Blithe Spirit

photo: Robert J. Saferstein

Apart from Jayne Atkinson, whose crisp line readings drive the production, and Susan Louise O'Connor, whose clowning as The Maid just about steals the show, this star-powered revival's principal cast is less than ideal. Generally bland Rupert Everett often lapses into sourness, Christine Ebersole oversells youthful playfulness to the point of making her character seem dangerously close to mentally ill, and Angela Lansbury, despite the audience's enormous good will and delight at seeing her on stage again, is more cutesy than eccentric. Yet the revival (directed by Michael Blakemore) is reasonably entertaining anyhow, mostly because the play can still charm and amuse even in a less than buoyant production.

Caitlin and the Swan

The Management has become known for dark comedies with an element of magic realism, and Dorothy Fortenberry's Caitlin and the Swan (at UNDER St. Marks through May 2) is no exception. Director Joshua Conkel illuminates the curious psychological world of Fortenberry's imagination, in which the animalistic metaphors of women's sex lives become flesh and blood. Led by her worldly friends and her own exploratory spirit, naïve Caitlin (the excellent Marguerite French) plumbs the mysteries of fulfillment with charm, if little subtlety. (This isn't a subtle play.) Dancer Elliott T. Reiland scores as the fantastical animals, both graceful and gruff, and Jake Aron strikes a delicate balance between innocence and abandon as Bastian, a cerebral high schooler who becomes Caitlin's confidante. Rigid questionnaires and tests play the foil to the forces of imagination -- Bastian prepares for the SATs, while the women mock a sociology survey about "work-life balance." Uneven acting and visible opening-night jitters made Thursday's show less than all it could have been, but the performances in this enjoyable one-act should cohere to match the pointed fun of its conceits.

Joe Turner’s Come and Gone

Photo: T. Charles Erickson

In light of August Wilson’s preference for African-American directors, it’s interesting to consider what he might have thought about a white man directing the Lincoln Center Theatre production of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone currently playing at the Belasco Theatre. I imagine that, if Wilson were alive to make an exception to his preference, director Bartlett Sher would be that exception. (Wilson knew Sher in Seattle, and Wilson’s widow gave her permission for Sher to direct.) Sher is a brilliant, sensitive director, with an exceptional ability to use theatre space multi-dimensionally. While I frequently feel that I am watching plays from outside, when Sher directs I often feel that I am there--still watching, yes, but there. (With Light in the Piazza, he even managed to make the Vivian Beaumont Theatre feel intimate.) Sher regularly succeeds in bringing a sense of the entire world of a play to life—the surroundings, the culture, the atmosphere, the history. He is a masterful director. (Full disclosure: I briefly knew Sher many years ago in San Diego.)

Nevertheless, I have questions: Would a black director have brought a deeper level of understanding? How would that have changed the production? What would the superb cast have gained by working with a black director--if anything? Would I have a problem with, say, a Chinese woman directing Fiddler on the Roof—or this show? No, but I’m not sure that my opinion is relevant. After all, Wilson also didn’t like “color-blind” casting, and I love it--I even have a dream cast for an all-black A Little Night Music. But would I think an all-white version of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone was a good idea? Hell, no. What’s the difference? Oh, just hundreds of years of history. (I wonder what the cast thought of working with Sher. I wonder if any of them would have preferred an African-American director.)

I am inclined to think that the vibrant brilliance of this production answers all questions and doubts, but I’m not 100% sure.

Broadway for a New America

Photo: Peter James Zielinski

The recent Broadway for a New America benefit at Symphony Space felt like a classic case of bait and switch. I was there to see Judy Kaye and Ann Hampton Callaway, both of whom were mentioned in all the press releases and both of whom did not show up. Oh well, that's the nature of benefits. And this was for a good cause: in support of same-sex marriage. So I settled in to enjoy those performers who did show up.

Unfortunately, Broadway for a New America managed to be a case study of how not to do a benefit. First of all, don't run three and a half hours. It's just too long. Second, don't feature people who aren't any good or are inappropriate or both (eg, the terrible Jolson imitator singing Swanee at a benefit for equal rights--fortunately he spared us the blackface). Third, keep things moving. There should be very very little time between acts. Fourth, don't leave six non-celebs to make speeches late in the evening, one right after the other. God bless 'em for the excellent political work they've done, but six political speeches when the evening is already three hours old is not a good idea! And fifth, don't injure the audience's ears. I understand that yelling is a popular contemporary form of singing, and I often enjoy it, but having to put my fingers in my ears (I wasn't the only one!) did not add to my enjoyment.

The evening did have moments: Robert Klein being quite funny, Christine Pedi purring as Eartha Kitt, Seth Rudetsky's deconstruction of the Brady Bunch Hour, Nellie McKay singing, Alice Playten (pictured above) nailing "The Boy From," and a handful of others. It would have made a kickass 90-minute benefit.

reasons to be pretty

photo: Robert J. Saferstein

Downtown a few months ago, this latest Neil LaBute seemed to be the playwright's attempt to break his mold and write about a more emotionally mature male. Now that the play has transferred uptown, minus a quartet of its monologues, it's more than an attempt - it's an unqualified success. Two of the play's four roles have been recast, and the new performers (Stephen Pasquale and Marin Ireland) are more in scale with the other actors than their predecessors were: everyone now seems to be in the same play, and the result is far more convincing and emotionally powerful than it was downtown. The play's focus is more securely now on the role played by Thomas Sadowski, an average Joe whose careless remark about his girlfriend's face instantly destroys the four year relationship and forces him to man up in the aftermath. Sadowski's performance seems entirely effortless and yet it's rich and finely nuanced; he's almost always on stage and yet you never catch him working.

Chasing Manet

Reviewed for Theatermania.