American Buffalo

Given that I sneaked into the dress rehearsal for American Buffalo, take this with a grain of salt (which I can only help has better cured the rotting meat...), but all of the glib energy has been drained from Mamet's so-so play about American ennui, a show in which three deadbeats talk a plan to death, for no reason other than it being embedded in their genetic capitalist zeitgeist to make money, and not be cheated. It's not that far from Israel Horovitz's Line, and it has the advantage of being a lot more subtle . . . but subtlety isn't something John Leguizamo and Cedric the Entertainer are known for. (And Hailey Joel Osment isn't actually known for anything, which is about what he presents in this minimalist role of a mentally challenged kid.) I'm sure the staging will grow to feel more natural over the next few weeks of previews, but unless the actors actually find some motivation behind their bullshit, that is, unless they manage to talk themselves up, it's going to be a long, miserable two hours.

Black Watch

I expected to be riveted by this piece from National Theatre Of Scotland, which has traveled the world to great acclaim and has just extended its sold out run at St. Anne's Warehouse. Instead I find myself in the minority, thinking that its often striking theatricality is a case of style over substance. The playwright interviewed young Scottish soldiers who served in Iraq - some of their insights are interesting, particularly because their subculture is aggressive and they nonetheless came to think of the U.S. as bullies - but the playwright does next to nothing to distinguish the boys from one another, which becomes exhausting. This documentary-interview material alternates with highly theatrical, visceral sequences which miss as often as they hit. The best is a hypnotic wordless segment with faux-Glass musical underscoring in which the boys read letters to themselves while slowly adopting individuated, specific hand signals and body language: the segment evokes feeling and has a compelling strangeness. The worst is a gimmicky segment in which one of the boys narrates the history of the Scot fighting force while the other soldiers re-outfit him: it's theatricality for its own sake, nothing more than a way to enliven dry information.

Billy Elliot

photo: David Scheinmann

At least half a dozen tearjerking moments in the thrilling, superbly staged musical of Billy Elliot set the audience around me bawling. The moment that finally did me in me was a quiet, understated one which subtly put forth the idea that community may be larger than family and family larger than the individual, but artistic expression is larger than all. The show, adapted from the smash hit indie film of the same name about a Thatcher-era working class boy who yearns to dance ballet, instantly joins the very highest ranks of British musicals a la Oliver! and has thankfully arrived on Broadway without being Americanized or dumbed-down. It's the kind of stirring entertainment that has something for everyone whether one absorbs its overarching thematic message or not and that nearly everyone will be interested in seeing once the word is out: in other words, get your tickets now while the show is still in previews because by Christmastime it will be impossible. The show employs three boys to play the central role of Billy and doesn't pre-announce who will play the role at a given performance, but given the level of care that has been clearly put into every aspect of the production I can trust that the other two Billys are in the same high strata of ability as Kiril Kulish, who I saw and who was captivating. There isn't a weak link anywhere in the large cast - Haydn Gwynne, reprising her role from the London production as Billy's unsentimental small-town dance teacher, has honed her every line reading for its maximum bite; Gregory Jbara and Carole Shelley, both familiar to Broadway audiences, skillfully disappear into their unglamorous, downtrodden characters; Frank Dolce, as Billy's cross-dressing school friend, is the kind of young ham who immediately endears himself to the audience and leaves everyone charmed. New musical theatre classic, thy name is Billy Elliot.

Romantic Poetry

photo: Joan Marcus

"There's a nightclub in my shoe/And I go there when I'm blue": John Patrick Shanley doesn't only write lyrics like someone who has never written them before. He also writes them like someone who has never heard them before. At first, with mouth likely agape, you think that the schmaltzy Lawrence Welk ambiance and the generic melodies and clunky, unmusical lyrics in Romantic Poetry are meant to be purposefully bad, a satire on our cultural mythology around romantic love. But before long the songs in this would be absurdist fable more likely seem to be an attempt to make inelegant "real" poetry out of what ordinary schlubs say - I haven't cringed so much since Paul Sorvino was waxing lyrical about how love makes the garbage on the streets smell like roses in Slow Dancing In The Big City. It's no shock that artists must sometimes fail, even ones as gifted as Shanley; the shock is that this survived all the check points and is actually up on stage for MTC's audiences. The show is too cringe-inducing to be boring, and it counts for something that all six performers commit to it bravely. My vote for the unluckiest would be Mark Linn-Baker who gets the bum end of the rhyme of "heinous" with "penis" and who inexplicably spends most of the second act dressed as if he's about to play Tevye in Fiddler On The Roof.

Twelfth Night

I couldn't fail to notice Jacqueline van Biene's standout work last year so I can't say I'm too surprised that she's outstanding again. The surprise is that she's at ease in Shakespeare, and that her delightful, layered and always emotionally accessible performance as Viola is this Twelfth Night at T. Schreiber Studios is the kind that will captivate both those who have analyzed every Shakespeare line and those who need help comprehending Bardspeak. The rest of the performers include those who don't seem to understand what they are saying, those who do but don't give the illusion that it is speech, and those who are comfortable with Shakespeare's language and rhythms (with Julian Elfer, as Malvolio, most notably in the last camp despite the lack of other Shakespeare credits in his bio). With the variable degrees of ease among the performers, the directorial concept (which emphasizes whimsy and pulls from both the antique and the modern) doesn't have much chance of taking hold. As is becoming the norm at T. Schreiber Studios, the sets and costumes are astonishingly well-done by off-off standards.

Like You Like It

Photo/Jennifer Maurfrais Kelly

Despite a few bum shops in this "All-the-world's-a" mall, Like You Like It, an '80s light rock riff on Shakespeare, is quite likeable. Alison Luff, Hollis Scarbourgh, and Trey Compton are such charming A+ actors that, when they're in the midst of a well-executed number from choreographer Keith Andrews, and wearing Hunter Kaczorowski's slammin' clothes, all you see is a blur of comic cheer--and that's something we can all like.

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