Kiss of The Spider Woman

It's well-known that productions at NYU's Steinhardt School tend to be very good if not excellent. While I intend to honor the policy that they're not open for review, I really see no harm in spreading the word that their current production, of Kander and Ebb's Kiss of The Spider Woman, demands you clear some time on your calendar. Remaining performances through Monday night.

Hamlet

photo: Tristam Kenton

A note to Michael Grandage, artistic director of The Donmar Warehouse and director of its production of Hamlet, currently playing a limited engagement at the Broadhurst Theatre: just because you have Jude Law in your cast doesn't mean that you can skimp on the rest of the ensemble. Though far from perfect, Law acquits himself nicely as the Danish prince, commanding the attention of the audience throughout the role's myriad soliloquies (his delivery of "What a piece of work is a man..." is particularly good). However, there's hardly anyone else in the cast that's up to his--or, for that matter, any professional--level. Especially horrific is Gugu Mbartha-Raw, who reads Ophelia's lines as if they were being fed to her through an earpiece. The great Geraldine James is no better as Gertrude--she announces Ophelia's death as casually as one would order a glass of wine at a bar--and Ron Cook's dual performance as Polonius and the 1st Gravedigger is hammier than an Oscar Mayer delivery truck. Grandage's overall production is overwhelmingly grey and dull, and adds no dimension to the hollow performances on stage. His intention was probably to spotlight the text through the absence of scenery, but the sight of the Broadhurst's brick stage wall simply made me miss Mary Stuart more than ever.

The Buddha Play

Evan Brenner's one-man play is a simple piece of theater, but not simple-minded. Mr. Brenner plainly and engagingly recites from the oldest Buddhist sutras, known as the Pali Canon, recounting the life of Siddhartha Gautama, who became forever known as the Buddha. He brings the characters alive, not histrionically, but through measured, focused, artful talk and movement. As the play begins it feels more like storytelling than "drama"; but it slowly becomes suspenseful in spite of itself. Gautama does not take lightly his decision to leave behind his rich inheritance and "go forth" as a seeker of salvation. And after he has achieved Nirvana he continues to live in a warlike world, with followers, family – and the Devil periodically prodding him away from his path. Read the full review.

A Steady Rain

photo: Joan Marcus

Where's the fun in a star performance that doesn't capitalize on the star's star qualities? That's what I wondered watching Hugh Jackman work his ass off during this one act in which he sits with legs wide apart and says "moherf@*ker" a lot to play a lower middle class Chicago beat cop. To borrow from Pauline Kael, it's like watching Julia Roberts not smiling. Jackman does a commendable job vocally - there's no trace of his Australian accent - and you see all the work he's done on his physicality. But that's just it - you're watching sweat. In the chair beside him all evening is Daniel Craig, whose disappearance into his more character-y character is so complete you'd barely recognize him even without the mustache. You forget almost immediately that he's the James Bond of our day, but you don't forget for an instant that Hugh Jackman is Hugh Jackman. This isn't to say that Craig is a better actor than Jackman, but instead that Craig isn't yet limited by stardom the way that Jackman is.

Superior Donuts

Photo: Michael Brosilow

I knew better than to expect that Tracy Letts's new play Superior Donuts would be as good as his Pulitzer Prize-winning August: Osage County, but I did dare to expect that it would be good at all. Instead, Superior Donuts is a badly-stitched-together series of cliches. In brief: a woebegone, isolated man in late middle age (Michael McKean, in a performance that doesn't read at all from the mezzanine) hires a young black man to work in his donut shop, and the young man gets him re-involved in life. This scenario could have worked, I suppose, if the young man didn't have way too much wisdom, confidence, knowledge, and achievement for a 20-year-old with serious problems. And if he didn't have a frame of reference suspiciously resembling that of a middle-aged white playwright. And if the older man were an interesting character. And if the people frequenting the donut shop--two cops, an alcoholic old woman, and the Russian shop owner from next door--didn't practically wear signs saying, "Aren't we quirky?" And if it weren't predictable from her first entrance that the alcoholic old woman would eventually say something brilliant and life-changing to the shop owner. And if the second act didn't feature one of the worst fight scenes in the history of bad theatrical fight scenes (a competitive category!) And if the whole thing didn't feel cobbled together. On the positive side: Jon Michael Hall, as the young man, acts with energy and charm; the set is very nice; and I guess parts were funny, since the audience laughed and laughed, though I was never quite sure why. There's no doubt that Tracy Letts is a first-class playwright, but everyone has a bad day at work. This is his.

(Note: I saw this at an early preview. However, since it came from a long run in Chicago, there was already plenty of opportunity for the creative team to iron out any problems.)

Superior Donuts

photo: Robert J. Saferstein

From the moment that young, vital Franco (Jon Michael Hill) comes bounding in with hope and promise to the crumbling donut shop where Arthur (Michael McKean) has withdrawn into a fog, we know what's going to happen; it isn't the plot of Tracy Letts' latest play (which has followed his August: Osage County into The Music Box Theatre) that grabs the attention and holds it. The joy is in Lett's textured writing; it's in the humor he finds in his affection and compassion for his characters and the Chicago/America they inhabit. A compassionate drama with plenty of crowd-pleasing comedy, the play sounds notes of renewed hopefulness that seem right-on-time in this Obama age, and the unified ensemble put them over beautifully. At the center are the two extraordinary performances by McKean and newcomer Hill: their rapport helps to make the relationship between discouraged, world-weary middle-aged man and young, bright dreamer just about impossible to resist.