Arcadia

Arcadia is one of my three all-time favorite plays (the other two are Cloud Nine and A Streetcar Named Desire), and all I can say to David Leveaux, director of the current Broadway production, is shame on you. Arcadia is by Tom Stoppard and it's all about the language--except that in this production, it's hard to hear what people are saying. Arcadia is Stoppard's most emotionally realized play--except that in this production, it's impossible to care about anyone, including Thomasina,  the heart of the play. Arcadia is extremely funny--except that in this production, many of the actors don't know how to phrase a laugh line (and half the time you can't hear them anyway). Arcadia is thought-provoking--except that in this production, it provokes the wrong thoughts, things like "will the first act ever end" and "what did he say?" and "why did Wendy tell us to see this?" (That last thought was indeed thought by the people to whom I recommended Arcadia. In a just world, we'd all get our money back, not to mention the three hours of our lives.)

My niece's high school recently did The Drowsy Chaperone. If you saw their production, you genuinely saw The Drowsy Chaperone. In contrast, if you saw this production of Arcadia, you did not genuinely see Arcadia. (And the poster is lame.)

(Saw this twice with tdf tickets, in the mezz. Didn't use the third, more-expensive ticket I had bought before the show opened, in what turned out to be an excess of optimism.) 

 

Short Takes

Victoria Clark Master Class. This is the second master class I've seen given by Victoria Clark. I've also seen Barbara Cook give one. All three were wonderful and occasionally awe-inspiring experiences. Both Clark and Cook are kind and smart and funny. Clark is a physical teacher. She'll have students sing a song while running, doing pushups, or trying to get through a wall of people, getting them to break out of their preconceived ideas. Cook, in contrast, will hold a student's hand and say, "Sing it to me," to get him or her in touch with a more natural, communicative way of singing. In both cases, most of the students were excellent to start with, and watching how much they grew in an hour or so was fascinating. (Master classes are sometimes free to watch. The most recent Victoria Clark one was $20 and well worth it. You can find out about them at websites such as broadwaystars.com.)

Photo: Joan Marcus

Good People. I saw this in an early preview with a tdf ticket, sitting upstairs. It struck me as a solid B-level play--nothing earth-shattering, but consistently interesting. Its reliance on people doing things they'd never do is one of the things that keeps it from being an A-level play. Frances McDormand is wonderful as Frances McDormand always is.

Drowsy Chaperone. Nyack High School hit a home run yet again with a funny, well-performed, attractive production of The Drowsy Chaperone.

Motherf**cker With the Hat. I saw this in an early preview with a tdf ticket, and it lacked luster. The main weakness was Chris Rock, who gave a one-dimensional performance of a complex character. Annabella Sciorra was underutilized, and the blocking had her with her back to audience left for much of the play. Bobby Cannavale was wonderful as Bobby Cannavale always is. (Hey, why doesn't someone produce a show with him and Frances McDormand?) Perhaps the show has improved since early previews, but it is far from a must-see.

Benefactors

If Michael Fray had written nothing but the delightfully hysterical Noises Off, he would still rate a place in the heart of all theatre lovers. However, Frayn has written a great deal more than that, and the rest of his prodigious output is also impressive. A prime example is Benefactors, currently on the boards in a fine production by the Keen Company.

Benefactors is the story of two couples, longtime friends who may not be sure exactly why they are longtime friends. Jane and David are happy together and enjoy his work as an architect (Jane works as his assistant). Colin and Sheila have a more problematic relationship, with Colin blustery and critical and Sheila lost and manipulative. All four live lives of careful balance, ignoring emotions that might tip the scales, until one of David's architectural projects undoes their balancing acts.

Using a combination of straight-to-the-audience speeches and intercharacter conversation, Benefactors explores the meaning of giving and of friendship and examines the lies we tell each other, and ourselves. Frayn has a fascinating ability to write lyrical dialogue that still sounds like actual people speaking, and the beauty of the language is one of the many strengths of this excellent play. The direction by Carl Forsman and the performances by Vivienne Benesch, Daniel Jenkins, Deanne Lorette, and Stephen Barker Turner are all top-notch, with extra kudos going to Benesch for being such a compelling listener.

It is amazing enough that Frayn is so prolific. That he is so prolific and so good is breathtaking.

(Press ticket, fourth row on the aisle. Audience included about 50 high school girls, who were engaged and even gasped now and again.)

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

Photo: Ari Mintz

Star power comes in two varieties. In the first, a person is born with enough charisma to mesmerize everyone in the vicinity. Hugh Jackman flirted with a thousand people a night, individually, in The Boy From Oz. Ann Reinking glowed in the chorus in Pippin, even when the audience was supposed to be looking elsewhere. Christine Baranski seems to carry a personal spotlight wherever she goes.

In the other form of star power, the performer brings fame and its attendant glories from a completely different arena. Theatre is full of examples, some of whom were actually good, some of whom weren't: Julie Roberts, Hammer, Melanie Griffith, Ashley Judd, Katie Holmes, George Hamilton. Some turn out to be true theatre people, Neil Patrick Harris being a prime example.

Daniel Radcliffe falls into the second category, subcategory "true theatre person." He has brought his huge, enthusiastic audience with him to the theatre, and he has worked his butt off to be the best performer he can be. His choices of roles are interesting and varied (from Equus to How to Succeed is quite a journey!), and he clearly cares.

Unfortunately, however, he is low on star power, category one. If you're not already a fan, he comes across as an amiable, not-too-bad performer. He is cute, and he uses that well. When his J. Pierrepont Finch grins at his series of triumphs, it's a cute grin. But without his Harry Potter juice, there would be no reason to cast him in a singing-and-dancing role requiring tons of charisma and personality.

However, he does have that Harry Potter juice, and the audience was thrilled by his every move, while muggle-me sat there unimpressed and unmoved (with the exception of the "Brotherhood of Man" finale, in which he finally showed some oomph). However, God bless him. He's bringing in young audiences, and I respect his commitment and hard work.

What about the rest of the show? This production is like a drum machine--lots of energy but little humanity. The scenery is aggressively ugly. As the head of the company where Finch works, John Larroquette does his John Larroquette thing, which is quite effective if you like him (I do). A handful of other cast members rise above a general blandness, including Michael Park, Rob Bartlett, and Ellen Harvey. The romantic female lead, Rose Hemingway, is unimpressive.

And then there is (drum roll, trumpets) Tammy Blanchard (see star power, definition one). As she has shown on stage and on TV and in movies, she has it. No, she has IT. Simply walking onstage, she brings a blast of energy, excitement, and three-dimensionality. Her performance as the not-so-dumb dumb mistress is wry and sexy, and her decision to never quite stand still, like a thoroughbred waiting to race, brings a palpable reality to her silly character.

I wonder if Blanchard can bottle whatever it is she has. She'd make a fortune.

(Press ticket, row P, center. Many thanks to How to Succeed and the Hartman Group for including the blogosphere.)

The Dream of the Burning Boy

David West Read's new play, The Dream of the Burning Boy, presented at the Roundabout Underground, explores the repercussions when a star high school student dies. As often happens in dramas, secrets are revealed, emotions are stripped raw, and people grow and change--or don't. However, while the précis may be familiar and even cliché, the specifics are not. Read presents compelling, fully realized characters, and their secrets are both surprising and believable. He also deals with the realities of theatre in interesting ways. For example, having the bulk of the students take advantage of the school's bereavement leave, while the people who are genuinely grief-stricken show up, is a wry way of accounting for the sparsely populated schoolroom. Most strongly affected by the boy's death are his sister, his on-again, off-again girlfriend, a well-meaning, not-quite-as-ineffectual-as-he-looks guidance counselor, and, most importantly, the boy's English teacher, who is the dreamer of the burning boy. After a slightly rocky start, the cast is uniformly strong. Special attention must be paid to the subtle, smart Reed Birney whose complex portrayal makes his character sympathetic without ever downplaying his significant flaws. Well-directed by Evan Cabnet.

(Paid for my ticket--all seats are $20--sat second row behind a man with a big head.)

The Importance of Being Earnest

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s revival of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, which has been running at the American Airlines Theatre on Broadway since mid-December, adds weight to the saying that it’s a lot easier to trash something in writing than it is to praise it. I thus have little to add to the many glowing reviews of this production, except more ecstatic superlatives. With the exception of some of the backdrops, which might have been painted a bit more richly, or made to look somewhat less fake—and ultimately, really, who cares about the damned backdrops?—this is about as close to a perfect production as I have ever seen. Even the woman playing the maid who walks on to serve tea in the second act and then walks right back off again is perfectly cast. The show, which I saw last week and which has only grown in my estimation since, serves as a humbling reminder that while there is a whole lot of very good theater out there, it is the rare production that comes as close as this one does to being absolutely superb.

I was told once by an old colleague that the infamous flop Carrie was so terrifically bad that it regularly earned wild standing ovations after many performances during its doomed New York run. In contrast, this production of The Importance of Being Earnest was so good that I was unable to bring myself to stand at the end of it. Standing ovations have become such a marker of mediocrity on Broadway at this point that to have stood for this production would, I think, have somehow cheapened the experience. This was an excellent show. Please don’t miss it.