A Seat on the Aisle...

Broadway: Macbeth

2013-05-21T12:19:00.002-04:00

Alan Cumming in MACBETH.

What Shakespeare had to say about life itself might just as well have been said of the entire production of Macbeth currently being staged on Broadway at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre:

“[It] is…a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

To be sure, the show is a hit, as attested to by the multitude of well-deserved curtain calls that the audience’s standing ovation demanded of Alan Cumming, the play’s star. Mr. Cumming is undeniably an extraordinary actor who does a brilliant job playing the role of a mental patient who, in turn, acts out the entirety of Macbeth, playing virtually all of its roles himself. It is a truly bravura performance and Cumming deserves all the praise he has received. But the gnawing question remains: What was the point?

It’s as if a great ballerina were to perform a series of acrobatic stunts on stage or an opera star were to spend an evening mimicking the voices of pop singers. It might be fun to watch, it might even represent an exhibition of considerable talent. But it wouldn’t be ballet or opera.

And so it is here. This show is, in essence, a wonderful entertainment and a splendid example of Mr. Cumming’s considerable talent, but it is not a great production of Macbeth. So if you’re just out for an evening of fun and are turned on by unusual schticks, this show may be just what you’re looking for. But if, like me, you prefer your Shakespeare straight, it might not be your cup of tea.

All of which has prompted me to pen this bit of doggerel:

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers…

But watching Alan Cumming consumes hours….

The Scottish play

Now on Broadway

And starring Alan Cumming

Is a tour de force

Of Macbeth, of course -

And is totally mind-numbing

‘Twas not enough

He played Macduff,

Macbeth and Duncan too.

He played the witches

(And dropped his britches)

Just for me and you.

Now I must admit

The show’s a hit

And Cumming is the reason.

His acting’s great,

He’s just first-rate –

A man for every season.

He’s here, he’s there,

He’s everywhere…

In back, and now in front.

Yes, it is fun

But when it’s done,

It still seems just a stunt.

Off Off Broadway: The Balcony

2013-05-20T08:45:00.002-04:00

L-R: Zoe Watkins, Francesco Andolfi, and Carlotta Brentan in THE BALCONY. Photo by Richard Termine.

By 1949, Jean Genet, had been dishonorably discharged from the French Foreign Legion, had bummed around Europe as a petty thief and male prostitute, and had been incarcerated on ten separate occasions. His convictions had been for minor legal infractions including theft, vagrancy, use of false papers, lewd acts, et al. but, under French law, the number of his convictions still put him at risk of being sentenced to life imprisonment. Fortunately for Genet, however, Jean-Paul Sartre, Pablo Picasso, Jacques Cocteau, and a host of other cultural icons at that time were so impressed with his literary brilliance that they successfully petitioned the President of France to set aside his sentence, enabling him to continue to pursue a literary (and politically activist) career as a free man.

Genet wrote several versions of The Balcony (arguably his best play) in the late 1950s and early 1960s but the shortened version best known to American theatre goers is that based on the English translation by Bernard Frechtman that was first staged at Circle in the Square Theatre in New York and directed by Jose Quintero in 1960. That version of the play was set in an upscale brothel in an unnamed country (inspired by Franco’s Spain), in which the brothel’s clients played the roles of powerful individuals (an army general, a bishop, a judge) while their real life counterparts were engaged in a revolutionary uprising in the city’s streets.

Horizon Theatre Rep’s current revival of The Balcony at The Access Theatre in downtown Manhattan sticks pretty close to that scenario (although it has been re-set with the furnishings of an upscale hotel suite rather than those more typical of a bordello and has been re-interpreted to reflect the economically inspired demonstrations currently taking place throughout the Euro Zone rather than the Spanish Civil War.) The play’s dominant figure is still the brothel madam, Irma (Maria Wolf) who directs all the performances in her house of mirrors, fantasies, role-playing and illusions- and does so superbly. And her principal clients are still The Bishop (Jacopo Rampini) who forgives a sinner, Carmen (Kimmie Solomon); The Judge (Zoe Watkins) who punishes a thief (Carlotta Brentan) with the assistance of the Executioner (Francesco Andolfi); and The General (Jon Okabayashi) who rides his horse (Alison Paula Campbell) – all of whom turn in fine performances.

It is within this context that Genet explores the dual issues of (1) dominance/submission (both for individuals and for classes within society) and (2) reality/illusion (issues which have engaged him in most of his other works as well). Here these issues come to a head when the Queen’s Envoy (Carlo Giuliano) comes to report that the “real” Bishop, Judge, and General have been killed in the uprising and their “fake” brothel counterparts attempt to assume their roles; when the Envoy also reports that the Queen is nowhere to be found and Irma resolves to play her role; when Chantal (Ines Lucas), one of the brothel’s whores, leaves to inspire the revolution; and when The Chief of Police (Rafael De Mussa, who also directed the play) arrives to establish some sort of control but, even more, to seek some form of illusionary immortality for himself.

Genet’s plays generally are staged in highly stylized, almost surrealistic fashion, and that is what I had expected from this revival. But that is not what I got – which may have surprised me but certainly did not disappoint me. Indeed, this was a more realistic rendition of The Balcony than I’ve been accustomed to seeing - from the television set presumably depicting street riots in real time to the hotel suite’s accoutrements - but it probably made for a greater clarity in coming to grips with the geopolitical problems confronting today’s world and that, after all, is just what I think Horizon Theatre Rep and De Mussa were aiming at.

Off Off Broadway: Some Girl(s)

2013-05-05T13:52:00.000-04:00

Kirk Gostkowski and Ashleigh Murray in SOME GIRL(S). Photo by Olivia Nolan.

Variations Theatre Group (VTG) is closing out its fourth season with a bang – a wonderful revival of Neil LaBute’s Some Girl(s) at the Chain Theatre in Long Island City. That, of course, came to me as no surprise: back in 2009-10, VTG’s initial production of another Neil LaBute play, The Shape of Things, starring Kirk Gostkowski and directed by Rich Ferraioli (VTG’s co-founders and co-Artistic Directors), blew me away. And VTG’s subsequent revivals of Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love and Arthur Miller’s After the Fall (both also directed by Ferraioli and starring Gostkowski) were equally impressive. So with Gostkowski starring in Some Girl(s) and Farraioli producing (even if not directing this one), my expectations were understandably high. And I was not disappointed.

What did surprise me though is that, despite the consistent excellence of its productions, VTG remains one of the best kept theatrical secrets in the New York area. Indeed, at the performance of Some Girl(s) that I attended, there were fewer occupied seats than empty ones. Maybe parochial Manhattan theatre goers are simply reluctant to make the short hop across the river into Long Island City, even for the best of reasons (I know I was at first) and, if so, that is unfortunately their loss.

The story line of Some Girl(s) is simple and direct: Guy (Kirk Gostkowski), a successful teacher and aspiring writer, has just gotten engaged but, before getting married, he has decided to look up his ex-girlfriends and attempt to make amends to them for any injuries he might have caused them in their earlier relationships. To that end, he arranges to meet each of them in a hotel room in her home town. The ex-girlfriends are a predictable lot and the manner of Guy’s prior use, abuse and/or abandonment of them turns out to have been similarly unsurprising.

Sam (Amber Bogdewiecz) was Guy’s Seattle high school sweetheart who he dumped just before the prom. Tyler (Ashleigh Murray) was his sexually adventurous partner in Chicago. Lindsay (Kathryn Neville Brown) was the older married college professor with whom he took up as a graduate student in Boston. And Bobbi (Jill Durso) may have been the only woman he ever truly loved (although maybe that was really her twin sister, Billi, that he loved after all). Of course he had assured each and every one of them that she was “the one” and perhaps he even meant it at the time he said it but, what really comes across is that, to Guy, women are a pretty fungible commodity and his own hedonist selfishness is so extreme that their feelings never even enter into his considerations.

Each of Guy’s exes, in her own way, does an exceptional job of expressing her ambivalent attitudes toward her former lover. Sam has married, has become a mother, and has gotten on with her life, but her nuanced performance suggests that the damage Guy did to her never fully healed. Tyler exudes sexuality but she uses her sex as a scalpel, as if to suggest to Guy just what he might have lost by abandoning her. Lindsay, who may be the most unforgiving of the lot, uses her sex to torment Guy as well, but more as a sledge than a scalpel. And it is Bobbi who succeeds in torturing him with words, rather than her sexuality, who brings about his ultimate denouement – if, indeed, that is what it is.

But why has Guy acted so out of character in seeking to atone for his past sins? Well, as it turns out, there may have been more to his apparently aberrant behavior than first met the eye.

The play is set in a series of nearly identical hotel rooms in Seattle, Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles, the only characteristics distinguishing one room from another being the different paintings on the walls, all having been created by Stephanie Ferraioli (the show’s Scenic Artist and Rich Ferraioli’s wife). The interchangability of the rooms (other than for the paintings) sharply underscores the fungibility of the women in Guy’s life as he perceives them.

When LaBute first wrote this play, those were all of the characters in it but, sometime after it was first produced, he decided that something was missing and added another scene with one more character, Reggie, the kid sister of Guy’s childhood friend. The scene with Reggie is an add-on – the play can be performed with or without it – but LaBute has suggested that a “daring” theatre company might attempt it. Since VTG’s “goal is to produce intellectually engaging, muscular theatre” and since it defines “muscular theatre” as “strong, visceral language that elicits from the audience the experience of live raw emotion,” it is not surprising that it opted to include the add-on scene with the Reggie character (Jaclyn Sokol).

Personally, I would have preferred if that character and scene had been omitted. I found Guy’s past relationship to the twelve-year-old Reggie to be gratuitously jarring and disturbing and one that was not at all necessary for our understanding of Guy’s persona as an adult. But that is not to be taken as a criticism of Sokol’s performance in any way: indeed, I thought that the emotional depth of her performance was extraordinary. I just would have preferred if LaBute had never written her role into the play in the first place or, given that he did, if VTG had chosen to produce the play without that add-on scene.

But that is a minor quibble. Overall this is an excellent production, right up there with the rest of VTG’s shows. It’s well worth a trip across the river.

Off Broadway: Love Therapy

2013-04-30T08:23:00.000-04:00

L-R: Alison Fraser and Janet Zarish in LOVE THERAPY. Photo by Kevin Thomas Garcia.

Love Therapy by Wendy Beckett, now premiering at the DR2 Theatre in downtown Manhattan, is just 85 minutes long without an intermission – or perhaps a few minutes longer if we one includes the time in which the audience sits wondering whether or not the play truly has ended. And, indeed, it is not until the cast emerges on stage to take their curtain calls that one really can be sure that the play is over.

This is more of an idea for a play than a fully realized one. Ms. Beckett has drawn several bright lines delineating the play’s major themes – including the search for “authenticity,” the limitations of love and sympathy in seeking therapeutic solutions to life’s crises, and the conflict that exists between playing by the rules and giving vent to one’s emotions – and she does a fine job of coloring in the areas between the lines. But one never can be sure that the colors used were the right ones and that it’s all not a pack of lies to begin with.

Colleen Fitzgerald (Margot White) is a psychologist and marriage counselor who believes that successful therapeutic results can only be achieved through a combination of “authenticity” and “love” on the part of the therapist, and who is more than willing to bend, if not break, the rules of her profession to that end. Her patients (or “clients” as she prefers to refer to them) include Steven Jones (David Bishins), a womanizer who has been referred to Colleen by his wife; Brian Beatie (Christopher Burns), an angry and violent man whose business is more important to him than is his marriage; and Mary (Janet Zarish), who is suffering from severe depression in the wake of the loss of both her daughter and her husband.

David claims to support mistresses (which he suggests is the reason his wife has urged him to go into marriage counseling) but not to frequent prostitutes, although he subsequently reveals that his wife herself was once a prostitute and, anyway, it might not have been his infidelities but rather the loss of a child that prompted him to seek Colleen’s help in the first place. Or, for all we know, none of that may be true. Additionally, David initially contends that he does not find Colleen at all attractive – she’s just not his type – which is one reason that he chose her to be his therapist. As matters develop, that turns out to be blatantly untrue, and it is Colleen’s relationship with him that ultimately threatens her professional career.

Brian is an overtly misogynistic, angry, and violent man, willing to accede to a divorce from his wife if that won’t entail his having to sell his company. Colleen is aware of his violent nature but fails to take any action in light of it which, the audience is led to assume, may have led to serious adverse consequences for his wife. Or maybe not. Again we really are left in the dark.

Mary, Colleen’s most deranged “client,” recently lost her adult daughter in a car crash, the car having been driven by Mary’s husband, which explains Mary’s depression and Colleen’s willingness to violate the rules of her profession by involving herself in the dispensation of drugs to Mary in a misguided but compassionate attempt to alleviate Mary’s misery.. Mary’s husband died, too, but the circumstances of his death are less clear – which leaves us with yet another mystery to unravel.

And there even are some mysteries involving Colleen herself. Her abilities as a marriage counselor apparently didn’t extend to her own life: she is a divorcee. And if it was her childhood that made her what she is today, what exactly is that anyway? Is she a woman who loves too much or one who is unable to love at all?

And that about sums up the play’s strengths and weaknesses. On the plus side, it is rife with mysteries, uncertainties, and surprises, just the stuff of which fine plays are made. But on the negative side, it never fully resolves the questions it raises, and so it ultimately comes across as disappointingly incomplete.

The only other characters in the play are Carol (also played by Janet Zarish), Colleen’s supervisor and mentor who appreciates and respects Colleen’s somewhat unorthodox therapeutic methods but who, at the same time, is trying to protect Colleen from herself; and Madge (Alison Fraser), a simple Irish waitress who exhibits more common sense in dealing with psychologically damaged individuals than do most trained professionals. And, ironically, while Ms. White, Mr. Bishins and Mr. Burns perform admirably in their respective roles, I was especially impressed by Ms. Zarish and Ms. Fraser in the roles of Carol/Mary and Madge, respectively. Ms. Zarish was particularly outstanding in her portrayal of the two diametrically different roles of Mary, a deranged depressive, at one moment, and as Carol, a self-assured therapist, the next.

Off Broadway: The Dance of Death

2013-04-20T19:18:00.000-04:00

L-R: Daniel Davis, Laila Robins and Derek Smith in THE DANCE OF DEATH. Photo by David Gersten & Associates, Carol Rosegg

In August Strindberg’s The Dance of Death, Edgar (Daniel Davis), Captain of an island fortress, and his wife, Alice (Laila Robins), a former actress prior to her marriage to Edgar, are on the verge of celebrating their silver wedding anniversary. The island once served as a prison but Edgar and Alice have created a more formidable prison of their own: the bonds of their nearly 25 years of dysfunctional married life, a life of mutual hatred, resentment, cruelty, prevarication, self-absorption and denial.

Edgar’s self-aggrandizement and delusions of grandeur border on solipsism. He claims to be in fine financial shape but can’t pay his bills. The fact that he never was promoted to major may rankle but he won’t admit it: he contends that he chose to turn down promotions when they were offered to him. His children have little use for him other than as a potential source of funds but he can’t face that. He has no friends and is unable to retain servants but does not see how any of that might be his own fault. In sum, if ever there is some aspect of life that he dislikes, he simply “blots it out.”

Alice is equally deranged. She fantasizes that she relinquished a promising career as an actress to marry Edgar when, in reality, she didn’t have much of a stage career to give up on to begin with. She has no better relationship with her children than Edgar has and she blames him for that. Nor does she take any personal responsibility for their lack of friends or loss of servants.

With that as backdrop, these two severely maladjusted individuals wreak havoc on one another in their interpersonal relations. In a way, they come across as lovers playing at consensual but dangerous sex games – who forgot their “safe word.” As a military man, Edgar seems to treat their relationship as some sort of “war game,” with Alice as the enemy. And as a former actress, Alice seems to want to force Edgar into the role of her doting audience. Indeed, compared to Edgar and Alice, Edward Albee’s George and Martha (from Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf) come off as little worse than Ralph and Alice Kramden of The Honeymooners.

When Gustav (Derek Smith), Alice’s cousin, shows up, matters quickly go from bad to worse. Now Gustav is assigned the role of Edgar’s enemy and of Alice’s audience. Gustav’s own personal life is in something of a shambles: he is divorced and estranged from his own children. He may at one time have been Edgar’s close friend; he may have been instrumental in getting Edgar and Alice together in the first place (at least Edgar blames him for that); and he and Alice may once have been, or may yet become, something more than just “kissing cousins.”

Red Bull Theater has just launched a fine production of The Dance of Death (in an excellent new highly stylized adaptation by Mike Poulton) at the Lucille Lortel Theatre on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village. Complications and surprises abound and all three of the play’s actors are up to the demands made of them. This play is certainly well worth seeing.

Off Broadway: Kafka's Monkey

2013-04-05T07:48:00.000-04:00

Kathryn Hunter in KAFKA'S MONKEY. Photo by Keith Pattison.

In A Report to an Academy by Franz Kafka, Red Peter, an ape captured on the Gold Coast of Africa by a German hunting party, eventually gains his release from captivity by learning to emulate human behavior to such a degree that, as he put it, he “reached the cultural level of an average European.” Which means that not only did he learn to spit, smoke, drink and speak but that he even learned to do a little soft shoe on the side! Subsequently asked to address a distinguished group on the subject of his prior life as an ape, Red Peter demurred, using the opportunity instead to expound on the human condition itself.

Kafka’s story has lent itself to various interpretations. It may be read as a commentary on man’s inflated sense of his own importance, oblivious to his true “ape-nature.” It may be seen as an attack on the arrogance of the scientific community in particular or on the self-proclaimed superiority of supposed “intellectuals” in general. One might focus on the illusory nature of “freedom” (Red Peter questions, for example, the “freedom” of trapeze artists to do anything other than what they have been choreographed to do in their rigidly structured routines and he makes a particular point of emphasizing that he never sought “freedom” for himself but only “a way out”). Thought may be given to the choices one must make in life when there appear to be no good choices at all (for Red Peter that came down to a choice between the Zoological Gardens and the variety stage). Some have read the play as addressing the issue of the exploitation of indigenous peoples under colonial regimes. And special emphasis has been placed on the story’s being a satirical treatment of the assimilation of Jews into European society (an insight which, to my mind, seems particularly valid since the story was first published in Der Jude, a Zionist magazine edited by Martin Buber).

These interpretations are not mutually exclusive, of course. Indeed, I think that there is merit to all of them which may well be what makes the story so gripping: it provokes us to think deeply not of only one issue but of very many.

Colin Teevan adapted Kafka’s story for the stage as Kafka’s Monkey and the play, starring Kathryn Hunter as Red Peter, opened at the Young Vic Theatre in London in 2009 to rave reviews. Now Theatre for a New Audience, in association with Baryshnikov Arts Center, has brought the play to the United States, where it is premiering at the Baryshnikov Arts Center on West 37th Street in midtown Manhattan.

The play itself is a fine adaptation of Kafka’s work and on the stage it is brought to life in a way that the printed page alone simply cannot accomplish. Less than an hour long, it is both dramatic and comedic, thought provoking and entertaining. But it is Ms Hunter’s solo performance as Red Peter that is truly extraordinary.

Dressed in white tie, tails and a bowler hat, but ambling on stage like a chimpanzee, Ms Hunter is neither man nor ape (or perhaps she is both), sometimes emphasizing the human aspect of her dual personality and at other times the simian. She cavorts about the stage, climbs the walls, contorts her body into positions one would have thought possible for an ape but not for one of our own species. She engages her audience, shaking hands with one audience member (as only an ape might shake hands) in a gesture of openness. She shares a banana with another She inveighs upon a third to safeguard her flask of rum. She grooms yet a fourth, delicately picking the lice from his hair!

And she provides the entire audience with a wonderful hour’s entertainment that will long be remembered and remarked upon as one of the high points of the theatrical stage.

Off Broadway: Good With People

2013-04-04T07:18:00.000-04:00

L-R: Andrew Scott-Ramsay and Blythe Duff in GOOD WITH PEOPLE. Photo by Carol Rosegg

David Harrower’s Good With People, an edgy, existential, hour-long, one-act, two-hander set in Helensburgh, Scotland, is currently enjoying its US premiere as part of the 2013 Brits Off Broadway festival at 59E59 Theaters on East 59th Street in midtown Manhattan. As the play begins, Evan (Andrew Scott-Ramsay) has just returned to Helensburgh, having spent the last seven years as a volunteer nurse in Pakistan. He checks into the Seaview Hotel, only to be confronted by Helen (Blythe Duff), the hotel’s receptionist and the mother of one of Evan’s former classmates. The sexual tension between the twenty-something Evan and the middle-aged Helen is evident from the get-go but so, too, are a number of other unresolved issues: the questionable relationship that existed between Evan and Helen’s son, Jack; the inherent conflict between residents of the town’s nuclear naval base (of which Evan was a member) and the town’s war protesters; Helen’s own strained marriage; and Helensburgh’s social class distinctions.

The play starts out in most promising fashion. The playwright has a wonderful ear for dialogue and the banter between Evan and Helen is highly charged. And the suggestions that there are strange mysteries to be solved – What, actually, did occur between Evan and Jack in the past and where is Jack now? Whatever prompted Evan to volunteer to become a Red Cross nurse in Pakistan in the first place? What really are Helen’s feelings for Evan? – all seem to portend an exciting theatrical experience in the offing.

Alas, it was not to be. The answers we ultimately receive turn out to be anti-climactic at best and trivial at worst. The play which seemed to promise explosive discoveries rapidly deflates and the simplest questions remain unanswered.

But if I was disappointed in the play itself, I certainly was not disappointed in the performances of Andrew Scott-Ramsey and Blythe Duff. They are both consummate professionals and, given the material they had to work with, they both do a very admirable job.

Off Off Broadway: The Tragedy of King Arthur by W. Shakespeare

2013-03-25T08:24:00.000-04:00

L-R: Jordan Kaplan, Eric Emil Oleson, Jacques Roy, and Tom Schwans inTHE TRAGEDY OF KING ARTHUR BY W. SHAKESPEARE. Photo by Debby Goldman.

Arthur Phillips is a true polymath: a one-time child actor, a jazz musician, a speechwriter, a five-time Jeopardy! champion, and a highly creative novelist with several bestsellers to his credit. His fifth book, The Tragedy of Arthur, was published to critical acclaim in 2011 and has since been adapted for the stage by Phillips as The Tragedy of King Arthur by W. Shakespeare. The Guerrilla Shakespeare Project is now presenting the off off Broadway world premiere of the play at TBG Theatre on West 36th Street in midtown Manhattan. And it is a truly first-rate professional production, well worth seeing.

The 367-page book that Phillips published in 2011 really was two books in one. Book One - the first 256 pages - were written as an “introduction” to The Tragedy of Arthur, a presumably long lost play by William Shakespeare that had just come to light. That “introduction” was presented as having been written by a novelist named “Arthur Phillips,” who bore such a strong resemblance to the real “Arthur Phillips” that it was tough to tell the two apart. (In an attempt at keeping things straight, from here on out, I’ll refer to the real Arthur Phillips who wrote the book and subsequently adapted it for the stage as Phillips-1 and to the Arthur Phillips who is the protagonist in the book as Phillips-2.) Anyway, in his “introduction,” Phillips-2 explained that the way the long lost play had come to light was that his father, a recently deceased convicted forger and Shakespeare fanatic, had bequeathed it to him. Given his father’s history, Phillips-2 was understandably skeptical regarding the legitimacy of the play his father had “discovered” but it sure seemed real, tests performed on the manuscript’s paper and ink appeared to further legitimate it, and no one other than Phillips-2 himself seemed to doubt its validity. In penning his “introduction,” Philllips-2 also elaborated at length on his relationship to his father and his sister so, to a great extent, the “introduction” may be thought of as constituting Phillips-2’s “memoir” (and Phillips-1’s fictional “memoir.”)

Book 2 – the last 111 pages – was the text of the “Shakespeare” play itself, The Tragedy of Arthur, a five act play written primarily in blank verse. The plot for the play clearly was drawn from Holinshed’s Chronicles, Shakespeare’s primary historical source, and the play’s language was thoroughly consistent with Elizabethan language and grammar.

So was The Tragedy of Arthur really a newly discovered play by the Bard of Avon or just another clever forgery by Phillips-2’s father?

When Phillips-1 adapted his novel for the stage, he couldn’t very well write a play based only on the first 256 pages of his book (the “introduction”), stage that, and then stage a five act Elizabethan-style tragedy (the last 111 pages of his book) right after it. So he did something very much better: he created an intricate work that wove together the dynamics of modern father-son relationships, Arthurian legend, and outright fantasy, a work that incorporated a play within a play, and one that challenged its audience to question its very understanding of truth and reality itself.

The protagonist of The Tragedy of King Arthur by W. Shakespeare is Arthur (that’s actually Arthur Phillips-2, played with extraordinary acrobatic athleticism by Jacques Roy). When he is bequeathed the manuscript of The Tragedy of Arthur, he is, to say the least, skeptical. His sister Dana (Sarah Hankins) is miffed that the manuscript has been left to him and not to her, but she is more willing to entertain the notion that it might actually be legitimate. Arthur’s agent (Geordie Broadwater), his lawyer (Jordan Kaplan) and a professor who presumably has vetted the manuscript (Tom Schwans) share Dana’s attitude, not Arthur’s.

When Dana prevails upon Arthur that they act out the play themselves, in an attempt at determining whether or not it is a forgery, the characters morph into the very characters of Arthurian legend who they are depicting. Arthur, of course, becomes Prince Arthur – he who was to become the legendary King Arthur – but he is hardly the dashing character we’ve come to expect. Dana morphs into Mordred – Prince Arthur’s mortal enemy. And Arthur’s dead father (Eric Emil Oleson) appears in Arthur’s daydream or imagination or in some such fantastical form and, in the course of the play, becomes the Earl of Gloucester (who was a second father to Prince Arthur in earlier times).

Press releases for The Tragedy of King Arthur by W. Shakespeare describe it as being “an evening of fraud, forgery and illegitimacy, centering on the complicated relationship between a father and son” and notes further that “The Tragedy of Arthur is a play full of Shakespeare’s language, poetry, insight, drama beauty, and history; however, the mystery of its true origins begs us to blend and blur what we know and what we choose to believe.” The description of The Tragedy of Arthur may be a bit hyperbolic but the rest of the press release is true enough. This is, indeed, a play about ambivalence, fallibility and deception that causes one to question just what we mean by “truth.”

The entire cast performs brilliantly but three actors truly stand out. Jacques Roy is incredible as both Arthurs –Phillips-2 and Prince Arthur – bounding about the stage as a modern day Douglas Fairbanks and literally climbing the walls. Eric Emil Oleson is splendid as Phillips-2’s father in one scene and as the Earl of Gloucester, Prince Arthur’s virtual second father, in the next. And Geordie Broadwater is delightfully amusing both as Phillips-2’s agent and as an effete French diplomat exploring both the possibilities of a political alliance with Prince Arthur and more intimate liaisons of his own.

Off Broadway: For Love

2013-03-20T10:19:00.000-04:00

John Duddy and Laoisa Sexton in FOR LOVE. Photo by Trevor Murphy.

When Laoisa Sexton’s one act play For Love had its very short-lived world premiere at the 1st Irish Theatre Festival last September, it was named a “Pick of the Festival” by Irish Examiner. Cahir O’Doherty, reviewing it for Irish Central, called it “the strongest debut by an Irish writer I have ever seen.” Since I missed that opening (there were only four performances), I was delighted to learn that the play would enjoy a somewhat longer run at Irish Repertory Theatre on West 22nd Street in midtown New York this year (especially since I’m generally enamored of Irish theatre and I’ve long been a fan of the IRT). And so it was that I went to see a performance of For Love – and on the day of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade, to boot! My expectations were high.

Sad to say, I was a wee bit disappointed. To be sure, the play is well written and well performed. But that is not enough. For Love is pointedly described as taking place in modern day Dublin during a period in which “Ireland is experiencing one of the greatest economic downturns in its history,” which led me to believe that I was about to experience something quintessentially Irish (what with it being the Irish Repertory Theatre and an Irish playwright and St. Patrick’s Day and all). But, in fact, once one cuts through the actors’ brogues and learns the Irish slang and references in the play (the program provides a fine “cheat sheet” for that purpose), there really isn’t anything particularly Irish about the play after all.

Indeed, the tale of three thirty-something, love-deprived, and sexually frustrated women in Dublin – Val (Jo Kinsetta), Tina (Georgina McKevitt), and Bee (Laoisa Sexton, the playwright herself) – could have taken place in New York or Cleveland or almost any other place you might imagine (in good times or in bad), rather than during an economic downturn in Dublin, and nothing would have been lost. Bee, who had a love child when she was sixteen, is now on the verge of becoming a grandmother herself and is seeking to recapture her lost youth (even if it is with a married man). Her friend, Val, lacks even the solace of a child; her life has somehow slipped away from her and the likelihood of her ever having a husband and a family of her own (rather than a series of one night stands) seems to diminish daily. Tina is married but that doesn’t appear to matter; she seems to derive more pleasure from shopping and self-gratification than from her marriage. And although all three women perform well, there’s nothing particularly Irish about any of it.

The play calls for several male roles as well – Aidan, One Night Stand, Club Guys, Bartender – but the playwright has specified that they all be played by the same actor (in this production, he’s John Duddy) as if to underscore the fungibility of men. In one or another of those roles, it’s he who interacts with each of the women.

It may be argued that what disappointed me most about the play – what I perceived as mundane and platitudinous events in ordinary lives that take place every day all over the world – was actually the play’s strength. That is, its depiction of unloved, sexually deprived women in economically depressed Dublin might be viewed as just the symbolic portrayal of a universal condition. But even if one looks upon it that way, the play still fell short for me: what it still required was a more developed story line that would distinguish the lives of these three women from those of so many others. Lacking that, we still were left with little more than some good theatrical performances but with no real insights into the lives of the characters on stage.

Off Off Broadway: Pit

2013-03-11T15:33:00.001-04:00

Molly Lovell, Samantha Jones and Sarah Matteucci in PIT. Photo by Chasi Annexy.

Melisa Annis’ name might not be familiar to you yet but, take it from me, it will be. This young Welsh playwright has just burst on the scene with her first play, Pit, now enjoying its world premiere at Theater for the New City on First Avenue in Lower New York. Produced by Longview Theater Company, Pit is a wonderfully textured tale of the struggles of the working class inhabitants of a Welsh coal mining town as they seek to come to terms with the consequences of Margaret Thatcher’s adamance in dealing with the striking coal miners’ demands.

Unsurprisingly, the play is politically correct (it is, after all, being staged at the Theater for the New City!), but it is not knee-jerk so. The IRA shows up – but not as heroes. The Communist Party has a role to play, too – but a very questionable one. And while the playwright’s sympathies clearly are with the strikers, she does not dismiss anyone crossing a picket line out of hand. In short, Ms Annis has expressed, in Pit, a thoughtful sensitivity to the nuances of everyday life, rather than allowing herself to get caught up in philosophical abstractions.

She has done this by interweaving several different stories into a complex tapestry of life in a small Welsh coal mining town in 1984. And she is very fortunate in having an extremely talented cast of performers telling her tales. George (Patrick Eichner) is the leader of the coal miner’s union and the driving force behind their strike. Val (Samantha Jones), his wife of more than thirty years, is his lovingly devoted and staunchest supporter, leading the miners’ wives on the picket line. Mavis (Molly Lovell), Val’s sister and herself an unfortunate miner’s widow, is equally supportive of the miners’ strike.

But the strike has gone on longer than anyone had expected it to; the miners’ “dole” benefits have been exhausted; and Val, unbeknownst to George, has only been able to make ends meet by mortgaging their home and putting them deeply in debt, one possible solution to which might be for George to break ranks with the men he leads and return to work as a “scab” in order to salvage his family. Meanwhile, Gareth (Michael Mraz), another of the town’s striking coal miners, has been sent off to negotiate alliances with other potentially supportive parties, one of which turns out to be the IRA. And that relationship has at least the potential of entangling Gareth in an IRA terrorist plot.

While Gareth is away, his wife, Caitlin (Sarah Matteucci), meets Justin (Kurt Kelly), the student leader of the Communist Party (which is also supportive of the miners’ strike), and he prevails upon her to attend Communist Party meetings. As matters develop, Justin’s interest in Caitlin is as much personal as polemical and when Gareth returns, all hell breaks loose.

The play’s action takes place in two venues – Val’s kitchen and the local pub – and the set has been well-designed to accommodate both. The pub’s proprietor, a former coal miner himself is now so ill (presumably from some coal mining work-related disease), that the actual management of the pub has fallen on the shoulders of his misfit son, Huw (Jake Levitt). The regulars at the pub – George, Gareth, and Frank (Ted McGuinness) who is also Gareth’s father-in-law – are understandably disdainful of Huw, what with his Mohawk haircut, nose ring, and red trousers, and his general incompetence at even drawing a pint of “mild.” And yet it is Huw who cuts through the townspeople’s agonizing over Communist dialectical materialism, IRA terrorism, labor relations, and all such talk to focus on the reality that what it all comes down to is putting bread on the table for one’s family, caring for the sick, fulfilling one’s obligations, and preserving the marital bond.

I think that even Margaret Thatcher would have approved.

Off Off Broadway: Electra

2013-03-09T13:53:00.000-05:00

Kelli Holsopple in ELECTRA. Photo by Gerry Goodstein.

The Phoenix Theatre Ensemble, co-founded by Craig Smith and Elise Stone (who were formerly affiliated with the sorely-missed Jean Cocteau Repertory) is an exceptionally talented and professional off off Broadway troupe with a penchant for the classics. In 2011, Phoenix embarked upon a celebration of ancient Greek drama by commencing the staging of a House of Atreus trilogy of plays over a three year period - an ambitious project which is now culminating in the production of Electra at The Wild Project on East 3rd Street in the East Village.

For its first work in 2011, Phoenix revived Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis. Helen, the wife of Menelaos, King of Sparta, had run off to Troy with Paris, a Trojan prince, and all of the leaders of Greece, including Agamemnon, Menelaos’ brother, joined in a war against Troy to retrieve her. Agamemnon was the commander of the Greek forces but the goddess Artemis has withheld the winds so that they are unable to sail for Troy. In exchange for allowing the Greek troops to sail, Artemis has demanded the sacrifice of Iphigenia, Agamemnon’s daughter. The play ends with Iphigenia being sacrificed and the Greeks setting sail for Troy.

For its next work in 2012, Phoenix opted not to revive Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, but rather to launch the world premiere production of Agamemnon Home, a play by Glyn Maxwell that was based on the original tragedy by Aeschylus but took considerable liberties with it. It is a decade later and Agamemnon, no longer the heroic figure we’d come to expect, is returning home with his men. In his absence, Clytemnestra, his wife and Iphigenia’s mother, has hooked up with Aegisthus, Agamemnon’s cousin. After Agamemnon and Cassandra, his concubine and war prize, wash ashore, it only remains for Clytemnestra to resolve her relationship with Aegisthus and wreak vengeance on Agamemnon for having killed their daughter.

The 2011 production of Iphigenia in Aulis, relying on a fine translation of Euripides tragedy, proved to be an excellent revival of a Greek classic. The 2012 production of Agamemnon Home, on the other hand, was not a revival per se but rather was a re-working of the original Aeschylus theme. As one who generally prefers not to see the classics tinkered with, I preferred the Iphigenia in Aulis production but I must admit that Agamemnon Home was still so good in its own right that I certainly enjoyed that one as well.

Now, for its third and final production in the trilogy, Phoenix has again staged a revival of an original Greek tragedy – this time Sophocles’ Electra in the translation by Anne Carson. We have now come full circle: Agamemnon sacrificed Iphigenia in Iphigenia in Aulis, Clytemnestra avenged Iphigenia’s death by killing Agamemnon in Agamemnon Home, and now, in Electra, it only remains for one or more of Agamemnon’s and Clytemnestra’s children – Electra (Kelli Holsopple), Chrysothemis (Morgan Rosse), and/or Orestes (Josh Tyson) – to avenge Agamemnon’s death by killing their mother, Clytemnestra (Page Clements).

Electra is consumed with the desire to avenge her father’s death by matricide but, as a woman, her opportunities to achieve her objective are limited. Her sister, Chrysothemis, shares Electra’s goal but is not nearly as obsessed by it as Electra is. And so the sisters hopefully await the return of their exiled brother, Orestes, who should be capable of accomplishing their goal. Orestes ultimately does arrive and the deed is done.

Unfortunately (since this is the only one of the three plays still running), I found Electra to be the least satisfying of the three. Running time for the show is listed at 90 minutes but the performance I attended ran closer to 110 minutes and much of the excess I thought derived from unnecessary repetitive verbosity in the initial scenes. Amy Wagner directed all three plays and Kelli Holsopple is a truly fine actress (she played Iphigenia in Iphigenia in Aulis and Cassandra in Agamemnon Home) and Ms Wagner and Ms Holsopple teamed up to do a fine job on the first two-thirds of this trilogy but, for what it’s worth, I think they went off the rails a bit on this one. In Electra, I found Ms Holsopple’s performance to be excessively histrionic; indeed, she almost literally bounces off the walls.

But all things are relative and. as a whole, the Phoenix Theatre Ensemble is so professional a troupe that even this lesser production is still worth seeing. Ms. Clements, in particular, does a fine job in her portrayal of Clytemnestra and Joseph J. Menino is delightful as Pedagogus, Orestes’ servant, former tutor, and traveling companion.

Off Off Broadway: The Drawer Boy

2013-03-06T08:11:00.000-05:00

L-R: Alex Fast, William Laney and Brad Fryman in THE DRAWER BOY. Photo by Alexander Dinelaris.

Here’s something you might not know about Michael Healey’s The Drawer Boy:

Although many New Yorkers never even heard of the play (I hadn’t myself until just last week), it actually was the fourth most produced play in the United States in the first decade of this century (according to the Wall Street Journal).

And here’s something else you might not know:

Despite that broad national popularity, the play, which debuted in Canada fourteen years ago, has never been produced in New York - on or off Broadway – until now.

But forget the trivia. Here’s really all you need to know:

The Drawer Boy finally has come to New York, in a terrific production by The Oberon Theatre Ensemble at the June Havoc Theatre in the Abingdon Theatre Arts Complex on West 36th Street. And now that it is here, it really is not to be missed. I don’t know why it took so long to get here, but now that it has, I’d urge you to make every effort to see it.

The Drawer Boy is a gentle, sensitive, touching play of the kind that we don’t get to see much of anymore. It focuses on the lives of two lifelong friends - Morgan (Brad Fryman), a farmer, and Angus (William Laney), the “drawer boy” of the play’s title (Angus is so called because of the architectural sketches he made of houses that Morgan and he planned to build for themselves and their families at some time in the future.)

Morgan and Angus have been friends since childhood. Canadian schoolmates, they subsequently went off together to Europe to fight in World War II, where they met, and fell in love with Frances and Sally, two tall British girls. Angus suffered a head injury during the war which affected his short term memory but Frances and Sally so loved Morgan and Angus in return that, despite Angus’ injury, they accompanied the boys back to Canada after the war so that the four of them might embark on new lives together.

But it didn‘t quite work out like that. The play takes place in 1972 – forty years after the war – on a farm in central Ontario. Morgan and Angus are farming the land, tending the chickens, milking the cows. But Frances and Sally are nowhere to be seen. As Morgan tells and re-tells the story to Angus, Frances and Sally died years ago in a tragic accident. Or did they?

And then Miles (Alex Fast), a young actor eager to research the lives of real farmers as background for his play, shows up. And as he delves deeper into the two farmers’ lives, unexpected truths emerge. The lines between theatre and real life, between what one is told or what one remembers or what one wants to remember and what really happened increasingly are blurred. And the stories that Morgan tells Angus take on a life of their own.

William Laney is extraordinary in the role of Angus, whose personality shifts from that of a mathematical idiot savant to that of a mentally challenged man who cannot recall from one moment to the next to whom he is speaking, who is submissively obedient to Morgan in one instant and angrily flailing out against what he can neither remember nor comprehend in the next. Brad Fryman is equally impressive as Morgan, lovingly concerned for Angus who is as much his ward as his friend and tortured by the memories he carries within him and cannot share. And Alex Fast is splendid as Miles, serious and conscientious in his craft but at the same time bumbling and incompetent.

All in all, a fine play with three wonderful performances. Go see it.

Off Broadway: The Radiant

2013-02-25T15:50:00.000-05:00

Marie Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the first woman to teach at the Sorbonne, and the only person to have won Nobel Prizes in two different sciences (Physics and Chemistry). Arguably the greatest female scientist of all time, her many achievements included the conception of the theory of radioactivity (which contributed to a revolution in the foundations of physics), the isolation of radioactive isotopes, the discovery of two elements (polonium and radium), and the founding of major centers of medical research in Paris and Warsaw. Having lost her mother and her sister when still a child and having determined to engage in scientific research at a time when women simply did not do that sort of thing, hers was the sort of life about which one would expect major dramatic works to be written – and that is just what Shirley Lauro has done. Ms Lauro’s play, The Radiant, now being staged by Red Fern Theatre Company at The Theater at the 14th Street Y on East 14th Street in New York, explores one of the most dramatic episodes in the life of this truly extraordinary woman.

In 1903, Marie Curie (Diana LaMar) shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with her husband, Pierre Curie, and with the physicist Henri Becquerel. Three years later, Marie was widowed when Pierre died in a tragic road accident. The Sorbonne Physics Department then offered Pierre’s chair to Marie, making her the first woman to hold a professorship at the Sorbonne.

Among Marie’s greatest accomplishments was her discovery that radiation did not result from molecular interactions but rather from the atom itself. This was a major step in up-ending the conventional theory that atoms are indivisible. Although she really had effectively proved her theory through the work she, her husband, and Henri Becquerel already had done (which had earned them the 1903 Nobel Prize in Physics), there still were those who continued to challenge her discovery, notable among whom was the eminent Lord Kelvin (Timothy Doyle). And so, to clinch her case, Marie thought it necessary to isolate the radium atom which, with the help of her assistant, Paul Langevin (AJ Cedeno), is precisely what she did. (It is interesting to note that the conflict between Lord Kelvin and Marie Curie on this issue, which plays such a significant part in The Radiant, is a bit reminiscent of the conflict which played out between Isaac Newton and Robert Hooke regarding the question of whether light consists of waves or particles (which played a similar role in Isaac’s Eye; see our review of that play on 2/10/13.)

And then, in 1910, widowed with two young children, Marie began a love affair with Paul, her young married assistant who had four children of his own and who was five years her junior.

Less than a year later, Marie was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her discoveries of radium and polonium and her isolation of radium but, before she even had time to deliver an acceptance speech in Stockholm, all hell broke loose. Paul’s wife learned of the affair and informed her brother of it – who, as luck would have it, was the editor of a newspaper in Paris which, in turn, meant that the affair quickly became public news. The scandal shocked Paris, xenophobic mobs stormed Marie’s house (she was, after all, a Pole, a foreigner!), and some members of the Swedish Academy even went so far as to urge Marie not to come to Stockholm to accept her Prize, suggesting that, had they known of her affair at the time, they would not have awarded the Prize to her in the first place.

Marie’s illustrious career might have ended right there, in scandal, but it did not. She was much too tough for that. Defying the Swedish Academy, she accepted her second Nobel, attended the Nobel ceremony and spoke these words:

I believe that there is no connection between my scientific work and the facts of private life….I cannot accept the idea in principle that the appreciation of the value of scientific work should be influenced by libel and slander concerning private life.”

Diana LaMar does an outstanding job depicting the complex character of Marie Curie – warts and all. Marie may have been a scientific genius and a saintly advocate for the sick and injured who bore discrimination both as a foreigner and as a woman but she also was selfish and self-centered, consistently placing her own scientific interests above the interests of others – including those of her very own children. And Ms LaMar manages to convey all that in her portrayal of Marie – no easy task. AJ Cedeno is also excellent as the philandering and ambivalent Paul Langevin. Timothy Doyle displays a multitude of talents in a variety of roles: as the pompous and arrogant Lord Kelvin, as the beaten down Professor Wilbois, and as the unfeeling and lecherous Paymaster. Finally, mention should be made of Rachel Berger who plays the part of Katarina, Marie’s exploited Polish niece, with disarming charm.

Off Off Broadway: Anthem

2013-02-24T09:27:00.000-05:00

“If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made it happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”

That’s what Barack Obama said in a speech in July, 2012. But those words might just as well have been spoken by a character straight out of Ayn Rand’s novella “Anthem.”

“Anthem” is set in a post-apocalyptic, futuristic dystopia in which much of the world’s knowledge has been lost (torches and candles, for example, are required to provide light and power since all knowledge of electricity is gone). The society is so collectivist and anti-individualist that even personal pronouns have been banned in human discourse (individuals refer to themselves as “we,” never as “I”). Individual initiative is not merely discouraged but is prohibited and punished. Inventions and discoveries are deemed to be less than valueless – they are outright evil – unless they are created collectively.

But one man, Equality 7-2521, somehow manages to break free of the collectivist society’s bonds. He comes to see the light – both figuratively and literally – as he re-discovers electricity, finds a kindred spirit in his lover, Liberty 5-3000, and, with her, sets out to re-make the world into a free utopian individualist paradise where “ego” is no longer a dirty word but the most sacred word of all.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I am something of an Ayn Rand fan myself. I enjoyed both “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged” and I find myself very much in sympathy with her Objectivist philosophy. Indeed, my reading of “Atlas Shrugged” (one of the most influential books of the Twentieth Century and still going strong) was a major factor in the development of my own libertarian philosophy (as it was for so many others, such as Alan Greenspan and Paul Ryan). And yet, despite my admiration for Ms Rand, the pleasure I’ve derived from reading her two best known works, and the debt I owe her for the huge contribution her works have made in the development of my own libertarian thinking, still I must say that I really don’t think much of her earlier fictional works: “We the Living,” “The Night of January 16,” and “Anthem.” All three, in my opinion, are shallow books with flimsy story lines, populated by cardboard characters. And that is especially true of “Anthem.”

“Anthem” falls into the literary genre of dystopic science fiction, as does George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World.” But from a literary standpoint, it is clearly not in a class with either of those works. The world depicted in “Anthem” is preposterous, its characters two-dimensional, and although I am personally more than sympathetic to the book’s message, it is delivered in such sophomoric fashion as to make it difficult to take seriously. All of which means that I wouldn’t recommend reading “Anthem” for its literary value.

On the other hand, “Anthem” is worth reading for its historical value in providing Ayn Rand fans and students of her work with a window into the evolution of both her literary style and her Objectivist philosophy. In “Anthem” one will find the seeds that eventually blossomed into Ms Rand’s magnum opus, “Atlas Shrugged”: Equality 7-2521 (subsequently renamed “The Unconquered” and “Prometheus”) is clearly the precursor to “Atlas Shrugged’s” John Galt; Equality 7-2521 is a street sweeper who discovers an abandoned subway tunnel whereas Galt is a railroad track walker; Equality’s rediscovery of electricity foreshadows Galt’s invention of a machine that will change the world; Equality’s retreat to a sanctuary in the Uncharted Forest, whence he will embark on the creation of a new individualistic world, presages the creation of Galt’s Gulch in “Atlas Shrugged”; and on and on. And “Atlas Shrugged” is such an important book in its own right, that that fact alone makes “Anthem” worth reading.

So far, however, I have written only of “Anthem,” the novella, and not of the play of the same name now being staged by Random Access Theatre at The Dorothy Strelsin Theatre in the Abingdon Theatre Arts Complex on West 36th Street. But what of the play itself?

Well, considering all the reservations I’ve already expressed regarding the literary worth of the novella, I must say that I thought that Anthem, the play, turned out surprisingly well. The play was adapted from the novella by Jennifer Sandella (who also directed) and she did just about as good a job as anyone might have expected in focusing on the book’s strengths and glossing over its inadequacies while remaining true to its underlying message.

Anthem is staged – one might almost say choreographed - modernistically on a bare stage with no props, underscoring the fantastical nature of the production and demanding a suspension of disbelief from the audience right from the get-go. The play has a small cast of five, four of whom play a wide variety of roles ranging from Liberty 5-3000 (Equality’s lover) to International 4-8818 (Equality’s friend) to various members of the World Council of Scholars to other downtrodden members of the dystopic society, but the heavy lifting all falls on the shoulders of Tom Carman who plays the lead role of Equlity 7-2521. Since Anthem is based on the work of Ayn Rand, that “heavy lifting” takes the form of exposition much more than physical action but Carman is not to be faulted for that: given the novella’s limitations and the style of Ms Sandella’s adaptation, he has delivered as fine a performance as anyone might have asked for.

Off Broadway: Off the King's Road

2013-02-11T14:29:00.002-05:00

L-R: Christopher Borg and Jack Davidson in OFF THE KING'S ROAD. Photo by Jonathan Slaff.

Off the King’s Road, Neil Koenigsberg’s first full-length play, is currently premiering at the Theatre for the New City on First Avenue in Lower New York, but its theme is so timeworn and its cookie cutter characters tread such familiar ground in such predictable fashion that I couldn’t help thinking that I’d seen it all before.

Matt Browne (Jack Davidson), having recently lost his wife and retired from business, is understandably lonely and depressed. In an attempt at recovery and revitalization, he travels to his favorite city, London, for a brief vacation at “Off the King’s Road,” a small hotel in Chelsea. Once in London, he encounters all the usual suspects: Sheena McDougall (Mihaela Mihut), a Croatian whore with a heart of gold; Ellen Mellman (Amy Van Nostrand), a cat loving widow who is a long time resident of the hotel; and Freddie (Christopher Borg), the hotel’s cheerfully compassionate gay manager/concierge. Meanwhile, Matt remains in long distance telephonic contact with his New York based therapist, Dr. Samuel Seth Yablonsky (Ethan Cohn).

This would be the point at which one might be expected to issue a “Spoiler Alert,” before divulging any more of the play’s plot, but in this case it’s not really necessary because there’s really not much of dramatic import that actually happens. Matt develops a fondness for Sheena, whose boyfriend becomes jealous, but the jealous boyfriend angle just kind of peters out. Matt and Ellen discover that they have something in common, a shared love of Ingmar Bergman movies and…nothing. Matt and Freddie commiserate over their lost loves and sexual frustrations but nothing comes of it.

The play is rife with red herrings that might have led somewhere but didn’t. What was the significance of the mysteriously lost drawing board mentioned at the start of the play? Nothing. Why does Freddie seem reluctant to disclose that there are so few residents at the hotel? Do we have the makings of an Agatha Christie mystery here? Nope, there just are very few residents of the hotel at this time. Why does Ellen’s cat disappear and reappear? Because that’s just what cats do. When Dr. Yablonsky informs Matt that he has separated from his wife, what does it mean? Apparently nothing more than that Dr. Yablonsky has separated from his wife. When Matt mixes up the package of shirts he planned to send to the laundry with another package he intended to discard, what would it lead to? Well, in this case, at least we got a few laughs out of it, but nothing more. And should we worry about Sheena’s jealous boyfriend threatening Matt. Don’t lose sleep over it.

In sum, the playwright has teased his audience again and again but failed to deliver. Off the King’s Road runs two hours without an intermission but that’s because no intermission is called for. Plays with intermissions generally are structured to create a tension in the first act and a resolution in the second, but since no tension is created in Off the King’s Road, no resolution is required. So why bother with an intermission? Unlike most plays with beginnings, middles, and ends, with conflicts and resolutions, Off the King’s Road is little more than a picture of a week in the lives of five lonely individuals. There are moments of humor and moments of pathos but it’s just not enough.

Off Off Broadway: Isaac's Eye

2013-02-10T11:50:00.000-05:00

L-R: Haskell King, Jeff Biehl, and Michael Louis Serafin-Wells in ISAAC'S EYE. Photo by Gerry Goodstein

In Isaac’s Eye, now having its premiere at The Ensemble Studio Theatre on West 52nd Street, the very talented playwright, Lucas Hnath plays fast and loose with the facts of Isaac Newton’s life as we know them. Yet none of this is to suggest that he has attempted in any way to mislead his audience.. On the contrary, he is scrupulously honest in letting us know just what in his play is true, “really for real,” and what is not. And Hnath’s writing is so lyrical that we should be grateful for the poetic license he has taken.

There are a lot of things that we know about Isaac Newton (Haskell King) and much that we know about Robert Hooke (Michael Louis Serafin-Wells) and Catherine Storer (Kristen Bush) as well. (And there is much that we know about the times in which they lived – for instance that there was a plague in England in 1665-1666.) But there is even more that we don’t really know about any of them, at least not with any degree of certainty.

We know, for instance, that Newton once threatened to burn down his parent’s house; that he once bashed another kid’s head into a wall; that he believed that light consisted of particles; that he once wrote verses on Catherine’s attic wall and that, late in life, he tried to buy her family’s house; that he disliked Robert Hooke intensely; that his work on optics got him into the prestigious Royal Society; that he believed that God guided his thoughts; that he re-wrote the Bible; that he never married; and that he once put a needle into his tear duct. And we know that Hooke was himself a scientist of the first rank; that he founded the field of meteorology; that he discovered cells; that he was one of the first people to ever study fossils; that he explained elasticity (which explanation is now known as “Hooke’s Law”); that he believed that light consisted of waves; that he repeatedly experimented on dogs by exploding their lungs; that he had an affair with his niece; that he did a lot of drugs; that he slept with a number of housemaids and recorded his ejaculations in his sex diary; and that he disliked Newton as much as Newton disliked him.

But there is so much more that we don’t know. We don’t know, for instance, whether Newton really was in love with Catherine; we don’t know whether Hooke ever even met her; and we don’t even know why Newton put a needle into his tear duct in the first place. But all those things that we don’t know didn’t prevent Hnath from creating a narrative based upon what we do know and that narrative, Isaac’s Eye, provides us with an insight into the “true” nature of man (even where the details may be a figment of the playwright’s imagination).

In effect, Hnath has confronted us with the question of whether “truth” is nothing more than correspondence to reality or whether there is a larger “truth” - some way in which we might integrate and contextualize those mundane factoids that we take to be “truths” in our day-to-day affairs, such that a figuratively true, even if not literally true, narrative might still emerge.

Kristen Bush in ISAAC'S EYE. Photo by Gerry Goodstein.

In addition to King, Serafin-Wells, and Bush, the only other actor in the play is Jeff Biehl who plays the dual roles of a narrator and of a man dying of the plague. All four actors are absolutely superb in their respective roles. King is terrific as the young, arrogant, brilliant, narcissistic, and emotionally immature Isaac Newton, intent on becoming a member of the Royal Society. Serafin-Wells is equally impressive as the older, drug and sex addicted Robert Hooke who is brilliant, arrogant and narcissistic in his own right, but who now is threatened by this new young upstart. Bush is delightful as Catherine Storer, the conventional daughter of an apothecary, much taken with Isaac but eager to marry and raise a family. And Biehl is splendid in both of his roles, as narrator and dying man. Finally, the play’s director, Linsay Firman, deserves special praise for having managed to stage such a successful production in Ensemble Studio Theatre’s very challenging and not very accommodating space.

Off Off Broadway: Moose Murders

2013-02-03T12:09:00.000-05:00

Steven Carl McCasland and Brittany Velotta in MOOSE MURDERS. Photo by Samantha Mercado Tudda.

My wife, Sue, fully intended to accompany me to yesterday’s performance of Moose Murders by Arthur Bicknell at the Connelly Theater on East 4th Street but she awoke with such a bad head cold that she reluctantly had to beg off. So I was left to attend this revival of what has come to be known as “the most notorious flop in Broadway history” by myself. I did - and Sue turned out to be the lucky one.

This play is absolutely appalling with no redeeming social value. When it first opened on Broadway in 1983, it received such scathing reviews that it closed after just one performance (following 13 previews). Clive Barnes of the New York Post wrote that it was “so indescribably bad that I do not intend to waste anyone’s time by describing it.” Frank Rich of The New York Times subsequently referred to it as “the worst play I’ve ever seen on a Broadway stage.”

Why, then, has The Beautiful Soup Theater Collective chosen to revive this fiasco?

Well, to be generous, one might recall Samuel Johnson’s description of the re-marriage of a man who had been unhappily married as “the triumph of hope over experience” and suggest that the revival of a bad play might fall into a similar category. Or, to be less generous, one might recall the definition of “insanity” widely attributed to Albert Einstein: “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I’d tend to go with Einstein on this one.

To be fair, it’s not completely clear that Beautiful Soup realized that they were about to “do the same thing over again.” According to the company’s original press release, the play had been “significantly rewritten and revised” for this production and the play’s full title on the current program is Moose Murders (Shamelessly Revised) so maybe Beautiful Soup really had reason to believe that they were about to stage something different. On the other hand, Steven Carl McCasland, the company’s Artistic Director, stated in a program note: “This is a true Moose Murders. No mocking here. No camp. Just a moose, a mystery and lots of history!” So how different did he really think it could be?

As it turns out, it clearly wasn’t different enough. Admittedly, I never saw the 1983 production so I’m not really in a position to say whether this production is any better or worse than the original. Maybe it really is an improvement but, if so, it is hard for me to imagine how the original could have been any worse than this, given the retention of the play’s basic plot structure and cast of characters.

The original script for Moose Murders referred to it as a “Mystery Farce in Two Acts” and that’s pretty much what it still is – or, at least what it aspires to be. Set in a lodge in the Adirondacks, with a zany cast of characters, the play seems intended to be a farcical parody of such classic Agatha Christie mysteries as The Mousetrap and Ten Little Indians. But it really doesn’t work. The story line is absurd and the characters offensively preposterous.

As the play begins, we are introduced to the singer Snooks Keene and her blind accompanist husband, Howie, who had been entertainers at the Wild Moose Lodge but who have just been given their walking papers by the lodge’s caretaker, Joe Buffalo Dance, now that the lodge has been sold to the wealthy Hedda Holloway. Hedda shows up with her family in tow: Stinky, her drug-addled son who seems obsessed with the idea of having sex with his mother; her younger daughter, Gay, who might be taken to be Shirley Temple’s evil twin; her flaky married older daughter, Lauraine Holloway Fay; Lauraine’s husband, Nelson Fay; Hedda’s husband, Sidney, a wheelchair-bound, gauze-swaddled, quadriplegic who is apparently in a vegetative state; together with Nurse Dagmar, who is there to care for Sidney.

The inevitable storm arrives and the bridge is washed away, preventing Snooks and Howie from leaving and assuring that they and Joe Buffalo Dance and the entire Holloway entourage all will be forced to spend the night together under the same roof. The characters agree to play a murder mystery card game, the lights go on and off, one after another are murdered or, if not, at least strangled, hogtied, shot, bludgeoned or, at a minimum, threatened with a meat cleaver.

But who is the murderer?

By this time, who cares?

When McCasland prided himself on having eschewed mockery and camp in staging this production, he may have made a big mistake. It might have been a lot better if he had created a self-referentially mocking and campish production rather than attempting unsuccessfully to extract something of theatrical value from material that had none to provide.

Brittany Velotta, who played the part of Snooks as if she were Marisa Tomei on steroids, is the only cast member deserving of mention. She brought a level of enthusiasm and ebullience to the play that I thought was otherwise lacking. It is possible, of course, that one or more of the other cast members did as well, or perhaps even better, than might have been expected of them, given the material they had to work with, but if so, it was sadly impossible to discern.

So what lesson might we take away from all this?

Maybe just that sometimes it's best to let sleeping moose lie.

Off Off Broadway: After the Fall

2013-01-27T13:31:00.000-05:00

Thea Brooks and Kirk Gostkowski in AFTER THE FALL at The Chain Theatre

I love to travel - Egypt in 2010 (less than a year before the Arab Spring erupted); South Africa and Botswana in 2011; the Galapagos Islands and Italy in 2012; and, looking ahead, Scandinavia and St. Petersburg, Russia later this year. And yet, as a typical Manhattanite, I seldom travel to the outer boroughs (indeed, I can’t even remember the last time I was in Staten Island or the Bronx). And so it was with some reluctance that I determined to make the trek from my home on Manhattan’s Upper East Side to the Chain Theatre in Long Island City, the new home of the Variations Theatre Group (VTG), to attend a performance of their latest production, Arthur Miller’s After the Fall.

I’m glad I did.

For starters, I ought mention that my expedition to the wilds of Long Island City turned out to be no big deal: it actually required less time and effort for me to get there than for me to get to Greenwich Village or the East Village or even the Theatre District of Manhattan, my more usual theatre haunts. (Indeed, the unexpected simplicity of my trip – requiring no passport nor visa – may even encourage me to attempt a foray into the Bronx or Richmond one of these days.)

But, of course, my real pleasure in having traveled to Long Island City to see this production of After the Fall didn’t derive just from the fact that getting there was easy. No, my real pleasure came from the production itself - a truly outstanding staging of one of Miller’s more controversial and difficult plays. Nor was I really surprised: my initial acquaintance with VTG occurred when I saw their production of Neil LaBute’s The Shape of Things in 2010. That one just blew me away and I was also greatly impressed by their production of Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love in 2011. Rich Ferraioli and Kirk Gostkowski co-founded VTG and it was Ferraioli who directed both The Shape of Things and Fool for Love and it was Gostkowski who starred in both of them. Now it was Ferraioli who was directing After the Fall and Gostkowski who was starring in it (which is what prompted me to travel to Long Island in the first place) so my expectations were high. I was not disappointed.

After the Fall is one of Miller’s less frequently performed works, being relatively unpopular both with theatre-goers and with critics alike. In part, that unpopularity reflects the fact that this is one of Miller’s most autobiographical works and some critics have been put off by its thinly-veiled depictions of Miller, himself, as well as its presumed portrayals of his family and friends, most particularly his second wife, Marilyn Monroe. In part, too, it may be because it challenges its audience with its unconventional non-linear introspective structure, focusing as much or more on the thoughts and emotions of its protagonist Quentin (Kirk Gostkowski) as on the actual events surrounding him. In part, it also may be because it asks its audience to confront a whole host of difficult philosophical questions ranging from the conflict that exists between loyalty to one’s friends and one’s obligations to one’s country to the moral issues underlying interfamilial relations to coming to grips with the horrors of the Holocaust and man’s inhumanity to man.

For my money, however, the play’s unpopularity reflects not the philosophical questions that Miller asks but rather the answer he suggests - to wit, his equation of the truly cosmic with the trivial. Assuming the autobiographical nature of the play, Miller explores his relationships with his parents, his brother, his colleagues, his wives and the other women in his life; he addresses the moral issues involving the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings; and he confronts what may have been the deepest moral issue of the twentieth century: making sense of the Holocaust. All important questions and worth exploring in their own right, to be sure, but to suggest that an individual’s insensitivity or disloyalty toward another individual - or even his abandonment of a friend or wife or lover – reprehensible as such acts may be, can in any way be compared to the horror of the Holocaust is itself morally obscene, Yet that is just what Miller appears to be doing. And that may be reason enough for the play’s relative unpopularity

In the play, Quentin is cast as a lawyer but it is pretty clear that his character has been based largely on that of Miller, himself. The play’s very talented supporting cast of thirteen play a variety of roles, most importantly those of Quentin’s parents (Bill Toscano and Kathleen Stuart); his brother, Dan (Anthony Sneed); his colleagues, Mickey (Deven Anderson), who agrees to name names before the HUAC and Lou (Matthew Dalton Lynch) who refuses to do so; his first wife, Louise (Amy Newhall); his second wife, Maggie (Thea Brooks); and his final love interest, Holga (Liz Tancredi).

Of them all, it is Brooks who truly stands out: it is pretty obvious that her character, Maggie, is based on the character of Miller’s second wife, Marilyn Monroe, the complex, drug-addicted, suicidal, sex goddess who was childishly naïve and trusting and yet so insecure and manipulative as to approach the point of paranoia. Books has captured her persona so brilliantly that she might as well have channeled her and, as a consequence, the play turns out to as much Marilyn’s story as Arthur’s soul-searching memoir.

Given the play’s unusual structure and its cast of fourteen very talented actors, this was a very ambitious production for an off off Broadway theatre group to have undertaken. But they did and they pulled it off. Chalk up another success for VTG, Ferraioli and Gostkowski!

Broadway: The Mystery of Edwin Drood

2013-01-23T13:58:00.001-05:00

The cast of THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. Photo by Joan Marcus.

Roundabout Theatre Company’s revival of The Mystery of Edwin Drood at Studio 54 in New York is great fun. The singing is exuberant, the choreography energetically acrobatic, the acting infectiously joyous. The sets and costumes are absolutely magnificent and the general ambience of this play within a play (the premise being that the incomplete Dickens novel, here adapted for the stage, is being produced by a theatrical troupe at the Music Hall Royale in Victorian London) is cheerily successful. Add to that the play’s interactive conceit in which it is left to the audience to determine who killed Edwin Drood, who the bearded detective Dick Datchery might really be, and which of the play’s many characters are destined for romance, and you’ve got the makings of an entertaining evening.

To be sure, the show’s music is more derivative than memorable and I doubt that you’ll find yourself humming any of its tunes as you leave the theatre. And the audience participation conceit is a bit hokey after all. But, all things considered, the show has more to commend than to disparage.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood was Charles Dickens final novel. It was scheduled to be serialized in twelve parts in 1970-71 but, by the time of Dickens’ death in 1870, only half of the book had been written and so it was never completed. That allowed Rupert Holmes (who wrote this musical’s book, music and lyrics) to come up with the concept of having the audience vote to determine who Drood’s murderer actually was. In 1985, he created this show, initially known by the full name The Mystery of Edwin Drood but re-titled simply Drood midway through its original run. That original production, by the way, went on to win five Tony Awards in 1986 including Best Musical.

The plot line of Dickens’ novel already was relatively complex, even though he’d only gotten halfway through his book. To greatly oversimplify, Edwin Drood (here played with great panache by Stephanie J. Block) is betrothed to the lovely Rosa Bud (Betsy Wolfe). John Jasper (Will Chase), Drood’s sinister uncle and guardian and Rosa Bud’s music master, is also in love with Rosa Bud. Neville Landless (Andy Karl), who arrives from Ceylon with his twin sister Helena (Jessie Mueller), is instantly smitten by Rosa Bud but he and Edwin take an immediate dislike to one another. Jasper frequents an opium den run by Princess Puffer (Chita Rivera). Edwin and Rosa Bud break off their engagement but remain friends. The Reverend Mr. Crisparkle (Gregg Edelman) apparently succeeds in bringing about a reconciliation between Edwin and Neville, who leave his dinner party together.

The next morning it is discovered that Edwin is missing and, while his body is never found (maybe it would have been or maybe he even would have turned up safe and sound if Dickens had only finished his book!), it is assumed that he has been murdered. But by whom? The pool of suspects would seem to include John Jasper, Neville Landless, Rosa Bud, and many others.

Some time after that, Princess Puffer appears in town to investigate the disappearance/murder. But why? So too does the bearded stranger Dick Datchery, who clearly is in disguise and may not be whom he seems to be. Why again? And it’s at about that point that the original Dickens text peters out…

What to do? Well, in this rousing revival at Roundabout’s Studio 54, the solution is: Ask the audience! And that’s just what the Chairman, our host for the evening at the Music Hall Royale (Jim Norton) does. He asks the audience to vote on who they think the murderer is, and, while they’re at it, to vote on who might have been disguised as Dick Datchery: was it Rosa Bud? Neville Landless? Helena Landless? The list goes on.

And then, as if that were not already enough, they’re asked to choose one male character and one female character to embark on a romance together. I understand that alternate endings were written for every possible combination, no matter how unlikely, and I can only wonder whether in its next incarnation some years hence, the show will expand those permutations to include a variety of politically correct gay and lesbian combinations as well. After all, it already has a woman playing the role of Edwin Drood (and perhaps another in the role of Dick Datchery).

Off Broadway: Midsummer [a play with songs]

2013-01-16T11:59:00.000-05:00

Matthew Pidgeon and Cora Bissett in MIDSUMMER [A PLAY WITH SONGS]. Photo by Douglas Roberstson.

Midsummer [a play with songs] by David Greig has finally arrived in New York with its batch of mixed messages. “Change Is Possible” is one (that one actually appears in lights on stage) but, at the same time, everything’s pre-determined so don’t think that you can affect matters because, as Helena (Cora Bissett) expresses it: “You think you’re making a decision but, in fact, whatever happened - it was already something you were going to do....Life deals us the cards and it turns out we don’t even play them we simply turn them over and see what we’ve got. The pack gets shuffled when you’re born and all the rest’s just a slow unwinding.

Or again, in contemplation of Bob’s (Matthew Pidgeon’s) turning 35, Helena asks despondently: “Is this it?” to which Bob’s answer effectively is “Yes.” He does express it less succinctly: “Basically we face a long slow haul towards death. Every day will hold fewer surprises than the last. Our body will decay irreversibly. We will become less open to new ideas. We will become increasingly aware of decay and waste….Disappointment will become our default position as each bright dream of our youth is snuffed out one after the other after the other.” Pretty much of a downer, right?

And yet elsewhere, when Helena remarks that “…when you see them - the runners – weaving and glistening through the crowds – you might think ‘look at them, the fools, they’re trying to run away from death’ – but they’re not – they’re honestly not – they’re running towards something – ” to which Bob responds, “And sometimes – when the road and the rhythm and pace is just right – they lose the boundaries of themselves and catch it just for a moment - ”

One last example: Both Bob and Helena dwell on the fact that individuals are necessarily lonely and separated from one another

“…there are only inches between us

But there might as well be mountains and trees

In this lonely distance between us

There are cities and oceans and seas…”

And yet Bob also sings:

“…these could be the best days of our lives,

So you said to me,

And now we start again…

Could these be the best days of our lives?”

So what are we to make of it all? I think that what the playwright is saying is Que Sera, Sera – whatever will be will be – and maybe there’s nothing you can do about it, but that doesn’t mean that whatever happens will necessarily be bad. Maybe at least some of the random cards you’ll be dealt will turn out to be good ones after all. So (to mix a metaphor), don’t throw in the towel (if you’re willing to assume that it’s even in your power to decide whether or not to throw in the towel in the first place, which in turn can get us bogged down in an infinite loop of philosophical sophistry). Or maybe not. And anyway it can’t hurt to try because maybe you will be able to affect matters after all. Who knows?

And that’s what I think that Greig has done in this play, only he’s expressed it in much more entertaining fashion than I just have. Bob is a petty car thief with no distinctive features (which is why he’s referred to as “medium Bob.”) One wouldn’t expect him to be a frustrated poet or to be reading Dostoevsky or to dream of being an itinerant busker – but he is and he does. Helena is an elegantly attired divorce lawyer who has just been stood up by her date (likely her married lover). One wouldn’t expect these two to even meet, let alone embark on an impetuous sexual relationship – but they do. That’s just the way the cards were dealt.

One thing leads to another. A night of sexual excess. A weekend of debauchery. Japanese bondage. Goths. Fine wines. Alcoholic blackouts. Stolen funds. Threats on Bob’s life. Chase scenes. Miraculous escapes. Wedding disasters. It was all in the cards and it is very, very funny.

Midsummer [a play with songs] was a big hit at the 2009 Edinburgh Festival Fringe and went on to tour England, Ireland, Canada, Australia, and Washington, DC. Now it has come to the Clurman Theatre on Theatre Row on West 42nd Street with the original cast, both of whom, Cora Bissett and Matthew Pidgeon, are absolutely terrific in this rollicking two-hander. And my only regret is that the show’s run is limited (it’s scheduled to run only through January 26). But who knows? Maybe it’s been written in the stars that it will be extended beyond that date. I certainly hope so.

Off Off Broadway: The Fig Leaves Are Falling

2013-01-14T09:31:00.001-05:00

Natalie Venetia Belcon and Jonathan Rayson in THE FIG LEAVES ARE FALLING. Photo by Dixie Sheridan.

The Fig Leaves Are Falling by Allan Sherman first opened on Broadway on January 2, 1969. It received such scathing reviews (Clive Barnes of the “New York Times” wrote that “,,,there is nothing much wrong with [the play]…that a new book, new music, new lyrics, new settings, new direction, new choreography and a partially new cast would not possibly put right”) that it closed after only four performances.

In that original production, Barry Nelson played the role of Harry Stone, a 44-year-old senior executive at a greeting card company, living in Larchmont with his devoted wife, Lillian, and their two children. Lillian, then played by Dorothy Louden (who received a Tony Award nomination for her performance, notwithstanding the play’s extremely short run), was the perfect wife, mother and homemaker. Nice house, two cars, a live-in maid, the perfect life. But this was the late 1960s, a time of social, political and sexual unrest (think Vietnam, the pill, sit-ins and love-ins) and so it was inevitable that Harry’s world would be rocked when he was confronted by his more sexually-liberated 24-year-old secretary, Pookie Chapman (then played by Jenny O’Hara).

The play is now being revived off-off-Broadway at the Connelly Theatre by Unsung Musicals and, considering its ignominious history, the question is not “Why did it take so long?” but, rather, “Why would anyone ever bother to revive it at all?” Well, the answer is simply that that is what Unsung Musicals does: it has taken as its mission “the restoration and presentation of obscure but artistically sound works” and its artistic director, Ben West, saw enough that he considered worthwhile in the play to justify its revival.

But what is now appearing at the Connelly isn’t really a revival in the truest sense. In order to make his new production work, West revised it extensively, eliminating much of its socio-political commentary, deleting some songs and adding others, patching together scenes from three different drafts of the original play, eliminating sub-plots, and focusing tightly on the main theme – the choice that Harry must make between Lillian and Pookie (here re-named Jenny in honor of the actress who played her in the original production). What he ended up with then was, for better or worse, a far cry from what originally appeared on Broadway 44 years ago.

But is it better or worse? Since I never saw the original play on Broadway nearly a half century ago, I’m not really in a position to say but I suspect that West’s new version may be more entertaining on balance than its predecessor was. The 1969 production did set a very low bar and I don’t think that Clive Barnes’ caustic comments on that production would apply to what is now playing at the Connelly. The current show, while by no means exceptional, is cheerfully engaging; it has its amusing moments; and its choreography is energetic and enthusiastic.

But there is a tradeoff. So much from the original production has been excised that the current production simply re-tells the oft-told tale of one man’s mid-life crisis, a story that is as old as recorded history and that is not at all unique to the period in which the play is set. As Harry puts it:

“Well, when you get right down to it, I’ve gotta make a choice: my wife or this girl. The thing is, I like my wife. Well you know Lillian. We’ve been married twenty years. She’s kept her figure, she’s kept the ashtrays clean, gotten the laundry done, took care of the kids, done social work, read all the latest books – all that stuff. But…I like the girl too. She’s 24…."

And that has nothing at all to do with the sexual revolution of the times (the falling of the fig leaves, if you will); it is simply the story of a man’s mid-life crisis – as likely to occur to 1929 or 2009 as in 1969. And there really is nothing special about this particular individual’s mid-life crisis or how it plays out. We’ve seen and heard it all before, many times over (and often with much more interesting characters and plot structures).

In the current production, Harry is played with considerable control by Jonathan Rayson, struggling to restrain his emotions in the face of Jenny’s advances.. Lillian is played by Natalie Venetia Belcon, whose unquestioning and loving acceptance of Harry’s disturbing behavior is most endearing but requires some suspension of disbelief. And a similar suspension of disbelief is required in reacting to Morgan Weed’s perky portrayal of Jenny (formerly Pookie) who seamlessly evolves from an innocent girl threatening to quit her job over her boss’s unwanted advances into a flirtatious seductress who upends Harry’s life.

Off Broadway: The Wonderful Wizard of Song: The Music of Harold Arlen

2013-01-11T08:51:00.000-05:00

Antoinette Henry & 3 Crooners (L to R): Antoinette Henry, Joe Shepherd, Marcus Goldhaber, George Bugatti. Photo by Pamela Hall.

If asked “Who were the greatest American composers of popular songs of the twentieth century?”, chances are that George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers and Cole Porter would immediately come to mind. But what of Harold Arlen? Surprisingly, he is not nearly as well known – despite the fact that his Academy Award winning “Over the Rainbow” (composed for the motion picture “The Wizard of Oz”) was voted the Number 1 Song of the Twentieth Century by the Recording Industry Association of America and one of the “Songs of the Century” by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Nor was “Over the Rainbow” some kind of fluke, a one shot success by an otherwise mediocre composer. On the contrary, in the course of his long and successful career, Arlen composed more than 500 songs, many of which appear in “The Great American Songbook,” including “Blues in the Night,” “It‘s Only a Paper Moon,” “I’ve Got the World on a String,” “One for My Baby,” “Stormy Weather,” “That Old Black Magic,” “The Man That Got Away,” and many more. (In 1933, “Billboard” actually proclaimed Shakespeare to be the most prolific playwright in history and Arlen the most prolific composer!) And yet it is probably fair to state that, today, Harold Arlen is the single greatest little-known American composer of the twentieth century.

The Wonderful Wizard of Song: The Music of Harold Arlen, the musical revue that has just opened at St. Luke’s Theatre on West 46th Street in New York following a national tour to 18 cities and a month-long run in Las Vegas, sets out to redress that shortcoming and to a great extent it succeeds. The very talented Three Crooners (George Bugatti, Marcus Goldhaber, and Joe Shepherd) together with the dynamic Antoinette Henry deliver their renditions of more than two dozen of Arlen’s most popular compositions with great verve and pizazz. In addition to the eight Arlen classics mentioned above, they belt out “Get Happy,” “Accentuate the Positive,” “Let’s Fall in Love,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” and many, many more of Arlen’s classics including a medley of songs (in addition to “Over the Rainbow”) from “The Wizard of Oz.” It’s doubtful if you’ll hear any songs you haven’t heard before many times over but you may come away from the revue surprised to realize that were all composed by - what’s his name again? – oh, yes, Harold Arlen.

As a musical revue, the show is certainly worth seeing. All three of the “Crooners” have distinctive, strong voices and deserve considerable praise for their performances (my personal favorite was the mellow Joe Shepherd). And Antoinette Henry is simply terrific, channeling some of the last century’s top female entertainers including Pearl Bailey and Ethel Waters. But as a show based on the life of Harold Arlen, it falls very short.

Harold Arlen was a complex individual whose successful musical career and ultimately tragic personal life provided ample material for a musical of greater depth. Born in Buffalo, NY in 1905 as Hyman Arluck, the son of a Jewish cantor, Arlen’s music was influenced not only by Jewish liturgical tradition but also by his early exposure to African-American jazz (in the early 1930s, Arlen wrote music for Harlem’s famed Cotton Club). Against his parents’ wishes, he left home at age 16 and, years later, he married Anya Taranda, a beautiful Catholic model, also against his family’s wishes.

Arlen remained in love with Anya until her death in 1970 (despite her institutionalization for seven years in a sanitarium in 1951). His father died in 1953 and his mother three years later, at which time Arlen withdrew from music for a year, mourning her loss. He returned to his music in the 1960s but subsequent to Anya’s death, became increasingly reclusive. Suffering from depression and Parkinson’s Disease, Arlen died of cancer in 1986. This is the raw material from which a truly successful play – more than a simple musical revue – might have been written and bits of it are alluded to in passing in The Wonderful Wizard of Song. Most of it, however, is simply ignored and none of it is truly developed.

So the bottom line is this: The Wonderful Wizard of Song is a good musical revue with wonderful performances of more than two dozen of Harold Arlen’s greatest hits by four outstanding singers. Arlen is given the credit he deserves for these musical compositions and if it’s just his music you’re interested in, you won’t be disappointed. But if you were hoping for something more – some insight into Arlen, the man himself, not just Arlen, the composer – sad to say, you won’t find it here..

Off Broadway: The Golden Land

2012-12-24T11:36:00.000-05:00

Sandy Rosenberg, Cooper Grodin, Daniella Rabbani, Andrew Keltz, Stacey Harris, and Bob Ader in THE GOLDEN LAND

The National Yiddish Theatre - Folksbiene production of The Golden Land has re-opened at the Baruch Performing Arts Center and is now scheduled to run through January 6, 2013. So if you missed the original run (whose opening was delayed by Hurricane Sandy and which concluded on December 2), you've just been given a second chance to see it.

The two hours long epic musical traces the Jewish immigrant experience from the 1880s to the mid-twentieth century and is performed in a combination of English and Yiddish, but even if you don't speak Yiddish, nisht geferlach (don't worry about it) - you'll still fully understand what's going on. The musical attempts (mostly successfully) to cover an enormous amount of ground - chronicling Jewish history from Ellis Island to the Lower East Side to Harlem and the Ivy League, and touching along the way - in song and dance - on the beginnings of the labor union movement, the Triangle Fire, Jewish Borscht Belt humor, Yiddish Theatre, the Depression, both World Wars, the Holocaust, Rumania, the founding of the State of Israel, and much, much more.

Created by Zalmen Mlotek and Moise Rosenfeld and directed by Bryna Wasserman, the musical is a very ambitious production. The young and talented six person cast is called upon to play dozens of different roles and does so with great exuberance, belting out 49 songs in English and Yiddish along the way. They are all wonderful but my absolute favorite was the dynamic Daniella Rabbani whose rendition of "Oy, I Like Him" and "A Khulem" ("A Dream") brought down the house. The cast is solidly supported by Zalmen Mlotek's great seven piece klezmer band.

Off Broadway: Flipside: The Patti Page Story

2012-12-22T07:59:00.000-05:00

Lindsie VanWinkle and Haley Jane Pierce in FLIPSIDE: THE PATTI PAGE STORY

Clara Ann Fowler (Haley Jane Pierce) was born into a large, poor family in 1927 in Claremore, Oklahoma, one of eleven children. Her father, Ben Fowler (Willy Welch) worked for the railroad, while her mother and older sisters picked cotton. Despite the poverty of her early years (the family home lacked electricity), she somehow evolved into the “Singing Rage” Miss Patti Page (Lindsie VanWinkle), one of the most legendary female singers in popular recording history, with111 hits on the Billboard charts and 100 million records sold to her credit. But through it all and beneath Patti Page’s vibrant, sophisticated public persona, Clara Ann Fowler’s core simplicity and vulnerability remained.

In 2011, the University of Central Oklahoma’s College of Fine Arts & Design’s Broadway Tonight presented the world premiere of Flipside: The Patti Page Story, written and directed by the multi-talented Greg White (artist, actor, director, playwright, producer, and professor) based on his interviews with Miss Page. A year later, the musical was selected from among nearly 3,500 productions to attend the 2012 Regional & National Kennedy Center Festivals where it won several honors including Best Musical. And now it has arrived at 59E59 Theaters where it is enjoying a limited run (only through year-end) in its New York premiere.

Flipside’s producers are planning a National Tour in 2013-14 and that’s a good thing – at least for the rest of the country.. But it’s too bad that New Yorkers won’t be given a longer opportunity to see this show as well, since to do so is truly is a delightful musical experience.

The musical follows Clara Ann Fowler’s trajectory from the time she first became a featured singer on radio station KTUL in Tulsa, Oklahoma at age 18 to her meeting with Jack Rael (Justin Larman), a year later. When Rael heard Page sing, he asked her to join his "Jimmy Joy Band" and the rest, as they say, was history. After leaving the band, Rael ultimately become Page's personal manager. (Larman, incidentally, plays multiple roles in Flipside: in addition to Rael, he depicts Howard Hillenbrand, KTUL’s Program Director; Otto, KTUL’s Station Assistant; Al Clauser, a country singer; Guy Lombardo; and various announcers – and he does a wonderful job across-the board.)

Haley Jane Pierce plays Clara Ann Fowler with great sensitivity and Lindsie VanWinkle is equally accomplished as her much more confident alter ego, Patti Page. Willy Welch is fine as Clara’s dad, and Jenny Rottmayer and Kassie Carroll are charmingly professional in the variety of roles they are called upon to perform as Clara’s sisters and mother and any number of backup singers, radio personae, announcers, and reporters. The all do a good job of moving the story along.

And yet, you probably won’t be surprised to hear that the pleasure you’ll get from this show will derive mostly from the music, rather than the story line. The life of Clara Ann Lawson/Patti Page wasn’t all that dramatic, after all, and certainly wouldn’t rival (in terms of interest) those of, say, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis, et al. But as for Miss Page’s musical renditions? Well, those were terrific. And this show – with an eight piece orchestra on stage - doesn’t stint on presenting them, coming up with more than two dozen in all, including “Mockin’ Bird Hill,” “Frankie and Johnny,” “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree,” “Confess,” “Detour,” “How Much Is That Doggie in the Window?,” “Why Don’t You Believe Me,” “Allegheny Moon,” “Old Cape Cod,” “You Belong to Me,””Back in Your Own Backyard” and, of course, her signature song “Tennessee Waltz.”

If you do get to see this show, I think “you’ll remember the night.” If you don’t, you might never “know just how much you have lost.”

Off Broadway: 13 Things About Ed Carpolotti

2012-12-12T08:05:00.000-05:00

Penny Fuller in 13 THINGS ABOUT ED CARPOLOTTI at 59E59 Theaters

It didn’t take very long before Ed Carpolotti’s untimely death threw his widow’s life into turmoil. Virginia Carpolotti (Penny Fuller) discovered that under the terms of his will, she was now president of Ed Carpolotti, Inc., her late husband’s construction company, about which she knew next to nothing. But she quickly learned that business at the company had been rather slow (not good news) although the company did appear to have substantial assets (much better news). But, unfortunately (and this was much worse news) those assets had been pledged against hundreds of thousands of dollars in bank loans (according to Bob O’Klock from the bank) and the loans were six months in arrears.

And then it got even worse. Turns out that Virginia unwittingly signed papers assuming personal responsibility for those loans, as a result of which the bank has now frozen her bank accounts and threatened to seize all her personal assets – her checking account, savings account, CDs, IRAs…. And then it got worse yet: Dino Disperbio, the owner of Smith Trucking (a company with no trucks and no one named Smith in its history) has just contacted her to say that Ed had borrowed another half million dollars (at a 50% interest rate, no less!) from him and, because of other papers Virginia signed, she’s on the hook for that too. And so, naturally, Virginia turns to family – Ed’s brother, Frank – only to learn that Ed owed Frank another $300,000 but that soft-hearted Frank, being family and all, is willing to settle with Virginia by just taking her house. Could she be out by March?

It doesn’t seem that Virginia’s plight could get any worse, right? Well, it does. She receives an anonymous note from a blackmailer threatening to reveal thirteen embarrassing and scandalous things about her late husband and others unless she gives him a million dollars within a week. At her wit’s end, Virginia pours out her heart to her friend, Tootie Vaughn (despite having been warned to say nothing to anyone).

We learn all of this and more from Virginia herself in what turns out to be something of an hour long monologue interspersed with music, without ever really meeting Ed or Bob or Dino or Frank or Tootie or Danny (Ed and Virginia’s attorney) or Debbie (their daughter) or Debbie’s husband or children or Joy (Ed’s secretary) or Virginia’s parents - all of whom are talked about, but none of whom actually shows up. In fact, the only character other than Virginia herself to actually appear in this musical, 13 Things About Ed Carpolotti, now premiering at 59E59 Theaters, is the very accomplished pianist (Paul Greenwood) who plays a double role as her musical accompanist and her unconscious mind.

Virginia’s problems and all the chicanery and mysterious goings-on ultimately are resolved but I won’t tell you how for that would ruin all the fun. Suffice it to say that the original play by Jeffrey Hatcher, on which this musical is based, is very cleverly constructed and charmingly written and that, to the extent that the musical sticks to the original play, it is fun to see. Penny Fuller does a first rate job in a demanding role and Paul Greenwood brings a light hearted charm to his part. But, unfortunately, converting the play into a musical didn’t bring anything special to the mix. The score is pleasant but derivative and the lyrics sophomoric at worst and unmemorable at best. The show is definitely worth seeing and if you go, I think you’ll enjoy it, but that will be despite the music, not because of it.