Something Wild

By deciding to present in one evening three grueling Tennessee Williams one-acts--27 Wagons Full of Cotton, Hello From Bertha, and This Property Is Condemned--director Ken Schatz has set a major challenge for himself and the Pook's Hill theatre company. Unfortunately, in Something Wild, Schatz et al. only intermittently meet that challenge.

Brian Gianci, Samantha Steinmetz
Photo: Cecilia Senocak

The most successful of the three plays is 27 Wagons Full of Cotton, which is anchored by a brave, moving, odd performance by Samantha Steinmetz as Flora, a none-too-bright woman caught between two manipulative, angry, and violent men. Hello From Bertha, more of an exercise or character study than a play, feels endless; nothing happens, nothing changes, and the cast does not make it compelling. This Property Is Condemned is also a character study and also not particularly compelling. However, the character has echos of Blanche DuBois, and it is interesting to watch Williams riff on his themes of loneliness and loss.

Something Wild's main problem is that these three plays are too much for one evening, particularly without an intermission. 27 Wagons Full of Cotton delivers a large helping of anxiety and horror, and the other two plays, although less-well-written and less-well-acted, also serve up a tremendous amount of pain. In addition, the latter two plays are too similar in structure, both being virtual monologues by unhappy, hopeless women. After a while, the production begins to feel assaultive. When the evening was over, I felt like I needed an emergency comedy.

Another issue is that the theatre has audience on three sides but the plays are directed only for the people in the middle. For extended periods of time, actors speak too softly, block each other from view, or never face one or both sides. This is disrespectful of two thirds of the audience.

Something Wild does have one important achievement to its credit; by and large, the evening captures the Tennessee Williams-ness of the plays.

(press ticket; second row center)

Job

Sean McIntyre, Adam Lebowitz-Lockard

Photo: Hunter Canning

The story of Job in the bible is one of the weirder episodes in a book full of weird episodes, and in The Flea Theater's production of Job, featuring The Flea's resident theatre troupe, The Bats, playwright Thomas Bradshaw and director Benjamin H. Kamine leave no weirdness unturned. Bradshaw uses humor and violence to emphasize the creepy casualness of a God who plays with his subjects with no more concern than a kid burning ants with magnified sunlight. And Job, who is visited with some truly baroque afflictions, is ostensibly one of God's favorites! If that's how God treats him, just imagine how he might treat the rest of us. (Oh, yeah, floods, plagues, boils, Mitt Romney.)

Bradshaw's God is a somewhat mellow guy who meditates and hangs out with his two favorite sons, Jesus and Dionysus. This relative mellowness makes even more chilling his decision to allow his brother Satan to torture Job so that he can win a bet. Job's pain and suffering are incidental. This God is worse than a vengeful God; he is a careless God.

When God eventually restores to Job most of what was taken from him, God says, "I’m going to send him a new wife, and they’ll have six children, twice as many as he had before." Here again, humans are just playthings, and God seems to think that Job's first wife and three children can be replaced as easily as camels and sheep. 

But Job doesn't come out looking so wonderful either. He is pompous and self-satisfied and dripping with a sense of entitlement, and he is also capable of great violence. In this way he seems truly formed in his maker's image.

Bradshaw's play is interesting, thought-provoking, and vivid. It is also, in this production, one of the most unpleasant evenings I have ever spent in a theatre. I get that Bradshaw and Kamine want us to feel the horrors that occur, but watching murder, rape, and necrophilia in an extremely small space is just too much. It becomes violence porn, with effects for the sake of effects. The violence is well-done--kudos to fight director Michael Wieser--but it is also overdone, and gratuitous. While the suggestion of violence can horrify a theatre audience, this level of carnage replaces the emotional response with horror-movie-level--bad horror-movie-level--shock.

Another problem is that Job is 20 minutes of material stretched to about an hour. Perhaps this is one reason that the violence is depicted in such loving, time-consuming detail.

Bradshaw is know as a  provocateur. In this case I think he let the faux provocation of icky effects outweigh the genuine provocation of depicting a God loved by millions as self-centered and totally lacking compassion.

(third row center; press ticket)

Mary Broome

Janie Brookshire, Roderick Hill
Photo: Carol Rosegg

1911. The upper-crust Timbrells gather in the drawing room to discuss the wedding of Edgar, the oldest brother, to his beloved Sheila. As always, ne'er-do-well younger brother Leonard annoys everyone with his sarcasm and condescension. Various family members get into arguments that have clearly been argued before. The evening seems destined to continue along this path until the maid, Mary Broome, quietly announces that she is pregnant. Leonard is the father.

Most of what happens next in Allan Monkhouse's 1911 comedy-drama will surprise few people in the audience, but that doesn't mean that the play isn't worth seeing. It's never boring, and it circles around, if never quite lands on, some astute insights. It's almost as though Monkhouse was dimly aware of human psychology, feminism, and changing societal mores, but didn't quite know what to do with these juicy concepts.

The Mint Theater Company's production of Mary Broome is handsome and smooth. The drawing room is festooned with family portraits that give a strong sense of a family rooted in years of expectations and limitations (although the decision to change them as the play progresses is inappropriately cartoony). The costumes are attractive and effective. The direction, by Jonathan Bank, is solid, except for the major misstep of casting Roderick Hill as Leonard. Leonard is an obnoxious character who needs to be played with charm and/or complexity to be anything other than an ongoing irritant. And if Leonard is flat, as he is in Hill's portrayal, then the whole play is deflated.  Janie Brookshire, on the other hand, does well at giving Mary Broome three dimensions.

It's fascinating to compare today's plays of those of 100 years ago. The pressure on playwrights to keep casts small has changed contemporary writing, as has the trend toward 90 minutes, no intermission. The result is streamlined plays with the need to make every word count. The more meandering plays of yesteryear seem almost profligate in comparison, taking their time and including characters that are not central to the story. One of the many reasons that the Mint is invaluable is the opportunity to see first-hand how the shape of theatre has evolved over the years.

(fifth row center, press ticket)

Strange Tales of Liaozhai

You walk into the theatre carefully, skirting the floor-level stage, which is covered with gorgeous patterned silks and parasols and glittering chains of reflective circles. You take your seat and are then presented with the Strange Tales of Liaozhai, one tale about a collector of pigeons, another about love, more or less.

Jane Wang
Photo: Richard Termine

The first story is told by a man we do not see as Hannah Wasileski's lovely and evocative projections gradually appear and then melt away. The second is narrated by a woman who is not present as a character but who is quietly and unobtrusively active at the side wall, manipulating strings and alchemizing the panels of silk and brocade, parasols, and glittering chains into a variety of characters while speaking the narration into a headset. This is renowned theatre artist Hanne Tierney, who is the creator of the concept, text, and puppets and also a formidable multitasker.

There are some beautiful things here. The glittering chains are magical. There are moments in which the cloth panels ease into elegant, graceful shapes in a sort of origami-in-motion. The music, composed by Jane Wang and played by her on double bass, toy piano, and various stainless steel instruments of her own invention, provides a fluid, remarkable soundscape.

Strange Tales of Liaozhai represents such thoughtfulness, talent, and hard work that I really wanted to love it, or even like it. But the sad truth is that I spent much of the time bored. (Many people in the audience clearly enjoyed the show much more than I did.) Everything moves very slowly--even more slowly, I think, than is necessitated by the physical requirements of the projections and puppetry. Neither story is particularly compelling, and while many of the visuals are impressive, they aren't emotionally engaging. I will gladly stipulate that Strange Tales of Liaozhai is an impressive work of art, but I just didn't care.

(Second row center, press ticket.)

So Long, Farewell, Colony Records

Colony Records, that old sheet music and sound recording mecca that has resided on the corner of 49th and Broadway in Times Square since 1970 (and, before that, on 52nd Street, where it first opened in 1948) is going out of business on Saturday, September 15th.

I was asked a few weeks back to blog about the significance of its demise for Oxford University Press, which is publishing my book, Hard Times: The Adult Musical in 1970s New York City in October. More on the book in a later post, I promise. For now, I wanted to call attention to the store's closing, and to my post about it. Check out the OUP blog post below--and if you are local, please stop in at Colony to say goodbye. It's a sad pilgrimage, to be sure, but one I bet you'll be glad you made.

COLONY

The Newsroom (TV Review)

Good theatre makes you feel something. It makes you laugh. It makes you angry. It makes you love. Great theatre, much like great television, takes it a step further. It teaches you something as it moves you to those emotions. It charges you to action, or at very least, a new way of thinking.

HBO's 'The Newsroom' is great television. This may seem off topic - talking about a television show on a theatre blog, but bear with me for a moment. 

The most talked about theatrical influence, perhaps, is the creator of the show, Aaron Sorkin, beloved playwright (A Few Good Men) and movie scriptwriter. He is known for his poignant work, and does not disappoint here. Then there's the adorable and endearing Jim Harper, played by John Gallagher Jr. of Broadway's Spring Awakening and American Idiot fame. Plus, the main character, Will McAvoy, is played by Jeff Daniels who has seen his share of stage time and founded The Purple Rose Theatre Company in Michigan. And then there's Sam Waterston who is...well, Sam Waterston.

The list goes on and on, but the most obvious theatrical influence comes from the script. As a friend and fellow stage manager put it as he was trying to convince me the show was worth my time, "There's at least 574,839 musical references per episode." Halfway through the 10 episode run this season, and I've caught allusions to Man of La Mancha, West Side Story, Gypsy, Oklahoma, Annie Get Your Gun, Little Shop of Horrors, Brigadoon, and Evita. 

But even more than that, it is a brilliant, important look at how the news is distributed and a call to the public to think about what 'facts' they are being fed from a myriad of sources. I was initially intrigued at Sorkin's use of actual news stories, but I was hooked because of the quality and relevance of what he's put together. Plus, it's always fun to hear a mainstream, non-theatre based show reference Sardi's. 

There's probably more to say, but I'm anxious to get to episode six. Track down 'The Newsroom' if you get a chance. At very least, the musical theatre enthusiast inside of you will be thrilled.

The Queen of the Mist (CD Review)

The Original Cast Recording of The Queen of the Mist, Michael John LaChiusa's tale of the stubborn Anna Edson Taylor and her trip over Niagara Falls in a barrel in 1901, is a well-done representation of the musical, with Mary Testa's vivid performance almost as alive and three-dimensional on CD as it was in the show itself (review here). The CD features a seven-person band and a handsome booklet, and I thank Ghostlight Records for producing it and the Shen Family Foundation for providing support.

While there is much to recommend this recording, the show itself is uneven, and therefore the CD is as well. The only attempt at anything resembling suspense is the question of whether Edson Taylor will ever reveal how it felt to face death in that unique manner, but that's not compelling enough to propel a plot. More importantly, just as the show ultimately lacks emotional punch, so does the CD. It's difficult to care about the sorta, kinda relationship between Edson Taylor and her manager; in fact, it's difficult to care about Edson Taylor at all. On the other hand, the relationship between Edson Taylor and her sister is presented effectively and movingly and shows us a more sympathetic side to her character.

The music itself is some of LaChiusa's most accessible, but also some of his least interesting. At times it sounds as though he set himself the task of writing an "American musical" that splits the difference between the sentimentality of Ragtime and the cynicism of Assassins. But LaChiusa on a bad day is still better than many composer-lyricists on a good day, and there are some wonderful songs here, such as "On the Other Side" and "Letter to Jane." The CD's main asset is that it exists-- a piece of theatre history saved for present and future generations.

(press copy)

Ballet NY

I once saw a demonstration of second-tier gymnasts, people who were just below Olympic level. Watching their strengths and weaknesses made me understand and appreciate gymnastics more deeply and realistically than did watching the near perfection of gold medalists. Ballet NY offers a similar experience. The dancers aren't the best of the best, but some are quite good, and watching their work offers a different insight into dance than offered by the brilliant dancers who make it look easy.

Nadezhda Vostrikov

The evening starts with the company premiere of "Triptych," choreographed by John-Mark Owen to music by H.F. Biber and Sergei Rachmaninoff. (More accurately, it's "Diptych," since only two movements are performed.) Owen explains in a choreographer's note that the piece is about "a couple that can neither live with, or without, one another." The dancers certainly spend a lot of time clinging to each other; in each of the pas de deux, the male dancers lift, twirl, and, frankly, shlep the women around. Some of the lifts are lovely, and some moments connect emotionally, but the piece comes across more as an exercise than a fully realized piece. It is largely well danced by Kelsey Coventry, Michael Eaton, Nadezhda Vostrikov, and Fidel Garcia. However, in the first movement, Eaton and Coventry lack both chemistry and acting skills. Eaton in particular always looks like he is working hard--which he is!--but never like he is emotionally involved. (This movement is also hurt by the decision to have the other two dancers stand downstage throughout, blocking many audience member's views and pulling focus in general.) Garcia and Vostrikov have much more chemistry and emotional connection, which brings their pas de deux to a higher level, but by the end Garcia is clearly tired. I would be too, after all of those lifts, but it does take away from the performance. Timothy Church's costumes for the women have a distracting tendency toward camel toe, and the men's bare chests are distracting in different way.

The second piece, "Duet from The Other," choreographed by Agnes DeMille, is a delight. It is supposed to depict "vitality, light and shadow," and it does so with great panache and humor. Dancers Jennifer Goodman and Luke Manley bring elegance and charm to the proceedings, and it is sheer pleasure to see extended periods of actual dance after the incessant lifts and grabs and slithers of "Triptych." The costumes are traditional and effective: white dress for her, tights and vest for him. The lighting design by David Grill is exactly as it should be.

Next comes "The Garden of Souls," choreographed by Medhi Bahiri and nicely danced by Goodman and Jason Jordan. Here again there is too much reliance on lifts and what I can only call voguing. There are a handful of great moments, such as some lifts that snap together perfectly, providing both pleasure and emotion. The actual dancing is sloppy, however; Goodman and Jordan are so out of sync that it's hard to tell if they're even supposed to be doing the same movements. Every once in a while, however, they achieve unison, and it is possible to see the beauty of Bahiri's work. (Like Garcia, Jordan also seems tired by the end of the piece; a lesson of this evening may be that there is a limit to how many lifts even a toned person with a gorgeous chest can do in a short period of time.) "The Garden of Souls" is a work in progress, and I hope that Bahiri hones his vision and that the dancers have more rehearsal time before it's performed again.

The evening ends with the quite enjoyable "Trois Mouvements," also choreographed by Bahiri. A fairly traditional piece utilizing eight dancers, it featurs various duets and solos and, yay!, no overdependence on lifts. The dancing ranges from good enough to quite good, with Nadezhda Vostrikov standing out for her elegance and graceful line.

Please note that the program does not specify which dancers dance which movements, nor are there pictures of the dancers in the program or the lobby. As a result, it is possible that I have some of the names wrong in this review. Corrections gratefully accepted.

(fifth row center; press ticket)

Slowgirl

Slowgirl is a lovely piece of theatre, small, quiet, simple-yet-complex, and real.

Photo: Erin Baiano

A 17-year-old goes to visit her uncle in the jungles of Costa Rica. She hasn't seen him since she was eight, and she's completely unprepared for dealing with nature. Why is she there? That's the story that unfolds over the smart and involving 90 minutes of Greg Pierce's excellent play, well-directed by Anne Kauffman.

The cast is a playwright's dream come true. Sarah Steele plays the girl, and her evolution from obnoxious to vulnerable (while still pretty obnoxious) is beautifully done. The uncle is the always-brilliant Željko Ivanek, who is one of the best actors working today. Actually, he has been for decades (his award-winning performance in Cloud Nine remains among my all-time favorites). Ivanek is a subtle, unshowy actor who totally inhabits each character he plays, never displaying even a hint of acting machinery.

The set by Rachel Hauck, costumes by Emily Rebholz, lighting by Japhy Weideman, and sound by Leah Gelpe are all evocative and impressive. And the new Claire Tow Theatre is a treat, intimate and comfortable. I suppose it's too much to hope that all its shows turn out to be this good, but one can always hope!

(Row G--the last row--for $23. All seats at the Clair Tow are $20; the rest is fees.)

The Last Smoker in America

When it comes to making theatre--or any sort of art--sometimes "no" is even more important than "yes." Take The Last Smoker in America, an amiable, mediocre musical that opened last night at the Westside Theatre. Peter Melnick's music and Bill Russell's book and lyrics have much to recommend them, but there are so many songs--more than a few completely unnecessary to the story--that they begin to feel relentless. (At one point the impressively talented John Bolton comes on stage with a guitar, and, even though I enjoyed his work a great deal, my gut-level response was, "Please don't sing another song. Please." Never a good sign at a musical.)

The Last Smoker in America is the story of, well, guess. It includes some nice satire of the "nanny state" but it also includes jokes and songs that were outdated years ago. I suppose their datedness may be related to how long it takes to get a show on nowadays, and perhaps the songs were more timely in their youth. But they are no longer in their youth, and that's where the word "no" would have come in handy. For example, should they have kept the painfully annoying song about the white teen who wishes that he were a black gangsta? No.

Belcon, Alvin, Boyd, Bolton
Photo: Joan Marcus

Then there's all the shtick and costume changes that make up much of the show. Why does the anti-smoking robot only respond sometimes when the last smoker tries to light up? Is it because consistency would have been inconvenient to the book writer? Why do the father and son wear Osmond-family-esque costumes at one point? Did the writers, along with director Andy Sandberg, really think it was a good idea? Why?

In all fairness, some of the shtick is genuinely funny. But the mood of the show is never established, and as it goes hither and yon, I kept thinking, what is this? And why should I care?

I then found myself thinking of Little Shop of Horrors, which establishes its tone from the first note and honors it throughout (I'm referring to the original Off-Broadway production). We know immediately that Little Shop is offering silliness with an emotional undercurrent. With Last Smoker, all we know is that some talented people threw in pretty much everything they could think of, without keeping track of the big picture.

To the extent that he keeps things moving and helps the cast calibrate their various incarnations, director Sandberg does an excellent job. But shouldn't/couldn't he have offered an objective eye and some guidance to Russell and Melnick? Or does he genuinely like the show as is? I wonder.

The four-person cast brings great commitment and energy to the proceedings. Farah Alvin, in the lead, is likeable and funny. Natalie Venetia Belcon switches moods on a dime, and her voices, from hypersweet squeaky to scary deep, add much humor to the show. I liked Jake Boyd, which is quite a compliment, since his role is deeply obnoxious and poorly written. And Bolton is consistently entertaining.

A playwright friend of mine once told me that she doesn't get real actors to do early readings of her plays, because "They can't help but make even bad writing sound good." The cast of The Last Smoker of America almost succeeds in hiding most of its flaws, and if the show were 75 minutes with a third fewer songs, it might have worked. But it's over 90 minutes and relentless. More "no" was definitely needed.

(third row, press ticket)

Nice Work If You Can Get It

If you're interested in watching a middle-aged woman bring the house down merely by glancing up at a chandelier, then Nice Work If You Can Get It is the show for you. The production received mixed reviews, largely because of the miscasting of Matthew Broderick as the romantic lead, but the slapstick-heavy luncheon scene that takes place in act II--and specifically the energy and dedication of Judy Kaye and Michael McGrath in it--is just one of many reasons to see the show, anyway.

It's sort of bizarre to think of "The Gershwins" and "jukebox musical" in the same flash, but Nice Work if You Can Get It really fits the bill. Which kind of makes sense, the more you chew on it. Lots of Gershwin shows--and those by their contemporaries--were pastiches in the first place. Songs that worked well in one show were often inserted into others; books were often secondary to a string of good songs, and thus utterly ridiculous; sight gags, slapstick, and quick, hilarious verbal exchanges glued the whole thing together. That Nice Work is being billed as a "new" Gershwin musical is perfectly apt, in this respect: the Gershwins, after all, were doing jukebox musicals before jukebox musicals had any idea what they were.

But then again, Nice Work would never have existed back in the Gershwin days--its nod to gender politics and its winking, self-referential humor are both just too contemporary. Its plot, while rooted firmly in the traditionally madcap, is just tight enough to resolve nicely, neatly, and without too many gaping holes. Some of its numbers are almost Berkeleyesque in their weird, carefully constructed randomness--the bathtub scene in the first act comes to mind--but, at the same time, winkingly conscious of their links to the past. So too is the whole show, which works nicely for the most part, if not all the time. Some of the numbers seem particularly shoehorned into specific scenes--and yes, I know this was the practice once, but it's not, now, so certain greatest-hits numbers (like "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" and the act I closer, "Fascinating Rhythm") seem to have been inserted primarily because--well, because they're greatest hits, and thus they HAVE to be shoved in there, somewhere.

And Broderick? Whatever, he's certainly watchable, if sort of stuck in a kind of Leo Bloom persona. He doesn't quite cut it as the romantic lead, here, but then again, the character he's playing is something of a sniveling cypher, overly coddled by his endlessly disapproving but enormously wealthy mother, and fully aware of how a schmuck like himself is fine as long as he has access to his family's ludicrous amounts of cash. Still, paired with the absolutely luminous Kelli O'Hara--as well as a remarkably strong supporting cast of wacky, high-energy men and women--he really seems to be phoning it in sometimes. Then again, really, who cares? He looks like he's having fun. Who wouldn't?

Also, again, he's playing an opportunistic schmuck who treats women poorly, is morally and ethically weak, and doesn't much think about the rest of the world or how it works. How else to treat him in the modern era? Especially in a show cast with exceptionally strong female roles, directed and choreographed by Kathleen-effing-Marshall, and produced in part by a number of individual women and all-female producing teams? Broderick seems perfectly fine to stand aside and let 'em run the show. Nice work, indeed.

Evita

Ricky Martin gives good lean—posing against a wall, languishing next to a pillar, and climbing a ladder, tilting his body precariously away from the rungs. Despite a voice that merely hits the notes, and arms as stiff as cardboard, Martin charms as Che. Part of that is due to the sex appeal that brings so many “livin’ la vida loca” fans to the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice revival. Martin’s clothing hangs effortlessly, with his white opened shirt and tight pants emphasizing the parts that make him worthy as a pin-up. Yet his physical beauty never disarms since he plays Che more as a friend than intense subversive. When the show opens with the First Lady of Argentina’s funeral, he wanders through the crowd, one of the people, as he offers a handkerchief to one grief-stricken person, and places a hand on another mourner’s shoulder. He seems as accessible as Eva Peron herself. It is unsurprising that a decline in ticket sales coincided with his summer vacation.

Evita first appeared on Broadway in 1979 and propelled rising actors Patti LuPone and Mandy Patinkin, into theater stardom, nabbing them both Tony Awards for the Eva and Che roles. The casting in director Michael Grandage’s version feels less balanced: a stratospherically popular Latin singer/actor, a Broadway stalwart in Michael Cervaris’ (Assassins, Tony Award) Juan Peron, and Argentine actress Elena Rogers as Eva, known more for dancing than singing abilities. I can’t comment on her work, though, since the Wednesday matinee performance I saw featured Christina DeCicco (Wicked), but the Martin fan behind me (on her third visit) said assuredly that the audience was lucky for the substitution since, “Rogers can’t sing.”

Casting a celebrity in a Broadway show creates a double-edged sword. The market brightens with the possibility of fans coming to multiple performances (see above), but that sometimes makes a show more about the star than the well-calibrated group effort good theater takes. And, in a show about Eva Peron, who inspires a recurring line about providing “just a little bit of star quality,” DeCicco needs to offer more luster than the other characters. With Martin’s omnipresent sparkle, she can’t. Cervaris does offer some competition as Eva’s general-with-president potential, partnering the calculating, standoffish presence of the rising politico with an underlying raw emotion, intimating that the power coupling was also about love. Rachel Potter as the Mistress out shines them all though, standing plaintively on the stage as the social-climbing Eva moves upward in bed and steals her paramour. The sweet resonance of Potter’s voice and its trembling vulnerability in “Another Suitcase in Another Hall” haunts all the remaining scenes. It is not a good sign when a few stanzas in the first act surpass the famous “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” number.

The revival follows the original plot, beginning with the end of Eva’s life and effectively uses newsreels to show the state funeral before time traveling back to her humble beginnings, to Eva’s time as an actress, and, finally, her rise to the near top of the Argentine government. The sets (by Christopher Oram, who also designed the costumes) beautifully change from a piazza where mourners congregate to a local tavern to the sweeping majestic marble columns of a palatial estate with the aid of Neil Austin’s lighting. Particularly pleasing are the sudden patches of light let in when the building doors burst open, acting as a spotlight of sorts for flamenco dancers or the crowds of citizens who enter.

The hummable score by Lloyd Webber is augmented by the addition of “You Must Love Me,” written for the 1996 film with Madonna, and also used in the 2006-07 London revival version. Rice’s lyrics still offer little depth—more chuckle-providing than sharp observation, such as the line, “Her only good parts are between her thighs,” sung in “Peron’s Latest Flame.”

When Evita opened in April, reviews were all over the place (see Huffington Post or Show Showdown May 14th or 21st reviews for examples), and it is easy to see why. Much of Evita offers enjoyment, but it never coalesces into memorable theater even though you’d like it to do so.

Clybourne Park

Bruce Norris's Pulitzer-, Tony-, Olivier- and Evening Standard- award winning play Clybourne Park, which has been running since late March at the Walter Kerr Theater, is not perfect for all its accolades. There are some cheap jokes, played for belly laughs. Some of the characters are more well-developed than others. And some of the connections between characters from different eras are just a little too convenient. But the show works well for its flaws, which somehow manage, in some ways, to reinforce the playwright's grasp of and attempt to wrestle with race, class, gender, and language over several decades. Aren't we all sometimes sort of two-dimensional, crass, or even brutish in particular settings? Aren't we all as closely connected to the past as we are eager to push it behind us? Are we ever truly capable of real collective social change, or does our present always end up latching stubbornly onto the wriggling snake's tale of the past? Despite occasional missteps--which are maybe not missteps after all--Norris makes debate about this stuff seem easy, breezy, and often very, very funny.

Clybourne Park is set in the same house during two different eras. Act I takes place in 1959. A middle-aged white couple are preparing to move to a new neighborhood. As the nervously quirky, overly chipper Bev and her relentlessly downbeat husband Russ banter about the move, the derivation of the word "Neapolitan," and a footlocker that needs to be moved downstairs, they are gradually joined by their black maid, Francine, who is getting ready to go home; their pastor, Jim, who wants to talk with Russ about his depression; their neighbors, Karl and Betsy, who want to talk with Russ and Bev about the sale of their house; and Francine's husband, Albert, who has come to pick his wife up from work. While the white characters initially join Bev and Russ's light banter, talk soon gives way to deeper, more painful issues: a grown son who did terrible things before killing himself; a pregnancy that yielded a stillborn baby; the ways a community can uplift and foster; the ways a community can abandon and alienate. And there is a great deal of talk about the fact that Bev and Russ's home has been sold to a black family. It is only when the white characters begin this conversation in earnest that they take any real interest--and "real" is pushing it--in Albert and Francine.

Act II takes place in the same house--now empty and thoroughly dilapidated--in 2009. Now a historic, predominantly black neighborhood, Clybourne Park is attracting the interest of young, upwardly mobile white couples who covet the spacious homes and proximity to downtown Chicago. One such couple, Lindsey and Steve, have purchased the house and submitted plans to tear it down and build something taller, more ostentatious, and--you can just tell--way uglier in its place. The same cast members, in different yet overlapping roles, meet again in the house to go over the ordinances, discuss the plans, and air their concerns about the demolition and new construction. Light conversation--again, stemming from the derivations of words related to different geographical locations--results in a few asides that connect some of the characters to those in the first act: the lawyer representing the couple is the daughter of Karl and Betsy. Lena, who, with her husband Kevin, serves on the community board, is the niece of the woman who bought the house from Bev and Russ in 1959. Soon enough, the conversation turns again to race.

Morris draws a number of parallels between the first and second acts, while at the same time keeping both rooted in their time periods. In act I, race looms larger than gender and class in the minds of the characters, even as the playwright gently reminds us of the many ways they intersect. Talk is more direct when it touches on race in this pre-Civil Rights world; the white characters don't think twice about neatly erasing the black characters from the discussion--or from the room--until it becomes convenient to include them, whereupon they are blithely condescended to at every turn.

The second act is set in 2009, a year that the now-quaint term "postracial" was used most frequently in this country. The act is also, however, rooted in the post-Civil Rights--and post-second wave, post-Stonewall, post-PC, and postmodern era--and so language, perception, and discussion about race has become touchier, more nuanced, more layered, and thus, Morris implies, a lot harder to negotiate for pretty much the same ends. In light of the new complexities of language and meaning, Morris's use of cheap jokes and easy characterizations end up taking on a lot more weight in performance before a contemporary audience: what are we doing when we laugh at the racist jokes the characters hurl at each other in act II? Just how layered and informed are our reactions? Are we laughing ironically?

Morris concludes, quite cynically, that we haven't really changed at all, even though the ways we talk about race have become more nuanced, sophisticated, guarded. His play ends up back in 1959, just prior to the actions that take place in act one: For all the changes we've pushed for in this country, he deftly tells us, and for as often as we like to pride ourselves on being blind to class, gender, and racial differences, our big old snake of a culture just won't release its rattling tail from its iron-clad jaws.

Baby Case

Thirty-two separate characters are listed in the program for Baby Case, and I didn't care about any of them. The show is a descendant of Chicago, Ragtime, and Assassins, but without any center. Since it tells the story of the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, you might assume that Charles and Anne Lindbergh would be the main characters, but they're not. In fact, neither even gets the big "our baby's been taken" song--the baby's nurse, a character we know nothing about, gets it. Perhaps America is supposed to be the main character, but that's a concept, not a character. Chicago, Ragtime, and Assassins are about America, but after they're about people and desire and obstacles and arcs and journeys. (It's kind of mean to compare a new show to Chicago, Ragtime, and Assassins, since they are three of the finest shows of the past 50 years, but Baby Case invites the comparisons.)

Michael Ogborn, who wrote the book, lyrics, and music, is undoubtedly talented and has much to say. None of it is new, however, at least in Baby Case, but that's okay. Everything really has already been said; the challenge is to be fresh and compelling while re-saying it. Ogborn doesn't meet that challenge.

Some of the lyrics are interesting, a couple of songs are beautiful, and Ogborn's ambition is admirable. But he is not a good book-writer; he lacks the all-important ability to efficiently bring characters to life. And the more characters you have, the more efficient you have to be. (I know and care more about the Emma Goldmans of Assassins and Ragtime--even though she is a minor character in both--than about anyone in Baby Case.)

To the extent that Ogborn is showing how society and the press make a circus out of tragedies, he almost pulls it off, and he is definitely helped by director Jeremy Dobrish and choreographer Warren Adams. There's a jazz-hands moment when the chorus is singing "Someone's Taken the Lindbergh Baby" that has a zip and point of view that might have invigorated and defined the rest of the show.

The cast is uneven. Will Reynolds is weak as Lindbergh but better as Bruno Hauptmann (odd double casting!). Anika Larsen, who can be excellent, is unimpressive here, except in the scene where she is told that her son is dead; she's simultaneously heart-breaking and technically impressive. Michael Thomas Holmes is an effective Walter Winchell, and Jason Collins does well with a variety of roles. Eugene Barry-Hill is outstanding, bringing real dimension to a neighbor who may or may not have seen Hauptmann on the Lindbergh estate.

The set and costumes by Martin Lopez are attractive, and the lighting by Zach Blane gives the exactly right hyper-focused glow to the proceedings. The sound is iffy; people's voices drop out when they stand at certain locations onstage. (There was also some sort of interference at the performance I saw; it sounded as though someone off-stage was coming through the speakers.)

The audience response seemed mixed. There was a fair amount of friends-in-the-audience hooting and hollering. Some people didn't come back for act two (including the friend I went with). At the end, some people clapped politely while some people stood.

The advance buzz on Baby Case was quite positive, and I can sorta see why. The show has energy and some humor and a certain shine. But until and unless it gains a center, the whole will remain less than the sum of its parts.

(press ticket, 2nd row on the aisle)

Peter and the Starcatcher

Fairytales should seem magical—and parts of this prequel to J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, (adapted by Jersey Boys co-writer Rick Elice from humor writer Dave Barry and suspense novelist Ridley Pearson’s best-selling 2004 children’s novel) do deliver that sparkling sense of the impossible made possible. Without resorting to crashing chandeliers or the web-swinging acrobatics of superheroes, directors Roger Rees and Alex Timbers, set designer Donyale Werle, lighting designer Jeff Croiter, and movement director Steven Hoggett construct a setting that merely suggests scenery. With inventive simpleness, items such as ladders, toy boats, and the actors own bodies convey an ocean voyage, a terrifying pirate attack and shipwreck, and an island adventure merely through a collection of magical movements: a sea storm accelerates with the mere sway and shift of the actors’ torsos and erratic splashes of light; a rope becomes doorways, stairs, and locked rooms where captives sit in the dark waiting for rescue.

The play starts with the departure of the ship, Neverland, and its myriad of occupants: a pirate-like crew, three helpless orphans placed in a trunk on a dubious adventure, and a Nanny and her precocious charge, Molly. The daughter of Captain Scott, and part of a secret group that protects star stuff (a powerful star essence) from nefarious purposes, Molly comes off as a Sara Crewe sort—a girl who is more adult than child—who likes to make pronouncements such as “Something about the boy made her think she grew up,” which she says after first meeting Boy, the future Peter Pan. Like the Frances Hodgson Burnett character, she shares an unusual closeness with her father, who often leaves her alone. Molly sees something extraordinary in Boy and, after a shipwreck, they become friends as they shelter a chest of star stuff from pirates and other evil entities.

While the storyline follows the traditional premises of fairytales (good vs. evil, the power of friendship, the loss of love), its constant insertion of vaudevillian, almost in-the-know hipster humor distracts from the potential magic of its story and the original staging. More “Family Guy” than Disney, Starcatcher ultimately becomes grating as jokes about Philip Glass, “Can you hear me now?” commercials, and prosciutto make puns more important than emotion. Although billed as a play, Starcatcher offers several musical numbers (by composer Wayne Barker) that rarely add to the story’s development. For instance, the second act opening number offers a line of mermaid showgirls, mostly danced in drag by the nearly all-male cast. The number is both humorous and fun, yet there’s no purpose to it: it’s merely a cheap laugh.

Much of the cast from last year’s New York Theatre Workshop production return, including Christian Borle (TV’s “Smash”), Celia Keenan-Bolger (Tony Award nominee for The 25^th Annual... Spelling Bee), and Adam Chanler-Berat (Next to Normal). For all, it is a triumphant reunion. As Black Stache, Borle injects the future Captain Hook with an over-the-top showiness, making him both a villain and a clown, as his slapstick acrobatics spins him across the stage, tripping with a dangerous precariousness over items like a chest. The theatrical version of Sasha Baron Cohen, Borle delights as he menaces his future adversary, Peter Pan. Keenan-Bolger gives Molly a sweetness and humility amid her know-it-all opinions that make her a strong, relatable multi-layered character. Chanler-Berat also shows Boy’s duality, and is both vulnerable and steel-flinted—a man-child who has seen too much and, yet, wants to linger in the innocence of youth despite leaving the possibilities of the future behind.  The three, ultimately, become the sparkling stuff that makes Starcatcher enjoyable: for as the show states every villain needs his hero. And, for Boy and Molly every child needs that special person who helps them become what they are meant to be.

(Mezzanine; Broadway Box ticket)

Peter and the Starcatcher was also reviewed by Show Showdown in April at http://showshowdown.blogspot.com/2012/04/peter-and-starcatcher.html

Gore Vidal's The Best Man

There's something comforting about being reminded, every so often, of that old saying, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." Gore Vidal's 1960 chestnut The Best Man, currently easing into the final stretch of its excessively star-studded revival at the Schoenfeld Theatre, is a testament to the best and worst aspects of that adage. Almost half a century ago, the play reminds us, American politicians were just as corrupt and corruptible, backhanded, backstabbing, status- and image-obsessed, and power-hungry as they are now. Then as now, when a politician insisted that he had nothing to hide, he damned well did; then as now, it was hard to tell the person from the persona, and honesty from opportunism. Perhaps the fact that I find all this comforting makes me as deeply cynical as Vidal's characters, but so be it: I sort of like being reminded that ours is not the very worst of times, that American party politics has always been pretty ludicrous, and that our republic manages to stand nonetheless.  

The Best Man began its run in March 2012, when the Republican nomination for president had yet to be cinched. Back then, even though everyone was pretty sure that Romney would end up taking the lead, there was some--um--surprise surging that momentarily disrupted the now-typical trajectory. I suspect that the Vidal play felt slightly less dated before all that jostling stopped, and with it the hint of anything approximating suspense. One thing that has most certainly changed in electoral politics is that there is no longer quite as much in the way of surprise, at least when it comes to the run for the White House. The Best Man hinges on the frantic back-room dealings among candidates vying for delegates in the kinds of lurid, mud-slinging, liquor-fueled, white-knuckled battles that used to take place during the presidential convention itself. Sounds exciting, no? Actually, dated or not, The Best Man is rather inconsistent, as plays go. It's very talky, a tad too long, oddly paced, and peopled with characters who are not always fully fleshed out or very interesting.

The logic seems to have gone, with this revival, that even a dated show about election-year politics would run well during an election year, especially if it were filled to the brim with famous people that the audience just couldn't stop applauding and appreciating, even when they're barely onstage or just phoning it in. So...is James Earl Jones available to chew the scenery as an LBJ-like, sassy former president (and yes, I just called LBJ "sassy")? Check. Would Angela Lansbury be willing to play the even sassier chair(wo)man of the party's women's division? Check, and if she could spin comic gold out of a throwaway line about the rhythm method somewhere in the middle of act II, even better. How about the dueling politicians? John Larroquette as the brooding intellectual idealist? Got him! John Stamos (replacing Eric McCormack) as the young, power-hungry opportunist? He's in! How about their wives? Cybill Shepherd (replacing Candace Bergen) and Kristin Davis (replacing Kerry Butler), respectively? Check, check! Seriously, even the bit parts in this show are played by highly recognizable theater folk: try Jefferson Mays, Mark Blum and Donna-effing-Hanover on for size, beeeeyatches. Don't recognize the names? Believe me, you've seen them all--maybe just on "Law and Order," or in a bit part in some movie, or learning via press conference that her icky weasel of a husband plans to divorce her for the woman he has been openly dating behind her back, but anyway, you've seen them all somewhere.

And for the most part, seeing them all together up on stage is good fun: Jones and Lansbury, especially, are just as delicious as you'd expect them to be. Great actors earn their names as great actors for good reason; the two of them just sort of sparkle. Lansbury is especially sparkly in the flowy, flowery, bejeweled orange-and-peach getup she's decked out in for much of the second half of the show, but then again, Jones wears a boring old suit throughout, and yet every changing expression on his face is worth memorizing. Larroquette's role is not as fancy--he plays a brooding, introspective, sensitive type--but he's impressive in it. And Stamos, having only just taken over for the departing Eric McCormack, does a fine job as the more amoral, opportunistic candidate.

I wish I could rave, as well, for Davis and Shepherd, but they, like their predecessors, seem to have been cast in thankless, horribly dated roles merely to fill out the famous-people quotient in the cast. Davis does fine as the sexy, ditzy wife of Stamos's character, and she wears clothing very well; seriously, that's sort of what seems to be much of what is required of her role. Davis was raised in Columbia, South Carolina, and yet her southern accent needs some work. Otherwise, kudos to her for being able to find a character somewhere in the folds of her many outfits.

Shepherd easily has the most punishing role in the play: she is the estranged wife of the Larroquette character. He has apparently thrown her over for many, many other younger, sillier women, and they've lived separate lives for a while. She is brought back into the fold because it's looking like he's going to get the nomination, and so he needs to pose as a happily married man whose little woman adores him. It turns out that she's cool with appearing publicly on his arm and waving to the cameras and talking about what a great man he is because despite his rather vicious rejection of her, she believes in him and thinks he'd be a good president. Also, she still misses him and wants him back and...ick. Shepherd is, like Davis, new to the role and clearly not yet comfortable in it. She warmed up a bit in the second act, but then again, there's not much to warm up to; in speaking her stilted, wooden lines, she comes off as--you got it--stilted and wooden. It doesn't help that whoever designed her costumes hasn't quite figured out how to dress her. Are you noticing a trend, here? Clothing, in this play, really makes the women; there's simply not much else available to them.

Which brings me back to that old saying, "the more things change, the more they stay the same." Just as it's comforting to be reminded that politics have always been dirty, it's also comforting to be reminded that when it comes to the public realm, more and more of us have been invited to sit at the welcome table and fling mud at each other in the years since this play was written and first launched on Broadway. Knowing this may not make for the most thrilling evening at the theater, but it's good to be reminded of it, by a truly dazzling cast, nonetheless.

Triassic Parq

I  thoroughly enjoyed Triassic Parq: The Musical in an earlier incarnation, when it was known as Jurassic Parq: The Broadway Musical. This time around I enjoyed it less. Part of the problem was the combination of bad enunciation and bad sound. Another problem was that many of the jokes were not strong enough to survive a second viewing. Still another problem was that there were four or five people who laughed, loudly, raucously, at everything. Everything. Every damned thing. It was like watching the show with a manic, deeply annoying laugh track. (It's strange that too much laughter can hurt a comedy, but it can.)

Alex Wyse, Claire Neumann, Wade McCollum,
Shelley Thomas, Lindsay Nicole Chambers
(Photo: Carol Rosegg)

On the other hand, these strengths remain: a fun concept (in this parq, the dinosaurs are all female to keep them from reproducing; however . . .); a great deal of energy; very entertaining choreography. The preshow is fun, with the sense of waiting for a Disney ride, and the program is clever. Wade McCollum, who is wonderful in Submissions Only, is wonderful here as well.

But then there is this large weakness: writers Marshall Pailet, Bryce Norbitz, and Stephen Wargo constantly rely on the word fuck and its kin for cheap laughs. Perhaps it is because fuck can be heard even when the sound is unclear, but it seemed that every second word was fuck. In reality, maybe it was every 15th word, but that is still too fucking much, you know? Even the "turn off your cell phone" announcement managed to get the word in.

Am I a prude about dirty words? Fuck, no. There are times that my every-15th-word is a curse. But doing a satire of Jurassic Park allows potentially endless creativity, and relying on fuck is a way to end creativity. Or should I say fucking creativity?

I would still recommend this show to people who like fuck-based humor. And maybe the sound and enunciation will be improved, or maybe you will have better seats than I had. Many people in the audience seemed to enjoy the show (although the person I went with loathed every second), and I did enjoy it myself the first time I saw it.

(press ticket; 8th row or so on the aisle)

Tribes

It's always dangerous to see a show after hearing weeks of hype. Expectations are tricky things. But Tribes is every bit as good as everyone says it is.

Billy is the only deaf person in his family. His parents decided years ago to have Billy taught lip-reading rather than sign language to keep him in the mainstream world. Billy's parents are both writers; his father is a pompous know-it-all who claims to debate people for fun but really needs to hold people down. Billy's sister Ruth is an opera singer; his brother Daniel, who is working on his PhD, is schizophrenic.

Looking at this description coldly, it seems that author Nina Raine made some heavy-handed decisions. After all, giving Billy language-oriented parents and a singing sister would seem to over-emphasize any points she makes about Billy's life. And isn't Daniel's schizophrenia maybe one thing too many for a show to take on? In lesser hands, these might be problematic issues; in Raine's hands, they are not. Raine grounds her show in believable humanity and lets any issues take care of themselves.

When Billy becomes involved with Sylvia--who is going deaf and who teaches him sign language--every button in the family becomes pressed. The father looks down on sign as a lesser language and condescends to Sylvia every chance he gets. The mother wonders if she hobbled Billy's life by not teaching him sign earlier. And brother Daniel, who feels closer to Billy than anyone else on earth, is frightened of Billy having a life outside the family.

Between them, author Raine and director David Cromer make Tribes a beautifully theatrical experience. The audience is vividly brought into the family's lives and limits. There are moments--carefully chosen and very well-done--where we, like the family, cannot perceive what is going on.

The one serious limitation of the show is that it is done in the round, so everyone is always seeing someone's back. I feel like I only saw Mare Winningham's face three or four times and so was cut off from much of her performance. If this was a deliberate decision, to have the audience struggle to keep up, it's a problematic one. There's a difference between carefully chosen moments of incomprehension and not knowing what's going on. However, this problem isn't enough to totally destroy play's brilliance.

Jeff Perry as the bombastic father is so convincing that I wanted to slap him. Winningham is, I think, quite good, but as I said, I didn't see much of her performance. Nick Westrate and Gayle Ranking, as the Billy's brother and sister, are both quite effective. The most outstanding performance, however, is given by Susan Pourfar as Sylvia; she manages to be both vivid and subtle, strong and heart-breaking.

Tribes is as good as they say. It's running through September 2.

(Fifth row near a wall; tdf ticket.)

The Columnist

The Columnist, by David Auburn, is a smart, straightforward bio-play, with the juicy, juicy starring role of Joseph Alsop, the nationally syndicated columnist who both reported and made history from the 1930s through the 1970s. How lucky for Auburn--and for us--that John Lithgow took the role.

Lithgow has had an amazing career, with success in theatre (plays and musicals), TV, movies, and writing (books and librettos), all of it much deserved. He gets to the marrow of the characters he plays, and no matter how sympathetic he may make them, he never ignores their dark sides. In other words, he gives us multi-dimensional humans in all their complexity.

In The Columnist, he has a role that calls on all his skills and insight, and it's a pleasure to see him strut his stuff. The look on his face when he realizes that someone may actually want him for himself. How he relies on his pride to cover his pain. His anger when he's crossed. His heartbreak when his friend JFK is assassinated. His stubborn insistence that the math proves that it's worth losing 100 Americans in Vietnam to kill 400 Vietnamese.

While The Columnist suffers from the weaknesses of the genre (few people are kind enough to live lives that offer good dramatic arcs), it's consistently interesting, and director Daniel Sullivan keeps it moving right along. The supporting cast is strong. The sets by John Lee Beatty are effective and attractive, and Kenneth Posner's lighting provides impressive yet subtle support to the changing moods of the show. But The Columnist is ultimately about the columnist, and Lithgow is the overarching reason to see this show. If you want to see some exquisite acting, move quickly--it closes on July 8.

(Fifth row; press ticket)

Dropped Names by Frank Langella (book review)

I love gossip. I love knowing who's sleeping with who and why X isn't talking to Z. But there is a limit. And, in his new memoir, Dropped Names, Frank Langella goes well past it.

The book is aptly named. Langella drops dozens of names: people he worked with and/or slept with or even just met once in passing (and, in one truly odd vignette, someone he never met yet compared penis sizes with). Marilyn Monroe. Rita Hayworth. Elizabeth Taylor. Montgomery Clift. Lee Strassberg. Laurence Olivier. And he pulls no punches--even punches that really should be pulled. He calls actors second-rate, tells who never picks up the check, and shares very very private moments. He says that he did two awful things to Jackie Kennedy and seems totally unaware that in writing about her now, he's doing a third.

There's something deeply icky about the whole endeavor. He writes only about dead people (with one exception). Is it (1) to spare their feelings? or (2) to deny them a chance to tell their side of the story? Even if it's choice (1), his choice to expose people who believed him to be a friend is creepy.

To Langella's credit, he knows that he's arrogant and somewhat closed down. But he doesn't seem to understand that he's also a user. And a shit.

Gossip is fun at a party when a stagehand or production assistant tipsily shares anecdotes of the great and/or famous. But for a peer to do it--someone who claims to have loved many of these people--and to do it in print, and to do it for profit, is repulsive. I'm glad I took the book out of the library and didn't contribute to his cheerful selling out of his old friends.