The Scottsboro Boys

photo: Carol Rosegg

Even by the vaunted standards of other Kander and Ebb musicals, The Scottsboro Boys is an especially potent mix of bitter social comment and rousing showbiz razzle-dazzle. The real-life story from the Deep South in the 30's - of the infamously unjust arrest and prolonged imprisonment of 9 innocent black men for raping 2 white women - is told as if in vignettes in a minstrel show, a bold and excitingly dangerous theatrical conceit that adds exponential layers of subtext. Unlike the duo's Chicago, also about a miscarriage of American justice and prsented as a vaudeville entertainment, The Scottsboro Boys is palpably discomforting by design - it often aims to make you squirm in your seat as it implicates not only societal racism but the racism of the minstrelry it presents. Except for a rarely intrusive framing story that leads to an unneeded, softening coda (that critics have been kindly asked not to reveal), the musical sustains both a remarkable level of stinging anger and a consistent visceral musical-theatre excitement. There's plenty of praise-worthy craft - director/choreographer Susan Stroman has brought her best game to the staging, the book is purposeful and dynamic, the score is accomplished and often sublime, and the performers (particularly John Cullum, Brandon Victor Dixon, Colman Domingo, and Forrest McClendon) are sensational. But you stagger out of the theatre as you should, somehow altered and thinking not about the parts but about the in-your-face sum. Jolting, serious, thrilling, and absolutely unmissable.

Last Life

Rod Kinter's athletic fight choreography for Last Life, one of the hits of The Brick's recent Fight Festival now enjoying a short encore run at The Ohio, is viscerally exciting and technically impressive (and it's far more convincingly executed than what I'm used to seeing on stage). There's also plenty of it - the show hasn't dubbed itself a "fightsical" for nothing. The rough, decidedly R-rated violent smackdowns are underscored with percussive bursts of music, the way they would be in a film: the sometimes edge-of-your-seat stage combat is the main reason for the play and sure to satisfy action-seekers. Tim Haskell's direction adds great additional vitality thanks to a striking meta-theatrical presentation: for much of the play, the actors are seated facing the audience while delivering their lines to each other. Even cooler is a conceit that regularly has the actors freeze mid-fight while an effects guy applies stage blood. Eric Sanders' script is not always entirely clear in laying out the backstory of the characters and the post-apocalyptic setting, but it does what it needs to do in setting up the combat scenes and it wisely does so with some mitigating humor. Special shout-out to lead actor Taimak Guarriello who, whether delivering deadly roundhouse kicks or spoofing an infomercial with tongue in cheek, capably handles his role's varied demands.

The Temperamentals

I had hoped to like The Temperamentals, now transferred to one of the New World Stages, a lot more than I did in its earlier, off-off Broadway incarnation, but by the middle of its first act I was once again slumped in my seat with a case of the Gay History Lesson Blues. The playwright, Jon Morans, should get due socio-cultural credit for dramatizing the mostly overlooked gay rights pioneers who formed the Mattachine Society decades before Stonewall, but did he have to go about it with so heavy a hand? Although the show is not the joyless slog that most "good-for-you" theatre is - there's lively entertainment value in watching the unlikely love relationship unfold between social activist Harry Hay and young fashion designer Rudi Gernreich - it's still essentially the kind of theatre that makes you worry you'll be told to stay after to clap erasers. The playwright makes sure we know that the characters are fighting for something, but that's not as involving as giving them something playable to fight against: the play lacks actable conflict until a new character shows up out of nowhere very late in the first act. The lead performances, by Michael Uhrie and Thomas Jay Ryan, are at all times nuanced and credible, the main reasons to see the show, in fact. Arnie Burton is a clear standout among the otherwise far-from-subtle supporting cast.

The Duchess of Malfi

The Red Bull theatre company specializes in "plays of heightened language." Its latest production, an adaptation of John Webster's gruesome tragedy The Duchess of Malfi, certainly fills the bill. Written in the early 17th century center, The Duchess of Malfi follows the misadventures of the titular duchess, a widow who marries the man she loves despite her brothers' having forbidden her to marry at all. The Red Bull production rushes along, even when taking its time would be a better choice. The cast is uneven; many of the performers are unable to navigate the "heightened language" in a way that is interesting, character-driven, and consistently intelligible. However, the production features enough compellingly theatrical moments to make it worth seeing. (I wonder, though, at what point a piece is so "adapted" as to no longer be the play the author wrote. Have I now actually seen Webster's The Duchess of Malfi?)

Romance Romance

Somehow, in all my years of theatergoing, I had never seen this musical. This small off-off production, performed with two keyboards and running through this weekend as part of the Active Theater Company's season, proved an enjoyable and often charming introduction. The show is comprised of two one-act musicals: the first, adapted from a short story and set in late 19th century Vienna, concerns the often whimsical affair between a well-off confirmed bachelor and a socialite who are each secretly slumming; the second, adapted from a French play to take place present-day in the Hamptons, centers on the temptation for romance between a man and a woman who are best friends but married to other people. As the Viennese lovers, Nick Dalton and Abby Mueller make a far more engaging pair than Nathaniel Shaw and Stephanie Youell Binetti, who lack comparative warmth as the modern-day friends. Despite this, and less than ideal design elements, the show is generally delightful and comes off with a good deal of charm. Even if you're familiar with the material, it's worth catching for Dalton and especially for Mueller, who is altogether wonderful.

Marilyn Maye: In Love Again

Let's cut to the chase: if you have any interest in jazz and can swing the ticket price, go see Marilyn Maye at Feinstein's. She's amazing. But, hey, you don't have to take my word for it. Ella Fitzgerald called her "the greatest white female singer in the world." And she's charming and funny too. Her show is called In Love Again, and she loves romance, the audience, and the universe. I wouldn't say she has the greatest voice in the world, but, man, can she deliver a song. In this show, she focuses mostly on old standards but sings songs by Sondheim and Manilow as well. Her Cole Porter medley is primo A1 great. And her band is excellent (Tedd Firth on piano, Tom Hubbard on bass, and Jim Eklof on drums). My only complaint is that she relies too much on medleys and mashups; I wanted to hear her finish "Being Alive" straightforwardly rather than dipping back into "By Myself." (Note: Feinstein's sometimes has $40 seats without a minimum.)