291-300.
YOUR MOTHER’S COPY OF THE KAMA SUTRA (Friday, April 11)
VIOLET (Saturday, April 12: matinee)
THE
VELOCITY OF AUTUMN (Saturday, April 12: evening)
THE
MYSTERY OF IRMA VEP (Tuesday, April 15)
CABARET (Wednesday, April 16: matinee)
THE
CRIPPLE OF INISHMAAN (Wednesday, April 16: evening)
THE
COMPLETE AND CONDENSED STAGE DIRECTIONS OF EUGENE O’NEILL VOL. 2. (Thursday,
April 17)
HEDWIG
AND THE ANGRY INCH (Thursday, April 17)
CASA
VALENTINA (Friday, April 18)
INVENTING
MARY MARTIN (Saturday, April 19)
As
the official theatre awards season comes to an end, I note that I’ve seen approximately
300 shows of every type: musical, drama, revue, revivals of modern and classic
plays, one-man/woman shows, magic shows, circuses, shows clean as a whistle and
dirty as porn. Being human, I missed half a dozen shows I might otherwise have
attended, but for those I’ve seen I wrote a review of almost every one. My time
this week having been consumed by awards deliberations, I can offer only brief
reviews of the final 10 shows for those who may be interested in my general
response.
291.
YOUR MOTHER’S COPY OF THE KAMA SUTRA
Zoë Sophia Garcia, Rebecca Henderson, Chris Stack. Photo: Jeremy Daniel.
This
weirdly named new play by Kirk Lynn, directed by Anne Kauffman at Playwrights
Horizon’s Peter Jay Sharp Theatre, has nothing to do with the Kama Sutra,
although sex plays a significant role. In the first act, Carla (Zoë Sophia
Garcia) insists that she and her fiancé, Reggie (Chris Stack), replicate all
their previous good and bad sexual experiences over the course of a year to see
if they’re compatible, and without secrets, before marrying. Before doing so,
Reggie seeks the advice of his ex-gal pal, a mediator named Tony (a mannered Rebecca
Henderson), who has her doubts; still, Reggie goes ahead with the plan. Meanwhile,
the action keeps shifting to scenes involving the relationship between a
teenage couple, Sean (Max Brawer) and Bernie (Ismenia Mendes), which is
interfered with by another teenager, the devilish Cole (Will Pullen), who
creates a crisis when he slips the girl a “date rape” drug. We only learn later
that act one has been running on two different timelines, and that Bernie, who
now needs healing from her own sexual misadventure, is the daughter of Carla
and Reggie. Act two connects the dots, but is principally about the push and
pull territory between an angry Reggie and his depressed daughter; despite its
familiarity and excessive yelling, it has some sizzling writing. The first act is
erratic and the second unfulfilling. At the very least, the Kama Sutra would
have been sexier.
292.
VIOLET
Sutton Foster. Photo: Joan Marcus.
Sutton
Foster shows why her acting and singing chops make her one of today’s top
Broadway stars, although she doesn’t get to dance in Leigh Silverman’s excellently
directed revival of VIOLET. This is a “road” musical, like LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
earlier in the season, about a journey with a very special goal; it’s based on
a book by Doris Betts, The Ugliest
Pilgrim. The show, by Jeanine Tesori (music) and Brian Crawley (book and lyrics),
originally seen Off Broadway in 1997, had a one-night City Center Encores
showing in 2013, and is now being given a Roundabout-produced Broadway version
at the American Airlines Theatre. Ms. Foster plays the title role, a resourceful
but touchy and defensive 1964 farmwoman from North Carolina’s Blue Ridge
Mountains whose face was seriously scarred by an ax accident caused by her
father (Alexander Gemignani) when she was 13 (the young Violet is well played
by Emerson Steele); after years of being ridiculed and stared at, she seeks to regain
her prettiness by traveling through the South on a bus to Oklahoma where she
believes a TV faith healer (Ben Davis) can make the scar disappear. She meets a
couple of uniformed soldiers on the way, the white Monty (Colin Donnell,
wonderful) and the black Flick (Joshua Henry, outstanding, especially when
singing “Let It Sing”). Despite her assumed unattractiveness (the scar is not
shown), Violet becomes romantically involved with each, a bit of magic realism
perhaps. This being 1964, the show’s temperature rises because of the contemporary
Civil Rights fever in the background. VIOLET lacks the pizzazz of a big
Broadway musical, but its tuneful country, bluegrass, and gospel score, creatively
modest production, colorful supporting cast—some in multiple roles—and the sensitive,
complex, yet nonetheless big bang-for-your-bucks performance of Ms. Foster make
it one of the best musicals now on the Great White Way.
From left: Joshua Henry, Colin Donnell, Sutton Foster. Photo: Joan Marcus.
293.
THE VELOCITY OF AUTUMN
Estelle
Parsons, at 86, dominates Eric Coble’s flimsy two-character dramedy, at the
Booth Theatre, with the remarkably unflagging energy of a woman half her age. She
plays Alexandra, a grumpy, feisty, resilient 79-year-old buzzard, who refuses
to let her children move her into a nursing home and out of the Brooklyn
brownstone she’s lived in for decades; she’s filled her living room with
Molotov cocktails, prepared to blow not only the house but half the block to
kingdom come if she doesn’t get her way. This prompts her older children
(unseen) to summon Chris (Stephen Spinella), her youngest, a ponytailed, gay, middle-aged
artist who raised his mother’s ire when he moved away to New Mexico many years
ago. As expected, Chris and Alexandra work out their issues over the course of
the action, but the piece is riddled with implausible moments and behavior.
Despite the exaggerations, many will respond sympathetically to the play’s
question of how children should deal with an aging parent, but the fun is in
seeing the octogenarian star adding another eccentric character to her trademark
gallery of them, going full steam (and shouting much of the time) for 90
minutes, doing all she can to blow air into this flat tire of a play. Mr.
Spinella is an only moderately effective counterforce to the velocity of Ms.
Parson’s performance.
294.
THE MYSTERY OF IRMA VEP: A PENNY DREADFUL
This is the 30th-anniversary revival, at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, of Charles Ludlam’s 1984
parody of Gothic stage and film melodramas (like Hitchcock’s REBECCA). Written
for Ludlam's Ridiculous Theatrical Company, it's directed by Ludlam's former associate, Everett Quinton, and stars two versatile actors, Robert
Sella and Arnie Burton, who make multiple quick changes to play eight roles, male
and female. Here’s the Wikipedia plot summary: “Mandacrest Estate is the home
of Lord Edgar, an Egyptologist, and Lady Enid. Lady Enid is Lord Edgar's second
wife, though he has yet to recover entirely from the passing of his first wife,
Irma Vep. The house staff, a maid named Jane Twisden and a swineherd named
Nicodemus Underwood, have their own opinions of Lady Enid. Enid is attacked by
a vampire, and Edgar seeks answers in an Egyptian tomb, briefly resurrecting
the mummy of an Egyptian princess. Returning home with the sarcophagus, Edgar
prepares to hunt down the werewolf he blames for the death of his son and first
wife. Meanwhile, Enid discovers Irma locked away, supposedly to coax out the
location of precious jewels from her. Wresting the keys to Irma's cell from
Jane, Enid frees Irma only to discover the prisoner is, in fact, Jane herself,
actually a vampire, and the killer of Irma as well as her and Edgar's son.
Nicodemus, now a werewolf, kills Jane, only to be shot dead by Edgar. In the
end, Enid prevents Edgar from writing about his experiences in Egypt, revealing
she was the princess herself, the whole thing an elaborate sham by her father
to discredit Edgar. The two reconcile.”
I saw the show at an early preview so I won’t review it here, but there’s
nothing wrong with noting that my guest loved it.
295.
CABARET
Michelle Williams. Photo: Joan Marcus.
Yes,
Kander and Ebb’s CABARET is back at Studio 54 again; it’s essentially the same
Roundabout revival, directed by Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall, that opened in
1998 starring Alan Cumming as the Emcee and Natasha Richardson as Sally Bowles,
even to having Mr. Cumming return to fill his Tony-winning role. Once again, the
orchestra seats have been removed, with the Kit Kat Klub’s seedy ambience
created by tiny cabaret tables. (Be warned, the snacks and drinks will require
the equivalent of billions of Weimar Marks.) That production, which closed 10
years ago, ran for 2,377 performances, with multiple cast replacements (I saw
Mollie Ringwald as Sally) and became Broadway’s third longest-running revival. Sally,
the second-rate British performer mired in the trashy night life of pre-Nazi
Berlin, is now in the hands of blonde-bobbed Broadway newcomer, Michelle
Williams, of Hollywood fame. Despite the glow of her yellow hair, however, the
Kit Kat Klub’s lights seem to be burning a bit dimmer than usual. Ms. Williams
is a very good screen actress, but, while she has an interesting vibrato, she
doesn’t quite generate the theatrical charisma associated with the part; her
facial and bodily expressiveness is often more enigmatic than sexually dynamic.
Mr. Cumming, of course, brings his heralded blend of mystery, charm, and
decadence to the Emcee, the roles of Frau Schneider and Herr Schultz are excellently
handled by Broadway vets Linda Emond and Danny Burstein, and Bill Heck is appealing
as the bisexual Cliff. There’s no doubt that CABARET’s score is far superior to
that of any new musical in the 2013-2014 season, and that “Wilkommen” alone
blows everything else out of the park. So CABARET is certainly worth a visit by
those not familiar with it (if any such creatures still exist); Alan Cumming
alone is worth the price of admission. The show just seems a tad tired and
could probably have used a longer rest before so quickly returning to its old
haunts.
296.
THE CRIPPLE OF INISHMAAN
Pat Shortt, Daniel Radcliffe. Photo: Johan Persson.
This
is a superb revival at the Cort Theatre of Martin McDonagh’s engrossing,
touching, and often hilarious 1996 play, starring Harry Potter, er, I mean
Daniel Radcliffe, as Cripple Billy (Mr. Radcliffe), a seriously handicapped
17-year-old on the isolated Irish island of Inishmaan. When, in 1934, Robert Flaherty
arrives to film MAN OF ARAN, Billy, despite (or because of) his deformed body
and stumbling gait, is chosen from among all the islanders to try out for a
Hollywood film, and is flown to Los Angeles for a screen test; this alters not
only his life but those of the colorful townspeople who always belittled him. The
script turns a number of surprising corners before coming to its satisfactory
conclusion. A brilliant ensemble, wonderfully directed by Martin Grandage,
brings all the sharply etched, richly accented characters to ruddy-faced life.
I could write encomiums to, among others, the veteran actresses Gillian Hanna and Ingrid
Craigie as Billy’s aunties, Sarah Greene as the flame-tressed (with temperament
to match) Helen McCormick, and the remarkable Pat Shortt as the Dickensian Johnnypateenmike. Mr. Radcliffe, who sounds as authentically Irish as any of his
costars, has become something of a regular Broadway visitor in recent years and
demonstrates why he’s increasingly recognized as one of England’s best young
stage actors.
297.
THE COMPLETE AND CONDENSED STAGE DIRECTIONS OF EUGENE O’NEILL VOL. 2
I
missed the first “volume” (2011) of this ongoing project, which is downtown at
the Theatre for a New City. Since what I viewed was an invited dress rehearsal
all I’ll say is that this is a clever, one hour and 25-minute piece of devised
theatre by a group called the Neo-Futurists in which four versatile actors, two
men and two women, using a spare space with carefully chosen props, enact—in
mime, apart from a few vocalizations—O’Neill’s extensive stage directions in five
early one-acts from 1913-1915 (“RECKLESSNESS,” “WARNINGS,” “FOG,” “ABORTION,”
and “THE SNIPER”), as they’re read into a microphone by a seated actor at a
desk. The directions are so detailed one can figure out the plots even without
dialogue; the results, as adapted and directed by Christopher Loar, are far more
comic (intentionally) than the usually dour playwright intended.
298.
HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH
Neil Patrick Harris. Photo: Joan Marcus.
This
is essentially the Neil Patrick Harris (Nell Patricia Harris?) show, in which
the uber-talented TV star gives a rock-em, sock-em, knock-em in the aisles tour
de force performance at the Belasco Theatre. He plays the flamboyant title
character, a transvestite rock singer—born in East Berlin and raised there and
in Kansas—giving a concert in New York; his “angry inch” (also the name of his six-member band) is the result of a genital
rearrangement gone wrong. Hedwig wears a number of seriously fabuloso wigs and
costumes while fronting a punk/glam rock/R&B band that includes the
terrific Lena Hall as Yitzhak, his indeterminately gendered partner, who
transforms from cropped-hair butch drag into leggy showgirl regalia at the
rousing climax. First seen Off Broadway in 1998, starring John Cameron Mitchell
(who co-created it with Stephen Trask and also starred in the 2001 film),
HEDWIG has been energetically revived under Michael Mayer’s direction, with a
satirically fresh beginning suggesting that the show took over the Belasco only
at the last minute, when the previous tenant, a six-hours plus musical version
of the war movie, THE HURT LOCKER, closed in mid-performance. (Look for one of
the faux HURT LOCKER programs littering the floor; they’re hilarious.) Joining a
transvestite-heavy season, it may not be your typical Broadway fare, reveling
as it does in gay raunchiness, risqué spectator wrangling, and blaring music
(to the detriment of some lyrics), but Mr. Harris and company will keep most
audience batteries charged for all 95 minutes of its funny, sad, and, as the title
hints, angry presentation.
299.
CASA VALENTINA
From left: Nick Westrate, John Cullum, Gabriel Ebert, Tom McGowan. Photo: Matthew Murphy.
Harvey
Fierstein’s new play, directed by Joe Mantello at the Samuel Friedman Theatre,
ventures into unusual and potentially fascinating territory with its
truth-based depiction, set in 1962, of a group of presumably heterosexual men
who used to gather every summer at a Catskills bungalow colony (the play’s
title is the place’s nickname) where they could indulge their secret passion
for dressing and making up as women, albeit without being campily effeminate.
The production, which has received mostly warm reviews, and which my usually
hypercritical wife enjoyed, failed to reach me, though. Toward the end of the
first act Mr. Fierstein steps into George Bernard Shaw’s shoes to offer a
serious discussion drama about the issues of transvestitism and homosexuality,
as seen from an early 1960s perspective; its arguments are educationally
interesting but dramatically inert. Moreover, the dialogue is stilted, the
characters artificial, and the dramatic structure old-fashioned and
unconvincing, especially the plot device regarding a character's
personal transgression. Perhaps if these cross-dressing men were described as
the well-educated members of a classical acting company I might have been able
to find them credible; instead, their perfect diction, grammatically correct
sentences, and theatrical voices only serve to distance them from reality. The
company includes some of New York’s leading actors, among them John Cullum,
Reed Birney, Patrick Page, Larry Pine, Gabriel Ebert, and Nick Westrate.
Mare Winningham as the woman who runs the bungalow colony with her husband (Mr.
Page) is one of the play’s two actual females. Apart from Reed Birney, who brings something special to every role he plays, including his Bette Davis-like role in CASA VALENTINA, it’s the
real women who bring believable femininity to the stage here, not those who
playact at being female and, as performed in this play, seem little more than
bizarre.
300.
INVENTING MARY MARTIN: THE REVUE OF A LIFETIME
This
being a preview rather than a review of INVENTING MARY MARTIN, which opens
April 27, and which I saw at an early preview showing, I must begin with my personal Mary
Martin story, or my “almost” Mary Martin story. In 1951, when I was still10, Mary
Martin was a household name because of all the publicity generated by her
performance in SOUTH PACIFIC. The show’s hit songs were played on the radio all
the time, and TV appearances by Ms. Martin and her costar Ezio Pinza were
common. When a theatergoing neighbor and family friend told my parents she had
a ticket for SOUTH PACIFIC, then in its second year, that she couldn’t use, it
was decided I’d take it, even though it meant I’d have to take the IRT subway
from Saratoga Avenue in the nearby Brownsville section of Brooklyn all alone,
get off at Times Square, and ask directions to the theatre. No one seemed to be
concerned about the potential dangers of putting a 10-year-old kid on the
subway and sending him to Manhattan unaccompanied, which shows how much has
changed over the past 64 years. When I got out of the subway station a cop
instructed me on where to find the Majestic Theatre, and I got to see the first
Broadway production of SOUTH PACIFIC, some of which I still remember. Unfortunately,
Mary Martin had just left the show and the star replacing her was the then only
21-years-old Martha Wright, so I didn’t see the original star, thus my “almost”
Mary Martin story. When the show was over, my parents were waiting outside for
me, having driven in by car; they took me to the original Lindy’s, where we
actually saw the great comedian Milton Berle saunter in for a late-night snack.
(Ten years later, by the way, I played the “Professor” in a summer stock
production of SOUTH PACIFIC, which has always had a warm place in my heart.)
Mary
Martin and Ethel Merman were the two great musical comedy actresses of the day,
of course, and no pair of stars since has ever gained the same acclaim as
rivals for the throne of Broadway’s musical queen. Merman, because of her
brassy belting voice and personal mannerisms, is the one whose style
most often tempted impersonators, and there have been Merman-based one-woman shows
centered on her career. Martin’s qualities were less idiosyncratic and less immediately
recognizable when imitated, which may have been behind the decision to create a
revue around her that uses three singers to sing her songs, none of them
attempting to sound anything like her. A similar revue about Merman would
probably be a travesty, since the most distinctive thing about her was her
idiosyncratic voice, not the shows she starred in. With Martin, as the show’s
title suggests, it was the nature of her career that counted, as she went from
one type of show to another before finally retiring. The concept is rather
thin, as most theatre stars, Merman included, have succeeded because of their
ability to reinvent themselves.
All
this is by way of introducing INVENTING MARY MARTIN: THE REVUE OF A LIFETIME,
an intimate show at the York Theatre, conceived and written by Stephen Cole, and
starring the brunette Cameron Adams, the redheaded Lynne Halliday, and the
blonde Emily Skinner, with the sole male performer being Jason Graae, who
serves as the M.C. while singing and dancing with the ladies. Mr. Graae also
does an extended comic number borrowed directly from a 1953 TV sketch in which
Ms. Martin, wearing a long, sack-like dress, converted it into a number of
historically different styles to show the evolution of women’s clothing during
the 20th century. Mr. Graae offers biographical information on Ms. Martin’s
career, and, this being a musical revue, the company performs the best-known
songs associated with Mary Martin’s Broadway career, such as “I Got Lost In His
Arms,” “A Cockeyed Optimist,” “Peter Pan,” and, of course, the grand finale, Cole
Porter’s “My Heart Belongs to Daddy,” which she introduced on Broadway in 1938’s
LEAVE IT TO ME! and sang in two films,1940’s LOVE THY NEIGHBOR (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww743OGLgZk)
and 1946’s NIGHT AND DAY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r404pTC_qGI). But
there’s also a robust sampling of less familiar songs from the singer’s career,
such as “Il Bacio,” “Most Gentlemen Don’t Like Love,” and “Swattin’ the Fly.”
And now, ladies and gentlemen, a new season begins.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, a new season begins.
