Follies (CD Review)

There are two components to a review of the recording of a musical: the discussion of the musical itself and the discussion of its presentation on the CD. Since four of us on this blog have reviewed the current production of Follies a total of six times (see links below), this post will focus on the CD itself.

And an excellent CD it is.

Its main claim to fame is that it is two discs, totaling almost 100 minutes (my estimate), with previously unrecorded chunks of dialogue. Producer Tommy Krasker explains in the CD booklet that the aim was "to do an expansive recording that not only conveyed the glories of the score, but captured the experience of the show itself." To the extent that a purely audio version could do so, this CD achieves Krasker's goal. While I suspect the CD will be more evocative for people who are already familiar with Follies, even a newcomer will get some of the flavor of the book. (I don't think that this CD expresses the full flavor of the Follies score, but my complaint is with the production rather than with the recording per se.)

Recreating dialogue for a recording is a particular skill, I think, and not everyone has it. Jan Maxwell, for example, sounds very good: clear and in character and completely believable. Ron Raines sounds stiff and unconvincing. Bernadette Peter's performance is calmer than the weepy one she often gives on stage, but her delivery of some of the lines remains downright embarrassing. Danny Burstein comes across fine. Elaine Paige is so hampered by trying to have an American accent that her dialogue comes out murky and marble-mouthed, and her timing is mediocre. (Polly Bergen's performance in the Roundabout Production was so much richer and funnier and sadder and realer that Paige seems like a cardboard cutout in comparison.)

The CD booklet is beautiful, with the complete lyrics and many pictures. It also includes an interesting essay on the show by Patrick Pacheco, Krasker's "Note From the Album Producer," and a synopsis by Sean Patrick Flahaven, which is somewhat overwritten ("To eyes unfocused by nostalgia and alcohol, it might appear that no time at all has passed . . .") but useful.

If you are a Sondheim completist, you must have this CD. And if you loved this production and its performances, you will find this CD to be a treasure.

• Wendy’s second review.
• Rodney’s second review. 
• Sandra’s review. 
• Liz’s review. 
• Wendy’s first review (Kennedy Center). 
• Rodney’s first review (Kennedy Center). 
• Patrick’s review of Encores! version. 
• David’s review of Encores! version.

Parsons Dance

Ian Spring, and Melissa Ullom in
David Parson's Round My World

Photo: Krista Bonura

Let's cut to the chase: David Parsons' piece Caught is stunning, impressive, and magical. I see it at least once a year, and it never fails to delight me. A thrilling athletic solo, it is far more successful than any CGI in convincing you that a man can fly. It's part of every performance at Parsons Dance; if you haven't seen it, give yourself a treat and go. (Parsons Dance is at the Joyce through January 22.)

And the rest of the evening isn't shabby either.

Parsons Dance is currently premiering Parsons' Round My World, an entertaining, often beautiful piece set to music by Zoe Keating. As you can see from the picture above, Parsons means "round" literally, and the shape is threaded liberally throughout, in formations, poses, and gestures. The first movement pulsates; the second features insane lifts that are sometimes more interesting as mechanical contraptions than dance; the third utilizes arms and pelvises to create a sort of Rube Goldberg cascade of movement; and the forth consists of flowing waves of changing shapes. While Round My World is a pleasure to watch, the whole is not greater than the sum of its parts. It comes across as a very thorough exercise--do everything you can with roundness--rather than a fully realized dance.

This is a complaint I have with Parsons' work not infrequently--and with that of Paul Taylor, for whom Parsons danced for years, and who was definitely a major influence. Both men have endless amounts of creativity. There isn't a part of the body they haven't mined for all its gestural potential. They are never boring. Many of their pieces are visually and emotionally whole, and wonderful--but many others just don't add up.

This problem reappears with Swing Shift, Parsons' 2002 piece to music by Kenji Bunch. Again, Parsons' imagination and skill can't be faulted, and there is much that is lovely, but the choreography is almost semaphoric in its use of the dancers' bodies, with little flow between defined almost-tableaus.

The evening also features Katarzyna Skarpetowska's piece A Stray's Lullaby, to music arranged and performed by Kenji Bunch in a Tom Waits' growl. Skarpetowska's choreography ably presents the challenges and aspirations of a quartet of lost people in a grim city. These characters' tensions and despair resonate in their every muscle, and the choreography offers a unique spastic grace.

Unfortunately, the program update I received did not specify who danced which piece. But since the Parsons Dance dancers are so often amazing, I'm glad to simply list them all: Eric Bourne, Sarah Braverman, Steven Vaughn, Melissa Ullom, Christina Ilisije, Jason MacDonald, Ian Spring, Elena D’Amario, and apprentice Christopher Bloom.

(press ticket; last row orchestra)

Scott Siegel's Broadway Ballyhoo: A Show Tune Hootenanny!

Nancy Anderson

When it comes to Scott Siegel's Broadway Ballyhoo: A Show Tune Hootenanny, currently playing late Thursday nights at Feinstein's, there's good news and there's bad news. 

The good news is that it exists. The seemingly indefatigable Scott Siegel presents a different handful of Broadway and cabaret performers each Thursday, accompanied by the protean, energetic, and wonderful Jesse Kissel on piano. Appearing thus far have been Alice Ripley, Nancy Anderson, Kevin Early, Kyle Scatliffe, Steve Ross, and many others. Feinstein's is a nice room, the cover and minimum aren't too bad (for more info, click here), and the performers chat and tell stories as well as sing. It's a nice set-up.

The bad news is that the show is highly overmiked. People who regularly perform live should not need mikes in this small-ish, albeit odd-shapped room. Kevin Early certainly doesn't need a mike. Hell, he could be heard a mile away sans mike; with one, particularly as over-amped as he was last Thursday, his singing was ear-injuringly painful. It should have been a pleasure to listen to him; instead, it was an ordeal. 

The "it-depends-on-you" news is that you get to pick evenings that feature performers you love. I went specifically to see Alice Ripley, who unfortunately took ill late that afternoon. Of the other performers, Kevin Early was good but, again, way too loud. Nancy Anderson is a little cutesy for my taste. And Carol J. Buford overacts and over-sings to an impressively awful extent; I didn't believe a word she expressed. (Or, should that be EXPRESSED?) Scott Siegel emceed with his usual rumpled charm. 


Keep an eye out for announcements of each week's performers. It's a great opportunity to see favorites sing two or three songs. And if you find the miking as horrible as I do, please tell Scott. 


(press ticket, audience left)
 

Sandra's Faves of 2011

My New Year's resolution is to see more theater. I just joined Show Showdown last spring, and, as a result, only saw about 16 shows last year. That does not qualify me to do a "Best of" list, but I do have a few favorites I'd like to gush over.

Favorite Revival: The Normal Heart
The Normal Heart--I never saw the original so I can't compare this year's incarnation with the 1985 version. Still, this remarkable show still resonates 25 years later. Audible crying in the audience is heard throughout the conclusion (yes, I shed tears, too) and feels like a communal mourning to all the lives lost to AIDS. Joe Mantello plays Ned Weeks with magnetic earnestness and caps the performances of a truly wonderful cast, including Ellen Barkin, Lee Pace, John Benjamin Hickey, Mark Harelik and Jim Parsons.

Favorite Play: Tape
I'm cheating here because this was also a revival but Stephen Belber’s Tape moved me like no other show in 2011. This Off-Broadway production showed the after effect of high school through sharp observation and gun-fire paced dialogue. Especially good was Don DiPaolo as the lovable loser, Vince.

Favorite Musical: Follies
Oops...another cheat since this is also a revival (Do you see a pattern here? I never saw the wunderkind Book of Mormon so perhaps that's what should be here. But of all the new musicals I viewed (Catch Me If You Can, Wonderland, etc.) not one surpassed Follies in musicality, compelling characters, or plot. Sondheim's show offers songs infused with insight that betray their character's hopes and fears in such a intimate way that even this flawed production levels a hefty emotional impact that lingers far after the initial viewing.


Favorite Actress: Nina Arianda The prom queen of last year's theater season has to be Nina Arianda, who played Vanda in Venus in Fur, as a remarkable combination of the ultimate ditz turned cunning avenger. Not every actress could don dominatrix wear, sputter out curse-infused blue streaks of dialogue, and still seem realistic as an upper class Victorian socialite.


Favorite Set: Stick Fly Yes, when everyone talks about Stick Fly they mention the uniqueness of the playwright's characters and some of the stunning performances of the cast, but I want to highlight the scenic design for a moment. What a phenomenal set! Lovingly detailed by David Gallo (who also did The Mountaintop), the stage becomes a weekend getaway that reveals several rooms in the house through a clever bookcase cutaway that exposes the kitchen and a slight porch. The intimacy of the set acts almost like another character, revealing family details with photo magnets on the refrigerator, fine works of art on the walls and whimsical stone animals out in the garden.

Marilyn by Request: Marilyn Maye at the Metropolitan Room

If you have never seen Marilyn Maye, really, what are you waiting for? She's an amazing jazz singer, a brilliant interpreter, and funny to boot. She's a delight to spend an evening with. She's a classic. Timeless. The real thing.

In her most recent show, at the Metropolitan Room, Maye combined her  thematic medleys and standards with requests from the audience. The result was a pot pourri of different forms of bliss. Consider this partial set list: Celebrate Good Times, Hey Old Friend, Too Good to Be True, Start of Something Big, I Love You Today, Too Late Now, I Don't Want to Know, Pennies From Heaven, It Might as Well Be Spring, If I Were a Bell, Bye Bye Country Boy, Take Five, and the Best of Time Is Now. Her wonderful, youthful (she's in her 80s!), throaty voice, her sense of emotional complexity and joy, and her seductive personality made each and every song a winner. Her backup band, led by Billy Stritch (who sang with her on a handful of numbers) provided smart, elegant accompaniment with the wonderful Tom Hubbard on bass and Ray Marchica on drums..

I wish there were a way to truly describe the experience of seeing Maye, but what can be stranger than trying to explain how someone sings, how they express emotion, how they make magic happen? It's kind of impossible.

But I can describe the audience's reactions: Hugh grins. Cheers. Bravas. Ecstasy.

Really, truly, you have to see Marilyn Maye.


(For Maye's schedule of upcoming dates, click here. For the Metropolitan Room's calendar, click here.)


(press ticket, audience left)

How the World Began

Heidi Schreck and Adam LeFevre
Photo: Carol Rosegg

After her life in New York falls apart, Susan Pierce (Heidi Schreck) ends up in Plainview, KS, teaching science to high schoolers whose town was recently decimated by a tornado. Susan has a tendency to say whatever pops into her head, no matter how inappropriate. She makes jokes to her student Micah Staab (Justin Kruger) about a herd of cows that were killed in the tornado. But the Christian Micah is more put off that she said, in class, "The leap from non-life to life is the greatest gap in scientific theories of the Earth's early history, unless, of course, you believe in all that other gobbledy gook." (At least that's what he claims she said. We do not see the scene.) In fact, he is highly offended and wants Susan to apologize. After Susan refuses to do so, Micah's unofficial guardian, Gene Dinkel (Adam Lefevre)--a Christian who believes in evolution and sees natural selection as "God's hand" at work--also tries to get her to apologize.

This is the basic story of How the World Began, Catherine Trieschmann's new play, currently being presented by the excellent Women's Project at Playwright's Horizon. It goes on to examine belief versus nonbelief, relationships, grief and loss, and standing by one's principles. Parts of it are fascinating; the characters are three-dimensional and occasionally surprising in convincing ways.  Rather than being a pseudo-screenplay like many contemporary plays, How the World Began unfolds in the sort of long, thoughtful scenes that theatre does best of all the art forms.

There's so much I liked about this play that I'm sad about my reservations, but here they are:

[possible spoilers below]

The most important one is that the character of Susan is whiny and dishonest. Since she represents my point of view, I wanted very much to like her, but she won't take responsibility for what she said--in fact, she denies having said it--and then won't take responsibility for what it means. She even claims that she didn't mean religion when she said "all that other gobbledy gook," although clearly she did. I didn't want Susan to be perfect or Joan of Arc. I understood that she feared for her job. But her dishonesty cast a pall over her actions and beliefs. (I suppose it's possible that she genuinely forgot what she said, but that seems highly unlikely.)

Another problem I had was with the structure of the play. Micah's true motivation is not revealed til toward the end of the play. However, the delay felt too much like a plot device. There was no character-driven reason for him not to have explained his thinking earlier.

Susan's interactions with Gene--which I actually found more interesting that her interactions with Micah--are never resolved. She says something horrible to him, and we never see him again.


Some of the humor struck me as easy laughs for the knowing, evolution-savvy theatregoer. (Though on a whole I found Trieschmann to be respectful of the two Christian characters--perhaps more respectful than she was of Susan.) And some moments were heavy-handed. For example, right at the beginning Susan is freaked out by the smell of manure (oh, she's not in New York anymore!).  Even the name of the town--Plainview--is a little too on the nose.

And I wish all playwrights would stop having scenes where the characters are waiting for someone we know will never come because we know how many people are in the cast (exception: Beckett). It just comes across as fake.

[no more spoilers]

The show is well-directed (by Daniella Topol) and largely well-acted. I had some trouble with Schreck as Susan, but I came to think that my problem was actually with the character. Adam Lefevre gives great depth and warmth to Gene, and Justin Kruger wears Micah's emotions on his sleeve.

I recommend How the World Began to people interested in the topic. But I can't help but think that there's a better play in there.

(press ticket; 4th row center)