Shrek

photo: Joan Marcus

I wanted to see the Broadway musical of Shrek with a non-industry, paying audience before writing about it, and now that I have, I can say with confidence that it's an audience pleaser. (At least it is with this original cast - all bets are off next Fall if/when some of these principals are replaced.) Though the sets and costumes look no-expense-spared and the orchestra is sufficiently staffed so that it actually sounds like one, the show's real bang for the buck is delivered by the abundance of personality and winning appeal of the performers. Even an audience who's never heard of Sutton Foster quickly knows they are watching a genuine modern-day musical comedy star - the girlish-goofy physicality in her performance as Princess Fiona warms the house and puts everyone at ease. Brian D'Arcy James, unrecognizably skull-capped, ogre-eared and tinted green, brings the right amount of heart as Shrek and keeps the character from being, well, just a cartoon. Daniel Breaker, as his sidekick Donkey, avoids the road marked "Created By Eddie Murphy" and spins his every bit into a solid laugh, whether funny on the page or not. And Christopher Sieber, amusingly on his knees nearly all night to create the illusion that he's dwarfed, hams it up deliciously as the story's villain Prince. Supporting cast are all terrific top to bottom, especially in the energetic, sometimes witty dance numbers. The book is fine for what it is - it has the same jokey spirit as the Shrek movies, and although some have faulted its lapses into bathroom humor, I don't see any reason why a family-friendly comedy like this one shouldn't make some concessions to the pre-teen boys in the audience. The big downside of the show is that its score continually lets it down - unlike Billy Elliot, which triumphs despite a merely serviceable score, the substandard and rarely funny songs in Shrek put a drag on the show and prevent it from adding up to more than the sum of its parts.

Die Roten Punkte: Super Musikant

photo: Christine Fiedler

The brainchild of performer-musicians Daniel Tobias and Clare Bartholomew, Die Roten Punkte are a brother-sister pop punk band whose often very funny show is finally in New York this weekend, following much-awarded engagements at Fringe Festivals in Canada. It's easy to see why this show won Best Comedy at last year's Victoria Fringe - the duo have a gift for comic delivery and for improvisation within the "concert" format of the show, and their mock-serious solidly-crafted send-ups of new wave music are often hilarious. (The funniest has the two dancing the robot to a Krafterwerk-like beat made only of cowbell, three repeating synth notes and a drum machine.) The show's narrative, which exists mostly in the banter between the duo's songs, may be slight - Astrid, just out of rehab, eventually gets a talking-to from her "straight edge" brother Otto because she's been spiking her Vitamin Water with booze all night - but the slightness doesn't matter: the show's disarming humor comes not from the narrative but from character, and Tobias and Bartholomew have honed Otto and Astrid to perfection. The audience didn't seem to initially know what to make of the show - it took a couple of songs before there was clear permission to laugh - but after that it was practically a party. I doubt there was anyone there who hadn't been made a fan.

Eight

We draw our own conclusions about the eight young men and women of Eight before they even say a word. That's partially why the writer and director, Ella Hickson, has them stand in a silent line as the audience files in. They don't remain blanks for long: each has a monologue—the theatrical form of the short story—and over the course of the next few hours, they'll share them. While the characters may not have found a place for themselves, Hickson certainly has: she's a darkly comic playwright, social critic, and youthful voice, all balled up into one. Considering how rushed-to-Fringe this was, it's remarkable that only two of the monologues seem forced (and only comparatively so); as for her language, it's near miraculous.

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Transition

Photo/Noah Kalina

Reggie Watts is a bullshit artist, but a serious one. His deadpan act deconstructs both sound and comedy: imagine a hip-hop Andy Kaufman and you'll still be confused. Just know that Watts's entertainment comes first; the incidental laughs spray like shrapnel. Also, know that Watts gets away with it. The solipsism fades in front of an audience, especially a downtown crowd, and if his performance sometimes seems the equivalent of a precocious child taping a private radio program in front of a mirror, he at least has the voice of a DJ and the technical skills of a sound engineer. However, while the title implies that Reggie Watts is going somewhere, he isn't there yet.

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Wickets

There are no seatbelts on the mock airplane set of Jenny Rogers’s adaptation of Maria Irene Fornes’s Fefu & Her Friends. None are needed: Wickets is engaging and smooth, but it’s hardly dramatically turbulent. Nor should it be: by sticking to the surfaces, co-directors Rogers and Clove Galilee are being true to the eight stewardesses on Wicket Air Flight #1971. (The feminist content has been updated from 1935 to 1970.) The deeper truths come out in loose yet cryptic monologues, and through an interpretation of Fornes’s experimental style that collages text and breaks out into song and dance.

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Hello 2009!

Another year, another blog butt-kicking by Aaron, who handily won our race (again) and probably saw more shows than David and I did. Combined. Stamina, thy name is Aaron Riccio.

You've no doubt noticed that David has been posting only sporadically for the last six months. I don't want to speak for him, but I don't think he'd mind my saying that his focus began to change after he had his own show up last Winter. Come back to the five and dime David Bell, David Bell.

I can't wrap my mind around Show Showdown without David having some part in it, so the door will always remain open for him to post here whenever he is inspired to. Nonetheless, with David engaged only irregularly, it's impossible for me to imagine doing another blog race this year.

That said, Aaron and I both want to keep on posting on here, mostly because we see the value in a theatre review team blog that can concisely cover a wide range of theatre, many times with more than one take on the same show.

We're going to be joined this year by my friend Cameron Kelsall, who used to maintain a blog I thoroughly enjoyed and who has written for New Theater Corps. Look for his posts very soon.

In addition to Cameron, we'd all love to find yet another articulate theatre junkie to join us in '09. Email me if you're interested.

And now, here comes all the theatre we can manage to see in 2009. Thank you all for reading and for loving theatre.