Michael Dale - Page 141

Several years before Urinetown's Mark Hollmann began writing satirical songs about the public's right to pee he teamed up with playwright Jennifer Fell Hayes to pen a delightful musical for young audiences about one of New York's lesser known cultural landmarks.  Fare For All at The Mount Vernon Hotel takes us back to 1830, a time when the city stretched only as far north as 14th Street and taking a trip to the country meant heading up to the wilds of what is now 61st Street between 1st and York to breath the fresh air, swim in the East River and enjoy a bowl of the world famous turtle soup served at The Mount Vernon Hotel.

I suppose the main difference between a violent protest and an act of terrorism is whether you're on the side of the person who set off the bomb or the person who was killed by it.  In Primary Stages' premiere production of Willy Holtzman's drama, Something You Did, the person responsible for the bomb going off is played by the charismatic and understatedly graceful and eloquent Joanna Gleason, making the evening's morality conflict hardly a fair fight.

That happy gentleman on the left is the legendary American playwright Robert Patrick, and what he has in his hands is a long-time dream of his; a plaque to commemorate the life of Joe Cino.  Fifty years ago Joe Cino opened the doors to his Caffe Cino, now regarded as the birthplace of both the Off-Off Broadway movement and the American Gay Theatre movement, to playwrights willing to mount productions on his tiny 8' x 8' stage.  Among those who walked in were Lanford Wilson, Tom Eyen, Doric Wilson, Sam Shepard, William Hoffman, John Guare, and, of course, Robert Patrick.  Cino didn't even read the scripts.  Most of the time he would ask the playwright his astrological sign and if he liked the answer an opening night was set.  Musical theatre fans know the Cino as the place where Bernadette Peters starred in the original one-act version of Dames At Sea. 

When last we left The Mint Theater, that extraordinary collective of theatre archivists that specialize in mounting first-class Off-Broadway productions of time-obscured plays by still-famous names, they were teaching many New Yorkers that Leo Tolstoy took a crack at playwrighting once with his grim drama, The Power of Darkness.  Now they're surprising those who didn't know that even Ernest Hemingway was represented on Broadway once with The Fifth Column, which premiered at the Alvin in March of 1940 and logged in 87 performances.

With three different directors placing their marks on the material during its pre-Broadway tryouts and two actors who were not quite up to the vocal demands of the dramatic score playing the leads (Shirley Booth and Melvyn Douglas), Marc Blitzstein (music and lyrics) and Joseph Stein's (book) Juno, based on Sean O'Casey's Juno And The Paycock, limped into the Winter Garden in March of 1959 following high expectations (West Side Story had been ousted from the theatre to make room for it) and quickly closed up shop two weeks later.

How's this for weird…  On Sunday night I saw a show where a straight guy spoke for an hour and fifteen minutes about how people mistake him for gay because of his interests and not once did he mention anything about musical theatre.  Not once!  If nothing else, I give Paul Stroili points for not using the most obvious cliché.

Though Tennessee Williams' Cat On A Hot Tin Roof certainly has its share of humor, mostly of the tragicomedy variety, you wouldn't expect a revival of the play to be the laff riot of the Broadway season. But this production has been mounted by Debbie Allen, who may be a neophyte when it comes to stage drama, but has an impressive resume when it comes to directing television sitcoms (from serious comedy like A Different World, to lighter fare such as Everybody Hates Chris). The night I attended, the vocal audience was lapping up her swift-moving production, which often sacrifices tension and dramatics for the sake of comic timing, like thirsty kittens. And while it was fun to be among people who were so into what they were seeing - and I'll certainly take this one over the lethargic Broadway mounting of four years ago - I found the evening emotionally hollow. Despite large patches of good work from her cast, Allen's production as a whole, while entertaining, lacks urgency and bite.

Anton Chekhov's The Seagull, as anyone who has ever committed suicide will tell you, is a comedy.  Maybe not as reflective a comedy as set designer Santo Loquasto's mirrored floor would suggest, but Russian director Vlachesalv Dolgachev's new production at Classic Stage Company neatly balances the humorous with the somber and, despite a few stumbles along the way, turns out to be a rather enjoyable and swift-moving three hours and fifteen minutes.

'We are not here to tell the life story of Cole Porter,' Mark Nadler advised the Town Hall audience last Monday night. 'There are two excessively mediocre films for that. Indeed, if there was any educational value A Swell Party: RSVP Cole Porter, Nadler and K.T. Sullivan's return engagement of their dynamite Algonquin Oak Room tribute playing a one-nighter on what would be the golden child of Peru, Indiana's 117th birthday, it was in how to find unexpected shadings in songs we've known and loved forever.

Though I hadn't seen Passing Strange during its earlier stint Off-Broadway, I took my seat well aware that writers and critics and audience members alike have been grasping for the words that best describe the type of theatrical entertainment that has now settled into the Belasco Theatre. Two and a half hours later I believe I was able to succinctly categorize Passing Strange in its truest form. Now, please pay attention because I put a lot of thought into this.

Though The Metropolitan Room's fine martini selection always suits my refreshment needs very nicely, on Monday night I was feeling a severe hankering for something their bar doesn't stock, PBR in a can.  That's because I was having a swell ol' time watching Daryl Glenn, Jo Lynn Burks and company singing the entire soundtrack to Robert Altman's 1975 drama, Nashville.

I suppose it's too late in our current president's administration to see Conversations In Tusculum, playwright/director Richard Nelson's fact-based prequel to assassination of Julius Caesar, completely as a commentary on George W. Bush.  Sure, certain thoughts may come to mind when the Roman dictator is quoted as saying that the country needs war in order to stay focused and smiles of recognition may follow that other line about his abstaining from alcohol but with less than a year to go before a new president takes office, the play would seem purposeless if only taken in that sense.

The thing that always strikes me about Euan Morton, from his New York debut in Taboo to his Obie-winning stint in Measure For Pleasure and various other plays, musicals, concerts and cabarets, is that the guy seems incapable of expressing a dishonest emotion.  While some performers may dazzle you with their creativity or their exceptional craft, Morton draws you in with a comforting safety that makes artistry out of sincerity.  He opens his four-week run at The Oak Room (through March 29th), titled Here and Now, with Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley's 'Pure Imagination,' glowing with a naturally boyish earnestness and a gentle smile.

Never one to refuse a complimentary martini or two at Sardi's (remember that the next time you spot me spreading an extra shmear of that cheddar cheese concoction over crackers at the upstairs bar), I too was invited to attend the presentation of three songs from the upcoming musical version of Shrek that Michael Riedel wrote about with his usual passion and adoration for the art of musical theatre in his column a few weeks ago and again yesterday morning.

I don't know about you, but when I first heard the title of Sarah Ruhl's comic fantasy, Dead Man's Cell Phone, it immediately brought to mind the title of Sister Helen Prejean's book, Dead Man Walking.  The sister's title refers to those who are still living but imprisoned on death row, but Ruhl's variation brings to mind the way technology has allowed the dead to figuratively walk among the living.  Personal web sites, blogs and cell phone voice mails assuring us that the person we're trying to reach will reply if we leave a message serve as our evergreen footprints, widely giving the impression of continuing life far more effectively than dusty old diaries or the fading memories of loved ones.

1959 was a heck of a good year for Broadway overtures.  The majestic trumpet fanfare and lowdown bump and grind of Gypsy's is generally regarded as the best in musical theatre, but there was also the rousingly rhythmic curtain-raiser to Fiorello! and, my personal favorite, Philip J. Lang's beautiful interpretation of Bob Merrill's music for Take Me Along, which touches on so many moods of the show while continually building the toe-tapping climax of The catchy title tune.

The second act of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's 1984 musical, Sunday In The Park With George is centered on a then-contemporary artist/inventor named George who has created a series of machines called chromolumes, which electronically fill rooms with color and light. His latest, 'Chromolume #7' is intended to present a variation on themes inspired from Georges Seurat's revolutionary work of pointillism 'Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte' (1884-86), the creation of which is the subject of the musical's first act. When a technical glitch short circuits the machine and causes a temporary delay in the chromolume's premiere presentation, George sheepishly explains to those gathered, 'No electricity, no art.'

As I write these words the opening night party of Roundabout's revival of Sunday in the Park With George, which I'll be seeing on Saturday, is no doubt in full swing, but despite the sublime glories of that Steven Sondheim/James Lapine creation, there's another musical in town about radical artists that deserves just as much attention from anyone interested in the euphoric excitement felt when watching a unique, intelligent and wondrously creative evening of musical theatre.

As the 21st Century chugs along toward completing its first decade, perhaps Broadway's new role in American theatre with emerge as the place where talented composers and lyricists with interesting projects will premiere their less-inspired shows while their exciting, adventurous and better-written work continues to hide in the under-publicized shadows of Off- and Off-Off Broadway, festivals and the occasional cabaret appearance.  Just as Legally Blonde, the Broadway debut of composer/lyricists Lawrence O'Keefe (Bat Boy, Sarah, Plain and Tall) and Nell Benjamin (Pirates!, Sarah, Plain and Tall) doesn't match the quality of their Off-Broadway and regional work, last season composer Tom Kitt made his first main stem appearance with the catchy-tuned and enjoyable, but not especially notable, High Fidelity while musical theatre lovers in the know were anxiously awaiting a production of Feeling Electric, his substantially superior collaboration with bookwriter/lyricist Brian Yorkey, first seen at the 2005 New York Musical Theatre Festival.

I had to chuckle a bit while reading The Public Theater's Artistic Director Oskar Eustis' program notes for Adrienne Kennedy's Mom, How Did You Meet The Beatles?, which described the play as 'the most accessible' she's ever written.