Happy Now?

photo: James Leynse

While overlong (at 2 and a half hours), at its best Lucinda Coxon's portrait of a highly functional, entirely competent but unhappy modern woman (played by Mary Bacon) taps into a nagging fear: even doing everything we're supposed to and "having it all" isn't enough for happiness. To the playwright's credit, she doesn't have the character learn or espouse some tidy life lesson - instead we're asked to clock the ordinary, run of the mill disappointments and do the math ourselves. The playwright's overarching idea is solid, but some of the details are trite - a bit about how men hate "Will & Grace", for instance, makes you feel like studio audience. The play has a distinctive humor some of the time, such as in the nifty opening scene between our heroine and a cheesy serial seducer (C.J. Wilson, a hoot), but it's not consistent.

Dog And Wolf

Reviewed for Theatermania.

Clybourne Park

It's 1959 and black family's about to move into a white Chicago neighborhood, to the consternation of the community. White flight. Half a century passes and after rough times the neighborhood is ripe for gentrification. But resentment lingers into the new generation, and by the time a contractor digs up an old trunk buried in the yard, and plops the baggage of the ages literally on center stage, we've seen just how the ugliness of America's never-ending racial "conversation" has transformed over the decades – transformed, but hardly died down. Aided by Pam MacKinnon's commendably transparent direction and fine performances all around, playwright Bruce Norris has dramatized his perceptive view of these changes (and lack thereof) with wit, skill, and heart. The play never feels self-conscious; it deals with larger-than-life issues with compelling life-sized characters and naturalistic dialogue – the hardest kind to write. It's a marvelous accomplishment. Click here the full review and a discount ticket code.

Parsons Dance

If you have any interest in dance and you haven't seen the magical, joyful Parsons Dance, you really should. They're at the Joyce through February 21st. I particularly recommend that you catch the astonishing, breath-taking Caught.

Fanny

[Spoilers below.]

The thoroughly amiable Fanny, Encores! latest re-creation, tells the story of a couple separated by his love of the sea. Harold Rome's music is lush and lovely; his lyrics are serviceable. The strong cast is led by Elena Shadow as Fanny; James Snyder as her errant lover Marius; Fred Applegate as Panisse, the man she marries to give her and Marius's child a name; and George Hearn as Marius's father. The show's almost fairy-tale amiability works against its ability to develop any deep conflict: for example, Panisse is too good to be real, even going so far as to die in time for the lovers to re-unite. It also has a couple of songs that are real earworms ("Oh, Fanny, oh Fanny, Fanny," etc). But Fanny's old-fashioned charms are many, and Encores! did well by it.

For The Love Of Broadway: Betty Buckley at Feinstein's

By now you've heard the drill: Betty Buckley's new cabaret show (at Feinstein's for a month-long stay) eschews her usual forays into jazz and pop and consists almost exclusively of songs from the Broadway catalog. Except for the encore of "Memory" from Cats (complete with extended arm and finger) Buckley steers clear of the Broadway songs that she has been previously associated with. That's a gutsy move that yields some real treasures, such as her beautifully delicate take on "Lazy Afternoon" from The Golden Apple and a world-wise read on "Hey There" from The Pajama Game. While the set showcases Buckley's interpretive skills as a singing actress, the pace of the evening would benefit from one or two more well-placed uptempo numbers. (Note however that the set seems to have been built for some variation - reports from Tuesday indicate numbers from Nine but they weren't among the 20 or so songs in the set when I attended on Wednesday.) One of the nice surprises about the song selection is that Buckley hasn't confined herself to only American Songbook standards; she's dug deeper for material that is newer ("Fine Fine Line" from Avenue Q), special ("When I Belt", written for the set) or decidedly more cult-ish than universally known ("I Never Know When To Say When" from Goldilocks). Backed by her accomplished trio (headed by Kenny Werner) Buckley deserves bonus intimacy points for working the space so well: rather than fixing herself front and center she makes sure to connect to the entire room. (And in a delightful bit she plucks an audience member to serenade on stage with "You've Got Possibilities" from It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's Superman. You may think of Buckley as a Broadway diva, but in a bit like this one she's down-to-earth endearing.