Let 'Em Eat Cake

The narration for the MasterVoices production of the Gershwins' Let 'Em Eat Cake mentions that (1) it was the very first musical sequel (to Of Thee I Sing), and (2) it set the precedent for musical sequels flopping (see, e.g., Best Little Whorehouse Goes Public, Bring Back Birdie, and Annie 2: Miss Hannigan’s Revenge). It failed, however, to include point (3), which is that the sequels mostly aren't as good as the originals (exception: Falsettoland).

Bryce Pinkham, Mikaela Bennett
Photo: Erin Baiano

It's not that Let 'Me Eat Cake is bad. It just isn't . . . good. The plot is all over the place, even for a silly satire, and Ira Gershwin is in full twee mode. (Complicated rhymes that don't quite make sense get boring quickly.) But, and this is a huge but, the score by George Gershwin is gorgeous.

And any show sounds terrific when presented by the 150-person MasterVoices and the Orchestra of St. Luke's, directed and conducted by the fabulous Ted Sperling. It's always a treat to see them perform. In addition, they generally have amazing guest stars. This time, the cast included Bryce Pinkham, Mikaela Bennett (delightful), David Pittu (stealing the show), Kevin Chamberlin, Christopher Fitzgerald, Fred Applegate, Chuck Cooper (wasted!), and Lewis J. Stadlen (mumbling through his one-liners).

It's a little odd to review MasterVoices shows, since they're always gone before the reviews come out. So let me predict that their entire season will be well worth seeing and leave you with a link to their website: MasterVoices.

Wendy Caster
(row R, press ticket)

Fires in the Mirror

Midway through Fires in the Mirror, Anna Deavere Smith's moving and generous one-person show about the 1991 Crown Heights riots, Robert Sherman, the head of the City of New York's Increase the Peace initiative, talks about bias. "I think you know the Eskimos have 70 words for snow," he notes. "We probably have 70 different kinds of bias, prejudice, racism, and discrimination, but it's not in our mind-set to be clear about it. So I think that we have sort of a lousy language on the subject and that is a reflection of our unwillingness to deal with it honestly and to sort it out." In some ways, Sherman--one of many real people Smith interviewed and worked into Fires, which premiered at the Public in 1992--nails the landing: bias underscores the monologues of almost every person Smith has worked into the show. But then again, there's so much more to the piece, and to the people in it, than the ways bias shapes our thinking. And Fires in the Mirror would be a far weaker piece if Smith had allowed her own biases to influence the ways the many characters in the piece consciously or unconsciously air theirs.

A mild stir went up at the initial announcement that Smith would not be performing her celebrated play this time around, but then, Fires in the Mirror very much deserves to live on whether she's involved or not. Michael Benjamin Washington holds his own in the Signature production, moving easily between characters with the lighting of a cigarette, the donning of a headscarf or hat, or the careful preparation of a cup of tea. Like Smith in the original production, Washington disappears into each of the many people he portrays, all the while keeping his own opinions off the table. Some of the people portrayed are angrier and less tolerant than others, and a few have especially strong--and not especially kind--opinions about Blacks, or Jews, or the incidents that sparked violence and rioting. But in letting them all speak for themselves--whether about the role of hair in black culture, complications that can arise during Shabbat, which cultural group has been treated most cruelly through human history, or who specifically was to blame for the violence in Crown Heights in summer 1991--Smith has created a quiet, moving, kaleidoscopic reflection on race, culture, and personal identity. While the riots at the heart of the production certainly took me back to that strange, sad summer, I found Fires to be, for the most part, curiously uplifting and even hopeful. Bias might occasionally slop over into violence and hatred, but then again, as one character muses, no matter who they are, most people want the same things: to go freely about their days; to experience more joy than pain; to live in quiet, peaceful neighborhoods; to get along with one another more often than they don't.   

The Hope Hypothesis

In the excellent Voyage Theater Company production of The Hope Hypothesis, running through November 15 at the Sheen Center, playwright-director Cat Miller deftly shows how easily innocence can be misread as guilt when the authorities involved neither understand the people involved nor care to.

Soraya Broukim, William Ragsdale
Photo: Beowulf Sheehan

The plot is simple: When Amena, a long-time resident of the United States, goes to a governmental agency to complete some immigration paperwork, the clerk freaks out at the flag on her birth certificate. She is soon caught in a bureaucratic nightmare that also ensnares her boyfriend and an ACLU lawyer.  Unfortunately, reality these days is scary enough that Miller needed to write only the smallest twists on reality to drag Amena into an insane and frightening world from which she may never return.

In addition to being tense and suspenseful, The Hope Hypothesis is funny, warm, and pleasingly clever. Its 75 minutes fly by. Miller and her excellent cast imbue potentially stereotypical characters with humanity (only the character of a dumb CIA agent fails to take life), and the characters' interactions ring true in a way that brings further dimension to Amena's adventures in Kafka-land.

Connor Carew, Wesley Zurik, Charlie O'Rourke
Photo: Beowulf Sheehan

The scenery, by Zoë Hurwitz, provides a coolly anonymous setting while also allowing quick and effective transitions into other locations. (I have a personal bugaboo about slow scene changes in multi-scene plays, but The Hope Hypothesis moves quickly due to Hurwitz's scene design and Miller's smooth direction.) The costumes, by Katja Andreiev, suit the characters, and the lighting, by Bailey L. Rosa, and sound design, by M. Florian Staab, nicely support the general sense of dread.

While we constantly hear about the insane prices of Broadway, it is important to remember that all over New York and the entire country, top-notch work can be seen for the price of a movie ticket, medium soda, and medium popcorn. The Hope Hypothesis deserves way more attention than it is likely to get in its short run Off-Off-Broadway, but you have a week to catch it before it goes.

Wendy Caster
(2nd row, press ticket)

With Soraya Broukhim,* Wesley Zurick,* Charlie O’Rourke,* William Ragsdale,* Greg Brostrom,* Connor Carew,* Mary Hodges*

*Member of Actors’ Equity Association

Scenic Designer: Zoë Hurwitz
Costume Designer: Katja Andreiev
Lighting Designer: Bailey L. Rosa
Sound Designer: M. Florian Staab
Production Stage Manager: Sarah Biery
Stage Managers: Erika Blais and Morgan Eisen
Assistant Director: Ann Kreitman
Technical Director: Eric Zoback
Press Representative: Glenna Freedman PR
Casting by: Stephanie Klapper

Graphic Design by: Youness El Hindami

Molly Sweeney

What is a play? There are many definitions, of which this one (from the Merriam-Webster website) is a representative example:

A composition in verse or prose intended to portray life or character or to tell a story usually involving conflicts and emotions through action and dialogue and typically designed for theatrical performance [emphasis mine]

This is clearly a simple and perhaps simplistic definition; it ignores the many ways that great playwrights have broken the boundaries of theatre. But it's also a good starting place.

I was pondering this definition while watching the Keen Company's revival of Brian Friel's 1994 two-act play, Molly Sweeney. The story of a blind woman who undergoes surgery to partially restore her sight, it consists of alternating monologues by Molly, her husband Frank, and her surgeon Mr. Rice. As the play went on, I just kept wishing they would talk to each other!

The device of alternating monologues can provide conflict by having the characters give differing accounts of what happens; however, Molly, Frank, and Mr. Rice are largely in agreement. It can add dimensions to characters by allowing us to see them through varied points of view; again, there is little disagreement among the three characters. Monologues could also, theoretically, provide suspense by carefully doling out information, but Molly Sweeney telegraphs its aims, meaning, and ending early on.

So we're left with the language and the performances. The language is often lovely, as Friel's language generally is, but there's just too damned much of it. On and on the characters drone, well past the point of having anything to add.

And, in the Keen Company's production, directed by Jonathan Silverstein, the performances are disappointing. Molly (Pamela Sabaugh), Frank (Tommy Schrider), and Mr. Rice (Paul O’Brien) never bloom into characters. In addition, the actors fail to vivify the anecdotes they tell and the people they describe.

Molly Sweeney is not one of Friel's best works but I'm sure it has more to offer than evidenced by this sadly flat production.

Wendy Caster
(third row, press ticket)

Panama Hattie

Panama Hattie, the third show in the York Theatre Company's Cole Porter-a-thon, is a mixed bag that is ultimately great fun.

Simon Jones, Kylie Kuioka, Stephen Bogardus,
Klea Blackhurst, Anita Welch
Photo: Russ Rowland

The positives:

• Oh, those unmiked voices! I could listen to them forever. Panama Hattie starts with the chorus singing, and those combined, natural, beautiful voices are amazing.
• Klea Blackhurst is charming and funny in the role that Ethel Merman originated. As soon as she comes on stage, the audience is on her side; she radiates likability. And her voice is wonderful.
• Kylie Kuioka, who plays the young daughter of the male lead, is having a great time up there. She loves that we love her--eats it right up, in fact. She can deliver a line, her acting is fine, and she's so damn cute. And she knows she's so damn cute, which somehow makes her cuter. And then she sings, and her voice is the icing on the cute cake--lovely!
• The rest of the cast--Stephen Bogardus, Simon Jones, David Green, Jay Aubrey Jones, Lael Van Keuren, Garen McRoberts, Casey Shuler, Gordon Stanley, Joe Veale, Zuri Washington, and Anita Welch--acquit themselves nicely to wonderfully.
• There are some cute jokes and a few good songs. 

Gordon Stanley, Casey Shuler, Joe Veale, Zuri
Washington, Jay Aubrey Jones, Lael Van
Keuren, Garen McRoberts, David Green
Photo: Russ Rowland

The negatives:

• Even in a time period where musical books were silly and thin, Panama Hattie's stands out for its total lack of sense, logic, character building, etc.(which is why I haven't bothered to explain it here).
• Many of the songs are far from Cole Porter's best (although still worth hearing).

The take-aways:

• Panama Hattie is a great example of the importance of what the York does in its Mufti series.* First of all, it allows us to see works that wouldn't be done otherwise. 
• It also reminds us that even the "Golden Age" had its own share of mediocre theatre and that only the best shows have made their way down to us. 
• Whatever its weaknesses, Panama Hattie is make worth seeing by the top-notch work of the cast, musicians, and director Michael Montel.
• And, oh, those unmiked voices!

Wendy Caster

(5th row, press ticket)

*Muftis are staged readings, but so much more than that. While the actors are more or less on book, it never gets in the way of the performances. The orchestra is one piano or a piano and one other instrument. Panama Hattie was beautifully accompanied by piano and bass fiddle. Muftis may also have costumes and choreography. Panama Hattie had both. 

Big Apple Circus

Tired of the news? Depressed by the weird meanness of humans? Maybe you need a mini-vacation. Maybe you need to bask in the weird wonder of humans.

Jayson Dominguez and the Wheel of Death
Photo: Matthew Murphy

Big Apple Circus is a cure for what ails us. Over the course of a couple of hours gorgeous humans challenge their gorgeous bodies to do dangerous, bizarre, scary, lovely, and gorgeous things. Such as juggling umbrellas--seriously, gorgeous. Or balancing on one another's bodies in amazingly challenging positions. Or riding a bike across a high wire. Or skipping rope 30 feet in the air. Or taking trapeze to a whole 'nother level--as though regular ole trapeze was not sufficiently thrilling. You get the idea.

Rafael Ferreira and Alan Pagnota
Photo: Matthew Murphy

Big Apple promises that no seats are further than 50 feet from the stage, and we in the audience get to watch each other as well as the performers. It's great fun to glance across a few rows of the audience and see wide-eyed, open-mouthed looks of astonishment--and those are the adults! The kids pretty much radiate joy.

Ringmaster Storm Marrero
Photo: Matthew Murphy

I have to take a moment for my yearly complaint: Big Apple and all circuses need to stop animal acts. Horses were not made to ride in tight circles while someone jumps on them. Period.

Kyle Driggs
Photo: Matthew Murphy

This year, however, I have to add an exception: the Savitsky Cats! They're not lions or tigers, but little ole house cats. With most animal acts, many of us in the audience spend all of our time worrying about the poor creatures and wishing their "trainers" would leave them the heck alone. But anyone who has ever had house cats knows a simple fact: they only do what they want to do. In fact, the best part of the cat act is when the cats refuse to cooperate and give the trainers the well-known feline "eff you" look. It's a hoot. (But, seriously, leave the horses alone!)

A Savitsky cat from America's Got Talent

Big Apple Circus is committed to inclusivity, as reflected in some special performances. The following is from their press release:

• For one night only (December 5 at 5:30PM) there will be a completely empathetic and immersive experience where audiences will enjoy a three-course dinner and the show--all while wearing a blindfold. The performance is fully guided and audio described, and it will provide the audience with the incredible perspectives afforded only to the blind.
  
• Sensory-friendly Autism performances (October 26 and November 1st at 11 am) feature lowered light and sound levels, a complete social story available for download with a descriptive picture book showing the different areas and acts involved with the circus, a professionally staffed “calming center,” and additional support that can be accessed at any point during the show.
  
• As part of the Circus for All initiative, eighteen performances throughout the fifteen-week run will offer $10 tickets for every seat in the house to underserved schools and community groups. In addition to the tickets, Big Apple Circus offers a complete study guide highlighting both CORE and STEAM curriculums for the students to learn about science, history, geography, and more first-hand as they experience the Big Apple Circus.
  
• Tickets are now on sale at www.Ticketmaster.com The regular performance schedule is Wednesdays at 11 am and 7 pm; Thursdays at 11 am and 7 pm; Fridays at 11 am 7 pm; Saturdays at 11 am, 3 pm, and 7 pm; and Sundays at 12 pm and 4 pm. As there are schedule variances, please refer to the most up-to-date calendar on the website. 

I hope you get a chance to go.

Wendy Caster

(first row, center, press ticket)

Yes, the circus does bring out the kid in everyone!