Fast Food

Emerging Artist's Theatre

This was one of those fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants 24 hour play festivals. Six of us playwrights pulled suggestions out of a bag on Friday at 8pm, wrote all night, submitted our scripts to directors/actors in the morning and crossed our fingers at 7pm as the curtain rose. This is what I got:

Place: Stuck on the N Train on the Manhattan Bridge

Time: 1776

Must appear somewhere in play: "Gooaaaaall!!!!" and "Are you in the next EATFest?"

WTF??? I raced home and began typing and at 4 in the morning I was in a panic. What have I gotten myself into?! Happily, the actors got it and sold my 1776 on the N train play and the audience declared mine and the other 5 sleepless playwrights' plays hits. Totally scary but ultimately a blast- I wanna ride again!

Happy End

photo: Lab Photography

With very limited resources, Theatre Ten Ten has put together an entertaining revival of this two-hour, three-act Weill-Brecht musical. To modern audiences, the story (set in motion when a Salvation Army sister becomes romantically involved with a gangster) feels something like Guys and Dolls in a Major Barbara-like moral universe. This production, using the translation by Michael Feingold, emphasizes the pointed comedy in the material and mostly hits the mark. Unfortunately the first act is acoustically problematic, but the second and third acts - which play predominantly downstage and in the audience, gamely taking advantage of the troupe's church-basement venue - sound and work much better. Lorinda Lisitza has been getting some deserved attention for her portrayal of Hallelujah Lil - her renditions of "Surabaya, Johnny" and "Sailor's Song" are powerful and dramatically intense - but I was equally impressed with Joey Piscopo, who plays Bill Cracker, the gangster she falls for whose "tough exterior conceals a heart of stone." He's got the wise guy deadpan down pat and his song and dance style here reminded me of Jerry Orbach in the original Chicago. No small praise.

Les Miserables

Two good things about my recent visit to a matinee of Les Miserables:

1. If in some alternate universe they could ever come up with a track where the same actress could play Fantine AND Eponine then Lea Salonga would rock the hell out of that. Queen of the damaged, pure of spirit underdogs, Salonga's expressive and heartbreaking delivery is right at home in the role of the shat-upon Fantine and I would sneak in at intermish more than once just to hear her sing Eponine's "On My Own".

2. Doug Kreeger (that guy from Thrill Me!) stepping into the role of Marius had not an ounce of understudy vibe about him- in fact it felt like I was watching an originally cast actor in the role. With a youthful, whispering, intensity Kreeger dominated the second half of Les Miz as the urgently lovesick student (especially during his beautifully sung rendition of "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables"). It is quite a tall order to breathe fresh relevant energy into this dusty behemoth melodrama but Kreeger (and Salonga) did just that and made my second visit to the Broadhurst very enjoyable.

Cymbeline

photo: Keith Pattison

Fresh, inventive, and distinctively elegant, Cheek by Jowl's production of Shakespeare's Cymbeline (currently at BAM) is a stunner; it's one of those uncommon, anachronistic presentations of Shakespeare in which style never gets in the way of substance, and its strong directorial imprint is always in service of telling the story clearly and effectively. The play is considered somewhat problematic - it's categorized as a comedy, yet it's loaded with devices that anticipate tragedy - but this production, guided by Declan Donnellan's insightful direction, moves assuredly to a fully realized, potently moving climax. The cast is excellent but Tom Hiddleston, in the dual role of the naive lover Posthumus and of the arrogant prince Cloten, deserves special attention for driving the play with his two superbly delineated performances.

Coram Boy

photo: Joan Marcus

Imported from London and based on the book for teenagers, Coram Boy is entertaining, brilliantly staged, overwrought crap. It's the stage equivalent of a page-turner - one sensationalized event after another at dizzying speed - but it lacks thematic substance and weight; in the end it's just a series of melodramatic, pulped-up moments, a cheesey soap opera in Masterpiece Theatre dress. For what it is, it's fun and ocassionally snortworthy - you'll hiss the baby-snatching villians, you'll ooh and aah the Flying By Foy, and you may even find you're misty-eyed (I wasn't) at the big eleventh hour emotional moment when some measure of happiness is found after nearly three hours of faux-Dickensian injustices - but you'll leave humming the stagecraft.

Mr. Broadway: A Benefit For The Ali Forney Center

****

Dodger Stages

"We have seen some wonderfully dangerous acts", announced the hysterically brittle Tovah Feldshuh after the talent competition which included song, dance, and an attempt to break a Guiness world record for consecutive number of toe-touches. This fun, faggy, spectacle to find the hottest chorus boy on Broadway was an absolute blast! Talent, interview and swimsuit competitions were enlivened with hysterical judge banter offered up by catty Seth Rudesky, perpetually drooling Scott Nevins and the brilliant Nancy Opel (Dear God. Please let her be the next Drowsy Chaperone. Amen). Frankie James Grande (pictured) from Mamma Mia!, by vote of the audience won. How could he not have after his talent presentation: playing Gollum from LOTR auditioning for Danny in Grease on You're The One That I Want. My precious!