2009–2010 Season
Present Laughter
Noel Coward wrote the role of Garry Essendine for himself and how he must have enjoyed playing it. The 1930s matinee idol, the adored hero, the man around whom the world revolved, the one whose every movement was cherished by those around him. And Victor Garber is also enjoying himself as he primps and poses and pretends to modify the adoration being bestowed on him all the while basking in the frenetic activity. Yet at the same time when events become too much he is quite able to bring the sycophants to pause, announcing that without him they have no purpose and no job. How right he is.
As the play opens Garry Essendine is planning to go to Africa to perform in a series of plays. His trusty and unhelpful ensemble at home include his one time wife Liz from whom he is separated but not divorced who somehow manages to be at his house every day, (Lisa Banes), his dedicated secretary Monica (Harriet Harris) his new found adoring ingenue (Holley Fain) a ridiculous fawning young playwright (Brooks Ashmanskas), his business associates Morris (Marc Vietor) and Henry (Richard Poe) as well as Henry's wife Joanna (Pamela Jane Gray) who while having an affair with Morris is also insisting she is in love with Garry and will follow him anywhere. Then there are also the servants (Nancy E.Carroll and James Joseph O'Neil) who hang on to his every word. How utterly delightful! How utterly exhausting and frenetic! Victor Garber handles all this with aplomb as he paces about the overly glorious set designed by Alexander Dodge. Nicholas Martin directs with a bang.
A View From The Bridge
Arthur Miller's 1955 play is being revived in a riveting production with Liev Schreiber giving a superb performance as the tragic Eddie Carbone, Jessica Hecht doing her best as his helpless and hapless wife and Scarlett Johansson surpassing all expectations in her Broadway debut as the innocent 17 year old niece who is inadvertently the cause of Eddie's downfall. Eddie and Beatrice have raised their orphaned niece Catherine as their own giving her every advantage a Brooklyn longshoreman can afford. When an illegal Italian immigrant cousin they are sheltering falls in love with Catherine and she enthusiastically responds Eddie's latent lust and longings for his niece erupt into eratic behavior causing tragedy for everyone. This entire sad tale is being related by the neighborhood lawyer (Michael Cristofer) who tries to prevent the inevitable but who is unable to break through Eddie's denial and paranoia.
The set by John Lee Beatty is perfect—a shabby and spartan apartment set in a dingy tenement area which suggests the brooding, unhappy events to follow. Gregory Mosher directs with a sure hand and as mentioned previously Liev Schreiber is perfection personified.
Time Stands Still
Sarah Goodwin (Laura Linney) and James Dodd (Brian D'Arcy James) have lived and worked together for almost nine years when Donald Margulies' new play opens. She, a celebrated photographer, and he, a journalist, have been covering the war in Iraq with disastrous results for both. He has collapsed after having two women blown up in front of him and she has suffered from a roadside bomb attack that has left her with a broken leg and arm and a scarred body and face from the shrapnel. They have retreated to a loft in Brooklyn to recover and reevaluate their lives. They are visited by their friend and editor Richard (Eric Bogosian) who is both eagerly awaiting their latest products and happy to have them meet his new girl friend Mandy (Alicia Silverstone) who is pregnant, half his age, and apparently a naive bubble in contrast to these accomplished intellects and his former girl friend. The rest of the play consists of the relationship between the couples and within each dyad. Richard and Mandy marry, have a baby and appear happy, at home with their new status and roles. She has stopped being an event planner finding joy in motherhood and is centered and content while Richard finds living without a constantly challenging intellect to be a pleasure. James envies their easiness and comfort, wanting marriage and family and refusing to return to constant danger. Sarah initially agrees to the marriage but can not adjust to life without her profession and her individuality. She is driven to return to danger and her defensive control regardless of the sadness this decision causes them both.
This is a thoughtful and provocative play that handles many complex issues within a simple structure. It is expertly performed by the four actors under the direction of Daniel Sullivan and aided by the superb set of John Lee Beatty.
A Behanding In Spokane
Martin McDonagh is an acquired taste. His black comedy is hard to take and his Irish outpouring is a mixed blessing. He has now turned his talents to America although there is nothing “American” about this play other that the actors. Christopher Walken, the protaganist, has been deprived of his left hand at the age of 17 by a bunch of demented hoodlums. He has spent the last 47 years searching for this hand and now arrived in a seedy hotel to meet two scam artist (Anthony Mackie and Zoe Kazan) who pretend to have it but present him instead with an aborigine hand stolen from a museum. His rage is monumental and violent as he sets about to destroy the hapless nitwits who thought they could scam him. A can of gasoline, a lit candle, a gun, a collection of hands and a moronic desk clerk all figure in the ensuing chaos and the question evolves—will he destroy them all in this madness?
Christopher Walken has always excelled in portraying quirky madness. He is abetted by Sam Rockwell as the idiotic desk clerk who is the blankest of the blank, Anthony Mackie as the frenzied scammer and Zoe Kazan who alternates between stupidity and sexiness as she tries to escape her seemingly inevitable demise. Scott Pask has designed a perfectly seedy hotel and John Crowley directs with intensity. However, as I said in the beginning, Martin McDonagh is an acquired taste. The audience laughed throughout.
Come Fly Away
The mistress of dance meets the master of song and a joyous explosion occurs. Using 34 of Frank Sinatra'signature songs Twyla Tharp fashions a dance program of her blended specialties—ballet, 
modern dance and acrobatics—with a smattering of plot and a troupe that goes the distance. Boy meets girl, gets girl, loses girl, reunites with girl, rips off costumes, changes costumes—all done by eight main dancers (4 couples intermixing) as well as the rest of the troupe in less central roles. The magnificent John Selya, whose muscles ripple through his too tight costume, pairs with Holley Farmer in some spectacular moves to "Body and Soul" and "Witchcraft" among others while Keith Roberts and Karine Plantadit tear up the stage in "Summer Wind" and "That's Life." Matthew Stockwell Dibble and Rika Okamoto supply a softer approach while the surprise of the evening is Charlie Neshyba-Hodges who, paired with Laura Mead, starts off being the comic relief who stumbles all over and winds up being a seductive acrobat who takes one's breath away. Ending with "My Way" and "New York, New York," the entire troupe proves again what consummate talent we have in Sinatra and Tharp as well as everyone connected with this production.
Next Fall
Although there are many comic moments in Geoffrey Nauffts new play it is essentially a sad tale about two homosexual lovers who never quite come to grips with guilt and deviance in a culture that essentialy frowns on their behavior. When the play opens Luke (Patrick Heusinger) the younger of the two, lies in a hospital bed in a coma after having been hit by a car. Keeping vigil are his divorced parents (Connie Ray and Cotter Smith) who are totally unaware their son is gay and think his lover Adam (Patrick Breen) is merely a coworker in the candle shop that employs them. The owner of the shop, Holly (Maddie Corman), and a good friend Brandon (Sean Dugan) round out the waiting room occupants in various stages of grief and wisecracking comments. But the heart of the play is in the flashback scenes which show the two lovers in various stages of their relationship. While Adam is essentially an atheist his lover Luke has an iron Catholic conscience that forces him to pray to Jesus after every sexual act in order to ensure his entrance into heaven. His attempts to convert Adam fall on deaf ears and is a constant source of pain that is never resolved before a decision whether to end life support must be faced by his parents, not by his lover who is never acknowledged as such.
The cast does an excellent job, the sets by Wilson Chin glide smoothly back and forth between the hospital waiting room and the men's apartment and the direction by Sheryl Kaller retains the potency of the plays off-Broadway run.
The Miracle Worker
William Gibson's 1959 play is being revived at the Circle in the Square which presents both problems and advantages in the staging. The scenery ascends to the ceiling where it is always 
present and often the actors have their back to part of the audience. On the other hand there is a closeness to the actors not present in a traditional theatre and a degree of intimacy with the characters that is moving and spellbinding. Everyone knows the story of Annie Sullivan, the gifted and undaunting teacher of Helen Keller, the child left deaf and blind by an illness at 18 months. Spoiled by her parents who are unable to contain her rages and clearly at a loss to teach her anything she roams about in a primitive state, frightened and uncontrollable. When Annie, who has been temporarily blind herself, arrives to teach her by the most creative of methods she battles her physically and mentally until she suddenly realizes the meaning of the scribbles in her hand Annie is constantly repeating and the world opens up to this most brilliant child. And Helen Keller becomes a college graduate, a writer, a speech giver, a pacifist, a force to be reckoned with and one of the most admired women in the world.
Abigail Breslin is brilliant as Helen as is Alison Pill as Annie. Matthew Modine and Jennifer Morrison portray the Kellens with all the ambivalence, love and hope they have for their daughter and the rest of the cast is equally admirable. This is a beautiful rendering of a "miraculous" play.
Red
In the 1950s Philip Johnson and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe commissioned Mark Rothko to paint the murals for their elegant restaurant, The Four Seasons, which was being built in the new Seagram Building. Rothko (Alfred Molina) and his assistant Ken (Eddie Redmayne) spent two years working on these giant canvasas while Rothko bombarded Ken with his theories of art and his huge need to transcend art itself and make the paintings a spiritual encounter between the art and the viewer. This was to take place in an upscale restaurant where the diners were involved in culinary enjoyment and in no mood to have a deep meditation on the darkness and reality of human existence. Needless to say Rothko came to his senses eventually and cancelled the commission. However, during the play, the arguments between the master and his pupil range from the meaning of philosophy, the greatness of artistic expressions, from Nietzche to Warhol and Matisse, Picasso, Jackson Pollack and others thrown in the brew. At last after being lectured to by the master without end the pupil takes over and a blistering retort heralds his arrival at maturity.
The play is physical as well as intellectual with both men moving canvasas, painting, mixing, prepping and so on. Both actors are completly convincing, the set by Christopher Oram is a magnificent studio with excellent reproductions of Rothko's murals and Michael Grandage directs with fidelity to John Logan's literate and engrossing drama.
Lend Me A Tenor
Ken Ludwig's hilarious play is being revived with a wonderful cast that clearly knows their way around slapstick farce. Tony Shaloub, recently the obsessive compulsive TV detective Monk is now the suave, manipulative and scheming Saunders, the impressario of the Cleveland Opera Co. He has managed to hire the renowned singer Tito Merelli (Anthony LaPaglia—another serious TV detective) to debut in Otello and bring glory to everyone. His assistant Max (Justin Bartha), supposed to insure that the great tenor gets his rest, overdoses him and thinking that Tito is dead is forced by Saunders to impersonate him and prove his claim that he too has a great voice. Of course Tito awakens and in full dress costume tries to enter the opera house. With two tenors running around, undistinguishable from one another, and with everyone assuming there is only one, all sorts of high jinks take place. Maggie (Mary Catherine Garrison) the reluctant girl friend of Max who feels he is too timid is overwhelmed by desire for this glamorous Tito, Diana (Jennifer Laura Thompson) the soprano wants Tito to ensure her career, Maria (Jan Maxwell) Tito's wife overcome by jealousy storms out of the suite and Julia (Brooke Adams) the opera board member makes a play for the singer. All this takes place in a hotel suite with many doors—all of which are opened and shut in circular manner as the different tenors and women dash about. Such chaos! Such fun! And then there's the bell boy (Jay Klaitz) who only wants to adore his hero and shows up at all importune moments.
All the insanity is superbly directed by Stanley Tucci, the star of many films and plays, who takes on a new role with ease while John Lee Beatty, the set designer of multiple plays, adds another notch to his belt.
The Addams Family
This musical is a potpourri of the macabre and the mischevious, the sublime and the ridiculous, the unique and the pedestrian. Our weird family who delights in misery and death, is living in a delapidated castle in the middle of Central Park, surrounded by their dead ancestors and doing their best to be devious. Yet somehow their nasty daughter Wednesday (Krysta Rodriguez) has fallen in love with a normal young man from Ohio, Lucas (Wesley Taylor) and now wants her nutty family to act normally when meeting his parents (Terrence Mann and Carolee Carmello). Well, they try and therein is the plot for this ditsy musical. Nathan Lane is picture perfect as Gomez Addams, the patriarch of this bunch of nuts while Bebe Neuwirth in a black gown cut open to her belly-button shines as Morticia, his perfectly unhappy wife. Kevin Chamberlin almost steals the show as Uncle Fester who is in love with the moon and flies to the sky to join his beloved in orgiastic splendor while Jackie Hoffman portrays Grandma with verve and gruesomess. Zachary James as the half dead servant Lurch and Adam Riegler as the son who loves being tortured round out this bizarre family while puppets portray various monsters. All in all a wonderful compilation with a tango by Gomez and Morticia thrown in to add to the visual and musical splendeor. A gothic entertainment for all.
Million Dollar Quartet
For those of us in middle age and past this is a wonderfully nostalgic evening as our youth comes galloping back to us. For the younger generation this is a good introduction to the greatest of the rock and roll legends, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis, here portrayed by Lance Guest, Robert Britton Lyons, Eddie Clendening and Levi Kreis. The action takes place on December 4, 1956 in the office of Sun Records in Memphis owned by Sam Phillips (Hunter Foster). Phillips was the discoverer and producer of the early rock and roll performers before they went on to Columbia Records for even greater distribution. But on this December night the four—plus the addition of Dyanne (Elizabeth Stanley)—performed an impromptu jam session that came to be known as "The Million Dollar Quartet" as produced by Phillips. The show consists of 23 familiar signature songs with a smathering of plot thrown in between acts as Phillips tries to keep his discoveries from leaving him. But with hits such as "Blue Suede Shoes," "Matchbox," "Hound Dog," "Folsom Prison Blues," "Sixteen Tons," "Great Balls Of Fire," "Whole Lot of Shaking Going On" and then some who needs plot? Dyanne contributes with a beautiful rendition of "Fever" and "I Hear You Knocking" also joining in "Party." With all this rhythm & blues, the house shakes, the audience rocks along and the evening is a total joy.
La Cage Aux Folles
This current production comes to the States from London's Menier Chocolate Factory. It is a pared down version of the original as well as the glamorous adaptation last seen on Broadway in 2004 and does not quite click with this writer. The Cagelles (six instead of 12) are clearly men, not to be confused with georgeous transexuals, the club is small and somewhat shabby, the costumes are tawdry rather than gorgeous and the whole affair requires more focus from the audience on illusion rather than reality. The story remains the same. Georges, the nite club owner, and Albin, the main transvestite performer in the club have lived together for 20 years when Georges' son (from a one night heterosexual "mistake") announces he is getting married to the daughter of a right-wing politician and he can not bring his prospective in-laws to dinner with Albin in the house. He asks his real mother to come instead, insists that Albin, who has raised him, be banished fom the home and demands that his biological parents behave like an old married couple who happily give the young couple their blessings. Needless to say this does not work out well. His real mother never shows, Albin in drag puts on a wonderful performance as a mother but ultimately gives himself away by yanking off his wig at the end of a rousing song and dance number. Pandemonium occurs.
Douglas Hodge won an Olivier for this role. Nevertheless his first act performance as Albin is over the top hysterical and vaguely irritating. By the second act he is more in tune with the situation and becomes a moving human being. Kelsey Grammer, the less flamboyant of the two, gives a gentle restrained performance but the real hit of the evening is Robin De Jesus as his butler/maid who is genuinely funny and adorable at the same time. The orchestra has been scaled down to eight players but the score remains irrestable. All in all an interesting version but not comparable to the original with all its lushness.
American Idiot
This ear shattering punk rock musical based on the music of Green Day purports to tell the story of three young men trying to find themselves in a world of meaninglessness, war and misadventure. Although the lyrics of Billy Joe Armstrong and the book by Michael Mayer may be explanatory it is very difficult to hear them under the booming amplification of the music. Even some of the lighter ballads get lost under the frenzy and rage of Tom Kitt's orchestrations and by the end of the evening one is overwhelmed by sound rather than becomimg part of it.
The three youngsters portrayed by Stark Sands, John Gallagher, Jr. and Michael Esper undergo various experiences with the army, dope and fatherhood while the women, Mary Faber, Rebecca Naomi Jones and Christina Sajous deal with motherhood, sex and fantasy with equal indiscrimateness. The scenic design of Christine Jones consists of many television sets, a hanging automobile, and other objects floating by, staircases to nowhere and a general sense of vastness and waste. It is quite evident that many talented people contributed to this musical which will be a joy to some and unmitigated stress to others who value retaimning their hearing. Take your pick!
Sondheim On Sondheim
What a joy this show is! Without screaming, overmiking and boom boxes we have glorious music and glorious voices actually imparting meaning and emotion to their interaction with each other and the audience. Heading a cast of eight are Barbara Cook, Vanessa Williams and Tom Wopat but the other five are equally compelling. They are Leslie Kritzer, Norm Lewis, Euan Morton, Erin Mackey and Matthew Scott. In addition we have the master himself, talking to us from a big screen with amusing introductions to the various songs and pieces of autobiography which are less than amusing. Indeed the harshness of his relationship with his mother and the less wonderful aspects of his loneliness make the bitter-sweetness of much of his music more comprehensible. The featured shows begin with By George in 1946 and continue to Road Show in 2008 with all the favorites—too numerous to mention—along the way. Everyone gets their chance to shine with Norm Lewis performing a wonderful "Being Alive" (Company), Tom Wopat shining in "Finishing The Hat" (Sunday in the Park with George) and Vanessa Williams and Barbara Cook doing "Losing My Mind" (Follies) and "Not a Day Goes By" (Merrily We Roll Along) in tandem. All the others have a turn as well and Barbara Cook also does her beautiful "Send in the Clowns" (A Little Night Music) as well as "In Buddy's Eyes" (Follies). They are supported by a unique set (Beowulf Boritt) and a complicated video and projection structure (Peter Flaherty) as well as an eight piece orchestra which sounds full without electronics and all this beauty is the product of a lovely conception and direction by James Lapine. What a pleasure!
Everyday Rapture
Sherie Rene Scott has written a classy and quirky autobiography with a little help from Dick Scanlan. Although she categorizes herself as a semi-star, usually sandwiched between two others (Aida, Little Mermaid, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) there is no question the lady is a real star as she amply proves in this excursion. Here she is sandwiched not between two stars but between two philosophies, her rigid, humble Mennonite upbringing in Topeka, Kansas and her need to shine in the theatre. Indeed she carries around two pieces of paper in her pockets, one asserting she is but a speck of dust in the universe and the other announcing the world revolves around her. She thus alternates between Jesus and Judy Garland in a number parodying "You Made Me Love You" which is a joy. Other numbers use Mr. Roger's Neighborhood, magical tricks she learned from a long ago boyfriend and a hilarious number involving a teenage fan (Eamon Foley) on a YouTube video lipsynching to Scott's singing.
Sherie is backed up by Lindsay Mendez and Betsy Wolfe a`la the Supremes style and an orchestra of five and surrounded by a set design by Christine Jones consisting of many sparkling lights. But the brightest light of all is Sherie Rene Scott herself. The lady shines.
Collected Stories
Donald Margulie's 1997 play, originally an off-Broadway production, now moves to Broadway in a new revival starring Linda Lavin as an accomplished author (Ruth Steiner) who teaches a graduate seminar in creative writing and Sarah Paulson as an eager young student who comes to her Greenwich Village apartment for a tutorial and remains to become her assistant and finally her contemporary—of a sort. The younger woman begins by idolizing her mentor, hanging on every word, taking frantic notes but eventually reaches a point where she takes over, at least in her head, her mentor's life story. Is this a betrayal of trust, a loss of boundaries or a flattering tribute? Linda Lavin is marvelous as the older writer who begins as the authority in literature, writing and living and ends as the friend who feels betrayed and used. Her gestures and mannerisms are timely, emotional and even physical as she ages beyond her years in the six-year period this play encompasses. Is she merely jealous of the younger woman's success and youth or is she entitled to her feelings of having been stabbed and robbed as the younger woman appropriates her youthful love affair with a famous poet and makes it her own in her new novel. The conflict is real and the audience is left wondering just where does one draw the line? A truly absorbing play.
Promises, Promises
This show has talent galore what with book by Neil Simon, music by Burt Bacharach, lyrics by Hal David, scenic design by Scott Pask, choreography and direction by Rob Ashford and of course Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenoweth. Why then is it not a great big hit? Because the basic premise is so dated that it saps the energy needed to ensure the enduring quality necessary to a great revival. Set in the early 1960s the show insists that married men in a large insurance company are so hung up on sleeping with their willing (?) secretaries that they need to borrow an apartment from a lowly clerk—soon promoted to a lowly executive—to carry out the assignation. No hotel or motel for these high priced executives! It doesn't look nice! So our hero Chuck Baxter (Sean Hayes) who unbeknown to her dotes on our heroine Fran Kubelik—a hostess in the dining room (Kristin Chenoweth)—becomes the unknowing cause of unhappines for his phantasy lover as she is having a real affair with the boss J.D. Sheldrake (Tony Goldwyn) who is falsely promising to divorce his wife and marry her. Trouble ahead!
Secondary roles by Dick Latessa as Chuck's next door neighbor Dr. Dreyfuss and Katie Finneran, a man-hungry drunken barfly, are superbly done and timeless. The duet between Hayes and Chenoweth ("I'll Never Fall In Love Again”) is beautifully performed and other numbers are equally good but the comedy/tragedy of the plot is so outdated that the import is muted. It's still a lovely fun show, just not a great one. After all large companies today have much more shenanagans to account for.
Fences
August Wilson's 1987 play, part of his 10 play cycle about African Americans in the 20th century, won a Pulitzer Prize in its original outing. It is being revived with a magnificent cast including Denzel Washington and Viola Davis as the supposedly 18 year happily married couple living in Pittsburgh, in the black ghetto section known as the Hill District in 1957. Troy Maxson is a garbage collector with a steady job who is unafraid to ask his white boss for an upgrade to a driver position. However this ability does not change his feelings of frustration at having lost out at being a ball player due to anti-negro discrimination, his distress about his impoverished upbringing, his time in prison after a career in theft, his inability to read and general lack of education, his mother's death when he was only 14 and so on. To cover up his marked internal rages he lives a strictly controlled life, demanding the same of his family and causing problems all around.
He is the boss! He controls every decision made in his home. Thus he thinks nothing of thwarting the ambitions of his younger son Cory (Chris Chalk) who wants to play football and insists he learn a trade instead. This conflict reaches epic proportions of physical rage while the conflict with his older son Lyons (Russell Hornsby) an occassional musician who is always borrowing money from him remains on a verbal level. But the most devastating blow occurs when he informs his loyal loving wife Rose, whom he still insists he loves, that he is fathering a child with another woman who has somehow enabled him to feel joy and relaxation. Her reaction to this is unparalleled proving that Viola Davis is a brilliant actress.
All of the cast is superb. Stephen McKinley Henderson plays Troy's best friend to perfection and Mykelti Williamson, his brain damaged brother, is excellent. The setting by Santo Loquasto is realistic bringing the audience smack into the black section of Pittsburg in 1957 and Kenny Leon directs with a sure hand. Of course there is Denzel Washington, the charismatic film hero, dressed in workingman's overalls, fighting with Death and the Devil, acting out his fears and anxieties and doing a bang up job of being Troy Maxson.
 |
|
 |
