Sunday in the Park With George

I wasn't even planning to see this brief production of Sunday in the Park With George, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and benefiting City Center. It's not my favorite Sondheim show, and my life has been a bit topsy-turvy recently, etc, etc. But a truly fabulous friend got us tickets, and, oh boy, am I grateful. I still find the show to be uneven and awkward as a whole, but this Sunday swept my reservations aside and replaced them with tears, laughter, and awe.

Gyllenhaal's voice didn't particularly impress me in Little Shop of Horrors, but he has clearly worked very hard since then to make it the best instrument it could be. He was wonderful. Sunday is odd in that George doesn't have a big number until seven songs in. We do get to see and hear what he wants--Dot to stay still, order, design, composition, tone, form, symmetry, balance, a new way of seeing and showing the world--but he isn't really fully dimensional until "Finishing the Hat." There was a little bit of suspense--how would Gyllenhaal do? Gyllenhaal did good! He gave us a gorgeous, emotional, character-defining version that made the song sound yet again new.

Annaleigh Ashford as Dot gave a full-blooded, human, funny-touching, beautifully sung performance. She was an excellent match for Gyllenhaal, the ideal bright yang to his dark yin. And their "Move On" was glorious, glorious, glorious.

But Gyllenhaal and Ashford were far from the whole story. Any show that has the brilliant Ruthie Ann Miles in a small supporting role and the insanely talented Michael McElroy in the ensemble is clearly presenting an embarrassment of riches. (Here's the rest of the amazing cast: Brooks Ashmanskas, Phillip Boykin, Max Chernin, Carmen Cusack, Gabriel Ebert, Claybourne Elder, Lisa Howard, Zachary Levi, Liz McCartney, Stephanie Jae Park, Solea Pfeiffer, Gabriella Pizzolo, Phylicia Rashad, Jaime Rosenstein and Lauren Worsham. I mean, really!)

Ben Brantley wrote in the Times, "this is one of those shows that seems destined to be forever spoken of with misty-eyed bragging rights by anyone who sees it." Forget bragging rights--someone has to video this production! It was too wonderful to be limited to the relatively few people who were able to see it at City Center.

(4th row balcony; ticket was a gift from amazing friend)

A Day By the Sea

Perhaps it's time for me to make a template for my reviews of Mint Theater Company productions:

Thanks once again to the invaluable Mint for reintroducing the world to yet another fabulous play, __________, which was beautifully directed by __________, with excellent acting by the whole cast (particularly _________, _________, and _________), and gorgeous scenery (by _________) and costumes (by ___________). 

But, no, each of the Mint's gems deserves its own accolades, and anyway, it's a pleasure to write a glowing review. (I know that some reviewers have more fun writing pans; I don't.)

Julian Elfer, Katie Firth
Photo: Richard Termine

N.C. Hunter's rich and moving play, A Day by the Sea, is a Chekovian exploration of people dealing with stormy emotional crossroads on a mild summer day. It starts slowly and quietly, and it took a while for my 21st century brain to gear down to mid-20th century pacing.

The Real Actors of NYC

Who are the real actors of NYC? After watching the lightly entertaining, largely painless new musical, The Real Actors of NYC, I'd have to say that the answer is: Klea Blackhurst and Lorinda Lisitza. Composer/lyricist/book writer Karlan Judd has given his cast little to work with, but these two women bring their characters to vivid life. It's not that they make them three-dimensional and real: it's not that sort of show. But they make them hilarious and full-blooded and a hell of a lot of fun to be with. They're terrific.

But let me backtrack. What is The Real Actors of NYC? It is the story of young performers, walking off their tired feet, pounding Forty-Second Street, to be in a show. Along the way, they get their hearts broken and their hopes dashed while auditioning for such horrors as Valley Girls The Musical and The One-Armed Surfer Girl. Finally, it seems that they have their big break within reach, when.... well, that's the play, and Judd wouldn't want me to give it away. Suffice to say that The Real Actors of NYC is a tongue-in-cheek satire of/salute to musical theatre and show business.

However, the satire isn't clever, and the characters are generic. The shows aims for madcap, but doesn't get there, and odd mistakes are made. For example, the song "Actor Combat," a big number, is sloppy, with the title phrase, repeated over and over, not sitting quite right on the music. Another big number, "Keep on Going Along," is shockingly bad; was there no one to advise Judd that it was time to go back to the drawing board? A third big number, "Goodnight My Pretties," adds nothing to the overlong show (however, Blackhurst gives it the same respect and power she might give "Rose's Turn," so at least it's a pleasure to sit through). The scenery is underutilized, with little effort to distinguish locations. A few members of the cast lack the vocal presence and personality to shine in a musical, and director Max Friedman seems to have provided little help. The show pummels itself with ineffective shtick.

A good pruning could improve it significantly.

Part of me feels that I'm being harsh. A lot of hard work went into this show, and parts were fun. On the other hand, at least 20 people walked out during intermission. On the other other hand, I loathed Something Rotten, so perhaps I'm not the right audience here. On the fourth hand, I adore Forbidden Broadway in all of its brilliant incarnations.

If you think this might be your cup of tea, please don't let me stop you from giving it a try. Even if you end up hating the show, you still get to see Blackhurst and Lisitza, which is certainly a good thing.

Wendy Caster
(7th row, press ticket)

What Did You Expect?

In Richard Nelson's Hungry, which ran at the Public last spring, the Gabriel family of Rhinebeck, New York, had just finished scattering the ashes of their brother / husband / ex-husband / son / brother-in-law Thomas on the shores of the Hudson River. Six months have passed between then and now, and here the Gabriels are, again sprawled around the same table in the family homestead where Thomas lived until his death with his third wife, Mary, who continues to hold down the fort. This time preoccupied with prepping both dinner and a picnic planned for tomorrow, the Gabriels chop and mix and stir while chatting about a wide range of subjects, ranging from old family stories to whether the potato salad needs more mustard to national politics to financial concerns to whether or not they should open another bottle of wine. In short, What Did You Expect? finds the Gabriels more or less the same as we left them at the end of Hungry, if perhaps more tired, more anxious, a little sadder.

Can you blame them, really, given the state of the world right now? What did you expect, indeed?

Joan Marcus

I'll admit it: As moved and impressed as I was by Hungry, and as eager as I was to get tickets to the second and third installments of Nelson's sold-out cycle about the Gabriel family, I found that I wasn't particularly eager to see What Did You Expect? once showtime came around. Lord knows we've all had a long, unpleasant, exceedingly rocky six months of news that's ranged from bad to worse to hide-under-the-bed-and-hyperventilate awful; by showtime, the prospect of sitting and watching a middle-class American family sitting and talking--about politics, no less!--came to seem more psychically exhausting than I felt I could handle. I was wrong, of course, just as I was wrong in assuming, prior to seeing Hungry, that watching people talk and make dinner would put me to sleep.

Nelson's process, which you can learn more about here, makes for remarkably up-to-date theater; in rehearsals and being frantically rewritten up until opening night, What Did You Expect? was frozen on September 16th, and takes place just prior to the first presidential debate. But the Gabriels' conversation goes no deeper into politics than your average American family's does, and this turns out to be both curiously reassuring and precisely the point. The Gabriels are certainly concerned about the upcoming election, but they're also preoccupied by a multitude of other matters, all of which are discussed at length, if never neatly, stagily, artificially resolved.

IT Award Nominees and Winners 2016

On Monday, September 26, 2016, The New York Innovative Theatre Foundation presented their IT Awards. Winners are marked with asterisks.

OUTSTANDING ENSEMBLE

** The Golfer, Gemini CollisionWorks: Fred Backus, Broderick Ballantyne, Rebecca Gray Davis, Lex Friedman, Ian W. Hill, Bob Laine, Matthew Napoli, Timothy McCown Reynolds, Alyssa Simon, Anna Stefanic

Connected, Project Y Theatre Company: Gus Birney, Joachim Boyle, Robby Clater, Ella Dershowitz, Midori Francis, Dana Jacks, Thomas Muccioli, Aria Shahghasemi

Gorey: The Secret Lives of Edward Gorey, Life Jacket Theatre Company: Andrew Dawson, Phil Gillen, Aidan Sank

Street Theater, TOSOS: Tim Abrams, Chris Andersson, Christopher Borg, Éilis Cahill, Jonathan Cedano, Desmond Dutcher, Russell Jordan, Josh Kenney, Jeremy Lawrence, Michael Lynch, Joe MacDougall, Rebecca Nyahay, Patrick Porter, & Ben Strothmann

The Further Adventures Of..., TOSOS: Tim Burke, Mark Finley, & Jamie Heinlein

Unity (1918), Project: Theater: Wendy Bagger, Alicia Dawn Bullen, Jessi Blue Gormezano, Doug Harris, Beth Ann Hopkins, Joshua Everett Johnson, Joe Jung, Alexandra Perlwitz, Melanie Rey

OUTSTANDING SOLO PERFORMANCE

**Siobhan O'Loughlin: Broken Bone Bathtub, Elephant Run District

David Carl: David Carl's Celebrity One Man Hamlet, Project Y Theatre, PM2 Entertainment and Richard Jordan Productions in associate with Underbelly

Laura Hooper: Crumble, MORA Theater

Peter Michael Marino: Late With Lance!, PM2 Entertainment

Colin Summers: Steve: A Docu-Musical, New York Neo-Futurists

Yolanda K. Wilkinson: Bible Study for Heathens, New York Neo-Futurists

Love, Love, Love

This is not a review. I saw the first preview of Love, Love, Love, and a review wouldn't be appropriate. However, the show is already in excellent shape, and quite interesting, and completely worth writing about. Take my random natterings with a extra-large grain of salt, and beware: there will be spoilers.

Love, Love, Love is by Mike Bartlett, whose King Charles III was downright thrilling. It follows a couple of remarkably self-centered people from their meet-not-so-cute in the 1960s  (Act I) through their marriage and life with teenaged children (Act II) to their retirement years (Act III). If drama is about people learning or growing or changing, this is not a drama, although parts are quite moving. If comedy is about laughing at people who neither learn nor grow nor change, it's definitely a comedy. And parts are quite funny.