The Cambria

The young Frederick Douglass spent six months in Ireland, finding there the morale boost he needed to continue his abolitionist crusade. I spent an hour and a half at the Irish Arts Center in New York on St. Patrick's day, getting my first taste of Donal O'Kelly's work. The Cambria concerns not Douglass's time in Europe but the ocean voyage itself. Mr. O'Kelly and director Raymond Keane bring it to life as a richly fictionalized tale of colorful figures and high drama at sea. Embodied by Mr. O'Kelly and Sorcha Fox — both superb actors — these people are by turns amusing, inspiring, and a little scary. The language is worthy of the mantle of the great Irish dramatists of the past — warm, poetic, funny, pained, sprightly yet always faintly weighted, but never bitter. The Cambria provides one of those concentrated, magical experiences one hopes for every time one takes one's seat in a theater.

Exit the King

Photo: Jason Bell

It's interesting to imagine experiencing Eugene Ionesco's work in the 1950s and ‘60s when it was new and groundbreaking. In the past four or five decades, many of Ionesco’s devices have become, if not commonplace, not unusual, and Ionesco's work simply cannot have the impact it once had. Exit the King, currently previewing on Broadway with Geoffrey Rush and Susan Sarandon, seems a bit like a museum piece, only intermittently brought to life, mostly by Rush’s staggeringly textured, physical, and brilliant performance and Andrea Martin’s comic timing and sheer likeability.

Our Town

photo: Carol Rosegg

You don't walk out of David Cromer's bold, unforgettable production of Our Town talking about its craft, although there would be plenty to say in praise of it. You walk out newly devastated by Thornton Wilder's play even if you went in, as I did, feeling that you already knew it and were at least a little immune. Cromer (who also plays the Stage Manager narrator) makes some daring directorial but they are brilliant and purposeful in their service to the play, culminating in a third act that is almost unbearably powerful and immediate. This is a must-see, as soon as possible.

33 Variations

photo: Joan Marcus

Moises Kaufman's play is the sort that gives "middlebrow" a bad name, a superficial modern-day disease drama which has been given the stink of pretentiousness thanks to its historical scenes of Beethoven. Jane Fonda certainly holds the stage despite being absent from it for four and a half decades, but her magnetism can't hide that she's playing an underwritten character whose primary conflict (with her daughter, played by Samantha Mathis) is dramatically inert.

A Little Night Music

Reviewed for Theatermania.

Miscast

Photo: Aubrey Reuben

Over the years, I've heard wonderful stories about Miscast, the yearly benefit for MCC Theatre in which people perform songs they'd usually never get to sing. Highlights I heard about included Kristin Chenoweth and Harvey Fierstein playing Tevye (her) and Golde (him); Cheyenne Jackson singing "Can't Help Loving That Man of Mine"; and Kelli O'Hara, Brian d'Arcy James, and Steven Pasquale doing "Totally Fucked." Miscast has become the thing of legend. Unfortunately, this year's version will not add to the mystique, partially due to the painfully unbalanced miking, which was both unclear and too loud--a deadly combination.

Some of the performances: Kelli O'Hara sang a semi-operatic "This Nearly Was Mine" that I can't judge fairly since her high notes were so overamplified as to be hypersonic. Beth Leavel did a version of "I Am What I Am" in which no form of overacting was neglected. Norbert Leo Butz and Aaron Tveit competed in a "butt off" to see who looked better in their costume from the part in Wicked they both played, years apart. Alice Ripley sang "Epiphany" from Sweeney Todd. Raul Esparza provided a pretty impressive "Man Who Got Away." Steven Pasquale unleashed his amazing voice on "Free at Last" from Big River and "Maybe" from Annie (which he sang as an adult song of longing). Daniel Breaker was charming and funny doing "So Much Better" from Legally Blonde. Everything would have landed better with decent sound.