"Cats" at the Neil Simon Theatre

Leona Lewis as Grizabella

The musical “Cats” was an instant phenomenon when it opened on Broadway in 1982. The London hit arrived on these shores ready and able to captivate audiences for the next eighteen years. Well,....most audiences anyway. There were also those who responded with a yawn and even a cat-nap during the show. Personally I remember having mixed feelings about the felines on parade, those that had been recruited to crawl, leap, lounge and levitate around the reconstructed interior of the Winter Garden Theatre. As some of the antics were thrilling and some boring, I wondered what my reaction would be to this first Broadway revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s now almost legendary musical based on T.S. Eliot’s collection of short poems “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.” Forgive me for being cute, but I am giving it four meows, which I guess is like giving the show the highest rating in cat-dom.

The Neil Simon Theatre has been picked to be the large garbage dump site where you will undoubtedly notice that the designer John Napier has made (as he did originally) all the refuse and litter larger than life and as seen from a cat’s perspective. It has been brilliantly conceived to cover the theatre’s side walls as well the stage. Also recreated are Napier’s stunning costumes some of which should find their way onto haute couture runways by next Fall. But what impressed me most with this production was the phenomenal dancing in a show that is more of a full-length ballet with songs rather than the reverse as I had remembered.

To this end and assuming you may not have a working knowledge of Eliot’s odes to cats, their charms and idiosyncrasies, talents and temperaments, you will fast enough become fans of such cat-abouts as Mistoffolees, Cassandra, Grizabella, Mungojerrie, Rumpleteazer and the others who do get to run and down the aisles. Otherwise their acrobatic carousing and cavorting on the stage is often breathtakingly. I might be wrong but I suspect that the original choreography by Gillian Lynne has been greatly enhanced by choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler and is now more excitingly performed by this extraordinary company.

If Webber’s melodious and mirthful score sounds like the return of an old friend, it is the misty-eyes ballad “Memory” that gives the show an added lift as interpreted by British pop star Leona Lewis. Her tough-as-nails version is unique enough to re-define the aging and spent Grizabella and interesting enough to invite comparison to the more poignant interpretation by Betty Buckley who originally played the role. Those already familiar with the show will hopefully be surprised as well as pleased by the additional glam and glitz given to some numbers, but it all adds up, under the full moon and the magical lighting of designer Natasha Katz, to a purr-fectly thrilling festival of “Cats.” 

"Cats" (Opened July 31, 2016)

Neil Simon Theatre,  250 West 52nd Street

West Side Story at the Paper Mill Playhouse through June 28

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The Dancers (photo: Jerry Dalia)

When it happens that another terrific production of West Side Story comes along, there is always a case to be made that it, as does the current Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof, reaffirms its status as a landmark American musical. Although this close to perfect production at the Paper Mill Playhouse doesn’t include the Spanish lyrics that were impressively integrated into the 2009 Broadway production, the book by Arthur Laurents and the score by Leonard Bernstein and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, nevertheless, stand firmly without enhancement or any reinvention. This is apparent under Mark Hoebee’s stirring direction and the invigorating choreography that Alex Sanches faithfully reproduced as originally conceived by Jerome Robbins.

Notwithstanding the two Broadway revivals, the dance-saturated conflicts between the Jets and Sharks will undoubtedly continue to thrill fans as well as to engage newcomers to this musical that first appeared on Broadway in 1957. For those yet to experience this musical inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the basic vision of the collaborators stands firm and affirming especially in the face of the current political climate and social or demographic changes. That universal vision and driving force: How the power of romantic love is able to defy family and the world (as it mirrors Romeo and Juliet.)

Amazingly, the passing of time has not diminished the impact of West Side Story’s relatively dated view of New York’s juvenile gang culture. While I was impressed in 2009 by the inclusion of carefully selected spoken and sung Spanish written by Lin Manuel Miranda for the last Broadway revival,  the musical’s pronounced ethnicity does not go wanting when Maria (Belinda Allyn) sings the lilting waltz “I Feel Pretty” with the support of Anita (Natalie Cortez) and their girl friends, as it still continues to resonate with its vibrant sense of Latino sisterhood. Just as Allyn is absolutely lovely and sings angelically as Maria, there is also the contrasting evidence in Corez’s fiery and feisty performance of Anita’s rage and passion for her cultural identity, especially in her ardent aria “A Boy Like That” and the most exhilaratingly danced “America.”

Still up front and vital is the staging that defines the Sharks in a community that treats them as intruders and second-class citizens. While Hoebee’s direction correctly focuses on the tragic underpinnings that gird the plot, they are compensated with the many tender and romantically soaring moments that also punctuate this musical. Choreographer Sanchez and, of course, Hoebee, who made his Broadway debut dancing in Jerome Robbins’Broadway, have certainly fired up the large and terrifically lean, mean and good-looking company into a formidable confederation of Jets and Sharks.

The violent rumbles are filled, as expected, with violence just as the pulse-quickening challenge dance at the gym is recreated with admirable fidelity.  Tony and Maria’s lyrical escape dream ballet and all the other integrated dances embrace the show with both moments of grace and bolts of danger. The success of this production is that it remains an effective homage and in synch with the heartbeat of the original.

This production’s Tony Matt Doyle has the required good-looks and excellent voice and acting agility and he effectively fulfills the needs of the octave-spanning “Maria.” Not so easy to pull off, but Doyle and Allyn beautifully generate the kind of chemistry that helps us believe in their enveloping passion for each other..

German Alexander, as the vengeful Bernardo, and Mickey Winslow, as the antagonistic Riff are designated to steal some but not all of the thunder from their accompanying gang members as they give “Cool” and unchallengeable accountings of who they are at this moment in time. <br><br>

Also excellent are Jay Russell as the besieged drug store proprietor, William Ragsdale, as the flummoxed high school principal, Kevin C. Loomis and Craig Waletzko, as the biased and racist law enforcers. Also standout is the blonde pony-tailed Maria Briggs as the brash and boyish Anybodys. Additional pleasure is derived from the lush sound of the 20 musicians, under the direction Steve Orich. James Youmans has recreated his own breathtaking, grey tinged settings he created for the last Broadway revival. They may not serve as an invitation to visit the upper West Side, but the various locations from the street to under the highway provide a formidable frame for this forever stunning musical. <br>

This production also closed the memorable season in which the Paper Mill Playhouse has been awarded this year’s Tony for Best Regional Theatre. Anyone seeing this glorious production will understand why.

West Side Story (through June 26, 2016

Paper Mill Playhouse, 22 Brookside Dr. Millburn, NJ   

For tickets (from $32.00) call 973 - 376 - 4343

Long Day's Journey into Night - Roundabout Theater Company at the American Airlines Theater

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Gabriel Byrne and Jessica Lange
Photo: Joan Marcus

It is almost pointless, almost futile, to start comparing one production of Eugene O’Neill’s autobiographical masterpiece “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” from another as each in turn resides in memory for different reasons. The thing about British director Jonathan Kent’s production for the Roundabout Theatre Company now at the American Airlines Theatre is not that it may not be the most definitive but that it may be the most atmospherically haunting. That doesn’t preclude me saying that the one in 1988 with Jason Robards and Colleen Dewhurst, under the direction of Jose Quintero was even more or less haunting than the next one I recall a decade or more later in which Robert Falls directed Vanessa Redgrave, Brian Dennehy, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Robert Sean Leonard (OMG that was stupendous.)

In addressing what many consider to be the greatest play in American theater literature, Kent need not have any qualms that his production may not have nailed every personal and shared pain felt by the members of the Tyrone Household. What we get is pretty darned good, that is if spending nearly four hours with three alcoholics and a morphine addict is your idea of well-spent time. For me, I’m not willing to concede that the current and quite formidable company has altered any ideas or fixed notions I may have about the play.

Others, I mean many others, who claim to have been transformed by the works of O’Neill are apt to say about this epic that it deserves its place at the top of the heap. It seems that every production tries as hard as it can to re-validate the greatness of this unwieldy and emotionally excessive masterpiece. Maybe a decade or more between productions is as obligatory as it is for his other lengthy “masterpiece” “The Iceman Cometh, ” but don’t get me started on that one.

As for this play, Kent’s assured contentment with the text is notable as is the inevitable deliberateness of the play’s characters to get from one drink to another in this sorrowful play. Give the Tyrones their due as they face their most tragic memories with the greatest amount of poignancy during one embroiled summer day in 1912. This is a family that also relishes its free-for-alls, but not one that necessarily makes the one with the loudest voice the winner. It is important to know that they are shadows of O’Neill’s own family.

I’m not embarrassed to admit that I love Jessica Lange on film and on stage and that she is undoubtedly giving her greatest performance as the hopelessly morphine-addicted Mary Tyrone. She may be “acting” up a storm but I was with her every step of the way as the desperately mean-spirited avenger with a ravishing noble spirit.

I was mesmerized by Lange’s fidgeting, her self-conscious twitches, her hallucinatory meanderings,  and her increasingly wistful voice that could at any moment disappear into a vapor, a state of retreat from the enveloping fog that was slowly shrouding their dilapidating summer home.

Behind the virile posturing, the implacable vanity, and the devilishly Irish eyes that seem, at times, to know more than they care to share is Gabriel Byrne, who, as the aging matinee idol James Tyrone - now a miserly and alcoholic patriarch - finds enough dramatic contours in the aborted dreams of his past and the pained realities of the present to commandingly hold up his end of the incessant bickering, accusing, recriminating and even lying household. Let us anticipate that this superb O’Neill interpreter who played James Tyrone in the acclaimed revival of “A Moon for the Misbegotten” and Con Melody in “A Touch of the Poet” (both on Broadway) continues to shed even more light on O’Neill’s men.

Michael Shannon is an intriguing presence, almost like an outsider except that he drinks like an insider. He is effectively volcanic and cynical as James Tyrone Jr., the wastrel actor and alcoholic older son who has attempted to reach out to the younger brother he both envies and protects. And John Gallagher, Jr. also seems to be from another planet at times but eventually steps up to the plate as Edmond, the young, poetic and consumptive seafarer whose burning love-hate relationship with his family is destined to make him the autobiographical eyes and ears of the Tyrones. Representing the young O’Neill, he is splendid and touching as he emphasizes Edmond’s sensitive brooding nature. It takes a while for him to rise to the challenge of each new tidal wave of emotion as it threatens to drown him. Colby Minifie has the right Irish flavor as the family’s summer servant whose duties invite a little nip on occasion. 

The fog really rolls in with a vengeance in designer Tom Pye’s evocative setting, the gloomy living room of the Tyrone’s summer home. Natasha Katz’s lighting masterfully considers James Tyrone’s unwillingness to pay the electric bill. But who needs light when the actors and the audience are already either blinded by the booze or by the haze.

“Long Days Journey Into Night” (through June 26)

American Airlines Theatre, 227 West 42nd Street

"Crossing Swords" at the American Theatergroup through May 1, 2016

 Jeremy Greenbaum, Ali Gordon, Chase Crandell

It is a shame to have to write about a terrific almost new musical knowing that it is about to close this weekend (Sunday May 1.) But that is the case with the disarmingly performed, musically pleasurable, altogether winning “Crossing Swords” by Joe Slabe (rhymes with The Bay) in which its 20th century plot pivots off the classic 19th century romantic drama “Cyrano de Bergerac.” It is a teenaged twist on the old he loves her but she loves another.

If you most likely missed “Crossing Swords”  (as I did) when it was first presented as part of the New York Musical Theater Festival in 2013, you must keep your antennas on the alert for future productions, some of which are bound to show up on regional stages across the country. With its play-within-a-flashback-within-a-play conceit and set in and around the all-boys St. Mark’s Catholic School in 1969 and the all-girls St. Anne’s, the main story is cradled within a present prologue and epilogue.

In the prologue/present, Jeremy (Steven Hauck) is middle-aged as is Nicky (Sarah Dacey Charles.) These former teens have reunited and choose to reminisce following a funeral of Sir one of the teachers at St. Marks. Their memories are primarily of their own romantic experiences as teenagers rehearsing a production of “Cyrano.”

In the flashback, a very fine Hauck now has the role of Sir a stuffy, closeted math teacher who has a slightly contentious relationship with Miss Daignault, the girl school’s French teacher, as played with Gallic esprit by Charles.) Both Sir and Miss have touching back stories that add a commendable dimension to their characters.  

Back in 1969, Jeremy is played with an appealing exuberance by Jeremy Greenbaum who has won the role of Cyrano. During rehearsals he finds that his attraction to his good-looking co-star, best friend and school jock David (Chase Crandell) is more than simply friendly. With an impressive tenor, Crandell is splendid as the frustrated, poetry-challenged Christian. As you might expect, the shy David is enamored of Nicky (a beguiling Ali Gordon) who, misguidedly has the more effusive Jeremy in her sights.

Friendships all around are strained to the breaking point and fueled by the constraints of the as yet un-liberated sexual mores of today. In particular, Sir’s discomforting lecture to the embarrassed Jeremy on the need for suppressed feelings is a stinging reminder of outmoded psychology.

Pleasures abound within this mangled mingling of three romantic teens and their seniors and include humor-filled rehearsals, some excellent swordplay (credit to fight choreographer Trey Compton), and the high level of acting, under the direction of Igor Goldin. Best of all is the ambitious, bright and lyrical score by Slabe in which every affecting ballad and ensemble number is beautifully sung by an exceptionally talented company.

The modest but accommodating setting designed by Bethanie Wampol serves the action. Of importance there is also an underlying poignancy to the plot that makes this refreshing musical something very special. So, I hope that I’ve said enough to get you headed with haste to the production by the American Theatergroup at the Hamilton Stage in Rahway, NJ.

“Crossing Swords” (through May 1, 2016)

Hamilton Stage at UCPAC, 360 Hamilton St. Rahway, NJ

For tickets ($38.00) call (732) 499 - 8226

"School for Scandal" at the Lucille Lortel Theatre

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Dana Ivey, Frances Barber, Helen Cedpedes

Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s “The School for Scandal” is unquestionably a masterpiece of 18th century artificiality. It is easy enough to cloak its pretentions in pure synthetic theatricality but it is more rewarding and fun to see this view of Restoration high life when presented as winningly as it is by the Red Bull Theater now at the Lucille Lortel Theater. And what could be more difficult for a contemporary actor in a play such as this than to flit and flirt amidst yards of ruffles and lace while maintaining the validity and integrity of two centuries removed characters. It’s good to report that it is also the human side of metaphor-strewn Old England that shines through under Marc Vietor’s direcion.

As a result, the grace and humor of the play’s characters come through, especially watching the incessantly disapproving Sir Peter Teazle (Mark Linn-Baker) wrangle with his incorrigible child bride (Helen Cespedes.) We are given plenty of opportunities to identify with the men those “unconscionable dogs,” and the distaff “daughters of calumny” that Sheridan satirically reproves with such wit and polish. Bravi to this company for making Sheridan’s glitteringly dialogued expose of London’s polite society from being much more than an over dressed convention of relentless boors and tiresome scandalmongers.

Costume designer Andrea Lauer knew she had better utilize all the extravagant and colorful ruffles, laces, satins, silks and multi-colored powdered wigs to measure up to the obligatory scenery-chewing performances that do all but devour the modest but elegant scenery - mostly moving panels - as designed by Anna Louizos. While some members of the company are more skilled than others in the meticulously schooled art of sniffing/snuffing, mincing and raising of the eyebrows, there is a general consensus that the appropriate attitude is sufficient. It’s almost enough to see how the mastery of lines and asides nicely conveys the form and elegance of Sheridan’s world.

Standout among the company is Dana Ivey, who, not surprisingly, is a joy to watch as the gossipy Mrs. Candour and like the others in her social circle, doesn’t slip into caricature but rather reveals the formalized naturalism that must exist in equal measure with the period’s affectations. Aside from Baker, Ivey and Cespedes,  others who appear as equally accomplished haute farceurs are Frances Barber as the rich and ribald Lady Sneerwell, Jacob Dresch, as a really slinky gossip columnist Mr. Snake and Ryan Garbayo as his obnoxious protégé cum society poet Sir Benjamin Backbite.

The always terrific Henry Stram nails the more subtly of decorous mannerisms as Sir Oliver Surface. You may be hard pressed not to laugh aloud every time a gong rings announcing the arrival of Punjabi family friend Master Ranji (Ramsey Faragallah). But stifling laughs is almost a must if you want to hear all the lines. Sheridan’s play exposes disguises, deceptions, and dishonesties without obscenities. That’s quite a feat and with this lovely production we see how his spirit is kept alive.

“The School for Scandal” (through May 8, 2016

Lucille Lortel Theatre, Christopher Street

For tickets ($80.00 & $100.00) call (212) 924 - 2817