A Chorus Line

photo: Paul Kolnik

I feel just as I did about this revival as when I first saw it last November, but wanted to note that Joey Dudding, now playing Paul, drew a burst of applause after his monologue. I didn't hesitate to join right in.

Avenue Q

I wish I had a picture of Mary Faber as Kate Monster. The likeable, good-vibed actress very amusingly gets her face to wear the same expression as the puppet. The picture of Howie Michael Smith will have to suffice, although it doesn't really communicate how gosh-darn endearing he is as Princeton and it gives only a rough idea how well he fills out black denim.

Spamalot

It's easy to forget that thin, ridiculously silly Spamalot is an awful lot of fun; I enjoyed it even more this second time than when I saw it in previews two years ago. The current ensemble is tight and, surprise, I missed the original stars not at all. As King Arthur, Jonathan Hadary is oddly endearing besides being funny, the stillness at the eye of the hurricane just as Tim Curry was. Marin Mazzie has a blast and sings with panache as The Lady of The Lake, Lewis Cleale is a perfect sparkling-toothed Galahad, and on and on. Even before Rick Holmes' second act ad lib about Anna Nicole Smith, this current troupe looked like they were having a blast on stage. That kind of thing is contagious.

Sweet Bird Of Youth

photo: RodGoodmanPhotographer.com

In their very intimate space and on a shoestring budget, T. Schreiber Studio has managed an absorbing, resourcefully staged revival of the Tennessee Williams drama. Although not one of Williams' best (partly because the second of the play's three acts has much that feels extraneous) there's plenty of gold to be mined in this play, especially in the first and last acts which center on the shifting power struggle between faded middle-aged film star Alexandra Del Lago and fading golden boy gone gigolo Chance Wayne. This production seems to emphasize the carnality and the drug-hazed dynamics in their early scenes and strenuously resists playing either character for easy, cynical laughs. Joanna Bayless, who plays Alexandra, is able to expertly render both the character's harrowing vulnerability and her cold, sad candor without turning her into a caricature; Eric Watson Williams could stand to make Chance a little more wily in the first act, but he's otherwise solid and renders the character's humiliations with heartbreaking clarity.

The Jaded Assassin

****
The Ohio Theater

I am very intrigued and impressed with playwright, Timothy Haskell. Author of such slap-happy hits as Fatal Attraction: A Greek Tragedy and Road House: The Stage Play, he is hell-bent on creating FUN theater. And snobs be damned, fun theater is a valid, respectable artistic genre. Billed as the world's first full-length action play, The Jaded Assassin, is a hysterical amalgam of karate flicks and comic books. The plot is thin but the gimmick is golden: 70 minutes of finely choreographed/highly theatrical fight scenes. Yesterday I was heartbroken over the deaths of the soldiers in Journey's End. Today, watching a warrior in Jaded... get disemboweled I died laughing. I love the theatre.

Also blogged by: [Aaron]

Lookingglass Alice

photo: Michael Brosilow

This colorful and visually inventive take on the Lewis Carroll stories depicts Wonderland with gymnastics and acrobatics: it's like a Cirque du Soleil for the grade school set. It's full of theatricality, always busy and active, and it's clearly been created with skill and artful stagecraft. I was ready to be wowed once I saw how Alice's fall down the rabbit hole was presented. Curiously, the wow moments continue apace but, as the show has a lack of narrative clarity and no dramatic momentum, the moments don't build from one to another. Depending on your tolerance for theatrical circus, you could either leave wowed or weary.