If I Had a Time Machine, What Shows Would I See?

Where do I start? Okay, here's where I start:

The record-breaking performance of A Chorus Line. This review/description by Frank Rich will tell you why. I get goosebumps just reading about it.

Laurette Taylor in The Glass Menagerie. Because when I was in my teens, I'd always ask older people what was the best performance they'd ever seen. And all but one said, "Laurette Taylor in The Glass Menagerie."

Sarah Bernhardt as Hamlet. Because the one person who didn't say "Laurette Taylor in The Glass Menagerie" said "Sarah Bernhardt as Hamlet." I was 19; he was in his 90s; I felt connected to history.

Ethel Merman in Gypsy. Because, uh, it's Ethel Merman in Gypsy!

The original Follies. Could it possibly live up to the hype?

Arcadia at Lincoln Center with the original cast.  Because I love Arcadia.

Arcadia in London with the original cast. Because I love Arcadia.

A Streetcar Named Desire in London with Rachel Weisz. Because I'm sure she was wonderful.

Penny Arcade with James Cagney and Joan Blondell in 1930. Because they're James Cagney and Joan Blondell.

Fred and Adele Astaire in anything! Was she really the better dancer?

Bill Bojangles Robinson in anything! Was he really the better dancer?

Edwin Booth as Hamlet. Would he seem hammy or wonderful or both?

Christine Sarry in Rodeo. Okay, it's ballet, not theatre, but I'd still love to go.


And then there are the shows I would see again (and again!):

Colleen Dewhurst in Moon for the Misbegotten. Because if I had to pick one single best performance I've ever seen, this would be it.

Cloud Nine, first with the original cast and then when Michael Jeter was in it. I saw this show three times and would gladly see it once a year for the rest of my life.

A Little Night Music with the original cast. Another show I would gladly see once a year for the rest of my life (if not more often).

A Streetcar Named Desire with Rosemary Harris. Because she broke my heart.

Happy End with Meryl Streep and Christopher Lloyd. Because it was so much fun.


And I could go on and on and on.

(Do you suppose the time machine would have a TKTS booth?)

Shows I Wish I'd Seen

There are so many shows I wish I'd seen, either because I missed brilliant performances by actors I admire (thus, just last season, The Merchant of Venice) or shows I've been told I would have adored (thus, from many years ago, A Delicate Balance). As a historian, I wish like hell, all the time, that I had had the chance to see just about every musical that I have researched, reconstructed, and written about, but that ran before I was born, or before I was old enough to see them: every single rock musical to run in New York before, say, the late 80s; every adult musical to open in New York through the 1970s.

But really, on a personal level, the show I most regret not having had the chance to see was Carrie, which remains so near and dear to so many who got the chance to see it. By all accounts, Carrie was an absolute trainwreck that nevertheless had some moments of absolute brilliance; if you don't believe me, please read Ken Mandelbaum's wonderful description of the show in the intro to his aptly titled 1991 book Not Since Carrie: 40 Years of Broadway Musical Flops. I've sat through many a disastrous production in the past few decades of regular theatergoing (for example, see my review of the first incarnation of Spider-Man on this very blog), but something tells me that Carrie still remains the megaflop that has yet to be beat.

Someone I know who saw Carrie once made a quip about it that I will always remember, and that remains one of my favorite theater stories of all time. She said that she saw the show in previews, and that it was, indeed, truly, astoundingly, wonderfully awful. "Really?" I asked. "So, when the curtain call came, was the cast booed off the stage?" "Oh, no," my friend replied, with a beatific smile and a glaze in her eyes that still haunts me. "The show got a standing ovation the night I saw it. It was JUST THAT BAD."

Seriously, how could anything top that?

Question: If You Had a Time Machine, What Show(s) Would You See?

Some of the Show Showdowners, myself included, are going to answer this question. We'd love to hear your answers too. Just click on "comments" below. Thanks!

Arias With a Twist

Photo: Steven Menendez

The four musicians are elegant and graceful. The bass player is cool and contained. The piano and drum players banter with the singer. The trumpet player may be her lover.

The four musicians are puppets, just a few of the dozens of magical Basil Twist creations playing, floating, threatening, dancing, slithering, and screwing their way through Arias With a Twist (developed by Twist and Joey Arias). Twist's puppets include aliens, Busby Berkley showgirls, hyper-well-hung devils, an octopus, and versions of Joey Arias ranging from minute to gigantic. Twist also designed the scenery, giving us a jungle, hell, outer space, and the New York City Skyline, each a cornucopia of detailed delights. You could examine the jungle backdrop for an hour and not see everything. In Arias With a Twist, the sets and puppets--and puppeteers Lindsay Abromaitis-Smith, Chris DeVille, Kirsten Kammermeyer, Matt Leabo, Jamie Moore, and Amanda Villalobos--rate five gold lamé stars.

The sole non-puppet performer, Joey Arias, sings like Billy Holiday and does physical humor like the "demented diva" he is famous for being. His faux tap dancing is great fun. I found him cold, however, and often unengaging (however, I'm not his target audience).

A bigger problem I had with the show is that too much of the humor is the same tired and predictable sex jokes that drag queens have been beating to death for decades. Granted, the audience, mostly gay men, loved the humor. They started whooping and cheering and howling before the jokes were even told, which makes sense--in many ways, the show is a huge in-joke gay party. But I'm not a gay man, and I am disappointed that Twist and Arias did not use their prodigious imaginations to come up with writing more original than the usual bitchy humor and penis and penetration jokes. (I'm also not clear why the sound had to be eardrum-destroyingly loud.)

I feel as though I saw two shows. One was tiresome. One I loved.

(press ticket, eighth row on the aisle)

Man and Boy

DISCLAIMER:Man and Boy is in previews and opens officially on October 9.

One of my favorite things about attending Roundabout theater productions is that I never have any idea what the shows are about, so I go in with no expectations or prejudices. Sometimes, as with last year's production of Brief Encounter, this works well, and I end up seeing a fantastic show that hits every emotional note perfectly and leaves me wishing I could see a show every night. Other times, it means that I end up sitting through a show that I have no interest in and can't connect to, and leaves me wishing I had known what it was about so I could avoid it.

Which brings me to last night. Terence Rattigan's play should have resonated, at least a little, since the cultural environment is similar to our own; it's the story of a father and son, meeting for the first time in five years on the eve of a global financial collapse. The father, Gregor Antonescu (Frank Langella), is being hounded by the press. He seeks refuge in his son Basil's (Adam Driver) Greenwich Village apartment. Heated words are exchanged, secrets are revealed, and lives are forever changed.

The problem with this play lies not in the individual performances, but in the source material. The first act drags on and on, with no real direction or any hint of the urgency of the situation. It ends with a series of misunderstandings that might be played for laughs in a different show, but here just makes everyone uncomfortable. The repercussions of these misunderstandings are promptly forgotten in the second act, leaving the viewer wondering why they were brought up at all.

The second act is no better. Emotional bombs are dropped left and right, but the emotional climax feels unearned. By the final scene, I didn't care whether or not Basil and his father made amends. I did wonder where his girlfriend had gone, though; she disappears sometime in the first act and is never mentioned again.

The small cast does the best they can with dreary material. Frank Langella bounces between genteel world financier and kindly if clueless father so smoothly that I believed Basil's deep angst at how to deal with him. Similarly, Driver's Basil was so shaken by his father's reappearance that I wanted to give him a hug. Still, this entire story could have been told in one 90-minute act instead of two acts and over two hours. Unless the show is considerably streamlined in the three weeks between now and the official open, this is probably a show you can skip.

Tape

Photo credit: Sal Cacciato Caption: Don DiPaolo and Therese Plaehn


It seems we never leave high school. In the revival of Stephen Belber’s Tape, the indelible mark of former school days permeates the adult perimeters of its character’s lives—a sentiment established from the onset by scenic designer Laura Jellinek’s placement of a string of lockers and gym wall markings that surround the main set. Although, the action strays into that area just once, this second set serves as a physical reminder of the past’s lasting resonance.

Tape depicts the story of two best friends, Vince (Don DiPaolo) and Jon (Neil Holland) and their reunion in a Motel 6 room when the latter’s movie is showcased at the Lansing, Michigan, film festival. Vince, a good-natured 28-year-old dope dealer and volunteer fire fighter, greets his more-successful buddy warmly, but secretly plans a confrontation involving his former girlfriend (Therese Plaehn as Amy). As the two fall into a patter of one upmanship—a verbal volleyball that soon becomes terse and heated-Jon’s modern-day rationalizations of himself are re-examined.

Besides a drama of John Knowles-like themes, Belber showcases the vagaries of perception and how humans manipulate images, often abdicating responsibility for their actions. All three characters offer false versions of themselves, from Vince putting stray cheetos on his dresser to create an unkempt look, to Amy’s tightly contained, professionally suited assistant D.A. dress. All construct a version of what they want others to see. The truth depends on the storyteller.

DiPaolo (The Seagull with Curan Rep) imbues Vince with a humanity that makes his character seem vulnerable and appealing despite glaring flaws. His presence anchors the sometimes slow unfolding of this revenge-laced intrique. The play, which premiered at the 2000 Humana Festival of New American Plays, remains relevant and offers a provocative look at how who we are and what we did in the past infiltrates our future. Sam Helfrich, who directed Belber’s Transparency of Val, helms this limited run (through Sept. 24) at the June Havoc Theatre in the Abingdon Theater Arts Complex.


(press ticket, general seating)