https://www.backstage.com/ny-theater/News articles for the following category: New York TheaterenThu, 25 Apr 2013 19:00:00 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/diane-paulus-pippin-stephen-schwartz-roger-o-hirson/I have never been partial to “Pippin.” Originally, I found director-choreographer Bob Fosse’s dark, angry cynicism to be at odds with Stephen Schwartz’s Joni Mitchell–flavored score and Roger O. Hirson’s sketchy, jokey book for this awfully slight tale about a young man’s search for meaning in his life. Fosse’s work, impressive as it was, felt imposed and seemed to me to signal contempt for the material. Of course, that made me a minority of just about one, and I felt very lonely. So today my gratitude to director Diane Paulus is boundless. Thanks to her beautifully buoyant, intoxicatingly sensual revival, I am a convert. I finally love “Pippin” too. In Schwartz’s iconic opening number, “Magic to Do,” a troupe of traveling players announces that it has “miracle plays to play” for us. The chosen tale is that of Pippin, the first-born son of the Roman emperor Charlemagne (800–814), and we begin with Pippin’s return home from university. Educated and anxious to begin his adult life, the young prince embarks on a quest to discover what to do with it, something, he says, that must be “completely fulfilling.” After all,Thu, 25 Apr 2013 19:00:00 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/diane-paulus-pippin-stephen-schwartz-roger-o-hirson/https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/ill-eat-you-last-a-chat-with-sue-mengers-bette-midler-john-logan-joe-mantello/John Logan’s solo show “I’ll Eat You Last: A Chat With Sue Mengers” skips as lightly across its subject as a shard of shale whipping across a pond. Bette Midler, making her first Broadway appearance as someone other than herself in more than 40 years (she replaced as Tzeitel in the original production of “Fiddler on the Roof” in the late 1960s), is disappointingly content to reprise the Divine Miss M persona that she delivered so successfully in three Broadway concerts in the 1970s. Thanks to the lazy writing and acting, Mengers goes missing. A quick tour of the Internet turns up a 1975 Mike Wallace “60 Minutes” profile of the famed Hollywood super agent—for which admittedly she must have been on her best behavior—that shows just how far off the mark Midler is. It also turns up a 2011 Deadline.com obit by Nikki Finke that offers a richer, more rounded portrait than Logan’s glossy caricature. This was one interesting lady, but not onstage at the Booth Theatre. Set designer Scott Pask has stylishly re-created Mengers’ lush Hollywood digs. We are in her living room, where Midler is perched by director Joe Mantello on the couch for the entire 90-minute show,Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:00:00 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/ill-eat-you-last-a-chat-with-sue-mengers-bette-midler-john-logan-joe-mantello/https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/the-trip-to-bountiful-horton-foote-cicely-tyson-vanessa-williams-cuba-gooding-jr/The most heart-stopping moment of the Broadway season happens late in Act 2 of Horton Foote’s “The Trip to Bountiful.” As Carrie Watts stands once again on the now-sagging porch of the beloved home she was forced to abandon 20 years earlier, Cicely Tyson, framed by a wooden post and a flowering vine, radiates with quiet fulfillment as Carrie gazes out over what used to be her land. It is simple, silent, and stunning, proof, if any were needed, of Tyson’s magnificence as a stage actor. In director Michael Wilson’s impeccable revival of Foote’s masterwork, Tyson is giving a performance for the ages. The script began life as a 1953 teleplay starring Lillian Gish that was so acclaimed that it spawned a Broadway stage production that same year, again featuring Gish, though the show only ran for a month. The 1985 film version won an Oscar for Geraldine Page. The story begins in Houston in 1953. Carrie lives in a cramped two-room apartment with her henpecked son, Ludie, and his self-involved wife, Jessie Mae. Hymn-singing Carrie and movie-magazine-reading Jessie Mae are oil and water, with poor Ludie stuck refereeing. Carrie, who has a failing ticker, longs to return to her birthplace, Bountiful,Tue, 23 Apr 2013 19:00:00 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/the-trip-to-bountiful-horton-foote-cicely-tyson-vanessa-williams-cuba-gooding-jr/https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/the-testament-of-mary-colm-toibin-fiona-shaw-deborah-warner/That Fiona Shaw is a force of nature is indisputable. As a very human Virgin Mary in playwright Colm Tóibín’s 90-minute monologue “The Testament of Mary,” Shaw prowls about Tom Pye’s object-strewn set declaiming her lines in everything from a whisper to a shriek and all stops in between while jangling large metal nails, hurling a hefty wooden ladder this way and that, stripping naked and plunging out of sight into a pool of water, and even at one point conveying a large yellow-beaked black vulture offstage. Working with longtime collaborator Deborah Warner as her director, Shaw is never less than a compelling presence. I’m not convinced, however, that all the symbolic clutter is the best elucidation of Tóibín’s simple, moving deconstruction of one of the world’s most beloved religious icons. As the author points out in a program note, Mary barely speaks in the Bible, a shadowy figure, which allows believers to impose their needs upon her. Tóibín imagines her as a loving mother and wife. This Mary is no fan of her son’s activities as an itinerant preacher and healer—“I’m not one of his followers,” she insists whenMon, 22 Apr 2013 19:00:00 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/the-testament-of-mary-colm-toibin-fiona-shaw-deborah-warner/https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/macbeth-william-shakespeare-alan-cumming-the-national-theater-of-scotland/There’s plenty of sound and fury in Alan Cumming’s near-solo adaptation of “Macbeth,” but it signifies a great deal more than nothing. This startlingly fresh approach to one of the Bard’s most produced works offers not only a sensational vehicle for the actor but also gives us new perspectives on a familiar classic. Set in a bleak isolation ward of a mental facility—given an appropriately drab and depressing tone by scenic designer Merle Hensel—the bold staging casts Cumming as a patient acting out Shakespeare’s tale under the watchful eyes of several surveillance cameras and two attendants (Jenny Sterlin and Brendan Titley, in subtle turns), who occasionally take on minor parts in the drama. It would have been challenging enough for the star to enact all the major roles, which he does with dexterity, delivering a savagely conflicted Macbeth; a serpentlike, seductive Lady M.; a foppish Duncan straight out of a Noël Coward drawing-room comedy; a heroic MacDuff; and a brash, macho Banquo, among others. But in addition to this versatile display, Cumming also supplies a gripping subtext for the nameless patient. We never find out where he got those bloody scratches on his chestSun, 21 Apr 2013 18:30:00 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/macbeth-william-shakespeare-alan-cumming-the-national-theater-of-scotland/https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/orphans-lyle-kessler-alec-baldwin-ben-foster-tom-sturridge/When I saw the original Off-Broadway production of Lyle Kessler’s “Orphans” back in 1985, I found the play to be a tiresome mix of pilfered Pinter and stolen Shepard, notable solely for Steppenwolf Theatre’s visceral acting style, exemplified in the flashy performances of Kevin Anderson, Terry Kinney, and John Mahoney. Nearly 30 years later the play is getting its Broadway debut, but time hasn’t altered my assessment. “Orphans” remains as synthetic as ever, only now Tom Sturridge, Ben Foster, and Alec Baldwin do the bravura thesping. Once set in the present day but now taking place “sometime in the not-too-distant past,” “Orphans” doesn’t tell much of a story, content instead to mine a situation. Brothers Treat and Phillip occupy a crumbling house in North Philadelphia, having apparently lost their parents at a tender age; Treat, the elder, makes reference to having “raised” Phillip when Treat was “only a little boy.” Treat keeps the wolf from the door by robbing people at knifepoint, while Phillip never goes outside, convinced by Treat that allergies will kill him if he does. When Treat comes home one night with the drunken Harold, aThu, 18 Apr 2013 19:30:00 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/orphans-lyle-kessler-alec-baldwin-ben-foster-tom-sturridge/https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/jekyll-and-hyde-constantine-maroulis-deborah-cox-frank-wildhorn-leslie-bricusse-robert-louis-stevenson/The bill for stage smoke must be a big one over at the Marquis Theatre. The stuff billows forth in unrelenting profusion during director-choreographer Jeff Calhoun’s expressionistic, would-be steampunk revival of “Jekyll & Hyde,” composer Frank Wildhorn and book writer–lyricist Leslie Bricusse’s monumentally dumb 1997 Broadway musical adaptation of the classic Robert Louis Stevenson novella. Unfortunately, it never achieves the critical mass necessary to obscure the proceedings. It’s hard to understand why Wildhorn chose loud rock music as his vocabulary for this show. It has no connection to time, place, and character, and it works actively against the depiction of severely repressed emotion, a hallmark of Victorian society and so necessary to the story. Rock does provide energy and the opportunity for extreme vocal pyrotechnics, and in light of Bricusse’s barely there book and soporific, simplistic lyrics this production smartly takes full advantage of both. Though the original ran a little more than three years and developed a devoted cadre of followers known as Jekkies, it failed to recoup its investment, which may be why the producers have headlined the current version with twoThu, 18 Apr 2013 19:00:00 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/jekyll-and-hyde-constantine-maroulis-deborah-cox-frank-wildhorn-leslie-bricusse-robert-louis-stevenson/https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/the-assembled-parties-richard-greenberg-manhattan-theatre-club-jessica-hecht-judith-light-jeremy-shamos/Richard Greenberg’s touching comedy-drama “The Assembled Parties” isn’t saying much of anything new: change is constant, the universe is random, time takes its toll on all of us. Fortunately, he says it through the interactions of interesting, well-written characters dramatized with wit, insight, and boundless affection. The play, sensitively directed by Lynne Meadow for Manhattan Theatre Club, observes two Christmas Day celebrations in the 14-room Upper West Side apartment of agnostic Jews Julie, once a teenage film star, and Ben, the wealthy wheeler-dealer for whom she left the silver screen. In Act 1, set in 1980, the attendees consist of the feckless but charming Scotty, Julie and Ben’s just-out-of-college son; eager-to-please Jeff, his school friend who’s now studying law at Harvard; and the mismatched familial trio of ever-anxious, pill-popping Faye, Ben’s sister; her crass husband, Mort; and their aimless daughter, Shelley. Stuck in bed is 4-year-old Timmy, Scott’s younger brother, who is recovering from the flu. As the sunny, optimistic Julie cooks up a storm, Greenberg skillfully weaves a web of complicated relationships and clashing agendas. Act 2 leaps to the year 2000.Wed, 17 Apr 2013 19:00:00 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/the-assembled-parties-richard-greenberg-manhattan-theatre-club-jessica-hecht-judith-light-jeremy-shamos/https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/the-big-knife-clifford-odets-bobby-cannavale-roundabout-theatre-company/Roundabout Theatre Company adds to Broadway’s Clifford Odets renaissance with the first Main Stem revival of his 1949 drama about Hollywood, “The Big Knife.” If the show doesn’t quite rise to the level of Lincoln Center Theater’s terrific productions of “Awake and Sing” and “Golden Boy,” that’s probably because “The Big Knife,” though a sturdy piece of writing, isn’t top-drawer Odets. Still, in director Doug Hughes’ tough-minded, well-acted production, this gimlet-eyed look at the cost of selling out builds to a climax of harrowing emotional devastation. Tough-guy movie star Charlie Castle started out as manly but sensitive theater actor Charlie Cass, with big ideals and even bigger ambitions. After 10 years in Hollywood, a succession of simple-minded action movies has made him his studio’s number one box-office draw while increasingly filling him with self-disgust. He is separated from his wife, Marion, a liberal New Yorker who hates what her husband has become but still loves him. Charlie’s contract is up for renewal, and he has been stalling. Marion wants to quit L.A. and take her husband and young son back to New York City, whereTue, 16 Apr 2013 20:00:00 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/the-big-knife-clifford-odets-bobby-cannavale-roundabout-theatre-company/https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/the-nance-douglas-carter-beane-nathan-lane-lincoln-center-theater/Douglas Carter Beane’s “The Nance” is a bold, brave play, in which this eminent theatrical boulevardier reaches for something deeper and darker. Chronicling Mayor Fiorello H. La Guardia’s crusade to wipe out burlesque, accomplished in part by the persecution of gay people, in 1937 New York City, the show offers taut direction from Jack O’Brien and a tour de force turn from the brilliant Nathan Lane. So it’s with great regret that I have to say that Beane’s yin-and-yang mix of low comedy and high tragedy, the personal and the political, never meshes. Middle-aged and gay, Chauncey Miles is on the bill at Union Square’s Irving Place Theatre playing a nance, a stereotypically effeminate homosexual whose material is laden with ribald double entendres about sex. One evening, while cruising for trade at the Automat, he meets the handsome Ned, a strapping young man from Buffalo who’s new to the city. They end up back at Chauncey’s apartment for a night of naughtiness, but when Chauncey discovers that Ned is actually gay, not straight, he allows the lad, who is homeless and broke, to stay with him. Soon they are a couple, with Ned going to work as a performer alongside hisMon, 15 Apr 2013 19:00:00 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/the-nance-douglas-carter-beane-nathan-lane-lincoln-center-theater/https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/motown-the-musical-bathes-berry-gordy-diana-ross/According to the Playbill for “Motown: The Musical,” the show stuffs 67 songs into its two-hour-and-45-minute running time. Such abundance suggests that impresario Berry Gordy—who created the fabulously successful music factory and has written and produced this entertainment about its history—has strong convictions about what his audience wants. If you are looking to bathe in nostalgia evoked by beloved tunes while watching talented and committed professionals do their industrious best to locate the magic of legendary performers, this is the show for you. If you prefer a well-written story with multidimensional characters that digs beneath the surface and uses song with dramatic acumen, then steer clear. Gordy’s script unfolds in flashback, beginning in 1983 Los Angeles on the day of a 25th anniversary show that will reunite all of Motown’s greats, most of whom have since left the company for greener pastures. A miffed and mopey Gordy is refusing to attend, to the consternation of his staff. “You’re gonna turn your back on the dream you started 25 years ago?” one of them asks incredulously. “My dream started long before that,” he replies, and sure enoughSun, 14 Apr 2013 19:00:00 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/motown-the-musical-bathes-berry-gordy-diana-ross/https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/matilda-the-musical-royal-shakespeare-company-roald-dahl/The Royal Shakespeare Company’s musical adaptation of Roald Dahl’s “Matilda” rushes at you from the stage of the Shubert Theatre—often literally—with the relentlessness of a high-speed rail train. Director Matthew Warchus’ meticulously calculated production offers coup after coup de théâtre as it tells Dahl’s fantastical tale of a 5-year-old girl who’s a genius, the idiot family that mistreats her, the sadistic headmistress who terrorizes her, and the loving teacher who comes to her aid. The show is strenuously entertaining, as dark as it is funny, and just a tad cold. Matilda Wormwood lives unhappily with a slack-jawed older brother and twin boobs for parents, a crooked used-car-salesman father and a tango-competition-obsessed mother, who bemoan the fact that their daughter is always reading. But Matilda’s not just consuming picture books; she’s busy going through Dickens, Dostoevsky, and more, guided at first by the Caribbean-flavored local librarian, Mrs. Phelps, and then by Matilda’s first schoolteacher, the young and lovely Miss Honey. Her arch nemesis is Agatha Trunchbull, the school’s abusive leader, who calls childrenThu, 11 Apr 2013 19:00:00 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/matilda-the-musical-royal-shakespeare-company-roald-dahl/https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/off-off-broadway/goldor-mythyka-a-hero-is-born-new-georges/Role-playing games teach players to be true to themselves, whether they are “chaotic good,” “chaotic neutral,” or “chaotic evil.” These “alignments” are used by gamers to indicate the personality of their fantasy avatars, though if pressed to pick one for New Georges’ production of “Goldor $ Mythyka: A Hero Is Born,” I think just “chaotic” would suffice. Based on the true story of a “Dungeons & Dragons”–obsessed couple who robbed an armored-car company, Lynn Rosen’s potentially interesting high-concept script loses track of its identity by constantly commenting on itself. Paired with director and co-developer Shana Gold’s affected staging, the result feels more ADD than D&D. The couple in question, Roger L. Dillon and Nicole D. Boyde, made national headlines due to the curious footnote that they were avid gamers. From this irresistible detail their inevitable press persona arose: the “goth Bonnie and Clyde.” Rosen’s play deconstructs the event more than it depicts it, parsing their significance amid other real-world news, such as the Bernie Madoff scandal and the recession. But the playwrightTue, 09 Apr 2013 16:06:38 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/off-off-broadway/goldor-mythyka-a-hero-is-born-new-georges/https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/off-off-broadway/eterniday-charles-mee-la-mama-witness-relocation/Witness Relocation’s collage dance-theater has been compared to Richard Foreman, the Wooster Group, and John Cage: a list that follows the evolution of the experimental avant garde across the past century. Yet no matter what century you’re in, one person’s “experimental” has always been another person’s “incomprehensible.” The beauty of Charles Mee’s latest work, “Eterniday,” is how it rejoices in that ambiguity, revealing with a wink how its own randomness pales in comparison to the unpredictable way in which we all live. “Eterniday” puts two disparate timespans on top of each other. The entirety of human history is condensed down to the course of one day: morning, afternoon, night, and dawn. Director-choreographer Dan Safer turns the abstract march of time into something tangible; he assigns each of these four periods a shape, mapping them onto the stage with tape and restricting all action within that area. As the day progresses we feel the playing space expand and contract, moving to the rhythms of time. Besides making time physical, “Eterniday” also makes it personal. In an uncharacteristically straightforward plot, we see two playersSat, 06 Apr 2013 20:15:00 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/off-off-broadway/eterniday-charles-mee-la-mama-witness-relocation/https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/off-broadway/futurology-the-musical-negro-ensemble-company/Playwright and filmmaker Tyler Perry launched his career with the kind of show that “Futurology the Musical” aspires to be: a pop tuner with flash, sass, and a moral tacked on at the end that soothes those in the crowd who didn’t appreciate the flash and the sass. Such “urban theater circuit” shows are not to everyone’s taste, but at their best they can pull you in with a combination of showy musicianship and raucous, cartoonish humor. Before the first preview performance began, the show’s director, Charles Weldon, addressed the audience, apologizing for the rough patches he promised would come—and come they did. The biggest technical problem was a sound system that popped, crackled, hummed, and left the actors either blaring or mute. That can be fixed before future performances. It’s probably a bit late in the game, though, to do anything about some of the more essential errors. The book—by Anthony J. Dixon and Sandra J. Barnes, who also co-wrote the workable but generic-sounding songs—concerns a young woman named Darima (Hillary Hawkins), who is supposedly torn between community-activism work with her affectionate boyfriend Gregory (Rodrick Covington) and herSat, 06 Apr 2013 20:00:00 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/off-broadway/futurology-the-musical-negro-ensemble-company/https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/kinky-boots-harvey-fierstein-cyndi-lauper-jerry-mitchell-billy-porter-stark-sands/There’s no use putting up a fight with “Kinky Boots.” The Broadway adaptation of the hit 2005 Miramax film about a struggling shoe factory in the north of England and the drag queens who help to save it is the feel-good musical of the season. Yes, Harvey Fierstein’s funny book is a bit too bald, Cyndi Lauper’s catchy songs are more lyrically repetitive than they should be, and director-choreographer Jerry Mitchell slights character and story in favor of splashy production numbers. Still, boasting a powerhouse performance from Billy Porter as Lola, the drag queen who’s also a trained boxer, the damn thing works. Just as meek Charlie Price relocates to London with his ambitious fiancée, Nicola, to work in real-estate management, Charlie’s shoes-obsessed father, unhappy that his son chose not to follow him into the family business, drops dead. Charlie returns to Northampton to discover that Dad was keeping the business open by making shoes for nonexistent orders. Charlie’s ready to throw in the towel, but spunky employee Lauren challenges him to think out of the box and find a niche market. A chance London encounter with Lola—Charlie got conked on the noggin trying toThu, 04 Apr 2013 20:30:00 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/broadway/kinky-boots-harvey-fierstein-cyndi-lauper-jerry-mitchell-billy-porter-stark-sands/https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/off-broadway/kafkas-monkey-theatre-for-a-new-audience-kathryn-hunter-franz-kafka/Before we get to the monkey, let’s talk about Kathryn Hunter. Rarely has an actor’s transformation so shocked my senses as this short 55-year-old woman’s impersonation of a chimpanzee turned human turned vaudevillian. In a tuxedo with gloves, hat, and cane, she hobbles onto the stage with knees bent and arms askew and smiles nervously at her audience before beginning her presentation. The entrance is so convincing that I found myself wondering if in fact it were possible for an ape to become a man and how I would feel to find such a specimen standing before me. Only later did I realize that Hunter had no makeup on. This trick both of the senses and of moral expectations is exactly what Franz Kafka had in mind when he wrote “A Report to an Academy” in 1917. The monologue presents an ape who, having been captured in West Africa and shipped to Europe, overcomes his situation by transforming himself into his jailers. He learns to walk, talk, think, and function in polite society, eventually making his living as a vaudeville entertainer. Between gigs, presumably, he graces the presence of an unnamed “academy” to report on his conversion from beast to European. Kafka’s dark joke is toThu, 04 Apr 2013 20:00:00 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/off-broadway/kafkas-monkey-theatre-for-a-new-audience-kathryn-hunter-franz-kafka/https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/off-broadway/buyer-cellar-jonathan-tolins-michael-urie-rattlestick-playwrights-theatre-barbra-streisand/Jonathan Tolins has had a capital idea for a one-man show. After reading in Barbra Streisand’s 2010 book “My Passion for Design” that her basement is a re-creation of a street lined with period shops that contain her many acquisitions arranged as merchandise, he wondered what it would be like if Streisand’s passion for verisimilitude extended to hiring someone to work as a salesperson in the stores, with the star, of course, as the sole customer. The result, “Buyer & Cellar,” is inventive, witty, and pretty wonderful, a fleet 90 minutes of the way Barbra might be, delivered with oceans of charm by the impish, utterly delightful Michael Urie. Actor Alex More has been fired from his job as the mayor of Toon Town at Disneyland after losing his cool with a nasty child. Friend and romantic admirer Vincent, who works in human resources for Disney, wants to help and calls Alex with a mysterious job offer in Malibu. So the young man drives his battered Jetta to the beach to check things out. Arriving at a palatial gated estate, he is interviewed by the seen-it-all Sharon, who explains the gig and though dubious agrees to try him out, proffering a gigantic confidentiality agreement. When told thatWed, 03 Apr 2013 20:00:00 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/off-broadway/buyer-cellar-jonathan-tolins-michael-urie-rattlestick-playwrights-theatre-barbra-streisand/https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/off-broadway/good-with-people-traverse-theatre-company-david-harrower-brits-off-broadway/Packed with rich writing, full-blooded acting, taut direction, and even a bit of British politics, “Good With People” proves that a play needn’t sprawl over three hours to provide a satisfying theatrical experience. Indeed, this 55-minute two-hander, presented by Scotland’s acclaimed Traverse Theatre Company as part of Brits Off Broadway, makes a virtue of brevity, compressing its action into a rush of dialogue and imagery that strikes with the force of an avalanche. David Harrower, whose play “Blackbird” lit up New York in 2007, uses the chance meeting of a man and woman in a small hotel to explore themes of guilt and forgiveness, the clash between tradition and modernity, and the grinding ache of loneliness. His densely textured, rapid-fire dialogue combined with George Perrin’s precise direction transform what could have been a ships-passing-in-the-night anecdote into a depiction of two souls searching for release from the past and union in the present. Helen, a middle-aged woman who runs a struggling hotel in Helensburgh, a small seaside Scottish town, finds her emotions stirred when a young man named Evan checks in. Evan tells her that he’s returned to Helensburgh afterWed, 03 Apr 2013 19:30:00 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/off-broadway/good-with-people-traverse-theatre-company-david-harrower-brits-off-broadway/https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/off-broadway/the-last-five-years-jason-robert-brown-second-stage-theatre-adam-kantor-betsy-wolfe/When the title page of a musical bears the credit “written and directed by,” a tiny throb of terror slices through me. That kind of hubris—believing that you are equally talented at four demanding and very different theatrical crafts—usually leads to disaster. Not this time. Author Jason Robert Brown has chosen to direct “The Last Five Years,” his 2002 two-person musical about a troubled first marriage, for Second Stage Theatre, and the result is enthralling. Perceptive, detailed, and beautifully paced, Brown’s direction illuminates the material with striking clarity, and he draws a matched set of marvelous performances out of Adam Kantor and Betsy Wolfe. The show’s structure is unusual. As Jamie’s story unfolds from beginning to end, Cathy’s is told backward. The tales meet briefly in the middle, but even in that one scene each has a solo. Jewish Jamie is a talented writer of fiction with a driving need for success and a bit of an empathy deficit. Shiksa Cathy is a would-be actor and singer with self-esteem issues and a healthy appetite for attention. Both are smart, funny, rebellious, and genuinely in love. What they are not is right for each other, something loveTue, 02 Apr 2013 19:00:00 -0400https://www.backstage.com/review/ny-theater/off-broadway/the-last-five-years-jason-robert-brown-second-stage-theatre-adam-kantor-betsy-wolfe/