Yank!

Photo: Carol Rosegg

While cutting-edge musicals are wonderful (all hail Sondheim!), there's something particularly lovely about traditional musicals covering new ground. Take, for example, the excellent Yank! (finishing its run this weekend at the York Theatre Company), which tells the story of a Stu, a young soldier in World War II who falls in love with one of his squadmates. Using a traditional structure and sound, the brothers Zellnik (music, Joseph; book and lyrics, David) and director Igor Goldin skillfully combine an evocative 1940s-esque score, a romantic storyline, energetic tap numbers and a beautiful ballet, cheerfully stereotypical supporting characters (the soldier from Brooklyn, the Italian-American soldier, etc), life and death issues, and gay history 101 to create a musical that is moving, funny, entertaining, sad, sweet, and meaningful. Bobby Steggert gives a superb performance as Stu. The supporting cast is excellent, particularly Jeffrey Denman, who brings depth to what could have been a one-dimensional character (and also provides the excellent choreography). While I hope this show has the long future it deserves, I was sad to read in Bloomberg News that the producers are holding out for a Broadway run. I totally understand their thinking; they need to maximize their chances of making a profit. But Yank! works perfectly in an intimate theatre. It's a small, emotional story, and unmiked voices suit it well (of course, unmiked voices suit everything well, but that's another story). What a pity that Off-Broadway is no longer an option for most musicals.

[spoilers below]

Online there has been much discussion about Yank! While the buzz is generally extremely positive, there have been some complaints and questions. For example, some people ask if the show needs the dream ballet. I don't know that it needs it, but the choreography is lovely, and I really enjoyed the same-sex romance of it. Second: Is the frame needed? I think the frame is important for one main reason: without it, the show ends on a sad, lonely note. With it, there's a sense of things getting better over time. (On the other hand, that journal would have gotten Mitch in trouble along with Stu and Artie, so its use within the show needs work.) Third: Is the show too preachy? I didn't find it so. I think that people in those circumstances would indeed talk overtly about gay rights, and I found their conversations believable. Forth: Were the men in the steno pool too aggressively fey? I thought so. Yes, there were fey men around in those days, but these performances occasionally cross the line into caricatures.

The Diary of A Teenage Girl

Reviewed for Theatermania.

Ching Chong Chinaman

Reviewed for Theatermania.

The Boys in the Band

[possible spoilers below]

Rather than a coherent whole, The Boys in the Band comes across as two somewhat-related one-act plays. In the first, a bunch of gay men get together for a party and are snotty, fey, and funny. In the second, things get mean as too much alcohol is consumed, until Michael, the lead character, cries, "Why must we [homosexuals] hate ourselves?" But there is no evidence that the men do hate themselves for being gay. Harold hates being ugly; Donald feels scarred by his parents; Hank wishes that Larry would be monogamous; Larry wishes that Hank would accept an open relationship; Emory wishes he could get laid more often; Bernard wishes that the love of his youth loved him. Given a choice, Hank might choose to be straight, but for most of these men being gay is simply not the issue. It's almost as though author Mart Crowley wrote non-self-hating homosexuals despite himself. (I also didn't buy that even copious amounts of alcohol could turn the people in the first act into the people in the second act.) The not-uninteresting Transport Group Theatre Company production takes place in someone's penthouse rather than in a theatre, offering the audience a nice you-are-there sense of being at the party. However, in order to maintain the illusion, the show is presented without intermission, making the disconnect between the first and second acts even more jarring. The cast is uneven; the strongest performances are given by Jonathan Hammond, Christopher Innvar, and Nick Westrate. Director Jack Cummings III has chosen to pace the show slowly, with frequent, long pauses, particularly in the second act. I imagine he wants the effect to be profound, but it is frequently ponderous.

When the Rain Stops Falling

Family dramas often comprise similar ingredients: multiple generations, estranged relatives, alcoholism and/or drug addiction, long-kept secrets, deep attachments and deeper disappointments, and, perhaps, a touch of adultery, murder, incest, molestation, or some other dramatic sin. The challenge then becomes to present these ingredients in new, surprising, and freshly engaging ways. In When the Rain Stops Falling, author Andrew Bovell, director David Cromer, the designers, and the cast combine their prodigious skills to turn a not-particularly-unusual story into a profoundly emotional, satisfyingly theatrical epic. Their tools include a fractured timeline and poetically repetitive language that heighten the story-telling; compassionate, precise acting that allows the characters a certain grandeur, even when they are far from grand; and design elements that bring the audience into the center of the (physical and emotional) storms on stage. Simply put, the production of When the Rain Stops Falling at Lincon Center does indeed manage to present the familiar ingredients of a family drama in a new, surprising, and freshly engaging way that makes for a thrilling evening in the theatre.

The Book of Grace

photo: Joan Marcus

Elizabeth Marvel is one of the few actors who I'll see in absolutely anything, and you always seems to rise above and deliver when saddled with poor material. Case in point: The Book of Grace, the new play by Pulitzer-winner Suzan-Lori Parks, which is currently receiving a premature world premiere at the Public Theater. Marvel is the titular heroine, a woman whose pursuit of knowledge stands in direct contrast with the wishes of her hard-driving husband (John Doman, appropriately terrifying), an officer in the Texas Border Patrol. When his long-estranged, bi-racial son from a previous marriage (Amari Cheatom) arrives to "forgive but not forget", the fraught atmosphere proves detrimental for Grace, her desire to better herself, and her burgeoning sexuality. Marvel is brilliant at capturing every facet of this complicated character, but Parks has done her a disservice by leaving entire chunks of exposition simply unexplored. It also doesn't help that Cheatom is grimly miscast as the family interloper; he's nowhere near as seething as he should be, and his attempts at anger feel more petulant than anything else. In the end, it's Marvel's show (as usual). Surrounded by text and fellow actors, she still manages to stand alone.