Quick Takes

Some quick thoughts on shows I didn't review:

Gruesome Playground Injuries: Known theatrical truism: If you get a chance to see Kara Young, see Kara Young.

Gruesome Playground Injuries
Nicholas Braun, Kara Young
Photo: Emilio Madrid

Caroline: Estranged daughter in her mid-20s goes home with her own daughter, Caroline, seeking money, a place to stay, and maybe even some support and affection. After many years with no contact, the mother/grandmother isn't exactly thrilled to see them. This elegantly written three-hander is subtle and moving, with no villains and no heroes. Amy Landecker as the grandmother, Chloë Grace Moretz as the mother, and River Lipe-Smith as the daughter were all excellent. Written by Preston Max Allen and directed by David Cromer. (Closed.)

Caroline
Chloë Grace Moretz, River Lipe-Smith
Photo: Emilio Madrid

Let's Love: This fun series of short plays about sex by Ethan Coen featured Aubrey Plaza (raising emotional meanness to an art form), Nellie McKay (bringing her unique ineffable fabulousness), and other wonderful performers. Fluff, but really good fluff. (Closed.)

Let's Love
From Second Stage Website

The Long Christmas Dinner: For Thornton Wilder, life and death aren't two sides of the same coin; they're mixed together in the very atoms of the coin. The Long Christmas Dinner is an odd, charming one-act that takes place over the course of 90 years, with characters dying left and right. Done as a one-night reading at Symphony Space, it featured a fascinating array of performers including actors Becky Ann Baker, Renée Elise Goldsberry, Jim Parsons, and Roslyn Ruff; award–winning playwrights James Ijames and Sarah Ruhl; writer and poet Jacqueline Woodson; commentator Chris Hayes; and Wilder’s nephew Tappan Wilder, who had some fascinating insights in the discussion after the reading.

Rodeo: Rodeo, choreographed by Agnes DeMille, is a pure delight (if you can ignore some sexual assumptions that are, uh, "of their time.") It's full-out theatre, with a beginning, a middle, and an end and character arcs and such. At a recent performance at ABT, it was well-acted and beautifully danced, with great colorful costumes. It's just so satisfying. 

Queen of Versailles: A waste of time, money, and Kristin Chenoweth. 

Queen of Versailles
Kristin Chenoweth, F. Murray Abraham
Photo: Emilio Madrid

A New Brain: A New Brain has never quite worked for me. I end up seeing it every few years, and I tend to go through the same experience. In the first hour or so, I think, what is my problem with this show? It's excellent, with beautiful music, unique rhymes, interesting characters, a strong story. And then it goes on. And on. And on. Unimportant characters get solos, and it's hard to care. By the end, parts are actually boring, which I hate to say about a Finn work. The St. Bart's Players did a nice job all and all, with Jordan Cooke terrific as Schwinn. (Closed)

Triplicity: This lovely play with music focuses on three New Yorkers, with glimpses into their lives and hearts. It's quirky and warm and witty and very much its own thing. Written and composed by Ellen Maddow, directed by Paul Zimet, and starring El Beh, Amara Granderson, Lizzie Olesker, and Steven Rattazzi. Presented by Talking Band in association with Mabou Mines. Choreography by Sean Donovan and Brandon Washington; Set Design by Anna Kiraly; Lighting Design by Mary Ellen Stebbins; Costume Design by Olivera Gajic. (Closed.)

Meet the Cartozians: I don't know what other people saw in this well-received play. It's described on the website as follows: 

Talene Monahon’s Meet the Cartozians pulls back the curtain on a startling chapter of American history you may never have heard. This ... new play follows two sets of Armenian Americans: one man fighting for legal recognition in the 1920s, while a century later, his descendant fights for followers and a competent glam team. ... Meet the Cartozians asks who gets to belong — and at what cost?

The Times calls it "captivating, wildly funny, pure entertainment." Word of mouth is positive. 

For me, the show wobbles between exposition and essay without ever quite achieving theatre. It tries to be Stoppardian; it isn't. (Through December 14.)

Wendy Caster

The Waverly Gallery

A friend of mine often uses the expression "pretty little play" to describe a show that's easy to digest, not especially profound or layered, and pretty satisfying nonetheless. The Waverly Gallery is very much a pretty little play--one I confess I probably wouldn't have gone out of my way to see, had my parents not been big enough fans of Nichols and May to have followed both their careers for decades. After they read about Elaine May's depiction of Gladys Green, an elderly gallery owner nearing the end of her life, they asked if I might like to se it with them. I'm a sucker for free theater and, ultimately, for hanging out with my folks. I'm so glad I didn't miss this one--and especially May's performance, which kicks brilliant, glorious, 86-year-old-woman ass up Waverly Place and back down again.

Marc J. Franklin

Directed by Lila Neugebauer and performed by a strong and likeable cast, the Broadway production accepts Lonergan's early piece (it was written in 1999) for what it is: a gentle, unfussy memory play about somebody's gradual loss of it. This production is as straightforward as the play itself: scenes unfold in chronological order; set changes take place behind a scrim on which projections of the city--grainy, black and white, and generic enough to be timeless--drift slowly from one side to the other before dissipating like smoke, accompanied by fittingly melancholy music by Gabriel Kahane. At times, the play is basic enough to feel almost pageant-like: Gladys's grandson Daniel (Lucas Hedges) steps forward during a few scene changes to address the audience with direct-address prose about his family, their relationships to one another and to his grandmother, and various other expository points that aren't spelled out in the dialogue.

Still: basic and straightforward are not necessarily bad or amateur, and in this case both work exceptionally well. Lonergan's play doesn't need to dig all that deep to resonate, after all: dementia affects a lot of people, which is why plays, films, tv shows and books about it prevail in popular culture. An awful lot of such stories, in fact, aren't nearly as effective as this comparatively low-key one. The strong acting, of course, helps a lot: Hedges is blunt but never stiff or self-conscious, whether interacting with other characters or during his confessional curtain-speeches, wherein he admits how difficult it is for him to spend time with Gladys, even as he clearly adores her. The same goes for the rest of the cast: Joan Allen and David Cromer play Gladys's daughter and son-in-law; both are believably caring, kind, boneheaded, and impatient with Gladys in equal doses. Michael Cera rounds out the cast as Don, the last artist to display his works at Gladys's small gallery. A kind and well-meaning drifter whose life hasn't worked out especially well, Don is the sole denialist of the bunch in insisting that Gladys's memory lapses are entirely the fault of what he assumes are sub-par hearing aids. His opinions, however, don't get in the way of his loyalty to Gladys or his willingness to help her and her family as she declines.

At the center is Gladys, played downright majestically by May who, much like the production she anchors, never forces anything, even though it would be incredibly easy to. It's so much more typical to play aging, addled characters in bellowing, raging, do-not-go-gentle fashion--or as one-dimensional punchlines. But May's portrayal is solidly dignified, and all the more remarkable since Gladys is a fairly big personality to begin with: she's as endlessly chatty, headstrong, opinionated and irritating as she is bighearted and smart and endearing. Aided with small, gradual changes to her appearance--a graying wig here, an alarmingly roomy dress there--her Gladys starts to diminish in ways that feel no less sad or unfair, but are a whole lot more convincing for the actor's excellent choices: favorite expressions start getting repeated ad-nauseum like so many tics; remembering the right words or finding the house keys becomes harder; recognizing dear friends and close relatives grows frustratingly challenging. May never lets Gladys become a caricature or cruel joke, even as she becomes less coherent or independent.

There may be nothing remarkable about aging, or even about losing your memory as you do. But of course, something as commonplace as decline can still pack a punch. This quiet, lovely production of The Waverly Gallery is all the stronger and more resonant for never once forgetting that. 

The Band's Visit

Last night I went to see The Band's Visit for the second time, with five other people. One had seen it before, the other four hadn't. When the show was over, we were all glowing.

We sat in the last row, in the $49 seats. We had some binoculars with us, but we only used them occasionally. Sitting in the last row was just fine, which is a tribute both to the structure of the Ethel Barrymore Theatre and to David Cromer's quietly intense direction. The Band's Visit happens at a whisper, but it is a whisper that fills the theatre with emotion and beauty. (My niece said that the show was "like a poem," which I think is a great comment.)

One of my all-time favorite experiences is seeing something new and wonderful in the theatre, and The Band's Visit is both. It's a quiet show. It has no plot. It's a theatrical iceberg: 80% of its content is below the surface. The score is lovely, the lyrics by turns funny or moving or both. The performances are exactly right. The set is simple and thoroughly serves the show. The band's "Sergeant Pepper's uniforms" are perfect.

I'm so glad that the show won so many Tonys, all of which were completely deserved. It would have been unsurprising for the Tony voters to go for flash rather than quiet, but I guess The Band's Visit left them glowing as well.

Wendy Caster
($49 seats, last row)
Show-Score Score: 99

The Treasurer

There is a certain gravitas that automatically attaches to a play about dementia starring Deanna Dunagan and Peter Friedman and produced at Playwrights Horizons. Because of this gravitas, it can take a while to realize that there is very little there there.

Max Posner's play, as directed by David Cromer, has a certain power as any play about dementia must. Yet it distances itself from truly engaging the audience by having few face-to-face encounters (the play largely consists of phone calls), by using a cold and unattractive set, and by failing to establish the characters' personalities. The two main characters are difficult (her) and controlling and angry (him), and that's as far as it goes. Dunagan and Friedman do much to provide complexity and humanity, but the play limits their ability to draw truly human characters. The other characters barely exist.