the abstract piece written by Treplev in The Seagull), the unhappy brother launches into a tour-de-force diatribe on the shallowness of the Facebook age and his longing for the simpler pleasures of his 1950s childhood. Middle-aged Sonia’s aria of despair comes during a one-sided phone conversation with her first potential boyfriend as she takes frightened, tentative steps out of her shell.
Both these shattering vignettes are delivered with just the right combination of subtlety and flash by David Hyde Pierce and Kristen Nielsen, respectively. Both create real people with wants and desires existing in a bizarre literary-reference universe. Nielsen, a frequent Durang collaborator, is especially proficient at conjuring up these dual realities, knowing just when to drop her voice an octave or raise an eyebrow for maximum effect. She makes Sonia both a giggle-inducing Debbie Downer and a complex, lonely woman.
Sigourney Weaver, another Durang favorite, does a screamingly funny portrait of an exaggerated version of herself—a narcissistic film star battling aging and self-doubt as she clings to Spike and pushes away the admiring and much younger Nina. Billy Magnussen’s Spike is a gloriously clueless stud, intoxicated with his own beauty, and Genevieve Angelson makes for a charming and sweet Nina. Squeaky-voiced Shalita Grant cleverly keeps Cassandra from being a one-joke pony. Similarly, this show could have been an extended skit, skewering vodka-drenched depressives, but the inventive Durang hasn’t settled for easy comedy. Instead he has written a winking tribute to Chekhov and a piercingly moving family play.
November 25, 2012
Live and Learned
How Michael Learned rode the wave from The Waltons to The Outgoing Tide
By Simi Horwitz
NEW YORK—Michael Learned admits it took her time to find the complexity in the role of Peg, the wife of feisty Gunner (Peter Strauss), who is suffering from dementia and declining rapidly. Peg is seemingly unkind, but she’s also deeply in love with her husband, explains Learned. The actor initially wasn’t even sure she wanted to tackle Bruce Graham’s The Outgoing Tide, now playing Off-Broadway at 59E59. Ultimately the play’s power and resonance trumped any reservations she might have had.
The three-character family drama (also starring Ian Lithgow as the son) centers on the crisis that emerges when mom can no longer care for dad and is determined to move with him to an assisted living facility, knowing the next step for him will be its nursing home. He makes it clear he’d rather be dead.
Like many in the audience, Learned has been a caregiver and has thought about quality of life issues and the pain entailed in letting go of someone you love. “I relate to her anger, frustration, and what it’s like to dedicate your life to someone,” says Learned.” “I was a ’50s housewife, and, even after I was a working actress, I had ‘housewife’ on my passport. I modeled myself after Mrs. Cleaver.”
Learned hasn’t been Mrs. Cleaver for a long time. Best known for her long-running stint as Olivia Walton on The Waltons, Learned boasts impressive credits—from starring in her own TV show, Nurse, to appearing in such Broadway productions as Gore Vidal’s The Best Man, The Sisters Rosensweig, and The Three Sisters, among many others. Learned has starred in national tours and guest-starred in a host of major television programs.
Listen and Learned
Still, playing Peg is awash in acting challenges even for a veteran
actor like Learned. “Peg is never explained, and, like many female characters, she’s there as a device for the male lead,” says Learned. “She’s a reactor and an active listener, which is what acting is all about. But I’ve had to struggle to flesh her out. I’ve thought about what I identify with in her and who she reminds me of. But I’m mostly tabula rasa and figure it out on stage in the moment. Also, I never did a play with flashbacks. It’s a challenge to step out of time and place.”
Learned’s method has evolved with no one epiphany, though she speculates, “As I’ve become freer as a woman, I’ve become freer as an actress and more willing to take chances on stage. I was well-trained early on, but I was also very self-conscious. I guess a turning point was playing Miss Daisy in Driving Miss Daisy. For the first time, I didn’t need to be liked on stage.”
A native of Washington, D.C., Learned grew up in Connecticut and later moved abroad. Her father, who worked with the State Department, was a spy, she admits matter-of-factly. Learned had her sights set on a dancing career, and her parents sent her to a performing arts boarding school in Hertfordshire, England, where she decided to focus on acting instead.
Learned has worked steadily without the benefit of career strategies, she says. “I think my life was pre-ordained, but then I see that more and more in so many people’s lives. They end up doing what they were supposed to do.”
Learned the Hard Way
Part of her life’s trajectory was her early marriage to actor Peter Donat at the age of 17 and setting up a home in Canada, where the young couple focused on his acting career, though Learned worked as well, occasionally on Canadian television, but mostly at the Stratford Festival in Ontario with such theater luminaries as Paul Scofield and Christopher Plummer. She and Donat spent a number of years performing in repertory with American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, which also served as a wonderful training ground, she says.
Not long thereafter, Learned was divorced and a single mom with three young sons. As she tells it she was in dire straits—“living in a motel and crying myself to sleep each night”—when the extraordinary occurred. Her agent sent her to audition for a new TV show, The Waltons. Television was never her ambition, but she reluctantly showed up, thinking even if she landed the part, the series wouldn’t last long anyway. The big virtue would be having an LA-based TV credit on her résumé, she recalls.
Olivia Walton entered the public imagination and brought Learned high-profile recognition, ample income, as well as six Emmy nominations (three wins). It was also a learning experience. “TV teaches you how to be still and how to listen as an actor,” Learned says. “You cannot lie in front of the camera. After you get over the ego-deflating experience of seeing yourself on screen, you do learn.”
She likens acting on television to “plowing a field,” as opposed to the experience of “running the race” in theater. A major regret is that at the height of her TV career, she didn’t have the opportunity to do more theater. “When I started out, you were either a film, television, or theater actor,” she notes. “You didn’t do all three. I think it’s great today for actors to move back and forth.”
Time and Tide
Like many actors who’ve been on a long-running hit series, the experience was life-altering in the most wonderful ways. Yet, following the long run, Learned suffered from typecasting and did not work steadily, at least not on television. But happily, there was never any shortage of opportunities in theater for her and she has not found a diminishing of acting opportunities with age.
Still, Learned wishes mature female characters were written with a little more complexity. “I dread the day I’m cast to play Anfisa in The Three Sisters,” she says, laughing. Plays she’d love to tackle include The Visit, Come Back Little Sheba, and anything by Edward Albee.
Asked what she’d do differently if she could redo her career, she pauses a moment before commenting, “I was naive and success was thrust upon me. I was not into the ‘business’ aspect, the publicity, the diplomacy, or even knowing how to network. I think if I had been more responsible in those areas I’d be doing a lot more TV work now.”
Learned is not complaining. After all, she’s performing in a three-dimensional play in New York as the city gears up for the holidays. “I love being here, especially at Christmas time,” she says. It can’t get better than that.
Top photo: Peter Strauss and Michael Learned in The Outgoing Tide, photo by Matt Urban
Middle photo: Ian LIthgow and Learned in The Outgoing Tide, photo by Matt Urban
How Michael Learned rode the wave from The Waltons to The Outgoing Tide
By Simi Horwitz
NEW YORK—Michael Learned admits it took her time to find the complexity in the role of Peg, the wife of feisty Gunner (Peter Strauss), who is suffering from dementia and declining rapidly. Peg is seemingly unkind, but she’s also deeply in love with her husband, explains Learned. The actor initially wasn’t even sure she wanted to tackle Bruce Graham’s The Outgoing Tide, now playing Off-Broadway at 59E59. Ultimately the play’s power and resonance trumped any reservations she might have had.
The three-character family drama (also starring Ian Lithgow as the son) centers on the crisis that emerges when mom can no longer care for dad and is determined to move with him to an assisted living facility, knowing the next step for him will be its nursing home. He makes it clear he’d rather be dead.Like many in the audience, Learned has been a caregiver and has thought about quality of life issues and the pain entailed in letting go of someone you love. “I relate to her anger, frustration, and what it’s like to dedicate your life to someone,” says Learned.” “I was a ’50s housewife, and, even after I was a working actress, I had ‘housewife’ on my passport. I modeled myself after Mrs. Cleaver.”
Learned hasn’t been Mrs. Cleaver for a long time. Best known for her long-running stint as Olivia Walton on The Waltons, Learned boasts impressive credits—from starring in her own TV show, Nurse, to appearing in such Broadway productions as Gore Vidal’s The Best Man, The Sisters Rosensweig, and The Three Sisters, among many others. Learned has starred in national tours and guest-starred in a host of major television programs.
Listen and Learned
Still, playing Peg is awash in acting challenges even for a veteran
actor like Learned. “Peg is never explained, and, like many female characters, she’s there as a device for the male lead,” says Learned. “She’s a reactor and an active listener, which is what acting is all about. But I’ve had to struggle to flesh her out. I’ve thought about what I identify with in her and who she reminds me of. But I’m mostly tabula rasa and figure it out on stage in the moment. Also, I never did a play with flashbacks. It’s a challenge to step out of time and place.”Learned’s method has evolved with no one epiphany, though she speculates, “As I’ve become freer as a woman, I’ve become freer as an actress and more willing to take chances on stage. I was well-trained early on, but I was also very self-conscious. I guess a turning point was playing Miss Daisy in Driving Miss Daisy. For the first time, I didn’t need to be liked on stage.”
A native of Washington, D.C., Learned grew up in Connecticut and later moved abroad. Her father, who worked with the State Department, was a spy, she admits matter-of-factly. Learned had her sights set on a dancing career, and her parents sent her to a performing arts boarding school in Hertfordshire, England, where she decided to focus on acting instead.
Learned has worked steadily without the benefit of career strategies, she says. “I think my life was pre-ordained, but then I see that more and more in so many people’s lives. They end up doing what they were supposed to do.”
Learned the Hard Way
Part of her life’s trajectory was her early marriage to actor Peter Donat at the age of 17 and setting up a home in Canada, where the young couple focused on his acting career, though Learned worked as well, occasionally on Canadian television, but mostly at the Stratford Festival in Ontario with such theater luminaries as Paul Scofield and Christopher Plummer. She and Donat spent a number of years performing in repertory with American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, which also served as a wonderful training ground, she says.
Not long thereafter, Learned was divorced and a single mom with three young sons. As she tells it she was in dire straits—“living in a motel and crying myself to sleep each night”—when the extraordinary occurred. Her agent sent her to audition for a new TV show, The Waltons. Television was never her ambition, but she reluctantly showed up, thinking even if she landed the part, the series wouldn’t last long anyway. The big virtue would be having an LA-based TV credit on her résumé, she recalls.
Olivia Walton entered the public imagination and brought Learned high-profile recognition, ample income, as well as six Emmy nominations (three wins). It was also a learning experience. “TV teaches you how to be still and how to listen as an actor,” Learned says. “You cannot lie in front of the camera. After you get over the ego-deflating experience of seeing yourself on screen, you do learn.”
She likens acting on television to “plowing a field,” as opposed to the experience of “running the race” in theater. A major regret is that at the height of her TV career, she didn’t have the opportunity to do more theater. “When I started out, you were either a film, television, or theater actor,” she notes. “You didn’t do all three. I think it’s great today for actors to move back and forth.”
Time and Tide
Like many actors who’ve been on a long-running hit series, the experience was life-altering in the most wonderful ways. Yet, following the long run, Learned suffered from typecasting and did not work steadily, at least not on television. But happily, there was never any shortage of opportunities in theater for her and she has not found a diminishing of acting opportunities with age.Still, Learned wishes mature female characters were written with a little more complexity. “I dread the day I’m cast to play Anfisa in The Three Sisters,” she says, laughing. Plays she’d love to tackle include The Visit, Come Back Little Sheba, and anything by Edward Albee.
Asked what she’d do differently if she could redo her career, she pauses a moment before commenting, “I was naive and success was thrust upon me. I was not into the ‘business’ aspect, the publicity, the diplomacy, or even knowing how to network. I think if I had been more responsible in those areas I’d be doing a lot more TV work now.”
Learned is not complaining. After all, she’s performing in a three-dimensional play in New York as the city gears up for the holidays. “I love being here, especially at Christmas time,” she says. It can’t get better than that.
November 14, 2012
Top photo: Peter Strauss and Michael Learned in The Outgoing Tide, photo by Matt Urban
Middle photo: Ian LIthgow and Learned in The Outgoing Tide, photo by Matt Urban
The Heiress
Walter Kerr Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
Jessica Chastain is one of the most powerful and talented young actors in movies. In 2011, she appeared in an astonishing six films, playing vastly different women—from the tough-as-nails Israeli intelligence agent in Debt to the child-like mother in Tree of Life to the flighty and slightly trashy young bride in The Help. Her Broadway debut in a revival of The Heiress, a 1947 vehicle that brought a Tony Award to the magnificent Cherry Jones in a 1995 production, was anticipated as a major event of the season. Unfortunately, Chastain is not as polished a stage performer as she is a screen thespian, and Moisés Kaufman’s elegant production (gorgeous set by Derek McLane and costumes by Albert Wolsky) is a disappointment.
Based on Henry James’s novel Washington Square and set in that fashionable NYC neighborhood in the 1850s, the plot focuses on painfully shy and physically plain Catherine Sloper, the heiress of the title. Dominated by her cruel father, an eminent doctor who has never forgiven her for causing his beloved wife to die in childbirth, Catherine believes she is unworthy of romantic love and hides behind her embroidery. That is until the dashing and penniless Morris Townsend sweeps her off her feet. But is he only after her money? When the couple’s whirlwind courtship ends in tragedy, Catherine transforms into a dignified and controlling woman unafraid of going after what she wants.
The story is more than a tad melodramatic, but, with the right cast, Catherine’s crushing disappointment and subsequent devastating revenge can be rousingly theatrical. Kaufman fails to strike the right balance between Catherine and the forces assembled against her. Chastain, while luminous on screen, is as stilted as her character. It’s a difficult assignment to convey awkwardness without succumbing to it and then transitioning to a powerful self-possession. The star only manages to get across an indication of emotions by putting on exaggerated expressions of fear, passion, and anger, as if she were in her first acting class.
To further upset the play’s balance, the subtle David Strathairn is so multidimensional as Catherine’s unbending father that he winds up being the sympathetic one. Instead of the harsh brute as embodied by Ralph Richardson in the Hollywood film version, Strathairn delivers a complicated and imperious man torn by his love of his late wife and concern for his daughter. For the play to work, we have to believe Dr. Sloper does not care about Catherine, but Strathairn’s father obviously does.
In addition, the luminous Judith Ivey takes the supporting role of Catherine’s silly aunt and makes her in a fascinating and rich conspirator with motives of vicarious romanticism. Dan Stevens, best known for his recurring role on Downton Abbey, adds to the off-kilter quality of this production by giving a so-so rendition of Morris. When the villain and the character woman are the most interesting people on stage, you know you’re in trouble.
Despite the shortcomings, it’s refreshing to see a Broadway nonmusical show with a relatively large cast; and Virginia Kull, Dee Nelson, and Caitlin O’Connell lend shaded performances in smaller roles. Too bad the leads did not go as deep.
Walter Kerr Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
Jessica Chastain is one of the most powerful and talented young actors in movies. In 2011, she appeared in an astonishing six films, playing vastly different women—from the tough-as-nails Israeli intelligence agent in Debt to the child-like mother in Tree of Life to the flighty and slightly trashy young bride in The Help. Her Broadway debut in a revival of The Heiress, a 1947 vehicle that brought a Tony Award to the magnificent Cherry Jones in a 1995 production, was anticipated as a major event of the season. Unfortunately, Chastain is not as polished a stage performer as she is a screen thespian, and Moisés Kaufman’s elegant production (gorgeous set by Derek McLane and costumes by Albert Wolsky) is a disappointment.
Based on Henry James’s novel Washington Square and set in that fashionable NYC neighborhood in the 1850s, the plot focuses on painfully shy and physically plain Catherine Sloper, the heiress of the title. Dominated by her cruel father, an eminent doctor who has never forgiven her for causing his beloved wife to die in childbirth, Catherine believes she is unworthy of romantic love and hides behind her embroidery. That is until the dashing and penniless Morris Townsend sweeps her off her feet. But is he only after her money? When the couple’s whirlwind courtship ends in tragedy, Catherine transforms into a dignified and controlling woman unafraid of going after what she wants.
The story is more than a tad melodramatic, but, with the right cast, Catherine’s crushing disappointment and subsequent devastating revenge can be rousingly theatrical. Kaufman fails to strike the right balance between Catherine and the forces assembled against her. Chastain, while luminous on screen, is as stilted as her character. It’s a difficult assignment to convey awkwardness without succumbing to it and then transitioning to a powerful self-possession. The star only manages to get across an indication of emotions by putting on exaggerated expressions of fear, passion, and anger, as if she were in her first acting class.
To further upset the play’s balance, the subtle David Strathairn is so multidimensional as Catherine’s unbending father that he winds up being the sympathetic one. Instead of the harsh brute as embodied by Ralph Richardson in the Hollywood film version, Strathairn delivers a complicated and imperious man torn by his love of his late wife and concern for his daughter. For the play to work, we have to believe Dr. Sloper does not care about Catherine, but Strathairn’s father obviously does.
In addition, the luminous Judith Ivey takes the supporting role of Catherine’s silly aunt and makes her in a fascinating and rich conspirator with motives of vicarious romanticism. Dan Stevens, best known for his recurring role on Downton Abbey, adds to the off-kilter quality of this production by giving a so-so rendition of Morris. When the villain and the character woman are the most interesting people on stage, you know you’re in trouble.
Despite the shortcomings, it’s refreshing to see a Broadway nonmusical show with a relatively large cast; and Virginia Kull, Dee Nelson, and Caitlin O’Connell lend shaded performances in smaller roles. Too bad the leads did not go as deep.
November 9, 2012
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Steppenwolf Theatre Company at the Booth Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
It’s hard to believe that Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is exactly 50 years old. In Pam MacKinnon’s bracingly fresh production, now on Broadway after acclaimed runs at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Washington, D.C.,’s Arena Stage, the vicious battle between middle-aged marrieds George and Martha is as scary, intimate, and real as ever. Apart from a few references to the Cold War and the couple’s past from Prohibition to the 1940s, this cauldron of love, hate, alcohol, and recrimination could have been brewed this morning.
Contemporary actors taking on this titanic pair inevitably come up against the memory of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in Mike Nichols’ jittery and intense 1966 film. (Arthur Hill’s and Uta Hagen’s original Broadway performances are preserved in an audio recording, but they haven’t seeped into the public consciousness the way Burton’s and Taylor’s have—thanks to cable TV, DVDs, and streaming video.)
Fortunately, Tracy Letts and Amy Morton banish all thoughts of the Burtons as the current performers slash and tear at each other in a new way. In the film and most stage productions, the balance of power shifts to Martha for much of the late-night marathon booze-up with a younger couple. Martha gets to be obviously predatory as she strikes out at anything in her path and uses the two guests Nick and Honey as weapons to get at her husband, while George’s strategy is more subtle and therefore not as flashy. But here it’s an equal battle, Letts’s cunning George proving just as primed for the jugular as Morton’s sexy Martha.
Letts, best known as a playwright (August: Osage County), creates a deep and complex subtext for George’s sadomasochistic behavior. You can read the history of the characters’ crushing and codependent marriage on his features as every sting and barb hurled at George registers. Both actors remember that these two combatants need each other and hate themselves for this need. Morton stays away from the strident bossiness that marks most Marthas, retaining a hint of the girlish charm that must have attracted George in the first place. This Martha is can be a charmer and clearly is a hit at all those faculty parties. She’s fun and flirty, but there’s a soft center of self-pity and depression beneath her hard, bright shell.
Madison Dirks gives the smirky Nick a relaxed charisma with only the slightest edge of the necessary arrogance, while Carrie Coon is hilarious as the simpering Honey, playing up how easily she gets drunk and how vulnerable she is to attack.
Todd Rosenthal’s cluttered, book-crammed set, Nan Cibula-Jenkins’s understated costumes, and Allen Lee Hughes’s unobtrusive lighting provide the right slightly shabby, lived-in environment for this deathless deathmatch.
This Virginia Woolf is indeed frightening as all great drama is, but it’s nothing to be afraid of.
Steppenwolf Theatre Company at the Booth Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
It’s hard to believe that Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is exactly 50 years old. In Pam MacKinnon’s bracingly fresh production, now on Broadway after acclaimed runs at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company and Washington, D.C.,’s Arena Stage, the vicious battle between middle-aged marrieds George and Martha is as scary, intimate, and real as ever. Apart from a few references to the Cold War and the couple’s past from Prohibition to the 1940s, this cauldron of love, hate, alcohol, and recrimination could have been brewed this morning.
Contemporary actors taking on this titanic pair inevitably come up against the memory of Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor in Mike Nichols’ jittery and intense 1966 film. (Arthur Hill’s and Uta Hagen’s original Broadway performances are preserved in an audio recording, but they haven’t seeped into the public consciousness the way Burton’s and Taylor’s have—thanks to cable TV, DVDs, and streaming video.)
Fortunately, Tracy Letts and Amy Morton banish all thoughts of the Burtons as the current performers slash and tear at each other in a new way. In the film and most stage productions, the balance of power shifts to Martha for much of the late-night marathon booze-up with a younger couple. Martha gets to be obviously predatory as she strikes out at anything in her path and uses the two guests Nick and Honey as weapons to get at her husband, while George’s strategy is more subtle and therefore not as flashy. But here it’s an equal battle, Letts’s cunning George proving just as primed for the jugular as Morton’s sexy Martha.
Letts, best known as a playwright (August: Osage County), creates a deep and complex subtext for George’s sadomasochistic behavior. You can read the history of the characters’ crushing and codependent marriage on his features as every sting and barb hurled at George registers. Both actors remember that these two combatants need each other and hate themselves for this need. Morton stays away from the strident bossiness that marks most Marthas, retaining a hint of the girlish charm that must have attracted George in the first place. This Martha is can be a charmer and clearly is a hit at all those faculty parties. She’s fun and flirty, but there’s a soft center of self-pity and depression beneath her hard, bright shell.
Madison Dirks gives the smirky Nick a relaxed charisma with only the slightest edge of the necessary arrogance, while Carrie Coon is hilarious as the simpering Honey, playing up how easily she gets drunk and how vulnerable she is to attack.
Todd Rosenthal’s cluttered, book-crammed set, Nan Cibula-Jenkins’s understated costumes, and Allen Lee Hughes’s unobtrusive lighting provide the right slightly shabby, lived-in environment for this deathless deathmatch.
This Virginia Woolf is indeed frightening as all great drama is, but it’s nothing to be afraid of.
October 19, 2012
Cyrano de Bergerac
Roundabout Theatre Company at the American Airlines Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
When Douglas Hodge in the title role of Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of Cyrano de Bergerac bursts into the American Airlines Theatre from the street entrance, it’s a surprising and refreshing coup de theatre. However, instead moving his leading man right down the aisle and into battle with a pompous popinjay, director Jamie Lloyd has Hodge travel all around the back of the theatre and apparently into the balcony (it was difficult to tell from the audience), where we can hardly hear his lines, before charging onto the stage. It’s a missed opportunity, lessening the impact of a first appearance, and emblematic of Lloyd’s energetic but muddled production.
Lloyd injects this beloved warhorse about the dazzling romantic hero encumbered by an enormous nose with a healthy dose of earthiness. In this version, Cyrano’s fellow guardsmen and poets would be more at home at a NASCAR rally than in 17th century Paris. Soutra Gilmour’s costumes are ragged and wearable, and her set resembles a deserted warehouse. Ranjit Bolt’s profanity-laced verse adaptation of the Edmond Rostand original is equally gritty. Gone are the stylized, staid poses of most Cyrano remountings. But also missing are vital elements: clarity of diction and intent. The actors rush through Bolt’s streetwise dialogue, and Lloyd’s helter-skelter staging often confuses the action. This kitchen-sink Cyrano is more naturalistic and rough than the usual, but it obscures Rostand’s glorious poetry and damps down the protagonist’s heroic stature.
It’s clear that was partially the objective of star and director—to make the brilliant Cyrano a bit more human. Just as he did in his turn as the divine drag queen Alban in the 2010 revival of La Cage Aux Folles, Dodge brings a potential stereotypical stage icon down to earth. He makes Cyrano into a high-velocity standup comic, tossing quips and anecdotes as fast as he lunges with his epee. Dodge’s stamina and inventiveness are admirable and he also conveys the broken heart beneath the devil-may-care exterior. But with all that running around and muddy delivery, we lose too much of Cyrano’s shattering charade of hiding his love for his beauteous cousin Roxanne. By the play’s end, we’re just as exhausted as the hero, who collapses in a prolonged death scene.
Clemence Poesy’s Roxanne and Kyle Soller’s Christian, the young cavalier who woos her with Cyrano’s words, are too bland to register either physically or emotionally. This is a fatal casting flaw, as both characters are supposed to be dazzlingly attractive.
Oddly, the most interesting performance is given by the villain, Patrick Page as the lecherous Comte de Guiche. This veteran of numerous Broadway cad roles such as the Green Goblin in Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, Scar in The Lion King, and Dr. Seuss’s The Grinch, takes this usually thrown-away part on a transformative journey from vain buffoon to tender, sympathetic friend. Maybe this production should have been called De Guiche instead of Cyrano.
Roundabout Theatre Company at the American Airlines Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
When Douglas Hodge in the title role of Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of Cyrano de Bergerac bursts into the American Airlines Theatre from the street entrance, it’s a surprising and refreshing coup de theatre. However, instead moving his leading man right down the aisle and into battle with a pompous popinjay, director Jamie Lloyd has Hodge travel all around the back of the theatre and apparently into the balcony (it was difficult to tell from the audience), where we can hardly hear his lines, before charging onto the stage. It’s a missed opportunity, lessening the impact of a first appearance, and emblematic of Lloyd’s energetic but muddled production.
Lloyd injects this beloved warhorse about the dazzling romantic hero encumbered by an enormous nose with a healthy dose of earthiness. In this version, Cyrano’s fellow guardsmen and poets would be more at home at a NASCAR rally than in 17th century Paris. Soutra Gilmour’s costumes are ragged and wearable, and her set resembles a deserted warehouse. Ranjit Bolt’s profanity-laced verse adaptation of the Edmond Rostand original is equally gritty. Gone are the stylized, staid poses of most Cyrano remountings. But also missing are vital elements: clarity of diction and intent. The actors rush through Bolt’s streetwise dialogue, and Lloyd’s helter-skelter staging often confuses the action. This kitchen-sink Cyrano is more naturalistic and rough than the usual, but it obscures Rostand’s glorious poetry and damps down the protagonist’s heroic stature.
It’s clear that was partially the objective of star and director—to make the brilliant Cyrano a bit more human. Just as he did in his turn as the divine drag queen Alban in the 2010 revival of La Cage Aux Folles, Dodge brings a potential stereotypical stage icon down to earth. He makes Cyrano into a high-velocity standup comic, tossing quips and anecdotes as fast as he lunges with his epee. Dodge’s stamina and inventiveness are admirable and he also conveys the broken heart beneath the devil-may-care exterior. But with all that running around and muddy delivery, we lose too much of Cyrano’s shattering charade of hiding his love for his beauteous cousin Roxanne. By the play’s end, we’re just as exhausted as the hero, who collapses in a prolonged death scene.
Clemence Poesy’s Roxanne and Kyle Soller’s Christian, the young cavalier who woos her with Cyrano’s words, are too bland to register either physically or emotionally. This is a fatal casting flaw, as both characters are supposed to be dazzlingly attractive.
Oddly, the most interesting performance is given by the villain, Patrick Page as the lecherous Comte de Guiche. This veteran of numerous Broadway cad roles such as the Green Goblin in Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, Scar in The Lion King, and Dr. Seuss’s The Grinch, takes this usually thrown-away part on a transformative journey from vain buffoon to tender, sympathetic friend. Maybe this production should have been called De Guiche instead of Cyrano.
October 11, 2012
An Enemy of the People
Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People can be a bit preachy and heavy-handed. The play’s central premise of a Norwegian town’s toxic waters paralleling the citizens’ moral corruption is somewhat obvious symbolism; and its hero, Dr. Thomas Stockman, is so noble and enlightened, he comes across as more of a saint than a plausible hero. Perhaps that’s why the play is so infrequently revived. There have been only three major New York productions in the past 52 years. Frederic March headlined an adaptation by Arthur Miller in 1950, which drew parallels to the McCarthy witch hunts. Philip Bosco starred in a Lincoln Center Theater production in 1971, which echoed concerns of the newly popular environmentalist movement. Now Manhattan Theatre Club is mounting a new version by British playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz (presented in London in 2008), and with Doug Hughes’ muscular direction and Boyd Gaines’s unflinching lead performance, Enemy becomes a complex, pulse-pounding examination of political pressure and courageous action.
When Stockmann discovers the town’s spa, the source of its new prosperity, is polluted and causing illness among the guests, he believes he will be hailed for bringing a menace to light. But the forces of complacency, led by his brother Peter the mayor, chose to ignore his warnings and label him as a crank, a revolutionary, and finally, the epitaph of the title. Ibsen then turns Stockmann into a slogan-spouting spokesman for progressive thought in a provincial society and the character loses his human dimension.
Fortunately, in Lenkiewicz’s version, Stockmann’s flaws are emphasized, and Gaines gives shadings to the doctor’s pomposity and narcissism, as well as his nobility. This guy’s no angel. He drinks excessively, loves to hear the sound of his own voice, and bears grudges, especially against his more conventional sibling, played with oily smoothness by Richard Thomas. You can believe these two are brothers; both have huge egos. It’s easy to imagine them as children fighting over toys. Gaines and Thomas remember that there is love between them, and their confrontational scenes are charged with twisted affection, as well as rage.
Two more reasons for few Enemy productions are the expense of its relatively large cast and the fact that the supporting characters can be seen as one-sided representatives of community segments: the working class, the press, the intellectuals, the bureaucratic elites, etc. Lenkiewicz solves the first problem by slimming down the cast, banishing Stockmann’s two little boys offstage and reducing the crowd at the town meeting. Director Hughes and some skilled actors take care of the second by infusing the roles with reams of subtext. As Aslaksen, an opportunistic printer, Gerry Bamman is particularly adept at creating a realistic sniveling cravenness, as well as a convincing drive to protect Aslaksen’s most highly prized possession: his personal property. Michael Siberry makes an intense impression in two brief scenes as Morten Kiil, a grasping miser who runs the tannery causing the water poisoning. Kathleen McNenny goes beyond the cliché of the doting wife as Mrs. Stockmann to build a strong figure in her own right.
John Lee Beatty’s ominous revolving set, Ben Stanton’s sculptural lighting, and David Van Tieghem’s bone-chilling original music and sound design create just the right repressive world for this unexpected and powerful production. With all the talk of haves and have-nots in today’s news, Enemy is as startlingly relevant as ever.
Manhattan Theatre Club at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People can be a bit preachy and heavy-handed. The play’s central premise of a Norwegian town’s toxic waters paralleling the citizens’ moral corruption is somewhat obvious symbolism; and its hero, Dr. Thomas Stockman, is so noble and enlightened, he comes across as more of a saint than a plausible hero. Perhaps that’s why the play is so infrequently revived. There have been only three major New York productions in the past 52 years. Frederic March headlined an adaptation by Arthur Miller in 1950, which drew parallels to the McCarthy witch hunts. Philip Bosco starred in a Lincoln Center Theater production in 1971, which echoed concerns of the newly popular environmentalist movement. Now Manhattan Theatre Club is mounting a new version by British playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz (presented in London in 2008), and with Doug Hughes’ muscular direction and Boyd Gaines’s unflinching lead performance, Enemy becomes a complex, pulse-pounding examination of political pressure and courageous action.
When Stockmann discovers the town’s spa, the source of its new prosperity, is polluted and causing illness among the guests, he believes he will be hailed for bringing a menace to light. But the forces of complacency, led by his brother Peter the mayor, chose to ignore his warnings and label him as a crank, a revolutionary, and finally, the epitaph of the title. Ibsen then turns Stockmann into a slogan-spouting spokesman for progressive thought in a provincial society and the character loses his human dimension.
Fortunately, in Lenkiewicz’s version, Stockmann’s flaws are emphasized, and Gaines gives shadings to the doctor’s pomposity and narcissism, as well as his nobility. This guy’s no angel. He drinks excessively, loves to hear the sound of his own voice, and bears grudges, especially against his more conventional sibling, played with oily smoothness by Richard Thomas. You can believe these two are brothers; both have huge egos. It’s easy to imagine them as children fighting over toys. Gaines and Thomas remember that there is love between them, and their confrontational scenes are charged with twisted affection, as well as rage.
Two more reasons for few Enemy productions are the expense of its relatively large cast and the fact that the supporting characters can be seen as one-sided representatives of community segments: the working class, the press, the intellectuals, the bureaucratic elites, etc. Lenkiewicz solves the first problem by slimming down the cast, banishing Stockmann’s two little boys offstage and reducing the crowd at the town meeting. Director Hughes and some skilled actors take care of the second by infusing the roles with reams of subtext. As Aslaksen, an opportunistic printer, Gerry Bamman is particularly adept at creating a realistic sniveling cravenness, as well as a convincing drive to protect Aslaksen’s most highly prized possession: his personal property. Michael Siberry makes an intense impression in two brief scenes as Morten Kiil, a grasping miser who runs the tannery causing the water poisoning. Kathleen McNenny goes beyond the cliché of the doting wife as Mrs. Stockmann to build a strong figure in her own right.
John Lee Beatty’s ominous revolving set, Ben Stanton’s sculptural lighting, and David Van Tieghem’s bone-chilling original music and sound design create just the right repressive world for this unexpected and powerful production. With all the talk of haves and have-nots in today’s news, Enemy is as startlingly relevant as ever.
September 27, 2012
In Living Black-and-White
Rain Pryor is developing her own voice as storyteller and performer in her solo show at the Actors Temple Theatre.
by Simi Horwitz
NEW YORK—Rain Pryor knows how complex and fluid racial/ethnic identity may be. She defines herself as an African-American and a Jew, “though because of my physicality—my big hair and olive skin, I
suppose I define myself more as an African-American, unless I’m in Israel where I look like everyone else,” she says. “Some people call it ‘code-switching,’ meaning I become like the people I’m with. I’m one thing with Bubbee and something else with my friends in Bed-Stuy. I don’t plan that. It just happens.”
Her dual identity is the lens through which she views the world, and nowhere is that more evident than in her solo show, Fried Chicken and Latkes, now playing Off-Broadway at the Actors Temple Theatre. Interspersed with a few songs and spot-on mimicry, the piece focuses on Pryor’s experience of growing up emotionally dislocated in Beverly Hills. She is the biracial child of a Jewish activist mother (a go-go dancer–turned-scientist) and the iconic comic Richard Pryor. Despite the humor, in the end Fried Chickens and Latkes is sad.
Forging the play posed multiple challenges, not least maintaining honesty while playing with stereotypes and straddling the thin line between parody and celebration. Most daunting was not allowing the story to become sensationalized. “Many people wanted to hear about my life with Richard Pryor,” notes his affable daughter. “But that’s not what this is about. He had a unique presence in my life and is part of my story. But it was more interesting for me to talk about Mama [paternal grandma who was a prostitute], Bubbee, and my mom and how they related to me as a biracial child.”
Pryor has been performing the piece in various incarnations for more than seven years, its evolution reflecting her growth as an artist and person. Before her father’s death, in 2005, the show was cabaret in style with comic banter and many more songs. When the act re-emerged following his death, it still had its comedic elements but was darker in tone. “I delved deeper into who the characters were and what they were saying,” she comments. “Now people have to think. The angle is different.”
Among other developments Pryor grew increasingly accepting of her biracial identity and had the freedom, perhaps for the first time, to be who she was on stage and off. Further, she was able to address the issues head-on. “When I was young, I wanted to be anyone other than myself—either blond with blue eyes or very, very dark,” she recalls. “I’m no longer afraid to be who I am. And I now talk about race.”
Type Caste
As a youngster, she wanted to act, and her parents fully supported her ambitions. Nonetheless, Pryor earned a certificate as a relapse-prevention therapist, and she ultimately worked in a drug rehab center. Still, she felt divided, aspiring to middle-class respectability, while craving the less than stable life as an actor. In the end she had both. But it was by no means smooth sailing.
Like the children of many celebrities, Pryor was helped and hindered by her lineage. Her dad’s name opened doors but also placed her under great scrutiny. After spending a number of years on the sitcom Head of the Class, she found herself typecast as a comic. “People don’t understand that serious actors may not be able to do comedy, but if you’re comedic, you tap into the pain,” Pryor insists. “I can do drama, I can do Shakespeare, but everyone assumed that I was only a comic. As Richard Pryor’s daughter they believed I was really a standup comic. I never did standup comedy.”
As a bi-racial actor, Pryor faced further obstacles in the industry. “I was not white enough to play a white role or black enough to play an African-American,” she says. Contrary to received wisdom, she does not believe the “ethnically ambiguous,” actor is hot. Indeed, she suggests the term is dishonest. “Ethnically ambiguous means having straight hair, Anglo features, and olive-colored skin,” she says. “When they start casting actors who look like me, then we can talk about ‘ethnically’ or ‘racially ambiguous.’”
Despite the challenges, Pryor boasted a number of gigs over the years, such as playing Sarah Palin’s makeup artist Angela in the TV movie Game Change and a principal role as the lipstick lesbian drug addict on the Showtime series Rude Awakening, opposite the late Lynn Redgrave. Pryor’s guest-starring stints included appearances on The Division and Chicago Hope. On stage she played the title role of Billie Holiday in the UK tour of The Billie Holiday Story and Ella Fitzgerald in the UK premiere of Ella, Meet Marilyn. Among other productions, she has performed in The Exonerated, The Vagina Monologues, and The Who’s Tommy at La Jolla Playhouse.
But her most significant role is “being a mom,” to her 4-year-old daughter, Lotus. Pryor is married to a police officer and is based in the Baltimore area, where she currently serves as the artistic director of the Strand Theater, a woman-centric company. Pryor has no regrets about wanting a family, but she is sorry she was not career-savvy enough e
arly on to have “followed through on some of the opportunities,” she muses. To this day, she does not have an agent. “Of course I want one,” Pryor emphasizes. “I’m Off-Broadway, getting great reviews. You’d think….” The sentence remains incomplete. “The game has changed so much since I did a sitcom 20 years ago. I could ask my celebrity friends what I should do, but I’m weird about that. They assume I have an agent. No, I don’t have a manger either. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done on my own.”
She’s hopeful this time around her luck will change. But whether or not she lands that elusive representation, performing Fried Chicken and Latkes is a transforming experience. “It’s made me more aware of how race is so on the surface today,” she says. “Six years ago, audiences didn’t react the way they do now. That’s because we have a black president. We can’t hide it. We can’t run from it. We can’t sweep it under the rug. And we’re not past it. And we won’t be until we see it and deal with it. And then we’ll be able to discard it.”
Production photos by Peter Zimmern
Rain Pryor is developing her own voice as storyteller and performer in her solo show at the Actors Temple Theatre.
by Simi Horwitz
NEW YORK—Rain Pryor knows how complex and fluid racial/ethnic identity may be. She defines herself as an African-American and a Jew, “though because of my physicality—my big hair and olive skin, I
suppose I define myself more as an African-American, unless I’m in Israel where I look like everyone else,” she says. “Some people call it ‘code-switching,’ meaning I become like the people I’m with. I’m one thing with Bubbee and something else with my friends in Bed-Stuy. I don’t plan that. It just happens.”Her dual identity is the lens through which she views the world, and nowhere is that more evident than in her solo show, Fried Chicken and Latkes, now playing Off-Broadway at the Actors Temple Theatre. Interspersed with a few songs and spot-on mimicry, the piece focuses on Pryor’s experience of growing up emotionally dislocated in Beverly Hills. She is the biracial child of a Jewish activist mother (a go-go dancer–turned-scientist) and the iconic comic Richard Pryor. Despite the humor, in the end Fried Chickens and Latkes is sad.
Forging the play posed multiple challenges, not least maintaining honesty while playing with stereotypes and straddling the thin line between parody and celebration. Most daunting was not allowing the story to become sensationalized. “Many people wanted to hear about my life with Richard Pryor,” notes his affable daughter. “But that’s not what this is about. He had a unique presence in my life and is part of my story. But it was more interesting for me to talk about Mama [paternal grandma who was a prostitute], Bubbee, and my mom and how they related to me as a biracial child.”
Pryor has been performing the piece in various incarnations for more than seven years, its evolution reflecting her growth as an artist and person. Before her father’s death, in 2005, the show was cabaret in style with comic banter and many more songs. When the act re-emerged following his death, it still had its comedic elements but was darker in tone. “I delved deeper into who the characters were and what they were saying,” she comments. “Now people have to think. The angle is different.”
Among other developments Pryor grew increasingly accepting of her biracial identity and had the freedom, perhaps for the first time, to be who she was on stage and off. Further, she was able to address the issues head-on. “When I was young, I wanted to be anyone other than myself—either blond with blue eyes or very, very dark,” she recalls. “I’m no longer afraid to be who I am. And I now talk about race.”
Type Caste
As a youngster, she wanted to act, and her parents fully supported her ambitions. Nonetheless, Pryor earned a certificate as a relapse-prevention therapist, and she ultimately worked in a drug rehab center. Still, she felt divided, aspiring to middle-class respectability, while craving the less than stable life as an actor. In the end she had both. But it was by no means smooth sailing.
Like the children of many celebrities, Pryor was helped and hindered by her lineage. Her dad’s name opened doors but also placed her under great scrutiny. After spending a number of years on the sitcom Head of the Class, she found herself typecast as a comic. “People don’t understand that serious actors may not be able to do comedy, but if you’re comedic, you tap into the pain,” Pryor insists. “I can do drama, I can do Shakespeare, but everyone assumed that I was only a comic. As Richard Pryor’s daughter they believed I was really a standup comic. I never did standup comedy.”
As a bi-racial actor, Pryor faced further obstacles in the industry. “I was not white enough to play a white role or black enough to play an African-American,” she says. Contrary to received wisdom, she does not believe the “ethnically ambiguous,” actor is hot. Indeed, she suggests the term is dishonest. “Ethnically ambiguous means having straight hair, Anglo features, and olive-colored skin,” she says. “When they start casting actors who look like me, then we can talk about ‘ethnically’ or ‘racially ambiguous.’”
Despite the challenges, Pryor boasted a number of gigs over the years, such as playing Sarah Palin’s makeup artist Angela in the TV movie Game Change and a principal role as the lipstick lesbian drug addict on the Showtime series Rude Awakening, opposite the late Lynn Redgrave. Pryor’s guest-starring stints included appearances on The Division and Chicago Hope. On stage she played the title role of Billie Holiday in the UK tour of The Billie Holiday Story and Ella Fitzgerald in the UK premiere of Ella, Meet Marilyn. Among other productions, she has performed in The Exonerated, The Vagina Monologues, and The Who’s Tommy at La Jolla Playhouse.
But her most significant role is “being a mom,” to her 4-year-old daughter, Lotus. Pryor is married to a police officer and is based in the Baltimore area, where she currently serves as the artistic director of the Strand Theater, a woman-centric company. Pryor has no regrets about wanting a family, but she is sorry she was not career-savvy enough e
arly on to have “followed through on some of the opportunities,” she muses. To this day, she does not have an agent. “Of course I want one,” Pryor emphasizes. “I’m Off-Broadway, getting great reviews. You’d think….” The sentence remains incomplete. “The game has changed so much since I did a sitcom 20 years ago. I could ask my celebrity friends what I should do, but I’m weird about that. They assume I have an agent. No, I don’t have a manger either. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done on my own.”She’s hopeful this time around her luck will change. But whether or not she lands that elusive representation, performing Fried Chicken and Latkes is a transforming experience. “It’s made me more aware of how race is so on the surface today,” she says. “Six years ago, audiences didn’t react the way they do now. That’s because we have a black president. We can’t hide it. We can’t run from it. We can’t sweep it under the rug. And we’re not past it. And we won’t be until we see it and deal with it. And then we’ll be able to discard it.”
August 27, 2012
Production photos by Peter Zimmern
Open-ended run at the Actors Temple Theatre, 339 W. 47th St., NYC, dates and times vary. $39.50–$69.50.
www.telecharge.com
actorstempletheatre.com
www.telecharge.com
actorstempletheatre.com
Keeping Dad’s Legacy Alive in Harrison, TX
Hallie Foote is thrilled to appear once again in the work of her late father, Horton Foote.
by Simi Horwitz
NEW YORK—Hallie Foote is keenly identified with the work of her late father, playwright Horton Foote, and proud of it. Indeed, most of her career, spanning more than 30 years, has been spent acting in his plays, including The Orphans’ Home Cycle, Dividing the Estate, The Trip to Bount
iful, and The Last of the Thorntons, among many others. Currently she’s tackling two roles in Harrison, TX: Three Plays by Horton Foote, at Primary Stage at 59E59 Theaters. [Show closed Sept. 10.]
Set in the titular town, the three one-acts—Blind Date, The One-Armed Man, and The Midnight Caller—explore the yearnings of ordinary townsfolk. The first two pieces take place in 1928, and the third unfolds in 1952. In Blind Date, Foote takes on a well-intentioned busybody aunt attempting to make her uninterested niece ready for a date, while in The Midnight Caller, she plays a world-weary boarding-house owner whose tenants are the lost and lonely. Jayne Houdyshell, making her Horton Foote debut, also stars in The Midnight Caller.
Foote boasts other credits, but performing in her father’s work has special resonance—and not simply because she has earned myriad honors, including a Tony nomination, for those roles. She loves his writing and the world he evokes, which is at once haunting, lyrical, dark, and comic. She finds inhabiting his characters deeply satisfying, and the challenges continue to excite her.
“He’s not easy to do,” says the soft-spoken Foote during a phone conversation. “His style is deceptively simple, but the complexity reveals itself quickly. You have to be an actor who enjoys investigating and peeling away the layers. His themes have universal resonance. They’re not regional.” The danger is over-simplification, playing these characters as quaint Southern relics, she adds.
Since her father’s death in 2009, she is more determined than ever to keep his legacy alive. Not coincidentally, she and her siblings, including playwright Daisy Foote, have launched the Horton Foote Legacy Foundation, the mission of which is “to encourage other writers and educate people about my father’s work,” she says. “He is an important writer, and we want to make sure his work is produced and expand his visibility.”
A Child of the ’60s
Born in New York City, Foote grew up in Nyack, NY, before moving with her family to New Hampshire when she was 16. Though she briefly toyed with the idea of being an opera singer—having studied voice at Juilliard—at the University of New Hampshire she majored in English literature with no particular goals in mind. “I liked to read, and it was the late ’60s, and we didn’t think in terms of plans,” she says. Her decision to act came as an epiphany several years after she graduated from college. As she recalls, “I was sitting in the car with my father, and said ‘I want to try acting.’ There was a pause and then he said, ‘Start with a good acting teacher.’”
At dad’s suggestion Foote studied with the Los Angeles–based Peggy Feury, a Lee Strasberg disciple. Foote trained with her intermittently for three years. In preparation for a class showcase, Feury urged Foote to do a scene from one of her father’s plays. When he saw his daughter perform, “He went back to my mother and said, ‘I’ve found my Elizabeth for The Orphans’ Home Cycle,” Foote remembers, enjoying the moment even in retrospect. She launched her professional acting career in a production of Orphans at Herbert Berghof Studio in the late ’70s. In 2009–10, Foote took on several of the more mature roles—by turns quirky and prosaic—in a revival of the play staged at the Signature Theatre.
Looking back, Foote concedes she has worked fairly steadily, thanks in large part to the roles her father afforded her. She emphasizes she has never been a career-driven strategist or had her sights set on film or television. Still, she’d like to have the chance to appear in a play by John Guare, Tony Kushner, Sam Shepard, or Will Eno.
A Family Affair
Foote is slated to appear in Him, a drama centering on family relationships and the nature of legacy, written by her sister, Daisy. It is not unlike dad’s work in its unexpected depth, says Foote, who previously performed in Daisy’s God’s Pictures and the title role in When They Speak of Rita, the latter directed by their father. Him will bow at Primary Stages, Sept. 25.
Foote clearly enjoys working with her family. Harrison, TX features, not coincidentally, her husband, actor Devon Abner, who also starred in Orphans and Diving the Estate. Pointing out that many actors love to perform in her dad’s plays, Foote is hopeful theatergoers appreciate Harrison as much as she and fellow cast members do.
Asked what challenges she faces in performing her father’s plays precisely because she is his daughter, she says, “Not trying to control everything. It’s easy to feel I have to micromanage. I now realize I can get out of the way. I don’t have to appear in every one of his plays.”
Hallie Foote is thrilled to appear once again in the work of her late father, Horton Foote.
by Simi Horwitz
NEW YORK—Hallie Foote is keenly identified with the work of her late father, playwright Horton Foote, and proud of it. Indeed, most of her career, spanning more than 30 years, has been spent acting in his plays, including The Orphans’ Home Cycle, Dividing the Estate, The Trip to Bount
iful, and The Last of the Thorntons, among many others. Currently she’s tackling two roles in Harrison, TX: Three Plays by Horton Foote, at Primary Stage at 59E59 Theaters. [Show closed Sept. 10.]Set in the titular town, the three one-acts—Blind Date, The One-Armed Man, and The Midnight Caller—explore the yearnings of ordinary townsfolk. The first two pieces take place in 1928, and the third unfolds in 1952. In Blind Date, Foote takes on a well-intentioned busybody aunt attempting to make her uninterested niece ready for a date, while in The Midnight Caller, she plays a world-weary boarding-house owner whose tenants are the lost and lonely. Jayne Houdyshell, making her Horton Foote debut, also stars in The Midnight Caller.
Foote boasts other credits, but performing in her father’s work has special resonance—and not simply because she has earned myriad honors, including a Tony nomination, for those roles. She loves his writing and the world he evokes, which is at once haunting, lyrical, dark, and comic. She finds inhabiting his characters deeply satisfying, and the challenges continue to excite her.
“He’s not easy to do,” says the soft-spoken Foote during a phone conversation. “His style is deceptively simple, but the complexity reveals itself quickly. You have to be an actor who enjoys investigating and peeling away the layers. His themes have universal resonance. They’re not regional.” The danger is over-simplification, playing these characters as quaint Southern relics, she adds.Since her father’s death in 2009, she is more determined than ever to keep his legacy alive. Not coincidentally, she and her siblings, including playwright Daisy Foote, have launched the Horton Foote Legacy Foundation, the mission of which is “to encourage other writers and educate people about my father’s work,” she says. “He is an important writer, and we want to make sure his work is produced and expand his visibility.”
A Child of the ’60s
Born in New York City, Foote grew up in Nyack, NY, before moving with her family to New Hampshire when she was 16. Though she briefly toyed with the idea of being an opera singer—having studied voice at Juilliard—at the University of New Hampshire she majored in English literature with no particular goals in mind. “I liked to read, and it was the late ’60s, and we didn’t think in terms of plans,” she says. Her decision to act came as an epiphany several years after she graduated from college. As she recalls, “I was sitting in the car with my father, and said ‘I want to try acting.’ There was a pause and then he said, ‘Start with a good acting teacher.’”
At dad’s suggestion Foote studied with the Los Angeles–based Peggy Feury, a Lee Strasberg disciple. Foote trained with her intermittently for three years. In preparation for a class showcase, Feury urged Foote to do a scene from one of her father’s plays. When he saw his daughter perform, “He went back to my mother and said, ‘I’ve found my Elizabeth for The Orphans’ Home Cycle,” Foote remembers, enjoying the moment even in retrospect. She launched her professional acting career in a production of Orphans at Herbert Berghof Studio in the late ’70s. In 2009–10, Foote took on several of the more mature roles—by turns quirky and prosaic—in a revival of the play staged at the Signature Theatre.
Looking back, Foote concedes she has worked fairly steadily, thanks in large part to the roles her father afforded her. She emphasizes she has never been a career-driven strategist or had her sights set on film or television. Still, she’d like to have the chance to appear in a play by John Guare, Tony Kushner, Sam Shepard, or Will Eno.
A Family Affair
Foote is slated to appear in Him, a drama centering on family relationships and the nature of legacy, written by her sister, Daisy. It is not unlike dad’s work in its unexpected depth, says Foote, who previously performed in Daisy’s God’s Pictures and the title role in When They Speak of Rita, the latter directed by their father. Him will bow at Primary Stages, Sept. 25.
Foote clearly enjoys working with her family. Harrison, TX features, not coincidentally, her husband, actor Devon Abner, who also starred in Orphans and Diving the Estate. Pointing out that many actors love to perform in her dad’s plays, Foote is hopeful theatergoers appreciate Harrison as much as she and fellow cast members do.
Asked what challenges she faces in performing her father’s plays precisely because she is his daughter, she says, “Not trying to control everything. It’s easy to feel I have to micromanage. I now realize I can get out of the way. I don’t have to appear in every one of his plays.”
August 14, 2012
Pippin
Music Box Theater
Reviewed by David Sheward
Andrea Martin and Matthew James Thomas
Pippin is the ultimate razzle-dazzle con job, but it’s a magnificently entertaining one. The story purports to advocate the joys of ordinary, workaday life, but only after stunning its audience with two and half hours of amazing theatricality. Bob Fosse, the director-choreographer of the original 1972 production, knew Roger O. Hirson’s wafer-thin book and Stephen Schwartz’s pleasant songs would not be enough to put over the slight story of a medieval prince seeking his identity. So he threw in every trick he knew to distract from the plot’s deficiencies. And it worked. Pippin ran for almost 2,000 performances, and Fosse won Tonys for his choreography and direction (the latter over Harold Prince for A Little Night Music).
Diane Paulus has the same idea for this amazing revival, previously presented at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass., where she serves as artistic director. With the collaboration of Gypsy Snider of the Canadian troupe Les 7 doigts de la main and set designer Scott Pask’s big-top environment, Paulus transforms Schwartz’s simple story, first conceived as a college show when the songwriter was a student at Carnegie Tech, into a Cirque du Soleil–type spectacle. The band of players enacting Pippin’s Candide-like voyage, memorably led by Ben Vereen in the first staging, is now a tribe of circus performers who are capable of astonishing, gravity-defying feats.
Vereen’s role of Leading Player is now taken by the slinky, sexy Patina Miller, who moves like a snake escaping from Eden and ready to take as many into hell as she can gather. Miller, who made a hit two seasons ago in Sister Act, commands the stage with her flexible limbs and electric eyes. Matthew James Thomas as the titular young hero has a devil of a time keeping up with her, but, with his sunny voice and adorable demeanor, he keeps the somewhat whiny character from falling into the trap of self-pity. Terrence Mann and Charlotte d’Amboise, married offstage, wrangle and grind deftly as Pippin’s overbearing father, the Emperor Charles, and sneaky, youthful stepmother, Fastrada. Rachel Bay Jones is charming and captivating as Catherine, the lonely widow who convinces Pippin to give up his idealistic quest for fulfillment and settle down on her farm. Jones manages to create a convincing character with clear goals (land her man) amid the slick staging.
But the show is totally stolen by Andrea Martin in the cameo role of Berthe, Pippin’s spry grandmother. The part was originally played by Irene Ryan of The Beverly Hillbillies, and she stopped the show with a sing-along of Schwartz’s peppy “No Time At All.” Martin goes her one better with an acrobatic routine you won’t believe. With only a few minutes of stage time, Martin conveys an unquenchable zest for life and conquers the audience with her warmth and impeccable timing. It’s a standout piece of a standout show, but don’t try to figure out what, if anything, is behind the tricks and the showmanship. Just sit back and enjoy the razzle-dazzle.
Music Box Theater
Reviewed by David Sheward
Andrea Martin and Matthew James ThomasPhoto by Joan Marcus
Pippin is the ultimate razzle-dazzle con job, but it’s a magnificently entertaining one. The story purports to advocate the joys of ordinary, workaday life, but only after stunning its audience with two and half hours of amazing theatricality. Bob Fosse, the director-choreographer of the original 1972 production, knew Roger O. Hirson’s wafer-thin book and Stephen Schwartz’s pleasant songs would not be enough to put over the slight story of a medieval prince seeking his identity. So he threw in every trick he knew to distract from the plot’s deficiencies. And it worked. Pippin ran for almost 2,000 performances, and Fosse won Tonys for his choreography and direction (the latter over Harold Prince for A Little Night Music).
Diane Paulus has the same idea for this amazing revival, previously presented at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Mass., where she serves as artistic director. With the collaboration of Gypsy Snider of the Canadian troupe Les 7 doigts de la main and set designer Scott Pask’s big-top environment, Paulus transforms Schwartz’s simple story, first conceived as a college show when the songwriter was a student at Carnegie Tech, into a Cirque du Soleil–type spectacle. The band of players enacting Pippin’s Candide-like voyage, memorably led by Ben Vereen in the first staging, is now a tribe of circus performers who are capable of astonishing, gravity-defying feats.
Vereen’s role of Leading Player is now taken by the slinky, sexy Patina Miller, who moves like a snake escaping from Eden and ready to take as many into hell as she can gather. Miller, who made a hit two seasons ago in Sister Act, commands the stage with her flexible limbs and electric eyes. Matthew James Thomas as the titular young hero has a devil of a time keeping up with her, but, with his sunny voice and adorable demeanor, he keeps the somewhat whiny character from falling into the trap of self-pity. Terrence Mann and Charlotte d’Amboise, married offstage, wrangle and grind deftly as Pippin’s overbearing father, the Emperor Charles, and sneaky, youthful stepmother, Fastrada. Rachel Bay Jones is charming and captivating as Catherine, the lonely widow who convinces Pippin to give up his idealistic quest for fulfillment and settle down on her farm. Jones manages to create a convincing character with clear goals (land her man) amid the slick staging.
But the show is totally stolen by Andrea Martin in the cameo role of Berthe, Pippin’s spry grandmother. The part was originally played by Irene Ryan of The Beverly Hillbillies, and she stopped the show with a sing-along of Schwartz’s peppy “No Time At All.” Martin goes her one better with an acrobatic routine you won’t believe. With only a few minutes of stage time, Martin conveys an unquenchable zest for life and conquers the audience with her warmth and impeccable timing. It’s a standout piece of a standout show, but don’t try to figure out what, if anything, is behind the tricks and the showmanship. Just sit back and enjoy the razzle-dazzle.
May 15, 2013
Opened
April 25 for an open run. Music Box Theatre, 239 W. 45th St., NYC. Tue
8pm, Wed 2:30pm & 8pm, Thu-Fri 8pm, Sat 2:30pm & 8pm, Sun 3pm.
Running time 2 hours and 30 minutes, including intermission. $59-142.
(800) 432-7250.
www.telecharge.com
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On Your Toes
Encores! at New York City Center [show closed]
Reviewed by Jerry Beal
Midway through the first act of this Encores! revival, a Russian dance troupe preparing to perform the climactic classic “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” breaks into a tap-dance to the title tune. This number, followed soon by the aforementioned ballet, lifts the roof of the City Center and sends the show into the stratosphere of musical comedy heaven.
This 1936 effort, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s second after returning from an unrewarding sojourn in Hollywood, is a paean to and a sendup of classical ballet, in those days having come into vogue thanks to touring companies from Europe. The ostensible book attempts to mine the potential conflict between the traditional and the modern in dance, but it is really little more than an excuse for the feet to take over. Act One’s ballet finale “La Princese Zenobia,” the second act “Slaughter,” and the title number are the show here. And what a show these dancers put on! There are 25 of them plus two principals, Shonn Wiley and Irina Dvorovenko.
However, as completely fulfilling as all the movement is, there is of course the Rodgers and Hart score, and typically sublime it is. Besides the rousing title song, we get the incomparable “There’s a Small Hotel” sung by the young lovers (Wiley and Kelli Barrett), the acerbic “Too Good for the Married Man” (Christine Baranski and Walter Bobbie), “Glad to Be Unhappy” (Hart’s de facto personal anthem), and the haunting “Quiet Night.” And again, we get the iconic melodies of the Slaughter ballet, producing what is doubtless one of the landmarks of musical theater.
The great critic, teacher, and director Harold Clurman was known to believe that if you sat through a show patiently and long enough, something would eventually happen to reward your stay and your unflinching faith in theater. This On Your Toes is a validation of the master’s credo.
Encores! at New York City Center [show closed]
Reviewed by Jerry Beal
Midway through the first act of this Encores! revival, a Russian dance troupe preparing to perform the climactic classic “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” breaks into a tap-dance to the title tune. This number, followed soon by the aforementioned ballet, lifts the roof of the City Center and sends the show into the stratosphere of musical comedy heaven.
This 1936 effort, Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart’s second after returning from an unrewarding sojourn in Hollywood, is a paean to and a sendup of classical ballet, in those days having come into vogue thanks to touring companies from Europe. The ostensible book attempts to mine the potential conflict between the traditional and the modern in dance, but it is really little more than an excuse for the feet to take over. Act One’s ballet finale “La Princese Zenobia,” the second act “Slaughter,” and the title number are the show here. And what a show these dancers put on! There are 25 of them plus two principals, Shonn Wiley and Irina Dvorovenko.
However, as completely fulfilling as all the movement is, there is of course the Rodgers and Hart score, and typically sublime it is. Besides the rousing title song, we get the incomparable “There’s a Small Hotel” sung by the young lovers (Wiley and Kelli Barrett), the acerbic “Too Good for the Married Man” (Christine Baranski and Walter Bobbie), “Glad to Be Unhappy” (Hart’s de facto personal anthem), and the haunting “Quiet Night.” And again, we get the iconic melodies of the Slaughter ballet, producing what is doubtless one of the landmarks of musical theater.
The great critic, teacher, and director Harold Clurman was known to believe that if you sat through a show patiently and long enough, something would eventually happen to reward your stay and your unflinching faith in theater. This On Your Toes is a validation of the master’s credo.
May 8, 2013
The Nance
Lincoln Center Theater at the Lyceum Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Nathan Lane and Jonny Orsini
The emotional high point of this Douglas Carter Beane play is the lowest for its title character, Chauncey Miles, a comic specializing in effeminate stereotypes who is gay offstage as well. Late in the play, Chauncey has fallen on hard times. A puritanical city official has clamped down on his act in burlesque, Chauncey has driven away his adoring lover, and he is reduced to playing drag because that’s considered “masquerade” rather than lewd comedy depicting “depravity” like homosexuality. As Chauncey, Nathan Lane, dressed by Ann Roth as a tawdry stage version of an over-the-hill hooker, stands on John Lee Beatty’s marvelously sleazy evocation of a run-down grindhouse in 1937 Greenwich Village, and delivers hoary—pardon the pun—wisecracks on straight sex. A few about a Romeo deserting his character cause the pitiful performer to break down, but he gathers himself up and goes on with the act. What’s amazing about this scene is Lane is hilariously funny while he breaks our hearts.
It’s a stunning performance combining impeccable comic timing with intense pathos. Lane’s Chauncey believes the homophobic cant of the day. He sees himself as worthless and undeserving of love and the only way he can find it is to get the burlesque crowd, which includes gay patrons, to laugh at him. His much younger boyfriend, Ned, believes there’s nothing wrong with his sexuality, which sends Chauncey into the night seeking quick, anonymous tricks. The split eventually drives them apart, and Lane viscerally registers the loss, though Chauncey tries to hide it with gags and bravado.
That the core of Beane’s script: Chauncey’s struggle to maintain his gay identity on his own terms, limited and twisted as they are. The playwright sometimes lays it on a bit thick with the political overlay, having his characters represent points of view rather than complex emotions. “In 80 years, who’s gonna ask about how we pay for Social Security?” says Sylvie, one of Chauncey’s stripper co-workers with Communist sympathies. Here, as in a few other points, the playwright seems to be speaking rather than one of his creations.
But there are major compensations. Beane is brilliantly witty and knows how to write dialogue that’s simultaneously funny and moving. There’s also the fascinating device of employing burlesque sketches that comment on the real-life action. All these are smoothly and sensitively staged by Jack O’Brien on Beatty’s Edward Hopper-esque revolving set. Jonny Orsini is a sweet Ned, comfortable in his masculinity, yet eager to camp it up with a Tallulah Bankhead imitation. Lewis J. Stadlen as Efram, Chauncey’s straight stage partner, doesn’t shy away from his character’s repulsion to homosexuality and blends it with an appreciation for Chauncey as a talent and a person. Cady Huffman, Andrea Burns, and Jenni Barber earn laughs and admiration as they bump and strut as the strippers. But the engine that drives The Nance is Lane, and he guns it for all its worth.
Lincoln Center Theater at the Lyceum Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Nathan Lane and Jonny OrsiniPhoto by Joan Marcus
The emotional high point of this Douglas Carter Beane play is the lowest for its title character, Chauncey Miles, a comic specializing in effeminate stereotypes who is gay offstage as well. Late in the play, Chauncey has fallen on hard times. A puritanical city official has clamped down on his act in burlesque, Chauncey has driven away his adoring lover, and he is reduced to playing drag because that’s considered “masquerade” rather than lewd comedy depicting “depravity” like homosexuality. As Chauncey, Nathan Lane, dressed by Ann Roth as a tawdry stage version of an over-the-hill hooker, stands on John Lee Beatty’s marvelously sleazy evocation of a run-down grindhouse in 1937 Greenwich Village, and delivers hoary—pardon the pun—wisecracks on straight sex. A few about a Romeo deserting his character cause the pitiful performer to break down, but he gathers himself up and goes on with the act. What’s amazing about this scene is Lane is hilariously funny while he breaks our hearts.
It’s a stunning performance combining impeccable comic timing with intense pathos. Lane’s Chauncey believes the homophobic cant of the day. He sees himself as worthless and undeserving of love and the only way he can find it is to get the burlesque crowd, which includes gay patrons, to laugh at him. His much younger boyfriend, Ned, believes there’s nothing wrong with his sexuality, which sends Chauncey into the night seeking quick, anonymous tricks. The split eventually drives them apart, and Lane viscerally registers the loss, though Chauncey tries to hide it with gags and bravado.
That the core of Beane’s script: Chauncey’s struggle to maintain his gay identity on his own terms, limited and twisted as they are. The playwright sometimes lays it on a bit thick with the political overlay, having his characters represent points of view rather than complex emotions. “In 80 years, who’s gonna ask about how we pay for Social Security?” says Sylvie, one of Chauncey’s stripper co-workers with Communist sympathies. Here, as in a few other points, the playwright seems to be speaking rather than one of his creations.
But there are major compensations. Beane is brilliantly witty and knows how to write dialogue that’s simultaneously funny and moving. There’s also the fascinating device of employing burlesque sketches that comment on the real-life action. All these are smoothly and sensitively staged by Jack O’Brien on Beatty’s Edward Hopper-esque revolving set. Jonny Orsini is a sweet Ned, comfortable in his masculinity, yet eager to camp it up with a Tallulah Bankhead imitation. Lewis J. Stadlen as Efram, Chauncey’s straight stage partner, doesn’t shy away from his character’s repulsion to homosexuality and blends it with an appreciation for Chauncey as a talent and a person. Cady Huffman, Andrea Burns, and Jenni Barber earn laughs and admiration as they bump and strut as the strippers. But the engine that drives The Nance is Lane, and he guns it for all its worth.
May 6, 2013
April 15–Aug.
11. Lyceum Theatre, 149 W. 45th St., NYC. Tue 7pm, Wed 2pm & 8pm,
Thu-Fri 8pm, Sat 2pm & 8pm, Sun 3pm. Running time 2 hours and 30
minutes, including intermission; $37–132. (800) 432-7250.
www.telecharge.com
www.telecharge.com
The Big Knife
Roundabout Theatre Company at American Airlines Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Chip Zien, Bobby Cannavale, Richard Kind, and Reg Rogers
To cover a scene change during the Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of The Big Knife, Clifford Odets’s 1948 cynical drama of Hollywood’s Golden Age, sound designer David Van Tieghem has created a marvelous audio parody of a typical period movie, headlined by the fictional protagonist, hot star Charlie Castle. It’s meant to be melodramatic, unlike the savagely realistic action of the play which chronicles Charlie’s struggle between his art and the soulless commerce of Tinseltown. This is a common theme in Odets, particularly in his earlier Golden Boy, revived earlier this season, in which the forces of refined classical music and brutal moneymaking battle within the compact frame of violinist-boxer Joe Bonaparte.
The trouble is the play is as hokey as any assembly-line flick churned out by Marcus Hoff, the tyrannical studio head who is Charlie’s main nemesis. Odets has many valid points about the box-office-driven nature of America’s film industry and the country in general, which are even more pertinent in today’s multimillion-dollar movie biz. But he cheapens his purist views with a stale-even-for-1948 plot gimmick.
Charlie is under pressure from Hoff to renew his contract for a hefty salary, but the actor, who yearns to make quality films, will be forced to perform Hoff’s dreck for 14 years. The star’s idealistic wife, Marian, threatens to leave him if he signs. That should be strong enough—the temptation of several millions versus starving for your art, with the love of a good woman thrown in. But Hoff blackmails Charlie with releasing the truth about a hit-and-run accident in which the actor caused the death of a child. When a gabby starlet with knowledge of the secret threatens to spill the beans, things get pretty ugly pretty quick. Charlie pompously compares himself to Macbeth and Hamlet, as Hoff and his minions involve their star and his wife in darker doings, finally ending with an over-the-top finish worthy of the schmaltzy Warner Bros. epic.
Fortunately, Doug Hughes’s production is tight and honest, gorgeously realized by John Lee Beatty’s elegant set and Catherine Zuber’s stylish costumes, and the cast plays the hokey plot truthfully. Bobby Cannavale and Marin Ireland underplay Charlie and Marian’s earnest integrity, but they cannot overcome Odets’s soapy excesses and contrived dialogue. “Could you ever know I yearned for a world of people to bring out the best in me,” Charlie proclaims toward the end. Who talks like that?
Given the delicious nastiness of Odets’s venom toward the movie industry, the villains get the choicest parts. Richard Kind dives into the Sam Goldwyn–like Hoff with relish. Reg Rogers is a slithering snake as Hoff’s henchman, the ironically named Smiley Coy. Brenda Wehle makes the gossip columnist Patty Benedict a fearsome force with a hatchet for a tongue. They do their best to sharpen this Knife, but it’s still got an old, dull blade.
Roundabout Theatre Company at American Airlines Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Chip Zien, Bobby Cannavale, Richard Kind, and Reg Rogers Photo by Joan Marcus
To cover a scene change during the Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of The Big Knife, Clifford Odets’s 1948 cynical drama of Hollywood’s Golden Age, sound designer David Van Tieghem has created a marvelous audio parody of a typical period movie, headlined by the fictional protagonist, hot star Charlie Castle. It’s meant to be melodramatic, unlike the savagely realistic action of the play which chronicles Charlie’s struggle between his art and the soulless commerce of Tinseltown. This is a common theme in Odets, particularly in his earlier Golden Boy, revived earlier this season, in which the forces of refined classical music and brutal moneymaking battle within the compact frame of violinist-boxer Joe Bonaparte.
The trouble is the play is as hokey as any assembly-line flick churned out by Marcus Hoff, the tyrannical studio head who is Charlie’s main nemesis. Odets has many valid points about the box-office-driven nature of America’s film industry and the country in general, which are even more pertinent in today’s multimillion-dollar movie biz. But he cheapens his purist views with a stale-even-for-1948 plot gimmick.
Charlie is under pressure from Hoff to renew his contract for a hefty salary, but the actor, who yearns to make quality films, will be forced to perform Hoff’s dreck for 14 years. The star’s idealistic wife, Marian, threatens to leave him if he signs. That should be strong enough—the temptation of several millions versus starving for your art, with the love of a good woman thrown in. But Hoff blackmails Charlie with releasing the truth about a hit-and-run accident in which the actor caused the death of a child. When a gabby starlet with knowledge of the secret threatens to spill the beans, things get pretty ugly pretty quick. Charlie pompously compares himself to Macbeth and Hamlet, as Hoff and his minions involve their star and his wife in darker doings, finally ending with an over-the-top finish worthy of the schmaltzy Warner Bros. epic.
Fortunately, Doug Hughes’s production is tight and honest, gorgeously realized by John Lee Beatty’s elegant set and Catherine Zuber’s stylish costumes, and the cast plays the hokey plot truthfully. Bobby Cannavale and Marin Ireland underplay Charlie and Marian’s earnest integrity, but they cannot overcome Odets’s soapy excesses and contrived dialogue. “Could you ever know I yearned for a world of people to bring out the best in me,” Charlie proclaims toward the end. Who talks like that?
Given the delicious nastiness of Odets’s venom toward the movie industry, the villains get the choicest parts. Richard Kind dives into the Sam Goldwyn–like Hoff with relish. Reg Rogers is a slithering snake as Hoff’s henchman, the ironically named Smiley Coy. Brenda Wehle makes the gossip columnist Patty Benedict a fearsome force with a hatchet for a tongue. They do their best to sharpen this Knife, but it’s still got an old, dull blade.
April 28, 2013
Apr.
16–June 2. American Airlines Theatre, 227 W. 42nd St., NYC. Tue 8pm,
Wed 2pm & 8pm, Thu-Fri 8pm, Sat 2pm & 8pm, Sun 2pm. Running time
2 hours and 20 minutes, with one intermission. $42–127. (212) 719-2120.
www.roundabouttheatre.org
www.roundabouttheatre.org
Jekyll & Hyde
Marquis Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Constantine Maroulis
Why revive Jekyll & Hyde, the hideous, overwrought 1997 musical based on the classic thriller? The only saving grace of the original production was the intense, sexy performance of Robert Cuccioli in the leading role. The music by Frank Wildhorn is generic, and the usually witty Leslie Bricusse’s book and lyrics are simplistic (Wildhorn and Steven Cuden also contributed to the lyrics). The show ran an astonishing 1,543 performances, mostly due to stunt replacement casting including David Hasselhoff, but it never turned a profit. So why bring it back if it was neither a financial nor an artistic success in the first place?
The new production does nothing to enhance the musical’s reputation. The raison d’être seems to be showing off the stars’ singing. It’s an example of the American Idol-ization of Broadway. Depth of story or characterization doesn’t mean a thing as long as the leads hit their money notes and hold them for at least 20 seconds. Idol finalist Constantine Maroulis as the titular split personality and Grammy nominee Deborah Cox as the luckless prostitute Lucy were obviously hired to draw undiscerning fans of their breathy pop-oriented voices. Maroulis screams his way through both characterizations, alternating between approximating Bricusse’s former writing partner Anthony Newley as Jekyll and a screechy Alice Cooper as Hyde. Cox at least has a decent sound, but her acting lacks dimension. And, if you thought the British accents in Kinky Boots were weak, they’re all over the map here. Maroulis sounds as if his dialect coach gave him a DVD of My Week With Marilyn and told the star to imitate Kenneth Branagh imitating Laurence Olivier, while Cox’s Cockney comes and goes.
The supporting company fares somewhat better. Teal Wicks makes a convincingly devoted Emma, Jekyll’s long-suffering fiancée, and Richard White lends solid support as her father. Brian Gallagher earns a few welcome laughs as a foppish victim of Hyde’s murderous rage. But Laird Mackintosh mugs up a storm both vocally and dramatically as Jekyll’s best friend. Ironically, the most consistent and strongest limning is done by James Judy in the tiny role of Poole, Jekyll’s loyal butler.
Director-choreographer Jeff Calhoun, who has done much more interesting work with Newsies and Grey Gardens, does a competent job, but no more. He tries too hard to inject scary thrills with Jeff Croiter’s nightmarish lighting and Daniel Brodie’s horror-film projections instead of trusting the story. You could watch American Idol and then American Horror Story for free on your DVR and get the same effect.
Marquis Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Constantine Maroulis
Photo by Chris Bennion
Why revive Jekyll & Hyde, the hideous, overwrought 1997 musical based on the classic thriller? The only saving grace of the original production was the intense, sexy performance of Robert Cuccioli in the leading role. The music by Frank Wildhorn is generic, and the usually witty Leslie Bricusse’s book and lyrics are simplistic (Wildhorn and Steven Cuden also contributed to the lyrics). The show ran an astonishing 1,543 performances, mostly due to stunt replacement casting including David Hasselhoff, but it never turned a profit. So why bring it back if it was neither a financial nor an artistic success in the first place?
The new production does nothing to enhance the musical’s reputation. The raison d’être seems to be showing off the stars’ singing. It’s an example of the American Idol-ization of Broadway. Depth of story or characterization doesn’t mean a thing as long as the leads hit their money notes and hold them for at least 20 seconds. Idol finalist Constantine Maroulis as the titular split personality and Grammy nominee Deborah Cox as the luckless prostitute Lucy were obviously hired to draw undiscerning fans of their breathy pop-oriented voices. Maroulis screams his way through both characterizations, alternating between approximating Bricusse’s former writing partner Anthony Newley as Jekyll and a screechy Alice Cooper as Hyde. Cox at least has a decent sound, but her acting lacks dimension. And, if you thought the British accents in Kinky Boots were weak, they’re all over the map here. Maroulis sounds as if his dialect coach gave him a DVD of My Week With Marilyn and told the star to imitate Kenneth Branagh imitating Laurence Olivier, while Cox’s Cockney comes and goes.
The supporting company fares somewhat better. Teal Wicks makes a convincingly devoted Emma, Jekyll’s long-suffering fiancée, and Richard White lends solid support as her father. Brian Gallagher earns a few welcome laughs as a foppish victim of Hyde’s murderous rage. But Laird Mackintosh mugs up a storm both vocally and dramatically as Jekyll’s best friend. Ironically, the most consistent and strongest limning is done by James Judy in the tiny role of Poole, Jekyll’s loyal butler.
Director-choreographer Jeff Calhoun, who has done much more interesting work with Newsies and Grey Gardens, does a competent job, but no more. He tries too hard to inject scary thrills with Jeff Croiter’s nightmarish lighting and Daniel Brodie’s horror-film projections instead of trusting the story. You could watch American Idol and then American Horror Story for free on your DVR and get the same effect.
April 18, 2013
Apr.
18–June 30. Marquis Theatre, 1535 Broadway, NYC. Mon 8pm, Tue 7pm,
Thu-Fri 8pm, Sat 2pm & 8pm, Sun 2pm & 7pm. $50–135. Running time
2 two hours and 15 minutes, “with” intermission. (877) 250-2929.
www.ticketmaster.com
www.ticketmaster.com
Matilda the Musical
Shubert Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Photo by Joan Marcus
From the moment you enter the Shubert Theater and take in Rob Howell’s whimsical Scrabble tile–studded set, you know you’re in for a good time at Matilda the Musical. Based on Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s book, this hit from London offers a nasty, twisted, and totally joyful view of youngsters and the adjustments they face on the path to adulthood. You see, little Matilda is a genius, devouring dozens of books in a week, making up spellbinding stories, and learning Russian in her spare time. But her horrible parents are too absorbed in ballroom dancing and television to cherish or even recognize her intellectual gifts. So they bundle her off to a hideously oppressive school presided over by the terrifying headmistress Miss Trunchbull, a fiend who makes Miss Hannigan of Annie fame look like Mary Poppins. There, Matilda finds the ideal teacher in the shy Miss Honey, who encourages her and whom the brilliant child rescues from dire circumstances.
That’s the gist of this marvelously inventive musical, given a fun and fast-paced staging by director Matthew Warchus and choreographer Peter Darling. Book writer Dennis Kelly keeps Dahl’s cartoonish sensibility in developing the outlandish characters and the bizarre dimension they inhabit: a funhouse version of the real world where smart little girls must find ways to stick up for themselves.
The score, by Australian comic-musician Tim Minchin, captures this wacky flavor when it needs to (most of the time), but also expresses the wistful sentiments of childhood games and friendship without getting treacly. This duality is best exhibited in the opening number, “Miracle” (as in “My mommy says I’m a miracle”), and the Act 2 paean to innocence, “When I Grow Up.” In the former, spoiled brats smash one another with cake and rampage in torn superhero costumes during a nightmarish birthday party. In the latter, the same kids glide over the audience on swings, sweetly warbling about a fantasized version of maturity where they can do whatever they want, including watching cartoons and eating candy all day. Warchus and Darling stage these opposing views of kids with appropriate details—manic energy and mayhem in “Miracle” and subtle simplicity in the “Grow Up.”
Four young actors alternate in the role of Matilda. Milly Shapiro (at the show reviewed) is a pint-sized Maggie Smith with the face of a Norwegian saga. This little dynamo skillfully imparts the character’s dazzling intelligence and taste for mischief, as well as her raging indignation at injustice. Her cry of “That’s not right!” seems to reach out of the theater onto 44th Street. Gabriel Ebert and Lesli Margherita are unabashedly and delightfully vulgar as the uncaring parents. Lauren Ward as Miss Honey and Karen Aldridge as Mrs. Phelps, a friendly librarian who craves Matilda’s cliffhanging tales, are sweetly supportive.
But Bertie Carvel in drag as the grotesque Miss Trunchbull nearly steals the show. Resembling the living gargoyle from a famous episode of Jonny Quest (Howell also designed the clever costumes), Carvel creates a monster who still retains a touch of femininity. It’s a brilliantly funny performance in one of the best musicals Broadway has seen in years.
Shubert Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Photo by Joan MarcusFrom the moment you enter the Shubert Theater and take in Rob Howell’s whimsical Scrabble tile–studded set, you know you’re in for a good time at Matilda the Musical. Based on Roald Dahl’s beloved children’s book, this hit from London offers a nasty, twisted, and totally joyful view of youngsters and the adjustments they face on the path to adulthood. You see, little Matilda is a genius, devouring dozens of books in a week, making up spellbinding stories, and learning Russian in her spare time. But her horrible parents are too absorbed in ballroom dancing and television to cherish or even recognize her intellectual gifts. So they bundle her off to a hideously oppressive school presided over by the terrifying headmistress Miss Trunchbull, a fiend who makes Miss Hannigan of Annie fame look like Mary Poppins. There, Matilda finds the ideal teacher in the shy Miss Honey, who encourages her and whom the brilliant child rescues from dire circumstances.
That’s the gist of this marvelously inventive musical, given a fun and fast-paced staging by director Matthew Warchus and choreographer Peter Darling. Book writer Dennis Kelly keeps Dahl’s cartoonish sensibility in developing the outlandish characters and the bizarre dimension they inhabit: a funhouse version of the real world where smart little girls must find ways to stick up for themselves.
The score, by Australian comic-musician Tim Minchin, captures this wacky flavor when it needs to (most of the time), but also expresses the wistful sentiments of childhood games and friendship without getting treacly. This duality is best exhibited in the opening number, “Miracle” (as in “My mommy says I’m a miracle”), and the Act 2 paean to innocence, “When I Grow Up.” In the former, spoiled brats smash one another with cake and rampage in torn superhero costumes during a nightmarish birthday party. In the latter, the same kids glide over the audience on swings, sweetly warbling about a fantasized version of maturity where they can do whatever they want, including watching cartoons and eating candy all day. Warchus and Darling stage these opposing views of kids with appropriate details—manic energy and mayhem in “Miracle” and subtle simplicity in the “Grow Up.”
Four young actors alternate in the role of Matilda. Milly Shapiro (at the show reviewed) is a pint-sized Maggie Smith with the face of a Norwegian saga. This little dynamo skillfully imparts the character’s dazzling intelligence and taste for mischief, as well as her raging indignation at injustice. Her cry of “That’s not right!” seems to reach out of the theater onto 44th Street. Gabriel Ebert and Lesli Margherita are unabashedly and delightfully vulgar as the uncaring parents. Lauren Ward as Miss Honey and Karen Aldridge as Mrs. Phelps, a friendly librarian who craves Matilda’s cliffhanging tales, are sweetly supportive.
But Bertie Carvel in drag as the grotesque Miss Trunchbull nearly steals the show. Resembling the living gargoyle from a famous episode of Jonny Quest (Howell also designed the clever costumes), Carvel creates a monster who still retains a touch of femininity. It’s a brilliantly funny performance in one of the best musicals Broadway has seen in years.
April 16, 2013
Opened
April 11 for an open run. Shubert Theatre, 225 W. 44th St., NYC. Tue
7pm, Wed 2pm & 8pm, Thu 7pm, Fri 8pm, Sat 2pm & 8pm, Sun 3pm.
Running time 2 hours and 30 minutes, including intermission. $32–147.
(800) 432-7250.
www.telecharge.com
www.telecharge.com
The Mound Builders
Signature Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by Jerry Beal
“Attention must be paid.” Linda Loman’s exhortation on her husband’s behalf in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman may come from a particular context, but it applies in support of another of America’s foremost playwrights, Lanford Wilson. Poet, humanist, consummate artist, Wilson, in his command of language, creation of imagery, and, most important, precision and depth of characterization, never ceases to draw us to him, even when, as in this 1975 play, flaws appear and threaten to derail the journey. Fear not: This man of the theater and of the world will never let that happen.
In an odd sense, one can compare Wilson’s jumping-off point in this play—an archeological dig in Blue Shoals, Ill.—to Alfred Hitchcock’s MacGuffin. This was Hitchcock’s device for launching the plot; its contents and importance were never revealed. Similarly here, we never really discover what the searchers are looking for, or what particular historical significance it might have. We get suggestions and hints, but because of obstacles both natural and human, that’s all we get. What emerges, however, is a confluence of human needs, longings, joys, sorrows, and behavior, all brought forth by the event of the dig.
Wilson, particularly here, was not a writer with a great penchant for plot. His strengths and interests were language and people. Lisa Joyce’s pregnant Jean, a gynecologist married to the archeologist (Zachary Booth) obsessed with learning the secrets of these mound builders—the eponymous tribe under excavation—carries not only her unborn child but also a history of depression and confusion. The other lead archeologist (David Conrad) and his wife (Janie Brookshire) are hanging together by the slenderest of threads; she in turn is clearly involved with the owner (Will Rogers) of the land on which the dig is occurring. He is an unfulfilled outsider, inheritor of the land from his father, with plans to build a Holiday Inn with attendant shopping and an interstate highway. When he learns that the diggers have thwarted those plans, his response brings the play to a searing and unexpected climax. Also present is the drug-addicted sister (Danielle Skraastad) of the cuckolded archeologist, a formerly prolific writer who sees much of what the others, except Jean, cannot. As a writer of acute theatrical sensibility, Wilson succeeds here in tying all of his strands together in a totally satisfying way.
Flights of poetic moments interrupt the story’s flow, however, and often, particularly as voiced by the sister, those moments sound more author-generated than character-generated. Occasionally, one begins to wonder where the play is going. But again, in the hands of this craftsman and humanitarian, we are brought back to the world that Wilson strives to create. That world is aided immeasurably by Jo Bonny’s direction. The mise-en-scène moves seamlessly from scene to scene, with great theatricality. And the production is wonderfully abetted by the sound design of Darron West; with its original music and sound effects, a mood of strangeness and longing is continually evoked.
The Signature Theatre is an invaluable New York institution that specializes in excavating American plays; this play about that very topic is a fitting and welcome choice.
Signature Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by Jerry Beal
“Attention must be paid.” Linda Loman’s exhortation on her husband’s behalf in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman may come from a particular context, but it applies in support of another of America’s foremost playwrights, Lanford Wilson. Poet, humanist, consummate artist, Wilson, in his command of language, creation of imagery, and, most important, precision and depth of characterization, never ceases to draw us to him, even when, as in this 1975 play, flaws appear and threaten to derail the journey. Fear not: This man of the theater and of the world will never let that happen.
In an odd sense, one can compare Wilson’s jumping-off point in this play—an archeological dig in Blue Shoals, Ill.—to Alfred Hitchcock’s MacGuffin. This was Hitchcock’s device for launching the plot; its contents and importance were never revealed. Similarly here, we never really discover what the searchers are looking for, or what particular historical significance it might have. We get suggestions and hints, but because of obstacles both natural and human, that’s all we get. What emerges, however, is a confluence of human needs, longings, joys, sorrows, and behavior, all brought forth by the event of the dig.
Wilson, particularly here, was not a writer with a great penchant for plot. His strengths and interests were language and people. Lisa Joyce’s pregnant Jean, a gynecologist married to the archeologist (Zachary Booth) obsessed with learning the secrets of these mound builders—the eponymous tribe under excavation—carries not only her unborn child but also a history of depression and confusion. The other lead archeologist (David Conrad) and his wife (Janie Brookshire) are hanging together by the slenderest of threads; she in turn is clearly involved with the owner (Will Rogers) of the land on which the dig is occurring. He is an unfulfilled outsider, inheritor of the land from his father, with plans to build a Holiday Inn with attendant shopping and an interstate highway. When he learns that the diggers have thwarted those plans, his response brings the play to a searing and unexpected climax. Also present is the drug-addicted sister (Danielle Skraastad) of the cuckolded archeologist, a formerly prolific writer who sees much of what the others, except Jean, cannot. As a writer of acute theatrical sensibility, Wilson succeeds here in tying all of his strands together in a totally satisfying way.
Flights of poetic moments interrupt the story’s flow, however, and often, particularly as voiced by the sister, those moments sound more author-generated than character-generated. Occasionally, one begins to wonder where the play is going. But again, in the hands of this craftsman and humanitarian, we are brought back to the world that Wilson strives to create. That world is aided immeasurably by Jo Bonny’s direction. The mise-en-scène moves seamlessly from scene to scene, with great theatricality. And the production is wonderfully abetted by the sound design of Darron West; with its original music and sound effects, a mood of strangeness and longing is continually evoked.
The Signature Theatre is an invaluable New York institution that specializes in excavating American plays; this play about that very topic is a fitting and welcome choice.
April 4, 2013
Kinky Boots
Al Hirschfeld Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Stark Sands, Annaleigh Ashford, and Billy Porter
Kinky Boots is anything but. The new musical based on the 2005 British film is as comfortable as a pair of old slippers and not the dangerous kind of footwear the title suggests. Its plot and theme are becoming old hat—sorry to mix clothing metaphors—on Broadway these days. The young hero attempts to save a reliable but crumbling institution (the family shoe factory in the north of England) by introducing a radical new product (fabulous hip-high boots designed for male cross-dressers) with the aide of an outrageously self-reliant outsider (a drag performer named Lola). It’s sort of a cross between La Cage Aux Folles and Billy Elliot with a bit of Sister Act and The Full Monty thrown in for good measure.
But with pros like director-choreographer Jerry Mitchell, book-writer Harvey Fierstein, and pop icon Cyndi Lauper who is making her theatrical debut as a songwriter, on the creative team, these Boots are made for walkin’ and that’s just what they do. Fierstein’s book features the same uplifting-spirits and be-who-you-are tropes he inserted in La Cage and Newsies, but the characters are believable and deeply drawn. Even the belligerent factory homophobe changes his tune and does some growing up. Naturally, there is a crisis just before the big event, which will solve everyone’s problems (in this case, a shoe fashion show in Milan), the diva sings a power ballad of self-acceptance and love, and a big hand-clapping finale provides a happy resolution for all. Despite the predictability of the plot, Mitchell’s inventive moves and slick staging make it fun getting to the inevitable conclusion. Not surprisingly, the most exciting numbers feature a sextette of gorgeous dragsters, kicking and slinking around the stage in eye-pooping frocks by designer Gregg Barnes.
Lauper’s score borrows a bit heavily from the 1980s vibe of her smash Top 40 hits (one song is too reminiscent of Vickie Sue Robinson’s “Turn the Beat Around” for comfort) and her lyrics won’t be keeping Stephen Sondheim up at night. “Kitsch” and “bitch” are the most memorable rhymes. Still, as skillfully orchestrated by Stephen Oremus, they are infectious, fun, and expressive.
Broadway veteran Billy Porter, who has starred in replacement companies of Miss Saigon and Dreamgirls, finally gets to originate a sockeroo role in Lola. Yes, we have seen divine drag artists in the three productions of La Cage as well as Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, but Porter gives this one his own stamp. He caresses each syllable, stretching out the word to sound like “shex,” and commanding the stage with dazzling charisma. We also see the shy male inside the fierce female when Porter steps out of drag into a vest, shirt, and pants as Simon, Lola’s masculine alter ego. Stark Sands has the more difficult challenge of playing Charlie, the nebbishy factory owner, opposite the glittering Porter. He manages to enliven Charlie’s struggle to find his own passion. When the two discover their common insecurities in “I’m Not My Father’s Son,” it’s a heart-stopping moment. Annaleigh Ashford integrates endlessly fresh comic bits into the obligatory love interest role, and Daniel Stewart Sherman is suitably gruff as the bullying Dan.
Kinky Boots may not be as dazzling as the footwear on the show’s drag queens, but it’s certainly well-constructed, holds up under pressure, and will give you an entertaining two-and-a-half-hour walk.
Al Hirschfeld Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Stark Sands, Annaleigh Ashford, and Billy PorterPhoto by Matthew Murphy
Kinky Boots is anything but. The new musical based on the 2005 British film is as comfortable as a pair of old slippers and not the dangerous kind of footwear the title suggests. Its plot and theme are becoming old hat—sorry to mix clothing metaphors—on Broadway these days. The young hero attempts to save a reliable but crumbling institution (the family shoe factory in the north of England) by introducing a radical new product (fabulous hip-high boots designed for male cross-dressers) with the aide of an outrageously self-reliant outsider (a drag performer named Lola). It’s sort of a cross between La Cage Aux Folles and Billy Elliot with a bit of Sister Act and The Full Monty thrown in for good measure.
But with pros like director-choreographer Jerry Mitchell, book-writer Harvey Fierstein, and pop icon Cyndi Lauper who is making her theatrical debut as a songwriter, on the creative team, these Boots are made for walkin’ and that’s just what they do. Fierstein’s book features the same uplifting-spirits and be-who-you-are tropes he inserted in La Cage and Newsies, but the characters are believable and deeply drawn. Even the belligerent factory homophobe changes his tune and does some growing up. Naturally, there is a crisis just before the big event, which will solve everyone’s problems (in this case, a shoe fashion show in Milan), the diva sings a power ballad of self-acceptance and love, and a big hand-clapping finale provides a happy resolution for all. Despite the predictability of the plot, Mitchell’s inventive moves and slick staging make it fun getting to the inevitable conclusion. Not surprisingly, the most exciting numbers feature a sextette of gorgeous dragsters, kicking and slinking around the stage in eye-pooping frocks by designer Gregg Barnes.
Lauper’s score borrows a bit heavily from the 1980s vibe of her smash Top 40 hits (one song is too reminiscent of Vickie Sue Robinson’s “Turn the Beat Around” for comfort) and her lyrics won’t be keeping Stephen Sondheim up at night. “Kitsch” and “bitch” are the most memorable rhymes. Still, as skillfully orchestrated by Stephen Oremus, they are infectious, fun, and expressive.
Broadway veteran Billy Porter, who has starred in replacement companies of Miss Saigon and Dreamgirls, finally gets to originate a sockeroo role in Lola. Yes, we have seen divine drag artists in the three productions of La Cage as well as Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, but Porter gives this one his own stamp. He caresses each syllable, stretching out the word to sound like “shex,” and commanding the stage with dazzling charisma. We also see the shy male inside the fierce female when Porter steps out of drag into a vest, shirt, and pants as Simon, Lola’s masculine alter ego. Stark Sands has the more difficult challenge of playing Charlie, the nebbishy factory owner, opposite the glittering Porter. He manages to enliven Charlie’s struggle to find his own passion. When the two discover their common insecurities in “I’m Not My Father’s Son,” it’s a heart-stopping moment. Annaleigh Ashford integrates endlessly fresh comic bits into the obligatory love interest role, and Daniel Stewart Sherman is suitably gruff as the bullying Dan.
Kinky Boots may not be as dazzling as the footwear on the show’s drag queens, but it’s certainly well-constructed, holds up under pressure, and will give you an entertaining two-and-a-half-hour walk.
April 6, 2013
Opened
April 4 for an open run. Al Hirschfeld Theatre, 302 W. 45th St., NYC.
Tue 7pm, Wed 2pm & 8pm, Thu 7pm, Fri 8pm, Sat 2pm & 8pm, Sun
3pm. Running time 2 hours and 20 minutes, including intermission.
$57–137. (800) 432-7250.
www.telecharge.com
www.telecharge.com
Lucky Guy
Broadhurst Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Tom Hanks, Courtney B. Vance, Peter Scolari, Christopher McDonald, and Michael Gaston
It’s chaotic, it’s grandiose, there’s too much drinking, smoking, swearing, sensationalism. Jeez, it’s just too much altogether. But, like the crazed tabloid journalism era of the 1980s and ’90s that it depicts, the late Nora Ephron’s Lucky Guy is a wild, satisfying ride full of danger and passion. It’s not a neat little package, attempting to get a point across about the state of modern media. There’s a throwaway line late in the second act about how print is dead, having been killed by TV, but it’s almost an afterthought.
This sprawling, episodic biography of the gutsy, gritty columnist Mike McAlary is a tribute to the kind of bare-knuckled reporting and the flawed lucky guy himself. Ephron’s frequent movie collaborator Tom Hanks makes his Broadway debut in the title role. Eschewing his nice-guy film image, Hanks tears into the red meat of the part with relish. From his first entrance when he directly asks an audience member, “This is New York. Who’s relaxed? Are you relaxed?” to a tearful speech for newsroom colleagues when McAlary wins a Pulitzer Prize, Hanks grabs us and never lets go. He may as well start dusting his shelf for a Tony Award to go alongside his two Oscars.
The play is a bit of a jumble, starting in a smoke-filled bar with a chorus of rough-edged reporters singing an Irish folk song and then telling McAlary’s story as he progresses from lowly reporter relegated to the wilds of Queens to the highest-paid columnist in the city. He grabs the front page but also gets into trouble on occasion. A false report about a rape victim results in a lawsuit, which nearly ruins his reputation. Characters frequently trade off narrator duties, interrupt each other to get their viewpoints in, and assume different personae (“You play Jimmy Breslin,” one editor shouts to a bartender).
Ephron reportedly intended it as a film or TV script, and that certainly shows the rapid pace and short scenes. Fortunately, director George C. Wolfe knows a thing or two about staging unwieldy scripts in a cinematic fashion. Remember Angels in America and Bring in ’da Noise…? Aided by David Rockwell’s fluid, suggestive sets and the black-and-white, in-your-face video projections of Batwin + Robin Productions, Wolfe gives Guy the necessary freight-train intensity. He also knows when to hit the brakes—as in an uncomfortable, heart-wrenching moment when McAlary interviews a ravaged Abner Louima (an understated Stephen Tyrone Williams) about being sodomized by rogue cops.
Despite Hanks’s megawatt movie-star status—he gets the only solo curtain call—this is not a one-man show. Rare for Broadway nonmusicals, the cast boasts 16 additional actors, many of whom are given moments to stand out. Courtney B. Vance is sandpaper and satin as an editor who loves McAlary but hates his excesses. Deirdre Lovejoy is foul-mouthed and funny as one of the few women in a man’s world. Danny Mastrogiorgio lends fire to a jealous colleague.
Playing McAlary’s alcoholic mentor, Peter Gerety makes his scenes with Hanks have such a relaxed authenticity, the two seem like just a couple of guys vigorously debating journalism after quite a few drinks rather than a pair of experienced actors on a Broadway stage. The only one who really gets lost in the mayhem is Maura Tierney as McAlary’s long-suffering wife, Alice. She is relegated to the role of occasionally complaining, but ultimately supportive spouse, one of the few dull characters in an otherwise explosive production.
Broadhurst Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Tom Hanks, Courtney B. Vance, Peter Scolari, Christopher McDonald, and Michael GastonPhoto by Joan Marcus
It’s chaotic, it’s grandiose, there’s too much drinking, smoking, swearing, sensationalism. Jeez, it’s just too much altogether. But, like the crazed tabloid journalism era of the 1980s and ’90s that it depicts, the late Nora Ephron’s Lucky Guy is a wild, satisfying ride full of danger and passion. It’s not a neat little package, attempting to get a point across about the state of modern media. There’s a throwaway line late in the second act about how print is dead, having been killed by TV, but it’s almost an afterthought.
This sprawling, episodic biography of the gutsy, gritty columnist Mike McAlary is a tribute to the kind of bare-knuckled reporting and the flawed lucky guy himself. Ephron’s frequent movie collaborator Tom Hanks makes his Broadway debut in the title role. Eschewing his nice-guy film image, Hanks tears into the red meat of the part with relish. From his first entrance when he directly asks an audience member, “This is New York. Who’s relaxed? Are you relaxed?” to a tearful speech for newsroom colleagues when McAlary wins a Pulitzer Prize, Hanks grabs us and never lets go. He may as well start dusting his shelf for a Tony Award to go alongside his two Oscars.
The play is a bit of a jumble, starting in a smoke-filled bar with a chorus of rough-edged reporters singing an Irish folk song and then telling McAlary’s story as he progresses from lowly reporter relegated to the wilds of Queens to the highest-paid columnist in the city. He grabs the front page but also gets into trouble on occasion. A false report about a rape victim results in a lawsuit, which nearly ruins his reputation. Characters frequently trade off narrator duties, interrupt each other to get their viewpoints in, and assume different personae (“You play Jimmy Breslin,” one editor shouts to a bartender).
Ephron reportedly intended it as a film or TV script, and that certainly shows the rapid pace and short scenes. Fortunately, director George C. Wolfe knows a thing or two about staging unwieldy scripts in a cinematic fashion. Remember Angels in America and Bring in ’da Noise…? Aided by David Rockwell’s fluid, suggestive sets and the black-and-white, in-your-face video projections of Batwin + Robin Productions, Wolfe gives Guy the necessary freight-train intensity. He also knows when to hit the brakes—as in an uncomfortable, heart-wrenching moment when McAlary interviews a ravaged Abner Louima (an understated Stephen Tyrone Williams) about being sodomized by rogue cops.
Despite Hanks’s megawatt movie-star status—he gets the only solo curtain call—this is not a one-man show. Rare for Broadway nonmusicals, the cast boasts 16 additional actors, many of whom are given moments to stand out. Courtney B. Vance is sandpaper and satin as an editor who loves McAlary but hates his excesses. Deirdre Lovejoy is foul-mouthed and funny as one of the few women in a man’s world. Danny Mastrogiorgio lends fire to a jealous colleague.
Playing McAlary’s alcoholic mentor, Peter Gerety makes his scenes with Hanks have such a relaxed authenticity, the two seem like just a couple of guys vigorously debating journalism after quite a few drinks rather than a pair of experienced actors on a Broadway stage. The only one who really gets lost in the mayhem is Maura Tierney as McAlary’s long-suffering wife, Alice. She is relegated to the role of occasionally complaining, but ultimately supportive spouse, one of the few dull characters in an otherwise explosive production.
April 5, 2013
Apr.
1–June 16. Broadhurst Theatre, 235 W. 44th St., NYC. Tue 7pm, Wed 8pm,
Thu 7pm, Fri 8pm, Sat 2pm & 8pm, Sun 3pm. Running time 2 hours and
10 minutes with intermission. $82–152. (800) 432-7250.
www.telecharge.com
www.telecharge.com
It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s Superman
Encores! at New York City Center [show closed]
Reviewed by Jerry Beal
Encores! has done it again. This bastion of American musical theatre revivals in concert stagings—now in its 20th season of producing three to four pieces each year—flies high with this production. First staged in 1965, the show ran into the tongue-in-cheekiness of a new television upstart, Batman, and lasted just 129 performances. Thanks to a following that appreciated its wit and jaunty score, its cachet has never fully disappeared, and in this reincarnation its charms are clear and numerous.
A delicate and astute blend of camp and sincerity, Superman revels in its affection for its source material (music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Lee Adams, book by David Newman and Robert Benton based on the comic strip Superman). Clark Kent is still the unprepossessing and mild-mannered reporter with a yen for fellow reporter Lois Lane. She continues to pine for the unavailable “Man of Steel,” who wishes he could reveal his true self to her.
Into this familiar mix comes Max Mencken, the in-house lothario whose charms pale next to Superman’s prowess, and Abner Sedgwick, the mad—as in angry—scientist whose neglect by the Nobel Prize Committee has set him on the path to destroy Superman and thereby, in his mind, raise his own status. Add to the brew a very decent co-worker pining for Lois, a love-struck siren whose unrequited longings for Max cause her to make a pass at Clark, and an ensemble of regular folk with an ever-present and very human need for a hero, all assembled by director John Rando in a visually and tonally arresting creation, and Encores! continues to demonstrate its ability to bring our native art form’s past to a generation rooted in falling chandeliers and feline junkyards.
A cast of relatively unfamiliar Broadway performers glows under Rando’s staging and Rob Berman’s music direction. Edward Watts achieves a perfect blend of strength and loneliness as our hero. Jenny Powers brings out Lois’s similar ambivalence. David Pittu is the showstopping Sedgwick, Will Swensen does his best to channel the immortal Jack Cassidy as Max, and the two bring down the house as they share their villainous dreams in “You’ve Got What I Need.” Perhaps the show’s most known song, “You’ve Got Possibilities,” is given all its due by Alli Mauzey.
Once in a very rare while, the series comes a cropper, either because the material is problematic—On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, Golden Boy—or because the production falters. But when, as in the past two years—Fiorello, Merrily We Roll Along, Pipe Dream, and now It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s Superman—the combination of material and production meshes in every way, the value of this institution remains indisputable and incomparable.
Encores! at New York City Center [show closed]
Reviewed by Jerry Beal
Encores! has done it again. This bastion of American musical theatre revivals in concert stagings—now in its 20th season of producing three to four pieces each year—flies high with this production. First staged in 1965, the show ran into the tongue-in-cheekiness of a new television upstart, Batman, and lasted just 129 performances. Thanks to a following that appreciated its wit and jaunty score, its cachet has never fully disappeared, and in this reincarnation its charms are clear and numerous.
A delicate and astute blend of camp and sincerity, Superman revels in its affection for its source material (music by Charles Strouse, lyrics by Lee Adams, book by David Newman and Robert Benton based on the comic strip Superman). Clark Kent is still the unprepossessing and mild-mannered reporter with a yen for fellow reporter Lois Lane. She continues to pine for the unavailable “Man of Steel,” who wishes he could reveal his true self to her.
Into this familiar mix comes Max Mencken, the in-house lothario whose charms pale next to Superman’s prowess, and Abner Sedgwick, the mad—as in angry—scientist whose neglect by the Nobel Prize Committee has set him on the path to destroy Superman and thereby, in his mind, raise his own status. Add to the brew a very decent co-worker pining for Lois, a love-struck siren whose unrequited longings for Max cause her to make a pass at Clark, and an ensemble of regular folk with an ever-present and very human need for a hero, all assembled by director John Rando in a visually and tonally arresting creation, and Encores! continues to demonstrate its ability to bring our native art form’s past to a generation rooted in falling chandeliers and feline junkyards.
A cast of relatively unfamiliar Broadway performers glows under Rando’s staging and Rob Berman’s music direction. Edward Watts achieves a perfect blend of strength and loneliness as our hero. Jenny Powers brings out Lois’s similar ambivalence. David Pittu is the showstopping Sedgwick, Will Swensen does his best to channel the immortal Jack Cassidy as Max, and the two bring down the house as they share their villainous dreams in “You’ve Got What I Need.” Perhaps the show’s most known song, “You’ve Got Possibilities,” is given all its due by Alli Mauzey.
Once in a very rare while, the series comes a cropper, either because the material is problematic—On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, Golden Boy—or because the production falters. But when, as in the past two years—Fiorello, Merrily We Roll Along, Pipe Dream, and now It’s a Bird… It’s a Plane… It’s Superman—the combination of material and production meshes in every way, the value of this institution remains indisputable and incomparable.
March 26, 2013
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Cort Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Vito Vincent and Emilia Clarke
The new Broadway adaptation of Truman Capote’s beloved 1958 novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s breaks at least two cardinal rules of show business: 1) Never work with animals, and 2) Never try to re-create an iconic screen role on stage. It didn’t work for On the Waterfront or The Graduate. Here, the first maximum is only violated slightly. A feline named Vito Vincent is carried on during a party scene, pulls focus, and then leaps into the wings. He later reappears briefly and easily steals a climactic and tearful farewell sequence. The second infraction about icons is a bit more serious. All comparisons may be odious, but Audrey Hepburn owned the part of heartbreaking party girl Holly Golightly in Blake Edwards’s 1961 film version. Emilia Clarke of HBO’s Games of Thrones makes a game go of it, but fails to enchant or capture Holly’s vulnerability.
Richard Greenberg’s script may adhere more closely to the source material than Edwards’s movie, but it lacks the joy, fizz, and fun of the film and the wistful sadness and sweet nostalgia of Capote’s original. The novella takes place in World War II Manhattan where the dazzlingly attractive and effervescent Holly pursues millionaires and cocktails as a semi-prostitute, cadging $50 bills for cab fare and powder-room expenses. She represents the glamour and excitement of unbridled youth and unapologetic nonconformism, and is observed by a narrator—a stand-in for Capote—an aspiring writer whom she names Fred after her adored brother.
The story is a mood piece and character study, the shadowy Capote figure admiring Holly as a devilish friend or delightfully sinful sister. In the movie, the author becomes Paul, a definite heterosexual played by George Peppard, whose frustrating but finally successful romance with Holly gives the plot a much needed arc. In Greenberg’s version, the narrator is bisexual with leanings toward Holly and other young men. The connection between the two leads is unclear and unresolved, so we don’t really care what happens to them.
Cory Michael Smith handles the thankless narrator role with aplomb, though his honeysuckle-Southern accent comes and goes. There are a few bright spots in the large cast of Broadway veterans—including Suzanne Bertish who doubles up as a prudish, eccentric neighbor and a stern magazine editor; Lee Wilkof as a fast-taking agent; Tony Torn as an idiotic playboy; Murphy Guyer as Holly’s much older husband from her native Texas; and reliable George Wendt of Cheers fame as a sympathetic bartender.
Sean Mathias, who staged an earlier, unsuccessful Breakfast in London with Anna Friel, does a competent enough job of traffic management, but there’s no sizzle, sex, or spark in his staging. The original music and sound design of Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen are the only elements to succeed in re-creating a bygone era and weaving a spell of sophistication and charm so sadly lacking in the production as a whole.
Cort Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Vito Vincent and Emilia Clarke
Photo by Nathan Johnson
The new Broadway adaptation of Truman Capote’s beloved 1958 novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s breaks at least two cardinal rules of show business: 1) Never work with animals, and 2) Never try to re-create an iconic screen role on stage. It didn’t work for On the Waterfront or The Graduate. Here, the first maximum is only violated slightly. A feline named Vito Vincent is carried on during a party scene, pulls focus, and then leaps into the wings. He later reappears briefly and easily steals a climactic and tearful farewell sequence. The second infraction about icons is a bit more serious. All comparisons may be odious, but Audrey Hepburn owned the part of heartbreaking party girl Holly Golightly in Blake Edwards’s 1961 film version. Emilia Clarke of HBO’s Games of Thrones makes a game go of it, but fails to enchant or capture Holly’s vulnerability.
Richard Greenberg’s script may adhere more closely to the source material than Edwards’s movie, but it lacks the joy, fizz, and fun of the film and the wistful sadness and sweet nostalgia of Capote’s original. The novella takes place in World War II Manhattan where the dazzlingly attractive and effervescent Holly pursues millionaires and cocktails as a semi-prostitute, cadging $50 bills for cab fare and powder-room expenses. She represents the glamour and excitement of unbridled youth and unapologetic nonconformism, and is observed by a narrator—a stand-in for Capote—an aspiring writer whom she names Fred after her adored brother.
The story is a mood piece and character study, the shadowy Capote figure admiring Holly as a devilish friend or delightfully sinful sister. In the movie, the author becomes Paul, a definite heterosexual played by George Peppard, whose frustrating but finally successful romance with Holly gives the plot a much needed arc. In Greenberg’s version, the narrator is bisexual with leanings toward Holly and other young men. The connection between the two leads is unclear and unresolved, so we don’t really care what happens to them.
Cory Michael Smith handles the thankless narrator role with aplomb, though his honeysuckle-Southern accent comes and goes. There are a few bright spots in the large cast of Broadway veterans—including Suzanne Bertish who doubles up as a prudish, eccentric neighbor and a stern magazine editor; Lee Wilkof as a fast-taking agent; Tony Torn as an idiotic playboy; Murphy Guyer as Holly’s much older husband from her native Texas; and reliable George Wendt of Cheers fame as a sympathetic bartender.
Sean Mathias, who staged an earlier, unsuccessful Breakfast in London with Anna Friel, does a competent enough job of traffic management, but there’s no sizzle, sex, or spark in his staging. The original music and sound design of Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen are the only elements to succeed in re-creating a bygone era and weaving a spell of sophistication and charm so sadly lacking in the production as a whole.
March 23, 2013
Opened
March 20 for an open run. Cort Theatre, 138 W. 48th St., NYC. Tue 7pm,
Wed 2pm & 7pm, Thu 7pm, Fri 8pm, Sat 2pm & 8pm, Sun 3pm. Running
time 2 hours and 30 minutes, including intermission. $37-132. (212)
239-6200.
www.telecharge.com
www.telecharge.com
Talley’s Folly
Roundabout Theatre Company at the Laura Pels Theatre at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
A common thread among America’s greatest playwrights is a compassionate view of our dreamers and outcasts. Tennessee Williams, William Inge, and Lanford Wilson definitely belong in this class of poetic realists. In recent revivals, Broadway audiences have seen the sexual misfits of Williams’ Gothic Deep South (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) and Inge’s repressed Midwest (Picnic) howl out their frustrations. Now the Roundabout Theatre Company gives us Wilson’s sunnier but no less complex portrait of a conflicted nation through a seemingly simple love story in a captivating production at the Off-Broadway Laura Pels Theater. His Talley’s Folly was a huge hit for his home-base theater company, the dearly missed Circle Repertory Theatre, winning a Pulitzer Prize and running on and Off-Broadway in 1979 and ’80. You could argue that a large measure of the play’s initial success was due to the lead performance of Judd Hirsch, the star of a popular TV show (Taxi), but Michael Wilson’s sterling staging proves there is more to this enchanting valentine than juicy acting opportunities.
The setting is a ruined boathouse beautifully designed by Jeff Cowie and poetically lit by Rui Rita. It’s July 4, 1944, and Jewish-European immigrant Matt Friedman is preparing to propose to Sally Talley, the 30-ish daughter of a prominent family in a small Missouri town. (The Talleys are also featured in Lanford Wilson’s other exquisite plays Talley and Son and Fifth of July.) Both are lonely souls and don’t quite fit into the traditional American template of picket fences, apple pie, and nuclear families in a soon-to-be post-atomic age. Matt lost his entire family when he was a child, and Sally is the outcast of the Talleys—not only for her outspoken progressive views but also for an illness that has rendered her barren. These two reach out to each other in a gentle push-pull mating dance of attraction and fear. Matt tells us the play is a waltz, and that’s just how Michael Wilson directs it: slow, elegant, and lilting.
Danny Burstein is marvelous as the talkative Matt Friedman, slyly gaining the audience’s confidence in direct address, charming us and Sally with self-deprecating wit and unabashed sentiment. Sarah Paulson has the less showy role of Sally and therefore the greater acting challenge. She does not speak directly to us and must display Sally’s insecurities through subtle furtive side glances and halting speech. But both are proficient at hiding their characters’ fearful, bruised interiors with funny rapid patter and bravura bluster. When their defenses are finally down, we see these actors expose the quivering loners with a compassion equal to that of the playwright.
Roundabout Theatre Company at the Laura Pels Theatre at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
A common thread among America’s greatest playwrights is a compassionate view of our dreamers and outcasts. Tennessee Williams, William Inge, and Lanford Wilson definitely belong in this class of poetic realists. In recent revivals, Broadway audiences have seen the sexual misfits of Williams’ Gothic Deep South (Cat on a Hot Tin Roof) and Inge’s repressed Midwest (Picnic) howl out their frustrations. Now the Roundabout Theatre Company gives us Wilson’s sunnier but no less complex portrait of a conflicted nation through a seemingly simple love story in a captivating production at the Off-Broadway Laura Pels Theater. His Talley’s Folly was a huge hit for his home-base theater company, the dearly missed Circle Repertory Theatre, winning a Pulitzer Prize and running on and Off-Broadway in 1979 and ’80. You could argue that a large measure of the play’s initial success was due to the lead performance of Judd Hirsch, the star of a popular TV show (Taxi), but Michael Wilson’s sterling staging proves there is more to this enchanting valentine than juicy acting opportunities.
The setting is a ruined boathouse beautifully designed by Jeff Cowie and poetically lit by Rui Rita. It’s July 4, 1944, and Jewish-European immigrant Matt Friedman is preparing to propose to Sally Talley, the 30-ish daughter of a prominent family in a small Missouri town. (The Talleys are also featured in Lanford Wilson’s other exquisite plays Talley and Son and Fifth of July.) Both are lonely souls and don’t quite fit into the traditional American template of picket fences, apple pie, and nuclear families in a soon-to-be post-atomic age. Matt lost his entire family when he was a child, and Sally is the outcast of the Talleys—not only for her outspoken progressive views but also for an illness that has rendered her barren. These two reach out to each other in a gentle push-pull mating dance of attraction and fear. Matt tells us the play is a waltz, and that’s just how Michael Wilson directs it: slow, elegant, and lilting.
Danny Burstein is marvelous as the talkative Matt Friedman, slyly gaining the audience’s confidence in direct address, charming us and Sally with self-deprecating wit and unabashed sentiment. Sarah Paulson has the less showy role of Sally and therefore the greater acting challenge. She does not speak directly to us and must display Sally’s insecurities through subtle furtive side glances and halting speech. But both are proficient at hiding their characters’ fearful, bruised interiors with funny rapid patter and bravura bluster. When their defenses are finally down, we see these actors expose the quivering loners with a compassion equal to that of the playwright.
March 12, 2012
Passion
Classic Stage Company [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
Judy Kuhn and Ryan Silverman
Originally conceived as half of a double-bill of one-act musicals, Stephen Sondheim’s Passion seemed more of a brief chamber opera rather than a full-blown Broadway musical when it premiered in 1994. Director John Doyle, who has staged innovative interpretations of the legendary composer-lyricist’s Company and Sweeney Todd, gives the piece a more appropriately intimate setting at the Off-Broadway Classic Stage Company for this revival. Doyle also designed the spare setting—a bare platform with a few furnishings and props—which perfectly serves this slight story. In the original staging, Donna Murphy’s volcanic performance and Sondheim’s gorgeous music made up for the frailness of the story, but here the production is just as wispy.
Based on Ettore Scola’s film Passione D’Amore, James Lapine’s book follows the amorous trials of handsome Italian cavalryman Giorgio in a remote 19th century village. Separated from his lover, the married and beautiful Clara, he draws the borderline-obsessive attention of his commanding officer’s unattractive, invalid cousin Fosca. He initially rejects the manipulative, passive-aggressive Fosca, but gradually realizes her selfless affection is stronger than that of Clara who refuses to leave her husband and small son.
In the original production, the stunning Murphy was made over to be truly ugly. Here Judy Kuhn is just plain, so the conflict within Giorgio between judging love by appearance or spirit is not as powerful. However, Kuhn delivers a moving performance, dramatically and vocally, but she fails to match Murphy’s depth of complexity. Similarly Ryan Silverman has the voice to put across Giorgio’s songs, but the actor lacks the necessary passion—pardon the pun—to make us care about him. Melissa Errico makes a lovely Clara, but the role is tangential to the main thread. Veterans Stephen Borgadus, Tom Nelis, Jeffrey Denman, and Ken Krugman do their best in support.
Given Doyle’s previous productions of Sondheim shows in which all the characters played instruments, I expected Giorgio, Fosca and the whole regiment to be parading through the CSC space like a military band. He keeps the staging relatively free of such devices, with the exception of having the soldiers play all the roles—including female ones—in a flashback detailing Fosca’s disastrous marriage to a fake nobleman. Such ideas may have saved this Passion from the uninvolving staging. However, the score is beautifully played, so kudos to music director Rob Berman and orchestrator Jonathan Tunick who also worked on the original production.
Classic Stage Company [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
Judy Kuhn and Ryan Silverman
Photo by Joan Marcus
Originally conceived as half of a double-bill of one-act musicals, Stephen Sondheim’s Passion seemed more of a brief chamber opera rather than a full-blown Broadway musical when it premiered in 1994. Director John Doyle, who has staged innovative interpretations of the legendary composer-lyricist’s Company and Sweeney Todd, gives the piece a more appropriately intimate setting at the Off-Broadway Classic Stage Company for this revival. Doyle also designed the spare setting—a bare platform with a few furnishings and props—which perfectly serves this slight story. In the original staging, Donna Murphy’s volcanic performance and Sondheim’s gorgeous music made up for the frailness of the story, but here the production is just as wispy.
Based on Ettore Scola’s film Passione D’Amore, James Lapine’s book follows the amorous trials of handsome Italian cavalryman Giorgio in a remote 19th century village. Separated from his lover, the married and beautiful Clara, he draws the borderline-obsessive attention of his commanding officer’s unattractive, invalid cousin Fosca. He initially rejects the manipulative, passive-aggressive Fosca, but gradually realizes her selfless affection is stronger than that of Clara who refuses to leave her husband and small son.
In the original production, the stunning Murphy was made over to be truly ugly. Here Judy Kuhn is just plain, so the conflict within Giorgio between judging love by appearance or spirit is not as powerful. However, Kuhn delivers a moving performance, dramatically and vocally, but she fails to match Murphy’s depth of complexity. Similarly Ryan Silverman has the voice to put across Giorgio’s songs, but the actor lacks the necessary passion—pardon the pun—to make us care about him. Melissa Errico makes a lovely Clara, but the role is tangential to the main thread. Veterans Stephen Borgadus, Tom Nelis, Jeffrey Denman, and Ken Krugman do their best in support.
Given Doyle’s previous productions of Sondheim shows in which all the characters played instruments, I expected Giorgio, Fosca and the whole regiment to be parading through the CSC space like a military band. He keeps the staging relatively free of such devices, with the exception of having the soldiers play all the roles—including female ones—in a flashback detailing Fosca’s disastrous marriage to a fake nobleman. Such ideas may have saved this Passion from the uninvolving staging. However, the score is beautifully played, so kudos to music director Rob Berman and orchestrator Jonathan Tunick who also worked on the original production.
March 3, 2013
The Madrid
Manhattan Theatre Club at NY City Center Stage I [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
Edie Falco and Phoebe Strole
Late in the second act of Liz Flahive’s The Madrid, there is a moment that mixes sadness and silliness, melancholy and madness. Heidi Schreck as Becca, a suburban mom, is dressed for Halloween as the demented ballerina Natalie Portman played in the movie Black Swan. Becca is confronting Sarah, the 20-ish daughter of her best friend, with her suspicions about the young woman sleeping with her husband, Danny. There are many layers to the scene. Becca isn’t angry with Sarah, she wants to protect her from Danny’s fecklessness, he’s done this sort of the before and the previous girl, their son’s math tutor, got seriously hurt. Becca’s also jealous, not because of extramarital sex—there wasn’t any—but because Danny feels he can talk openly with these young women in a way he can’t with his wife. In another twist, Becca hasn’t even seen Black Swan; Danny saw it without her, and she chose this costume to please him. Flahive’s sensitive writing and Schreck’s brittle, broken-doll limning combine to make the vignette oddly sweet and heartbreaking.
The trouble is The Madrid is not about Becca; she’s a supporting character. The play is about her best friend Martha, played by the admirable Edie Falco. Martha has disappeared from her job as a kindergarten teacher and her loving home with fellow instructor John and their offspring the recent college grad Sarah. Martha cashes out her life insurance policy and takes up residence at the titular establishment, a nearby rundown apartment building with noisy neighbors and cracked walls (realized with appropriate sleaziness by set designer David Zinn). Martha doesn’t appear to have much ambition beyond being on her own and hanging out at a local bar where she secretly meets Sarah with whom she still wants to maintain a relationship.
Flahive, a writer and producer of Falco’s excellent Showtime series Nurse Jackie, has failed to develop Martha, John, or Sarah sufficiently to justify their position at the center of the play. We just know that Martha yearns to be free of family ties and has a history of running away. Despite Falco’s considerable talent, Martha comes across as selfish and disconnected. There is no internal conflict between her desire for freedom and her love for her daughter, which is stronger than her ties to John. Her husband is just a lovable lug with a fondness for history, and John Ellison Conlee cannot do much with the skimpy material except look sad. As the grown child torn between two parents, Sarah is the most developed of the family, and Phoebe Strole fiercely vivifies Sarah’s confusion, anger, and need to return to normalcy. There are also strong efforts from Frances Sternhagen as Martha’s cold mother and Christopher Evan Welch as the needy Danny.
Director Leigh Silverman manages to provide a few moments of gentle humor and realistic quirkiness. But with the exception of Schreck’s shattering performance, The Madrid seems like a bad imitation of the lovely, funny-sad novels of Anne Tyler.
Manhattan Theatre Club at NY City Center Stage I [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
Edie Falco and Phoebe Strole
Photo by Joan Marcus
Late in the second act of Liz Flahive’s The Madrid, there is a moment that mixes sadness and silliness, melancholy and madness. Heidi Schreck as Becca, a suburban mom, is dressed for Halloween as the demented ballerina Natalie Portman played in the movie Black Swan. Becca is confronting Sarah, the 20-ish daughter of her best friend, with her suspicions about the young woman sleeping with her husband, Danny. There are many layers to the scene. Becca isn’t angry with Sarah, she wants to protect her from Danny’s fecklessness, he’s done this sort of the before and the previous girl, their son’s math tutor, got seriously hurt. Becca’s also jealous, not because of extramarital sex—there wasn’t any—but because Danny feels he can talk openly with these young women in a way he can’t with his wife. In another twist, Becca hasn’t even seen Black Swan; Danny saw it without her, and she chose this costume to please him. Flahive’s sensitive writing and Schreck’s brittle, broken-doll limning combine to make the vignette oddly sweet and heartbreaking.
The trouble is The Madrid is not about Becca; she’s a supporting character. The play is about her best friend Martha, played by the admirable Edie Falco. Martha has disappeared from her job as a kindergarten teacher and her loving home with fellow instructor John and their offspring the recent college grad Sarah. Martha cashes out her life insurance policy and takes up residence at the titular establishment, a nearby rundown apartment building with noisy neighbors and cracked walls (realized with appropriate sleaziness by set designer David Zinn). Martha doesn’t appear to have much ambition beyond being on her own and hanging out at a local bar where she secretly meets Sarah with whom she still wants to maintain a relationship.
Flahive, a writer and producer of Falco’s excellent Showtime series Nurse Jackie, has failed to develop Martha, John, or Sarah sufficiently to justify their position at the center of the play. We just know that Martha yearns to be free of family ties and has a history of running away. Despite Falco’s considerable talent, Martha comes across as selfish and disconnected. There is no internal conflict between her desire for freedom and her love for her daughter, which is stronger than her ties to John. Her husband is just a lovable lug with a fondness for history, and John Ellison Conlee cannot do much with the skimpy material except look sad. As the grown child torn between two parents, Sarah is the most developed of the family, and Phoebe Strole fiercely vivifies Sarah’s confusion, anger, and need to return to normalcy. There are also strong efforts from Frances Sternhagen as Martha’s cold mother and Christopher Evan Welch as the needy Danny.
Director Leigh Silverman manages to provide a few moments of gentle humor and realistic quirkiness. But with the exception of Schreck’s shattering performance, The Madrid seems like a bad imitation of the lovely, funny-sad novels of Anne Tyler.
February 26, 2013
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Richard Rodgers Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
We all know the adage about a feline having nine lives, but Tennessee Williams’s Maggie the Cat has an infinite number more. Since she first appeared in the person of Barbara Bel Geddes in the original 1955 Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, dozens of actresses have been yearning to sink their teeth into this meaty role. From Elizabeth Taylor and Elizabeth Ashley to Ashley Judd, Kathleen Turner, and Anika Noni Rose, Maggie has been catnip to stars and audiences alike. The latest to succumb to her sizzling allure is Scarlett Johansson, who proved she’s more than just a pretty face from the movies by deservedly winning a Tony for an intense and direct performance in another revival of a heavy 1950s drama, A View from the Bridge. Despite some vocal limitations and a thick-as-molasses Southern accent, Johansson acquits herself quite well, but the overall production directed by Rob Ashford comes up short.
Ashford is known mostly for staging and choreographing musicals like Thoroughly Modern Millie and How to Succeed in Business…, but he has recently ventured into the choppier waters of straight drama with revivals of Anna Christie and A Streetcar Named Desire in London. I haven’t seen those productions, but in his nonmusical Broadway debut, the musically inclined Ashford seemed to have concentrated on movement patterns and heavy Gothic atmosphere (Christopher Oram designed the operatic set) over character relationships. The tense interplay between Maggie and her alcoholic husband, Brick, who refuses to sleep with her is tightly staged but lacks electricity.
Likewise, the confrontations between Brick and his redneck father, the blunt but authentic Big Daddy, are competently choreographed, but there is no believable bond between the supposedly affectionate yet conflicted parent and child. Ashford is more concerned with ominous music, well-timed lightning flashes, and atmospheric spirituals sung by the African-American servants. There were rumors in the press that Ashford had included the onstage appearance of the ghost of Skipper, Brick’s football teammate who dies of drug and alcohol abuse when faced with the truth of his repressed homosexuality. This would have been a laughable, overly obvious ploy, yet even without it, Ashford’s production is efficient but hollow.
Johansson imparts Maggie’s desperate need not only for Brick’s physical and emotional love, but also for the Pollitt clan’s money. But she has nothing to play against. Benjamin Walker as Brick succumbs to the trap of the role: mistaking his disgust for mendacity and withdrawal from life as lethargy. The Irish actor Ciaran Hinds blusters about as Big Daddy, but he fails to achieve the necessary surface brutishness and the basic compassion beneath. Debra Monk lends a welcome vulgar humor to Big Mama, yet she misses this clownish woman’s sad clinging to Big Daddy. Michael Park and Emily Begrl go for the usual stereotypical nastiness of Gooper and Mae, Brick’s avaricious brother and sister-in-law. In the end, I didn’t believe the people on stage were a family fighting for their survival and happiness. It’s too bad Johansson’s spunky cat was given such a cool bedroom floor upon which to play rather than a hot tin roof.
Richard Rodgers Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
We all know the adage about a feline having nine lives, but Tennessee Williams’s Maggie the Cat has an infinite number more. Since she first appeared in the person of Barbara Bel Geddes in the original 1955 Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, dozens of actresses have been yearning to sink their teeth into this meaty role. From Elizabeth Taylor and Elizabeth Ashley to Ashley Judd, Kathleen Turner, and Anika Noni Rose, Maggie has been catnip to stars and audiences alike. The latest to succumb to her sizzling allure is Scarlett Johansson, who proved she’s more than just a pretty face from the movies by deservedly winning a Tony for an intense and direct performance in another revival of a heavy 1950s drama, A View from the Bridge. Despite some vocal limitations and a thick-as-molasses Southern accent, Johansson acquits herself quite well, but the overall production directed by Rob Ashford comes up short.
Ashford is known mostly for staging and choreographing musicals like Thoroughly Modern Millie and How to Succeed in Business…, but he has recently ventured into the choppier waters of straight drama with revivals of Anna Christie and A Streetcar Named Desire in London. I haven’t seen those productions, but in his nonmusical Broadway debut, the musically inclined Ashford seemed to have concentrated on movement patterns and heavy Gothic atmosphere (Christopher Oram designed the operatic set) over character relationships. The tense interplay between Maggie and her alcoholic husband, Brick, who refuses to sleep with her is tightly staged but lacks electricity.
Likewise, the confrontations between Brick and his redneck father, the blunt but authentic Big Daddy, are competently choreographed, but there is no believable bond between the supposedly affectionate yet conflicted parent and child. Ashford is more concerned with ominous music, well-timed lightning flashes, and atmospheric spirituals sung by the African-American servants. There were rumors in the press that Ashford had included the onstage appearance of the ghost of Skipper, Brick’s football teammate who dies of drug and alcohol abuse when faced with the truth of his repressed homosexuality. This would have been a laughable, overly obvious ploy, yet even without it, Ashford’s production is efficient but hollow.
Johansson imparts Maggie’s desperate need not only for Brick’s physical and emotional love, but also for the Pollitt clan’s money. But she has nothing to play against. Benjamin Walker as Brick succumbs to the trap of the role: mistaking his disgust for mendacity and withdrawal from life as lethargy. The Irish actor Ciaran Hinds blusters about as Big Daddy, but he fails to achieve the necessary surface brutishness and the basic compassion beneath. Debra Monk lends a welcome vulgar humor to Big Mama, yet she misses this clownish woman’s sad clinging to Big Daddy. Michael Park and Emily Begrl go for the usual stereotypical nastiness of Gooper and Mae, Brick’s avaricious brother and sister-in-law. In the end, I didn’t believe the people on stage were a family fighting for their survival and happiness. It’s too bad Johansson’s spunky cat was given such a cool bedroom floor upon which to play rather than a hot tin roof.
January 25, 2013
Picnic
Roundabout Theatre Company at American Airlines Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
There’s plenty of bulging pecs and washboard abs on display at the Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of Picnic, William Inge’s 1953 Pulitzer Prize–winning play on repressed sexuality, but all those muscles are not as interesting as the chatter of two schoolteachers who briefly appear in a few scenes. When the big, strapping leading man is upstaged by actors in two tiny character roles, you know the show is in trouble.
The hunk in question is the character called Hal Carter, a boastful drifter seeking a permanent home in the small Kansas town of his former college roommate, the well-to-do Alan Seymour. Like a rooster in a henhouse, Hal stomps around the backyard of Flo Owens, a widow with two daughters: Madge, the town beauty and girlfriend of Alan, and Millie, a tomboy outcast with brains and artistic leanings. Hal’s shirtless parading sets off all sorts of sexual fireworks in this female-dominated enclave. Not only is Madge bored with Alan and attracted to Hal, spinster schoolmarm Rosemary who rents a room in the Owens house is determined to land her longtime beau Howard in the matrimonial trap. All the various tensions come to a head as the characters set out for a Labor Day picnic.
Director Sam Gold makes effective use of Andrew Lieberman’s detailed set, staging action in and outside of the Owens house and the next-door residence of Helen Potts, a lonely lady who takes in Hal to help her forget about her ailing elderly mother. Unfortunately, the main performances of Sebastian Stan as Hal and Maggie Grace as Madge are sadly lacking. Both these attractive young actors have more experience in film and on TV than on the stage, and this dearth of theater savvy shows. Neither plumbs the depths of their characters’ longings to be appreciated for more than their good looks. Thus, they give shallow portrayals of people wishing to escape their shallowness.
The more solid limning is done by those in the smallest roles. Maddie Corman and Cassie Beck offer such textured impressions of two of Rosemary’s attention-starved colleagues, I wanted to know more about them. The accomplished Elizabeth Marvel gives a flashy, attention-grabbing account of Rosemary’s desperation to escape loneliness, while Reed Birney is more subtle at conveying Howard’s almost comical reluctance to wed. Ellen Burstyn does what she can with the tiny role of Mrs. Potts, clearly imparting her desire to be young again. Mare Winningham does even more with Flo Owens. A lifetime of disappointment can be read on the actor’s sensitive features as this wise and sad mother sees her daughter treading the same path she did. As the misfit Millie, Madeleine Martin eloquently expresses the pain of being a smart girl in a provincial town that values prettiness above intelligence. Ben Rappaport infuses the thankless role of Alan with a spine.
Even Chris Perfetti in the walk-on role of an obnoxious newspaper boy displays a focused sense of objective—to get a date with Madge. That’s more than can be said for the two leads in this unbalanced Picnic.
Roundabout Theatre Company at American Airlines Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
There’s plenty of bulging pecs and washboard abs on display at the Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of Picnic, William Inge’s 1953 Pulitzer Prize–winning play on repressed sexuality, but all those muscles are not as interesting as the chatter of two schoolteachers who briefly appear in a few scenes. When the big, strapping leading man is upstaged by actors in two tiny character roles, you know the show is in trouble.
The hunk in question is the character called Hal Carter, a boastful drifter seeking a permanent home in the small Kansas town of his former college roommate, the well-to-do Alan Seymour. Like a rooster in a henhouse, Hal stomps around the backyard of Flo Owens, a widow with two daughters: Madge, the town beauty and girlfriend of Alan, and Millie, a tomboy outcast with brains and artistic leanings. Hal’s shirtless parading sets off all sorts of sexual fireworks in this female-dominated enclave. Not only is Madge bored with Alan and attracted to Hal, spinster schoolmarm Rosemary who rents a room in the Owens house is determined to land her longtime beau Howard in the matrimonial trap. All the various tensions come to a head as the characters set out for a Labor Day picnic.
Director Sam Gold makes effective use of Andrew Lieberman’s detailed set, staging action in and outside of the Owens house and the next-door residence of Helen Potts, a lonely lady who takes in Hal to help her forget about her ailing elderly mother. Unfortunately, the main performances of Sebastian Stan as Hal and Maggie Grace as Madge are sadly lacking. Both these attractive young actors have more experience in film and on TV than on the stage, and this dearth of theater savvy shows. Neither plumbs the depths of their characters’ longings to be appreciated for more than their good looks. Thus, they give shallow portrayals of people wishing to escape their shallowness.
The more solid limning is done by those in the smallest roles. Maddie Corman and Cassie Beck offer such textured impressions of two of Rosemary’s attention-starved colleagues, I wanted to know more about them. The accomplished Elizabeth Marvel gives a flashy, attention-grabbing account of Rosemary’s desperation to escape loneliness, while Reed Birney is more subtle at conveying Howard’s almost comical reluctance to wed. Ellen Burstyn does what she can with the tiny role of Mrs. Potts, clearly imparting her desire to be young again. Mare Winningham does even more with Flo Owens. A lifetime of disappointment can be read on the actor’s sensitive features as this wise and sad mother sees her daughter treading the same path she did. As the misfit Millie, Madeleine Martin eloquently expresses the pain of being a smart girl in a provincial town that values prettiness above intelligence. Ben Rappaport infuses the thankless role of Alan with a spine.
Even Chris Perfetti in the walk-on role of an obnoxious newspaper boy displays a focused sense of objective—to get a date with Madge. That’s more than can be said for the two leads in this unbalanced Picnic.
January 18, 2013
Water by the Spoonful
Second Stage Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
There’s a lot going on Quiara Alegria Hudes’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Water by the Spoonful: crack addiction, battle fatigue, family dysfunction, culture clashes, computer confusion. But somehow in Davis McCallum’s sensitive and tight production, now at Off-Broadway’s Second Stage after a world premiere at Hartford Stage, the multiple plotlines are woven together for a beautiful and moving tapestry of our diverse world.
As the play opens, we are introduced to Yaz, an aspiring composer and music professor frustrated with her stalled career and faltering marriage, and her cousin and best friend Elliot, an Iraq veteran hustling for acting jobs and haunted by an Arab civilian he killed. Their immediate crisis is coping with their dying aunt, a saintly fixture in her rough Philadelphia neighborhood where many relatives have succumbed to violence and drugs.
Then in a seemingly unrelated sequence, we meet Odessa, a recovering crack addict who administers a cyber chatroom for fellow ex-junkies around the world. Her clients, known by their web handles, include Orangutan, a Japanese orphan raised by an Anglo family in Maine; Chutes and Ladders, an IRS desk jockey located in California whose family has abandoned him; and newcomer Fountainhead, a smug entrepreneur looking for a simple way to kick his habit. It’s only at the end of the first act that we discover Odessa is Elliot’s real mother who gave him up to be raised her sister. In the second act, these characters’ lives intertwine in unexpected ways as they attempt to close the emotional and psychological distances that separate them.
Hudes has a sharp wit and even sharper eye, which she deftly uses to illustrate the irony of rampant noncommunication in this super-communications age. The characters skype, chat, and text but fail to connect. It’s no wonder Odessa is closer to her digital friends than to her flesh and blood family. The playwright sometimes falls into the trap of sentimentality, and I didn’t buy that Fountainhead would drop everything to care for an almost total stranger (Odessa) when she suffers a devastating relapse. Despite these lapses, Water is refreshing and warm drink to fill the heart.
McCallum’s taut direction keeps all the complex relationships and varying planes of reality clear. This includes Elliot’s ghost visions and the extended chatroom scenes in which Odessa and her charges speak as if typing on their keyboards. He’s immeasurably aided by Neil Patel’s fluid set, Russell H. Champa’s textured lighting, and Aaron Rhyme’s kaleidoscopic projections.
A sensitive cast overcomes the temptation to indulge in treacly melodrama. Liza Colon-Zayas feelingly demonstrates that Odessa’s zealous attention to her cyber-buddies masks her heartbreak over failing her son. Zabryna Guevara and Armando Riesco expose the rough edges and even rougher humor of Yaz and Elliot; while Frankie Faison, Sue Jean Kim, and Bill Heck intensely chart the painful road to recovery of the reformed drug addicts.
Second Stage Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
There’s a lot going on Quiara Alegria Hudes’s Pulitzer Prize–winning Water by the Spoonful: crack addiction, battle fatigue, family dysfunction, culture clashes, computer confusion. But somehow in Davis McCallum’s sensitive and tight production, now at Off-Broadway’s Second Stage after a world premiere at Hartford Stage, the multiple plotlines are woven together for a beautiful and moving tapestry of our diverse world.
As the play opens, we are introduced to Yaz, an aspiring composer and music professor frustrated with her stalled career and faltering marriage, and her cousin and best friend Elliot, an Iraq veteran hustling for acting jobs and haunted by an Arab civilian he killed. Their immediate crisis is coping with their dying aunt, a saintly fixture in her rough Philadelphia neighborhood where many relatives have succumbed to violence and drugs.
Then in a seemingly unrelated sequence, we meet Odessa, a recovering crack addict who administers a cyber chatroom for fellow ex-junkies around the world. Her clients, known by their web handles, include Orangutan, a Japanese orphan raised by an Anglo family in Maine; Chutes and Ladders, an IRS desk jockey located in California whose family has abandoned him; and newcomer Fountainhead, a smug entrepreneur looking for a simple way to kick his habit. It’s only at the end of the first act that we discover Odessa is Elliot’s real mother who gave him up to be raised her sister. In the second act, these characters’ lives intertwine in unexpected ways as they attempt to close the emotional and psychological distances that separate them.
Hudes has a sharp wit and even sharper eye, which she deftly uses to illustrate the irony of rampant noncommunication in this super-communications age. The characters skype, chat, and text but fail to connect. It’s no wonder Odessa is closer to her digital friends than to her flesh and blood family. The playwright sometimes falls into the trap of sentimentality, and I didn’t buy that Fountainhead would drop everything to care for an almost total stranger (Odessa) when she suffers a devastating relapse. Despite these lapses, Water is refreshing and warm drink to fill the heart.
McCallum’s taut direction keeps all the complex relationships and varying planes of reality clear. This includes Elliot’s ghost visions and the extended chatroom scenes in which Odessa and her charges speak as if typing on their keyboards. He’s immeasurably aided by Neil Patel’s fluid set, Russell H. Champa’s textured lighting, and Aaron Rhyme’s kaleidoscopic projections.
A sensitive cast overcomes the temptation to indulge in treacly melodrama. Liza Colon-Zayas feelingly demonstrates that Odessa’s zealous attention to her cyber-buddies masks her heartbreak over failing her son. Zabryna Guevara and Armando Riesco expose the rough edges and even rougher humor of Yaz and Elliot; while Frankie Faison, Sue Jean Kim, and Bill Heck intensely chart the painful road to recovery of the reformed drug addicts.
January 9, 2013
Golden Age
Manhattan Theatre Club at NY City Center Stage I [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
If you’re an opera fan, Terrence McNally’s Golden Age, now at City Center in a production from Manhattan Theatre Club, is right up your alley. But if the majestic musical genre is not your thing, this lengthy behind-the-scenes peek at the opening night of I Puritani might be a bit of a snooze. Set backstage at the Theatre-Italien in Paris on Jan. 24, 1835 (elegantly realized by designer Santo Loquasto), the play treats us to endless rhapsodizing on the glory of composer Vincenzo Bellini’s masterwork. But we’re stuck backstage while all the action is occurring in front of the footlights. There’s a lot of listening going on but not much doing.
Opera aficionado McNally attempts to channel his enthusiasm into a dramatic arc but fails. There is no vital question or risk in the plot. We are informed on numerous occasions that the four principal singers are the greatest in Europe and that the opera will be a smashing success, so there’s no suspense there. The youthful Bellini is dying of consumption, and the only tension with his situation is whether or not he will admit to his oncoming demise. There is also an appearance by superstar soprano Maria Malibran, whose formerly exquisite voice is now in ruins. McNally has already covered damaged diva territory in his brilliant Master Class, profiling the legendary Maria Callas. Sound designer Ryan Rumery even sneaks Callas in by having Bebe Neuwirth’s Milabran singing offstage to a recording of the great star.
There’s romantic and professional rivalry among the songbirds, Bellini’s ambiguous gay relationship with a wealthy young man, and a brief appearance by the revered composer Rossini to bless the proceedings. None of it adds up to a vital reason to care about the outcome of the evening. Fortunately, director Walter Bobbie keeps the pacing up at a snappy clip, and there are gorgeous Jane Greenwood costumes to look at.
The company does its level best to draw the play above a musical-history lecture. Neuwirth gets across Milabran’s haughty demeanor and conveys the star’s fiery temperament and talent. The ravishingly handsome Lee Pace passionately imparts Bellini’s burning artistic flame, while Will Rogers is devotedly adoring as his lover Francesco. Lorenzo Pisoni gains some laughs poking fun at the egotistical preening of baritone Antonio Tamburini; but Dierdre Friel, Eddie Kaye Thomas, and Ethan Philips as the remaining Puritani cast members are too bland to be convincing as opera royalty. F. Murray Abraham is onstage for too short of a time to make much of an impression as Rossini.
There is one short sequence that offers a glimmering of the emotional heights the art form can reach. Neuwirth as Malibran movingly recites the spoken version of a heartbreaking scene from Puritani, and we fleetingly experience the kind of transcendence McNally must have been going for with the entire play.
Manhattan Theatre Club at NY City Center Stage I [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
If you’re an opera fan, Terrence McNally’s Golden Age, now at City Center in a production from Manhattan Theatre Club, is right up your alley. But if the majestic musical genre is not your thing, this lengthy behind-the-scenes peek at the opening night of I Puritani might be a bit of a snooze. Set backstage at the Theatre-Italien in Paris on Jan. 24, 1835 (elegantly realized by designer Santo Loquasto), the play treats us to endless rhapsodizing on the glory of composer Vincenzo Bellini’s masterwork. But we’re stuck backstage while all the action is occurring in front of the footlights. There’s a lot of listening going on but not much doing.
Opera aficionado McNally attempts to channel his enthusiasm into a dramatic arc but fails. There is no vital question or risk in the plot. We are informed on numerous occasions that the four principal singers are the greatest in Europe and that the opera will be a smashing success, so there’s no suspense there. The youthful Bellini is dying of consumption, and the only tension with his situation is whether or not he will admit to his oncoming demise. There is also an appearance by superstar soprano Maria Malibran, whose formerly exquisite voice is now in ruins. McNally has already covered damaged diva territory in his brilliant Master Class, profiling the legendary Maria Callas. Sound designer Ryan Rumery even sneaks Callas in by having Bebe Neuwirth’s Milabran singing offstage to a recording of the great star.
There’s romantic and professional rivalry among the songbirds, Bellini’s ambiguous gay relationship with a wealthy young man, and a brief appearance by the revered composer Rossini to bless the proceedings. None of it adds up to a vital reason to care about the outcome of the evening. Fortunately, director Walter Bobbie keeps the pacing up at a snappy clip, and there are gorgeous Jane Greenwood costumes to look at.
The company does its level best to draw the play above a musical-history lecture. Neuwirth gets across Milabran’s haughty demeanor and conveys the star’s fiery temperament and talent. The ravishingly handsome Lee Pace passionately imparts Bellini’s burning artistic flame, while Will Rogers is devotedly adoring as his lover Francesco. Lorenzo Pisoni gains some laughs poking fun at the egotistical preening of baritone Antonio Tamburini; but Dierdre Friel, Eddie Kaye Thomas, and Ethan Philips as the remaining Puritani cast members are too bland to be convincing as opera royalty. F. Murray Abraham is onstage for too short of a time to make much of an impression as Rossini.
There is one short sequence that offers a glimmering of the emotional heights the art form can reach. Neuwirth as Malibran movingly recites the spoken version of a heartbreaking scene from Puritani, and we fleetingly experience the kind of transcendence McNally must have been going for with the entire play.
December 6, 2012
Dead Accounts
Music Box Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
Katie Holmes may be the main marquee attraction for Theresa Rebeck’s dark comedy Dead Accounts because of her film roles and recent divorce from Tom Cruise. But the real star is Norbert Leo Butz, who delivers a bravura performance as a manic New York banker on the run from his employers and his snooty wife in his family’s cozy Ohio home (perfect suburban set by David Rockwell). Butz has won Tony Awards for dynamic lead turns in the musicals Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Catch Me If You Can. He is just as vibrant without song and dance, giving off waves of intense heat and energy as he conveys the hopped-up, sugar-rush antics of Jack, the disillusioned son and husband desperate to escape what he sees as the phony values of Manhattan and to embrace the simpler, more honest pleasures of the Midwest. These include ice cream, hot dogs, and pizza—items which he buys in abundance—as well as going to church and living at home with his dying father and judgmental but loving mother. Butz makes Jack hysterically funny, frighteningly intense, and quietly pathetic all at once.
Holmes who plays Lorna, Jack’s depressed sister who has retreated to the homestead after a bad breakup, is practically overwhelmed by Butz. She lacks the dramatic skills or vocal equipment to keep up with her co-star, and her voice was showing signs of wear and tear during Lorna’s long shouted diatribes against her crazy sibling and the unbalanced state of the American economy. However, she does endow her character with a snappy resilience.
The play itself is a workman-like structure put together by Rebeck, who is fast becoming the Neil Simon of her generation. This prolific playwright and creator of the TV series Smash can be relied upon to produce at least one new work a year to be seen either on or Off-Broadway (Seminar, Mauritius, The Scene are recent examples) and we know it will be at least entertaining and soundly assembled. Dead Accounts fulfills these requirements but it also suffers from oversimplification.
The world of glittering New York—represented by Jenny, Jack’s patrician wife who unexpectedly drops in—is seen as a two-dimensional cut-out of shallow materialism, while the Midwest is portrayed as uniformly wholesome and naive. A more nuanced portrait of both regions would have resulted in a deeper and more complex play.
Nevertheless, there’s plenty of vinegar and wit in Rebeck’s dialogue, directed with precision by Jack O’Brien. Pay particular attention during a scene between Jack and his high-school buddy Phil. As Jack becomes more intense in his descriptions of Manhattan nightlife, he subtly edges closer to Phil who retreats back just as minutely. It’s a brilliant piece of blocking depicting the tense relationship between the two. Josh Hamilton makes the most of the bland role of Phil, as does Jayne Houdyshell as Barbara, the conventional, devout mother, and Judy Greer as the stereotypically snobbish Jenny.
Despite the unfortunate title, which refers to a rare type of asset which Jack uses to his advantage, this strong comedy is far from dead and features a memorable, lively star performance.
Music Box Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
Katie Holmes may be the main marquee attraction for Theresa Rebeck’s dark comedy Dead Accounts because of her film roles and recent divorce from Tom Cruise. But the real star is Norbert Leo Butz, who delivers a bravura performance as a manic New York banker on the run from his employers and his snooty wife in his family’s cozy Ohio home (perfect suburban set by David Rockwell). Butz has won Tony Awards for dynamic lead turns in the musicals Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and Catch Me If You Can. He is just as vibrant without song and dance, giving off waves of intense heat and energy as he conveys the hopped-up, sugar-rush antics of Jack, the disillusioned son and husband desperate to escape what he sees as the phony values of Manhattan and to embrace the simpler, more honest pleasures of the Midwest. These include ice cream, hot dogs, and pizza—items which he buys in abundance—as well as going to church and living at home with his dying father and judgmental but loving mother. Butz makes Jack hysterically funny, frighteningly intense, and quietly pathetic all at once.
Holmes who plays Lorna, Jack’s depressed sister who has retreated to the homestead after a bad breakup, is practically overwhelmed by Butz. She lacks the dramatic skills or vocal equipment to keep up with her co-star, and her voice was showing signs of wear and tear during Lorna’s long shouted diatribes against her crazy sibling and the unbalanced state of the American economy. However, she does endow her character with a snappy resilience.
The play itself is a workman-like structure put together by Rebeck, who is fast becoming the Neil Simon of her generation. This prolific playwright and creator of the TV series Smash can be relied upon to produce at least one new work a year to be seen either on or Off-Broadway (Seminar, Mauritius, The Scene are recent examples) and we know it will be at least entertaining and soundly assembled. Dead Accounts fulfills these requirements but it also suffers from oversimplification.
The world of glittering New York—represented by Jenny, Jack’s patrician wife who unexpectedly drops in—is seen as a two-dimensional cut-out of shallow materialism, while the Midwest is portrayed as uniformly wholesome and naive. A more nuanced portrait of both regions would have resulted in a deeper and more complex play.
Nevertheless, there’s plenty of vinegar and wit in Rebeck’s dialogue, directed with precision by Jack O’Brien. Pay particular attention during a scene between Jack and his high-school buddy Phil. As Jack becomes more intense in his descriptions of Manhattan nightlife, he subtly edges closer to Phil who retreats back just as minutely. It’s a brilliant piece of blocking depicting the tense relationship between the two. Josh Hamilton makes the most of the bland role of Phil, as does Jayne Houdyshell as Barbara, the conventional, devout mother, and Judy Greer as the stereotypically snobbish Jenny.
Despite the unfortunate title, which refers to a rare type of asset which Jack uses to his advantage, this strong comedy is far from dead and features a memorable, lively star performance.
November 29, 2012
Scandalous: The Life and Times of Aimee Semple McPherson [show closed]
Neil Simon Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Biographical musicals don’t have to be tedious, but Scandalous is the second Broadway tuner this season to focus on a pop cultural personality of the 1920s and lay an egg (the first was Chaplin). Based on the controversial life and career of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, Scandalous drags on for two and half hours, but feels much longer. The book by TV hostess Kathie Lee Gifford covers too much territory and tries too hard to restore MacPherson’s reputation as a do-gooder. At the height of MacPherson’s fame as a preacher, radio star, and presenter of biblical pageants, she disappeared for five weeks. She claimed to have been kidnapped, but the Los Angeles district attorney produced evidence she had really shacked up with a married lover and prosecuted her for fraud. The resulting courtroom drama was the O.J. Simpson trial of its day. MacPherson was acquitted and continued her broadcasts and sermons to overflow audiences.
There is plenty of fascinating material to explore here, and this show could have been a sort of American Evita, examining a morally ambiguous woman exploiting media and the populace in order to get ahead in a man’s world. But Gifford does not go very deep in her Biography Channel–like script. Rather than zeroing in on the trial itself or employing it as a means to peer into MacPherson’s career or why she became such a success, Gifford crams in every possible detail from the subject’s life. An editor would have been welcome.
The only time the action comes semi-alive is during quick-witted parodies of MacPherson’s flashy religious spectacles, staged with wit by director David Armstrong and costumed with pizzazz by Gregory A. Poplyk. The rest of the show plods along and feels overstuffed, as if Gifford and her collaborators felt they had to get in every musical theater cliché from lively Irish dancers to sassy hookers to cocktail-swilling Hollywood phonies. Gifford also wrote the lyrics and additional music with composers David Pomeranz and David Friedman. Much of the score is standard issue, but there are occasional memorable numbers such as “It’s Just You,” a smooth and snappy duet between two rivals for Aimee’s affections.
Soaring above the uneven material is Carolee Carmello in the lead. Onstage almost constantly, Carmello takes on the challenge of blasting power ballads, as her character ages from eager child to complex woman, and suffers multiple nervous breakdowns. It’s an endurance test she passes with flying colors without showing a drop of sweat. Roz Ryan and Candy Buckley are talented and reliable Broadway vets, but they don’t get beyond the respective rigid outlines of brutally honest confidante and stern mother. George Hearn lends sturdy support in dual roles as Aimee’s loving father and a hypocritical competing pastor. Edward Watts and Andrew Samonsky are attractive eye candy as the men in MacPherson’s life, but they aren’t given much to do beyond propping up the star who will probably get a Tony nomination out of this show. Unfortunately, Scandalous will probably be just a memory by the end of the season.
Neil Simon Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Biographical musicals don’t have to be tedious, but Scandalous is the second Broadway tuner this season to focus on a pop cultural personality of the 1920s and lay an egg (the first was Chaplin). Based on the controversial life and career of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, Scandalous drags on for two and half hours, but feels much longer. The book by TV hostess Kathie Lee Gifford covers too much territory and tries too hard to restore MacPherson’s reputation as a do-gooder. At the height of MacPherson’s fame as a preacher, radio star, and presenter of biblical pageants, she disappeared for five weeks. She claimed to have been kidnapped, but the Los Angeles district attorney produced evidence she had really shacked up with a married lover and prosecuted her for fraud. The resulting courtroom drama was the O.J. Simpson trial of its day. MacPherson was acquitted and continued her broadcasts and sermons to overflow audiences.
There is plenty of fascinating material to explore here, and this show could have been a sort of American Evita, examining a morally ambiguous woman exploiting media and the populace in order to get ahead in a man’s world. But Gifford does not go very deep in her Biography Channel–like script. Rather than zeroing in on the trial itself or employing it as a means to peer into MacPherson’s career or why she became such a success, Gifford crams in every possible detail from the subject’s life. An editor would have been welcome.
The only time the action comes semi-alive is during quick-witted parodies of MacPherson’s flashy religious spectacles, staged with wit by director David Armstrong and costumed with pizzazz by Gregory A. Poplyk. The rest of the show plods along and feels overstuffed, as if Gifford and her collaborators felt they had to get in every musical theater cliché from lively Irish dancers to sassy hookers to cocktail-swilling Hollywood phonies. Gifford also wrote the lyrics and additional music with composers David Pomeranz and David Friedman. Much of the score is standard issue, but there are occasional memorable numbers such as “It’s Just You,” a smooth and snappy duet between two rivals for Aimee’s affections.
Soaring above the uneven material is Carolee Carmello in the lead. Onstage almost constantly, Carmello takes on the challenge of blasting power ballads, as her character ages from eager child to complex woman, and suffers multiple nervous breakdowns. It’s an endurance test she passes with flying colors without showing a drop of sweat. Roz Ryan and Candy Buckley are talented and reliable Broadway vets, but they don’t get beyond the respective rigid outlines of brutally honest confidante and stern mother. George Hearn lends sturdy support in dual roles as Aimee’s loving father and a hypocritical competing pastor. Edward Watts and Andrew Samonsky are attractive eye candy as the men in MacPherson’s life, but they aren’t given much to do beyond propping up the star who will probably get a Tony nomination out of this show. Unfortunately, Scandalous will probably be just a memory by the end of the season.
November 24, 2012
Giant
The Public Theater [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
Giant, the epic musical version of Edna Ferber’s soapy novel about a wealthy Texas ranching family now at the Public Theater after a run at Virginia’s Signature Theatre, has a lot working against it. It’s melodramatic, too long, and must overcome memories of the Technicolor 1955 movie version—which contained star-wattage performances by Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, and James Dean. But somehow the creators have tamed this bronco-busting wild stallion and made it race like the wind.
Sybille Pearson’s book telescopes Ferber’s complicated plot to focus on the marriage of tough but loving Bick Benedict, owner of the sprawling cattle ranch Riata, and Leslie Lynnton, his fiery, independent bride from patrician Virginia. In the film, cocky ranch hand Jett Rink is just as prominent, forming the third part of a romantic triangle, but here Jett is a supporting character, a vital, attractive one, but still supporting. We learn about Bick and Leslie’s children, their friends, and the battle between cattle interests and oilmen, but the main couple’s relationship provides a vital throughline. Michael John LaChiusa delivers a varied and melodic score reflecting the eras covered from the 1920s into the ’50s, and avoids the uncomfortable sounds and awkward rhymes this talented composer-lyricist can sometimes indulge in.
The most vital contribution is made by director Michael Grief, who keeps the action tight and controlled. He’s the cowboy in the saddle, and he knows just how to ride this mount. Despite a daunting three-hour running time, Giant holds you, save for a prolonged ending which needs to be cut by at least 20 minutes.
Brian D’Arcy James captures Bick’s stubbornness, pride, and hidden tenderness, while Kate Baldwin taps into Leslie’s surprising strength and ambiguous emotions about her husband and his land. PJ Griffith skirts comparison to James Dean’s iconic original (it was his last film performance) by focusing on Jett Rink’s deviousness and anger; it makes for a more limited characterization than Dean’s, but a wolfishly seductive lout emerges. All the leads and the massive supporting cast have exciting voices, and Bruce Coughlin’s lush orchestrations serve them and the score well.
Most memorable are the women in smaller roles. Michele Pawk’s leathery Luz, Bick’s domineering elder sister, is a fascinating old buzzard, and Pearson wisely keeps her in the mix as a ghost after she dies in a riding accident early in the show. Katie Thompson also shines as the outdoorsy Vashti, a neighboring rancher’s daughter with a girlhood crush on Bick. Thompson beautifully handles the transformation from hefty tomboy to blowsy hostess and puts across two strikingly different ballads of romantic frustration—one as a disappointed girl, the other as an experienced woman. MacKenzie Mauzy is a sizzling sparkplug as Bick and Leslie’s rebellious daughter. Mary Bacon makes the most of one big monologue as Adarene, a dying friend of Leslie and Vashti.
Giant has announced an extension of its limited Off-Broadway run. A Broadway transfer of this huge show would be an expensive and risky proposition, but it would be in keeping with its outsize ambitions.
The Public Theater [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
Giant, the epic musical version of Edna Ferber’s soapy novel about a wealthy Texas ranching family now at the Public Theater after a run at Virginia’s Signature Theatre, has a lot working against it. It’s melodramatic, too long, and must overcome memories of the Technicolor 1955 movie version—which contained star-wattage performances by Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, and James Dean. But somehow the creators have tamed this bronco-busting wild stallion and made it race like the wind.
Sybille Pearson’s book telescopes Ferber’s complicated plot to focus on the marriage of tough but loving Bick Benedict, owner of the sprawling cattle ranch Riata, and Leslie Lynnton, his fiery, independent bride from patrician Virginia. In the film, cocky ranch hand Jett Rink is just as prominent, forming the third part of a romantic triangle, but here Jett is a supporting character, a vital, attractive one, but still supporting. We learn about Bick and Leslie’s children, their friends, and the battle between cattle interests and oilmen, but the main couple’s relationship provides a vital throughline. Michael John LaChiusa delivers a varied and melodic score reflecting the eras covered from the 1920s into the ’50s, and avoids the uncomfortable sounds and awkward rhymes this talented composer-lyricist can sometimes indulge in.
The most vital contribution is made by director Michael Grief, who keeps the action tight and controlled. He’s the cowboy in the saddle, and he knows just how to ride this mount. Despite a daunting three-hour running time, Giant holds you, save for a prolonged ending which needs to be cut by at least 20 minutes.
Brian D’Arcy James captures Bick’s stubbornness, pride, and hidden tenderness, while Kate Baldwin taps into Leslie’s surprising strength and ambiguous emotions about her husband and his land. PJ Griffith skirts comparison to James Dean’s iconic original (it was his last film performance) by focusing on Jett Rink’s deviousness and anger; it makes for a more limited characterization than Dean’s, but a wolfishly seductive lout emerges. All the leads and the massive supporting cast have exciting voices, and Bruce Coughlin’s lush orchestrations serve them and the score well.
Most memorable are the women in smaller roles. Michele Pawk’s leathery Luz, Bick’s domineering elder sister, is a fascinating old buzzard, and Pearson wisely keeps her in the mix as a ghost after she dies in a riding accident early in the show. Katie Thompson also shines as the outdoorsy Vashti, a neighboring rancher’s daughter with a girlhood crush on Bick. Thompson beautifully handles the transformation from hefty tomboy to blowsy hostess and puts across two strikingly different ballads of romantic frustration—one as a disappointed girl, the other as an experienced woman. MacKenzie Mauzy is a sizzling sparkplug as Bick and Leslie’s rebellious daughter. Mary Bacon makes the most of one big monologue as Adarene, a dying friend of Leslie and Vashti.
Giant has announced an extension of its limited Off-Broadway run. A Broadway transfer of this huge show would be an expensive and risky proposition, but it would be in keeping with its outsize ambitions.
November 21, 2012
GUEST ESSAY
Speaking of Theater
by Jerry Beal
Speaking in Tongues, by Australian playwright Andrew Bovell, was presented at the Roundabout Theatre in New York in 2002, then made into the film Lantana. This October, my production of the play just finished a seven-performance run at William Paterson University, my 20th production there. The power and the theatricality of the piece, abetted by a sterling cast of four, struck a chord with audiences, as evidenced by the reception and discussion each night. Bovell’s sense of theater and its unique possibilities is extraordinary, and make this a play worth revisiting.
The first scene shows two couples in two motel rooms, preparing for mutual affairs. The dialogue is coordinated and often simultaneous. In the second scene, in two living rooms, we see that the initial coupling was with each other’s spouse; the dialogue is again overlapping, with one member of each pair confessing and the other realizing there was mutual culpability. The third and fourth scenes respectively show the two husbands at a chance meeting in a bar, then the two wives in another bar.
It is at that point Bovell’s craft kicks into overdrive. Returning to the living rooms, in successive scenes we see first one husband then one wife relate an extended story about a disturbing experience they’ve just had. The husband’s purpose in telling his story is to show his wife his remorse and need for her. The wife’s purpose is to show her husband why their marriage is failing. Each of their stories brings in characters who very much whet our appetites. And sure enough, intermission arrives and ends, the lights come up on the action, and the actors have become the characters described in the two stories. By play’s end, we have been brought into these people’s worlds and seen the connections with all that preceded this in the first act.
Through this dazzling, non-chronological inventiveness, Bovell delves into an array of profound and basic themes. Isolation, miscommunication, passion, betrayal, the difficulty of really knowing someone, loneliness—indeed, the very fact of human interaction impeded by our frequent and perhaps intrinsic need for a pattern of speaking in tongues. With the proper cast, suitably evocative lighting, and a set that helps tell the story, this is a play for those who thrive on theater.
Photo: Australian playwright Andrew Bovell
Speaking of Theater
by Jerry Beal
Speaking in Tongues, by Australian playwright Andrew Bovell, was presented at the Roundabout Theatre in New York in 2002, then made into the film Lantana. This October, my production of the play just finished a seven-performance run at William Paterson University, my 20th production there. The power and the theatricality of the piece, abetted by a sterling cast of four, struck a chord with audiences, as evidenced by the reception and discussion each night. Bovell’s sense of theater and its unique possibilities is extraordinary, and make this a play worth revisiting.
The first scene shows two couples in two motel rooms, preparing for mutual affairs. The dialogue is coordinated and often simultaneous. In the second scene, in two living rooms, we see that the initial coupling was with each other’s spouse; the dialogue is again overlapping, with one member of each pair confessing and the other realizing there was mutual culpability. The third and fourth scenes respectively show the two husbands at a chance meeting in a bar, then the two wives in another bar.
It is at that point Bovell’s craft kicks into overdrive. Returning to the living rooms, in successive scenes we see first one husband then one wife relate an extended story about a disturbing experience they’ve just had. The husband’s purpose in telling his story is to show his wife his remorse and need for her. The wife’s purpose is to show her husband why their marriage is failing. Each of their stories brings in characters who very much whet our appetites. And sure enough, intermission arrives and ends, the lights come up on the action, and the actors have become the characters described in the two stories. By play’s end, we have been brought into these people’s worlds and seen the connections with all that preceded this in the first act.
Through this dazzling, non-chronological inventiveness, Bovell delves into an array of profound and basic themes. Isolation, miscommunication, passion, betrayal, the difficulty of really knowing someone, loneliness—indeed, the very fact of human interaction impeded by our frequent and perhaps intrinsic need for a pattern of speaking in tongues. With the proper cast, suitably evocative lighting, and a set that helps tell the story, this is a play for those who thrive on theater.
October 29, 2012
Jerry Beal is Assistant Professor of Theatre at William Paterson University. He earned his undergraduate degree at Brandeis University and a master’s degree in directing from Brooklyn College. Photo: Australian playwright Andrew Bovell
The Performers
Longacre Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
The only piece of useful information you will get from The Performers, David West Read’s sloppy sitcom of a play, is the definition of the acronym MYLF—Mother You’d Like to Fuck, meaning a somewhat mature adult-film actress, say in her 30s. It’s handy in conversation if you ever happen to be chatting about the porn industry. Otherwise, this ramshackle piece of work can be overlooked. The jokes are crude. (Typical exchange: “How’s your sick mother?” “She’s in remission.” “She’s in Michigan?”) The characters are thin. The observations on the nature of sex and how men and women view it are obvious.
But some of the bodies on display are gorgeous, particularly the stunning Cheyenne Jackson who opens the evening gratuitously displaying his muscular physique in a skimpy outfit. He plays the ludicrously named adult star Mandrew who is being interviewed by reporter Lee (an embarrassed Daniel Breaker) who happens to be his high school chum. Mandrew and his wife, fellow porn performer Peeps (short for Pussy Boots), are in Las Vegas for the Adult Film Awards, and Lee is doing a story on his old friend for the New York Post. Lee has brought along his fiancée, Sara, and both are worried their vanilla sex life will pale in comparison with the outrageous professional hijinks of Mandrew, Peeps, and the other nominees—who include veteran Chuck Wood, known for his enormous endowment, and Sundown LeMay, a recent breast augmentation purchaser. They all fall in and out of bed with each other, but it’s surprisingly unsexy.
There are plenty of gags on porn film titles (“Planet of the Tits,” “Das Booty,” etc.) and painful puns on body parts and sexual activities (“You opened your heart and your legs to me”), but with no strong story or characters with whom to identify, these get tired pretty fast.
The game actors try their level best to get it up (pardon the pun) for Read’s randy groan-inducing humor, and director Evan Cabnet at least keeps the action bright and reasonably fast. Anna Louizos’s glitzy sets and Jessica Wegener Shay’s purposely tacky costumes distract from the banal goings-on. Breaker and Alicia Silverstone as Sara are two skilled actors largely wasted in throwaway roles. Those playing the porn stars get to have some fun even though they are given the stereotype of dim-bulb stupidity. Jackson wisely underplays Mandrew’s cluelessness and narcissism. Jennie Barber earns yuks as the frothy Sundown. Henry Winkler is bland as the grandiose Chuck Wood. As the conflicted Peeps who is dealing with aging and pregnancy, Ari Graynor creates a semi-believable person from the script’s lame jokes and stale pathos. So it is possible to take a serious and funny look at the porn industry, but The Performers comes up short in the sack.
Longacre Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
The only piece of useful information you will get from The Performers, David West Read’s sloppy sitcom of a play, is the definition of the acronym MYLF—Mother You’d Like to Fuck, meaning a somewhat mature adult-film actress, say in her 30s. It’s handy in conversation if you ever happen to be chatting about the porn industry. Otherwise, this ramshackle piece of work can be overlooked. The jokes are crude. (Typical exchange: “How’s your sick mother?” “She’s in remission.” “She’s in Michigan?”) The characters are thin. The observations on the nature of sex and how men and women view it are obvious.
But some of the bodies on display are gorgeous, particularly the stunning Cheyenne Jackson who opens the evening gratuitously displaying his muscular physique in a skimpy outfit. He plays the ludicrously named adult star Mandrew who is being interviewed by reporter Lee (an embarrassed Daniel Breaker) who happens to be his high school chum. Mandrew and his wife, fellow porn performer Peeps (short for Pussy Boots), are in Las Vegas for the Adult Film Awards, and Lee is doing a story on his old friend for the New York Post. Lee has brought along his fiancée, Sara, and both are worried their vanilla sex life will pale in comparison with the outrageous professional hijinks of Mandrew, Peeps, and the other nominees—who include veteran Chuck Wood, known for his enormous endowment, and Sundown LeMay, a recent breast augmentation purchaser. They all fall in and out of bed with each other, but it’s surprisingly unsexy.
There are plenty of gags on porn film titles (“Planet of the Tits,” “Das Booty,” etc.) and painful puns on body parts and sexual activities (“You opened your heart and your legs to me”), but with no strong story or characters with whom to identify, these get tired pretty fast.
The game actors try their level best to get it up (pardon the pun) for Read’s randy groan-inducing humor, and director Evan Cabnet at least keeps the action bright and reasonably fast. Anna Louizos’s glitzy sets and Jessica Wegener Shay’s purposely tacky costumes distract from the banal goings-on. Breaker and Alicia Silverstone as Sara are two skilled actors largely wasted in throwaway roles. Those playing the porn stars get to have some fun even though they are given the stereotype of dim-bulb stupidity. Jackson wisely underplays Mandrew’s cluelessness and narcissism. Jennie Barber earns yuks as the frothy Sundown. Henry Winkler is bland as the grandiose Chuck Wood. As the conflicted Peeps who is dealing with aging and pregnancy, Ari Graynor creates a semi-believable person from the script’s lame jokes and stale pathos. So it is possible to take a serious and funny look at the porn industry, but The Performers comes up short in the sack.
November 15, 2012
Annie
Palace Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Lilla Crawford with Sunny
Who could possibly carp about a show stuffed with cute little girls and an adorable dog during the holiday season? Call me a bit of a Scrooge, but the new Broadway revival of the perennial kiddie favorite Annie is not quite a delicious slice of Christmas pie. It’s sugary and gooey, but not as well-baked as it should be. Director James Lapine’s pacing is not sharp and focused, and there’s serious miscasting in a major adult role. On the plus side, David Korins’s clever storybook sets and Susan Hilferty’s tasteful costumes make the physical production spare and suggestive without looking cheap.
Of course, for the show to work, you need the perfect pint-sized leading lady who can convey Annie’s sunny optimism and flinty toughness without turning too saccharine or scrappy. Fortunately, Lilla Crawford is the right girl. She has the strong pipes and spunky demeanor required and keeps the titular moppet from becoming a cartoon. Thomas Meehan’s book has a few somber scenes, such as the moment when Annie realizes her real parents are never coming for her. Crawford makes those vignettes believable, and Lapine introduces notes of Depression-era reality throughout this usually lighthearted frolic.
The casting issue occurs with the potentially show-stopping role of Miss Hannigan, the deliciously evil orphanage superintendent. Dorothy Loudon, the original actor, took every pratfall, mugging reaction, and comic line-reading and wrung pure gold out of them. You would think two-time Tony winner Katie Finneran, a brilliant comedienne, would be the perfect choice for this plum assignment. Unfortunately, she’s not. Finneran is attractive in both face and figure, and Hilferty’s costumes do not disguise this. Most of Hannigan’s laughs derive from her frustrated attempts at escaping her hated job by throwing herself at every available man. Finneran is so good-looking, even as a disheveled Hannigan, the jokes and business don’t make sense. She also pushes the material too hard and fails to make it believable, and thus it’s not funny.
Australian star Anthony Warlow has the right brisk bluster for Daddy Warbucks, and he melts effectively under Crawford’s childish warmth. He has also got a rich baritone. It’s too bad there is no chemistry between Warlow and Brynn O’Malley’s charming Grace Farrell, Warbucks’s private secretary. There are also several bright spots in ensemble—including Ashley Blanchet’s full-throated Star-To-Be, Jeremy Davis’s dead-on 1930s radio star, Merwin Foard’s patrician FDR, Jane Blass in a variety of roles, and a gaggle of talented little girls as Annie’s fellow orphans.
It’s a mixed Annie, and if you’re a child being taken by your parents for free, the sun’ll come out tomorrow. But, for paying customers, it may be a hard-knock on your wallet.
Palace Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Lilla Crawford with Sunny
Photo by Joan Marcus
Who could possibly carp about a show stuffed with cute little girls and an adorable dog during the holiday season? Call me a bit of a Scrooge, but the new Broadway revival of the perennial kiddie favorite Annie is not quite a delicious slice of Christmas pie. It’s sugary and gooey, but not as well-baked as it should be. Director James Lapine’s pacing is not sharp and focused, and there’s serious miscasting in a major adult role. On the plus side, David Korins’s clever storybook sets and Susan Hilferty’s tasteful costumes make the physical production spare and suggestive without looking cheap.
Of course, for the show to work, you need the perfect pint-sized leading lady who can convey Annie’s sunny optimism and flinty toughness without turning too saccharine or scrappy. Fortunately, Lilla Crawford is the right girl. She has the strong pipes and spunky demeanor required and keeps the titular moppet from becoming a cartoon. Thomas Meehan’s book has a few somber scenes, such as the moment when Annie realizes her real parents are never coming for her. Crawford makes those vignettes believable, and Lapine introduces notes of Depression-era reality throughout this usually lighthearted frolic.
The casting issue occurs with the potentially show-stopping role of Miss Hannigan, the deliciously evil orphanage superintendent. Dorothy Loudon, the original actor, took every pratfall, mugging reaction, and comic line-reading and wrung pure gold out of them. You would think two-time Tony winner Katie Finneran, a brilliant comedienne, would be the perfect choice for this plum assignment. Unfortunately, she’s not. Finneran is attractive in both face and figure, and Hilferty’s costumes do not disguise this. Most of Hannigan’s laughs derive from her frustrated attempts at escaping her hated job by throwing herself at every available man. Finneran is so good-looking, even as a disheveled Hannigan, the jokes and business don’t make sense. She also pushes the material too hard and fails to make it believable, and thus it’s not funny.
Australian star Anthony Warlow has the right brisk bluster for Daddy Warbucks, and he melts effectively under Crawford’s childish warmth. He has also got a rich baritone. It’s too bad there is no chemistry between Warlow and Brynn O’Malley’s charming Grace Farrell, Warbucks’s private secretary. There are also several bright spots in ensemble—including Ashley Blanchet’s full-throated Star-To-Be, Jeremy Davis’s dead-on 1930s radio star, Merwin Foard’s patrician FDR, Jane Blass in a variety of roles, and a gaggle of talented little girls as Annie’s fellow orphans.
It’s a mixed Annie, and if you’re a child being taken by your parents for free, the sun’ll come out tomorrow. But, for paying customers, it may be a hard-knock on your wallet.
November 9, 2012
Opened
Nov. 8 for an open run. Palace Theatre, 1554 Broadway, NYC. Tue 7pm, Wed
2pm & 8pm, Thu 7pm, Fri 8pm, Sat 2pm & 8pm, Sun 3pm. $99-119.
Running time 2 hours 30 minutes with one intermission. (866) 448-7849.
www.ticketmaster.com
www.ticketmaster.com
Detroit [show closed]
Playwrights Horizons
Reviewed by David Sheward
In Lisa D’Amour harshly funny play Detroit, at Playwrights Horizons after an acclaimed production at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, everyone knows the price of everything. A self-help book is $65. Drinks at a strip club for a boys’ night out are at least $9 and there’s a two-drink minimum. These figures are the life currency of two couples whose suburban world is blown up by economics and addiction. Mary and Ben are struggling with a sliding situation since Ben lost his job as a loan officer and Mary started drinking heavily. But they’re in great shape compared with Sharon and Kenny, recovering drug addicts scraping by in minimum-wage jobs. When the former duo attempt to be neighborly to the latter, all hell breaks loose and burns down—literally—as the author offers a searing and scary snapshot of recession-ridden America.
Lawn furniture falls apart, minor injuries take on major significance due to lack of insurance, and nightmares of instability become self-fulfilling prophecies. The two couples yearn for the community that exists in 1950s TV sitcoms. Mary longs to escape in a fantasy of Girl Scout camping while Ben spends his days on a role-playing website where he can take on the identity of a British schoolteacher. Sharon and Kenny seem to making up their stories as they go along. You never know if they are telling the truth as they relate contradictory anecdotes. In addition, their house is just as empty as their future (a snooping Mary discovers the only furniture is a mattress and a few chairs). The play ends with Frank, Kenny’s great-uncle, delivering a mournful elegy for the society the neighborhood used to represent with all the streets named after types of light and block associations throwing dances.
D’Amour captures the dark outlook of these lost souls with compassion and acidic humor, while director Anne Kauffman strikes the right tone of irony without condescending to the characters. The physical environment is ably delineated by Louisa Thompson’s versatile, appropriately tacky set and Matt Tierney’s detailed sound design.
As the uncertain Ben, David Schwimmer carefully balances the hangdog demeanor he perfected on Friends with a sweaty desperation. Amy Ryan captures Mary’s jittery intensity and strongly pursues the character’s goal of finding a safe place, if not in reality then in her fantasies. Sarah Sokolovic and Darren Pettie convince as the flighty Sharon and Kenny. You really can believe these two are capable of anything from substance abuse to arson to random acts of kindness. They skillfully portray the utter rootlessness of this pair of drifters. As Frank, Broadway veteran John Cullum provides the play’s summation with bittersweet tenderness. Surveying Frank’s former friendly community, now a cold emotional wasteland where neighbors don’t even say hello, Cullum’s eyes glaze over and his voice catches just the tiniest bit. It’s a heart-touching ending to this brilliant and blistering work.
Playwrights Horizons
Reviewed by David Sheward
In Lisa D’Amour harshly funny play Detroit, at Playwrights Horizons after an acclaimed production at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, everyone knows the price of everything. A self-help book is $65. Drinks at a strip club for a boys’ night out are at least $9 and there’s a two-drink minimum. These figures are the life currency of two couples whose suburban world is blown up by economics and addiction. Mary and Ben are struggling with a sliding situation since Ben lost his job as a loan officer and Mary started drinking heavily. But they’re in great shape compared with Sharon and Kenny, recovering drug addicts scraping by in minimum-wage jobs. When the former duo attempt to be neighborly to the latter, all hell breaks loose and burns down—literally—as the author offers a searing and scary snapshot of recession-ridden America.
Lawn furniture falls apart, minor injuries take on major significance due to lack of insurance, and nightmares of instability become self-fulfilling prophecies. The two couples yearn for the community that exists in 1950s TV sitcoms. Mary longs to escape in a fantasy of Girl Scout camping while Ben spends his days on a role-playing website where he can take on the identity of a British schoolteacher. Sharon and Kenny seem to making up their stories as they go along. You never know if they are telling the truth as they relate contradictory anecdotes. In addition, their house is just as empty as their future (a snooping Mary discovers the only furniture is a mattress and a few chairs). The play ends with Frank, Kenny’s great-uncle, delivering a mournful elegy for the society the neighborhood used to represent with all the streets named after types of light and block associations throwing dances.
D’Amour captures the dark outlook of these lost souls with compassion and acidic humor, while director Anne Kauffman strikes the right tone of irony without condescending to the characters. The physical environment is ably delineated by Louisa Thompson’s versatile, appropriately tacky set and Matt Tierney’s detailed sound design.
As the uncertain Ben, David Schwimmer carefully balances the hangdog demeanor he perfected on Friends with a sweaty desperation. Amy Ryan captures Mary’s jittery intensity and strongly pursues the character’s goal of finding a safe place, if not in reality then in her fantasies. Sarah Sokolovic and Darren Pettie convince as the flighty Sharon and Kenny. You really can believe these two are capable of anything from substance abuse to arson to random acts of kindness. They skillfully portray the utter rootlessness of this pair of drifters. As Frank, Broadway veteran John Cullum provides the play’s summation with bittersweet tenderness. Surveying Frank’s former friendly community, now a cold emotional wasteland where neighbors don’t even say hello, Cullum’s eyes glaze over and his voice catches just the tiniest bit. It’s a heart-touching ending to this brilliant and blistering work.
October 9, 2012
Grace
Cort Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
In Grace, at the Cort Theatre after regional productions in Washington, D.C.; Chicago; and Pasadena, playwright Craig Wright tackles a complex subject—the nature of faith—with ambiguity, compassion, and wit. But he also lays on too many gimmicks and delivers a melodramatic finish that feels forced rather than organic.
Devout Christian couple Steve and Sara have moved to Florida from Minnesota to launch a chain of gospel-themed hotels. Their next-door neighbor in an identically furnished rental condo is Sam, a NASA scientist recovering from a gruesome auto accident that has disfigured him and killed his fiancée. These three clash when the funds for the hotel project come up short, Steve asks Sam for a loan, and Sara begins to visit Sam and they develop more than neighborly affection. There is a fourth character—a German-born exterminator named Karl—who at first seems to have been placed in the play only to provide exposition and an opposing force to Steve’s evangelical proselytizing. Yet he figures prominently in that somewhat hokey finale.
The interaction among the characters does provide a fascinating spectrum of belief systems. Steve goes for a rigid adherence to conventional Christianity and wants to force it on everyone else. But when the world crashes in on him, he collapses. At first, Sara appears to be as doctrinaire as her husband, but Wright gradually reveals she is uncertain about the existence of a beneficent creator, yet she derives comfort from prayer and the community her church provides. Likewise, Sam is painted as a cynical agnostic after his tragedy, but when he connects with Sara, he joins in her prayers for peace and acceptance. Karl is a confirmed atheist following his harrowing experiences under the Nazi regime. After a miraculous encounter, he is open to there being “something” more to this world than meets the eye.
If Wright had left these crosscurrents of faith alone, Grace would be a moving and thought-provoking examination of religion. But he muddies the waters by running certain scenes backwards and placing the ending at the beginning. Why he does so is not entirely clear, except maybe to build suspense or telegraph his intentions.
The direction and acting cannot be faulted. Dexter Bullard’s smooth staging takes on the challenges of Wright’s script. The action takes place simultaneously in two separate apartments on Beowulf Boritt’s spare and slowly revolving set, yet it’s never confusing and we always know which characters are in which dwelling. David Weiner’s poetic lighting also aides in delineation of mood and setting.
Paul Rudd eschews his nice-guy persona from his numerous film comedy roles to give full-bodied fervor to Steve’s insecurities and dogmatic determination. It’s no surprise Michael Shannon is willing to dive into the subterranean depths of Sam’s despair. Kate Arrington has the tough assignment of keeping Sara from appearing a wimpy dishrag, and she does so by strongly pursuing her character’s objective of seeking a purpose in a seemingly meaningless universe. As Karl, Ed Asner takes what could have been a dramatic device rather than a person and subtly endows him with dimension.
It’s refreshing to see a serious play about difficult issues on song-and-dance-laden Broadway, yet disappointing when a skilled playwright employs tricks and soap suds to make his point.
Cort Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
In Grace, at the Cort Theatre after regional productions in Washington, D.C.; Chicago; and Pasadena, playwright Craig Wright tackles a complex subject—the nature of faith—with ambiguity, compassion, and wit. But he also lays on too many gimmicks and delivers a melodramatic finish that feels forced rather than organic.
Devout Christian couple Steve and Sara have moved to Florida from Minnesota to launch a chain of gospel-themed hotels. Their next-door neighbor in an identically furnished rental condo is Sam, a NASA scientist recovering from a gruesome auto accident that has disfigured him and killed his fiancée. These three clash when the funds for the hotel project come up short, Steve asks Sam for a loan, and Sara begins to visit Sam and they develop more than neighborly affection. There is a fourth character—a German-born exterminator named Karl—who at first seems to have been placed in the play only to provide exposition and an opposing force to Steve’s evangelical proselytizing. Yet he figures prominently in that somewhat hokey finale.
The interaction among the characters does provide a fascinating spectrum of belief systems. Steve goes for a rigid adherence to conventional Christianity and wants to force it on everyone else. But when the world crashes in on him, he collapses. At first, Sara appears to be as doctrinaire as her husband, but Wright gradually reveals she is uncertain about the existence of a beneficent creator, yet she derives comfort from prayer and the community her church provides. Likewise, Sam is painted as a cynical agnostic after his tragedy, but when he connects with Sara, he joins in her prayers for peace and acceptance. Karl is a confirmed atheist following his harrowing experiences under the Nazi regime. After a miraculous encounter, he is open to there being “something” more to this world than meets the eye.
If Wright had left these crosscurrents of faith alone, Grace would be a moving and thought-provoking examination of religion. But he muddies the waters by running certain scenes backwards and placing the ending at the beginning. Why he does so is not entirely clear, except maybe to build suspense or telegraph his intentions.
The direction and acting cannot be faulted. Dexter Bullard’s smooth staging takes on the challenges of Wright’s script. The action takes place simultaneously in two separate apartments on Beowulf Boritt’s spare and slowly revolving set, yet it’s never confusing and we always know which characters are in which dwelling. David Weiner’s poetic lighting also aides in delineation of mood and setting.
Paul Rudd eschews his nice-guy persona from his numerous film comedy roles to give full-bodied fervor to Steve’s insecurities and dogmatic determination. It’s no surprise Michael Shannon is willing to dive into the subterranean depths of Sam’s despair. Kate Arrington has the tough assignment of keeping Sara from appearing a wimpy dishrag, and she does so by strongly pursuing her character’s objective of seeking a purpose in a seemingly meaningless universe. As Karl, Ed Asner takes what could have been a dramatic device rather than a person and subtly endows him with dimension.
It’s refreshing to see a serious play about difficult issues on song-and-dance-laden Broadway, yet disappointing when a skilled playwright employs tricks and soap suds to make his point.
October 4, 2012
If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet
Roundabout Theatre Company at the Laura Pels Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
It isn’t clear what the “it” refers to in the title of If There Is I Haven’t Found It Yet, Nick Payne’s painfully moving play presented at the Off-Broadway Laura Pels by the Roundabout Theatre Company. It could be happiness, a purpose for living, or just a connection with another person. Each of the four members of Payne’s dysfunctional British family is desperately lacking in those qualities and much more. Their stumbling, funny, and sad search is the core of Payne’s detailed work. The fact that the production is the American stage debut of film star Jake Gyllenhaal is secondary.
Gyllenhaal delivers a nuanced and touching performance, but he’s only one piece of an intricate puzzle. Gyllenhaal plays Terry, the foul-mouthed, irresponsible uncle to Anna, an awkward, overweight teenager driven to desperate ends when she is neglected by her parents and tormented by her peers. The unexpectedly tender relationship between Terry and Anna is the main thread of the plot, but there is also the tenuous dynamic of her parents, Fiona and George, Terry’s brother. Both are consumed by their careers—Fiona teaches at Anna’s school, and George is a highbrow expert on climate change—to the determent of Anna’s development. In search of affection and guidance, the girl turns to her volatile uncle, himself a wreck after a major breakup with Fiona’s cousin. But at least he pays attention to Anna in his own explosive way.
Under Michael Longhurst’s taut direction, the quartet of actors carefully mines the emotional ores buried just beneath the surfaces of these incomplete people. Young Annie Funke is a revelation as the needy Anna, combining a tough bluster with a tender, almost kittenish vulnerability. Michelle Gomez expertly conceals Fiona’s blighted interior with icy efficiency. (Fiona deals with her mother’s encroaching senility as an annoyance rather than a devastating illness of a loved one.) When this solid woman breaks down, Gomez makes it silently shattering.
Gyllenhaal gives a refreshingly unflashy performance. Like Anna, Terry uses anger and profanity to cover up his wounded heart, and Gyllenhaal carefully keeps Terry from becoming a repulsive lout. The guy is a bit of a jerk, and you can see why his bid at romance failed, but Gyllenhaal remembers Terry has feelings too, and the actor exposes them with subtlety. Best of all is Brian F. O’Bryne’s George. This absent-minded professor is so consumed with his cause of protecting the melting polar icecaps, he doesn’t notice the disintegration of his family. O’Bryne buries George’s needs deeply and only allows them to creep up slowly. Like George’s icecaps, O’Bryne keeps the emotions way below the surface so that when we see them, it’s tremendously touching.
In addition to Gyllenhaal’s star power, another element is potentially distracting. As audience members enter the Laura Pels, they are greeted with a cascading rainfall emptying into a tank attached to the stage apron. As the characters’ world falls apart, Payne and Longhurst provide a literal parallel meltdown as the stage is flooded. This provides a startling metaphor between George’s feared watery end of the world and the family’s slipping away from each other. By the end of the play, the cast is sloshing around in a knee-deep river and the characters are ignoring it just as they ignore their lack of connection. This could be a major detraction, but somehow the strength of the performances and direction keeps the action from being as waterlogged as Beowulf Borritt’s flooded set.
Roundabout Theatre Company at the Laura Pels Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
Gyllenhaal delivers a nuanced and touching performance, but he’s only one piece of an intricate puzzle. Gyllenhaal plays Terry, the foul-mouthed, irresponsible uncle to Anna, an awkward, overweight teenager driven to desperate ends when she is neglected by her parents and tormented by her peers. The unexpectedly tender relationship between Terry and Anna is the main thread of the plot, but there is also the tenuous dynamic of her parents, Fiona and George, Terry’s brother. Both are consumed by their careers—Fiona teaches at Anna’s school, and George is a highbrow expert on climate change—to the determent of Anna’s development. In search of affection and guidance, the girl turns to her volatile uncle, himself a wreck after a major breakup with Fiona’s cousin. But at least he pays attention to Anna in his own explosive way.
Under Michael Longhurst’s taut direction, the quartet of actors carefully mines the emotional ores buried just beneath the surfaces of these incomplete people. Young Annie Funke is a revelation as the needy Anna, combining a tough bluster with a tender, almost kittenish vulnerability. Michelle Gomez expertly conceals Fiona’s blighted interior with icy efficiency. (Fiona deals with her mother’s encroaching senility as an annoyance rather than a devastating illness of a loved one.) When this solid woman breaks down, Gomez makes it silently shattering.
Gyllenhaal gives a refreshingly unflashy performance. Like Anna, Terry uses anger and profanity to cover up his wounded heart, and Gyllenhaal carefully keeps Terry from becoming a repulsive lout. The guy is a bit of a jerk, and you can see why his bid at romance failed, but Gyllenhaal remembers Terry has feelings too, and the actor exposes them with subtlety. Best of all is Brian F. O’Bryne’s George. This absent-minded professor is so consumed with his cause of protecting the melting polar icecaps, he doesn’t notice the disintegration of his family. O’Bryne buries George’s needs deeply and only allows them to creep up slowly. Like George’s icecaps, O’Bryne keeps the emotions way below the surface so that when we see them, it’s tremendously touching.
In addition to Gyllenhaal’s star power, another element is potentially distracting. As audience members enter the Laura Pels, they are greeted with a cascading rainfall emptying into a tank attached to the stage apron. As the characters’ world falls apart, Payne and Longhurst provide a literal parallel meltdown as the stage is flooded. This provides a startling metaphor between George’s feared watery end of the world and the family’s slipping away from each other. By the end of the play, the cast is sloshing around in a knee-deep river and the characters are ignoring it just as they ignore their lack of connection. This could be a major detraction, but somehow the strength of the performances and direction keeps the action from being as waterlogged as Beowulf Borritt’s flooded set.
September 20, 2012
Chaplin
Ethel Barrymore Theatre [show closed}
Reviewed by David Sheward
Early in the new musical Chaplin, silent-film pioneer Mack Sennett explains to the titular future legend on the latter’s first day on a film set when the comic is not quite getting the difference between performing on stage and for the screen, “They call them movies because they move.” Well, this show doesn’t. The bland bio-tuner, now at the Barrymore Theatre after a run at the La Jolla Playhouse, is directed by Warren Carlyle at a snail’s pace and fails to provide any deep new insight into Chaplin the man or the star.
The show opens with its strongest element: a giant image of Rob McClure as the Little Tramp on the screen, standing motionlessly. When McClure bursts out of that frozen stance—we first see him balancing on a tightrope, symbolically keeping his poise as the voices of Chaplin’s past bombard the great entertainer—the actor bears a striking resemblance to the iconic cinematic figure and nimbly captures his graceful and endearing clowning.
But the score by Christopher Curtis and the book by Curtis and Thomas Meehan don’t exploit that gift sufficiently or tell the genius’s story in a compelling fashion. It’s always a bad sign when one person is largely responsible for all words and music in the collaborative world of musicals. Curtis solely authored the book when the piece was in its early developmental stages; veteran Meehan (Annie, The Producers, Hairspray) was brought in for a polish job once investors bankrolled a La Jolla and Broadway production.
The script follows Charlie from the slums of London to the heights of Hollywood to his exile from America because of his controversial left-wing sympathies. It’s all pretty standard stuff, told in stiff Biography Channel style, punctuated by Curtis’s forgettable songs. The authors rely too heavily on repeated flashbacks to a deplorable childhood featuring a mentally distracted mother and an alcoholic father.
There are occasional flashes of originality in Curtis and Meehan’s work and Carlyle’s direction and choreography. Chaplin’s ill-considered first wedding is staged as a lunatic, Jazz Age romp full of frantic Charlestons and gin-guzzling. His three marriages become prizefights refereed by gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (a refreshingly waspish Jenn Colella) echoing comic pugilistic bits from Chaplin’s comedies.
But these brief moments of originality are few and far between. What’s missing is a reason for us to care about what happens to Chaplin next or an explanation of the star’s universal appeal and what he gave to his audiences. Curtis, Carlyle, and company merely repeat famous vignettes such as the potato-dance from The Gold Rush and stitch them together with biographical snatches we could have gleaned from Wikipedia.
McClure deserves a medal for battlefield bravery and injecting a degree of Chaplin’s joy and sweetness into this dreary exercise. The reliable Michael McCormack (Elf, Curtains, The Pajama Game) who seems to be in nearly every Broadway musical, lends substance to three supporting roles. The lovely Christiane Noll and Erin Mackey are wasted in cardboard renditions of Chaplin’s long-suffering mother and his adoring fourth wife Oona O’Neill, daughter of the playwright Eugene. The writers could have benefitted from inspiration from their subject and from his equally famous father-in-law: both knew how to tell a story and make it compelling.
Ethel Barrymore Theatre [show closed}
Reviewed by David Sheward
Early in the new musical Chaplin, silent-film pioneer Mack Sennett explains to the titular future legend on the latter’s first day on a film set when the comic is not quite getting the difference between performing on stage and for the screen, “They call them movies because they move.” Well, this show doesn’t. The bland bio-tuner, now at the Barrymore Theatre after a run at the La Jolla Playhouse, is directed by Warren Carlyle at a snail’s pace and fails to provide any deep new insight into Chaplin the man or the star.
The show opens with its strongest element: a giant image of Rob McClure as the Little Tramp on the screen, standing motionlessly. When McClure bursts out of that frozen stance—we first see him balancing on a tightrope, symbolically keeping his poise as the voices of Chaplin’s past bombard the great entertainer—the actor bears a striking resemblance to the iconic cinematic figure and nimbly captures his graceful and endearing clowning.
But the score by Christopher Curtis and the book by Curtis and Thomas Meehan don’t exploit that gift sufficiently or tell the genius’s story in a compelling fashion. It’s always a bad sign when one person is largely responsible for all words and music in the collaborative world of musicals. Curtis solely authored the book when the piece was in its early developmental stages; veteran Meehan (Annie, The Producers, Hairspray) was brought in for a polish job once investors bankrolled a La Jolla and Broadway production.
The script follows Charlie from the slums of London to the heights of Hollywood to his exile from America because of his controversial left-wing sympathies. It’s all pretty standard stuff, told in stiff Biography Channel style, punctuated by Curtis’s forgettable songs. The authors rely too heavily on repeated flashbacks to a deplorable childhood featuring a mentally distracted mother and an alcoholic father.
There are occasional flashes of originality in Curtis and Meehan’s work and Carlyle’s direction and choreography. Chaplin’s ill-considered first wedding is staged as a lunatic, Jazz Age romp full of frantic Charlestons and gin-guzzling. His three marriages become prizefights refereed by gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (a refreshingly waspish Jenn Colella) echoing comic pugilistic bits from Chaplin’s comedies.
But these brief moments of originality are few and far between. What’s missing is a reason for us to care about what happens to Chaplin next or an explanation of the star’s universal appeal and what he gave to his audiences. Curtis, Carlyle, and company merely repeat famous vignettes such as the potato-dance from The Gold Rush and stitch them together with biographical snatches we could have gleaned from Wikipedia.
McClure deserves a medal for battlefield bravery and injecting a degree of Chaplin’s joy and sweetness into this dreary exercise. The reliable Michael McCormack (Elf, Curtains, The Pajama Game) who seems to be in nearly every Broadway musical, lends substance to three supporting roles. The lovely Christiane Noll and Erin Mackey are wasted in cardboard renditions of Chaplin’s long-suffering mother and his adoring fourth wife Oona O’Neill, daughter of the playwright Eugene. The writers could have benefitted from inspiration from their subject and from his equally famous father-in-law: both knew how to tell a story and make it compelling.
September 10, 2012
Bring It On
St. James Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
Bring It On may not win any Pulitzer Prizes, but it’s a fun summer treat, stopping on Broadway for a brief fling during its national tour. “Inspired” by the 2000 movie of the same name, this brainless romp bears little resemblance to its source material, except that both feature girls being thrown into the air and follow the high drama behind national cheerleading competitions. These events are much more than kids with megaphones, poms-poms, and acres of pep. There is serious athleticism and gymnastics on display, and that’s the basic draw here—that and the cashing in on the whole “Glee-High-School-Musical” vibe.
When cheerleading captain Campbell from white-bread Truman High finds herself transferred to dicey, multiracial Jackson High, she recruits the African-American, Hispanic, and cross-dressing hip-hop “crew” into a pep squad to rival her formal school. It turns out her forced exit from popularity was engineered by the evil sophomore Eva who, in a possible reference to All About Eve for the gay audience, takes Campbell’s place as queen bee of Truman. At Jackson, Campbell gets a taste of being the odd one out, and dorky team mascot Bridget, another transferee, is suddenly seen as quirky, cute, and fashion forward. The book by Jeff Whitty (Avenue Q) is full of unbelievable plot twists, including the idea that the fierce drag student La Cienega would be part of the cool crowd.
Despite these slips, Whitty’s book lives up to his name and is full of quick comebacks and not-too-syrupy sentiment. Not only does the story show traces of Glee, but influences of Hairspray and Legally Blonde can also be detected in its roots. The score (music by Tom Kitt of Next to Normal and Lin-Manuel Miranda of In the Heights, and lyrics by Amanda Green and Miranda) features the same kind of snappy humor and vibrant rhymes as in those young-adult-appeal musicals.
The message of accepting differences in others and not striving for winning at all costs is overshadowed by the truly spectacular flips, flops, pyramids, and leaps made by the Olympic-level performers. Director-choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler seamlessly blends the book scenes, dance numbers, and cheerleading segments with the aid of David Korins’s fluid sets, which cleverly incorporate giant scoreboards and Jeff Sugg’s video graphics.
The young cast, many of whom are making their Main Stem debut, combine energetic panache with edgy insight. Particularly fresh and memorable are Ryan Redmond’s quick-thinking Bridget and Elle McLemore’s sweetly sinister Eva. Redmond takes the cliché of the wallflower heavy girl and gives her unexpected spunk. McLemore, a twisted version of Kristen Chenoweth, mines the devious Eva for satiric snark. As Campbell, Taylor Louderman carries much of the weight of the show on her shoulders, and she pulls it off with grace and professionalism. Adrienne Warren is equally polished as Campbell’s Jackson High cohort Danielle. Kate Rockwell is a perfect snobby cheerleader, Gregory Hanes is a sassy dragster, and Jason Gotay makes an ingratiating love interest for Campbell. They make a great squad for this silly but cheer-worthy summer sundae.
St. James Theatre [show closed]
Reviewed by David Sheward
Bring It On may not win any Pulitzer Prizes, but it’s a fun summer treat, stopping on Broadway for a brief fling during its national tour. “Inspired” by the 2000 movie of the same name, this brainless romp bears little resemblance to its source material, except that both feature girls being thrown into the air and follow the high drama behind national cheerleading competitions. These events are much more than kids with megaphones, poms-poms, and acres of pep. There is serious athleticism and gymnastics on display, and that’s the basic draw here—that and the cashing in on the whole “Glee-High-School-Musical” vibe.
When cheerleading captain Campbell from white-bread Truman High finds herself transferred to dicey, multiracial Jackson High, she recruits the African-American, Hispanic, and cross-dressing hip-hop “crew” into a pep squad to rival her formal school. It turns out her forced exit from popularity was engineered by the evil sophomore Eva who, in a possible reference to All About Eve for the gay audience, takes Campbell’s place as queen bee of Truman. At Jackson, Campbell gets a taste of being the odd one out, and dorky team mascot Bridget, another transferee, is suddenly seen as quirky, cute, and fashion forward. The book by Jeff Whitty (Avenue Q) is full of unbelievable plot twists, including the idea that the fierce drag student La Cienega would be part of the cool crowd.
Despite these slips, Whitty’s book lives up to his name and is full of quick comebacks and not-too-syrupy sentiment. Not only does the story show traces of Glee, but influences of Hairspray and Legally Blonde can also be detected in its roots. The score (music by Tom Kitt of Next to Normal and Lin-Manuel Miranda of In the Heights, and lyrics by Amanda Green and Miranda) features the same kind of snappy humor and vibrant rhymes as in those young-adult-appeal musicals.
The message of accepting differences in others and not striving for winning at all costs is overshadowed by the truly spectacular flips, flops, pyramids, and leaps made by the Olympic-level performers. Director-choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler seamlessly blends the book scenes, dance numbers, and cheerleading segments with the aid of David Korins’s fluid sets, which cleverly incorporate giant scoreboards and Jeff Sugg’s video graphics.
The young cast, many of whom are making their Main Stem debut, combine energetic panache with edgy insight. Particularly fresh and memorable are Ryan Redmond’s quick-thinking Bridget and Elle McLemore’s sweetly sinister Eva. Redmond takes the cliché of the wallflower heavy girl and gives her unexpected spunk. McLemore, a twisted version of Kristen Chenoweth, mines the devious Eva for satiric snark. As Campbell, Taylor Louderman carries much of the weight of the show on her shoulders, and she pulls it off with grace and professionalism. Adrienne Warren is equally polished as Campbell’s Jackson High cohort Danielle. Kate Rockwell is a perfect snobby cheerleader, Gregory Hanes is a sassy dragster, and Jason Gotay makes an ingratiating love interest for Campbell. They make a great squad for this silly but cheer-worthy summer sundae.
August 1, 2012
New Girl in Town [show closed]
Irish Repertory Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Yes, there actually is a musical version of Anna Christie, Eugene O’Neill’s 1921 Pulitzer Prize winner about a former prostitute who finds love and redemption in the arms of an Irish sailor. New Girl in Town had a moderately successful run of 431 Broadway performances in 1957 and is chiefly remembered for its stars Gwen Verdon and Thelma Ritter winning Tony Awards for Best Actress in a rare tie. The Off-Broadway Irish Repertory Theatre is bravely mounting a new production of this seldom-seen piece, which is mainly of interest to musical theater buffs and fails to rise above the status of an odd curio.
There’s a reason the show is rarely revived. The book, by legendary director George Abbott, rips the guts out of O’Neill’s epic narrative and replaces them with sweet candy filling. Originally conceived as a vehicle for Verdon to display her dramatic and dancing abilities after scoring a hit with Damn Yankees, Anna’s tragic story is prettied up with a happy ending, bouncy tunes, and cute supporting characters.
The original plot takes places in the grimy world of New York’s waterfront where Anna is reunited with her Swedish sea captain father Chris Christopherson after she turned her last trick as a hooker in the Midwest and ran out of money. Unaware of her shady past, her dad takes Anna in after booting out his common-law wife Marthy Owens, an amiable bar rat. Anna finds love with Matt Burke, a rip-roaring seaman who washes up on her father’s barge. But when Matt discovers Anna’s previous occupation, he sanctimoniously rejects her despite his own less-than-pure love life. The couple are reunited but only after Matt and Chris have signed on for a long nautical voyage during a drunken bender. All are still captives of “dat ole devil sea,” as Chris puts in.
In the musical’s conclusion, Anna and Matt are happily paired, as are Chris and Marthy, and the curtain falls as the chorus sings of the wholesome recreation of chess and checkers everyone will enjoy at the Sailors’ Home. O’Neill’s dark vision of lonely souls swept along by the all-consuming ocean is taken over by songwriter Bob Merrill’s lighthearted confections and Abbott’s romantic clichés.
Charlotte Moore delivers a well-paced production, making economic use of the tiny Irish Rep stage. But she can’t overcome the choppiness of Abbott’s book. Fortunately, Margaret Loesser Robinson delivers an insightful account of Anna. She recoils at any human contact, like an abused cat. Each flinch contains the history of Anna’s abuse at the hands of her Midwestern relatives and rough johns. Robinson also has a sure voice and dances expressively in choreographer Barry McNabb’s solo of Anna’s dejection “If That Was Love.”
Patrick Cummings adds salt and sweetness as the love-struck Matt and Cliff Bemis lends Chris a hardy bonhomie. Danielle Ferland is too young to be credible as the crusty Marthy, and she rattles off her lines like a sitcom character, pushing for laughs rather than reacting to the situation.
Unfortunately, Abbott and Merrill are guilty of the same crime, jerking easy tears and tickling ribs instead of giving us O’Neill’s tragic vision in musical terms.
Irish Repertory Theatre
Reviewed by David Sheward
Yes, there actually is a musical version of Anna Christie, Eugene O’Neill’s 1921 Pulitzer Prize winner about a former prostitute who finds love and redemption in the arms of an Irish sailor. New Girl in Town had a moderately successful run of 431 Broadway performances in 1957 and is chiefly remembered for its stars Gwen Verdon and Thelma Ritter winning Tony Awards for Best Actress in a rare tie. The Off-Broadway Irish Repertory Theatre is bravely mounting a new production of this seldom-seen piece, which is mainly of interest to musical theater buffs and fails to rise above the status of an odd curio.
There’s a reason the show is rarely revived. The book, by legendary director George Abbott, rips the guts out of O’Neill’s epic narrative and replaces them with sweet candy filling. Originally conceived as a vehicle for Verdon to display her dramatic and dancing abilities after scoring a hit with Damn Yankees, Anna’s tragic story is prettied up with a happy ending, bouncy tunes, and cute supporting characters.
The original plot takes places in the grimy world of New York’s waterfront where Anna is reunited with her Swedish sea captain father Chris Christopherson after she turned her last trick as a hooker in the Midwest and ran out of money. Unaware of her shady past, her dad takes Anna in after booting out his common-law wife Marthy Owens, an amiable bar rat. Anna finds love with Matt Burke, a rip-roaring seaman who washes up on her father’s barge. But when Matt discovers Anna’s previous occupation, he sanctimoniously rejects her despite his own less-than-pure love life. The couple are reunited but only after Matt and Chris have signed on for a long nautical voyage during a drunken bender. All are still captives of “dat ole devil sea,” as Chris puts in.
In the musical’s conclusion, Anna and Matt are happily paired, as are Chris and Marthy, and the curtain falls as the chorus sings of the wholesome recreation of chess and checkers everyone will enjoy at the Sailors’ Home. O’Neill’s dark vision of lonely souls swept along by the all-consuming ocean is taken over by songwriter Bob Merrill’s lighthearted confections and Abbott’s romantic clichés.
Charlotte Moore delivers a well-paced production, making economic use of the tiny Irish Rep stage. But she can’t overcome the choppiness of Abbott’s book. Fortunately, Margaret Loesser Robinson delivers an insightful account of Anna. She recoils at any human contact, like an abused cat. Each flinch contains the history of Anna’s abuse at the hands of her Midwestern relatives and rough johns. Robinson also has a sure voice and dances expressively in choreographer Barry McNabb’s solo of Anna’s dejection “If That Was Love.”
Patrick Cummings adds salt and sweetness as the love-struck Matt and Cliff Bemis lends Chris a hardy bonhomie. Danielle Ferland is too young to be credible as the crusty Marthy, and she rattles off her lines like a sitcom character, pushing for laughs rather than reacting to the situation.
Unfortunately, Abbott and Merrill are guilty of the same crime, jerking easy tears and tickling ribs instead of giving us O’Neill’s tragic vision in musical terms.
August 1, 2012
Into the Woods [show closed]
Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte Theater
Reviewed by David Sheward
Placing Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s musical fairy-tale mash-up Into the Woods in the bucolic setting of Central Park’s Delacorte Theater seems like a natural fit. The beloved tuner employs the metaphor of the mystical forest of childhood stories as a source of learning life’s harsh lessons and a place to find your maturity. But the show is also a rollicking good time with one of Sondheim’s most melodic and intricate scores, while Lapine’s clever book gives a new spin to familiar characters and explores the subtext beneath the Grimm Brothers. The original 1987 production and the 2002 revival, both directed by Lapine, were like giant storybooks with adult sensibilities tucked inside. The show has since become a favorite of high school and community theaters.
For this free outdoor production, director Timothy Sheader and co-director Liam Steel have adapted their version from Regents Park in London and given a modern twist to Lapine’s traditional approach. The libretto connects the tales of Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, and Jack and the Beanstalk, as well as an invented one about a baker and his wife and their quest to have a child, all overseen by a ubiquitous narrator. In Sheader and Steel’s staging, the storyteller is a little boy (a professional and poised Noah Radcliffe at the performance reviewed) running away from a difficult home situation. He camps out in the forest and tells the complex tale using a knapsack full of dolls and action figures.
The production design perfectly reimagines the milieu as seen through the eyes of a modern kid. Emily Rebholz’s hip costumes blend pop culture with Mother Goose chic (catch the skunk stole on Cinderella’s stepmother and the tree-like claws on the Witch). The set, by John Lee Beatty and Soutra Gilmour, is a sort of creepy tree house that evokes both suburban playground and horror flick, with the aid of Ben Stanton’s mood-setting lighting. In a stunning coup de theatre, puppet designer Rachael Canning creates a monstrous female giant out of umbrellas, spades, and other found objects.
Rumors of bungled rehearsals surfaced in the press prior to opening, but the performance attended was sleekly and inventively staged. There were a few issues with crowd control in the opening scenes when multiple protagonists and storylines are introduced and it got a mite confusing. However, once the story gets rolling, the pacing and blocking across Beatty and Gilmour’s multilevel set flow smoothly.
The peerless Donna Murphy is a frightening wicked witch, but she also reveals the lonely heart of this overprotective mother in crystal-clear renditions of the moving ballads “Stay With Me” and “Children Will Listen.” Denis O’Hare delivers a textured performance as the Baker, combining tenderness with confusion over the moral uncertainties rife in this fairy-tale kingdom. Film star Amy Adams makes an adept transition to the musical stage, drily conveying the wit of the Baker’s Wife.
But the show is nearly stolen by Sarah Stiles as a gritty Red Riding Hood. Encased in short-shorts and a flaming red bicycle helmet, this girl is totally 21st century and knows exactly what the wolf wants when they meet on the path to Granny’s house. Her dirty giggle and sly smile brings out the sexual undertones in the seductive “Hello, Little Girl” sung with lupine lasciviousness by Ivan Hernandez as the wolf. He charmingly doubles as a vain prince. Chip Zien, the Baker in the original production, is a crafty Mysterious Man, and Gideon Glick makes Jack’s naiveté endearing. Kristin Zbornik and Ellen Harvey make valuable comic contributions as Jack’s cigarette-puffing mom and Cinderella’s Cruella de Vil–ish stepmother.
Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte Theater
Reviewed by David Sheward
Placing Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s musical fairy-tale mash-up Into the Woods in the bucolic setting of Central Park’s Delacorte Theater seems like a natural fit. The beloved tuner employs the metaphor of the mystical forest of childhood stories as a source of learning life’s harsh lessons and a place to find your maturity. But the show is also a rollicking good time with one of Sondheim’s most melodic and intricate scores, while Lapine’s clever book gives a new spin to familiar characters and explores the subtext beneath the Grimm Brothers. The original 1987 production and the 2002 revival, both directed by Lapine, were like giant storybooks with adult sensibilities tucked inside. The show has since become a favorite of high school and community theaters.
For this free outdoor production, director Timothy Sheader and co-director Liam Steel have adapted their version from Regents Park in London and given a modern twist to Lapine’s traditional approach. The libretto connects the tales of Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, and Jack and the Beanstalk, as well as an invented one about a baker and his wife and their quest to have a child, all overseen by a ubiquitous narrator. In Sheader and Steel’s staging, the storyteller is a little boy (a professional and poised Noah Radcliffe at the performance reviewed) running away from a difficult home situation. He camps out in the forest and tells the complex tale using a knapsack full of dolls and action figures.
The production design perfectly reimagines the milieu as seen through the eyes of a modern kid. Emily Rebholz’s hip costumes blend pop culture with Mother Goose chic (catch the skunk stole on Cinderella’s stepmother and the tree-like claws on the Witch). The set, by John Lee Beatty and Soutra Gilmour, is a sort of creepy tree house that evokes both suburban playground and horror flick, with the aid of Ben Stanton’s mood-setting lighting. In a stunning coup de theatre, puppet designer Rachael Canning creates a monstrous female giant out of umbrellas, spades, and other found objects.
Rumors of bungled rehearsals surfaced in the press prior to opening, but the performance attended was sleekly and inventively staged. There were a few issues with crowd control in the opening scenes when multiple protagonists and storylines are introduced and it got a mite confusing. However, once the story gets rolling, the pacing and blocking across Beatty and Gilmour’s multilevel set flow smoothly.
The peerless Donna Murphy is a frightening wicked witch, but she also reveals the lonely heart of this overprotective mother in crystal-clear renditions of the moving ballads “Stay With Me” and “Children Will Listen.” Denis O’Hare delivers a textured performance as the Baker, combining tenderness with confusion over the moral uncertainties rife in this fairy-tale kingdom. Film star Amy Adams makes an adept transition to the musical stage, drily conveying the wit of the Baker’s Wife.
But the show is nearly stolen by Sarah Stiles as a gritty Red Riding Hood. Encased in short-shorts and a flaming red bicycle helmet, this girl is totally 21st century and knows exactly what the wolf wants when they meet on the path to Granny’s house. Her dirty giggle and sly smile brings out the sexual undertones in the seductive “Hello, Little Girl” sung with lupine lasciviousness by Ivan Hernandez as the wolf. He charmingly doubles as a vain prince. Chip Zien, the Baker in the original production, is a crafty Mysterious Man, and Gideon Glick makes Jack’s naiveté endearing. Kristin Zbornik and Ellen Harvey make valuable comic contributions as Jack’s cigarette-puffing mom and Cinderella’s Cruella de Vil–ish stepmother.
August 9, 2012
