Pippin

Sometimes more is less, as clearly shown by the revival of Pippin currently on Broadway. Or perhaps I should write "sometimes more is less for me," since Pippin's multitude of Tony Awards (revival, director, lead actress, featured actress) and SRO audiences prove that my opinion is not a majority one. But:

Andrea Martin
Photo: Joan Marcus

• Pattina Miller as the Leading Player is all muscles and edges, often looking more like she's working out than she's dancing. 

• Chet Walker's choreography, though based on Fosse's more sinuous work, is full of busy-ness and edges and angles. (I'm not sure why shows have choreography "in the style of Fosse"; is there some reason that they can't just use Fosse's choreography in the first place?)
• Most importantly, while the circus acts are amazing, superb, and magical, they too often pull focus from the choreography and the rest of the show--or perhaps the choreography and the rest of the show pull focus from the circus acts--but either way the audience is faced with visual noise and a production that is less than the sum of its parts. As just one example, the brilliant Manson Trio, an oasis of quiet, is not allowed to finish without some of the circus performers back on stage and, yes, pulling focus. (This links to the Manson Trio from the televised Pippin with Ben Vereen--the trio starts around 3:57. Unfortunately, here too they are unwilling to leave the dance alone, throwing in other images, but, man, what choreography!)

There are some lovely moments amid all this stuff.

3 Kinds of Exile

Everyone has the occasional bad bad at work; 3 Kinds of Exile offers us a few of John Guare's.

The first exile, Karel, has a few advantages: (1) his story is genuinely interesting; (2) he is played by the wonderful Martin Moran, who knows the alchemy involved in turning a monologue into a living piece of theatre; and (3) it comes first in the evening, while the audience is still perky. (Note: all of the exiles are real people.)

Martin Moran
Photo: Kevin Thomas Garcia

The second exile, actress Elzbieta Czyzewska, has a tougher time of it. Although her story is fascinating, with everything but the bloodhounds snapping at her rear end, Guare has turned it into a dualogue, which is painfully different from a dialogue. Guare, making his "acting" debut, and Omar Sangare, who had a featured role in Czyzewska's life, take turns telling us about her and what happened to her. Omar occasionally plays one of the people in Czyzewska's life, to little profit. The "play" is a recited essay.

For the third play, Guare gives us an absurdist version of an absurdist's life. Writer Witold Gombrowicz is the exile. Luckily for the audience he is played by David Pittu, who single-handedly improves the piece from tortuous to only extremely painful.

I go to theatre to see people interact--people, not one person. I like to see characters spar and bill and coo and lie and manipulate and give and take. Mostly, I like to see them talk to one another. However, even though two of the 3 Kinds of Exile feature more than one person, they do not rise above the ambiance and disadvantages of the thinnest of one-person shows. (Of course, there are writers and performers who ace one-person shows--see, for example, Moran's brilliant All the Rage.)

On a whole, 3 Kinds of Exile left this reviewer eager to see Six Degrees of Separation.

(midway back, orchestra, press ticket)

Potted Potter

Potted Potter promises to present all seven Harry Potter books in 70 minutes, a promise it only kinda sorta keeps. Its talented, energetic cast of two--Dan Clarkson and Jeff Turner, who are also the playwrights--run around, throw on hats and wigs, and talk very fast. They are frequently quite funny.

Unfortunately, many of the precious 70 minutes aren't actually about Harry Potter. Too much time is given to Dan and Jeff's making fun of each other and themselves, and discussing whether Dan ever did read book 7, and talking about Dan's supposed misuse of their budget. This silliness is sometimes fun, but it's familiar stuff, and we're there because of Harry Potter, not because of Dan and Jeff.

Still, it would be a crabbier person than I who could ultimately resist the frenetic insanity on display, and I did end up having a lot of fun.

And the Quiddich match is pretty wonderful.

(row N, press ticket)

Tony Awards: PS

I was glad to see Cyndi Lauper win best score for a musical, because I love Cyndi Lauper.

But then I happened to turn on the radio and catch the tail end of this interview. Specifically, I caught composer-lyricist Tim Minchin singing "Quiet" from Matilda.

And I'd have to say that he was robbed. There's more brilliance in that one song than in all of Kinky Boots.

Welcome Back, Tony Awards

For the first time in years, I felt that the Tonys were ours again, that the show and the awards focused on theatre and existed to entertain people for whom theatre is so primary that their web passwords are amalgams of Sondheim titles (uh, not anyone I know personally). Even the movie, TV, and music people who were there, were there as theatre people. It was our night.

How nice to see the big stars be Bernadette Peters and Patti LuPone. How nice to see the theatre actor Tracey Letts beat movie actor Tom Hanks (no offense, Tom). How nice to see stalwart Billy Porter up there, and Christopher Durang. How nice to see Neal Patrick Harris at his very best.

And two female best directors! (Bringing the Tony total to seven.) And Cyndi Lauper (definitely one of us with her beat-up musical theatre LPs) being the first woman to win for both music and lyrics!

And genuinely good original numbers, from the thrilling opening assembly of everyone (here) to Michael John LaChiusa's wry and smart "I Want to Be in A TV Show" (video and lyrics here) to the impressively-quickly-put-together-and-performed closing summary by Harris and Audra McDonald (here).

And what a lovely, genuinely moving memorial segment, with Cyndi Lauper's moving rendition of her evocative "True Colors."

Things I Learned While Watching the 2013 Tonys

1) The Tonys are the honeybadger of awards shows. They don't give a shit, they have loose skin, and they are absolutely, completely, and totally badass.

2) Neil Patrick Harris should host every awards ceremony, ever, and if he did so, he would somehow manage to end all of the problems in the world.

3) Women are amazing, excellent creatures who work hard, gets things done, and sometimes manage to sweep every major category in the most wonderful and extraordinary of ways.

4) Little Steven has something to do with Broadway, or once did, and it involved the Rascals.

5) Little Steven digs the Rascals so much that they got a montage last night.

6) I realize I still have no fucking idea what the Rascals or Little Steven were doing there, but whatever, the song is certainly a classic. And Little Steven got to make some passing reference to The Sopranos, which is nice, I guess.

7) I really am genuinely concerned for Kenneth Posner and hope he's not too broken up about it all.

8) After Neil Patrick Harris, Alan Cumming is my hero.

9) Motown the Musical is either awesome or absolutely atrocious, and if it's possible, maybe both at once.

10) Cicely Tyson is bionic.

11) Audra McDonald is bionic.

12) The opening number was bionic.

13) The awards were, almost to a one, deserving, thrilling, and well-received. And bionic.

14) Phantom of the Opera is the opposite of bionic, and it needs to join Cats on the Heaviside Layer at this point. Please?

15) The Academy Awards could learn a lot from the Tonys.