Early in the second act of My Vaudeville Man!, the captivating new musical at The York Theatre, Shonn Wiley, portraying eccentric dancer Jack Donahue, challenges four fellow vaudevillians to what's known as a tap drunk. Eventually, Buchanan will be a star on Broadway and a popular favorite at the Palace, but now he's a struggling 19-year-old kid who has taken to the bottle and is in need of quick cash. Each man throws five dollars into the pot, starts taking swigs from a bottle of rye and, most importantly, keeps dancing until only one is left standing. Wiley is the only one on stage, but he vividly paints the contest before our eyes, as Jack battles the endurance of his colleagues and his own inebriation until the competition turns violent. The piece is an extraordinary bit of dance drama, mixing humor, danger, grit and desperation, with Wiley's performance containing some of the best acting through dance we're apt to see this season.
And while that scene is the high point of Jeff Hochhauser (book and lyrics) and Bob Johnson's (music and lyrics) two-person tuner, there is a heck of a lot more to savor. Based on Buchanan's collection of correspondence published as Letters of a Hoofer to His Ma, the story begins in 1910 with the lad writing his "Mud" that he's left their Charleston, Massachusetts home (and the security of a steady job in the ship yard) for his first gig as a professional dancer, touring the small vaudeville houses of New England. Though convinced his "Fifteen minutes of dynamite" will make him famous, his old world Irish mother is fearful of having her son exposed to immoral show people. ("When St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland they all swam across the ocean and went into vaudeville.")
With the two characters conversing from afar through their letters, the book is admittedly a bit short on plot, spending much of the first act describing Jack's life on the road in pursuit of girls and a better spot on the bill, along with his unsuccessful attempts to save up enough money to send home. It's not until shortly before intermission, when we start realizing the amount of abuse Mud has been taking from her alcoholic husband as she expresses her concern that Jack has been drinking himself, that the dramatic potential of My Vaudeville Man! starts to take hold.
Even so, the material is still highly entertaining, as is director/choreographer Lynne Taylor-Corbett's warm and nostalgic production. Jack's descriptions of the types of acts he would perform with, including humorous references to some legendary names to be, are engaging history lessons while Mud's good natured ethnic humor ("(The Jews) may have murdered our savior but they're good to their mothers.") is perfectly in period.
But it's when Wiley and Karen Murphy (as Mud) sink their chops into the rich period score that My Vaudeville Man! really flies. Wiley, who co-choreographed, sings with showmanship and taps with crisp clarity and firm technique (the great Broadway hoofer Bob Fitch is credited as "Eccentric Dance Consultant") through routines like a charming shadow dance number and a comic French Apache dance. Murphy's Mud is full of sweet old world charm, showed best during a running routine where she sings to a priest her confessions that she's been lying to her friends about what her son does for a living. But her toughness comes through with invigorating power in a song where she tells her husband she's no longer taking his abuse.
My Vaudeville Man! may have its rough edges, but its terrific entertainment featuring two knock-out performances.
Photos of Shonn Wiley and Karen Murphy by Carol Rosegg
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That profanely sweet music blaring out of the Belasco Theatre these days is the sound of David Mamet at his ear-tickling best ricocheting off the walls in director Robert Falls' high octane revival of American Buffalo. The trio of John Leguizamo, Cedric the Entertainer and Haley Joel Osment deliver some of the finest ensemble acting in town in a production that sizzles from start to finish.
Mamet's 1977 Broadway debut, an Off-Broadway transfer, is the play that popularized his reputation for taut, explicative-drenched dialogue that sings poetically when properly played. Taking place in a dingy Chicago second hand store, it's a bit of a back-alley opera (emphasized by Santo Loquasto's stage-filling, brick-a-brack saturated set which would be eye-popping from even the back rows of The Met) mixed with satirical commentary about the low-down corruption of free enterprise.
Shop owner Donny (Entertainer) suspects he got ripped off by a customer who purchased a buffalo nickel from him for far less than its worth so he plots a break-in of the man's home to steal what he assumes to be a valuable coin collection. Joining him is the dangerously high-strung Walter, a/k/a Teach (Leguizamo) and an unseen accomplice named Fletcher. The young, slow-witted, drug addicted Bobby (Osment), who hangs around the shop and runs errands for Donny is also involved, but Teach questions his loyalty and dependability. While they play isn't exactly a comedy, there is a lot of laughter generated by Mamet's heightened reality as these two-bit crooks see themselves as simply carrying out a business transaction as good American capitalists. Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht might have called it, The Nickel Opera.
Though Leguizamo is a Tony-nominated actor known to Broadway audiences for his self-written solo pieces, Freak and Sexaholix… a Love Story, this is his first stage appearance playing a character in another author's play. His cast mates are both making their professional stage acting debuts. And yet Falls has them bubbling with combustible chemistry. Leguizamo's hyper-kinetic performance spits out Mamet's more colorful vulgarities with the tone and rhythm of a seasoned jazzman. Cedric the Entertainer is the sturdy rock of the evening and generates genuine pathos with his strict concern for the well being of Osment's fragile and pitiable Bobby; a concern that is severely tested when it comes to money.
And to top it off, they've got the best "turn off your cell phone" announcement in town.
Photo of Cedric the Entertainer, Haley Joel Osment and John Leguizamo by Joan Marcus
Posted by
Michael Dale
on Tuesday, November 18, 2008 @ 12:00 AM
Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 11/16 & Algonquin Round Table Quote of the Week
"A hick town is one where there is no place to go where you shouldn't go."
-- Alexander Woollcott
The grosses are out for the week ending 11/16/2008 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.
Up for the week was: SHREK THE MUSICAL (57.6%), THE SEAGULL (4.0%), SPEED THE PLOW (3.2%), A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS (2.2%), JERSEY BOYS (2.0%), AMERICAN BUFFALO (1.0%), TO BE OR NOT TO BE (1.0%), AVENUE Q (0.8%),
Down for the week was: GREASE (-19.1%), 13 (-17.3%), MARY POPPINS (-12.5%), CHICAGO (-11.9%), BILLY ELLIOT: THE MUSICAL (-11.5%), SPAMALOT (-9.9%), THE LION KING (-8.5%), HAIRSPRAY (-7.9%), IN THE HEIGHTS (-7.1%), THE LITTLE MERMAID (-6.9%), SPRING AWAKENING (-4.4%), EQUUS (-4.3%), THE 39 STEPS (-4.0%), MAMMA MIA! (-3.7%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (-2.4%), ALL MY SONS (-1.9%), AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY (-1.4%), BOEING-BOEING (-0.8%), DIVIDING THE ESTATE (-0.7%), WICKED (-0.6%), GYPSY (-0.3%), SOUTH PACIFIC (-0.2%),
Posted by
Michael Dale
on Monday, November 17, 2008 @ 3:59 PM
High School Musical & Speed-the-Plow
Though last Sunday night was my first exposure to anything associated with the Disney triptych of made for television movies carrying the banner, High School Musical, it's my guess, judging from the enthusiastic reception the production received from an opening night audience loaded with young theatergoers, that fans of the series will not be disappointed. Paper Mill does their usual highly professional job, with a talented, energetic cast delivering Mark S. Hoebee's buoyant, quick-paced direction with gusto and singing attractively under music director Bruce W. Coyle. Denis Jones' choreography nicely fits the athletic and cheery requirements of the show's atmosphere and the design elements are sharply delivered via Kenneth Foy's kinetic set, Wade Laboissonniere's colorful, clique defining costumes and Tom Sturge's celebratory lights.
And if you are one of the eighty bajillion teenage and tweenge fan of High School Musical, you should stop reading this review right now. Really. The rest is just a lot of blah, blah, blah that wouldn't interest you.
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Okay, here we go.
How do I begin to describe what bland, lifeless material this is? Yes, the Paper Mill crew does what it can and there are even one or two miraculous moments when they squeeze something out of this undercooked, unseasoned oatmeal of a musical that kinda, sorta resembles entertainment. But really, the gap between this show's popularity and its accomplishment is so wide they may as well call it The Reagan Administration: The Musical.
The story has potential, even though the happy ending is achieved by our heroes committing acts of vandalism. Basketball star Troy (Chase Peacock) and math whiz Gabriella (Sydney Morton) fall seriously in like with each other while singing a karaoke duet at a ski lodge during winter break. But when it turns out she's been transferred to his school Gabriella learns that the social structure of the clique hierarchy forbids jocks from hanging out with brains.
Neither group hangs out with the thespians either, perhaps because they're headed by the annoying pair of self-centered Sharpay (Bailey Hanks) and her twink twin brother, Ryan (Logan Hart). Oddly, nobody seems bothered by the fact that these biological siblings have been playing the leads opposite each other in every school production since grade school and are now auditioning to play the young lovers in the new student-written neo-feminist revisionist Shakespeare musical, Juliet and Romeo.
Gabriella also wants to try out but for some unexplained reason kids must audition for the leads as a couple and will only be cast along with their partner, so Troy agrees to join her in auditioning. When word gets out that the captain of the basketball team has crossed accepted social lines it encourages the rest of the student body to be more open about having diverse interests outside of their cliquish boundaries and we soon find out that, among other things, a jock has a secret desire to be a baker and a brain enjoys dancing hip-hop.
And while the important theme of celebrating our personal differences as we bond into a community is great one to pass along through musical theatre, David Simpatico's book, based on Peter Barsocchini's screenplay, is at best innocuous and at worst horribly unfunny. If lines like, "I'd rather suck mucus from a dog's nostrils until his nose caves in," and "We need to save our show from people who think Eugene O'Neill is Shaquille O'Neal's older brother," are examples of what passes for wit nowadays I weep for the future of musical comedy bookwriting.
Thirteen people are credited with having written the evening's songs and none of them were able to come up with a memorable melody or a clever lyric. The score is made up almost entirely of sound-alike light rock ensemble numbers expressing obvious sentiments ("Get'cha Head In The Game," "We're All In This Together") while chances to explore the inner workings of individual characters through song are, save for one duet by the leads, completely ignored.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of High School Musical is its mocking attitude toward musical theatre. While the school athletes and smart students are respectfully depicted, the ones in the drama club are shown as being delusionally talentless and their bad auditions are treated as punch lines. The fine actress Donna English is reduced to playing the eccentric drama teacher as a vindictive ninny who leads the kids in ridiculous theatre games and goes out of her way to favor the students she wants to cast. The introverted Kelsi (Stephanie Pam Roberts), who wrote Juliet and Romeo would like to have Troy and Gabriella star in her show because they sing her big song like an American Idol-ish riff-heavy power ballad while Sharpay and Ryan sing it like, you know, a showtune.
Now there are those who will say that I shouldn't be so hard on a show that's aimed toward kids and may get them to be regular theatergoers. I say that if you teach kids at a young age that musical theatre is dumb material dressed up with high-energy performances they'll have no reason to expect it to be any more.
Photos by Gerry Goodstein: Top: Joline Mujica, Zach Frank, Joseph Morales, Adrian Arrieta, Stephanie Pam Roberts, Becca Tobin, Charity Sharday De Loera, Sean Ewing, Krystal Joy Brown, Sean Samuels, Beth Crandall, Justin Keyes, Marissa Joy Ganz, Brittany Conigatti, Sam Kiernan, Dennis Necsary, Taylor Frey, Deanna Aguinaga and Kristy Cavanaugh; Bottom: Becca Tobin, Justin Keyes, Zach Frank, Deanna Aguinaga, Bailey Hanks, Logan Hart, Dennis Necsary, Joline Mujica, Krista Pioppi, Sean Samuels, Beth Crandall and Victoria Meade
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You'll please pardon me if the following paragraphs do little more than perpetuate Raul Esparza's reputation as a critics' darling, but aside from enjoying the rhythmic blasts of misguided testosteronic swagger in David Mamet's toothy 1988 satire of Hollywood muscle, there is little to recommend in director Neil Pepe's mounting of Speed-the-Plow except a look at the 21st Century's most versatile New York stage actor (Who else can go from starring in The Normal Heart to dancing "The Old Bamboo" in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang?) in a showcase role that takes delicious advantage of his exceptional skills.
It's the old art versus commerce battle played in three taut scenes as movie producer Charlie Fox (Esparza) lucks into a chance to sign a big name action star in a prison picture if he can have the deal done by the next morning. He takes the news to newly promoted executive Bobby Gould (Jeremy Piven) who has the option to green-light one project a year without approval from the higher-ups. In between discussions of exactly how much money they can make from this sure-fire blockbuster, Charlie bets his partner-to-be that he can't bed the timid temp secretary (Elisabeth Moss), so Bobby assigns her to read a new novel by some "Eastern sissy writer" called The Bridge or Radiation and the Half-Life of Society, which he's been asked to give a courtesy read, and has her come to his place that night to get her opinion on its potential as a film.
Admittedly, Charlie is the role with the most potential to dazzle (Ron Silver won his Best Actor Tony playing him in the original production) and Esparza shapes him into a hyper-caffeinated left coast variation of Tom Wolfe's "Master of the Universe." His musically-savvy performance jostles the listener with intriguing tones and rhythms that dig up unexpected laughs and chills from Mamet's text, such as the moment when Charlie's well-guarded desperation churning inside leaks through by way of a simple half-laugh. And he can somehow coldly deadpan with ferocious energy.
Jeremy Piven is never believable as someone who has achieved even mid-level pull in this lion's den, seeming more like a lost mail-room boy who has mistakenly wandered into the wrong office. In their lengthy scenes where Mamet's electric give and take should be bouncing off the walls, Esparza pings and Piven never pongs. Elisabeth Moss is a barely noticeable presence. I'm not sure she even picked up a paddle.
Photo of Raul Esparza and Jeremy Piven by Brigitte Lacomb
Posted by
Michael Dale
on Monday, November 17, 2008 @ 12:04 AM
BILLY ELLIOT Review Roundup
Based on the film about a working-class British boy with dreams that run contrary to family expectations, the London smash-hit musical arrived on Broadway last night. So, what did the critics think?
David Rooney in Variety writes that "Three-and-a-half years may seem a long time for an instantaneous London smash like "Billy Elliot: The Musical" to cross the Atlantic, but the delay looks to have played serendipitously into the producers' hands. With unemployment figures soaring and the economy in the dumps, the zeitgeist could hardly be more attuned to the stirring story of a Northern England miner's son liberated from bleak reality by his passion for ballet. But even without that happy accident of timing, American audiences would have no trouble connecting with the universal sentiment of this bittersweet dual celebration of community and individuality."
Michael Kuchwara writes for the Associated Press and says "It's not often that a musical comes along that is as ambitious as it is emotional — and then succeeds on both counts.
But "Billy Elliot," which opened Thursday at Broadway's Imperial Theatre, is an exceptional work that exemplifies what the best musicals are all about: collaboration. Everything comes together in this impressive, warmhearted adaptation of the 2000 British film about a North Country coal miner's young son who yearns to dance and join the Royal Ballet School in London."
Ben Brantley RAVES in the New York Times that "Your inner dancer is calling. Its voice, sweet but tough and insistent, pulses in every molecule of the new Broadway musical “Billy Elliot,” demanding that you wake up sleeping fantasies of slipping on tap or ballet shoes and soaring across a stage. Few people may have the gift of this show’s title character, a coal miner’s son in northern England who discovers he was born to pirouette. But the seductive, smashingly realized premise of “Billy Elliot,” which opened Thursday night at the Imperial Theater, is that everybody has the urge. "
Barbara Hoffman in the NY Post gives the show 4 out of 4 stars and writes that "AFTER some rocky previews, marred by a sluggish hydraulic set and overly thick accents, "Billy Elliot" opened last night, proving itself the best gift from Britain since Harry Potter.
This tale of a motherless coal miner's son who was born to dance (ballet, no less) was written, directed and choreographed by the same team behind the 2000 film. But unlike so many shows that plod from screen to stage, "Billy Elliot: The Musical" makes the leap from reheated adaptation to reimagined creation."
Elyse Gardner gives the show 3 out of 4 stars in USA Today and she says that "But the show arrives on Broadway at a time when Americans are just as primed for its feel-good populism. In a period of economic turmoil, after a presidential campaign marked on both sides by a defiant hopefulness, Billy Elliot feels very much in sync with the mood in the nation today."
Posted by Robert Diamond
on Friday, November 14, 2008 @ 8:54 AM
Bury The Dead: Risky and Brilliant
Yes, I know… Bury The Dead is not exactly the kind of title that's going to send box office sales into a tizzy. And sure, the Connelly Theatre, located on 4th Street between Avenues A & B, may be a perfectly lovely and intimate venue but it's a bit of an unpleasant hike from the nearest subway stop on a damp and chilly evening. But the seven-year-old Drama Desk and OBIE winning Transport Group has been regularly making the pilgrimage well worthwhile for playgoers seeking adventurous new material, inventive revivals and crackerjack acting. Their new spin on Irwin Shaw's 1936 anti-war drama is worth braving a hurricane from the Astor Place 6 line stop to get to. Hyperbole? Yes. So let me put it in more realistic terms. It would require one spectacular theatre season for this stirring and captivating re-imagination of Shaw's fascinating absurdist piece to not be considered one of its highlights. And if Donna Lynne Chaplin's performance is not considered one of the finest of the season it will mean we've been blessed with a year of staggering excellence in stage acting.
Premiering at the Barrymore Theatre and employing a cast of 32 actors, Irwin Shaw's first play takes place during, "the second year of the war that is to begin tomorrow night," and concerns a sextet of dead soldiers who refuse the services of those trying to bury them and insist on going back home so they can live out the lives they haven't even started. The military and the press agree that the episode must be kept hush-hush, fearing their protests will lead to a decline in the public's support of the war, so they call on one significant woman from each soldier's life to try and convince her man to take it lying down.
Not quite a full evening's length, when Bury The Dead ran its 97 Broadway performances it was preceded by a short curtain-raiser. For Transport Group's production, which only employs 7 actors, director Joe Calarco has written a prelude, A Town Hall Meeting, that cleverly blends itself into Shaw's play and eases a modern audience into the world of 1930's protest drama.
When we first enter the theatre, set designer Sandra Goldmark's stage shows leftover evidence of several spirited events in a middle school auditorium, including a class election debate where, according the posters, Eddie was touting his experience while the word "choice" was prominent in Mary Jane's campaign. Giddily greeting us at the start is Donna Lynne Champlin as the music teacher known only as Our Host, wasting no time in passing out cookies to those in attendance. ("They're store bought I know, but I didn't have the time, it's mortifying I know, but I just didn't have the time.") With daffy enthusiasm Our Host explains that we all wouldn't be here tonight if not for one man… George Stephanopoulos. An avid viewer of This Week With George Stephanopoulos, his practice of scrolling the names and ages of the most recent American losses in Iraq and Afghanistan inspired her to take a trip to see the war memorials of Washington D.C. Taking note of how long after each war's conclusion it took to build its memorial, Our Host, figuring it's never too early to start remembering, has called this meeting to honor the war heroes and heroines of the current conflict.
Though the program was planned to be, "a hodgepodge - a little this'n'that - read some poems and letters written by soldiers - so beautiful - and sing some war songs," at the last minute her star pupil suggested they do an impromptu reading of Irwin Shaw's Bury The Dead.
After drafting her reluctant husband (Jake Hart) into the cast, volunteers from the audience (Jeremy Beck, Fred Berman, Mandell Butler, Jeff Pucillo and Matt Sincell) cold read from the script while Our Host reads the stage directions. At first they simply read the words while seated at table in their amateur attempts at performing but gradually, in bits and pieces at first, they abandon their scripts and actually inhabit their characters. It's not as though they've suddenly become better actors, but more like the forgotten play has refused to be buried among faded Broadway memories and has taken on a renewed life. At times this terrifies Our Host, who apparently has never read the script before, especially when she is called on to play all six women in separate scenes with each soldier.
Up until this point Champlin's innocent eccentric has served as a safety net to lighten the evening, but in the play's seamlessly presented final scenes she completely shifts into a series of contrasting and skillfully committed portrayals. She and Jeremy Beck are touching in their simple bewilderment as a rural farming couple. She's a hard-nosed dame in love with Fred Berman's slick, cheating party-boy. As the mother of Mandell Butler, who is so heartbreaking as the boy who mourns for the adult life he never had, she longs to once again see her son's baby face, unprepared for the sight of how it's been disfigured. There's an amusing romantic abrasiveness to the give and take between Champlin and Jake Hart, as her lug of a mechanic husband as they try and rehash their marriage.
R. Lee Kennedy's lights do an extremely effective job of taking us from the bright and safe world of the town hall meeting to the emotional complexity of the Shaw's play and its many locales. Michael Rasbury's sound design also greatly adds to the texture of the piece.
It's a bit of a cliché to say an old play is just as meaningful today as it was back then, but within his insightful concept Calarco, without altering the playwright's original work, effectively shows us contemporary people being overwhelmed by the relevance of a 72-year-old work of drama. Given the subject matter it may seem trivial to call this dangerous theatre, but it is at the very least a risk-taking project and it succeeds brilliantly.
Photos by Carol Rosegg: Top: Mandell Butler, Donna Lynne Champlin and Fred Berman; Bottom: Jake Hart and Donna Lynne Champlin
Posted by
Michael Dale
on Tuesday, November 11, 2008 @ 8:17 AM
Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 11/9 & Algonquin Round Table Quote of the Week
"Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common."
-- Dorothy Parker
The grosses are out for the week ending 11/9/2008 and we've got them all
right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.
Up for the week was: SPAMALOT (17.3%), THE LITTLE MERMAID (15.7%), SPRING AWAKENING (15.4%), MARY POPPINS (15.2%), 13 (14.6%), AVENUE Q (13.9%), A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS (10.9%), IN THE HEIGHTS (9.4%), GREASE (7.5%), BOEING-BOEING (6.9%), BILLY ELLIOT: THE MUSICAL (6.8%), AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY (6.1%), HAIRSPRAY (5.7%), DIVIDING THE ESTATE (3.9%), GYPSY (3.4%), CHICAGO (3.2%), A TALE OF TWO CITIES (1.9%), EQUUS (0.7%), THE 39 STEPS (0.6%), TO BE OR NOT TO BE (0.2%),
Down for the week was: SPEED THE PLOW (-9.0%), THE SEAGULL (-5.9%), ALL MY SONS (-5.7%), WICKED (-4.1%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (-3.8%), MAMMA MIA! (-1.8%), JERSEY BOYS (-1.5%), THE LION KING (-0.4%),
Posted by
Michael Dale
on Monday, November 10, 2008 @ 3:39 PM
Harvey Fierstein Weighs In On Civil Rights and Last Week's Election
I try not to get involved with partisan politics on this blog, unless it's theatre related and can serve as a source for humor, but when one of our great contemporary playwrights has something to say about an important issue, I'm honored to spread the word.
Thanks to my friend and BroadwayWorld colleague Duncan Pflaster for bringing this column by Harvey Fierstein to my attention.
Posted by
Michael Dale
on Monday, November 10, 2008 @ 10:55 AM
Kindness & George S. Irving at Feinstein's
I believe it was Chekhov who said that if a hammer appears on stage in the first act, somebody better use it to build a shelf in the second act. Well, Adam Rapp's Kindness contains no carpentry but there is quite a bit of suspense involving the appearance of a hammer. And while the play, directed by the author, is a bit of a cruise to nowhere, it's still an interesting excursion with an odd mixture of tragic realism and broad comedy (at one point someone actually walks into a wall as a gag) gamely played by an engaging cast.
Annette O'Toole plays Maryanne, a frail Illinois mom with a crumbling marriage and a body that's expected to succumb to cancer very shortly. But when the play begins the more immediate issue is whether or not she'll notice the wet spot accidentally left on her jacket by her 17-year-old son, Dennis (Christopher Denham), while he was masturbating to cable porn. (I told you there was broad comedy.) The two are vacationing in New York - set designer Lauren Helpern provides a nicely personality-deprived hotel room - and the anticipated highlight of their trip is a visit to the smash hit Broadway musical, Survivin'!, about a dying woman whose pain is lifted by the magic of music. Descriptions of the show, which make it sound like an awful rip-off of Rent, serve as a running gag throughout the piece.
But the apathetic and sullen Dennis (his mother walks with a cane but he seems to regard her as a crutch) isn't in the mood for high-belted showtunes so Maryanne agrees to leave him at the hotel and invites Herman (Ray Anthony Thomas), the friendly cab driver who mentioned that he's never been to a Broadway show while driving her to the hotel. (Yeah, I know. Just go with it.)
With mom gone for a few hours, Kevin goes to fetch some ice for the bottle of whisky he's been hiding, but following him back inside is Frances (Katherine Waterston), a pretty young woman who gets by serving as arm candy for older men and who is, for mysterious reasons, looking to stay out of sight for a while. The kind of miss who knows how to use her looks and a feigned helplessness as manipulation, she gets Kevin to do an odd favor for her and he opens up to her about, among other things, a dark fantasy of his.
And while Rapp takes us on one or two detours that turn out to be dead ends he also keeps us sufficiently on edge over what's going to happen next. O'Toole is just right as the woman who is in constant pain but is optimistic about finding happiness for whatever time she has left, as is Denham who subtly shows Dennis' well-guarded misery in having to spend his youth as his mom's caretaker. Waterston's slightly eccentric allure makes for an appealing wrench in their relationship and though Thomas' small role doesn't call for him to do much more than smile gregariously and show lots of enthusiasm, he does so with gusto.
Photo of Annette O'Toole and Christopher Denham by Joan Marcus
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What a pleasure it was watching the great musical comedy character actor George S. Irving regaling the crowd at Feinstein's during his one-night-only cabaret engagement Monday night. Beginning with the original production of Oklahoma! and including over thirty Broadway shows, his distinctively rich and comically expressive voice can be heard on the cast albums of numerous hits (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Bells are Ringing, a Tony-winning stint in Irene) and bringing a bit of class to some less successful ventures (Bravo Giovanni, I Remember Mama, Tovarich).
While the show included expected gems like his Blondes anthem, "I'm Alive, I'm A-Tingle, I'm A-Glow," and fan favorite, "The Butler's Song," that naughty ditty that stopped the show regularly at the York Theatre's recent revival of Enter Laughing (a new and improved So Long 174th Street that just announced a return engagement set for January), there were also pleasures like a tender "Once Upon A Time" (Strouse & Adams), a charming duet with his special guest, the evergreen Dina Merrill, of Lerner and Loewe's "I Remember It Well" and Kander and Ebb's critical query, "What Kind of Man (Would Take A Job Like That)?" performed with grandly comic brio.
On the cab ride home my friend and I agreed we would have loved to hear a bit of "Virtue, Arrivederci," his very funny solo from Bravo Giovanni, but we wouldn't want to lose any of his great stories. I can't repeat the one about John Gielgud here, but I loved the one about when he was on the road with an operetta company in 1941 and saw a newspaper headline that read, "Pearl Harbor Bombed."
His reaction? "I didn't even know it had opened!"
Photo by Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.
Posted by
Michael Dale
on Thursday, November 06, 2008 @ 2:02 AM
RIP Michael Crichton
I was very saddened to read that Michael Crichton, a writer who I admire and respect tremendously for the depth at which he tackled research for his books has passed away. CBS writes, "Crichton is best known as the author of "Jurassic Park" and the creator of "ER." His most recent novel, "Next," about genetics and law, was published in December 2006.
"While the world knew him as a great story teller that challenged our preconceived notions about the world around us -- and entertained us all while doing so -- his wife Sherri, daughter Taylor, family and friends knew Michael Crichton as a devoted husband, loving father and generous friend who inspired each of us to strive to see the wonders of our world through new eyes," the statement said. "He did this with a wry sense of humor that those who were privileged to know him personally will never forget."
For more, click http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/05/print/main4575403.shtml
Posted by Craig Brockman
on Wednesday, November 05, 2008 @ 1:19 PM
Wicked Author Retuns to Oz
On my 129038th check of CNN already this morning, I came across a nice interview with WICKED book author Gregory Maguire. He's returning to the land of Oz (and why shouldn't he, WICKED sold more than 2.5 million copies) with a new book "A Lion Among Men."
This latest tale covers the story of the Cowardly Lion.
Off to vote!
Posted by Robert Diamond
on Tuesday, November 04, 2008 @ 8:35 AM
Three Wishes For Billy?
After the Broadway opening of Billy Elliot, the Tony Awards with have to consider how to handle the nomination eligibility of David Alvarez, Trent Kowalik and Kiril Kulish, who share the title role and alternate performances equally. What do you think is the best solution? Let us know in our new poll.
Posted by
Michael Dale
on Tuesday, November 04, 2008 @ 12:47 AM
Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 11/2 & Algonquin Round Table Quote of the Week
"The trouble with this country is that there are too many politicians who believe, with a conviction based on experience, that you can fool all of the people all of the time."
-- Franklin P. Adams
The grosses are out for the week ending 11/2/2008 and we've got them all
right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section.
Up for the week was: SPEED THE PLOW (12.9%), ALL MY SONS (3.5%),
Down for the week was: AVENUE Q (-17.6%), BOEING-BOEING (-17.2%), THE 39 STEPS (-16.7%), AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY (-16.1%), CHICAGO (-15.9%), GYPSY (-14.2%), THE LITTLE MERMAID (-13.5%), SPAMALOT (-12.6%), MARY POPPINS (-12.5%), IN THE HEIGHTS (-11.0%), BILLY ELLIOT: THE MUSICAL (-10.9%), EQUUS (-10.1%), HAIRSPRAY (-10.0%), A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS (-10.0%), A TALE OF TWO CITIES (-9.5%), SPRING AWAKENING (-9.2%), THE SEAGULL (-9.0%), GREASE (-6.8%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (-6.1%), THE LION KING (-4.2%), 13 (-3.3%), TO BE OR NOT TO BE (-2.5%), JERSEY BOYS (-1.5%), WICKED (-0.8%), SOUTH PACIFIC (-0.2%), MAMMA MIA! (-0.1%),
Posted by
Michael Dale
on Monday, November 03, 2008 @ 4:09 PM
Boy's Life: I Wish I Could Go Back To College
If you're feeling nostalgic for those sweet innocent days when guys could continually act like self-centered jerks and intelligent, attractive women would sleep with them anyway, a trip to Second Stage's funny and energetic revival of Howard Korder's Boy's Life is certainly in order.
A coming of age comedy where nobody comes of age, Boy's Life may have been considered insightful, edgy, even shocking stuff at its 1988 premiere. Now it's the kind of play where you can just sit back and laugh at the stilted evolution of its main characters from, as one of them puts it, "campus cutups to wasted potential."
Named after the monthly magazine published by the Boy Scouts, the play centers around the attempts at sexual conquest, sometimes mistaken for love, by three 20-something buddies fresh out of college who still haven't caught on to the whole "maturity" thing. The awkward Phil (Jason Biggs) is reunited with Karen (Michelle Federer) at a party and tries to get her to spend a weekend alone with him despite his having snuck out of her bed before she awoke and never calling after their first date. Self-styled ladies man Jack (Rhys Coiro), married with a young son, attracts the attention of passing jogger Maggie (Stephanie March) who sees right through him (and he knows she sees right through him) and yet is so bored by her current beau that she'll willing to give him a shot.
Sad-sack stoner Don (Peter Scanavino) may actually see a bit of "responsible adulthood" through the Neanderthal glass ceiling in his relationship with waitress/sculptor Lisa (Betty Gilpin), though he can't resist taking home an amusingly eccentric woman (Laura-Leigh) he randomly meets in a record store. The play's one attempt at serious dramatics, where Don tries to explain his infidelity, is capped by a line that no doubt prompted intense discussions between couples in the late 80s but is now a tired cliché even unworthy of Jerry Springer reruns.
Director Michael Grief has his cast revved up at an entertaining level of sitcom sexiness. Mark Wendland's set locations are contained in large rectangular cases like shoebox dioramas mounted on wheels. The cast makes an adrenaline-rushed production out of every set change, choreographed to the blaring rock pumped in by sound designer Fitz Patton.
While I'm not suggesting that the situations depicted in Boy's Life don't exist anymore, the play is absolutely of its time. And while the fellas do learn a lesson or two by the final scenes, you get the feeling they'd still find a lifetime of futons, cheap beer and interchangeable women far more satisfying.
Photo of Laura-Leigh and Peter Scanavino by Joan Marcus
Posted by
Michael Dale
on Monday, November 03, 2008 @ 12:57 AM
"Don't Speak For Me, Sarah Palin"
Thanks to my BroadwayWorld colleague Adrienne Onofri for sending me this video of a showtune singin' hockey mom making her political preference known.
In the interest of equal time, I'm happy to post links to homemade videos in support of or in opposition to any candidate. Just be funny and theatre-related.
Posted by
Michael Dale
on Thursday, October 30, 2008 @ 12:27 AM
Love Child: (Off-Off) Broadway Baby
Opening night isn't exactly going smoothly for the Off-Off Broadway production of Love Child, a modern adaptation of the infrequently performed Euripides drama Ion, presented at the Sausage King Space in Red Hook. A noisy audience member in the front row can't silence her cell phone and hearing aid, an actor has passed out on stage, an upstaging diva is trying to steal the show and a large grease stain on the floor makes each entrance and exit a death-defying experience. But on opening night of Love Child, Daniel Jenkins and Robert Stanton's two-man comedy presented by Primary Stages, everything was crackling with hilarious split-second precision.
This is another one of those ventures where a minimal number of actors (two) take on a maximum number of characters (I lost count), quickly ping-ponging back and forth from scene to scene and persona to persona. Such evenings can sometimes seem more like athletic events than theatre and while a great deal of the enjoyment of Love Child comes from watching how quickly the writer/performers, directed by Carl Forsman, can snap into fully realized characterizations of various genders, ages and ethnicities (vocally supplying every sound effect, even) without any costume changes, there is also a sweet, little story to warm the heart a bit.
Performed on the camouflaged set of the company's current production of A Body of Water, the ninety-minute yuk-fest opens with a likable lad named Joel (Jenkins) telling us about his childhood fascination with the stories of Greek tragedy, which he would dramatize for fun with homemade sock puppets. An unfortunate washing machine incident put an end to that. But soon we're peeking inside the ladies room of a small performance space in back of a Brooklyn sausage restaurant where Joel's mother/agent Kay (Stanton) and her eccentric friend Ethel (Jenkins), who can't help getting emotionally (and loudly) caught up in any theatrical event she attends, are preparing for the evening's entertainment. While the two ladies take care of business in their separate stalls (it's actually very funny without getting tasteless) we find out there's a TV producer in the audience who's considering casting Joel in a sitcom pilot.
The fellas do a remarkable job of replicating the chaos of a crowded dressing room just before curtain, carrying on numerous simultaneous conversations which crisply bring to life a stage full of contrasting characters. Naturally, as always happens in these cases, the opening night performance looks like a disaster, but as real life begins to parallel the convoluted Greek drama involving the god Apollo, the Oracle at Delphi and a child of questionable parentage, a happy ending seems inevitable.
Of course, you're excused from even realizing there's a plot going on if you're too busy being convulsed by Jenkins and Stanton's loony antics. The real story of Love Child is the superior clowning, detailed acting and expert teamwork on display.
Photo of Robert Stanton and Daniel Jenkins by James Leynse
Posted by
Michael Dale
on Wednesday, October 29, 2008 @ 2:12 AM
The Peter Pans of Bway: Everything You'd Ever Want To Know About the Billy Elliots
In short - a fantastic read:
http://nymag.com/arts/theater/features/51543/
Enjoy!
Craig
Posted by Craig Brockman
on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 @ 12:56 PM
If You See Something Say Something: A Patriot's Act
Although Mike Daisey's exploration of national defense, past and present, If You See Something Say Something, arrives at Joe's Pub just in time to serve as a companion piece to the Metropolitan Opera's production of Dr. Atomic, there is nothing minimalist about this monologist. He may spend the entire 100 minute presentation sitting behind a desk with nothing but a glass of water and his notes but, as directed by Jean-Michele Gregory, Daisey himself is a fully orchestrated production. A large man who embellishes his frank observations ("The founding fathers could have been considered by the British to be terrorists.") and grim warnings ("If you raise an army and leave it standing, it will find something to do.") with artfully placed profanity, large, sweeping gestures and a face of fully animated Silly Putty, his voice is that of a genial, but angered everyman, bouncing with varied tempos, tones, full out comic crescendos and meaningful sotto voces. If Lenny Bruce was embodied by Zero Mostel and played by Louis Armstrong, the result would closely resemble Mike Daisey.
The piece begins with his drive to Los Alamos, New Mexico, the site of the first test detonation of an atomic bomb, which is only open to the public one day a year. (The first Saturday in October, in case you were planning a family outing.) There he considers the civic pride behind a public statue of a mushroom cloud and the value of life expressed by a visitors' center educational recording that tells how using the bomb saved the lives of a projected one million American soldiers without ever mentioning the 200,000 actual civilian lives it took. He tries to imagine what was inside the minds of the men who worked on that top-secret project. Did they think that possessing an atomic bomb could end the war without first giving the world a practical demonstration of what it can do?
But while that trip provides the framework, Daisey takes many detours. His comparison of the color-coded terror alert system with its corresponding numbers from the DEFCON alert system and his description of how post 9-11 American airport security provides the feeling of safety instead of actual safety are both disturbing and hilarious. So is his proof of how nobody who voted for the Patriot Act was given enough time to read it first. (Of the act's co-author, Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, he reasons, "You know that this guy has at least read half of it.")
And while Daisey's performance is primarily comic, there is an intriguing poignancy in his discussion of Samuel Cohen, the father of the neutron bomb. Cohen felt his creation, which could instantly kill a city full of people while leaving buildings unharmed, was a moral weapon because he believed it could be developed to work with the kind of pinpoint accuracy that would spare civilians from harm.
As with any politically charged theatre piece, there are those who will certainly disagree with Daisey's arguments. While I'm not here to confirm or dispute his claims, I will vouch for the effectiveness of his plea for Americans to take advantage of the unfiltered information that is out there and to always preserve a healthy skepticism toward our elected officials. ("Dealing with the Federal Government is like watching slugs dancing. It only gets interesting when you pour a little salt on them.") I'll also vouch for the comically perverse atmosphere to the proceedings as patrons listen to the artist's passionate warnings about the loss of basic freedoms while enjoying selections from Joe's Pub's extensive wine line and tantalizing prix fix menu. The salmon is very good.
Photo of Mike Daisey by Kenneth Aaron
Posted by
Michael Dale
on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 @ 1:39 AM
Broadway Grosses: Week Ending 10/26 & Algonquin Round Table Quote of the Week
"At dramatic rehearsals, the only author that's better than an absent one is a dead one."
-- George S. Kaufman
The grosses are out for the week ending 10/26/2008 and we've got them all right here in BroadwayWorld.com's grosses section. Up for the week was: ALL MY SONS (11.2%), HAIRSPRAY (7.4%), THE SEAGULL (3.8%), A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS (3.7%), TO BE OR NOT TO BE (1.9%), SPAMALOT (1.5%), CHICAGO (0.3%),
Down for the week was: SPRING AWAKENING (-5.8%), THE LION KING (-5.2%), EQUUS (-5.1%), THE LITTLE MERMAID (-4.8%), GYPSY (-4.7%), MAMMA MIA! (-4.2%), GREASE (-3.5%), 13 (-2.9%), THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (-2.2%), BILLY ELLIOT: THE MUSICAL (-2.0%), AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY (-1.8%), BOEING-BOEING (-1.4%), IN THE HEIGHTS (-1.2%), JERSEY BOYS (-1.1%), A TALE OF TWO CITIES (-0.9%), THE 39 STEPS (-0.8%), WICKED (-0.7%), AVENUE Q (-0.4%), MARY POPPINS (-0.2%), SPEED THE PLOW (-0.1%),
Posted by
Michael Dale
on Monday, October 27, 2008 @ 3:35 PM
John Leguizamo and Cedric the Entertainer star in the Broadway revival of David Mamet's American Buffalo, which opened on Broadway last night. Here's the critics takes!