Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage

Photo/Jessica Palopoli

Though Grendel appears in Banana Bag & Bodice/Shotgun Player's Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage, Dave Malloy and Jason Craig’s songplay is a beast of a different sort, focusing not on the point of view of the heroes (or villains) but rather on the subjective interpretations of three damnable academics. The result is a clash between the physical reality of Beowulf (Craig) and the gleeful spin of the academics, who justly double as the villains of the epic poem: Grendel (Christopher Kuckenbaker), Grendel’s Mother (Jessica Jelliffe), and the Dragon (Beth Wilmurt). Oh, and the whole thing’s set to Malloy’s nicely hodge-podged music, be it feedback (“Overture”), jungle-like techno (“Beowulf Arrives”), punk (“Body”), a dirge (“Grendel’s Death”), or even Broadway (“Ripped Him Up Good”). Rod Hipskind's fluid directing nails the emotional, even as the company's set design lights upon--at times absurdly so--the physical, and while the energy sometimes lags, the creativity never falters, and see if you don't cower when Grendel's mother keens, in Craig's childishly direct language, “I don’t fucking care how fucking men my fucking son murdered/they all fucking deserved what fucking ass pushers in fancy dress.”

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Next to Normal

Photo: Joan Marcus

A the beginning of Next to Normal, Diana, a cheery, energetic woman, banters with her son, chats with her daughter, and seduces her husband. Later, making their lunch, she starts laying bread on the table. And the chair. And the floor. More and more frantically, she throws together haphazard sandwiches and thrusts them at her family. And they know what they are seeing: her mania is back. Brian Yorkey's and Tom Kitt's beautiful, often propulsive score, clever and moving lyrics, and strong, intense storyline take the audience along on the always rocky, frequently painful, sometimes funny journey as Diana tries to find a treatment that will relieve her pain without taking away her personality. The changes that have been made since the Off-Broadway production are smart and successful, tightening the show's focus and digging deeper into its story. The cast, led by Alice Ripley giving the performance of a lifetime in the role of a lifetime, is uniformly excellent (though I miss Brian D'Arcy James from the Off-Broadway production). The show might benefit from being trimmed a bit, particularly toward the end of the first act, but overall I think this is a superb new musical, and I hope that many Tony Awards and a long run are in its future. (Spoilers in the next paragraphs.)

In the course of Next to Normal's various incantations, there has been some discussion about it having an "unrealistic happy ending." I found the ending neither unrealistic nor happy. Many people with bipolar disorder choose to go off their meds, since the side effects can be awful and the disorder can mess with the ability to make good decisions. It is likely that Diana has suicide attempts, electroconvulsive therapy, and institutionalization in her future--hardly a happy ending. In addition, at the close of the show, the daughter Natalie and her boyfriend Henry are busy re-creating all that is unhealthy in Diana and Dan's marriage.

What gives the show that sense of a happy ending is the final song, "We Need Some Light," a positive-sounding anthem that allows the entire cast to harmonize beautifully together . It reminded me of "The Song of Purple Summer" from Spring Awakening. In both cases, faux cheery music is used to (1) allow a big finish and (2) keep the audience from going home and slitting their wrists. These seem to me to be legitimate reasons to use these songs.

Happiness

photo: Paul Kolnik

What one moment of your life would you pick to live in for eternity? That's the question put to a subway car full of the newly dead in this weak, dramatically pat new musical directed by Susan Stroman. One of the show's first segments isn't bad - an elderly woman rises from her wheelchair to replace a vision of her younger self dancing with her first love - but any hopes of Follies-like resonance or thematic complexity are soon dashed by the superficial, often saccharine vignettes that follow. Of course the married couple pick the same moment (awww!) and of course the self-loathing conservative radio host decides to live eternally in her free love hippie past: the show's book traffics in predictable pedantic cliches rather than insight, and isn't helped by an uninteresting pastiche score. The material may be lifeless but the cast, which includes Jenny Powers, Joanna Gleason, and Sebastian Arcules, is to die for. Hunter Foster, playing a kind of civil servant Emcee of the underworld, is especially sensational: he commits so fully to, and throws his considerable know-how and charisma behind, his big song and dance number that he puts a pulse in this dead-on-arrival musical.

Finian's Rainbow

Photo: Joan Marcus

The best Encores! production of the past few years, Finian's Rainbow was two and a half hours of pure delight. Virtually the whole cast shone, and oh! the voices! and oh! the dancing! The show is a well-meaning hodgepodge with some pointed--and funny--things to say about racism and about money, but it is Burton Lane's music and E.Y. Harburg's lyrics that soar. For me, the discovery of the evening was the fabulous Kate Baldwin. Her "How Are Things In Glocca Morra" was clear and sweet and lovely and yearning and beautiful. Beside having that stunning voice, Baldwin can do comedy, drama, and romance and is quite pretty. Speaking of pretty, Cheyenne Jackson was a total charmer, as usual. Their "Old Devil Moon" was a sexy treat. To name a few other standout performances, Terri White did a kickass "Necessity," and Ruben Santiago-Hudson was quite effective as a white racist turned black. It was also a treat to see Encores! regular J.D. Webster play two small but fun parts; I first noticed him as a dancer years ago, and it's nice to see him get speaking roles as well.

Impressionism

photo: Joan Marcus

There's tinkly tasteful piano music in the interminable interludes during scene changes, as either Joan Allen or Jeremy Irons mopes around a desk looking thoughtful: is Jack O'Brien's directorial strategy to put the audience to sleep? The play, cut during previews to an eighty-minute one-act, could be cut even further to its final two scenes since it isn't until those that the play has dramatic interest. The two stars seem listless as art dealers who reveal themselves to each other by talking about the works hung in their gallery: their performances are thoughtful, naturalistic, scaled for intimacy, and as fatally unsurprising as the play. Andre de Shields does best of those in the (overqualified) supporting cast as a kindly stooped-over shopkeep who comes in at the eleventh hour with more plain-spoken, no-nonsense insight into one of the paintings than either of the smartypants in the room. It's a groanworthy role with a cheap purpose, but we care more about him in five minutes than we do about the art dealers all night.

Miss Evers' Boys

Photo: Nathan Johnson

David Feldshuh's Miss Evers' Boys, about the infamous Tuskegee Experiment in which a group of African-American men were deliberately denied treatment for syphilis, has been around for 17 years, most notably in its 1997 Emmy-winning TV adaptation. But in the current production by the Red Fern Theatre Company it still feels as fresh as a spring rain. The stars seem to have aligned for this production: excellent actors perfectly cast, with a director who knows just how to seize on the strengths of the script. Feldshuh's central insight was to focus on the character of Eunice Evers, a selfless nurse who, believing she is doing her best for the men, wins their trust and cares for them through their years of illness and suffering. Played with the utmost grace by Nedra McClyde, who was excellent in Victor Woo and TBA and gets a well-deserved central role here, Nurse Evers is so strongly animated by her calling that she never starts a family of her own; the men become her charges, and she comes to love them dearly. But as Nurse Evers loses faith and the anguish of her inner conflict grows, Ms. McClyde makes us feel both utter sorrow and powerful admiration for the character. Meanwhile the men she cares for make a terrific ensemble, and each has beautifully-played individual scenes as well.