Fences

Reviewed for Theater News Online.

Jacob's House

Photo: J. Hoch.

In Jacob's House, the impressively talented and prolific August Schulenburg uses the biblical story of Jacob wrestling an angel as a springboard for a realistic yet mythical drama that plumbs the meaning of faith, destiny, and family. Schulenburg writes with intelligence and humor (even throwing in a bit of slapstick), and the result is an unusual drama that is both thought-provoking and entertaining. The show begins right after Jacob's funeral, as his children Dinah and Joe and daughter-in-law Tamar argue about exactly who Jacob was and which one of them gets to keep the house. As they discuss the past, it comes to life before us, and our first clue that this is not an ordinary family drama occurs when we realize that the father of these contemporary adults was alive during the American Revolution. The characters are complex, the story is compelling, and the language ranges from good to gorgeous. The play is a remarkable achievement, made more so by the fact that Schulenburg wrote the first draft in a weekend and quickly wrote only two more drafts, keeping much material from the first. The excellent cast comprises Johnna Adams, Jessica Angleskhan, Matthew Archambault, Zack Calhoon, Tiffany Clementi, Kelli Dawn Holsopple, Biana LaVerne Jones, Isaiah Tanenbaum, Jane Lincoln Taylor, and Anthony Wills, Jr. The assured direction is by Kelly O'Donnell and the evocative and attractive set design is by Jason Paradine.

Next Fall

Photo: Carol Rosegg

I wish we had more plays like Geoffrey Nauffts's flawed but solid Next Fall: thoughtful, well-developed, largely aware of and sympathetic to its characters' faults and strengths, well-directed (by Sheryl Kaller), and well-acted (particularly by Cotter Smith, who fully inhabits his character in a way the others don't achieve). The story of a gay couple, one a religious Christian who believes that gay sex is a sin, the other an atheist who cannot accept his lover's beliefs, Next Fall explores the meaning of love, faith, and family in a funny, touching, and heart-breaking manner. The show is a tad doctrinaire on second viewing and some of the characters could be more three-dimensional, but it is a solid B+ evening in the theatre. I do wish, however, that Next Fall had been able to have a successful run Off-Broadway, where it felt more at home: small cast, no stars, solid but not great writing. This is in no way an insult--I consider the withering away of for-profit Off-Broadway to be a tremendous loss to New York City.

Alan Cumming at Feinstein's

Ten Things I Learned at Alan Cumming's Cabaret Show at Feinstein's

1. "Taylor, The Latte Boy" (what, you don't know it?) works just as well sung by a man as by a woman. At least if the man is Alan Cumming.

2. He's not just a good actor. The star of stage (Cabaret), movies (X-Men United, GoldenEye) and TV (Tin Man, The Good Wife) is quite charming, engaging, and funny as just himself...

Read the rest at Blogcritics.org

Enron

Enron is a tale told by intelligent people, full of sound and fury, and signifying not as much as it should. A somewhat-interesting rehash of the rise and fall of the energy company Enron, the show fails to find an unusual or particularly insightful point of view, nor does it plumb the psychology of the people involved or say anything new about their hubris. What Enron does have is shtick: colored lights, chorus numbers, flashing video, and guys with dinosaur masks. The shtick is entertaining, although it does not disguise the thinness of the play itself. The cast strives valiantly, and successfully, to put on a good show; Norbert Leo Butz is particularly good as Jeffrey Skilling. Marin Mazzie is sinfully underutilized.

American Idiot

photo: Paul Kolnik

Green Day's niche and the secret to their cross-generational appeal is that their songs combine the brash anger of long-passe punk rock with insanely catchy pop melodies: their righteous anger is radio-ready enough for the bubble gum set to sing along with it. The distinction of their smash hit album American Idiot was in its timing: the band was raising a fist at knee-jerk post 9/11 patriotism just as mainstream youth were ready to brave a turn to the left. It's a huge disappointment then that the same-named musical based on the album doesn't honor this and lacks, except in the most generic way, political content. More like Movin' Out than Hair, but far less satisfying than either, the show amounts to a numbing 90 minute music video on stage. The cast is uniformly sensational, and the show's mix of performance and high-tech imagery brings to Broadway a brand of razzle-dazzle that concertgoers have been used to for decades. (The staging for "Wake Me Up When September Ends", in which the ensemble move while on their backs as if falling, reminded me of one of the dance ensemble pieces in David Bowie's Glass Spider tour, circa 1987). But since the story (of three buds - one who goes to war, one who stays home glued to the TV, and one who goes to the city and promptly gets hooked on heroin) is a well-worn cliche, and the show doesn't rally around any great theme besides "everything sucks", American Idiot succeeds only as spectacle.