A Catered Affair

photo: Jim Cox

Small, somber, and unsentimental, A Catered Affair is a chamber musicalization of a 1950's era kitchen sink drama with songs so artfully scaled to the downbeat mood of the story that they play more like dialogue than musical numbers. The recitative-heavy score (by John Bucchino) is likely to frustrate theatregoers who expect musicals to deliver bombast but I found it disciplined, accomplished and finally enthralling: the music has a plainness which expresses the restrained emotions of the hard-working tenement folk in the story, never betraying them to sentimentality. Bookwriter Harvey Fierstein has erred a bit in expanding the minor role of the, ahem, bachelor uncle - the character does provide some needed levity but brings a too-contemporary "what makes a family?" sensibility that is besides the point. Despite this, the intimate "drama with music", in which a daughter's wedding announcement compels her mother to measure her own marriage against what she had hoped it would be, has a cumulative emotional power thanks to its humanity and integrity (read: trust in the material) and is further distinguished by exceptional performances. Leslie Kriter, whose vivid expressiveness usually makes her stand out from any crowd on a stage, does a fully credible turn as the Plain Jane daughter who is accustomed to being overlooked and neglected. Tom Wopat is remarkable as her long-suffering father, giving a performance that is a study in artful economy and control. But most spectacular, in the show's central role of the bride-to-be's mother, is Faith Prince's astonishing, finely nuanced performance. It isn't only that it's an astoundingly subtle and detailed performance when judged against the other ones I've seen her give, it's that it's one of the most subtle and detailed performances I have ever seen *anyone* give in a musical. Once I picked my jaw off the floor I started imagining what other roles Faith Prince could take on....in dramatic plays.

A Catered Affair

****1/2 (...out of five stars)

Broadway

No Tony nom for best musical, book or score? Wow. I am mad at the American Theater Wing for this. So far this quiet, deeply emotional chamber piece is my favorite new musical of the season. The story- financially strapped parents make a bid to provide their neglected daughter with an extravagant wedding- was brimming with nuance and humanity. The conversational score- equal parts bittersweet and wistful- couples beautifully with the pace and mood of the story. Faith Prince, the mother of the bride, skillfully conveyed just as many heartbreaking moments in the silence between the phrases as she did while she sang. Tom Wopat finally gets to originate a role on Broadway and he's dead on perfect as the tired cabbie constantly being cornered by his wife. I loved this show.

stretch (a fantasia)

Photo/Jim Baldassare

Fuck it, I'll say it: it's no stretch when I say that Stretch (a fantasia) is unmissable, no stretch for me to say that Gypsy isn't the the only show with a Rose to watch this season. The Rose in question here is Rose Mary Woods, the ultra-loyal secretary (of 23 years) to Richard Nixon who may have intentionally deleted incriminating Watergate evidence. Her portrayer is Kristin Griffith, who grounds the three different manifestations of Rose: the bundle of hard-fought opinions who smiles, beams and struts through the spotlight of her memory as she says "Go fuck yourself"; the tragically diminished modern version, vivacity bound to a wheelchair in a nursing home; and the dream version who speaks to the clickety-clack rhythm of an IBM Selectric (not to mention two violins, a bass, and a trumpet). And while yes, there are some fantastic elements (and I mean that both ways), between Susan Bernfield's writing and Emma Griffin's seamless direction, the show is utterly believable -- almost too believable, as it takes us back to the shady 2004 election, following not just Rose, but The Orderly (Brian Gerard Murray), an apathetic member of Generation Y who yearns to actually dream of something other than SpongeBob's sexuality, and Bob (Evan Thompson), a former history teacher who latches onto the actual history -- the actual life -- that Rose represents to him. The result isn't a fantasia: it's pure magic.

[Read on]

John Lithgow: Stories By Heart

photo: Joan Marcus

The first half of John Lithgow's ninety minute solo show is a warm and nostalgic pleasantry in which the actor mostly recalls the power of storytelling in his childhood home, paying tribute to his father (who put on Shakespeare plays) and grandmother (who read from books). It's an amiable prelude to the show's second half, the altogether delightful main attraction in which Lithgow reads (or, more accurately, enacts) P.G. Wodehouse's short story "Uncle Fred Flits By" with artful comic timing and delivery. Lithgow's skills are obvious and plentiful as he delineates the story's handful of characters but the show isn't aimed to put us in awe of his acting so much as it's aimed to remind us of the life that can spring from the printed page and of the simple joys of storytelling. It may be the most humble and generous one-man show I have ever seen.

Damascus

Quite simply, it's taken me this long to write the review for one reason: if I'm bored at a play, I'm going to be bored writing the review. Thankfully, with that dreadful bit of snark out of my system, I can say the following things about Traverse Theatre Company's production of David Greig's Damascus. (1) Critics only complain about bad microphones when they don't actually care what the person is saying. The rest of the time, they're listening too closely to jot anything down. (2) Don't prove yourself capable of linguistic nuance or creative narrative (as with Yellow Moon), for once you do, everything else you do after that will always seem all the more mundane, especially when it actually is. (3) If you're doing a straight play about differences in culture, don't set your play in a chain hotel's lobby. Also, if it's to be understood that someone is speaking foreignlish (it's implied that the actor is not actually speaking English on stage, but another language), make sure that's clear. Not every play can be The Internationalist. (4) Don't bore a critic. Even if he says he's got the snark out of his system, it'll still be obvious to everyone that he hasn't.

Endgame

I waited so long to write about this Mother's Day treat that I lost my program notes: that said, pardon my general recollections. Then again, it takes a good show to leave you with any pictures or images a month down the road, so understand that I found this production of Endgame to not only be visually striking, but emotionally accessible. Oddly enough, the high emphasis on the literary style of Beckett's words (such grand drabness otherwise) seemed to shift the story toward the metaphoric, with the play serving to reflect an artist's struggle to complete a work. Whether or not Beckett desired that metadrama on top of a play already loaded with the very real (yet statuesquely depicted) thoughts of death, I care not. Also worth noting, Max Casella was the star of this evening--though John Turturro held up well, despite (or perhaps because of) seeming to be in the grips of a Coen brothers film. Physical comedy is often spoken of as a motif behind Beckett's carefully choreographed shows, but it's rare to see a production that fully realizes the comic futility in acts as mundane as the absence and presence of a ladder.