101. BILLY & RAY (October 30, 2014)

101. BILLY AND RAY

 

 

A few seconds after the lights went up on BILLY & RAY, Mike Bencivegna’s flailing comedy about the writing of the 1944 film noir DOUBLE INDEMNITY, I was stunned to spot a face I’d first seen when I attended the University of Hawaii. Well, no, I wasn’t really seeing Bette Midler—who was an undergrad theatre major when I was in grad school—but her talented 28-year-old daughter, Sophie von Haselberg, a Yale Drama School graduate, making her New York debut. 



From left: Vincent Kartheiser, Sophie von Haselberg, Larry Pine. Photo: Carol Rosegg.

In the play, Ms. von Haselberg plays the thinly written supporting role of Helen Hernandez, secretary to the great script writer and director Billy Wilder, in a situation set in 1943 Hollywood, so she gets to wear the kind of classy World War II era clothing (courtesy of designer Michael Krass) with which her mom has sometimes been associated. Thus garbed, and with her blond hair perfectly coiffed in a period upsweep, she’s an astonishing replica of the young Divine Miss M, even her wryly knowing facial expressions and attitudes mirroring those of her famous mother. 

It was hard to take my eyes off her since, avatar of Bette as she is, she brings what little sparkle there is to the otherwise mundane proceedings. In fact, probably to make as much of her presence as possible, director Gary Marshall, who first staged the play with another Helen at his Falcon Theatre in Burbank, Cal., has added some cutesy business for her when Wilder asks her to act out some sexy dame behavior—including wiggling her “caboose”—as he and Chandler work on the script. (I’m privy to this, by the way, because my guest was Shaun O’Hagan, the talented actor who played Chandler in the West Coast production, which I didn’t see.)

Except for an insert that slides on from stage left to suggest the office of producer Joe Sistrom (Drew Gehling), all the action takes place in Wilder’s well-appointed Paramount bungalow, nicely designed by Charlie Corcoran, and well lit—including occasional noirish effects—by Russell H. Champa. His workspace resembles a living room, with venetian blinds (that get a lot of work) covering an upstage picture window looking out over the Paramount lot, where a nearby sign identifies Studio 19 (an in-joke, Shaun informed me, referring to the place that Mr. Marshall produced such famous TV sitcoms as “Happy Days”). At stage right is Helen’s domain, the reception room. 

Mr. Bencivegna’s play, which sets Act I from May to July 1943 and then covers July 1943 to July 1944 in Act II, uses the author’s careful research to recreate what might have happened when the pulp mystery writer, Raymond Chandler (Larry Pine), an alcoholic struggling to stay off the wagon, was hired through Joe Sistrom to collaborate with the Viennese-born Wilder (Vincent Kartheiser, of “Mad Men”) on DOUBLE INDEMNITY, the film version of James M. Cain’s popular murder mystery novella of that name.

Making a play about two writers, even ones whose mutual relations are like oil and water, is anything but easy, especially when the only way for anyone to appreciate all the developments, from plot points to casting, is to be familiar with what they’re working on. In last season’s ACT ONE, only one scene was about the collaboration of Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman on their first play, but the painfully superficial BILLY & RAY fills two full hours with the on again, off again process; it’s enlivened mainly by the German-accented Wilder’s colorful arrogance in contrast to the dyspeptic Chandler, who’s in it mainly for the money and who downs a bolt of whiskey from a hidden bottle every time Wilder takes a pee break. 

If you don’t know DOUBLE INDEMNITY, which starred Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray. and Edward G. Robinson, and was nominated for seven Academy Awards, but won none, you’ll find this effort a slow slog. Aficionados may relish the Hollywood anecdotes and corny eureka! moments that arise in the writing (and producing) process of what for many is one of the greatest films of its genre; for the average theatergoer of a certain age, however, who may have seen the film once or twice, and who may not even hold it in the highest esteem (the more I see it the cheesier it looks), the dramatic stakes in what is already known to have turned out a success are rather low, almost nonexistent, in fact.

Aside  from Ms. von Haselberg’s presence, the performances from Mr. Pine, one of New York’s most dependable (and ubiquitous) actors, and Mr. Kartheiser, so memorable as the childishly acerbic Pete Campbell on “Mad Men,” never find the right balance or timing in their ping-pong repartee, a problem that has to be laid at Mr. Marshall’s feet. Mr. Kartheiser, wearing his hair with boyish bangs that make him look far too youthful (he’s actually around the same age as Wilder was in 1943-44), is suitably energetic but, with his phony accent, not in the least convincing as the genius whose later masterpieces included SUNSET BOULEVARD and SOME LIKE IT HOT. Mr. Pine, although considerably older than Chandler at this point in the writer’s life, actually bears a reasonable resemblance to him, but seems to be weary of the whole thing and not especially happy to be here; surprisingly, he also made several flubs the night I saw it.

The sole reason to visit this play is to see Bette Midler’s progeny at the start of her career (God, I hope she can sing!). But remember, it’s called BILLY & RAY, not BILLY, RAY, & HELEN.

BILLY & RAY
Vineyard Theatre
108 E. 15th Street
Through November 23

100. Review of DELIVERANCE (October 28, 2014)

100. DELIVERANCE

 

For my review of DELIVERANCE please visit THE BROADWAY BLOG at:

 http://thebroadwayblog.com/2014/10/31/11320-review-deliverance

 

 

 

 

 

99. Review of THE LAST SHIP (October 29, 2014)

99. THE LAST SHIP

 

 

If you’ve been following the press reports on THE LAST SHIP, the big new Broadway musical with a score by the estimable Sting, you’ll be aware that it received what are usually called mixed reviews. Sting didn’t write the book, which is by John Logan and Brian Yorkey, but it’s inspired by his gritty youth in northeastern England’s town of Wallsend.  As others have pointed out, the book is the show’s chief drawback, but it has more than enough genuine heart to support the mostly beautiful, often thrilling score, which (despite some detractors) is as good as and far superior to most of the new Broadway musicals of the past two seasons. And the production itself is as fine as they get, with perfect casting, smashing movement/choreography, splendid acting and singing, and superb design elements.



Rachel Tucker, Michael Esper. Photo: Joan Marcus.

Three stories work in tandem in THE LAST SHIP. First, there’s the one about a gritty town that learns its shipbuilding business is closing. The shipbuilders reject the company’s offer to get them other work, and decide to illegally occupy the shipyard. Using the funds being saved for a new church (with the priest’s approval, no less), they determine to build one last ship. What kind of ship it is we never learn, but it would surely cost much more than a single church to pay for it. In fact, it’s only when the ship’s launching is celebrated that the men realize they haven’t given it a name, which is just as unlikely as everything that gets us to this point. (What the men will do when the last ship sails is not addressed.) Thus, much as it’s presented within a musical’s version of rough-accented, profanity-spewing, working class hero naturalism, you have to navigate this musical ship’s conceit with your disbelief billowing like a sail in the wind (or dismiss it all as “a metaphor”). Like other British-inspired tales of resolute everymen banding together to achieve some seemingly impossible goal—think KINKY BOOTS and THE FULL MONTY—THE LAST SHIP commemorates the spirit of camaraderie that insists nothing is impossible if decent souls band together for the common good. 

Second, we have the prodigal son story in which Gideon Fletcher (Michael Esper), loosely based on Sting himself, is first seen as a young lad (Collin Kelly-Sordelet) who, fed up with the limitations of Wallsend, leaves behind the young Meg Dawson (Dawn Cantwell), the girl he loves, to see the world and make something of himself. When he returns, 15 years later, having failed in his mission, he tries to reconnect with Meg (Rachel Tucker), but, much as she still loves this gruff yet tender wanderer, she’s engaged to Arthur Millburn (Aaron Lazar). Arthur, an upright guy who wants to marry Meg and care for her and Tom (Collin Kelly-Sordelet), her 15-year-old son by Gideon, is the show’s closest thing to an antagonist, since he works for the company and tries to prevent the last ship from being built. 

And third, there’s Gideon’s struggle to come to terms with the memory of his late father, Joe (Jamie Jackson), whose death has brought him home. Joe was a brutal man who often beat Gideon, and Gideon now must also resolve issues with his own son that arise on his return. Arthur, whom Tom calls Dad, complicates matters. Another father also plays a role, the humorously dissolute Father O’Brien (Fred Applegate), from whom Gideon, on coming home, almost immediately seeks absolution, but whose own time on earth is coming to an end. 

Rachel Tucker, Aaron Lazar. Photo: Joan Marcus.

These principal story elements—and minor ones, including that concerning the foreman, Jackie
White (Jimmy Nails) and his wife Peggy (Sally Ann Triplett)—are tied together by 20 songs, every one of them tuneful, ranging from lyrical, even heartbreaking, ballads to dirges and stirring anthems, some with a Celtic echo, others in the Kurt Weill vein, and all of them definitely Sting. Several are reprised (the rousingly rhythmic title song, gets four shots), and each is staged with imagination, sensitivity, and beauty by director Joe Mantello or choreographer Steven Hoggett. There are many standouts, but I might mention “Island of Souls,” “What Say You, Meg,” “We’ve Got Now’t Else,” and “The Night the Pugilist Learned to Dance” as among my favorites.

Sally Ann Triplett (red jacket), Fred Applegate (to her left), Jimmy Nail (standing center), and company. Photo: Joan Marcus.

As per his well-deserved reputation, Mr. Hoggett’s dances derive from everyday activities and avoid the standard leaps, thrusts, and kicks of conventional Broadway terpsichore. His shipbuilders, for example, go about their routines with shifting masculine attitudes, lots of stamping, and, in one memorable sequence, their tools, including a brilliant use of fiery welding torches. The finale to Act 1, where the men are lined up at the rear, holding hands across their bodies in the pouring rain before they rush toward a downstage chain link fence to climb it, is breathtakingly vigorous and exciting. 

Company of THE LAST SHIP. Photo: Joan Marcus.

THE LAST SHIP can be grim and dark, but, other than being set in suitably dreary environs, including a church, shipyard, jail cell, and pub (sets and costumes by David Zinn, lights by Christopher Akerlind), it has plenty of emotional variety, leavened by robust humor embodied in Father O’Brien’s proclivity for scandalous behavior and language. There’s also a powerfully infectious spirit of optimism that often lightens the mood.

Michael Esper. Photo: Joan Marcus.

All the characters are compellingly acted and well sung. Michael Esper’s Gideon sings with huskiness reminiscent of Sting’s own sound, and carries himself with properly romantic machismo. Rachel Tucker’s Meg is ballsy and sexy, her rich voice a perfect match for Mr. Esper’s. Mr. Lazar’s good looks and more traditional Broadway voice make him an appropriately sympathetic rival for Meg’s affections, while Mr. Nail absolutely nails the authenticity of the rough-edged (although seasick-prone) Jackie, and Ms. Triplett never trips as Peggy. Fred Applegate couldn’t be better as the avuncular Irish priest, smoking, drinking, cursing, and lightening everyone’s load despite his own burdens. 

Sally Ann Triplett and company. Photo: Joan Marcus.

This vessel may now and then list in choppy seas, but it always rights itself. When the voyage is over, you’ll be glad you traveled aboard THE LAST SHIP.

THE LAST SHIP
Neil Simon Theatre
250 W. 52nd Street
Open ended run.

98. Review of SHATTER (October 29, 2014)

98. SHATTER
My review of SHATTER is now available at THEATER PIZZAZZ: http://www.theaterpizzazz.com/shatter/

 

 

97. Review of FATHER COMES HOME FROM THE WAR, PARTS 1, 2 & 3 (October 26, 2014)

97. FATHER COMES HOME FROM THE WARS, PARTS 1, 2 & 3

For my review of FATHER COMES HOME FROM THE WARS, please visit THEATER PIZZAZZ at: http://www.theaterpizzazz.com/father-comes-home-wars-parts-1-2-3/

 

 

96. Review of LIFT (October 23, 2014)

96. LIFT

For my review of LIFT, please visit THE BROADWAY BLOG at: http://thebroadwayblog.com/2014/10/29/11295-review-lift

 

 

95. Review of LENNON: THROUGH A GLASS ONION

95. For my review of LENNON: THROUGH A GLASS ONION, please visit THE BROADWAY BLOG: http://thebroadwayblog.com/2014/10/27/11289-review-lennon-through-a-glass-onion

 

 

 

94. Review of THE COUNTRY HOUSE (October 24, 2014)

94. THE COUNTRY HOUSE

 

I saw the Manhattan Theatre Club’s production of THE COUNTRY HOUSE, Donald Margulies’s imperfect, sporadically enjoyable comedy about a theatrical family, on a Friday, but it’s really a throwback Thursday kind of play. Veteran theatregoers visiting the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre won’t be challenged by the show, which premiered at Los Angeles’s Geffen Playhouse this past summer, but they’ll bask in the comfort of the kind of immediately recognizable writing, scenery, staging, and performance for which the Great White Way is famous.

From left: Kate Jennings Grant, Daniel Sunjata, Sarah Steele, Eric Lange, Blythe Danner. Photo: Joan Marcus.

The play is an homage to Chekhov, and the influences can easily be detected, especially in the mommy-issue relationship of the incessantly whiny, self-hating Vanya/Constantine conflation, Uncle Elliott (wonderfully embodied by Eric Lange), and his glamorous Arkadina-like mother, Anna Patterson (Blythe Danner, perfectly cast), a grand actress at whose spacious country home in Williamstown, Mass., the action transpires. However, except, perhaps, when Uncle Elliott is even shriller than Uncle Vanya, the play’s tone seems more far more redolent of Broadway chestnuts about theatre families, like Nöel Coward’s HAY FEVER and Kaufman and Ferber’s THE ROYAL FAMILY, than it does of the Russian playwright. So, for all the fun you may think you’ll have finding Chekhov in Margulies, you’d be better off forgetting it and just watching THE COUNTRY HOUSE as a mildly predictable, old-fashioned comedy about theatre folk.

Williamstown, of course, is the Berkshires home every summer to a major theatre company that attracts important stars (like Ms. Danner), many of them famous in films or TV and seeking to find artistic solace by returning, if only briefly, to the stage, usually in the revival of an old play. Anna, whose beautiful country house, which, like her, is beginning to show its age, is conveniently nearby, making it a suitable place for theatrical types to visit. She’s preparing to play Mrs. Warren in Shaw’s MRS. WARREN’S PROFESSION, which gives her opportunities to express the frustrations faced by an aging star, both in terms of the difficulties of learning lines and finding suitable stage work, not to mention the “work” performers need to do to maintain their appearance.

At the supermarket, Anna runs into Michael Astor (Daniel Sunjata, charming), a handsome hunk of an actor in his 40s against whose Marchbanks she once played Shaw’s Candida. Michael’s going into rehearsal for Molnar’s THE GUARDSMAN, the show preceding Anna’s, so, possibly because she feels the stirrings of her still simmering libido, Anna invites the much younger man to stay at the house while his own digs are being fumigated to eliminate an insect infestation.  

The presence of this gorgeous man, now starring as a doctor in a hit sci-fi TV show, stirs more than Anna’s juices; it affects the hormonal chemistry of both her outspoken, 19-year-old, “plainly lovely” (as Margulies describes her), college student granddaughter, Susie Keegan (Sarah Steele, just right), who admits to having had a crush on him since she was in her crib, and of another woman, Nell McNally (Kate Jennings Grant, lovely). Nell, a struggling actress, is the beautiful 35-year-old fiancée of Walter Keegan (David Rasche, outstanding), Susie’s 66-year-old dad, a film director known for a moneymaking blow ‘em up film franchise.

Kate Jennings Grant, David Rasche. Photo: Joan Marcus.

Walter and Nell have come from Los Angeles in his Porsche to visit, much to the frustration of Elliott, who’s carried a torch for Nell since he acted with her at Louisville’s Humana Festival 11 years earlier; he’s also enraged that Walter not only is marrying someone—much less Nell—so soon after the early death from cancer of his wife, Kathy, but that he’s brought Nell with him on this visit. Kathy, a successful actress, was Elliott’s beloved sister, whom he regarded as his soulmate. Susie, Kathy’s daughter, also resents Nell’s intrusion and treats the woman rudely, although Nell is much more decent than others care to recognize.

Mr. Margulies allows these ingredients to stew as the characters renew old acquaintances or begin new ones, with plot lines involving Michael’s humanitarian work in Africa; his loveless—but far from sexless—love life and brief attraction to Nell (which culminates during the very funny conclusion of a power outage); Elliott’s attempt to rekindle what he imagines to have been a love affair with Nell; the reading by the characters of Elliott’s first play (his acting career in a shambles, he’s chosen playwriting as his new métier); and the disastrous aftermath of that reading when the tenaciously defensive Elliott seeks feedback.

Mr. Margulies’s dialogue is always crisp, convincing, and clever, suiting his characters and making their conversations entertaining. But the real fun in a play like this is the impression it gives that you’re overhearing real show people talk about the things that real show people talk about. Susie’s deconstruction of Michael’s status as an actor, and what people seek in a star, is one example; another is Walter’s  critique of Elliott’s playwriting aspirations, and his response to Elliott’s condemnation of him for “selling out” as an artist in order to make commercially successful schlock. The confrontation between Walter and Elliott, in fact, even though it doesn’t include Ms. Danner, the putative star, is the liveliest scene in the play, made vivid by the vitriolic dynamics of Mr. Rasche and Mr. Lange.

The play’s three acts, with one intermission, play out over a little more than two hours in John Lee Beatty’s classic iteration of the kind of realistically homey set he does so well, with its cutaway peaked wooden roof, upstage staircase, and down center couch. Peter Kaczorowski’s lights (especially during a fierce thunderstorm and blackout) and Rita Ryack’s costumes, supplemented by Peter Golub’s original music and Obadiah Eaves’s sound design (that storm again), give the show the Broadway gloss it requires.

THE COUNTRY HOUSE has a tendency to meander, and sometimes seems more like a collection of scenes than a fully integrated play, but, as directed by Daniel Sullivan, it gives the ensemble plenty of opportunities to shine, although you have to wait a bit for Ms. Danner to have her big moments. Elliott’s bitchiness, which annoys everyone on stage, eventually threatens to irk even the poor ticket-buying eavesdroppers, and too many moments, especially the closing ones, tend to drag, but, if you're in the mood for a pleasant, old-fashioned, throwback evening on Broadway, with a still glowing star leading the way, THE COUNTRY HOUSE’s doors are open for you to enter.

93. Review of JACUZZI (October 22, 2014)

93. JACUZZI

 

For my review of JACUZZI, please visit THE  BROADWAY BLOG: http://thebroadwayblog.com/2014/10/24/11284-review-Jacuzzi

 

 

92. Review of THE FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE (October 19, 2014)

92. THE FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE

 

For my review of THE FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE please visit THEATER PIZZAZZ:  

http://www.theaterpizzazz.com/fortress-solitude/

 

 

91. Review of ON THE TOWN (October 21, 2014)

91. ON THE TOWN

1944 Playbill for ON THE TOWN.

1971 Playbill for ON THE TOWN.




1998 Playbill for ON THE TOWN.



Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls: it’s my critical duty to inform you that a XXX-rated revival of Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden, and Adolph Green’s ON THE TOWN has opened on Broadway, and that those X’s stand for eXtraordinary, eXhilarating, and eXultant! Or should that be eXceptional, eXtravagant, and eXciting? Or maybe eXemplary, eXquisite, and eXuberant? Or . . . well, you can pick your own X words, but as long as they eXpress eXtreme eXcellence, you’ll be describing this eXpert resuscitation of a show that premiered during Christmas week 1944, ran 462 performances, and was later revived on Broadway in 1971 and 1998 (a production that began at the Delacorte in Central Park). The current production was born at the Barrington Stage Company in the Berkshires of Massachusetts.

2014 Playbill for ON THE TOWN.

Since I agree with the many critics who, if they had ten thumbs, would have thrust them all skywards, I’ll comment as briefly as possible on the awesome elements that make this show so distinctive. Afterward, I’ll offer a little history lesson about the show’s premiere production. First, there’s the casting, which couldn’t be better, from the three sailors around whose exploits the show revolves, down to the glorious ensemble, which is required to play many roles, each with different costumes and wigs. I can barely imagine the controlled chaos that must prevail backstage.



From left: Jay Armstrong Johnson, Tony Yazbeck, Clyde Alves. Photo: Joan  Marcus.

The three gobs on the town are in the hands, voices, feet, and hearts of three tremendously talented artists, each of whom can really act, dance, and sing; their dancing chops allow those scenes normally restricted to choreographed movement to soar into the terpsichorean blue yonder. Tony Yazbek is Gabey—the sweetly innocent gob who falls in love with a subway poster of Miss Turnstiles and gets his two buddies, Chip (Jay Armstrong Johnson) and Ozzie (Clyde Alves), to spend their 24 hours of wartime shore leave New York finding her; he gives one of those Broadway breakout performances that shout “a star is born.” Reeking masculine sex appeal (wait for his shirtless dream ballet), he not only dances like Baryshnikov but can sing like Brian Stokes Mitchell. Mr. Johnson is a deftly acrobatic and comedic Chip, while Mr. Alves, as the girl-hungry Ozzie, could give Gene Kelly a run for his money.

 

The divine Megan Fairchild plays Ivy Smith, the Miss Turnstiles Gabey longs for; Ms. Fairchild’s background as principal dancer with the New York City Ballet has prepared her for the show’s many dancing chores, which she performs with superlative beauty and grace (especially that stunning dream ballet), while Alysha Umphress as the burlesque-tinged, plumply pulchritudinous, erotically supercharged, brassily engaging taxi driver, Hildy, who hooks up with Chip, offers a hilarious counterpart to Ms. Fairchild’s ethereal loveliness. As Claire De Loon, the anthropologist who finds romance with Ozzie in the shadow of a Museum of Natural History dinosaur (which also gets to dance!), Elizabeth Stanley, makes her every moment on stage both sexy and sensational. Jackie Hoffman, in several roles, but especially as the alcoholic singing teacher Maude P. Dilly, exudes laugh-out-loud comedy from every gin-soaked pore. Allison Guinn as Hildy’s homely friend, Lucy Schmeeler, and Michael Rupert as Claire’s distinguished boyfriend, Pitkin, a gray-haired judge who “understands” everything (until he doesn’t), are equally seamless in their comic turns.

Megan Fairchild. Photo: Joan Marcus.

John Rando’s flawlessly rambunctious, consistently energetic, and dazzlingly inventive direction, supplemented by the remarkably fresh and creative choreography of Joshua Bergasse (who succeeds in matching, if not outdoing, the original choreography of Jerome Robbins), make this revival into something unexpectedly rich and vibrant. There are dozens of thrilling moments to relish but, if I were threatened with being run down by a speeding cab, I guess I’d choose “Come Up to My Place,” imagined as a wild taxi ride through the canyons of New York, captured in Beowulf Borritt’s brilliant projections, as Hildy steers crazily and Chip flies every which way, courtesy of a trick car seat that deserves an award for doing what you might have thought possible only in an animated movie. The original orchestration, best known for only a single song, “New York, New York,” (the Bronx is up, and the Battery’s down), played by a 28-piece orchestra with musical direction by James Moore (who also conducts), has never sounded better. Mr. Borritt’s gorgeously evocative sets and projections, the miraculous lighting of Jason Lyons, the vivid period costumes of Jess Goldstein, and the impressive contributions of so many others, make it imperative that you see this terrific revival. Did I like it? All of my ten thumbs are up!

From left: Jay Armstrong Johnson, Alysha Umphress, Tony Yazbeck, Elizabeth Stanley, Clyde Alves. Photo: Joan Marcus.

Now for a little history. The 1944-1945 season already had a memorable parade of hits—including SONG OF NORWAY, ANNA LUCASTA, BLOOMER GIRL, I REMEMBER MAMA, HARVEY, THE LATE GEORGE APLEY, and DEAR RUTH—when ON THE TOWN arrived on December 28. It was the first Broadway show for the team of composer Bernstein and librettist-lyricists Adolph Green and Betty Comden, each of whom would become musical theatre icons. Their contributions here included such songs as the above-mentioned “New York, New York” and “Come Up to My Place,” as well as “Carried  Away,” “Lonely Town,” “I Can Cook, Too,” “Lucky to Be Me,” and “Some Other Time.” Comden and Green also proved their worth as performers, with the attractive Comden playing Claire de Loon and Green essaying Ozzie, whose dancing was limited (as in the 1949, film, where Jules Munshin played Ozzie, Frank Sinatra was Chip, and Gene Kelly was Gabey). The pair joined the show at Bernstein’s urging to replace the original lyricist, John Latouche.

Jay Armstrong Johnson, Alysha Umphress. Photo: Joan Marcus.

During the time the show was being written, Bernstein and Green needed operations, the former for a deviated septum, the latter for tonsillitis, so they saved time by going into the same hospital at the same time so they could collaborate in their room while recuperating. Wrote Joan Peyser in her biography, Bernstein: “It was quite a scene in that hospital room—rather like a Marx Brothers movie. Radios blared. Arguments accelerated over card games. Pieces of ON THE TOWN were sung full voice. But they did a lot of work.” Comden and Green were initially opposed to the show’s title and to its three-sailor theme, thinking the result would be too close to a grade-B movie.
 

Although ostensibly based on “Fancy Free,” a well-received 1944 ballet choreographed by Jerome Robbins and composed by Bernstein about three gobs on leave and trying to pick up girls in New York, the show used none of Bernstein’s melodies or Robbins’s dances from that piece, and the composer insisted that the two works were quite different, only the three sailors concept tying them together. The original cast had John Battles as Gabey (replacing the still unknown Kirk Douglas, of all people, because Douglas couldn’t sing—nor dance, it might be added) and Chip was Cris Alexander (better known as a celebrity photographer). Battles’s other major Broadway musical role was in ALLEGRO, which will soon open in a revival at the CSC, so perhaps someone should commemorate his contributions (he died in 2009).

The book was generally dismissed as insignificant but few denied its cleverness and effectiveness within the framework of the show’s premise. Much pleasure was gained from its frequent satiric sallies at aspects of New York life and culture. Lewis Nichols in the New York Times celebrated the show’s arrival by noting: “Everything about it is right. It is fast and is gay, it takes neither itself nor the world too seriously, it has wit. Its dances are well paced, its players are a pleasure to see, and its music and backgrounds are both fitting and excellent.” Much the same could be said of the current revival. John Mason Brown in the Saturday Review reveled in what he regarded as a masterpiece of innovation, a show that was to the urban landscape what OKLAHOMA! was to the rural.

As originally written, the script called for the scenes to be tied together by a prologue in night court, a locale to which the action would periodically return. The writers loved the concept but director Abbott hated it, and early on told them that the prologue and flashbacks would have to go. Green was enraged and he and Comden fought with Abbott to retain the material, to which he responded, says Peyser, with: “OK. I’ll tell you what. You can have either me or the prologue.” Abbott stayed, the prologue, etc., went, along with other cuts before the script was finished.

Especially noteworthy was how effectively Robbins had brought the art of ballet to Broadway dance (this was his Broadway debut as a musical comedy choreographer). His dances, said Rosamond Gilder of Theatre Arts, proved him “adept in the art of translating ordinary, insignificant events and gestures into the poetic idiom of the dance.” One of his most distinctive creations, Gilder declared, was the subway scene, with the movement of the throng of workers and gum-chewing secretaries gradually blending into dance. “The rhythm of the moving train, picked up by the music, is accentuated little by little in one swaying figure, then another, and finally bursts into a pattern of movement that embraces the whole stage, bursting the confines of realism and becoming an expression of all the weariness, hurry and passion for escape with which every clattering subway train is laden.” Robbins, quoted in Otis L. Guernsey’s Broadway Song and Dance, later commented: “One of the important things in the show that was not noted was the mixed chorus. It was predominantly white, but there were four black dancers—and, for the first time, they danced with the whites, not separately, in social dancing. We had some trouble with that in some of the cities we went to.” There are only two black dancers (Julius Carter and Tanya Birl) in the current revival, although there’s an Asian American dancer, Christopher Vo, and the black singer-actor Phillip Boykin makes a powerful impression in several supporting roles.

Bernstein’s music was not universally approved, but most critics would have agreed with E.C. Sherburne of the Christian Science Monitor: “The varieties of his rhythms, his satirical tonal embroideries, and the surprises offered by his vaulting rhythms leave the listener startled with the realization that he made it, like the man on the flying trapeze.”

Every principal actor came in for accolades, but most highly acclaimed was dancer Sono Osato as Miss Turnstiles. “She manages,” wrote John Mason Brown, “to combine the cool beauty of Sorine’s ‘Pavlova’ with a sense of humor subtler than Fannie Brice’s, but Brice-like in its contagious qualities. Miss Osato is a young person, arresting and brilliantly endowed, who is already a personage.” Despite being the daughter of a Japanese man and a woman of French-Irish-Canadian descent, she was cast in a Caucasian role, this being a daring example of early nontraditional casting, especially since it was right in the midst of this country’s war with Japan and while her father was in an internment camp. Ms. Osato, by the way, is still alive at 95, and one wonders if anyone will make the effort to bring her to the show, provided she’s able and interested. What a publicity coup that would be!

My theatre companion at the revival was my dear friend, Mimi Turque Marre, who in 1945 was a little girl from Brooklyn named Mimi Strongin playing the child’s role of Bessie in the original production of CAROUSEL, at the Majestic Theatre on W. 44th Street. CAROUSEL was produced when the original ON THE TOWN was still running at the Adelphi, ten blocks uptown; during its run ON THE TOWN migrated to the now gone 44th Street Theatre, just across from the Majestic, where it was that playhouse’s last production, before it moved on to the Martin Beck (now the Al Hirschfeld).

At the beginning of ON THE TOWN, a large 48-starred American flag is projected on a scrim and the audience stands to sing the national anthem. Mimi, a Broadway musical theatre veteran (FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, KISS OF THE SPIDERWOMAN, etc.), let fly with a still thrilling voice that had spectators turning to see where it was coming from. I felt privileged to be singing alongside this part of Broadway history, and to see that Mimi’s still a helluva gal and ON THE TOWN’s still a helluva show!

 Note: The historical information in this review is based on material in my Encyclopedia of the New York Stage, 1940-1950.

 

90. Review of SIGNAL FAILURE (October 20, 2014)

90. SIGNAL FAILURE

Spencer Cowan, Sasha Ellen. Photo: Natalya Chagrin.

 

SIGNAL FAILURE, by Sasha Ellen, is a reasonably well-written but quickly disposable, hour-long British import about two lonely young Londoners finding love through social media, but not, interestingly enough, the Internet, the usual foundation for tales of romance in the age of technology. Now playing  at the Soho Playhouse, this is one of those plays that depends largely—although, thankfully, not entirely—on characters who tell you what they’re doing and thinking, rather than dramatizing it directly in action and dialogue. Recent examples include PORT AUTHORITY and BOYS AND GIRLS, not to mention A.R. Gurney’s LOVE LETTERS (in which all the lines are read from correspondence). Only about halfway through do the two characters, Lorna (Sasha Ellen, who also wrote the play) and Brian (Spencer Cowan), break into dialogue, after which both dialogue and direct address are heard. The play, reportedly a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, is the kind of thing you’d expect to see in Theater C at 59E59 during its annual Brits Off Broadway series. On Vandam Street, though, it seems to be having trouble filling seats.

Brian’s a chef on late night duty who occupies himself while riding the Underground to and from work by watching how some passengers signal their potential interest in others, but endure the usual missed connections. He discovers a sort of personals column in a daily tabloid that prints messages from such people in the hope the people that they’re eying will read them and reach out. Still depressed by the loss of his girlfriend, whose fate is revealed later on, he begins to play Cupid by submitting messages to see—in a sort of proto-stalker way—how his meddling plays out. He’s thrilled when one of his matches succeeds, but wants to hide when those he’s encouraged encounter “epic” failures.  

Lorna’s a cute office worker, closely attached via the phone to her Mum, who’s equally interested in observing passenger behavior. When Lorna also discovers the column, she starts watching for the people she thinks are thus making contact, and even begins seeking a note that might be aimed at her. Brian notices her constant presence at the places where potential connections are to be made, suspecting at first that she may be a reporter on his trail. One thing leads to another, Brian and Lorna become lovers, she unwittingly learns more about him than she bargained for, the affair crashes, and then . . . well, you don’t need me to tell you what follows.

Ms. Ellen’s lines, with their occasional British lingo and references, are enjoyably bouncy, but her boy meets girl, etc., trope is predictable, the breakup is too contrived, and the secrets each lover has been withholding are not particularly original. The production is about as low-budget as possible, and, while one can accept a set used for multiple locales while composed only of two large boxes and a door-like board (to create a bed for the inevitable romps in the sack), the rather ugly, cheap-looking, canvas backdrop (no set designer is credited), showing graffiti-scrawled walls, should have been left at home. Fortunately, Sherry Koenen’s barebones lighting design makes the most of its limitations. 

Ms. Ellen and Mr. Cowan are personable and believable, each working their charm vibes to the max, although Mr. Cowan—vaguely reminiscent of a young Damian Lewis—tends to overdo his ingratiating smiles and tendency to run his hand through his unkempt hair. Their vehicle, however, mildly endearing as it is, lacks the sparkle and wit to stand out in a crowded New York season.

88. Review of THE BELLE OF AMHERST (October 17, 2014)

88. THE BELLE OF AMHERST

For my review of THE BELLE OF AMHERST, starring Joely Richardson, please visit THE BROADWAY BLOG: http://thebroadwayblog.com/2014/10/20/11262-review-the-belle-of-amherst

 

 

 
 
 

 

 



 

 

87. Review of FOUND (October 16, 2014)

87. FOUND

 

 

As I walked to the subway from the Linda Gross Theater, home to the Atlantic Theater Company’s production of the new musical FOUND, I had to restrain myself from picking up the stray pieces of paper spilling from the trash cans along Eighth Avenue. After all, I’d just seen a show whose raison d’être is the jottings on such detritus, be they napkins, postcards, notebook pages, Post-its, envelopes, letterheads, or even barf bags—that is, anything onto which pen, pencil, crayon, magic marker, lipstick, typewriter, computer printer, or whatever can leave a written impression.

FOUND is based on the experiences of Davy Rothbart, a Chicagoan who, in 2001, founded (no pun intended) a magazine called Found devoted to publishing just such found trash. These experiences have been turned by book writers Hunter Bell and Lee Overtree (who also directed, wonderfully)—with additional material provided by Story Pirates—into a semibiographical tale  about the magazine’s birth and growing pains, as well Davy’s personal dilemmas. Someone else will have to explain how much is truth, how much fiction.

From left: Andrew Call, Nick Blaemire. Photo: Kevin Thomas Garcia.

It all starts on a day during which Davy (Nick Blaemire, appealing) not only is fired from his job at an alternative newspaper but is also mugged and can’t start his car; then, thinking the paper on his windshield is a ticket, he sees that it’s actually a mistakenly placed note to and from total strangers:

MARIO, I FUCKING HATE YOU,

YOU SAID YOU HAD TO WORK—

THEN WHY’S YOUR CAR HERE AT HER PLACE?

YOU’RE A FUCKING LIAR I HATE YOU

I FUCKING HATE YOU. AMBER

PS PAGE ME LATER

 

Davy, unable to find a job, finds more discarded notes and he and his friends/roommates, Mikey D (Daniel Everidge, so good in FALLING, impressive), a bearish, bearded, gay guy, and Denise (Barrett Wilbert Weed, recently of HEATHERS: THE MUSICAL, memorable), a hip bartender, decide to self-publish a magazine devoted to their growing trove. Davy’s mantra is to find a job he loves doing, with people he loves, so the magazine fills a big hole in his heart and psyche, and provides a theme—hackneyed as it is—for all other unconventional strivers. Davy also discovers that reading other people’s most intimate thoughts makes him feel less alone in the world.

 

From left: Daniel Everidge, Andrew Call, Nick Blaemire, Orville Mendoza. Photo: Kevin Thomas Garcia.

A public reading of their discarded literary remains at Denise’s bar leads to the unlikely meeting between Davy and Kate (Betsy Morgan, spot on), an attractive wannabe TV producer who just happens to have been the writer of one of the notes Davy reads; the note, about her wish to bequeath her skull to a boy she loves, is something he found in a thrift shop book. Kate placed it there when she was in the seventh grade. (Hey, this is musical comedy, not Arthur Miller.)

 

From left: Daniel Everidge, Nick Blaemire, Betsy Morgan, Barrett Wilbert Weed. Photo: Kevin Thomas Garcia.

The readings grow into a tour organized by Denise, and soon there are radio interviews and, through the ambitious Kate’s machinations, a shot at a reality TV series—a la “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” But, as in so many plays, movies, and books about friends creating a mutual enterprise, disagreements arise, the air is fouled, and disappointment follows. Not to worry, things in musical comedy always work out for the best. As per the dramatic situations textbook, the play follows the formula of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finds girl (or at least seems likely to), with the conventional inclusion of a femme fatale to make it even more familiar. Again, this is comfort theatre, not DEATH OF A SALESMAN.

 

The plot’s predictability, however, isn’t as important as the exceedingly clever way in which everything has been stitched together to create an evening’s divertissement. As Davy, Denise, Mickey D, and Kate move through their tale of triumph, betrayal, idealism, disenchantment, and redemption the many characters they encounter are splendidly incarnated by a perfectly coordinated ensemble of actor-singer-dancers in the versatile persons of Christina Anthony, Andrew Call, Orville Mendoza, Molly Pope, Danny Pudi, and Sandy Rustin.

 

The notes that form the show’s premise become subtextual messages that different members of the ensemble introduce by constantly popping in from the wings to speak them as the original scraps are projected just as they looked when discovered—bad spelling, garbled handwriting, quirky typography, and soiled paper notwitstanding. Notes that are often non sequiturs take on specific meanings when placed in the proper dramatic context; some are funny, some mildly amusing, and others little more than filler. Without the brilliantly imaginative, award-worthy projections of Darrel Maloney, which are often as animated as the performers, this show would lose half its charm.  

 

Not all the notes are used as commentaries on the action, by the way; one, mentioning a fifth-grade class’s misbehavior at a school performance of “Johnny Tremain,” about the Revolutionary War, is used as an excuse for a farcical reimagining of what that misbehavior might have been. A cassette tape with each number having something to do with “booties” gives rise to a funny, rap-influenced sequence.

 

Mr. Overtree’s seamlessly inventive and briskly-paced staging (not to mention the witty interpretations of the notes he elicits from the ensemble), combined with Monica Bill Barnes’s engaging and inventive choreography, make FOUND a constant pleasure to watch; still, in two acts running two hours and 15 minutes, the show stretches its thin material to the point of breaking.

 

Fortunately, the music and original lyrics by Eli Bolin are consistently listenable and likable, ranging in style through all the pop genres, from country to rock to hip-hop to standard ballad. Around half the 28 songs’ lyrics are original, the others taken directly from their sources. Mr. Bolin succeeds in taking words never meant to be sung and adding music to them in a way that makes them remarkably effective.

 

David Korins’s neutral set—a curving wall covered in scraps of paper, and separated into discrete sections for entrances and exits—provides the needed flexibility for an episodic story that ranges freely from locale to locale. Chairs and tables are quickly brought on and off as needed; the dark wooden floor has small pits—two at either side—for the musicians. Justin Townsend's terrific lighting marks him as someone to watch. 

 

Like all those notes it memorializes, it may not be perfect, but many will be glad they found FOUND.