Clueless, The Musical

"What, another musical based on a late 20th-century movie?" you may ask. Well, yeah. But here's the thing: it's really good.

Zurin Villanueva, Dove Cameron
Photo: Monique Carboni

Writer/lyricist Amy Heckerling made a series of smart decisions in bringing Clueless, her funny-yet-heartfelt movie to the stage. The first was using well-known 90's songs, to which she added sharp, funny lyrics. The familiar melodies establish the time period perfectly, and they feel/sound like old friends.

The second smart decision was to be true to the original movie, which is one of those wonderful pieces that manage to nest real dilemmas, character growth, and a moral stance into yummy cotton candy.

The third smart decision was to work with director Kristin Hanggi and choreographer Kelly Devine. Hanggi's direction is well-paced and -focused. She balances the silliness and meaning perfectly. And Hanggi's choreography is energetic, playful, and great fun--exactly what the piece needs.

And the forth smart decision was the excellent casting. Dove Cameron is perfect as Cher, melding the character's complex combination of savvy and shallowness, altruism and egotism, and courage and fear into a completely lovable heroine. She handles the direct-to-audience dialogue beautifully, and her singing voice is gorgeous. Other standouts in the cast include Will Connolly as the adorable stoner Travis, Chris Hoch in multiple roles as the male grown-ups, and Dave Thomas Brown as ex-step-brother Josh, though the whole cast is excellent.

So, I didn't love the scenery and lighting. There were moments that would have benefited from better enunciation. Heckerling's lyrics include occasional half-rhymes that would land better as full rhymes. (I'm of the school that musicals need real rhymes to help the audience catch and enjoy every word.) The opening number runs a little long. But these are small complaints in the context of how much genuine delight the show provides.

I imagine that Clueless, The Musical will move to Broadway. Catch it at the New Group if you can. The intimacy of a small theatre is an added plus to Clueless's already fabulous experience.

Wendy Caster
(press ticket, row k)
Show-Score: 93

The True

Is it ungrateful of me to wish that Sharr White's play, The True, presented by The New Group, had more to offer? Perhaps. After all, there is already much to like here: solid writing, smooth direction, and an amazing cast. But for all those strengths, I just didn't care.

John Pankow, Edie Falco
Photo: Monique Carboni

In all fairness, I mostly wasn't bored. I mean, look at this cast: Edie Falco. Michael McKean. John Pankow. Peter Scolari. Each and every one of them is a pleasure to watch, always. Falco, unsurprisingly, gives an excellent performance, and you can't keep your eyes off her as she talks, and talks, and talks, and talks. And curses and curses and curses.

Why is Falco's character such a gabber? Dorothea Noonan, known as Polly, is an essential component of the Democratic machine in 1970s Albany, and has been for years. She thinks she knows everything--she certainly does know a lot--and it takes many, many words for her to tell everyone around her how to live their lives, professionally and otherwise.

Noonan is a close friend and adviser to the mayor (McKean), but at the start of the play he has decided that he needs distance from her. This separation does not stop her from fighting for him behind the scenes, and she meets with the various men who will help decide whether he gets another term as mayor. (One theme of the play is how she is treated differently because she's female, but to me everyone was pretty obnoxious and she fit right in.)

Ironically enough, the most emotionally successful moment in the play is silent. (It would be a spoiler to say more.)

Some of the political machinations of The True are interesting. Some of the relationships look like they would be fruitful to explore. But as it stands, there is little reason to care about these characters, and the play ends up being about ploys rather than people.

Wendy Caster
(press ticket, row E)
Show-Score: 80

Good for Otto

What if the most heroic thing any of us can do is simply to survive?

[spoilers, arguably, but this is not a plot-driven show]

In Good for Otto, David Rabe gives us a microcosm of a small town--and perhaps of humanity--through scenes from a mental health center. Dr. Michaels (Ed Harris), whose mother killed herself when he was nine, devotes himself to his patients, often marrying calm acceptance with sympathetic guidance. But he also over-identifies with ssome patients, including the smart, volatile, and frighteningly ill Frannie (Rileigh McDonald), 12 years old with a brain full of "storms" that she relieves by cutting herself. Michaels' colleague Evangeline (Amy Madigan) also devotes herself to her patients, though her boundaries may be sounder. Both therapists despair at the bureaucratic limitations that threaten their patients' care.

Ed Harris and cast (and some audience members)
Photo: Monique Carboni

The patients vary widely. There's Timothy, on the autism spectrum and trying to learn how to "widen his circle," but unable to absorb the subtle rules of social interactions. This role verges on stereotype. (Although Mark Lynn-Baker's performance is charming, an actor on the spectrum might have offered more insight and less stereotyping.) Barnard (F. Murray Abraham) is trying to find a post-retirement reason to get out of bed. Alex is a manipulative gay man (also verging on stereotype), lonely enough to invent imaginary relationships. Jane is mourning her son Jimmy, who committed suicide. (Rabe's treatment of suicide is insightful and, perhaps accidentally, an excellent argument for gun control. Jimmy isn't planning to kill himself, but then he notices a shotgun in the corner. It speaks to him much as a piece of pie might speak to someone on a diet. And he picks it up, as he has hundreds of times, but this time he points it at himself. As he dies, he thinks, "Oh shit.")

Jerry Springer: The Opera

For all its highbrow associations, there's a hell of a lot of lowbrow to opera, what with all the really dumb cases of mistaken identity, lurid psychotic breaks, incestuous couplings, and lovers' quarrels that end in brutal violence or surprisingly lengthy deaths from tuberculosis. Men who like to wear diapers and act like babies, women who dream of becoming strippers, and transgender pimps with hearts of gold would ultimately fit just as well into the world of opera as they do into the world of Jerry Springer. I guess that's kind of the point of this show.

Richard Thomas's Jerry Springer: The Opera, currently receiving its Off Broadway premiere at the Signature Theater complex courtesy of the New Group, reimagines The Jerry Springer Show (still in syndication! Who knew?) as something more Wagnerian than I'm sure Springer ever intended. As silly as it is sonically lush, the production is engaging, brisk and light, and in the second act even gently moving under the typically deft, never-too-self-important direction of John Rando. The cast is talented and interesting, Terence Mann is hilariously deadpan as Springer, and Will Swenson, who plays jerks very well, is notably well-cast as Satan, the supreme jerk among all jerks. The ensemble, too, is strong to a one, which is good, since this is very much an ensemble piece. I somehow expected Jerry and Satan to have much meatier roles, but there's a lot going on that does not always involve either one of them. In brief, and perhaps somewhat snobbishly, I would happily sit through this production again, whereas the thought of watching a few minutes of the real Jerry Springer Show makes the comparable thought of rolling around naked in ground glass just a titch more inviting.

The only issue I have with Jerry Springer: The Opera, really, is that for its groovy conceit--opera Jerry gets shot and, in purgatory, learns that Jesus, Mary, God and Satan are all as whiny, crazy, argumentative and flawed as his television guests are--there's ultimatlely not much more to it. Which is, I suppose, just fine: sometimes a good cigar is just a good cigar, a well-performed opera is just a well-performed opera, and a crossdressing sex-addicted trucker who likes to be spanked is just a crossdressing sex-addicted trucker who likes to be spanked.

Maybe, more specifically, it's the marketing for this particular production that doesn't fully jibe for me. The New Group's web-page copy insists that Jerry Springer: The Opera is "deeply in tune with the chaos and unrestrained id of our times," and that may be the case, but frankly, the opera seems postively quaint considering how low the bar has fallen and how much of what used to raise eyebrows on Springer has within mere decades become just another astoundingly sad news day. There's nothing at all wrong with the production. It's just kind of a bummer to realize how much of its content is rooted in a more innocent time--a time when the very basest of human behavior was relatively contained to a few afternoon talk shows. How newly foreign it is to realize that Jerry Springer: The Opera, so sweet and ultimately tame, actually caused enough of an uproar to spark boycotts that made the national news.

Much more than a nostalgia trip, Jerry Springer: The Opera nevertheless harkens back to a recently bygone era of slow news days. Maybe we'll get back to that point someday; in the meantime, I guess, we'll always have JERRY! JERRY! JERRRR-Y!!
 

All the Fine Boys

From public/political discussions and debates, you might think that sexual boundaries between adults and minors--and sexuality itself--are clear, defined, and unambiguous. They're not, as vividly depicted in Erica Schmidt excellent and disturbing (and surprisingly funny) new play, All the Fine Boys.

Wolff, Fuhrman
Photo: Monique Carboni

Emily and Jenny are 14-year-olds in South Carolina in the 1980s. Emily is a relative newcomer; Jenny grew up here. They watch horror films together. Their conversation focuses on middle-school gossip, along with life, adulthood, and sex, about which they know little but would like to know more. Emily's home gets covered in toilet paper every weekend; the perpetrators and their reasons are unknown. She feels overwhelmed by her new boobs. She is smart. Jenny seems a bit lost. She lies for no reason. She says, "You know sometimes I lie down in my driveway and I let the fire ants bite my arm." (Emily changes the subject pretty quickly.)

Steve

Steven (Matt McGrath) and Stephen (Malcolm Gets) have been together 16 years. They have an amazing relationship and a fabulous son named Zack. But there are cracks in the plaster. The relationship isn't actually that amazing. Zack is a bit of a klepto. At the start of the play, the two Steves and their best friends--Matt (Mario Cantone) and Brian (Jerry Dixon), a long-time couple in an open relationship, and Carrie (Ashlie Atkinson), a lesbian with terminal cancer--are celebrating Steven’s birthday. Steven mentions his class in optical art. He orders a vodka stinger. He's snotty to everyone. No one can figure out why he’s acting even more pissy than usual. The thing is, Zack took Stephen’s iPhone, and when Steven retrieved it, he got a glance at some of Stephen’s texts. Add young and attractive waiter-dancer Esteban (Francisco Pryor Garat), who I'm sure can fox trot, and a trainer we never see (named, wait for it, Steve), mix thoroughly, season with many Sondheim references, cook for 90 minutes, and you have Steve, Mark Gerrard's entertaining but unsatisfying play at The New Group, directed by Cynthia Nixon.

Cantone, Gets, McGrath,
Dixon, Atkinson

First, the entertaining parts: The show is frequently funny; the theatre refs are great fun if you tend to find theatre refs great fun; and there is some fine acting. The play is framed by nice bits that I won't spoil here. And the play has ambition. It explores, or at least dips into, aging, death, monogamy, what it means to lead a good life.

Here be spoilers

Then, the unsatisfying parts: Steven is an obnoxious, self-centered man whose redeeming characteristics are so well-hidden as to be invisible. He's tedious, always brooding on the wrongs that happened heaven knows how many years ago. He makes no effort to deal with Carrie's reality, refusing to admit that she's dying and always changing the subject to himself. (In one case, he segues to "Every Day a Little Death" and his relationship when Carrie is trying to have an honest conversation with him about her impending demise.) That's a legitimate, if unattractive characterization. But by the end of the play, author Gerrard himself has treated Carrie less as Steven's best friend and more as a token lesbian whose death is only significant as a growth experience for Steven. It's been annoying for decades to have gay men treated in this way in mainstream works; it's even more annoying to have a gay woman treated this way in a gay play.

End of spoilers

Overall, this is a perfectly competent, by-the-numbers play. If you are part of its main demographic--middle-class gay guys, mostly white--chances are that you will get more out of it than I did.

On the other hand, although I was ultimately unimpressed by Steve, I did laugh a lot.

Wendy Caster
(5th row, press ticket)

Mercury Fur

I find it hard to believe that Philip Ridley's Mercury Fur -- written in 2005, but just now receiving its New York premiere, under the auspices of The New Group -- caused such ire upon its original London bow that the critic Charles Spencer to basically call Ridley a pervert and the author's regular publisher, Faber and Faber, refused to issue the text in print. After all, the play premiered a decade after Sarah Kane's Blasted, a truly unsettling piece that actually simulated rape, mutilation and cannibalism in full view. Horrible things are the purview of this dystopian drama, but the vehicle is almost entirely talk. The talk is laced with fucks and cunts, but it's hardly shocking on the language or the content level. The play portrays a post-apocalyptic world in which any fantasy can be bought for the right price; brothers Elliot (Zane Pais) and Darren (Jack DiFalco) facilitate these encounters and act as purveyors of the drug-du-jour, taken in the form of butterflies.

photo: Michelle V. Agins

I won't reveal the particular fantasy being bought in Mercury Fur, though other critics have. But I will say that by the time it becomes clear -- after nearly two intermissionless hours -- it's hard not to feel that the playwright hasn't earned the shock he's trying to sell. Ridley is obsessed with the minutiae of life in a dystopia -- surviving in a nightmarish landscape becomes just as boring as trying to climb the corporate ladder. But does his writing and the action that surrounds it (Pais and DiFalco spend much of the play's first half-hour cleaning an apartment, doing little else) have to actually be so boring in order to portray banality?

Although the acting is largely good -- Tony Revolori (late of The Grand Budapest Hotel) and Paul Iacono (apparently playing a cisgender woman, for reasons never fully understandable) are particular standouts -- the play never catches fire. And it never feels disquieting. The best works of art in this genre should make you question the darker aspects of your own society. That is something Mercury Fur simply doesn't achieve.

[discounted ticket, almost impossible to accurately describe my seat given the theater's current configuration]

Rasheeda Speaking

I don't believe that every white person in the United States is a racist at heart , waiting only for the right provocation to reveal his or her true colors. I also do not believe that every white person will inevitably default to racist assumptions when having a disagreement with a black person. Or perhaps I believe that some white people at least struggle with their racism and have good manners.

Pinkins (standing), Wiest
Photo:Monique Carboni

Joel Drake Johnson clearly disagrees with me, and he makes his case, awkwardly, in his play Rasheeda Speaking, currently being produced by the New Group at the Pershing Square Signature Center. The play takes place in the small front office of a surgeon, where two women, Jaclyn (the always compelling Tonya Pinkins) and Ilene (the disappointing Diane Wiest) greet patients and deal with paperwork. The surgeon, Dr. Williams (the bland Darren Goldstein), feels that Jaclyn doesn't fit in. He is clearly uncomfortable with her blackness (his particular racism rings true).

Rasheeda Speaking

The central question of Joel Drake Johnson's Rasheeda Speaking, currently in previews at the Signature Center, in a production by The New Group, can be summed up by an utterance one character makes halfway through the play: "Why can't black people and white people just get along?" The person doing the asking is Jaclyn (Tonya Pinkins), an African American receptionist in the office of a white Chicago surgeon, who's figured out that her boss (played by Darren Goldstein, who's very good) has enlisted her co-worker, Ileen (Dianne Wiest), to find a reason to let Jackie go. Hiring Jackie was a mistake, he says. She doesn't fit in. She makes the patients nervous. He already has a replacement in mind, a better fit: a white woman. The dog whistle rings loud and clear.

photo: Monique Carboni

Ileen, at first, is reluctant. She considers Jaclyn a friend (a notion that, with a gimlet eye, Jaclyn rebukes), but more piquantly, she doesn't want to see herself as complicit in a racially-motivated act. Jaclyn is wise to the situation long before anyone says or does anything overt. Pinkins and Wiest play well off of each other; they imbue their benign small-talk with just the right amount of barbed double-speak. Unfortunately, the writing is not always up to the level of the fine actors tasked with performing it. The office interactions between Jaclyn and Ileen are meant to build tension in their banality, and they occasionally do, but more often than not, they just seem dull. By the time the play really starts to cook, in the final twenty minutes or so, you're left to wonder if all that exposition was necessary for such a fleeting pay-off.

The production is helmed by the actress Cynthia Nixon, in her maiden voyage as a director, and I'm afraid that her relative inexperience does no favors to the deficits in the writing. There is nothing visually or stylistically interesting about the staging; Wiest and Pinkins spend most of the ninety minutes seated at their tall desks, which eclipse much of their body language. It's hard to give a complete performance with such an impediment. It's a testament to the talents of the cast--which also includes Patricia Conolly as an elderly patient who, in her brief scenes with Pinkins, does more to answer the play's central question than anyone else--that they are able to bring the nuance to their performances that's largely missing from the writing and the direction.

[Rear orchestra, TDF]

Sticks and Bones

photo: Monique Carboni

 

I wasn't around forty-three years ago, when David Rabe's Sticks and Bones premiered at Joseph Papp's Public Theater, the second work in his trio of plays about Vietnam (the other two being The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel and Streamers). It quickly moved to Broadway, where it earned the Tony for Best Play of 1972 over a boulevard comedy by the then-almighty Neil Simon. It ran six months and was adapted into a TV movie for CBS, a controversial move that resulted in over half of the country's affiliates refusing to air the film. No, I wasn't around when this play premiered, but I can imagine the impact it had, because the first New York revival (being presented by The New Group at the Signature Theatre complex on West 42nd Street) stick packs one hell of a wallop.