The Weir (The Irish Repertory Theatre)
Nighttime and a howling wind can be heard outside the quaint pub in
countryside of a small Irish town. Hanging on the wall is a photo of the
nearby weir (a dam) among a collection of photos of the residents and
local sights. There is a modestly stocked bar, a comfortable banquet, a
couple of tables and chairs and a fire-stove in the corner that provides
a bit of warmth. It's quite a perfect setting and ambiance for Conor
McPherson's eerie Olivier Award-winning 1997 play now having a fine
revival at the Irish Repertory Theatre.
Following its acclaimed London run The Weir opened on Broadway in
1999 to good reviews and a respectable run. Despite the slightly corny
B-movie contrivance of the set-up, we willingly listen to the ghost
stories as told by five convivial occupants. They are the fabric of the
play. You can also depend upon an ample supply of Guinness, stout, shots
of whiskey, even a glass of white wine (the latter becomes a point of
humor) to charge the chatter of four local men and a female newcomer
from Dublin.
The evening progresses slowly but with an element of suspenseful
apprehension as the men take turns revealing macabre lore about the
resident ghosts to the woman who will undoubtedly have her own
I-can-top-that-story. The groundwork has been set and the grumbling
begins as Jack (Dan Butler), a pub regular, arrives to find the tap
out-of-order and that he has to settle for Guinness in the bottle. Jack
is even less pleased by the arrival of Finbar (Sean Gormley), a
forty-something part-time but successful realtor, mildly resented by
all. Finbar has been spending the last few days giving Valerie (Tessa
Klein), the "blow-in" tenant from Dublin, a sightseeing tour of the
countryside.
It only takes the presence of a stranger to perk up the usual gossipy
banter between Brendan (Billy Carter), the bar's thirty-something,
lonely proprietor, Jack, the local garage owner, and Jim (John Keating),
his forty-something assistant. They are all only too eager to impress
the quiet but friendly newcomer with their personal encounters and
knowledge of ghostly comings and goings that include a graveyard spirit,
a message from a Ouija board and the presence of a fairy road.
McPherson's award-winning play recently been revived to acclaim in London (Curtainup's review ).
In New York, the atmospherically realized Irish Rep. production,
validates the play's worthiness among the more engrossing plays
dealing with the supernatural. Following a trail of monologues in this
genre may not be everyone's cup of tea, and as ghost stories go, they
are all rather tame and un-terrifying. But that is also part of their
appeal, particularly the woman's final sad story evoking a personal
tragedy.
McPherson's often charmingly contentious characters have been afforded
splendidly realized performances, particularly since these characters,
although glib and prone to four-letter expletives, are decidedly less
eccentric and blustery than is the custom for Irish pub habitués.
Even as one's ears attend the tales, they can pick up the resentful
attitudes, half-hearted scorning, and the playful empathetic baiting
that pass between the men and enhance their gift for story-telling. It's
impossible not to think that the pugnacious spirit of James Cagney
hasn't entered Butler as the flinty, fast-talking Jack, the
fifty-something bachelor owner of a local garage and the first to get
the evening crackling with his yarn about the fairy road.
Carter is quite good as the close-to-melancholy Brenden whose
country-side pub gets a seasonal boost from "the Germans." Keating, who
is making his 12th appearance with the Irish Rep., is standout, this
time as Jim, Jack's less talkative assistant at the garage, but the one
whose chilling tale about a ghost in a graveyard gets everyone riled up.
Gormely is amusingly assertive as the self-satisfied and married Finbar
who appears just a little over-attentive to the attractive Valerie.
Klein gives a lovely performance as the thirty-something Valerie whose
own extraordinary experience brings the play to its poignant conclusion.
There is no doubt about McPherson's gift for Irish-ized story-telling,
as exemplified in his subsequent plays, Shining City (2006) and The
Seafarer (2007), both of which received Tony nominations. You can also
be assured that the Irish Repertory Theatre ensemble has brought out the
best in these stories.
The Weir
The Irish Repertory Theatre, 132 West 22nd Street
(212) 727 - 2737
Tickets: $55 - $65
Performances: Wednesday 3pm and 8pm; Thursday at 7pm; Fridays at 8pm;
Saturdays at 3pm and 8 pm; Sundays at 3pm (with the following
exceptions: additional performance Tuesday, July 2 at 7 pm; no
performance Thursday, July 4 at 7pm).
From 05/15/13 Opened 05/23/13 Ends 07/07/13
Monday, May 27, 2013
Murder Ballad (Union Square Theater)
Every now and then a small show opens Off Broadway, receives a number of excellent reviews, gets good word-of-mouth, does solid business, and grabs the attention of commercial producers. Such is the case with Murder Ballad that has re-opened off Broadway a few months following its limited run at the Manhattan Theatre Club's Stage II at New York City Center.
It has now been ensconced within the re-constructed interior of the Union Square Theatre. Tiered traditional seating rises from where the stage used to be, with cocktail tables and chairs placed throughout the main floor.
The setting is a grungy bar. There is an extra long fully equipped one (where drinks may be purchased before the show and brought back to your seat) and a pool table upon which everything but billiards is played. Set designer Mark Wendland must be praised for this ingenious floor plan that accommodates the over-heated histrionics that mark this ostensibly murderous pop-rock (sung-through) opera.
As you may surmise from the title, you're a guaranteed at least one murder and a generous dose of lust-filled, angst-driven ballads to propel the story to its tragic conclusion. It's juast like in grand opera — except that this collaboration by Julia Jordan (book and lyrics) and Juliana Nash (music and lyrics) is more garrulously lyrical than it is musically grand.
Listening to the CD before (even after) seeing the show is a good idea as it gives clues to what was at stake emotionally if not melodically. I was impressed by the singing and dramatic performances of John Ellison Conlee, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Caissie Levy and Will Swenson. Fueled by the inventive, pro-active direction of Trip Cullman these four are the heart of what is essentially melodramatic hooey. Murder Ballad is, nevertheless, an extraordinarily visceral and sensual theatrical experience.
When a smoldering relationship between the hot Sara (Levy) and equally hot Tom (Swenson) appears to be going nowhere, at least not in the direction that either of them sees as a compatibly conjoined future, they split up. Sara meets and beds Michael (Conlee), a bespectacled, beardedMFA student of poetry at NYU. The prescribed tension and the potential for murder occurs when Sara finds herself years later once again drawn into an affair with Tom despite her being married to Michael and raising raising a child. (unseen).
What is it about the magnetic pull that inevitably draws the conflicted Sara back into the womanizing Tom's embrace and willing to sacrifice her marriage to Michael? Will pure lust prevail over common sense and decency?
No need to be concerned about what Michael thinks or suspects as Jordan's sometime clear, sometimes not-so-clear lyrics define each character simplistically yet resourcefully within Nash's pulsating music. As we have come to expect going to the theater these days, the sound does its best to obliterate the more nuanced aspects of Justin Levine's orchestrations. The four-piece band — Justin Levine, Conductor, Keyboard, Guitar; Thomas Juliano, Bass; Vince Fay, Drums; — were best appreciated during the more rhythmic sections of the score.
What remains as this musical's most exciting aspect is the amount of erotic heat generated by Levy and Swenson, both dramatically and musically exciting to watch as the two by-lust-obsessed adults. Although not a member of the original cast, Levy uses her strong vocal chops with as much dexterity as she uses her lithe and limber body which more often than not is obliged to writhe in waves of sensual expectation whether on top of the set pieces or on or under the equally agile Swenson. To say that Swenson, who was nominated for his performances in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Hair, is charismatic, is only a part of his ferociously feral performance.
Levy and Swenson appear to be fully aware of the dangerous curves their sexual reunion is taking. Their overtly provocative romantic clinches, do not, however, make Conlee's poignantly dignified performance as the square and rightfully resentful Michael any less persuasive.
Snippets of cleverly calculated suspense are incorporated into the libretto with the possibility of physical harm always constant. There is also a kind of Frankie and Johnnie aspect to the story as it is complimented and augmented with a strikingly beautiful Narrator/Barmaid, played by the tantalizing and subtly terrorizing Jones. Her steamy apparel by costume designer Jessica Pabst, suggests from the start that she may have more to say about this ill-fated affair than "We're living in a French film."
If the audience that filled the theater the night I attended is an indication, the theater should continue to be packed with young people completely enthralled and invigorated by the release of raw emotions, flashing lights, and the relentlessness of the loud music.
Murder Ballad
Union Square Theatre, 100 East 17th Street
1 - 800 - 982 - 2787
Tickets: $80.00 - $90.00
Performances: Tuesday through Friday at 8 PM, Saturday at 5 PM and 9 PM, Sunday at 7 PM. Matinee on Sunday at 3 PM.
From 05/07/13 Opened 05/22/13/closing 9/29/13
Every now and then a small show opens Off Broadway, receives a number of excellent reviews, gets good word-of-mouth, does solid business, and grabs the attention of commercial producers. Such is the case with Murder Ballad that has re-opened off Broadway a few months following its limited run at the Manhattan Theatre Club's Stage II at New York City Center.
It has now been ensconced within the re-constructed interior of the Union Square Theatre. Tiered traditional seating rises from where the stage used to be, with cocktail tables and chairs placed throughout the main floor.
The setting is a grungy bar. There is an extra long fully equipped one (where drinks may be purchased before the show and brought back to your seat) and a pool table upon which everything but billiards is played. Set designer Mark Wendland must be praised for this ingenious floor plan that accommodates the over-heated histrionics that mark this ostensibly murderous pop-rock (sung-through) opera.
As you may surmise from the title, you're a guaranteed at least one murder and a generous dose of lust-filled, angst-driven ballads to propel the story to its tragic conclusion. It's juast like in grand opera — except that this collaboration by Julia Jordan (book and lyrics) and Juliana Nash (music and lyrics) is more garrulously lyrical than it is musically grand.
Listening to the CD before (even after) seeing the show is a good idea as it gives clues to what was at stake emotionally if not melodically. I was impressed by the singing and dramatic performances of John Ellison Conlee, Rebecca Naomi Jones, Caissie Levy and Will Swenson. Fueled by the inventive, pro-active direction of Trip Cullman these four are the heart of what is essentially melodramatic hooey. Murder Ballad is, nevertheless, an extraordinarily visceral and sensual theatrical experience.
When a smoldering relationship between the hot Sara (Levy) and equally hot Tom (Swenson) appears to be going nowhere, at least not in the direction that either of them sees as a compatibly conjoined future, they split up. Sara meets and beds Michael (Conlee), a bespectacled, beardedMFA student of poetry at NYU. The prescribed tension and the potential for murder occurs when Sara finds herself years later once again drawn into an affair with Tom despite her being married to Michael and raising raising a child. (unseen).
What is it about the magnetic pull that inevitably draws the conflicted Sara back into the womanizing Tom's embrace and willing to sacrifice her marriage to Michael? Will pure lust prevail over common sense and decency?
No need to be concerned about what Michael thinks or suspects as Jordan's sometime clear, sometimes not-so-clear lyrics define each character simplistically yet resourcefully within Nash's pulsating music. As we have come to expect going to the theater these days, the sound does its best to obliterate the more nuanced aspects of Justin Levine's orchestrations. The four-piece band — Justin Levine, Conductor, Keyboard, Guitar; Thomas Juliano, Bass; Vince Fay, Drums; — were best appreciated during the more rhythmic sections of the score.
What remains as this musical's most exciting aspect is the amount of erotic heat generated by Levy and Swenson, both dramatically and musically exciting to watch as the two by-lust-obsessed adults. Although not a member of the original cast, Levy uses her strong vocal chops with as much dexterity as she uses her lithe and limber body which more often than not is obliged to writhe in waves of sensual expectation whether on top of the set pieces or on or under the equally agile Swenson. To say that Swenson, who was nominated for his performances in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and Hair, is charismatic, is only a part of his ferociously feral performance.
Levy and Swenson appear to be fully aware of the dangerous curves their sexual reunion is taking. Their overtly provocative romantic clinches, do not, however, make Conlee's poignantly dignified performance as the square and rightfully resentful Michael any less persuasive.
Snippets of cleverly calculated suspense are incorporated into the libretto with the possibility of physical harm always constant. There is also a kind of Frankie and Johnnie aspect to the story as it is complimented and augmented with a strikingly beautiful Narrator/Barmaid, played by the tantalizing and subtly terrorizing Jones. Her steamy apparel by costume designer Jessica Pabst, suggests from the start that she may have more to say about this ill-fated affair than "We're living in a French film."
If the audience that filled the theater the night I attended is an indication, the theater should continue to be packed with young people completely enthralled and invigorated by the release of raw emotions, flashing lights, and the relentlessness of the loud music.
Murder Ballad
Union Square Theatre, 100 East 17th Street
1 - 800 - 982 - 2787
Tickets: $80.00 - $90.00
Performances: Tuesday through Friday at 8 PM, Saturday at 5 PM and 9 PM, Sunday at 7 PM. Matinee on Sunday at 3 PM.
From 05/07/13 Opened 05/22/13/closing 9/29/13
Into the Woods (McCarter Theatre)
Once upon a time, but not that long ago Fiasco, an adventurous and creative young troupe with members from a Brown University theatre program, impressed the New York critics and audiences with their minimalist six-actor version of Shakespeare's Cymbeline. The troupe is now in Princeton with a 10-actor version of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods. They are here to prove, and they do, that this ever enchanting musical is open and receptive to many different approaches and styles.
The one thing that I insist upon is being able hear clearly and without distortion every witty word in this brilliant score. Imagine, if you will, not being able to clearly understand lyrics like that above. For the excellence of this aspect of the current production, I commend sound designer Darron L. West, who should be sent immediately to oversee the re-engineering in most sound booths on Broadway.
Leaving behind the more giant-like footsteps often left by previous productions, this version takes us imaginatively into the woods made of shimmering piano strings that crisscross across the width of the stage of the Berlind Theatre at the McCarter Theatre Center even as they reach from the floor to the rafters. If that isn't stunning enough, set designer Derek McLane has placed on high ten very differently shaped chandeliers each casting it own sparkle on the action as co-existing celestial bodies. That's a very spectacular frame in which the ten performers are already seen scurrying about on an aged wood floor. Their muted but also whimsically consigned garments may look as if they have been rescued from an attic trunk, but the performers are exuberant, attractive and best of all disarmingly talented.
In this setting that is probably meant to be an attic there are boxes, crates, ladders strewn about, also an old-fashioned dress-making form that, as you can imagine, will serve as a tree. A piano, however, is the main set piece.
On the two side walls are complimentary installations that continue the piano motif. There are a few musical instruments propped in various locations, each ready to be used by a performer who may or may not also be in the midst of becoming another character - the Wolf becomes the Prince, Rapunzel becomes Red Riding Hood, the Cow becomes the Prince's brother.
Every production of Into the Woods has the potential for one or two performers to step forward and make their character a signature opportunity. This staging allows virtually every member to stand out and shine, make us laugh or simply make us just think. Wow!
For hearty laughs, there is Andy Grotelueschen's who gets milked in a most usual way as Milk White, the Cow. He is also Rapunzel's slightly goofy Prince as well as Florinda the giddiest of Cinderella's sisters, who, sidles up against Noah Brody (who plays the other silly sister Lucinda), so they may flit their way around the stage behind a twin set of window curtains that remain on the rod.
Brody is fun to watch as the sly Wolf, but also as Cinderella's unfaithful husband ("I've been raised to be charming, not sincere.") When the two princes gallop on stage and stop to sing their duet (about being in love with someone else) "Agony," it will surprise you to see who gets to hold on to their stallions.
Terrific performances are given by Jessie Austin as Baker's bossy, ill-fated Wife; Liz Hayes, as Cinderella's loopy step-mother and Jack's over-protective mother. As Cinderella, the delightful Claire Karpen loses her slippers as often as she loses her balance. Patrick Mulryan never loses Jack's endearingly "vague disposition and Jennifer Mudge's witch will astonish you when she makes her incredible transformation from yuck to wow. Emily Young is wonderful as the golden hair (made of yellow yarn make for unraveling) and also as a particularly scrappy Little Red Riding Hood. Even the excellent Matt Castle, at the piano, gets a line, or rather a "moo."
What seems to me more apparent every time I see another production is how masterfully Sondheim and Lapine were able to embrace, through contemporary sensibilities and artistic savvy, both the universality and the timelessness of these legendary fables. The Fiasco troupe's concept certainly casts it own unique spell on the Grimmsian stories. I don't want to be a spoiler by writing about all the tricks that are played on some of the most famous story-book characters before and beyond "happily ever after."
What a pleasure it is to be in the company of a troupe that, under the joint direction of Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld, playfully pays their respects to Sondheim and his collaborator James Lapine, at the same time bringing a revitalizing freshness to the music, lyrics and book. Many of the songs, in particular "No One is Alone," as beautifully sung by Karpen and the ensemble, linger in the head long after you have left the theater. But all the music is addressed without pretense by performers who we see earnestly at play, discovering and using what they find, believing and becoming who and what they can be.
One is impressed pretty quickly by how the Fiasco troupe make us see each of the character's faults, foibles and idiosyncrasies, all of which we can recognize daily in each other. The moral and ethical imprint on this musical is as relevant today as it was when this amazing musical first took us into the woods.
Within the musical's quixotically episodic context, that imprint is not simply meant to be a silly and comical distortion by Sondheim and Lapine of the instructive, but mysteriously veiled parables they have taken mainly from the brothers Grimm. As the musical begins to cast its magical spell, we learn along with these edge-of-the-forest inhabitants, many of whom are not only neighbors but relatives, that getting one's wishes in life is not necessarily deliverance from self-centeredness and immaturity. Even the well-intentioned witch learns that you can't keep your chaste and beautiful daughter locked up in a tower without her reaping serious psychological consequences. And what a shame that our spirited Cinderella (Karpen) who talks to the birds isn't better appreciated by her prince?
The concept of having actors play musical instruments isn't exactly new, as it has been used for recent productions of Company and Sweeney Todd. Considering the Public Theater's production of Into the Woods last summer in Central Park didn't move to Broadway as some expected, there may be hope that this delightfully scaled-down version will prove the one parable that can be attributed directly to Sondheim and Lapine that "wishes are children and wishes come true."
Into the Woods
The Berlind Theatre at the McCarter Theatre Center, 91 University Place, Princeton, NJ
(609) 258 - 2787
Tickets: $20 - $85
Performances: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays.
From 05/03/13 Opened 05/10/13 Ends 06/09/13
Once upon a time, but not that long ago Fiasco, an adventurous and creative young troupe with members from a Brown University theatre program, impressed the New York critics and audiences with their minimalist six-actor version of Shakespeare's Cymbeline. The troupe is now in Princeton with a 10-actor version of Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods. They are here to prove, and they do, that this ever enchanting musical is open and receptive to many different approaches and styles.
The one thing that I insist upon is being able hear clearly and without distortion every witty word in this brilliant score. Imagine, if you will, not being able to clearly understand lyrics like that above. For the excellence of this aspect of the current production, I commend sound designer Darron L. West, who should be sent immediately to oversee the re-engineering in most sound booths on Broadway.
Leaving behind the more giant-like footsteps often left by previous productions, this version takes us imaginatively into the woods made of shimmering piano strings that crisscross across the width of the stage of the Berlind Theatre at the McCarter Theatre Center even as they reach from the floor to the rafters. If that isn't stunning enough, set designer Derek McLane has placed on high ten very differently shaped chandeliers each casting it own sparkle on the action as co-existing celestial bodies. That's a very spectacular frame in which the ten performers are already seen scurrying about on an aged wood floor. Their muted but also whimsically consigned garments may look as if they have been rescued from an attic trunk, but the performers are exuberant, attractive and best of all disarmingly talented.
In this setting that is probably meant to be an attic there are boxes, crates, ladders strewn about, also an old-fashioned dress-making form that, as you can imagine, will serve as a tree. A piano, however, is the main set piece.
On the two side walls are complimentary installations that continue the piano motif. There are a few musical instruments propped in various locations, each ready to be used by a performer who may or may not also be in the midst of becoming another character - the Wolf becomes the Prince, Rapunzel becomes Red Riding Hood, the Cow becomes the Prince's brother.
Every production of Into the Woods has the potential for one or two performers to step forward and make their character a signature opportunity. This staging allows virtually every member to stand out and shine, make us laugh or simply make us just think. Wow!
For hearty laughs, there is Andy Grotelueschen's who gets milked in a most usual way as Milk White, the Cow. He is also Rapunzel's slightly goofy Prince as well as Florinda the giddiest of Cinderella's sisters, who, sidles up against Noah Brody (who plays the other silly sister Lucinda), so they may flit their way around the stage behind a twin set of window curtains that remain on the rod.
Brody is fun to watch as the sly Wolf, but also as Cinderella's unfaithful husband ("I've been raised to be charming, not sincere.") When the two princes gallop on stage and stop to sing their duet (about being in love with someone else) "Agony," it will surprise you to see who gets to hold on to their stallions.
Terrific performances are given by Jessie Austin as Baker's bossy, ill-fated Wife; Liz Hayes, as Cinderella's loopy step-mother and Jack's over-protective mother. As Cinderella, the delightful Claire Karpen loses her slippers as often as she loses her balance. Patrick Mulryan never loses Jack's endearingly "vague disposition and Jennifer Mudge's witch will astonish you when she makes her incredible transformation from yuck to wow. Emily Young is wonderful as the golden hair (made of yellow yarn make for unraveling) and also as a particularly scrappy Little Red Riding Hood. Even the excellent Matt Castle, at the piano, gets a line, or rather a "moo."
What seems to me more apparent every time I see another production is how masterfully Sondheim and Lapine were able to embrace, through contemporary sensibilities and artistic savvy, both the universality and the timelessness of these legendary fables. The Fiasco troupe's concept certainly casts it own unique spell on the Grimmsian stories. I don't want to be a spoiler by writing about all the tricks that are played on some of the most famous story-book characters before and beyond "happily ever after."
What a pleasure it is to be in the company of a troupe that, under the joint direction of Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld, playfully pays their respects to Sondheim and his collaborator James Lapine, at the same time bringing a revitalizing freshness to the music, lyrics and book. Many of the songs, in particular "No One is Alone," as beautifully sung by Karpen and the ensemble, linger in the head long after you have left the theater. But all the music is addressed without pretense by performers who we see earnestly at play, discovering and using what they find, believing and becoming who and what they can be.
One is impressed pretty quickly by how the Fiasco troupe make us see each of the character's faults, foibles and idiosyncrasies, all of which we can recognize daily in each other. The moral and ethical imprint on this musical is as relevant today as it was when this amazing musical first took us into the woods.
Within the musical's quixotically episodic context, that imprint is not simply meant to be a silly and comical distortion by Sondheim and Lapine of the instructive, but mysteriously veiled parables they have taken mainly from the brothers Grimm. As the musical begins to cast its magical spell, we learn along with these edge-of-the-forest inhabitants, many of whom are not only neighbors but relatives, that getting one's wishes in life is not necessarily deliverance from self-centeredness and immaturity. Even the well-intentioned witch learns that you can't keep your chaste and beautiful daughter locked up in a tower without her reaping serious psychological consequences. And what a shame that our spirited Cinderella (Karpen) who talks to the birds isn't better appreciated by her prince?
The concept of having actors play musical instruments isn't exactly new, as it has been used for recent productions of Company and Sweeney Todd. Considering the Public Theater's production of Into the Woods last summer in Central Park didn't move to Broadway as some expected, there may be hope that this delightfully scaled-down version will prove the one parable that can be attributed directly to Sondheim and Lapine that "wishes are children and wishes come true."
Into the Woods
The Berlind Theatre at the McCarter Theatre Center, 91 University Place, Princeton, NJ
(609) 258 - 2787
Tickets: $20 - $85
Performances: 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays.
From 05/03/13 Opened 05/10/13 Ends 06/09/13
White Lilies and The Talk (Crossroads Theater Company)
The world premiere of two new one-act plays — White Lilies by renowned African-American author Walter Mosley and The Talk by the lauded, multi-award-winning African-American playwright France-Luce Benson — are interesting, if not equally admirable. Although they are not precisely connected by theme or subject, they are both observant of the degrees of disconnect within the family unit.
In The Talk we meet attractive, middle-aged Haitian-American Manu (Chantal Jean-Pierre) alone in her bedroom. She seems a bit anxious and more than little nervous as she takes a quick peak at the gift she has just purchased for herself. Recently widowed, she checks out her sagging breasts and her derriere in the mirror as she decides to have a talk with her 34 year-old daughter Claire (Shashone Lambert) who, in her childhood bedroom, has been packing her suitcase. Somewhat of a prodigal, the uptight Claire is cutting short her visit with her affectionately officious mother. The needy Manu, however, hopes that Claire has grown weary of traveling and will stay at home until she is married, as is the custom in the old-world Haitian culture in which she was raised.
Despite her seven years earning an MFA in Eastern Philosophy from Smith College University, Claire has avoided coming home so not to have to explain herself, her life or her sexuality. At first, Claire is resistant and even hostile to Manu's awkward attempts to forge an alliance with her. Manu tries everything she can to persuade her daughter to stay with her, even asking her, in a very touching and funny scene, to give a lesson in Yoga, a discipline that Claire apparently teaches wherever she goes. It would be a spoiler to mention the gift that Manu wants to show Claire and what she hopes can be accomplished now that she has no husband.
Manu's tendency to prod Claire about her personal life, as well as her willingness to share her own feelings ("I've never had a sense of completion.") on the subject of sex serves as the core of this rib-tickling (and that's not all) comedy. Although The Talk begins lethargically as we watch Manu and Claire during their protracted alone time, it quickly responds, under Sibusiso Mamba's direction, to the vibrant interplay of the French-accented, warmly aggressive Jean-Pierre and the defensively frisky Lambert.
The Talk hits its stride as the two women attempt to break through years of miscommunication and missed opportunities to really see and appreciate each other. Benson, a life-time member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre, a two-time Schubert Fellow, and the winner of the Lorraine Hansberry Award for her play Fati's Last Dance, has a sharp ear for comically-infused confrontations and keeps this tough and tender meeting of kind hearts and disparate minds bright and saucy.
In White Lilies Mosley frames his drama with magic realism, as the ghost of a wretched man who has just died is deployed to unsettle the mind of his anything but grief-stricken wife. Raymond "Mouse" Alexander (Landon G. Woodson) is the good-for-nothing, not so dearly departed husband who comes downstairs from the bedroom soon after he has died to romantically taunt his wife EttaMae (Bridgid Coulter). Presumably comforted by her sister Sophie (Chantal Jean-Pierre) with whom Raymond has had a long standing affair, EttaMae is also upset by the expressions of love expressed for the father by their son LaMarque (Ruffin Prentiss). Ruffin gets to chew the scenery as he lashes out at EttaMae whom he blames for Raymond's disintegration as a husband and father.
Raymond, it seems, has barely spent any time at home over the years but preferred whoring and drinking to marriage. Except for the minor effort EttaMae puts into speaking slightly above a whisper and cooking meat and collard greens in the kitchen, she is not about to put any extra effort either into burial plans for the man she thoroughly detests. It seems that Raymond has been rescued from a flop house and brought back to Houston home to die by Sophie without EttaMae's permission. EttaMae is even more distressed to have to listen to Raymond's coughs and convulsions while LaMarque reads to him portions of the bible.
Of course, no one except EttaMae sees the ghost of Raymond come downstairs nattily dressed. He slowly approaches EttaMae saying sweetly as he fondles her, "I came to make up and say goodbye," a line that gets the best laugh of the evening. One might wish that Mosley, who'has penned more than thirty-seven critically books, had gone the distance and had more fun with his outrageous plot. As it is, we have to endure this virtually dead-on-arrival play that is acted without much conviction, under the otherwise earnest direction of Marshall Jones III, who is making his directorial debut.
The modest and serviceable scenic design for both plays is by A Ram Kim. New plays developed at this award-winning theatre are always an adventure and well-worth a visit. However, for something close to theatrical magic and realism, we have to look back to The Talk.
White Lilies and The Talk (Crossroads Theater Company)
Crossroads Theatre Company, 7 Livingston Avenue
(732) 545 - 8100
Tickets $40.00
Performances: Thursday - Saturday at 8 pm; Matinees Saturday and Sunday at 3 pm.
From 05/09/13 Opened 05/11/13 Ends 05/19/13
The world premiere of two new one-act plays — White Lilies by renowned African-American author Walter Mosley and The Talk by the lauded, multi-award-winning African-American playwright France-Luce Benson — are interesting, if not equally admirable. Although they are not precisely connected by theme or subject, they are both observant of the degrees of disconnect within the family unit.
In The Talk we meet attractive, middle-aged Haitian-American Manu (Chantal Jean-Pierre) alone in her bedroom. She seems a bit anxious and more than little nervous as she takes a quick peak at the gift she has just purchased for herself. Recently widowed, she checks out her sagging breasts and her derriere in the mirror as she decides to have a talk with her 34 year-old daughter Claire (Shashone Lambert) who, in her childhood bedroom, has been packing her suitcase. Somewhat of a prodigal, the uptight Claire is cutting short her visit with her affectionately officious mother. The needy Manu, however, hopes that Claire has grown weary of traveling and will stay at home until she is married, as is the custom in the old-world Haitian culture in which she was raised.
Despite her seven years earning an MFA in Eastern Philosophy from Smith College University, Claire has avoided coming home so not to have to explain herself, her life or her sexuality. At first, Claire is resistant and even hostile to Manu's awkward attempts to forge an alliance with her. Manu tries everything she can to persuade her daughter to stay with her, even asking her, in a very touching and funny scene, to give a lesson in Yoga, a discipline that Claire apparently teaches wherever she goes. It would be a spoiler to mention the gift that Manu wants to show Claire and what she hopes can be accomplished now that she has no husband.
Manu's tendency to prod Claire about her personal life, as well as her willingness to share her own feelings ("I've never had a sense of completion.") on the subject of sex serves as the core of this rib-tickling (and that's not all) comedy. Although The Talk begins lethargically as we watch Manu and Claire during their protracted alone time, it quickly responds, under Sibusiso Mamba's direction, to the vibrant interplay of the French-accented, warmly aggressive Jean-Pierre and the defensively frisky Lambert.
The Talk hits its stride as the two women attempt to break through years of miscommunication and missed opportunities to really see and appreciate each other. Benson, a life-time member of the Ensemble Studio Theatre, a two-time Schubert Fellow, and the winner of the Lorraine Hansberry Award for her play Fati's Last Dance, has a sharp ear for comically-infused confrontations and keeps this tough and tender meeting of kind hearts and disparate minds bright and saucy.
In White Lilies Mosley frames his drama with magic realism, as the ghost of a wretched man who has just died is deployed to unsettle the mind of his anything but grief-stricken wife. Raymond "Mouse" Alexander (Landon G. Woodson) is the good-for-nothing, not so dearly departed husband who comes downstairs from the bedroom soon after he has died to romantically taunt his wife EttaMae (Bridgid Coulter). Presumably comforted by her sister Sophie (Chantal Jean-Pierre) with whom Raymond has had a long standing affair, EttaMae is also upset by the expressions of love expressed for the father by their son LaMarque (Ruffin Prentiss). Ruffin gets to chew the scenery as he lashes out at EttaMae whom he blames for Raymond's disintegration as a husband and father.
Raymond, it seems, has barely spent any time at home over the years but preferred whoring and drinking to marriage. Except for the minor effort EttaMae puts into speaking slightly above a whisper and cooking meat and collard greens in the kitchen, she is not about to put any extra effort either into burial plans for the man she thoroughly detests. It seems that Raymond has been rescued from a flop house and brought back to Houston home to die by Sophie without EttaMae's permission. EttaMae is even more distressed to have to listen to Raymond's coughs and convulsions while LaMarque reads to him portions of the bible.
Of course, no one except EttaMae sees the ghost of Raymond come downstairs nattily dressed. He slowly approaches EttaMae saying sweetly as he fondles her, "I came to make up and say goodbye," a line that gets the best laugh of the evening. One might wish that Mosley, who'has penned more than thirty-seven critically books, had gone the distance and had more fun with his outrageous plot. As it is, we have to endure this virtually dead-on-arrival play that is acted without much conviction, under the otherwise earnest direction of Marshall Jones III, who is making his directorial debut.
The modest and serviceable scenic design for both plays is by A Ram Kim. New plays developed at this award-winning theatre are always an adventure and well-worth a visit. However, for something close to theatrical magic and realism, we have to look back to The Talk.
White Lilies and The Talk (Crossroads Theater Company)
Crossroads Theatre Company, 7 Livingston Avenue
(732) 545 - 8100
Tickets $40.00
Performances: Thursday - Saturday at 8 pm; Matinees Saturday and Sunday at 3 pm.
From 05/09/13 Opened 05/11/13 Ends 05/19/13
I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Musik from the Weimar and Beyond
The extent to which Jews and homosexuals influenced the culture, notably
the visual and performing arts during Germany's unprecedented Weimar
Republic, is partially addressed in musical and narrative terms by
award-winning cabaret entertainer Mark Nadler in I'm A Stranger Here Myself.
That's a hefty load of era-specific material as well as a lot of
emotional gravitas for Nadler to convey in as much as the title is
appended with Musik From The Weimar and Beyond. It's the beyond part
that this disquietingly engaging performer integrates with his own
personal as well as his family's history that will , as he asks us,
remain under wraps.
We are obliged to respect Nadler's request especially after we have been shown in an early part of the show the end credits of the film Witness for the Prosecution, during which is projected "The management of this theater urges you: do not divulge to anyone the secret of the ending."
The other aspects of I'm A Stranger Here Myself which evolved from a shorter, less visually enhanced version that Nadler performed over four Sunday evenings about a year ago at 54 Below, are not likely to remain a secret among those who will undoubtedly talk enthusiastically about its return. This longer show, in which an impassioned Nadler brings his mostly compelling, if sometimes over-heated interpretations of songs associated with such revered and cherished composers and entertainers of the era as Kurt Weill, Lotte Lenya, Friedrich Hollaender, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Aznavour and Edith Piaf among others, is earnestly entertaining, enlightening and rewarding.
Nattily dressed in a grey pin-stripped suit with a silk vest and a yellow rose in his lapel, Nadler mostly performs on a slightly raised platform dominated by a baby grand piano. The evocative Art Moderne setting designed by James Morgan also includes a few chairs, some book cases, a couple of music stands, and three covered (whimsical?) port holes that suggest an intimate music salon rather than a cabaret. Nadler gets expert instrumental support from Franca Vercelloni on the accordion and Jessica Tyler Wright on the violin, whose presence is both wryly and charmingly integrated into David Schweizer's smoothly defined staging and direction.
Nadler makes his entrance singing from the back of the theater, making a connection with the audience that he continues throughout the show. For this he combines two Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz songs "I May Never Go Home Anymore/Come A-Wandering" that segue into, but do not end with the Weimar era. Perhaps first and foremost is the connection Nadler evidently feels with those who, during that brief fourteen years between the time the Kaiser abdicated after World War I and the time Hitler took power, were free, as outsiders, to express themselves.
Nadler's French and German is impeccable and is emphasized in the contexr of rhis multi-lingual show. He considers the anguish that Weill must have felt leaving Lenya behind in Germany as he found refuge in Paris in the classic "Je Ne T'aime Pas" (Music by Weill and French lyrics by Maurice Magre). He also captures the essence of his inveterate outsider theme with the title song composed by Weill (with lyrics by Ogden Nash for the Broadway musical One Touch of Venus).
The observations and tidbits about of many of the European expatriates of the era who escaped are equally memorable. These stories are enhanced by some of the most artfully integrated projection designs I have seen in a while. Many give us pertinent close-ups of the who's who of the time as they socialized, frolicked and exhibited their sexual freedom until Hitler put a stop to it, particularly in cabarets .
Sharing his feelings as an outsider from his childhood days in Iowa until he found a niche as a nightclub performer in New York in the long-ago era when nightclubs were evolving into cabarets, Nadler entwines snippets of his own biography with observations based on his study of Germany after seeing Dietrich in Witness for the Prosecution. Dietrich became "the poster child of the Weimar," and gives affectionate homage to her with a few bars of "Falling in Love Again" by Hollaender, who would write many of Dietrich's future hits in Hollywood — the place where so many European Jews found a safe haven and a new life.
Nagler brings his distinct personality to the fore as he brings new life to such old songs as Weill's "The Bilboa Song," and "Ein Schiff Das Wird Kommen/My Ship." He also gets a laugh with a corny ditty "Schickelgruber," written by Weill and Dietz in the 1940s. But it is the lyrics of Hollaender's 1921 cabaret song "Oh How We Wish That We Were Kids Again" (see quoted stanza above) that reflect the irony of the sentiments that was permissible for a very short time. For a much shorter time, less than two hours, Nadler shares with us his pride even as he shares with us his passion for that brief time when Germany had its first taste of democracy.
Be sure not to miss is a fine representative exhibit of the Weimar-era art on display in the lobby.
I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Musik from the Weimar and Beyond
The York Theatre Company, at Saint Peter's (Entrance on East 54th Street, just East of Lexington Avenue.)
(212) 935 - 5820
Tickets: $67.50
Performances: Tuesday at 7 pm; Wednesday through Friday at 8 pm; Saturday at 2:30 pm & 8 pm; and Sunday at 2:30 pm.
From 04/29/13 Opened 05/02/13 Ends 05/19/13
We are obliged to respect Nadler's request especially after we have been shown in an early part of the show the end credits of the film Witness for the Prosecution, during which is projected "The management of this theater urges you: do not divulge to anyone the secret of the ending."
The other aspects of I'm A Stranger Here Myself which evolved from a shorter, less visually enhanced version that Nadler performed over four Sunday evenings about a year ago at 54 Below, are not likely to remain a secret among those who will undoubtedly talk enthusiastically about its return. This longer show, in which an impassioned Nadler brings his mostly compelling, if sometimes over-heated interpretations of songs associated with such revered and cherished composers and entertainers of the era as Kurt Weill, Lotte Lenya, Friedrich Hollaender, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Aznavour and Edith Piaf among others, is earnestly entertaining, enlightening and rewarding.
Nattily dressed in a grey pin-stripped suit with a silk vest and a yellow rose in his lapel, Nadler mostly performs on a slightly raised platform dominated by a baby grand piano. The evocative Art Moderne setting designed by James Morgan also includes a few chairs, some book cases, a couple of music stands, and three covered (whimsical?) port holes that suggest an intimate music salon rather than a cabaret. Nadler gets expert instrumental support from Franca Vercelloni on the accordion and Jessica Tyler Wright on the violin, whose presence is both wryly and charmingly integrated into David Schweizer's smoothly defined staging and direction.
Nadler makes his entrance singing from the back of the theater, making a connection with the audience that he continues throughout the show. For this he combines two Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz songs "I May Never Go Home Anymore/Come A-Wandering" that segue into, but do not end with the Weimar era. Perhaps first and foremost is the connection Nadler evidently feels with those who, during that brief fourteen years between the time the Kaiser abdicated after World War I and the time Hitler took power, were free, as outsiders, to express themselves.
Nadler's French and German is impeccable and is emphasized in the contexr of rhis multi-lingual show. He considers the anguish that Weill must have felt leaving Lenya behind in Germany as he found refuge in Paris in the classic "Je Ne T'aime Pas" (Music by Weill and French lyrics by Maurice Magre). He also captures the essence of his inveterate outsider theme with the title song composed by Weill (with lyrics by Ogden Nash for the Broadway musical One Touch of Venus).
The observations and tidbits about of many of the European expatriates of the era who escaped are equally memorable. These stories are enhanced by some of the most artfully integrated projection designs I have seen in a while. Many give us pertinent close-ups of the who's who of the time as they socialized, frolicked and exhibited their sexual freedom until Hitler put a stop to it, particularly in cabarets .
Sharing his feelings as an outsider from his childhood days in Iowa until he found a niche as a nightclub performer in New York in the long-ago era when nightclubs were evolving into cabarets, Nadler entwines snippets of his own biography with observations based on his study of Germany after seeing Dietrich in Witness for the Prosecution. Dietrich became "the poster child of the Weimar," and gives affectionate homage to her with a few bars of "Falling in Love Again" by Hollaender, who would write many of Dietrich's future hits in Hollywood — the place where so many European Jews found a safe haven and a new life.
Nagler brings his distinct personality to the fore as he brings new life to such old songs as Weill's "The Bilboa Song," and "Ein Schiff Das Wird Kommen/My Ship." He also gets a laugh with a corny ditty "Schickelgruber," written by Weill and Dietz in the 1940s. But it is the lyrics of Hollaender's 1921 cabaret song "Oh How We Wish That We Were Kids Again" (see quoted stanza above) that reflect the irony of the sentiments that was permissible for a very short time. For a much shorter time, less than two hours, Nadler shares with us his pride even as he shares with us his passion for that brief time when Germany had its first taste of democracy.
Be sure not to miss is a fine representative exhibit of the Weimar-era art on display in the lobby.
I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Musik from the Weimar and Beyond
The York Theatre Company, at Saint Peter's (Entrance on East 54th Street, just East of Lexington Avenue.)
(212) 935 - 5820
Tickets: $67.50
Performances: Tuesday at 7 pm; Wednesday through Friday at 8 pm; Saturday at 2:30 pm & 8 pm; and Sunday at 2:30 pm.
From 04/29/13 Opened 05/02/13 Ends 05/19/13
Thoroughly Modern Millie (Paper Mill Playhouse)
When this re-envisioned version of the big splashy but not-very-successful 1967 film musical opened on Broadway in 2002, the response was something like grateful, mainly a reaction to the recycled elements of Mamma Mia, One Mo Time, and the thoroughly disliked aspects of Sweet Smell of Success and Thou Shalt Not during that season. Not thoroughly fresh itself, Thoroughly Modern Mille was appreciated for its vitality, colorful settings and costumes, dancing and singing 1920s flappers and the bright serviceable music mostly (with bits of Tchaikovsky, Sir Arthur Sullivan and Victor Herbert) by Jeanine Tesori. The snappy lyrics of Dick Scanlan doctored up the original even nuttier screenplay by the late Richard Morris. .
Like the original film and Broadway version, it is the lack of wit and cleverness as well as the incredibly distressing chunks of lame comedy that still keep this otherwise carefree musical from taking flight. It comes close at times in this bright and energetic production at the Paper Mill Playhouse (co-production with Maltz Jupiter Theater, Fla.)
Rather than attempting to ride on the coyly pastiche charms of The Boy Friend (the 1954 musical that introduced Julie Andrews to Broadway and who would subsequently star in the film Thoroughly Modern Millie), or a campy valentine to operetta as was Little Mary Sunshine, ...Millie had the determination to reflect the genuine character of a 1920s musical. For that we get our share of the Charleston and some cute characters, starting with the title character, as played with spirited pizzazz and the obligatory voh-do-dee-oh-do by Laurie Veldheer.
Millie's plans include marrying Trevor Graydon (Burke Moses), her stiff-necked all business, no-play, no-clue boss. Her plans are complicated by the attentions of Jimmy (Jeff Kready), a dapper young womanizer and by Millie's dippy chorus girlfriend and roommate Dorothy (Ashley Kate Adams), who is destined to to strike the right note(s) with Trevor.
But something is going on in that rooming house for single women where Millie is living. Some of them are disappearing without a trace. Mrs. Meers (Lenora Nemetz), a Chinese-y woman of questionable authenticity, manages the rooming house. She is actually an embittered ex-actress running a white slave ring. Nemetz's two-chopsticks-rated performance is best described as a shanghaied send up gone rancid.
Although Nemetz gets the gong, she is abetted amusingly in her abductions by Ching Ho (James Seol) and Bun Foo (Billy Bustamante) two young and personable Chinese men with a yen for singing their songs in Chinese with projected English subtitles...that's funny. Also embroiled in the madcap mix of music and mysterious doings is Muzzy Van Hossmere (terrifically talented Brenda Baxton), who, as a wealthy society matron, who comes close to transcending her mediocre material.
The problem with ...Millie, is that it is trying to be the real thing in the wrong way. Most musical comedies of the 20s and 30s' were driven by jokes, gags and bigger-than-life stars, not to mention scores by the likes of Irving Berlin, the Gershwins, Rogers and Hart, and Cole Porter. This musical seems driven by desperation. No one is expecting the resurrection of that golden era, but it seems a shame that director Mark S. Hoebee, who found the right pace and style in Act II, couldn't see the dead spots that punctuate so much of Act I.
Except for the obligatory Charleston and variations thereof, choreographer Denis Jones doesn't go much beyond the derivative. Lighting designer Kirk Bookoman makes sure we don't miss any corner of Michael Schweikardt' candied Art-Deco settings, or any spangle or tassel on (the late) Martin Pakledinaz' vivacious costumes. Forgive this rant (people all around me were complaining), but Sound Designer Randy Hansen needs to explain why it is necessary to make the two leading sopranos sound as if they were obliged to break through the sound barrier. Shrill and deafening is no way for the otherwise modish Millie to be modern.
Thoroughly Modern Millie
Paper Mill Playhouse, 22 Brookside Drive, Millburn NJ
(973) 376 - 4343
Tickets: $26.00 - $97.00
Performances: Wednesday at 7 at 7:30 pm, Thursday at 1:30 pm and 7:30 pm, Friday at 8 pm, Saturday at 1:30 pm and 8 pm and Sunday at 1:30 and 7 PM.
From 04/10 Opened 04/14/13 Ends 05/05/13
Venus in Fur (George Street Playhouse)
For what it's worth: Jenni Putney, the terrific actress playing Vanda in the George Street Playhuse (in association with Philadelphia Theatre Company) production of "Venus in Fur gets to wear a pair of hip-length patent leather kinky boots that compare favorably as an eye-opener with any that are being worn in the current Broadway hit musical Kinky Boots. That Putney, who is making her George Street Playhouse debut, gives an eye-opening, comically seductive performance as the perversely industrious actress who vigorously conspires to get a role in an off-Broadway play provides most of the fun in a play whose point and purpose, however, continue to confound me.
David Ives's play in which ambition, showbiz and S &M are important elements created quite a stir when it first opened Off-Broadway. It catapulted Nina Arianda, who played Vanda, to stardom. It was subsequently and successfully moved to Broadway where it was enjoyed by as many as by those who were also baffled by it.
After seeing it first Off and then On Broadway and now in a fine production directed by Kip Fagan (currently being praised for his direction of Jesse Eisenberg's The Revisionist that is also likely to be moved to Broadway) I am prepared to say that it is probably not a good idea to seek out any meaning in its mercurial posturing, but simply enjoy it as a skillfully written and delectably performed diversion.
The other character is Thomas, the playwright who is also going to direct his own play. Not as tall or as voluptuous as his co-star, he is excellently played by Mark Alhadeff who was the understudy in the Broadway production and who as Thomas holds on to his manhood and his manners as best as he can under the circumstances afforded him.
Getting back to the S&M I alluded to above, the plot centers around the skillfully set-up, exactingly calculated machinations of a willful actress who is auditioning for a role in a play that Thomas has adapted from Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's classic erotic 1870 novel.
Thomas and Vanda (who just happens to have the same name as the character in the play/novel) assume their respective roles within the play, both affixed with affected transcontinental accents. They proceed with the reading of the text even as they retreat on occasion to bait and challenge each other in regard to their character's intentions and motivations.
We begin to sense the inherent danger in their testy but also tantalizing duet, mainly because we suspect that Vanda may have a mission that goes beyond simply getting hired. I don't want to spoil the initial set-up as it is very funny, and is a fine example of Ives's gift for quirky, skewed situation comedies. His first big hit All in the Timing was recently successfully revived Off Broadway.
Some degree of tension and apprehension is visible in Thomas as he begins to realize that he is helpless, even powerless to resist the pull and tug underway in the light of Vanda's determination to make him understand the psycho-sexual implications of his own play. Some of these digressions seem incredulously facile, but they do provoke laughter. The play takes Thomas and Vanda on a course of reactionary action that is probably meant to be erotic, but it is often simply erratic, even a bit tiresome.
Some may find some titillation in the more aggressively interpolated sexual interplay between the increasingly assertive Vanda and the incrementally ensnared Thomas. In between, there is humor to be found in the short, snappy phone conversations they each have with their presumed lovers outside the credibly evoked (by designer Jason Simms) rehearsal studio. At the end you may find yourself exclaiming "huh" rather than saying "aha," but in between there are enough "uh, ohs" to keep you involved.
Venus in Fur
George Street Playhouse, 9 Livingston Ave., New Brunswick, NJ
(732) 246 - 7717
Tickets: $28.00 - $67.00
Performances: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays, 2 p.m. Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.
From 04/23/13 Opened 04/26/13 Ends 05/18/13
For what it's worth: Jenni Putney, the terrific actress playing Vanda in the George Street Playhuse (in association with Philadelphia Theatre Company) production of "Venus in Fur gets to wear a pair of hip-length patent leather kinky boots that compare favorably as an eye-opener with any that are being worn in the current Broadway hit musical Kinky Boots. That Putney, who is making her George Street Playhouse debut, gives an eye-opening, comically seductive performance as the perversely industrious actress who vigorously conspires to get a role in an off-Broadway play provides most of the fun in a play whose point and purpose, however, continue to confound me.
David Ives's play in which ambition, showbiz and S &M are important elements created quite a stir when it first opened Off-Broadway. It catapulted Nina Arianda, who played Vanda, to stardom. It was subsequently and successfully moved to Broadway where it was enjoyed by as many as by those who were also baffled by it.
After seeing it first Off and then On Broadway and now in a fine production directed by Kip Fagan (currently being praised for his direction of Jesse Eisenberg's The Revisionist that is also likely to be moved to Broadway) I am prepared to say that it is probably not a good idea to seek out any meaning in its mercurial posturing, but simply enjoy it as a skillfully written and delectably performed diversion.
The other character is Thomas, the playwright who is also going to direct his own play. Not as tall or as voluptuous as his co-star, he is excellently played by Mark Alhadeff who was the understudy in the Broadway production and who as Thomas holds on to his manhood and his manners as best as he can under the circumstances afforded him.
Getting back to the S&M I alluded to above, the plot centers around the skillfully set-up, exactingly calculated machinations of a willful actress who is auditioning for a role in a play that Thomas has adapted from Leopold von Sacher-Masoch's classic erotic 1870 novel.
Thomas and Vanda (who just happens to have the same name as the character in the play/novel) assume their respective roles within the play, both affixed with affected transcontinental accents. They proceed with the reading of the text even as they retreat on occasion to bait and challenge each other in regard to their character's intentions and motivations.
We begin to sense the inherent danger in their testy but also tantalizing duet, mainly because we suspect that Vanda may have a mission that goes beyond simply getting hired. I don't want to spoil the initial set-up as it is very funny, and is a fine example of Ives's gift for quirky, skewed situation comedies. His first big hit All in the Timing was recently successfully revived Off Broadway.
Some degree of tension and apprehension is visible in Thomas as he begins to realize that he is helpless, even powerless to resist the pull and tug underway in the light of Vanda's determination to make him understand the psycho-sexual implications of his own play. Some of these digressions seem incredulously facile, but they do provoke laughter. The play takes Thomas and Vanda on a course of reactionary action that is probably meant to be erotic, but it is often simply erratic, even a bit tiresome.
Some may find some titillation in the more aggressively interpolated sexual interplay between the increasingly assertive Vanda and the incrementally ensnared Thomas. In between, there is humor to be found in the short, snappy phone conversations they each have with their presumed lovers outside the credibly evoked (by designer Jason Simms) rehearsal studio. At the end you may find yourself exclaiming "huh" rather than saying "aha," but in between there are enough "uh, ohs" to keep you involved.
Venus in Fur
George Street Playhouse, 9 Livingston Ave., New Brunswick, NJ
(732) 246 - 7717
Tickets: $28.00 - $67.00
Performances: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 7 p.m. Sundays, 2 p.m. Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays.
From 04/23/13 Opened 04/26/13 Ends 05/18/13
Love Therapy
Prolific Australian-based playwright Wendy Beckett is also registered in Sidney as a psychology counselor. She has used this professional benefit to bring personal insight, if not much persuasive credibility, to her play Love Therapy about an attractive, thirty-four year old divorced psychologist who has recently moved to New York.
Colleen Fitzgerald (Margot White) hopes to secure certification to practice with the (fictional) New York Psychology Council. Her apparently controversial technique, however, as well as her questionable relationship with a few patients with whom she has been entrusted, is currently under review.
Under the close and critical scrutiny of Carol (Janet Zarish), the group's supervisor, Colleen is determined to prove her theory that overt demonstrations of love and affection for patients should be an integral part of their therapy. Is she for real we ask ourselves, even as Carol begins to question the expedient practicality of Colleen's unorthodox approach? Worse yet, her treatments are not getting the kind of results the council expects.
The issues that becomes apparent soon enough are whether Colleen's own emotional issues — her mother didn't love her and a failed marriage — and her questionable ability to help three of her most difficult patients will surface and prevent her from being certified to practice psychology in New York. They are Brian (Christopher Burns), a volatile, rage-fueled business man undergoing a divorce and an unfair settlement; Steven (David Bishins), an unhappily married blue-collar worker and compulsive womanizer; and Mary (also played by Janet Zarish), a depressed, grieving mother who has just lost her husband and daughter.
Snuggled in between Colleen's progressively problematic sessions with her patients is bleached-blonde Madge (Alison Fraser), the straight-talking down-to-earth waitress with "a heart of gold," in the coffee shop of the professional building where Colleen goes daily. It's here where the friendly Madge, who sees right through Colleen's defenses, gives forth with the kind of worldly advice on life and love that Thelma Ritter used to hand out in countless movies. It's not that Colleen is apt to take Madge's advice or listen to her perspective on the value of psychology, but we are grateful for raspy-voiced Fraser's snappy delivery of her lines.
I won't spoil things by saying that things go from bad to worse for Colleen as her unprofessional personal involvement with Steven, her misreading of Brian's most basic character flaw, and her inability to foresee the obvious with Mary results in the tragically predictable. It is surprising to me that Beckett, who has written more than twenty-five plays and directed more than forty, has come up with a text that doesn't come through with anything close to a surprise, certainly not for anyone who has ever taken Psychology Course 101, .
All the fine actors, however, may be commended for taking their incredulously conceived roles seriously even if we don't. Under Evan Bergman's steadfast direction, Love Therapy is never boring at eighty five minutes, but also not as bracing as the walls of designer Jo Winiarski's uncluttered setting.
Love Therapy
DR2 Theatre, 101 East 15th Street (212) 239 - 6200
From 04/20/13 Opened 04/29/13. Closing 5/30/13
Prolific Australian-based playwright Wendy Beckett is also registered in Sidney as a psychology counselor. She has used this professional benefit to bring personal insight, if not much persuasive credibility, to her play Love Therapy about an attractive, thirty-four year old divorced psychologist who has recently moved to New York.
Colleen Fitzgerald (Margot White) hopes to secure certification to practice with the (fictional) New York Psychology Council. Her apparently controversial technique, however, as well as her questionable relationship with a few patients with whom she has been entrusted, is currently under review.
Under the close and critical scrutiny of Carol (Janet Zarish), the group's supervisor, Colleen is determined to prove her theory that overt demonstrations of love and affection for patients should be an integral part of their therapy. Is she for real we ask ourselves, even as Carol begins to question the expedient practicality of Colleen's unorthodox approach? Worse yet, her treatments are not getting the kind of results the council expects.
The issues that becomes apparent soon enough are whether Colleen's own emotional issues — her mother didn't love her and a failed marriage — and her questionable ability to help three of her most difficult patients will surface and prevent her from being certified to practice psychology in New York. They are Brian (Christopher Burns), a volatile, rage-fueled business man undergoing a divorce and an unfair settlement; Steven (David Bishins), an unhappily married blue-collar worker and compulsive womanizer; and Mary (also played by Janet Zarish), a depressed, grieving mother who has just lost her husband and daughter.
Snuggled in between Colleen's progressively problematic sessions with her patients is bleached-blonde Madge (Alison Fraser), the straight-talking down-to-earth waitress with "a heart of gold," in the coffee shop of the professional building where Colleen goes daily. It's here where the friendly Madge, who sees right through Colleen's defenses, gives forth with the kind of worldly advice on life and love that Thelma Ritter used to hand out in countless movies. It's not that Colleen is apt to take Madge's advice or listen to her perspective on the value of psychology, but we are grateful for raspy-voiced Fraser's snappy delivery of her lines.
I won't spoil things by saying that things go from bad to worse for Colleen as her unprofessional personal involvement with Steven, her misreading of Brian's most basic character flaw, and her inability to foresee the obvious with Mary results in the tragically predictable. It is surprising to me that Beckett, who has written more than twenty-five plays and directed more than forty, has come up with a text that doesn't come through with anything close to a surprise, certainly not for anyone who has ever taken Psychology Course 101, .
All the fine actors, however, may be commended for taking their incredulously conceived roles seriously even if we don't. Under Evan Bergman's steadfast direction, Love Therapy is never boring at eighty five minutes, but also not as bracing as the walls of designer Jo Winiarski's uncluttered setting.
Love Therapy
DR2 Theatre, 101 East 15th Street (212) 239 - 6200
From 04/20/13 Opened 04/29/13. Closing 5/30/13
Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (The Golden Theater)
| One can always count on a play, or two or three or more by Anton
Chekhov to pop up every season. So it is hardly serendipitous
that Christopher Durang’s funny valentine to the great Russian
playwright, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, has
opened at the Lincoln Center’s Mitzi Newhouse Theater at
virtually the same time that a sublime revival of Chekhov’s first
full-length play Ivanov opened at
the Classic Stage Company. My mixed feelings about Durang’s “dramedy” when I first saw it earlier this fall during its break-in at Princeton’s McCarter Theater, really haven’t changed. That preview does however serves to make me appreciate the sharper, more clearly defined performances that are now in evidence. I have to assume that there hasn’t been much pruning of the text. It still takes two and one quarter hours for Durang’s whimsically overwrought, affectionately woebegone, Chekhovian-rooted characters to complete their journey in the contemporary setting. It's irrepressibly playful as ever. Durang seems to agree with most scholars that Chekhov’s plays, notwithstanding their tragic implications, are essentially comedies. He may be alone in thinking, nothing wrong in that and that some of the great Russian playwright’s most familiar characters deserve to be transmogrified just enough to suit his own off-the-wall style. Just how funny they should be or are when scrambled up by Durang, is the question partially answered in the often entertaining and just as often perplexing Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. Although this is decidedly not a parody, it only takes a few minutes in the company of the characters to become keenly aware of their nevertheless parodic posturing and predicaments. There is the unhappy, bipolar Sonia (Kristine Nielsen) who “pines” for her gay, emotionally passive, intellectually unfulfilled playwright step-brother Vanya (David Hyde Pierce). There's also their self-centered, glamorous, successful sister/actress Masha (Sigourney Weaver) , who resents being the family bread-winner and effusively gushes over her incorrigibly narcissistic boy-toy lover Spike (Billy Magnussen). Then there is the ranting and raving prognosticating housemaid Cassandra (Shalita Grant), who has been inexplicably lifted from Greek tragedy. Lastly, there is young Nina (Genevieve Angelson), the demure, and unsophisticated girl-next-door >who, as you may guess, is destined to get a lift from Spike. The bad news —- and it’s not really that bad —- is that the play’s default setting is a wildly paradoxical world. It's a world in which Durang’s cartoonishly conceived characters only fitfully inhabit with any modicum of reality the Chekhov-induced orbit assigned to them. The starry cast, under the necessarily indulgent direction of Nicholas Martin, manages to penetrate the rather insubstantial core of Durang’s text, punctuated as it is with funny lines and funny business. There is some time out for a glimpse at a Chekhovian-esque character that may or may not be sincerely/desperately trying to become flesh and blood. With inclusions and illusions-a-plenty to such familiar Chekhov classics as The Seagull, The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya, and The Three Sisters, Durang's characters blithely revisits the Russian playwright’s interest. Themes covered include sibling rivalry, suppressed desires, and the possible loss of the estate. More purposefully we are revisiting Durang’s oeuvre, where just being recklessly inane and irrepressibly funny may be enough. The play is set in the present with the action confined to the airy morning room of a rustic farmhouse in Bucks County, PA. Handsomely designed by David Korins, the wicker furnishings and unpretentious but generous decor gives us a fine perspective of the country home where Vanya and Sonia have continued to live forlornly following the death of the parents. Here, they have drifted into a kind of resigned inertia. Dscontent is afoot from the moment we see Vanya and Sonia squabble over how and who should be serving the morning coffee. What are a few smashed cups hurled across the room with unexpected rage by Nielsen, who, as the love-starved, deliriously dotty Sonia reveals her frustrations to the bemused Vanya? And who could be more demonstrably deadpan in his response than Pierce's Vanya, who has to remind her that “I march to a different drummer”? Being different is a state that apparently goes unnoticed in this household, particularly when it comes to Cassandra, the by-visions-possessed housemaid who is compelled to blurt out the latest doom-and-gloom bulletins as soon as they pop into her head. The role is played by a wonderfully funny, and intentionally designated scene-stealing Ms. Grant. Warnings can do little to stop the intrusion of the maddeningly self-adoring, and implacably condescending Masha. As played with a brilliant disregard for subtlety by the stunning Ms. Weaver, she has both good news and bad news to share. Accompanied by her facetiously fawning young lover, an up-and-coming actor, Spike (played with a spirited exuberance in and out of his clothes by Magnussen), Masha brings two bits of news: one is that everyone has been invited to a neighbor’s costume party, and two, the house has to be sold to pay the bills. Also invited to attend, only because she seems to hang around waiting to be either discovered or seduced, whichever comes first, is the pretty young aspiring actress Nina (nice work by Ms. Angelson). The primary delight of Durang’s play is watching the quirky Nielsen inhabit a character who drifts from melancholy to mean, from desperation to hope without losing her emotionally tight grip on the play’s most complexly considered character. With regard for a play that is primarily character-driven, one is likely to be a little disappointed by the main plot device of a costume party , to bring Sonia the prospects of a new life . No it's not in Moscow, but we’ll take what we get as Masha decides that they all go to the party as characters from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Splendid recreations by costume designer Emily Rebholz get their deserved laughter and applause. A contentious confrontation between Masha and Sonia, played to the hilt by Nielsen and Weaver, brings long overdue bite and bark to the play. It is, unfortunately, climaxed by a bit of unfunny shtick. Vanya has a long-winded, wearisome tirade late in Act II about “missing the past” that though a tour de force for Pierce, is a digressive, often incomprehensible drag on the play. Nevertheless, the audience at the performance I attended was especially eager to acknowledge Vanya’s long-awaited emotional release, as breathlessly delivered by Pierce. I have great admiration for the scarily hilarious, joyously perverse sociopolitical rants that ignite so many of Durang’s plays, such as Miss Witherspoon, Why Torture is Wrong and the People Who Love Them, as well such early gems like The Marriage of Bette and Boo and Beyond Therapy If I mostly savor the memory of his most gloriously deranged farce Betty’s Summer Vacation, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is also likely to be added to his canon as the most adorably addled. |
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The Nance (Lyceum Theater)
In Douglas Carter Beane's new play with music, Nathan Lane plays the titular role. It proves to be quite a teaming for one of America's most talented actors in a memorable role (another peak in a history of peaks) in a funnily sad play.
The Nance is for those who have steadfastly waited for the talented Beane to write a really provocative, dramatically rich and fulfilling play, following such laudable teasers as As Bees in Honey Drown and The Little Dog Laughed. Beane is in top form. His instinct for wit delivered with a sting is matched in this instance by an unconventional story based on a legacy of injustice that is as emotionally affecting as it is rigorously entertaining.
For those who think they know what to expect from Lane, he gives the kind of outstanding performance that challenges for supremacy the iconic award-winning roles he played in The Producers, Guys and Dolls and Love! Valour! Compassion!. As the Nance, Lane allows us to see into the heart-breaking core of a disconsolate man who is compelled to endure the slings and arrows of an unforgiving society, even as he remains a mere comical adjunct to the more provocatively demonstrative undulations of others in his profession.
The theater in New York City in 1937, like the rest of the country, may have been in a state of recovery from the economic ravages of the Great Depression, but burlesque was definitely on the endangered list. Often commonly referred to in print as "burlesk houses," such venues such as the Irving Place Theater where much of the play takes place, were being given severe fines and the threat of being closed down by Mayor LaGuardia's newly enforced morality. This morality also extended to a crackdown on openly homosexual activity, even the potential for it.
It's a kind of double indemnity for Chauncey Miles (Lane) who may be a popular "nancy" headliner in the innocently bawdy skits at the Irving Place Theatre, but is also a not-so-innocent homosexual in real life. His after work digression to seek out sexual encounters with men serve as our introduction to a poignantly reckless character. One such encounter, however, proves that love may be found in the most unlikely place and provides the basis for making this a very moving play.
As splendidly directed by Jack O'Brien, The Nance begins at an automat which is evidently a popular cruising spot at the time and where Chauncey surreptitiously picks-up Ned (Jonny Orsini), a tall, good-looking, if insupportably, naive country bumpkin down on his luck.
In an untypical gesture to feed his curiosity and also fuel his attraction to this rather personable young man newly arrived in the city, Chauncey brings him home to his apartment where Ned takes a bath (the obligatory male nude scene). Having been invited to spend the night, Ned discloses his preference for men and also the failure of his marriage before he knew the score. In his Broadway debut, Orsini does more than hold his own against a master scene stealer and exists as an extraordinary character.
Ned's genuine and generous display of affection and sincerity is hard for Chauncey to accept and is the heartbreaking core of the play. Chauncey may be a cornucopia of flippant and funny remarks, such as alluding to the decor in his cluttered-with-Orientalia apartment as "Anna Mae Wong's wet dream," yet his cautious acceptance of Ned as a live-in lover is allowed to blossom for a while.
The relationship becomes complicated when Ned is given a job of straight man at the theater. Even with no stage experience, Ned is welcomed to the generally harmonious company, except tby understandably worry-wart top banana Efram (a terrific performance by Lewis J. Stadlen) whose fears that Chauncey's nancy act will bring in the vice squad. Playing queer in drag is evidently acceptable.
Although it is pretty obvious, the question is whether we can or cannot see the schism that could easily appear in the relationship. Chauncey can't stop himself from cruising, and Ned wants the conflicted, actually self-hating, Chauncey to remain faithful. Interspersed are the hoary skits (with original songs by Glen Kelly) and silly bump and grind routines performed by the house strippers, Joan (Jenni Barber), Carmen (Andrea Burns) and a wonderfully feisty Cady Huffman (Sylvie) the latter his "Bolshevik sister" and dedicated social activist. This allows for some enlivening political posturing to be imposed on the plot. Although it is pretty obvious, the question is whether we can or cannot see the schism that could easily appear in the relationship. Chauncey can't stop himself from cruising, and Ned wants the conflicted, actually self-hating, Chauncey to remain faithful. Interspersed are the skits and songs augmented with short and silly routines performed by the house strippers, Joan (Jenni Barber), Carmen (Andrea Burns) and a wonderfully feisty Cady Huffman (Sylvie)— the latter his "Bolshevik sister" and dedicated social activist. This allows for some enlivening political posturing to be imposed on the plot.
Chauncey makes no bones about his hatred for President Roosevelt and for being a staunch Republican. This is a side of him that is most provocative and puzzling. He, like so many self-deluding citizens of our nation's minorities who vote against their own best interests, chooses to hide his feelings of guilt behind conservative values. Of course, that allows Sylvie to remark, "Being a homosexual Republican is like being a black member of the Klu-Klux-Klan."
There is no hiding for any of these characters within the marvelous revolving sets designed by that genius John Lee Beatty to transfer us fluidly from the automat, to back stage of the theater, to Chauncey's apartment faster than it takes for the balloons to burst over a stripper's boobs. This is a play about the end of an era, but also the beginning of what will become a long and continuing struggle for "the used and discarded" in our society to assert and attain their rightful place in our world.
The Nance
Lyceum Theatre, 149 W. 45th Street
Tickets: $137.00 - $37.00
Performances: Tuesday evenings at 7pm, Wednesday through Saturday evenings at 8pm, with matinees Wednesday and Saturday at 2pm and Sunday at 3pm.
Review by Simon Saltzman based on performance 04/13/13
From 03/21/13 Opened 04/15/13 Ends 08/11/13
In Douglas Carter Beane's new play with music, Nathan Lane plays the titular role. It proves to be quite a teaming for one of America's most talented actors in a memorable role (another peak in a history of peaks) in a funnily sad play.
The Nance is for those who have steadfastly waited for the talented Beane to write a really provocative, dramatically rich and fulfilling play, following such laudable teasers as As Bees in Honey Drown and The Little Dog Laughed. Beane is in top form. His instinct for wit delivered with a sting is matched in this instance by an unconventional story based on a legacy of injustice that is as emotionally affecting as it is rigorously entertaining.
For those who think they know what to expect from Lane, he gives the kind of outstanding performance that challenges for supremacy the iconic award-winning roles he played in The Producers, Guys and Dolls and Love! Valour! Compassion!. As the Nance, Lane allows us to see into the heart-breaking core of a disconsolate man who is compelled to endure the slings and arrows of an unforgiving society, even as he remains a mere comical adjunct to the more provocatively demonstrative undulations of others in his profession.
The theater in New York City in 1937, like the rest of the country, may have been in a state of recovery from the economic ravages of the Great Depression, but burlesque was definitely on the endangered list. Often commonly referred to in print as "burlesk houses," such venues such as the Irving Place Theater where much of the play takes place, were being given severe fines and the threat of being closed down by Mayor LaGuardia's newly enforced morality. This morality also extended to a crackdown on openly homosexual activity, even the potential for it.
It's a kind of double indemnity for Chauncey Miles (Lane) who may be a popular "nancy" headliner in the innocently bawdy skits at the Irving Place Theatre, but is also a not-so-innocent homosexual in real life. His after work digression to seek out sexual encounters with men serve as our introduction to a poignantly reckless character. One such encounter, however, proves that love may be found in the most unlikely place and provides the basis for making this a very moving play.
As splendidly directed by Jack O'Brien, The Nance begins at an automat which is evidently a popular cruising spot at the time and where Chauncey surreptitiously picks-up Ned (Jonny Orsini), a tall, good-looking, if insupportably, naive country bumpkin down on his luck.
In an untypical gesture to feed his curiosity and also fuel his attraction to this rather personable young man newly arrived in the city, Chauncey brings him home to his apartment where Ned takes a bath (the obligatory male nude scene). Having been invited to spend the night, Ned discloses his preference for men and also the failure of his marriage before he knew the score. In his Broadway debut, Orsini does more than hold his own against a master scene stealer and exists as an extraordinary character.
Ned's genuine and generous display of affection and sincerity is hard for Chauncey to accept and is the heartbreaking core of the play. Chauncey may be a cornucopia of flippant and funny remarks, such as alluding to the decor in his cluttered-with-Orientalia apartment as "Anna Mae Wong's wet dream," yet his cautious acceptance of Ned as a live-in lover is allowed to blossom for a while.
The relationship becomes complicated when Ned is given a job of straight man at the theater. Even with no stage experience, Ned is welcomed to the generally harmonious company, except tby understandably worry-wart top banana Efram (a terrific performance by Lewis J. Stadlen) whose fears that Chauncey's nancy act will bring in the vice squad. Playing queer in drag is evidently acceptable.
Although it is pretty obvious, the question is whether we can or cannot see the schism that could easily appear in the relationship. Chauncey can't stop himself from cruising, and Ned wants the conflicted, actually self-hating, Chauncey to remain faithful. Interspersed are the hoary skits (with original songs by Glen Kelly) and silly bump and grind routines performed by the house strippers, Joan (Jenni Barber), Carmen (Andrea Burns) and a wonderfully feisty Cady Huffman (Sylvie) the latter his "Bolshevik sister" and dedicated social activist. This allows for some enlivening political posturing to be imposed on the plot. Although it is pretty obvious, the question is whether we can or cannot see the schism that could easily appear in the relationship. Chauncey can't stop himself from cruising, and Ned wants the conflicted, actually self-hating, Chauncey to remain faithful. Interspersed are the skits and songs augmented with short and silly routines performed by the house strippers, Joan (Jenni Barber), Carmen (Andrea Burns) and a wonderfully feisty Cady Huffman (Sylvie)— the latter his "Bolshevik sister" and dedicated social activist. This allows for some enlivening political posturing to be imposed on the plot.
Chauncey makes no bones about his hatred for President Roosevelt and for being a staunch Republican. This is a side of him that is most provocative and puzzling. He, like so many self-deluding citizens of our nation's minorities who vote against their own best interests, chooses to hide his feelings of guilt behind conservative values. Of course, that allows Sylvie to remark, "Being a homosexual Republican is like being a black member of the Klu-Klux-Klan."
There is no hiding for any of these characters within the marvelous revolving sets designed by that genius John Lee Beatty to transfer us fluidly from the automat, to back stage of the theater, to Chauncey's apartment faster than it takes for the balloons to burst over a stripper's boobs. This is a play about the end of an era, but also the beginning of what will become a long and continuing struggle for "the used and discarded" in our society to assert and attain their rightful place in our world.
The Nance
Lyceum Theatre, 149 W. 45th Street
Tickets: $137.00 - $37.00
Performances: Tuesday evenings at 7pm, Wednesday through Saturday evenings at 8pm, with matinees Wednesday and Saturday at 2pm and Sunday at 3pm.
Review by Simon Saltzman based on performance 04/13/13
From 03/21/13 Opened 04/15/13 Ends 08/11/13
Motown: The Musical
At the beginning of Motown: The Musical the entire company is gathered on the stage of the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. It is 1983 and many of the recording stars who got their first break and achieved success through the promotional and marketing efforts of Motown Records beginning in the 1950s are there to celebrate the company's 25th anniversary.
For a while it looks as if Berry Gordy, the multi-talented founder of Motown, is not going to make an appearance at this all-star reunion because he's doesn't feel appreciated or worse. If you've seen the dozens of movies where a similar scene occurs, it won't exactly be a spoiler alert to say that at the end of the musical he makes his well-calculated, if dramatically delayed, appearance. And everyone who was ever mad at him is suddenly glad with him and everyone sings.
Among those with whom we should be most glad to celebrate, however, is this musical's director Charles Randolph Wright who has brilliantly channeled all the resources afforded him in this music-driven but unfortunately book-burdened musical. Wright, a multi-talented theater artist and playwright (Blue), has shaped Motown's collection of real-life memories and theatrical cliches into an edifying entertainment. But Berry Gordy has ill-advisedly authored this musical based on his published memoire To Be Love, The Music, the Magic, The Memories of Motown.
Although Gordy is also credited as a producer, Motown: The Musical doesn't come off as a vanity production since its impressive assemblage of performers happily overshadows the then-I-did-then-I wrote-then-I-discovered chronicle. Gordy is impressively portrayed in the filtered light of the author's self-serving vision by Brandon Victor Dixon. Be that as it may, the tangential familial memories, his marriage, the conflicts with his stars within the record industry and the law suits that come with the territory are anchored weightlessly to a musical that works its magic as a humdinger of a revue.
The 'book reveals no eye-opening or ear-pricking insights into Gordy's dealings with his real family or recording family — except perhaps for Diana Ross of the Supremes (a sensational performance by Valisia LeKae). It is his discovery and guidance of the Supremes and lead singer Ross that is the most developed portion of the book, but it too falls short of anything that could be called revelatory or moving. The Gordy-Ross relationship gives us the clearest hook through which we see the dedication of this formidable entrepreneur, in particular developing the persona of the young trio of girls into The Supremes.
Lekae, in a collection of stunning gowns by Esosa) gives the most dramatically exciting performance in the show. She has some terrific close-to show-stopping musical numbers including "I Hear a Symphony," "You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You" and "You're All I Need to Get By," a duet with Ross and Gordy. Kudos to Esosa for defining the decades with acres of wittily fashioned attire.
To get the plot moving, we are transported back to 1938, the Gordy home in Detroit where the young Berry (the astonishingly talented Raymond Luke, Jr. (who also plays the young Stevie Wonder and young Michael Jackson) wants to grow up to be Joe Louis but then more fortuitously catches the music bug watching the dancing ("Black Like Me") in his neighborhood. The choreography by Patricia Wilcox & Warren Adams energetically and bracingly captures the flavor of the 1930s as it does all the subsequent eras.
It's in 1957 Detroit where Gordy is impelled to start his own record label and fearlessly challenge the white power brokers of the record industry. We see him begin life-long friendships with Marvin Gaye (Bryan Terrell Clark) and Smoky Robinson (Charl Brown) who reappear frequently to reflect their rise to fame and fortune and their affection for Gordy.
Sometimes the fast-moving musical numbers with many songs truncated, appear as fleeting as the history that is embedded, like flash cards to recall the racial segregation, the rioting, the assassinations of both Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and President John Kennedy.
Also in state of motion are the colorful modernist settings by designer David Korins that expand and contract, rise and fall as fluid, dimensional graphics. Amid the waves of scenery shifting and a passing parade of history are interspersed some really wonderful music moments that brought cheers from the audience with whom I saw the show.
Cheers greeted the appearances of Stevie Wonder (Ryan Shaw) and such various boy and girl groups as The Supremes ("Buttered Popcorn" "Where Did Our Love Go"), The Miracles ("Shop Around") The Marvelettes ("Please Mr. Postman"), Mary Wells and The Tempations ("By By Baby"/"Two Lovers Medley"), Martha Reeves and the Vandellas ("Dancing in the Street"), The Contours ("Do You Love Me"), plus many others doing bits of their hits among the show's sixty-or-so songs. Unfortunately the program does not identify each song with its performer.
A standout among the groups is The Jackson Five featuring a whirling Michael Jackson, as splendidly played by Luke, Jr. at the performance I saw. A short backstage scene after The Supremes have performed "Stop in the Name of Love" on the stiff-necked Ed Sullivan's (a perfect impersonation by John Jellison) TV show is very funny. on the stiff-necked Ed Sullilvan (a perfect impersonation by John Jellison) is very funny.
Despite its rambling dramatic arc, Motown: The Musical has what it takes in the way of great music that is certain to bring back memories for many of the decades as well being a reminder of how apropos was the nickname given to Motown's first headquarters — Hitsville, U.S.A.
Motown: The Musical
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, 205 West 46th Street
877-250-2929
Tickets: $57.00 - $142.00
Performances: Tues at 7pm; Wed - Sat at 8pm; Wed and Sat at 2pm; Sun at 3pm
From 04/08/13 Opened 04/14
At the beginning of Motown: The Musical the entire company is gathered on the stage of the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. It is 1983 and many of the recording stars who got their first break and achieved success through the promotional and marketing efforts of Motown Records beginning in the 1950s are there to celebrate the company's 25th anniversary.
For a while it looks as if Berry Gordy, the multi-talented founder of Motown, is not going to make an appearance at this all-star reunion because he's doesn't feel appreciated or worse. If you've seen the dozens of movies where a similar scene occurs, it won't exactly be a spoiler alert to say that at the end of the musical he makes his well-calculated, if dramatically delayed, appearance. And everyone who was ever mad at him is suddenly glad with him and everyone sings.
Among those with whom we should be most glad to celebrate, however, is this musical's director Charles Randolph Wright who has brilliantly channeled all the resources afforded him in this music-driven but unfortunately book-burdened musical. Wright, a multi-talented theater artist and playwright (Blue), has shaped Motown's collection of real-life memories and theatrical cliches into an edifying entertainment. But Berry Gordy has ill-advisedly authored this musical based on his published memoire To Be Love, The Music, the Magic, The Memories of Motown.
Although Gordy is also credited as a producer, Motown: The Musical doesn't come off as a vanity production since its impressive assemblage of performers happily overshadows the then-I-did-then-I wrote-then-I-discovered chronicle. Gordy is impressively portrayed in the filtered light of the author's self-serving vision by Brandon Victor Dixon. Be that as it may, the tangential familial memories, his marriage, the conflicts with his stars within the record industry and the law suits that come with the territory are anchored weightlessly to a musical that works its magic as a humdinger of a revue.
The 'book reveals no eye-opening or ear-pricking insights into Gordy's dealings with his real family or recording family — except perhaps for Diana Ross of the Supremes (a sensational performance by Valisia LeKae). It is his discovery and guidance of the Supremes and lead singer Ross that is the most developed portion of the book, but it too falls short of anything that could be called revelatory or moving. The Gordy-Ross relationship gives us the clearest hook through which we see the dedication of this formidable entrepreneur, in particular developing the persona of the young trio of girls into The Supremes.
Lekae, in a collection of stunning gowns by Esosa) gives the most dramatically exciting performance in the show. She has some terrific close-to show-stopping musical numbers including "I Hear a Symphony," "You're Nobody 'Til Somebody Loves You" and "You're All I Need to Get By," a duet with Ross and Gordy. Kudos to Esosa for defining the decades with acres of wittily fashioned attire.
To get the plot moving, we are transported back to 1938, the Gordy home in Detroit where the young Berry (the astonishingly talented Raymond Luke, Jr. (who also plays the young Stevie Wonder and young Michael Jackson) wants to grow up to be Joe Louis but then more fortuitously catches the music bug watching the dancing ("Black Like Me") in his neighborhood. The choreography by Patricia Wilcox & Warren Adams energetically and bracingly captures the flavor of the 1930s as it does all the subsequent eras.
It's in 1957 Detroit where Gordy is impelled to start his own record label and fearlessly challenge the white power brokers of the record industry. We see him begin life-long friendships with Marvin Gaye (Bryan Terrell Clark) and Smoky Robinson (Charl Brown) who reappear frequently to reflect their rise to fame and fortune and their affection for Gordy.
Sometimes the fast-moving musical numbers with many songs truncated, appear as fleeting as the history that is embedded, like flash cards to recall the racial segregation, the rioting, the assassinations of both Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and President John Kennedy.
Also in state of motion are the colorful modernist settings by designer David Korins that expand and contract, rise and fall as fluid, dimensional graphics. Amid the waves of scenery shifting and a passing parade of history are interspersed some really wonderful music moments that brought cheers from the audience with whom I saw the show.
Cheers greeted the appearances of Stevie Wonder (Ryan Shaw) and such various boy and girl groups as The Supremes ("Buttered Popcorn" "Where Did Our Love Go"), The Miracles ("Shop Around") The Marvelettes ("Please Mr. Postman"), Mary Wells and The Tempations ("By By Baby"/"Two Lovers Medley"), Martha Reeves and the Vandellas ("Dancing in the Street"), The Contours ("Do You Love Me"), plus many others doing bits of their hits among the show's sixty-or-so songs. Unfortunately the program does not identify each song with its performer.
A standout among the groups is The Jackson Five featuring a whirling Michael Jackson, as splendidly played by Luke, Jr. at the performance I saw. A short backstage scene after The Supremes have performed "Stop in the Name of Love" on the stiff-necked Ed Sullivan's (a perfect impersonation by John Jellison) TV show is very funny. on the stiff-necked Ed Sullilvan (a perfect impersonation by John Jellison) is very funny.
Despite its rambling dramatic arc, Motown: The Musical has what it takes in the way of great music that is certain to bring back memories for many of the decades as well being a reminder of how apropos was the nickname given to Motown's first headquarters — Hitsville, U.S.A.
Motown: The Musical
Lunt-Fontanne Theatre, 205 West 46th Street
877-250-2929
Tickets: $57.00 - $142.00
Performances: Tues at 7pm; Wed - Sat at 8pm; Wed and Sat at 2pm; Sun at 3pm
From 04/08/13 Opened 04/14
Shakespeare in Vegas (Dreamcatcher Repertory Theater)
What is a disheartened, disillusioned yet dedicated New York actor to do when she is offered a lucrative contract by a Las Vegas "wise guy" to head west to "sin city" and build a company to present plays by Shakespeare? No longer an ingenue and certainly no fool, the forty-something Margo (Laura Ekstrand) does rush in ("I cannot take the heartbreak anymore") and accepts the offer that no out-of-work actor would refuse. Tony (a terrific Eli Ganias) may have a tough exterior, but inside he harbors a tender and abiding love for the Bard that he has inherited from his grandmother in the old country.
In Suzanne Bradbeer's very funny comedy, Shakespeare in Vegas, we see how frustrating it is for Margo to work with actors who have no discernable talent and no previous experience playing Shakespeare, as well as to fulfill entrepreneur Tony's pledge to his dying grandmother to "bring Shakespeare to the new world." That Tony carries the burden of a generations-old family curse, even as he is the target of a rival family's vendetta, adds a bit of goofy grit and some gunplay to the plot.
Laughs are abundant as Margot tries to make the most of her first production Antony and Cleopatra casting herself as "the queen of the g.d. Nile and hoping to get decent support from her handmaidens - a strip stripper Collette (Rachel Lee) who is mainly concerned with balancing her boobs in the skimpy and sparkling Egyptian attire and a jealous, loud-mouthed and curvaceous Hooter's employee Merrie Jo (Jessica O'Hara).
For her second production, Romeo and Juliet, she has to deal with the insecurities of a twenty-something, handsome ex con Mike (Barron B. Bass) who has never set foot on a stage or held a sword, but who gets some extra sexual encouragement from Merrie Jo. Expect more hilarity when the Scottish Play hits the boards and a hit man appears (also played by Bass) and interferes with Tony's ambitious plans to give the customers "tits and ass and iambic pentameter."
Under John Pietrowski's nimble direction, the silliness of the premise is buoyed by the crackling, crisply delivered dialogue. However modestly designed, all of the various locations allow opportunities for the five excellent actors to get into the full spirit of this fast-moving romp. A co-production of Dreamcatcher Rep & Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, Shakespeare in Vegas will undoubtedly add to the award-winning playwright's growing canon of acclaimed plays that includes Full Bloom produced at the Barrington Stage in 2000. Word of mouth should generate good houses before the end of this all-too-short run.
Shakespeare in Vegas
Dreamcatcher Repertory Theater, Oakes Center, 120 Morris Avenue, Summit, NJ
(908) 514 - 9654
From 04/04 Opened 04/06/13 Ends 04/21/13
What is a disheartened, disillusioned yet dedicated New York actor to do when she is offered a lucrative contract by a Las Vegas "wise guy" to head west to "sin city" and build a company to present plays by Shakespeare? No longer an ingenue and certainly no fool, the forty-something Margo (Laura Ekstrand) does rush in ("I cannot take the heartbreak anymore") and accepts the offer that no out-of-work actor would refuse. Tony (a terrific Eli Ganias) may have a tough exterior, but inside he harbors a tender and abiding love for the Bard that he has inherited from his grandmother in the old country.
In Suzanne Bradbeer's very funny comedy, Shakespeare in Vegas, we see how frustrating it is for Margo to work with actors who have no discernable talent and no previous experience playing Shakespeare, as well as to fulfill entrepreneur Tony's pledge to his dying grandmother to "bring Shakespeare to the new world." That Tony carries the burden of a generations-old family curse, even as he is the target of a rival family's vendetta, adds a bit of goofy grit and some gunplay to the plot.
Laughs are abundant as Margot tries to make the most of her first production Antony and Cleopatra casting herself as "the queen of the g.d. Nile and hoping to get decent support from her handmaidens - a strip stripper Collette (Rachel Lee) who is mainly concerned with balancing her boobs in the skimpy and sparkling Egyptian attire and a jealous, loud-mouthed and curvaceous Hooter's employee Merrie Jo (Jessica O'Hara).
For her second production, Romeo and Juliet, she has to deal with the insecurities of a twenty-something, handsome ex con Mike (Barron B. Bass) who has never set foot on a stage or held a sword, but who gets some extra sexual encouragement from Merrie Jo. Expect more hilarity when the Scottish Play hits the boards and a hit man appears (also played by Bass) and interferes with Tony's ambitious plans to give the customers "tits and ass and iambic pentameter."
Under John Pietrowski's nimble direction, the silliness of the premise is buoyed by the crackling, crisply delivered dialogue. However modestly designed, all of the various locations allow opportunities for the five excellent actors to get into the full spirit of this fast-moving romp. A co-production of Dreamcatcher Rep & Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, Shakespeare in Vegas will undoubtedly add to the award-winning playwright's growing canon of acclaimed plays that includes Full Bloom produced at the Barrington Stage in 2000. Word of mouth should generate good houses before the end of this all-too-short run.
Shakespeare in Vegas
Dreamcatcher Repertory Theater, Oakes Center, 120 Morris Avenue, Summit, NJ
(908) 514 - 9654
From 04/04 Opened 04/06/13 Ends 04/21/13
Noir (New Jersey Repertory Company)
The house lights dim and the credits of a black and white film are projected on the screen, the underscoring as well as the title Noir are easy clues that we are back in a movie theater in 1950. Perhaps it was a time some of us can still remember, but that some only know from the Turner Classic Movies Channel.
At any rate, there was something special about sitting in the dark awaiting the mystery, mayhem and menace that was promised and was mostly delivered in the next eighty minutes or so. Interesting, the wonderfully noir-ish new play by Stan Werse is exactly eighty minutes long and it is a surprisingly amusing and clever valentine to the genre.
Credits complete, the play's three characters soon emerge out of the dark shadows (excellently applied by lighting designer Jill Nagle) that are cast upon the grey brick-walled back streets of New York City and the arched doorways and corridors of police headquarters. It doesn't take us long to see that these three characters have their own issues, agendas, and back stories and swiftly become entwined into a convoluted pulp-detective-story.
Noir is exceedingly well calculated to keep us in suspense as it never lets us forget how far corruption, cynicism, cigarettes (herbal for sure) and most of all sex can take us into the underbelly of a society that doesn't play by the rules, especially when it comes to blackmail and murder.
In this case, the play, splendidly directed by Marc Geller, follows the efforts of Clay Holden (Darrell Glasgow), a tough, brash, thirty-something detective (Darrell Glasgow) as he attempts to keep his professional ethics and equilibrium while coping with two inquiring, resentful and distrusting detectives, Norbert Grimes (Thomas Grube) and McQue (Michael McCoy). Grube is perfect as the sixty-something older detective whose years on the force have made him callous and mean even as he mentors the unshakable, misguided Clay. A big and brawny McCoy is excellent as the much maligned, but quietly brainy McQue, who serves as the plot's narrator.
They make excellent adversaries for Clay who unwittingly becomes vulnerable to the seductive charms of a mysterious, beautiful and rich widow cum nightclub chanteuse Helen Lydecker (a wonderfully enigmatic Catherine Lefrere) with a scheme or is it a scam? She's quite a curvaceous number who not only happens to have long dark wavy hair, very red lips and a sultry voice, but bears an uncanny resemblance to noir film star Marie Windsor. Lefrere gets to sing a nice torchy ballad written by Eric Werse (Stanley's cousin).
While it would be easy and possibly apt to quote some of the funny but never corny bon mots that punctuate Werse's tense and taut and very witty text, I would prefer to keep you in suspense until you have the pleasure of seeing it.
Noir was originally produced during the 2010 New York Fringe Festival. This more elaborate and more importantly slick and polished production should have a prosperous afterlife in regional theaters.
Noir
New Jersey Repertory Company, 179 Broadway, Long Brach, NJ
From 04/04/13 Opened 04/06/13 Ends 05/05/13
The house lights dim and the credits of a black and white film are projected on the screen, the underscoring as well as the title Noir are easy clues that we are back in a movie theater in 1950. Perhaps it was a time some of us can still remember, but that some only know from the Turner Classic Movies Channel.
At any rate, there was something special about sitting in the dark awaiting the mystery, mayhem and menace that was promised and was mostly delivered in the next eighty minutes or so. Interesting, the wonderfully noir-ish new play by Stan Werse is exactly eighty minutes long and it is a surprisingly amusing and clever valentine to the genre.
Credits complete, the play's three characters soon emerge out of the dark shadows (excellently applied by lighting designer Jill Nagle) that are cast upon the grey brick-walled back streets of New York City and the arched doorways and corridors of police headquarters. It doesn't take us long to see that these three characters have their own issues, agendas, and back stories and swiftly become entwined into a convoluted pulp-detective-story.
Noir is exceedingly well calculated to keep us in suspense as it never lets us forget how far corruption, cynicism, cigarettes (herbal for sure) and most of all sex can take us into the underbelly of a society that doesn't play by the rules, especially when it comes to blackmail and murder.
In this case, the play, splendidly directed by Marc Geller, follows the efforts of Clay Holden (Darrell Glasgow), a tough, brash, thirty-something detective (Darrell Glasgow) as he attempts to keep his professional ethics and equilibrium while coping with two inquiring, resentful and distrusting detectives, Norbert Grimes (Thomas Grube) and McQue (Michael McCoy). Grube is perfect as the sixty-something older detective whose years on the force have made him callous and mean even as he mentors the unshakable, misguided Clay. A big and brawny McCoy is excellent as the much maligned, but quietly brainy McQue, who serves as the plot's narrator.
They make excellent adversaries for Clay who unwittingly becomes vulnerable to the seductive charms of a mysterious, beautiful and rich widow cum nightclub chanteuse Helen Lydecker (a wonderfully enigmatic Catherine Lefrere) with a scheme or is it a scam? She's quite a curvaceous number who not only happens to have long dark wavy hair, very red lips and a sultry voice, but bears an uncanny resemblance to noir film star Marie Windsor. Lefrere gets to sing a nice torchy ballad written by Eric Werse (Stanley's cousin).
While it would be easy and possibly apt to quote some of the funny but never corny bon mots that punctuate Werse's tense and taut and very witty text, I would prefer to keep you in suspense until you have the pleasure of seeing it.
Noir was originally produced during the 2010 New York Fringe Festival. This more elaborate and more importantly slick and polished production should have a prosperous afterlife in regional theaters.
Noir
New Jersey Repertory Company, 179 Broadway, Long Brach, NJ
From 04/04/13 Opened 04/06/13 Ends 05/05/13
The Last Five Years
It was only a year ago that I saw a production of Robert Jason Browns two-character musical about the dissolution of a marriage at the Crossroads Theater, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. In that production a black and white (she was African-American, he was not) imparted to the almost sung-through musical an extra crease in the conjugal complexities. Without that or any extra crease, I'm not sure that The Last Five Years is all that fascinating or compelling a theatrical experience.
Now getting its first major New York production since it first opened Off Broadway in 2002, The Last Five Years has always been considered somewhat like the flip-side of I Do! I Do! the Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt musical in which we see a couple survive the ups and downs over fifty years of marriage. The flip side from Brown's viewpoint is definitely less fun.
There is no denying that this musical, which has had a healthy life in regional theaters, is a rather bitter pill to swallow in that it attempts to shift and manipulate our empathy as well as our feelings about its two and only protagonists. This has to be achieved by the sheer persuasive power of each performer. It would be nice to say that Adam Kantor as Jamie and Betsy Wolfe as Cathy were able to make me care deeply about or for them. I couldn't, nor did I feel I was meant to try.
It may be both the fault of seeing the show so soon that it now seems more cleverly devised than emotionally involving. Or it may also be the fault of two splendid actors who, try as they might, don't make their respective arias resonate with anything more than what the score provides, even under the smoothly commendable direction of the composer.
Apparently inspired by his own failed first marriage, Brown used his distinctly personalized point of view to compose a story as told from the diverging perspectives of his two characters. Through them we see how their marriage was doomed to failure and specifically how infidelity and contemporary career issues pebble that course.
Each character tells the story comprised of sung soliloquies from different starting points. Cathy begins her story at the end of the marriage and Jamie begins when he first falls in love with Cathy. Only during the middle when they get married do the two stories cross paths.
The big hurdle is for us to feel that these two people could have made their marriage work, had this or that happened or had this or that been said. But sadly neither compromises nor options play a role. The way the musical is structured and staged only underlines the degree of their separateness.
Given that the songs are there to evoke the inner needs and wants of Cathy and Jamie, they mainly reinforce the fact that they are unable to have a common meeting ground. What they end up with is a stalemated relationship, with one going one way and one going the other way. What we end up with is a musical concept/gimmick without the benefit of an emotional commitment to either Cathy or Jamie.
Kantor, who won accolades for his performance on Broadway in Rent and Next to Normal, would appear to be ideally cast as the Jamie Wallerstein, a young, ambitious, Jewish writer flush with the success of his first novel. What perhaps is not ideal is the thick layer of callous self-absorption that he affixes to Jamie's otherwise boyishly cocky pursuit and winning of his "shiksa goddess." We don't particularly like this Jamie or see his side of the issues with even a little empathy. Yet, there is no doubt about the resoluteness he puts into "Moving Too Fast," or the amount of guilt he reveals in trying to rationalize his infidelity in "Nobody Needs to Know."
Wolfe, who recently played Rosa Bud in the revival of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, plays the unquestionably more likable character. She is quite delightful as the aspiring actress whose career moves are not as meaningful as she would like in the light of Jamie's rapid success. As much as I admired Wolfe's singing and acting though, her Cathy also appears almost ridiculous in the way she cant quite grasp the idea that wherever her husband's devotion is, it is not in service to her. She has her most endearing and the show's wittiest scene singing "Climbing Uphill," as part of a very funny "Audition Sequence."
Cathy and Jamie inhabit a simple but well-designed setting created by Derek McLane. It features lots of small hanging windows upon which upon which projections and graphics provide a sense of where and when. Set pieces such as a row boat and a bed glide into view. In constant view are the six musicians perched like an artistic installation on the back wall of the set.
Whatever it is, we end up feeling for Cathy and Jamie, it won't be for their lack of musical and dramatic commitment to Brown's ambitious score.
The Last Five Years
Second Stage Theatre, 305 West 43rd Street
From 03/07/13 Opened 04/02/13 Ends 05/12/13
It was only a year ago that I saw a production of Robert Jason Browns two-character musical about the dissolution of a marriage at the Crossroads Theater, in New Brunswick, New Jersey. In that production a black and white (she was African-American, he was not) imparted to the almost sung-through musical an extra crease in the conjugal complexities. Without that or any extra crease, I'm not sure that The Last Five Years is all that fascinating or compelling a theatrical experience.
Now getting its first major New York production since it first opened Off Broadway in 2002, The Last Five Years has always been considered somewhat like the flip-side of I Do! I Do! the Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt musical in which we see a couple survive the ups and downs over fifty years of marriage. The flip side from Brown's viewpoint is definitely less fun.
There is no denying that this musical, which has had a healthy life in regional theaters, is a rather bitter pill to swallow in that it attempts to shift and manipulate our empathy as well as our feelings about its two and only protagonists. This has to be achieved by the sheer persuasive power of each performer. It would be nice to say that Adam Kantor as Jamie and Betsy Wolfe as Cathy were able to make me care deeply about or for them. I couldn't, nor did I feel I was meant to try.
It may be both the fault of seeing the show so soon that it now seems more cleverly devised than emotionally involving. Or it may also be the fault of two splendid actors who, try as they might, don't make their respective arias resonate with anything more than what the score provides, even under the smoothly commendable direction of the composer.
Apparently inspired by his own failed first marriage, Brown used his distinctly personalized point of view to compose a story as told from the diverging perspectives of his two characters. Through them we see how their marriage was doomed to failure and specifically how infidelity and contemporary career issues pebble that course.
Each character tells the story comprised of sung soliloquies from different starting points. Cathy begins her story at the end of the marriage and Jamie begins when he first falls in love with Cathy. Only during the middle when they get married do the two stories cross paths.
The big hurdle is for us to feel that these two people could have made their marriage work, had this or that happened or had this or that been said. But sadly neither compromises nor options play a role. The way the musical is structured and staged only underlines the degree of their separateness.
Given that the songs are there to evoke the inner needs and wants of Cathy and Jamie, they mainly reinforce the fact that they are unable to have a common meeting ground. What they end up with is a stalemated relationship, with one going one way and one going the other way. What we end up with is a musical concept/gimmick without the benefit of an emotional commitment to either Cathy or Jamie.
Kantor, who won accolades for his performance on Broadway in Rent and Next to Normal, would appear to be ideally cast as the Jamie Wallerstein, a young, ambitious, Jewish writer flush with the success of his first novel. What perhaps is not ideal is the thick layer of callous self-absorption that he affixes to Jamie's otherwise boyishly cocky pursuit and winning of his "shiksa goddess." We don't particularly like this Jamie or see his side of the issues with even a little empathy. Yet, there is no doubt about the resoluteness he puts into "Moving Too Fast," or the amount of guilt he reveals in trying to rationalize his infidelity in "Nobody Needs to Know."
Wolfe, who recently played Rosa Bud in the revival of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, plays the unquestionably more likable character. She is quite delightful as the aspiring actress whose career moves are not as meaningful as she would like in the light of Jamie's rapid success. As much as I admired Wolfe's singing and acting though, her Cathy also appears almost ridiculous in the way she cant quite grasp the idea that wherever her husband's devotion is, it is not in service to her. She has her most endearing and the show's wittiest scene singing "Climbing Uphill," as part of a very funny "Audition Sequence."
Cathy and Jamie inhabit a simple but well-designed setting created by Derek McLane. It features lots of small hanging windows upon which upon which projections and graphics provide a sense of where and when. Set pieces such as a row boat and a bed glide into view. In constant view are the six musicians perched like an artistic installation on the back wall of the set.
Whatever it is, we end up feeling for Cathy and Jamie, it won't be for their lack of musical and dramatic commitment to Brown's ambitious score.
The Last Five Years
Second Stage Theatre, 305 West 43rd Street
From 03/07/13 Opened 04/02/13 Ends 05/12/13
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