An American in Paris

There are two sorts of lovers. (This is simplified, but bear with me.) The first focuses on one thing at a time, giving it full and lingering attention. The other is more varied, changing positions, kissing here, touching there, changing positions again. Christopher Wheeldon is the choreography equivalent of the latter. My preference is the choreography equivalent of the former.

(Note that while I saw an early preview, the show already had a run in Paris, so it's fair to assume that what I saw is what the creative team wanted me to see.)

I did not particularly enjoy An American in Paris. Although Wheeldon's dance vocabulary is impressive, and although I have adored some of his ballets, his choreography here is overbusy, constantly upstaging and distracting from itself. For example, at one point various characters are watching a delightful faux-avant-garde dance. The movements are mechanical and odd, and lovely. Wheeldon manages to be satirical and beautiful at the same time. When the other characters then start their own dance, it is actually annoying. Let me just watch one thing and enjoy it! This sort of split focus happens over and over.

Wheeldon seems to be anti-ensemble. His dancers rarely do the same thing, and certainly not for any length of time. New movements come at you like the editing in a music video, never allowing you to focus. When one number had a kick line, and a damn good one, it was fabulous to sit back and enjoy the ensemble work--which unfortunately lasted for maybe maybe six kicks. Really? It's a Broadway dance show and you can't give me a decent kick line?

The Heidi Chronicles

Tracee Chimo, Jason Biggs, Elisabeth Moss, and Bryce Pinkham.
Photo: Joan Marcus

Peggy Olson, the barrier-breaking copy chief on AMC’s Mad Men, is surely kin to Heidi Holland, second-wave feminist art historian and central figure of Wendy Wasserstein’s Pulitzer-Prize winning 1989 dramedy The Heidi Chronicles. Thus it seems only fitting that, for the first New York revival of Wasserstein’s still-vibrant character study, Heidi should be played by Elisabeth Moss, television’s Peggy. I’m sure this will have double-consciousness effect on many in the audience.

The Heidi Chronicles begins in 1989, at Columbia University, where Heidi is now a professor. There’s a gradual erasure: in the middle of a lecture on neglected women artists of the 18^th and 19^th-century, Heidi begins to recede into her own past. We meet her at seventeen, in her hometown of Chicago, at the dance where she meets her lifelong friend Peter Patrone (Bryce Pinkham). We see her as a “Get Clean for Gene” kid in Manchester, New Hampshire, where she meets another significant man: her once and future lover, Scoop Rosenbaum (Jason Biggs). The seventies find Heidi at a consciousness-raising women’s group at the University of Michigan; protesting the lack of female representation at the University of Chicago; and coming to terms with her fractured personal life. Along with Scoop (radical journalist-cum-lifestyle magazine founder) and Peter (chief pediatrician at New York hospital), Heidi hits her professional stride in the eighties, becoming (or, perhaps more accurately, being thrust into the role of) an avatar of yuppie-boomer status.

Given these events, it’s perhaps understandable that some questioned whether this play would pack the punch it did twenty-five years ago, when it was firmly identifiable as a comment on current culture. Those fears of datedness, however, were completely unfounded. The Heidi Chronicles is as fresh, alive, and necessary as ever. Like the works of the female artists Heidi champions, this is not merely a museum piece; it is a living testament to the life, achievements, and struggles of a modern woman. And Pam MacKinnon’s smashing production hits its stride early and fires on all cylinders.

On the Twentieth Century

If I hadn't seen the original production of On the Twentieth Century, I suspect I would have been as blown away by the revival as were my co-bloggers Liz and Cameron. But I did see the original, multiple times, and I just can't ignore where the new version falls short. (By the way, I am not of the knee-jerk "the-original-was-better" school of thought. I found the benefit performance of On the Twentieth Century with Marin Mazzie and Douglas Sills to be excellent.)

Unfortunately, that this revival is a pale recreation becomes evident with the very first notes of the small orchestra. On the Twentieth Century has a superb, exciting overture. The revival provides a taste of the excitement, but it's a thin and tinny taste. The cast is also too small. It includes seven fewer people than the original, which makes a difference again and again in crowd scenes and big musical numbers.

Then there is the direction. I'm not a fan of Scott Ellis, but he does a good job here. However, Hal Prince did a brilliant job. Ellis's direction occasionally loses laughs, focus, and pacing, and it totally lacks Prince's grace notes and specificity. One example [spoilers]: When the female lead is still Mildred Plotka, and Oscar Jaffe is trying to turn her into a star, he hands her a script and says, "Begin reading." In the original, the next bit happened in three sections. (1) Mildred reads and is lackluster and monotonal.(2) Mildred keeps reading in a monotone, but when she gets to "hear the population shout: save our city" she sings "Save our city" full out and beautifully--and then goes right back to the monotone. (3) Mildred becomes Lily Garland, on stage, playing the role she was reading as Mildred. Part 2 is very funny and also provides a necessary transition between 1 and 3. It's missing in this production, making the scene less funny and throwing off the timing. Another example: Prince had little bits of business going on in the background--other people on the train meeting, talking, going off together. It gave a lovely texture to the show. This may not be Ellis's fault--he may not have enough performers to allow these moments--but whatever the cause, it's a loss. [end of spoilers]

Long Story Short

When a show covers 50 years, difficult decisions must be made about what to include and what to leave out. Long Story Short, which covers five decades of a love relationship, omits showing us how its couple falls in love. We see Charles really like Hope, without Hope reciprocating. Then we see Hope loving Charles, with no explanation of just how that happened. The missing scene might have enticed us to care about the couple and their life's journey together. Without it, they're slightly annoying people who go from relationship cliché to relationship cliché. And when the story does break out of the mold, it becomes heavy-handed and unconvincing.

Charles is Jewish; Hope is part Chinese, part Filipino. Both are completely, generically American. They marry, reproduce, fight, and age. They are, ostensibly, deeply in love, and we are suppose to care if they stay together. Unfortunately, the scenes that might have won our hearts failed to make it into the show.

The music and lyrics (by Brendan Milburn and Valerie Vigoda) are occasionally pretty and occasionally clever, but frequently repetitious. I left the show with a vicious earworm that hammered my brain for hlurs.

Pearl Sun, as Hope, has moments, but mostly she seems miscast. (Her singing is surprisingly lackluster for someone who stood by for the lead role in Next to Normal.) She handles big emotions competently. Bryce Ryness also has moments. His younger and later years are awkward, but he is believable and moving in the middle decades. His voice is nice, and he sometimes truly connects with the audience. The show is directed by Kent Nicholson.

(fifth row; press ticket)

Placebo

Carrie Coon and Florencia Lozano
photo: Joan Marcus

I can’t stand people who talk during a performance. It demonstrates rudeness in the extreme and an utter lack of consideration for the enjoyment of fellow audience members. Yet when the man sitting next to me at Placebo, the new play by Melissa James Gibson, currently in previews at Playwrights Horizons, turned to his wife and whispered, “this is one of those plays where everyone just sits around and whines,” I couldn’t help but nod and agree. (Though in the future, sir, please save your commentary for after the show).

An Octoroon

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins' An Octoroon is one of those plays that is so excellent, challenging, insightful and funny that it leaves me with the desire to see it again immediately, several times even, and also to read it a couple of times for good measure. It's one of the strongest and most satisfying shows I've seen in a while. It serves as a reminder of the fact that as a nation, we tend not to talk meaningfully, effectively, or straightforwardly about race, and that our inability to do so makes our ugly racial past bleed into our present. It does all this without crushing the possibility of frank talk or real, productive change. And it's really fucking funny.

While not a straightforward history lesson, An Octoroon does a seamless job of demonstrating to its audiences some of the ways our distant past and immediate present remain entwined. The show simultaneously reconstructs, comments upon, and updates aspects of Dion Boucicault's 1859 melodrama The Octoroon, which was, in the states, second only in popularity to the big commercial blockbuster of the time, the melodramatization of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Clearly, as it remains now, race was on a lot of American peoples' minds during the leadup to the Civil War. Go figure.

Jacobs-Jenkins' Talmudic reworking of the Boucicault piece is at once respectful to and critical of the original, and through it, An Octoroon compares past performance styles, social mores, views on race (and class and gender), and collective national consciousness with their contemporary equivalents. Lots has changed; lots hasn't. The production is unsettling, and even disorienting at times--especially since Jacobs-Jenkins doesn't let his audience get too caught up in the comedic aspects of the show before abruptly reminding us about what we're laughing at in the first place. He also refuses to tie up all the loose ends he and Boucicault have introduced in the process. There are just so many, after all--and as a collective, contemporary Americans are still trying to figure out, a century and a half after slavery ended, who is allowed to approach them, and in what ways, let alone how we are supposed to work them out once we do.

I am humbled by and grateful for An Octoroon. I hope you run right out and see it if you can. I hope it continues to be staged, seen, and discussed. And for the love of this stained, strained country, I hope like hell it's not the only contemporary American theatrical entertainment to do so.

On the 20th Century

Yup, I'm with Cameron on this one.

The Roundabout's revival of On the 20th Century, currently in previews, is delightful in its embrace of a whole mess of contradictions. The cast is having a loose, giggly, slapsticky good time, which doesn't mean that they aren't, to a one, professional as hell. The show itself is pretty dumb. But it's also so fast-paced, charming, and sharply staged that you won't bother to think about how many holes there are in the plot until well after you've left the theater.

And even then, seriously, who cares when there are four totally awesome tap-dancing porters who introduce and conclude the acts? Or when Mark Linn-Baker does a truly brilliant spit-take in the second act? Or when Andy Karl, late of Rocky fame, gets smashed repeatedly behind a door? Or when he uses Kristin Chenoweth as a human barbell? This show is comedy gold, people. COMEDY GOLD.

Peter Gallagher is still not back on stage, though when he is, I am sure he, too, will contribute to the overall madcap grooviness of this revival. Gallagher's understudy, James Moye, is not as chiseled or as glib as Gallagher can be, but he sounded terrific, and infused the role of Oscar Jaffe with a fine mix of clueless arrogance, melodrama and desperation. And as Letitia Primrose, Mary-Louise Wilson is a titch understated in act I, but then, as a result, the revelations about her character, revealed in a riveting extended ensemble number in act II, are that much more enjoyable.

Then, of course, there's Kristin Chenoweth, who is her own wonderful mess of contradictions: she's a teeny, tiny, classically beautiful woman with an absolute monster of a voice and seemingly no hangups about looking totally ridiculous when the role calls for it. As a result of her disarming goofiness, she comes across as warmer and less intimidating than some of her contemporaries; this quality is milked to great effect during a showstopper in act I, where she brings the house down just by looking out at it. Chenoweth's a great physical comedian with notably good timing, and in this case, she's working with a whole bunch of people for whom I might say the same.

On the 20th Century is hardly the deepest or most layered thing you'll see in your life--or even, probably, during the course of the day you see it. But the cast and company know that, and they don't give a rat's ass. They just want to have a good time while they're traveling on the train between Chicago and New York--and to get you to elicit a couple of genuine belly laughs as you sit back and watch them go. 

Why Can't Women Play Men's Roles as Frequently as Men Play Women's?

I stumbled across this casting call for Doctor Faustus on Playbill.com, and a fascinating document it is. It gives the salary for actors doing shows at CSC (not much), discusses how much double-casting they're doing, and gives hints of the tone the show will take.

Sarah Bernhardt as Hamlet

It also reveals, as so often happens, that the men get all sorts of interesting roles (devil, clown, doctor) with all sorts of interesting things to do. The one women, however, is to be "Female, 20’s. Vision of loveliness, incomparably beautiful. Sexy, pin-up girl. Possible nudity."

Yes, of course Doctor Faustus was written centuries ago, and that's a pretty typical role for a woman in those days. (And not even actually for a woman, since it was likely played by a man.) But it's the 21st Century, and nontraditional casting is one of the glories of modern theatre. However, that nontraditional casting is often limited to two types: (1) people of color playing roles that are not traditionally played by people of color, and (2) men playing women. 

For some reason, having women play men is a lot less frequent, but why? Why couldn't a woman play any of these roles in Doctor Faustus?

• WAGNER: Narrator of the play; A more refined and learned clown; Faustus’s servant.
• MEPHISTOPHILIS: A devil called on by Faustus. Depressed clerk who has worked at the same desk job for all these years.
• A clown; brazen fool, but not without native wit.
• Another clown / bumpkin; a complete idiot, innocence incarnate and a dupe; loveable and dangerously daft.
• The Devil; kind by temperament, but firm; likeable.
• An almost absent presence, like a wayward son or disaffected teen.
• Versatile utility actor, comedic clown.

Fashions for Men

Bravo to the Mint!

Once again, the Mint has revived and revitalized a neglected play with respect, creativity, fine acting, excellent direction, and knockout scenery and costumes. This time around it is Fashions for Men, by Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár, author of Lilliom (turned by Rodgers and Hammerstein into Carousel), The Guardsman (Lunt and Fontanne starred in the original Broadway production and the movie) , and The Play's the Thing (seen periodically in New York in the adaptation by P. G. Wodehouse).

Fashions for Men opens in a Hungarian habadashery shop owned and operated by Peter Juhász. Juhász is so kind that he cannot bear to stop offering credit to a poor aristocrat who will never pay him back, even though the shop is having financial problems. Also working at the shop are Juhász's wife Adele and his friend Oscar, who love him dearly--but not as dearly as they love each other. We also meet a fiercely loyal clerk who has worked for Juhász for years, another employee who wants desperately to be rich, the much older count who loves her, and an array of customers. The plot is in some ways predictable and in others surprising, but always engaging and satisfying.

John & Jen

It is a wonderful thing that John & Jen exists. Written in the early 1990s, it was never going to be a huge hit or a big money-maker. Clearly Andrew Lippa (music and book) and Tom Greenwald (lyrics and book) simply had something to say, and a unique way to say it. The story of Jen and her brother John and then Jen and her son John, it addresses serious themes of abuse and the meaning of love, and the heavy parts outweigh the light ones. It is largely sung, and it covers nearly 40 years. Many of the songs are excellent: funny, sad, emotional, informative, silly, etc, as needed. Some are beautiful.

Kate Baldwin, Conor Ryan
Photo: Carol Rosegg

And it is a wonderful thing that Keen Company is presenting this strong revival. Kate Baldwin is lovely as Jen, and Conor Ryan does an excellent job as both Johns. All in all, this is a piece of work that should be seen.

That being said, I have to admit that I didn't much like it. I admired it tremendously, but I was never quite emotionally involved. I think this is due to the book, which I found problematical.

[here be spoilers]
The show begins with John sitting quietly. He seems to be a young adult. Jen says something along the lines of "can you forgive me?" Then we go back to their childhood, with Jen striving to protect John from their abusive father and promising to always be there for him. But when Jen goes off to college, she ignores John for years as she lives the '60s full out, and he ends up allied with their father. John joins the army, goes to Vietnam, dies.

On the Twentieth Century

All aboard, ladies and gentlemen! The express train to musical theatre heaven is departing the station eight times a week. You can catch it at the American Airlines Theatre, where a sublime revival of On the Twentieth Century, the 1978 operetta by Cy Coleman, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green, is currently in previews. Dazzlingly designed, brilliantly choreographed, and featuring the peerless Kristin Chenoweth in a career-high performance, this shimmering production is sure to leave audiences tap-dancing their way up West 42nd Street when the curtain comes down.

Kristin Chenoweth performing "Veronique"
photo: Joan Marcus

As Lily Garland, the mousy young girl who is transformed--with the help of her former lover, theatre impresario Oscar Jaffe--into the greatest star of stage and screen, Chenoweth has found a role that is perfectly tailored to both her virtuosic vocal gifts and her razor-sharp comic timing. She lands every joke, ably filling shoes once worn by some of the greatest comic actresses of all time (Carole Lombard in the 1934 film, Madeline Kahn in the original Broadway production). Musically, she deploys her pristine soprano to thrilling effect, but she never lets her acrobatic vocal feats quash the comedy of Comden's airtight lyrics. She looks smashing in William Ivey Long's eye-popping gowns, radiating every inch of early Hollywood glamour. Never have I seen this fine actress so well-suited to a role.

At the performance I attended, both of Chenoweth's leading men--Peter Gallagher as Jaffe, and Andy Karl as her celluloid co-star and lover, Bruce Granit--were felled by illness. They were ably spelled by James Moye and Ben Crawford, respectively. If Moye lacks some imperiousness, he makes up for it with clarion singing and comfortable chemistry with Chenoweth. Crawford also sings beautifully, though he could use a few more performances to fully nail the physical comedy required by his role. The rest of the supporting cast--which includes dependable veterans Mary Louise Wilson, Mark-Linn Baker, and Michael McGrath--is largely superb.

This is Chenoweth's moment. There is so much to enjoy in this production, but surely nothing surpasses the instant-classic performance she's giving. It will be talked about for years.

[Fifth row mezzanine. Highly discounted ticket.]

The Academy Awards

Awards shows can tell us a lot about ourselves, which is why I insist on watching them, even when I haven't consumed much of the entertainment content being awarded. Last night was a case in point: I think I've seen about four films in the past year, only two of which were up for awards. I was pretty bored for most of the Academy Awards ceremony, and some of my ennui certainly had to do with my lack of connection to the films themselves. But my lack of enthusiasm was not entirely due to the fact that I don't go to the movies much of late. Nor was it entirely due to the thudding predictability that plagues such ceremonies at this point.

No, what bored me--what bores me in general--is how rooted our entertainment industries are in routine, and how truly resistant they seem to real, actual, honest change.

I don't mean to imply, here, that films themselves can't reflect life in interesting and important ways. Nor do I mean to imply that people who make movies can't do so with insight, intelligence, and the real desire to teach, reach, inspire, and impel. I'm not saying that at all. We are a country that makes great movies (and also plenty of really shitty ones). That's a good thing. But the disconnect between what is made and what is lauded by the industry that makes it riles me, and I found myself especially riled by last night's flat, strange, strained charade.

The Winter's Tale

The Winter's Tale is my personal favorite of Shakespeare's plays. It's also one of the hardest to stage well. Neither comedy nor tragedy, it's classified (alongside Cymbeline and The Tempest) as a "romance," that tricky category that often places the most extreme elements of the other two genres side by side. How should a director, or dramaturge, or company handle the tonal switch from Leontes' bombastic dismissal of Hermione to the slapstick humor of Autolycus and the Clown? Do you set a consistent tone early so that the final scene--to my mind, some of the most beautiful writing in the Western canon--is equally devastating and joyful? And just how are you going to handle that old "exit, pursued by a bear" matter? Of the dozen or so productions of The Winter's Tale that I've seen, none has ever hit the sweet spot and gotten it just right.

photo: Richard Termine

I'm sorry to say that the current Off-Broadway revival, presented by The Pearl Theatre Company at The Peter Norton Space, does not buck this trend; in fact, this is one of the most disappointing productions of the underappreciated masterpiece that I've ever seen. Directed by Michael Sexton and featuring numerous members of The Pearl's resident acting company, it often feels like a woeful attempt at cleverness, or an MFA thesis project that went off the rails. Presented (as most of Shakespeare's plays today are) in a two-act structure, the scenes in Sicilia take place in the well-appointed dining room of a contemporary house. The actors more closely resemble the literature faculty of a second-tier liberal arts college than a royal court; Hermione's trial could easily pass for a particularly heated meeting of the tenure and promotion committee. Bohemia, on the other hand, is depicted as a hayseed and trailer-park paradise, where men in long beards wear their jorts with suspenders and the Natty Light flows freely. After the intermission, the actors begin to deconstruct the proceedings; I guess we wouldn't be able to understand what was going on otherwise? Nothing kills a classic faster than a director who thinks his concept is superior to the work to which it's supposedly in service.

The performances range from strong to competent to downright embarrassing. The guest artists easily overshadow the members of the Resident Acting Company. Peter Francis James makes a fine Leontes, and Steve Cuiffo finds the funny in Autolycus' writing without going overboard (a rarity). Imani Jade Powers, though green, makes a lovely and sincere Perdita. No other actors merit specific mention.

[8th row center, press ticket]

Verité

Robert Sella, Anna Camp, Matt McGrath
Photo: Erin Baiano

I've seen shows that I disliked. Shows that bored me. Shows that confused and confounded me. Yet rarely have I seen a show that is so irredeemably awful that I leave the theatre completely clueless as to how it managed to make its way onto a professional stage, let alone a prestigious one. Verité by Nick Jones, currently playing at the Claire Tow Theater under the auspices of LCT3, is such a show. A supposedly satirical take on consumer culture, the publishing industry, and the lengths to which some people will go to achieve a modicum of fame and success, this torturously boring tantrum of a play wastes the considerable talents of an unusually fine ensemble cast. When actors as strong as Robert Sella, Jeanine Serralles, Matt McGrath, and, in the largest and, in many ways, most thankless role, Anna Camp, are at sea, you know that something is hugely amiss. These terrific performers will move on to better things; for the sake of the American theatre, I pray that Mr. Jones will not.

[Last row, full price ticket which, thankfully, only put me out $20]

 

Film Review: The Last Five Years

The film adaptation of Jason Robert Brown's The Last Five Years is remarkably faithful to its source material. That is not necessarily a good thing.

Strictly speaking, this musical (which premiered Off-Broadway in 2002, and was revived in 2013) would not strike anyone as a clear candidate for cinematic treatment. Both the style and the structure are intensely theatrical. Performed in one act, with two characters, and almost entirely sung-through, The Last Five Years chronicles a relationship using a parallel storytelling technique: one story line (the husband's, Jamie) is told chronologically from beginning to end, while the other (the wife's, Cathy) begins at the end of their marriage, and works backwards towards their first date. Despite some issues I have with the story (it's far too kind to Jamie) and the score (Cathy's material is far more interesting, both musically and dramatically), both productions largely worked.

The Mystery of Love & Sex

[This review contains plot elements that are necessary to properly critique the production, which some might consider spoilers. Proceed at your own risk.]

Gayle Rankin and Diane Lane
photo: T. Charles Erickson

In spite of what its cheeky title may suggest, Bathsheba Doran's The Mystery of Love & Sex has less to do with carnality than with that other form of supreme intimacy: friendship. Its central characters, Charlotte and Jonny (Gayle Rankin and Mamoudou Athie), best friends since childhood, use each other as springboards for self-discovery. They talk frankly about sex and desire, and occasionally tease the possibility of a relationship, yet it's clear that their relationship is to remain firmly in the friend-zone. They spend the majority of this overlong, fairly sloppy, occasionally entertaining play trying to figure out their sexual wants and needs, and how those impulses correspond with their non-sexual relationship.

Hamilton

Here are some of the shows that have excited me as much as Lin-Manuel Miranda's Hamilton:

• A Little Night Music (original Broadway production)
• Pacific Overtures (original Broadway production)
• March of the Falsettos (original Off-Broadway production)
• Cabaret (1997 Broadway revival)
• James Joyce's The Dead (original Off-Broadway production)
• Caroline, or Change (original Off-Broadway production)
• Next to Normal (original Broadway production)
• Fun Home (original workshop; original Off-Broadway production)

Renee Elise Goldsberry, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Phillipa Soo
Photo: Joan Marcus

What do these shows have in common? Well, they're all brilliant, for a start. But more than that, they expand what musicals can do, whether in form, content, or both. Most of them deal with serious topics, with humor, compassion, and humanity. And their craft is absolute top-of-the-line, with every song a new and precious gift.

You On The Moors Now

You On The Moors Now, written by Jaclyn Backhaus, is a de- and re-construction of the romantic tropes that have permeated our culture from Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, Little Women, and Wuthering Heights. This production, currently playing as part of the SubletSeries@HERE, was created and produced by Theatre Reconstruction Ensemble, a group of talented and attractive young performers. The director is John Kurzynowski.

Claire Rothrock (River Sister), Kelly Rogers (Lizzy), Lauren Swan-Potras (Jo),
Anastasia Olowin (Cathy), Sam Corbin (Jane)
Photo: Suzi Sadler

The script has a note that says: Script lives on page different than on stage! Have the most fun with whatever this means.

A Month in the Country

Talk about an anticlimax.

First there is the announcement: Peter Dinklage and Taylor Schilling (aka, "The woman from Orange is the New Black") in Turgenev's A Month in the Country at CSC. Having seen Dinklage as Richard III, I immediately move this to my "must-see" list. One problem, though: between Dinklage's Game of Thrones's fame and Schilling's Orange/Black fame, the demand for tickets slikely to be immense. Also, what kind of seats will be available once single tickets go on sale?

And then comes the news that CSC has almost sold out its subscriptions and memberships. My friends and I make the decision, and nab three just before they run out.

I'll spare you the work it takes for my friends and I to come up with dates that work for all three of us, but think D-Day, albeit on a considerably less important level.

The World of Extreme Happiness

I suspect that there is something kind of brilliant and heart-breaking going on in Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig's play, The World of Extreme Happiness. It didn't quite come across in the early preview I saw, but I don't feel that it would be fair to review it before it gets its sea legs.

What I do want to do is to tell you to read the insert in the Playbill when you see The World of Extreme Happiness. The play deals with Chinese culture and politics, and it helps a great deal to have the background that the insert offers. It covers One-Child Policy, Monkey King, coal mining, factories, the Great Hall of the People, and self-help books. The play covers even more than that!

If you do see it, please leave a comment about what you thought of it.

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]

Big Love

photo: T. Charles Erickson

"There is no such thing as an original play." Those words belong to the playwright Charles Mee, who has spent the better part of the last twenty years proving that, while plots and dialogue and situations in theatre may not be strictly original, what you can do with them certainly can be. (Just look at Shakespeare). Mee calls his effort the (re)making project, and he focuses mostly on harvesting, re-focusing, and re-telling the works of Ancient Greece. One of his earliest efforts, Big Love (2000), is just now receiving its New York premiere, in a superb production by Tina Landau for the Signature Theatre Company.

Mee's foundational text for Big Love is Aeschylus' The Danaids, in which fifty sisters abscond from their grooms (who are also their cousins) on their wedding day. In this revision, the brides sail to modern-day Italy and take up residence at a luxurious seaside villa. Only three of the fifty brides appear on stage: the gentle Lydia (Rebecca Naomi Jones), who believes in the power of love, if not the duty of forced wedlock; the fiery Thyona (Stacey Sargeant), who views the male sex as a dangerous insurgency and quotes from Valerie Solanus' SCUM Manifesto; and the bewildered Olympia (Libby Winters), whose evident inexperience marks her as a target for the agendas of others. In short succession, their three grooms (played by Bobby Steggert, Ryan-James Hatanaka, and Emmanuel Brown) decamp, and the ensuing hundred minutes is a fantasia on the roles marriage, gender, culture, expectation, and, of course, love play in the formation of society.

Texas in Paris

Osceola Mays was the daughter of sharecroppers and the granddaughter of slaves. She sang for the love of singing, her family, and Jesus. John Burrus was a rodeo cowboy who sang cowboy songs and hymns. In 1989 they were brought to Paris to sing a series of concerts together. Texas in Paris, presented by the York Theatre Company, was written by Alan Govenar, based on his interviews with the actual Mays and Burrus and on the actual concerts they gave. Govenar is a writer, folklorist, photographer, and filmmaker. What he is not, unfortunately, is a playwright.

Photo: Carol Rosegg

Texas in Paris is slight and rife with missed possibilities, some of which are also director Akin Babatundé's responsibility. The plot, such as it is, follows the changing relationship between Mays and Burrus. Specifically, it shows Burrus's growing acceptance of a friendship with the cheerful, talkative Mays, despite his lack of experience with African-Americans, mild-mannered racism, and general laconic grumpiness. It is a slight plot, but potentially serviceable--except that it is treated as little more than filler between the songs. For example, [slight spoiler], the pair sings their songs separately. Mays sings a cappella; Burrus accompanies himself on the guitar. The first time she sings harmony with him, it should be a moment. Burrus should at least give her a look of surpris. He doesn't. And the first time he starts playing guitar for one of her songs, it should be a big moment. In fact, it should be as climactic as anything can be in this little piece. It's not. [end of spoiler]

Texas in Paris is not without its charms, the main one being Lilias White's lovely performance as Mays. White tamps down her usual theatrical exuberance and gets to the heart of this unassuming woman who sang for the love of singing. Scott Wakefield is good as Burrus. Best of all, they are not miked, and it is a treat to hear their unadorned voices in the York's cozy theatre.

Ultimately, Texas in Paris is a pleasant but minor 80 minutes in the theatre.

(press ticket, fifth row)

Film Chinois

The concept of Film Chinois, by Damon Chua, is a good one: noir goings-on in 1947 China, with a femme fatale who also happens to be a Maoist revolutionary. The writing is smart, with knowing winks at The Big Sleep and other classics, and an interesting attempt to marry overt politics with traditional fictional cynicism. Some of the performers are excellent, in particular Rosanne Ma, as the narrator and femme fatale, and Jean Brassard, as the knowing Belgium ambassador who may not know as much as he thinks he does. The scenery, costumes, lighting, and sound (by Sheryl Liu, Carol A. Pelletier, Marie Yokoyama, and Ian Wehrle, respectively) add exactly the right sense of atmosphere and foreboding. These are the makings of an excellent show.

On the other hand, the writing can be murky, and it's hard to know--or care--exactly what's going on. Some of the acting misses the boat; it's fascinating how thin the line is between deadpan and lackluster. Most importantly, the direction, by Kaipo Schwab, lacks the pacing, energy, and spark needed to ignite the proceedings.

There is enough worthwhile here to keep the audience rooting for the show to get really good, but it never quite does.

(press ticket, 5th row)

Between Riverside and Crazy

In the truly amazing Between Riverside and Crazy, the wonderful Stephen Adly Guirgis signals us quickly that all is not what it seems. Pops, the old man in the wheelchair, is neither ill nor injured. The people who call him "Dad" are not his children. And the one-line description that is being widely used to descibe the play ("Between Riverside and Crazy centers on a retired policeman threatened with eviction and his extended family and friends") barely scratches the surface of this funny, fascinating, insightful, and surprising examination of truth, love, family, racism, loyalty, and the law. (I am not going further into the plot because I don't want to spoil anything.)

Stephen McKinley Henderson, Liza Colon-Zayas
Photo: Kevin Thomas Garcia

Stephen Adly Guirgis is a superb playwright. He should be mentioned with Albee and Stoppard among the living greats. Why?

• A great playwright presents three-dimensional people and lets us see what makes them tick--and makes us care about what makes them tick. Check.
  
• A great playwright uses language that is simultaneously lyrical yet real. Check.
  

Is Julie Taymor right for Grounded?

So, suddenly there's an announcement. Julie Taymor. Anne Hathaway. Grounded. Tickets already on sale, and going fast.

Anne Hathaway
Vivien Killilea/Getty Images for Psiff

It's my turn to order tickets, so I check the available dates. I have a subscription to the Public with three other people, plus another friend has asked to join us. In short order, we are down to only a dozen possible dates. I go to the Public and wait 25 minutes as the one person in line ahead of me asks a million questions, and not particularly politely.

Grounded is at the Anspacher. After spending close to 3 hours looking at people's butts during the Normal Heart, I will no longer sit on the side there.

So I go into negotiations with the amazingly patient box office guy, and my friends and I end up with 5 out of 6 of the left box seats for a Saturday matinee, despite our general aversion to Saturday matinees.

A Delicate Balance

The line between elliptical fascination and obscure tedium can be thin, and the current production of A Delicate Balance falls to the wrong side far too often.

John Lithgow, Glenn Close
Photo: Brigitte Lacombe

The long-married Agnes and Tobias have a careful relationship in which needs are drowned in words and alcohol and appearances reign. In its own way, the marriage is a success, although neither participant is particularly happy. Into their careful world come three challenges: Agnes's sister Claire, a "willful drunk" who speaks her mind; their daughter Julia, fresh from yet another failed marriage and whiny as can be; and their good friends Harry and Edna, fleeing from an overwhelming feeling of anxiety in their own home. The setup is intriguing, like a game of Jenga where each move brings the structure a step closer to collapse.

Into the Woods

Jim Cox

No, this isn't a review of the movie. I'm talking here about the Fiasco Theater production, which is currently in previews Off Broadway at the Laura Pels Theater. It's terrific: innovative, warm, funny, sad, infectiously goofy, and performed by a charming cast that lacks the studio-scrubbed pipes and carefully groomed good looks of the cast featured in the film. I'm paying the company a complement, by the way, and not implying that they're ugly--though if they were, that'd be cool, too. Into the Woods, after all, purports to be about our favorite fairy tale characters, but it's really about how messy and flawed and directly contradictory human beings are. Botoxed actors who wear their rags perfectly, and boast artful smudges on their faces, are kind of missing the point. 

So are productions (and films) that take the woods literally, at least as I now see it. Don't get me wrong: I saw the original Broadway production many years ago, and the film version about a month ago, and I thought both were fine. But neither one caused Into the Woods to work its way into my blood, brain, and soul the way that, say, past productions of Follies, Company, and Sweeney Todd have. I know plenty of people for whom Woods is top tier Sondheim. But me? I've just never understood what the fuss was about.

The River

Photo: Sara Krulwich

Playwright Jez Butterworth embraces the poetic in his work. In his 2009 epic Jerusalem (seen on Broadway in 2011, with Mark Rylance), he attempted to answer Blake's patriotic decree: "I will not cease from mental fight, / Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand: / Till we have built Jerusalem / In England's green and pleasant land." He ended up producing a play that matched the grandiosity of Blake's verse, which longtime readers of this blog will recall as not being one of my favorites. In his newest play, The River (currently on Broadway at Circle in the Square), both Ted Hughes and W.B. Yeats are name-checked, though its the latter who holds the key to understanding this intimate and beguiling chamber drama.

A Particle of Dread (Oedipus Variations)

Photo: Matthew Murphy

Sam Shepard came to prominence chronicling the battered and bruised families of the American West, so it should come as no surprise that he would set his sights on the most dysfunctional family in the history of theatre. His latest play, A Particle of Dread, is, as its subtitle suggests, a duel reimaging of Sophocles' trilogy, transported to two of Shepard's favorite locales: Ireland (by way of Thebes) and the contemporary Southwest. The former is a fairly straightforward retelling of Oedipus the King, albeit with strong brogues; the latter, a bloody true crime mini-epic that could be the love child of Breaking Bad and True Detective. The two narrative strands unspool through interlocking scenes, sometimes with accentual erasure, in order to keep the audience sharp to the dramatic parallels. And while the elements don't always come together harmoniously, the high-octane proceedings are never boring. Shepard's gift for tight, menacing language is sharp as ever, and the crack cast (which includes Tony winner Brid Brennan and, as the Oedipus figure, the great Stephen Rea) is, to a person, superb. A Particle of Dread concludes its run at the Pershing Square Signature Center on West 42nd Street this Sunday; it is brief, engrossing, and well-worth the effort.

[Sixth row center, TDF]

Film Review: Into the Woods

It's not good. It's not bad. It's just nice. And perhaps that's why the long-awaited film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Into the Woods, which opened Christmas Day, is largely a disappointment. Directed by Rob Marshall, it is slick, stylized, and without much spark, not unlike Marshall's other two high-profile forays into movie musicals, Chicago (2002) and Nine (2009). The sets and costumes are beautiful. The performances are all professional and proficient, some are even great. The pace is spry. Yet the endeavor stops short of being wholly satisfying. It feels strangely empty in a way that even the less-than-perfect stage productions of this musical I've seen over the years never have.

2014: A Year in Review

Rebecca Hall and Morgan Spector in Machinal.
Photo: Joan Marcus

2014 was, like most theatre-going years, a grab bag of exquisite highs, painful lows, and a wide, bland middle. But as Wendy and Liz have both so rightly noted in their end-of-year essays, one of the beauties of being an unpaid blogger is that we have the luxury to focus on that which we enjoyed the most. Those who read my reviews regularly probably wish I would heed that advice more often--since rejoining this site over the summer, I've noticed that my negative columns seem to outweigh the positive--but I believe that one of the functions of this site, other than highlights and promoting the productions I absolutely love, is to advise readers to steer away from (or, at least, proceed with caution towards) that which I feel isn't worth the time and expense. Before I shower with praise the productions that lifted my spirits and transported me in the way that only good theatre can, I'll briefly highlight the hours of 2014 I spent in theatres, wishing I was somewhere else.

The Year-End Roundup

Every year, I rack up regrets over shows I never got the chance to see. I missed Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 &3) this year, for example, and also Sticks and Bones and Bootycandy. That being said, I got to see some great productions, among them 18 I blogged about for Showdown. While a few of them--Bread and Puppet Theater's summer circus and New Hazlett Theater's production of Parade--were so far off Broadway as to be in different states entirely, most of them were right here in New York, a city that I love mightily and want the very best for.

Sure, this year, I experienced some theatrical lows. I made no secret of really, really disliking If/Then. And I really have no idea what the fuck was going on with Outside Mullingar, despite some good performances and a nice set. There were a few shows I chose not to blog about at all because I had nothing terribly insightful to say about them (and, in the case of The Death of Klinghoffer, because I just didn't want to wade into the controversies that drew away from what was, in the end, a beautiful if flawed opera in a beautiful if flawed production).

But as Wendy notes in her end-of-year post, one of the joys of being a theater blogger is that we don't have to see stuff that we know will suck. We might pay for all our tickets, sit in crappy seats, and waste far more time on this blog than we should, especially when we have books to work on and classes to prepare for. But on the other hand, we are predisposed to like the things we choose to see, and we get to share our impressions with people who read our blog posts and almost never feel compelled to leave abusive comments or spam us with porn. Really, as I see it, it's a win-win situation.

Constellations

Marianne and Roland first meet at a barbecue. No, wait. It was a wedding. She's interested in him, but he has a girlfriend. Or was it that he was just out of a relationship, not ready to date? The answer, actually, is all of the above. Constellations, Nick Payne's 2011 play, which is currently receiving its American premiere at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, espouses the wormhole theory that the world is made up of millions of parallel universes existing side by side. On each wavelength, we might live an identical experience, altered only by a minor variation. It affects how we live our lives, and, more to the point here, how we fall in love.

It's almost impossible to speak more specifically about the plot of this brief, beguiling play without ruining the eventual experience you'll have when you see it. And you should see it. Payne has managed to squeeze more meaningful interaction and thought-provoking questions into sixty unbroken minutes than any other play I've seen thus far this season. And despite what you might expect from the highly-stylized text and dramatic devices, Constellations is, at its core, a portrait of romance and connection. It's funny, moving, occasionally frustrating, and deeply human; in short, everything you could want from a play.

Constellations marks not only the Broadway debut of playwright Payne, but of the production's marquee names: Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson. Gyllenhaal previously starred in Payne's If There Is, I Haven't Found It Yet Off-Broadway; Wilson, a two-time Olivier Award winner in London, is best known for her current starring role on Showtime's The Affair. Both are extraordinarily good here. Never leaving the stage, they manage to map the complicated trajectory of an entire relationship in several dozen mini-scenes, some non-verbal, some lasting mere seconds. Rarely have I seen such an intense connection between two performers, and I imagine their bond will only grow stronger as this production moves towards its official opening on January 13. It's almost certainly guaranteed to be 2015's first must-have ticket.

[Last row mezzanine, deeply discounted ticket]

The Best of 2014

Rebekah Brockman, Tom Pecinka
in Arcadia
Photo: Joan Marcus

Aaah, the joys of being an online reviewer. I don't get paid, and I often have to buy my own tickets, but I don't have to see shows that don't interest me. This may be why I always have robust "best of" lists--I'm choosing among shows I was predisposed to like. This doesn't mean I love everything. I saw some serious stinkers this year (Your Mother's Version of the Kama Sutra, Architecture of Becoming, Nothing on Earth (Can Hold Houdini), Bullets Over Broadway, Intimacy). But on a whole, I had a very exciting year in the theatre.

Not the Messiah (He’s a Very Naughty Boy)

He's not really the messiah. His mom is Mandy, not Mary. She's certainly not a virgin. For that matter, neither is he. Well, you know the story.

It's Monty Python's Life of Brian, only now it's an oratorio, called Not the Messiah (He’s a Very Naughty Boy). It's written by Eric Idle with Pythonian flair and composed by John Du Prez in a variety of styles (e.g., pop, Broadway, folk, etc.), all delightfully ear-friendly. Ted Sperling does a fabulous job conducting and directing, using the Collegiate Chorale and Orchestra of St. Luke's to their fullest, as they don hard hats, comment on the action, argue really well, and make a truly joyful noise.

Eric Idle, Victoria Clark, William Ferguson, Laura Worsham
with the Orchestra of St Luke's and the Collegiate Chorale,
conducted by Ted Sperling
Photo: Erin Baiano

Once Upon A Bride There Was A Forest

In the first scene of Kristen Palmer's Once Upon A Bride There Was A Forest, Josie (Rachael Hip-Flores) tells her boyfriend Warren (Chinaza Uche) that she will finally marry him but first she has to search for her father. Warren doesn't want Josie to go off on her own, but she promises to call every night and to be back in a fortnight. Off she goes. Soon her car breaks down. There's this big house...

Rachael Hip-Flores, Kristen Vaughan
Photo: Isaiah Tanenbaum

And now....the audience

Have you seen the Broadway League's recent report on the demographics of the 2013-14 Broadway audience? If you haven't, and you're interested, you can check it out here.

I recognize that demographic surveys strike a lot of people as about as interesting as watching a boring person eat a sandwich. But I look forward to the ones the League release, because they give us as clear a picture of the commercial theater audience as anyone can get. Believe me when I tell you that there is nothing more maddening, when it comes to writing about popular entertainment, than not being able to truly assess the audience. Until we develop some sort of magical device that allows us to read, with incredible accuracy and clarity, the Borg-like hive-mind that makes up any group of spectators, the Broadway League's demographic reports mean a lot, and I'm grateful for them.

That being said, the findings in this particular study don't strike me as especially celebratory.

Side Show

Call me Joanne Kaufman. I knew from the downbeat of the horrifically misguided new production of Henry Krieger and Bill Russell's Side Show, currently in its final weeks at the St. James Theatre, that when intermission came, it would be time for me to go. The original production--which made Broadway stars of Alice Ripley and Emily Skinner, despite a similarly short run--is beloved by many, myself included. Coming of age musical-theatre obsessed in the late nineties, I don't think there was a cast album I subjected my parents to more. (Love ya, mom and dad!) The compelling story of conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton, the unabashedly melodramatic score, and the harmonious blending of those two leading voices--what more could you want? Maybe my personal bar was set too high, but the heavily revised book and lyrics pale in comparison to the original, and Act One (which is all I can fairly judge) crawls along at a snail's pace. The staging, by Academy Award winning film director Bill Condon, has no spark; attempts at freak show hyper-reality bring to mind Spencer's Gifts more than Tod Browning.

It also doesn't help that Emily Padgett and Erin Davie, playing Daisy and Violet, respectively, are as charisma-free a pair of headliners as I've ever seen in a major musical production. In the original production, Skinner was a strong alto capable of riffing her face off, while Ripley employed both an angelic soprano and a fearlessly high belt. Padgett and Davie both sing like church sopranos, dull as dishwater. It's smart singing, perhaps, but never exciting. Their voices and physical presentation (both done up in mousy brown wigs) are so similar that it's often hard to tell them apart, much less care about their hopes and dreams, which they enumerate in "Like Everyone Else," a merciful holdover from the original production. The rest of the cast--which includes Ryan Silverman, Matthew Hydzik, David St. Louis, and Robert Joy in principal roles--is serviceable, if hardly captivating.

photo: Drew Angerer

Side Show will shutter on January 4, 2015, seventeen years and one day from the original production's closing date. It will have played even fewer performances than its predecessor. Perhaps, as was the case then, the closing notice will bring renewed interest to this struggling revisal. I'd say that you'd do just as well to stay home and listen to the vastly superior original cast recording.

[Last row orchestra, all the way to the side, TDF]

Pocatello



photo: Jeremy Daniel

Since his brilliant debut play, A Bright New Boise, had its New York premiere in 2010, Samuel D. Hunter's output has been both prodigious and prolific. At 32, he's already picked up an Obie, a Lucille Lortel Award, and a MacArthur "Genius" Grant. He's been averaging 2-3 new plays a year, including The Whale, a problematic, fascinating look at obesity and isolation, and The Few, a strange and satisfying little play that recalled early Sam Shepard. Time and again, Hunter has chronicled life in his home state of Idaho with the same gimlet eye that August Wilson once brought to Pittsburgh. All of which makes the spectacular failure of his latest work, Pocatello, so nakedly glaring. Set in a failing Italian chain restaurant (you know the one, even though it's never named), this boring and formless attempt at dark comedy is staler than a day-old breadstick.

Beautiful: The Carole King Musical

Beautiful is one of those shows I meant to see when it first opened, and then right before Tony time, and then right after Tony time, and then over the summer. . .  and then I just sort of moved on once I realized that (a) getting cheap tickets to the show wouldn't be easy as long as the Tony Award-winning Jessie Mueller was heading up the cast as Carole King, and that (b) I did not want to cough up a lot of cash to see a musical that was roundly received as sweet and diverting, if hardly brilliant.

But then, fellow-blogger and longtime friend Sandra got a special offer, and we leapt upon discount tickets to Beautiful like--well, honestly, like two middle-aged women who grew up listening to Tapestry and who are exactly the target audience for this particular musical would. The upshot? Beautiful is indeed sweet and diverting, if hardly brilliant. That doesn't mean I didn't tear up a couple of times, and chuckle genuinely at other times. An added bonus: Jessie Mueller remains in the show, as does a vast majority of the original cast. They remain fresh and committed and sharp, and I was glad to see them. Mueller is as strong in the title role as everyone in the universe has already said she is; I'd like to add that Anika Larsen, as Cynthia Weil, and Jarrod Spector (no relation) as Barry Mann, are particularly appealing and well-suited, too.